“Not as much as I’d like to,” a rider said speaking for the first time. He was looking at Bountiful.
To complicate matters, Bountiful was looking square at the rider.
The woman is flirting with him, Smoke noticed. He silently cursed. This Bountiful might be a preacher’s wife, but what she really was was a hot handful of trouble. The preacher was not taking care of business at home.
Bountiful was blonde with hot blue eyes. She stared at the rider.
All the newcomers to the West began to sense something was not as it should be. But none knew what, and if they did, Smoke thought, they wouldn’t know how to handle it. For none of the men were armed.
One of the drifters, the one who had been staring at Bountiful, brushed past the preacher. He walked by Bountiful, his right arm brushing the woman’s jutting breasts. She did not back up. The rider stopped and grinned at her.
The newspaperman’s wife stepped in just in time, stepping between the rider and the woman. She glared at Bountiful. “Let’s you and I start breakfast, Bountiful,” she suggested. “While the men fix the wheel.”
“What you got in your wagon, shopkeeper?” a drifter asked. “Anything in there we might like?”
Ed narrowed his eyes. “I’ll set up shop very soon. Feel free to browse when we’re open for business.”
The rider laughed. “Talks real nice, don’t he, boys?”
His friends laughed.
The riders were big men, tough-looking and seemingly very capable. Smoke had no doubts but what they were all that and more. The more being troublemakers.
Always something, Smoke thought with a silent sigh. People wander into an unknown territory without first checking out all the ramifications. He edged Horse forward.
A rider jerked at a tie-rope over the bed of one wagon. “I don’t wanna wait to browse none. I wanna see what you got now.”
“Now see here!” Ed protested, stepping toward the man.
Ed’s head exploded in pain as the rider’s big fist hit the shopkeeper’s jaw. Ed’s butt hit the ground. Still, Smoke waited.
None of the drifters had drawn a gun. No law, written or otherwise, had as yet been broken. These pilgrims were in the process of learning a hard lesson of the West: you broke your own horses and killed your own snakes. And Smoke recalled a sentiment from some book he had slowly and laboriously studied. When you are in Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere.
He couldn’t remember who wrote it, but it was pretty fair advice.
The riders laughed at the ineptness of the newcomers to the West. One jerked Bountiful to him and began fondling her breasts.
Bountiful finally got it through her head that this was deadly serious, not a mild flirtation.
She began struggling just as the other pilgrims surged forward. Their butts hit the ground as quickly and as hard as Ed’s had.
Smoke put the spurs to Horse and the big horse broke out of the timber. Smoke was out of the saddle before Horse was still. He dropped the reins to the ground and faced the group.
“That’s it!” Smoke said quietly. He slipped the thongs from the hammers of his .44s.
Smoke glanced at Bountiful. Her bodice was torn, exposing the creamy skin of her breasts. “Cover yourself,” Smoke told her.
She pulled away from the rider and ran, sobbing, to Dana.
A rider said, “I don’t know who you are, boy. But I’m gonna teach you a hard lesson.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“To keep your goddamned nose out of other folk’s business.”
“If the woman had been willing,” Smoke said, “I would not have interfered. Even though it takes a low-life bastard to steal another man’s woman.”
“Why, you…pup!” the rider shouted. “You callin’ me a bastard?”
“Are you deaf?”
“I’ll kill you!”
“I doubt it.”
Bountiful was crying. Her husband was holding a handkerchief to a bloody nose, his eyes staring in disbelief at what was taking place.
Hunt Brook was sitting on the ground, his mouth bloody. Colton’s head was ringing and his ear hurt where he’d been struck. Haywood was wondering if his eye was going to turn black. Paul was holding a hurting stomach, the hurt caused by a hard fist. The preacher looked as if he wished his wife would cover herself.
One drifter shoved Dana and Bountiful out of the way, stepping over to join his friend, facing Smoke. The other two drifters hung back, being careful to keep their hands away from their guns. The two who hung back were older, and wiser to the ways of gunslicks. And they did not like the looks of this young man with the twin Colts. There was something very familiar about him. Something calm and cold and very deadly.
“Back off, Ford,” one finally spoke. “Let’s ride.”
“Hell with you!” the rider named Ford said, not taking his eyes from Smoke. “I’m gonna kill this punk!”
“Something tells me you ain’t neither,” his friend said.
“Better listen to him,” Smoke advised Ford.
“Now see here, gentlemen!” Hunt said.
“Shut your gawddamned mouth!” he was told.
Hunt closed his mouth. Heavens! he thought. This just simply was not done back in Boston.
“You gonna draw, punk?” Ford said.
“After you,” Smoke said quietly.
“Jesus, Ford!” the rider who hung back said. “I know who that is.”
“He’s dead, that’s who he is,” Ford said, and reached for his gun.
His friend drew at the same time.
Smoke let them clear leather before he began his lightning draw. His Colts belched fire and smoke, the slugs taking them in the chest, flinging them backward. They had not gotten off a shot.
“Smoke Jensen!” the drifter said.
“Right,” Smoke said. “Now ride!”
6
The two drifters who had wisely elected not to take part in facing Smoke leaped for their horses and were gone in a cloud of galloping dust. They had not given a second glance at their dead friends.
Smoke reloaded his Colts and holstered them. Then he looked at the wagon people. The Easterners were clearly in a mild state of shock. Bountiful still had not taken the few seconds needed to repair her torn bodice. Smoke summed her up quickly and needed only one word to do so: trouble.
“My word!” Colton Spaiding finally said. “You are very quick with those guns, sir.”
“I’m alive,” Smoke said.
“You killed those men!” Hunt Brook said, getting up off the ground and brushing the dust from the seat of his britches.
“What did you want me to do?” Smoke asked, knowing where this was leading. “Kiss them?”
Hunt wiped his bloody mouth with a handkerchief. “You shall certainly need representation at the hearing. Consider me as your attorney.”
Smoke looked at the man and smiled slowly. He shook his head in disbelief. “Lawyer, the nearest lawman is about three days ride from here. And I’m not even sure this area is in his jurisdiction. There won’t be any hearing, Mister. It’s all been settled and over and done with.”
Haywood Arden was looking at Smoke through cool eyes. Smoke met the man’s steady gaze.
This one will do, Smoke thought. This one doesn’t have his head in the clouds. “So you’re going to start up a newspaper, huh?” Smoke said.
“Yes. But how did you know that?”
“Me and Horse been sitting over there,” Smoke said, jerking his head in the direction of the timber. “Listening.”
“You move very quietly, sir,” Mona Spalding said.
“I learned to do that. Helps in staying alive.” Smoke wished Bountiful would cover up. It was mildly distracting.
“One of those ruffians called you Smoke, I believe,” Hunt said. “I don’t believe I ever met a man named Smoke.”