Authors: William W. Johnstone,J. A. Johnstone
Tags: #Western stories, #Westerns, #Fiction - Western, #General, #American Western Fiction, #Westerns - General, #Fiction
The Family Jensen (14 page)
“Yeah, you settled the score for me, all right,” Preacher said, “even though it turned out I weren’t quite dead after all!”
“That was before I realized you’re too blasted ornery to die,” Smoke replied with a grin. He peered through the loophole. Lew Torrance and the rest of Bannerman’s hired guns hadn’t ventured out of the trees again since their last ill-fated attempt. Obviously, they had decided to be patient and wait for nightfall, which wasn’t far off.
Already the light outside had begun to fade. Soon, it would be dark, and the gunmen would be able to approach the cabin without being seen.
“What happened to that corrupt Marshal Calhoun?” Matt asked. “I was in Buffalo Flat less than a year ago, and the town had a different marshal.”
“Calhoun was killed a few years later in a shootout with some bank robbers,” Smoke explained. “Garrard started a bank of his own in Buffalo Flat so he wouldn’t have to send his money to Casper or Cheyenne. Calhoun had turned into a fairly honest lawman by then, and did his duty. He managed to stop the robbers when they hit the bank, but he was fatally wounded in the process.”
Preacher snorted. “If you ask me, he was just tryin’ to protect that skunk Garrard’s money. Calhoun was suckin’ up to Garrard right to the end.”
“Obviously, Garrard never took over the whole town,” Matt commented. “When I was there, I saw his name on the livery stable and the stage line, but that’s all, as far as I can remember.”
“And the bank,” Smoke reminded him. “But yeah, after nearly losin’ his daughter, I reckon he decided some things are more important than money and power. He’s still a mighty successful businessman in Buffalo Flat, but there are bigger men in this part of the territory. Reece Bannerman, for one.”
Preacher said, “Bannerman bided his time and increased his spread and his other holdin’s until he was the
biggest
hombre in these parts. It ain’t enough for him, or he wouldn’t be after the land the Crows have been claimin’ for so long.”
“The problem is, the Crows never claimed it legally,” Smoke said.
Preacher snorted. “What the hell’s a piece o’ paper mean to an Injun? I’ll tell you what it means…not a damn thing. That’s Crow land because they been livin’ on it and huntin’ on it for years, and there’s nothin’ some pasty-faced clerk in Washington or Cheyenne can do to change it!”
“I hate to say it, but that’s where you’re wrong, Preacher,” Matt said. “The way the government works—”
“Don’t talk to me about no damn gov’ment! There’s the gov’ment way o’ doin’ things, and then there’s the right way, and most o’ the time, the two ain’t the same!”
“Settle down,” Smoke said. “Matt and I stopped in Denver on the way up here. The governor there is a friend of Matt’s, and I have some good lawyers there on retainer.”
“Last time I checked, Denver was in Colorado, not Wyomin’ Territory,” Preacher drawled. “Don’t see what good it’s gonna do to talk to the governor down there.”
“Politicians usually have some influence over each other,” Matt said. “The governor of Colorado agreed to write a letter to the territorial governor in Cheyenne urging him to investigate the situation up here and Bannerman’s claim to the land. Smoke’s lawyers are coming up here to carry out their own investigation.”
“Lawyers,” Preacher repeated scornfully. “Fancy word for crooks, if you ask me.”
Smoke smiled. “Sometimes it comes in handy to have the crooks on your side. We’ll have to wait and see about that. In the meantime, it’s up to us to protect Crazy Bear and his people from Bannerman’s hired gunslingers.”
“We ain’t protectin’ anybody, penned up in this ol’ cabin,” Preacher said. “It ain’t gonna be long until those bastards out there got all the advantage on their side.”
“Maybe not,” Smoke said. “There’s one thing I reckon they haven’t considered.”
“What’s that?” Matt asked.
“Once it gets dark, we may not be able to see them, but they can’t see us, either.”
“What good is that going to do us? They’ve got a solid ring around us. We can’t slip out through them while they’re closing in on us.”
“Speak for yourself, youngster,” Preacher said. “Remember, the Injuns used to call me Ghost-Killer. I could sneak right into a village and out again without anybody knowin’ I was there until it was too late.”
“No offense, but I’m not sure you’re that spry now, Preacher.”
“Not that spry!” Preacher took offense—even though Matt had told him not to. “Why, you young pup, I’ll have you know—”
“We’re not sneaking out,” Smoke broke in. “I’m starting to get another idea, but it’ll have to wait until dark. We might as well settle down until then. I don’t think they’re gonna charge us again.”
“No, neither do I,” Preacher agreed. He looked over at Matt. “You said you was in Buffalo Flat a while back? What were you doin’ in these parts?”
“Just drifting, as usual,” Matt replied with a shrug. “Seeing what’s on the other side of the hill.”
Preacher sighed. “I know the feelin’. Been doin’ the same thing for nigh on to sixty years.”
“I’m starting to wonder,” Matt went on, “if this area is jinxed or something. The two of you rode right into trouble when you came through here, and so did I…”
OOK
T
HREE
Chapter 21
The sudden crackle of gunfire somewhere nearby made Matt Jensen haul back on the reins and bring his big sorrel mount to a halt. “Hear that, Spirit?” he asked the horse. “Sounds like there’s a ruckus going on.”
Spirit turned his head to look back at Matt as if he were saying
Oh? Really?
Running into trouble was something the two of them did all too often.
Matt’s Stetson was cuffed back on his shock of blond hair. Humor sparkled in his pale blue eyes at the moment, but under the right circumstances, those eyes took on a blue-gray tint that made them look like chips of ice. They were about as cold as ice, too, when Matt was angry.
He sat there for a moment, listening to the popping of gunfire. It seemed out of place in such idyllic surroundings. The heavily timbered slopes of the Big Horn Mountains loomed around him, forming a majestic backdrop for the lush valley through which he was riding. Off to his left, a creek ran clear, cold, and swift bubbling over its rocky bed as it traced a course between banks dotted with cottonwood and aspen. Several such creeks watered that valley, which explained the lush grass in the meadows that provided ample graze for the cows Matt had seen.
The Circle B brand was burned into the hides of the animals. Matt hadn’t heard of that particular spread before, but he knew the cattle industry had been growing rapidly in Wyoming Territory over the past decade. Texas cattlemen had headed north and established ranches all over the territory during that time. The Circle B cows that Matt saw were fat and sleek, so he assumed the ranch was a successful one.
Rifles continued to crack, and he heard the popping of six-guns, too. As he pondered whether to get involved in whatever was going on, he realized the decision might not be in his hands. The shots were coming closer.
A lone rider suddenly burst out of some trees about three hundred yards ahead of him. The man’s horse was galloping at full speed, with the rider leaning over the animal’s neck urging it on. Folks hardly ever rode that fast unless they were running away from something, Matt knew, and sure enough a few seconds later half a dozen more riders emerged from the trees. Powdersmoke puffed from their guns as they continued firing at the man they were chasing.
Matt glanced to his right. A clump of boulders offered shelter and concealment. He pulled on the reins and heeled Spirit into motion, sending the sorrel into the cluster of big rocks.
He wanted to know more about the game before he took a hand in it. The most likely explanation for what he’d seen was that some of the ranch hands who rode for the Circle B were chasing a rustler they had caught red-handed at his nefarious work.
But that wasn’t the
only
possible explanation. Matt swung down from the saddle and climbed up a giant slab of rock that was tilted against another boulder. He took off his hat and stretched out on the stony slope, giving him a good view of the chase.
The lone rider being pursued was closer. Matt saw that he wore buckskins and was hatless, which was somewhat unusual on the frontier. The man’s hair was as dark as a raven’s wing.
The rider swept past, close enough to the rocks so Matt could see with a shock that he had made a mistaken assumption. That midnight-black hair was twisted into a pair of braids that hung far down the rider’s back. The fringed buckskin shirt clung to curves that definitely didn’t belong to a man.
The rider was a woman.
The men who were after her continued blasting away at her as they closed in. Matt got a good look at them, as they galloped past the boulders. They had the hard-bitten, beard-stubbled features of gunmen rather than regular ranch hands. Maybe they rode for the Circle B, but if they did, they hadn’t been hired for their skill at working with cattle.
They were killers, plain and simple.
The pursuit rushed by so fast Matt didn’t have time to think about what he was doing. He stood up on the steep slope, clapped his hat back on his head, then slid down and pushed off the rock. The leap landed him in the saddle on Spirit’s back. His feet found the stirrups and he sent the sorrel racing out of the rocks.
The men chasing the woman in buckskins were about a hundred yards ahead of Matt. He called out, “Trail, Spirit!” and the stallion leaped forward, stretching his legs. The ground flashed past beneath him as Matt leaned forward, like the buckskin-clad woman. He tugged his hat down tight to keep the wind from blowing it off his head.
A Winchester .44-40 rode snugly in a sheath strapped to the saddle. Matt drew the rifle and worked its lever, jacking a round into the chamber. He lifted the weapon to his shoulder, steadied it, and fired.
The hurricane deck of a racing horse was no place for accuracy. Matt wasn’t trying to hit any of the men. He wanted to come close enough to spook them and make them veer off from their pursuit of the woman.
But no sooner had the rifle cracked and kicked against his shoulder than one of the riders ahead of him threw up his arms and slumped forward. The man would have toppled out of the saddle if one of his companions hadn’t reached over to grab his arm and steady him. The riders hauled back on their reins and brought their mounts to skidding halts that raised some dust.
Those who weren’t wounded turned their horses and opened fire on Matt. He saw flame spurt from the muzzles of their rifles. A couple of slugs whined past, close enough for him to hear them. Still shooting, the men charged him.
On second thought, Matt mused, maybe getting mixed up in the affair had been a mistake after all. “Come on, Spirit!” he told the sorrel as he whirled around. “Let’s get back to those rocks!”
The boulders were the closest place where he could fort up. They offered good protection from gunfire, except slugs often ricocheted and bounced around. Dangerous or not the boulders were Matt’s best hope, so he headed for them as fast as Spirit could carry him.
Shots continued to blast behind him, but none found him or Spirit. The rocks loomed ahead of him. He could hold off the gunmen for a while, but eventually they would spread out and come at him from different directions, making it impossible for him to stop all of them.
At least he had given the woman the chance to get away, he told himself. That chivalrous act might cost him his life, but if it did, so be it. He had already figured out the drifting life of adventure he led probably meant he wouldn’t die of old age, surrounded by his grandchildren. Smoke Jensen, his mentor and adopted older brother, had taught him to do what was right, no matter the cost.
Saving a lone woman from six varmints bent on killing her was the right thing to do, no matter how you looked at it, Matt thought.
When he reached the rocks, he dismounted quickly and slapped his hat against Spirit’s rump, sending the sorrel deeper into the clump of boulders. Then, carrying the Winchester, he ran back up the sloping slab of rock he had used as a vantage point a few minutes earlier. Throwing himself down on his belly, he thrust the rifle barrel over the top of the rock and lined his sights toward the onrushing gun-wolves.
The rifle cracked as Matt squeezed the trigger. One of the riders jerked and slewed halfway around in the saddle before he caught hold of the horn and steadied himself—wounded—but not out of the fight yet. Nor was the first man he had winged, who had regained his strength and was trailing the others, firing a revolver toward the rocks.
Matt wasn’t worried too much about handgun fire from that range, but the men with rifles continued shooting as they spread out. Slugs thudded into the rocks and chipped dust from them. He began to hear the high-pitched whine of ricochets, as he had expected. It wouldn’t take long for his refuge to turn into a deadly hornet’s nest.
He continued to fire, cranking off several rounds toward the men as they split up. The swiftness with which they had launched into the tactic told him they were professionals. Although he hated to do it, he shifted his aim and sent a bullet into the chest of one of the horses. The animal’s forelegs folded up underneath and it crashed to the ground. The rider was thrown out of the saddle and landed hard, rolling over and over.
Matt was ready when the man came to a stop. He had the Winchester’s sights lined up and squeezed the trigger. As the gunman tried to get up, Matt’s slug ripped through his body and drove him back to the ground. He didn’t move again.
One dead, two wounded, he thought. He was whittling the odds down, but not fast enough. The gunman had reached cover—three in a grove of trees, and the other two in a gully that zigzagged down to the creek. Those were the ones who worried Matt the most, because they could work their way up that gully where he couldn’t get a shot at them until they were behind him.
The men in the trees had a pretty good angle on him, too. Their shots were coming closer. A bullet tugged at the sleeve of his faded blue bib-front shirt and bounced off the rock next to him.
Matt swung his rifle toward the trees, determined to go down fighting. As he peered over the barrel one of the gunmen staggered out from behind a tree, in plain sight. Something stuck out from his shoulder, and after a second Matt realized it was an arrow. Another man yelled in pain or alarm or both. Something brown flashed through the trees, moving too fast for Matt to be sure what it was.
He’d wager a guess it was a buckskin-clad form…
A bullet whipped past his head from behind. The men in the gully had flanked him. He turned and slid down the sloping face of the rock, firing three times as he did so at the place where the gully snaked behind the boulders. Not knowing if he hit either of the men he thudded to the ground at the base of the rock. He had been forced off the high ground. The rocks were little more than a deathtrap.
He whistled for Spirit, and as the sorrel rushed up, Matt grabbed the horn and swung himself into the saddle. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. Spirit burst out through a gap between the rocks and charged toward the gully.
Matt rammed the rifle back in its sheath and drew his Colt. The gully was about twenty yards away and maybe a dozen feet wide. Spirit covered the distance in only a few bounds. Matt heard guns roaring, but the sorrel never faltered. He didn’t slow down, and as Matt called “Up, Spirit!” the horse launched into a leap that carried them soaring into the air above the gully.
The gunmen hadn’t expected that. They stared up in shock as Matt and the sorrel passed over their heads. Matt fired right, then jerked the Colt left and thumbed off another round. A second later, Spirit’s forehooves hit the ground, dug in, and kept them plunging forward.
Matt pulled back on the reins, slowing and turning the sorrel. He caught sight of both men moving fast back along the gully, heading for the spot where they had left their horses. One was clutching a bullet-shattered arm. The other appeared to be unharmed, but obviously had lost interest in the fight.
Matt holstered the revolver and pulled his rifle again. He sent a couple of shots after the men to hurry them on their way, then heeled Spirit into motion and rode in a big circle to the left around the boulders. He wanted to find out what had happened in those trees on the other side of the rocks.
Was it possible the woman he had intervened to save had doubled back to save him?
As he reached a point where he could see the trees, he spotted three horses and riders on the other side of the creek, moving fast toward the mountains. A moment later, off to the right, he saw the two he had chased out of the gully also mounted, also hurrying. The horse he had killed still lay where it had fallen, but the man was gone. Either his companions had taken his body with them, or he wasn’t dead after all and had managed to grab a ride with one of the others.
What mattered was the echoes of the gunshots had faded away and silence had fallen over the landscape. The would-be killers were gone, and from the looks of the way they had taken off for the tall and uncut, they didn’t have any intention of coming back soon.
That left the woman in buckskins unaccounted for. Matt jogged the sorrel toward the trees, holding the Winchester across the saddle in front of him so that it would be handy if he needed it.
He reined in and called, “Hello! Are you in there?”
At first there was no response from the timber. Suddenly a figure stepped out from behind one of the trees about a dozen feet away, and Matt found himself looking at an arrow nocked on a pulled-taut bowstring. All it would take to send that arrow flying into his body was a slight movement of two fingers.
Matt stiffened in the saddle, not wanting to do anything to spook the woman. He said calmly, “Take it easy, ma’am. I’m a friend. I’m the one who helped you back there.”
For a moment it seemed that his words didn’t penetrate to her brain, and he wondered fleetingly if she spoke his language. He could tell from her black hair and her coppery skin that she was an Indian.
Then, slowly, she lowered the bow and arrow slightly and said in perfect English, “I know what you did. What I don’t know is why, and until I do, I’m not going to trust you.”
He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: the way she had come back to help him, the way she dressed like a warrior, the way she talked…
Or the fact that she was the most beautiful young woman he had seen for quite some time.