William W. Johnstone (21 page)

“You’re absolutely right, my queen;” Jud told one of his bodyguards to order the mess cleaned up and keep it clean.

It did not take Doreen long to conclude that while Jud certainly was as crazy as a road lizard, he wasn’t stupid. The bodyguards flanked them as they strolled, and there were guards in the front of them and in the back. Jud summed it all up with a strange smile on his face.

“There is no way you are going to escape, my queen. So put it out of your pretty head and just enjoy all the privileges you are being accorded. This is your home, for now and for always.”

“Very well,” Doreen spoke through tight lips. “I want my room redone and I want it done immediately. I hate the colors!”

“Uh … yes, dear.”

“And I want satin or silk sheets. Those cotton sheets are just so shabby!” “Right, my queen.”

“I want my breakfast served to me in bed.”

“Uh … of course, dear.” Jud was beginning to wonder if having a woman around on a permanent basis was going to be worth all the trouble. He wondered if other kings had the same problem.

“And I want a party.”

“A party!”

“Yes. A great big fancy ball.” She was doing some fast thinking and hoping it would work. “And I want everybody in southeastern Idaho invited. Well announce our engagement there.”

Jud fell to his knees; unfortunately, one knee landed
squarely in a fresh pile of horse manure, but Jud appeared not to notice. “Oh, Doreen—do you really mean that?”

“Of course, I do. I’ll start working on the invitation list immediately.”

Jud kissed her hand. “I’m so happy, my queen!”

You won’t be so happy when you see the guest list, Doreen thought. And on the night the ball is held, that’s when I turn back into a pumpkin and get the hell away from you and this nuthouse!

“Bar V rider comin’,” Jackson said. “And he’s comin’ up holdin’ a white flag.”

Jud had reluctantly agreed to invite Walt and Alice and Smoke and Rusty. He had done so after Doreen had pointed out that he had a hundred or somen on the ranch; what could Smoke do with all those guns around him?

Scott Johnson, the Arizona gun hand, handed Smoke several envelopes. “You lose, Jensen,” he said with a nasty grin. “Miss Doreen and Jud is gonna announce their weddin’ plans at this here shindig. And she said to tell you that that Shakyspear feller said it best when he was talkin’ about friends, romans, and countrymen. Whatever the hell that means.”

Scott turned his horse and rode off.

Smoke smiled, thankful that he had wintered that time with Preacher and all those books. He remembered the line well. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!

“Wipe that hound dog look off your face, Rusty,” he told the man. “She’s telling us to get her out of there and giving us a way to do it.”

“Damned if I see how.”

“Jud'll probably have men at the door friskin’ certain people before they enter the mansion,” Jackson said. “We won’t be able to carry guns inside.” He paused. “We, hell, I wasn’t even invited!”

“You’ll be going though,” Smoke told him. “At least part of the way.” He looked at the date on the invitation. “We’ve got a week to plan things out. First thing I’ve got to do is see who all was invited and who is planning to attend. I’m going to send Jamie and Leroy to poke around some.” He looked at Rusty’s long face. “Relax, Rusty. Well get your sweetie back.”

The governor was invited to the party. He sent word that he would not be able to attend. So did the general in charge of all federal troops in Idaho Territory. But Sheriff Brady said he wouldn’t miss it for the world. And the young reporter from the Montpelier newspaper would attend. Most of the ranchers and a few of the farmers—Doreen had insisted the nesters be invited—agreed to attend the party.

Smoke had decided he would go in unarmed. When the time came to grab Doreen, he would bust a guard over the noggin with something—maybe the punch bowl if it came to that—take his guns and really liven up the party.

Smoke was going to stay close to the ranch until the night of the big event. He didn’t want to put Doreen’s rescue in jeopardy by running into any of the bounty hunters who were out looking for him. That could come later.

At the Bar V, Doreen had everybody there, from the cooks to the cowboys, running around the lower half of the territory, driving them about half-crazy, picking up this, that, and the other thing for the ball. She wanted them to be so tired come the night of the event that all they would want to do is lie down and sleep and to hell with the party. She didn’t know if that would be the case, but it was worth a try.

Jud had ordered cases of champagne sent in, and as many different types of “finger foods,” as Doreen called
them, as could be found within three days’ ride of the Bar V. Since no one in their right mind would work for Jud Vale, he was forced to use some of his own hired guns and cowboys to act as waiters. He bought them all brand new black suits, with white shirts and black string ties, and low quarter shoes and white gloves. There was a lot of bitching going on about that, but Jud told them either do it or haul their ashes.

Doreen had insisted upon a band, so Jud managed to round up a guitar player, a fiddle player, and someone to toot on a bugle. It was the best he could do on such short notice.

Jud was undecided as to what to wear to the gala event. Doreen said she would clean up his ermine robe—it had a few food and wine spots on it—and he could polish his crown and shine his boots and spurs. He would look so nice.

She wanted him to look like the fool he was so everyone there could see the real Jud Vale.

“Can I wear my guns, Doreen?” Jud asked.

“Oh, but of course, darling!” She had overheard him telling his men to frisk everyone. She hoped Smoke and Rusty would be able to arm themselves once inside the nuthouse.

Time was running out.

Smoke laid down the ground rules.

“Walt, when you get the signal from me, you take Alice and get gone from Jud’s place. I’ll wait about forty-five minutes before making my play. That’ll give you time to get Alice to the west side of the creek. You wait there.”

The rancher nodded his head in agreement.

“Jackson, you and Dolittle and Harrison will be stationed at the creek, our side of it, with rifles. Just as soon as we drop Doreen off, Alice and Doreen can take the
buggy and hightail for the ranch. We’ll hold off the men Jud is sure to send after us.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dolittle said. “I been cravin’ some action.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Harrison agreed. “I may not be good for too much else, but I can damn sure still pull a trigger.”

“And you can bet that Jud will have everybody that can ride a horse after you,” Jackson warned. “He’ll be killin’ mad.”

“We’ll have a good fifteen to thirty minutes’ start on him though,” Smoke said. “After Doreen makes her little speech about being kidnapped, and me with a Colt stuck up Jud’s nose, the sheriff will have to make some noises about law and order and all that. Of course, once I turn Jud loose and he hoofs it back to the mansion, he’ll ignore anything the sheriff might have to say and come fogging after us.”

“We might get some more people on our side by doing this,” Walt mused aloud. “May be this will give some of the smaller ranchers and farmers the backbone to join us in fighting my brother.”

“If this don’t, nothing will,” Rusty added. He looked at Smoke. “You got another plan if this one don’t work?”

“No,” Smoke admitted. “But I’m thinking this will work because it’s so simple and it’s something that Jud won’t even suspect any of us trying. For a handful of us to kidnap the man right in front of all his men, at his very own engagement party is something that has to be unthinkable to him. At least that’s what I’m hoping.”

“I have to tell you, Smoke,” Walt said. “Matthew says he’s going to be a part of the action come the night of the party, whether we want him to be, or not.”

Smoke took that news without even so much as a blink. “It doesn’t surprise me, Walt. The boy has shed his youth and left it behind him. We’ve both seen it happen out here many times. It’s a hard time in a hard land that’s filled
up with hard men. I was only about a year older than Matthew when I teamed up with Preacher. About two years older than him when I killed my first man, with a pistol that Jesse James gave me back on that hard-scrabble farm in Missouri. Matthew will make it, and I’d not be a bit leery of him standing alongside me in any gunfight.”

“I wanted you to know,” the rancher closed the subject.

Smoke nodded his head. “Stash fully loaded rifles and pistols in the buggy, Walt. Cover them with a blanket. We’re not going to have time for reloading once the fight gets to the creek.”

“We have enough weapons, for sure,” Walt said with a grin, his eyes twinkling. Then he sobered. “I’m going to lay the rules down to the boys. They are to remain on this ranch come the night of the party. Anyone who disobeys that order loses his job.”

“Good. I think they’ll stay put.” Smoke met the eyes of the men. “We’re only going to have one chance at pulling this off, people. So let’s do it right the first lime. That’s it.”

“My, my, what a grand place,” Rusty remarked, as the huge mansion of Jud Vale came into view. “Looks like a palace for sure.”

Smoke’s Colts were hanging from his saddle horn, as were Rusty’s guns. Both men felt naked without the weight of the pistols. The buggy was loaded with rifles and pistols, the arms covered with a blanket.

“Well, we’re certainly not the first to arrive,” Alice pointed out. “Even though it is early.”

Susie had stayed at the Box T to look after Mickey and the boys.

Smoke looked at Walt and saw that the old rancher’s eyes were sad.

“My brother had it all,” Walt said. “But he couldn’t stay away from crime. And now he’s as crazy as a loon, surrounded by men on his own payroll who plot to kill him. It’s tragic.”

Smoke disagreed with that summation, but then, it wasn’t his brother in question. He kneed Dagger forward, moving toward the mansion.

They were conscious of many eyes on them as they entered the ranch grounds. Hostile, murderous eyes— everyone thinking about that ten thousand dollars on the this event.

Smoke swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a hitch rail, with Rusty doing the same, and looked up at the sky. He read the sun at about half-past five. The invitation had read from six to ten. Smoke figured to start his own party at seven.

“Mr. Vale said that all hosses was to be put in the corral,” a surly puncher told Smoke.

Smoke turned and grinned at the man. “His name is Dagger. He killed the last man who tried to do anything with him. But you’re welcome to try.”

The Bar V hand eyeballed the walleyed stallion. Dagger showed the man his big teeth and the puncher made up his mind.

“Hell with that hoss.” He looked at Rusty. “What about yourn?”

“They’re brothers,” Rusty told him.

“Hell with him, too!” The puncher walked off.

Walt and Alice were already climbing up the steps to the porch. Shorty DePaul was there, standing by the door, collecting invitations, looking very uncomfortable in his stiff new black suit.

Smoke grinned at him. “You do look awfully cute, Shorty.”

Shorty told Smoke where to go, how to get there, and what to do with his comment along the way.

“Feller’s plumb testy, ain’t he?” Rusty said.

Shorty had a few words for Rusty, too.

Smoke and Rusty followed Walt and Alice inside the mansion.

It was a grand place, Smoke noted, no doubt at all about that. Imported chandeliers and French furniture and all sorts of knickknacks and assorted gewgaws scattered all over the place.

“What’s all this stuff good for anyways?” Rusty questioned.

“Looks junky and sissy to me.”

Smoke grinned at him. “Your mind will change after you’re married,” Rusty blushed at the thought.

The punk gunfighter who called himself the Pecos Kid walked up, carrying a tray of little crackers and a bowl of dark-looking stuff. “Gentlemen,” he said, speaking the word as if it hurt his mouth. “Some whore-derves?”

“What the hell is a whore-derve!” Rusty said, leaning over to take a sniff.

“That is Russian caviar,” Smoke told him. “Louis Longmont used to keep some on hand at all times. Try it, it’s good.”

“How do you eat it?”

“Take a cracker and use that little spoon to dab some caviar on the cracker.”

Rusty spooned a glob on a cracker. “Well, ain’t I the fancy one, though? My, my.” Rusty took a nibble and grimaced. “You got any ket-chup, Pecos?”

Smoke thought Rusty and Pecos were going to tie up right then and there, and if they had, Rusty would have shoved that whole bowl of caviar up the nose of the Pecos Kid. He pulled Rusty away and told him to behave himself; they had a more important mission that came first.

One of the ranchers who had been in the trading post when Matthew shot it out with Smith walked up to him. His face was ashen.

“What’s the matter with you?” Smoke asked.

“Have you seen Jud?”

“No.”

“He’s walking around with a crown on his head and all dressed in a fur robe. He’s carryin’ a stick that looks like a good-sized saplin’. The man is insane!”

That’s what some folks have been trying to tell you people for months. Don’t you people even care that he took Doreen by force and is holding her here against
“I heard that but I didn’t believe it.” He sighed. “All right, gunfighter. I believed it. But what could I have done?”

“Join in the fight against Jud?”

But the man shook his head. “No. He has too many hired guns on the payroll. He’d roll over us like stepping on a bug.”

There was contempt in his eyes and scorn in his voice when Smoke replied. “Do you look under the bed at night for ghosts and goblins before you blow out the lamp?”

The rancher flushed but wisely contained his sudden anger and kept his mouth closed.

Smoke turned his back to the man and then stopped short when he spotted Jud. Rusty was standing with his mouth open, staring at the man as if he was sure his eyes were deceiving him.

Jud was quite a sight. He looked to Smoke like he’d just stepped out of a Russian opera. Jud cut his eyes to Smoke and hate filled them. He snarled at Smoke and walked away.