CHAPTER 14
Being the state capital, Sacramento was full of politicians and bureaucrats, or as Smoke thought of them, confidence men and paper pushers. They had their own places downtown where they drank.
The Rusty Hinge, however, was more the sort of drinking establishment where men who actually worked for a living congregated.
Even though it wasn’t noon yet, the saloon had a good number of customers. Some of them gathered around the free lunch that was already set out at the end of the bar, while a poker game was going on at one of the tables and a roulette wheel had several players standing around watching it spin.
The wheel was being operated by a middle-aged woman who was still handsome and displayed signs of having been a real beauty in her youth. Her graying blond hair was done up on top of her head, and though her figure was a tad on the stout side, the dark blue gown she wore showed it off to her advantage.
Smoke recognized one of the men playing the wheel. He was short and scrawny, with long white hair and a white beard. The battered brown hat he wore had seen better days, with a permanently pushed-up brim that was a little ragged here and there. A fringed buckskin jacket over a cowhide vest and flannel shirt, patched jeans, and high-topped, moccasin-style boots completed his outfit.
Actually, Salty Stevens didn’t look a day older than he had the last time Smoke saw him. He was one of those men who had always appeared older than he really was, up to a certain point, and then he just stayed at that point, seemingly as unchanging as the mountains.
“Let it ride, Eloise, honey,” he was saying as Smoke stepped up beside him.
“Are you sure about that, Salty?” the blonde asked. “I think you’ve been pushing your luck on red.”
“No, ma’am, it’s gonna come up again,” Salty insisted. “I can feel it in my bones, and there ain’t nothin’ I trust more than the feelin’ in my bones.”
“I trust his bones, too,” Smoke said as he reached out and placed a twenty-dollar gold piece on red. He wasn’t a man who normally gambled for enjoyment, but he could afford to risk a double eagle now and then.
Salty glanced over at him, curious who was betting the same as him. Then the old-timer looked again, sharply, and said, “Smoke? Can’t be! Smoke Jensen?”
Smoke grinned at him and said, “That’s right, Salty.”
“Well, I’ll be a ring-tailed horned toad!” Salty grabbed Smoke’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “Dadgum, son, it’s good to see you!”
“You too. I’ll admit, I was a little surprised when Fred Davis told me you were still alive.”
“What sort of a thing is that to say to a fella? Durned right I’m still alive! Feelin’ mighty spry, too. Even better now, seein’ you again after all these years!”
One of the other players said, “Have your reunion some other time, pop. Some of us are here to win money.”
“Keep your pants on, sonny,” Salty snapped. “You don’t know who this fella is.”
“I don’t care if he’s Billy the Kid or Wild Bill Hickok come back to life.” To the blonde, he added, “Spin the damn wheel, lady.”
Salty’s face flushed with obvious anger, and Smoke wondered if the blonde was the woman Davis had mentioned, the one Salty was sweet on. It seemed possible, given the old-timer’s reaction to the other player’s rude comment.
Salty was about to say something to the man when Eloise announced, “All bets are down. Here we go, gentlemen.”
She spun the wheel.
Salty’s eyes were drawn to the colorful blur of motion. All the men around the wheel watched it, including Smoke. There was something compelling about the motion and the uncertainty of its result.
The wheel slowed gradually as the little ball bounced, and after a few more turns, the ball gave a last hop and came to rest on one of the red spaces.
“I told you!” Salty exclaimed. “My bones always know where it’s gonna wind up!”
The man who had complained a moment earlier let out a frustrated curse and thumped a fist on the edge of the table. He snapped, “Tell your bones to shut up, old man!”
“Take it easy, friend,” Smoke told him. “It’s not Salty’s fault if you lost. Just bad luck. That’s why they call it gambling.”
“Nobody asked you to butt in either, mister. Keep your damn trap shut.”
Salty said, “Best tread lightly there. You don’t know who you’re talkin’ to.”
The man thrust out an already pugnacious jaw. “You said that before, and I told you, I don’t give a damn who he is.” He turned to Eloise. “I just can’t get a break today, can I? I’ve been losing steady, lady. Give me a chance next time, all right? Stop that wheel where I’ll win for a change.”
Eloise frowned. “What are you saying, mister?”
“Look, I know how these things work. That wheel’s got a brake on it so you can stop it wherever you want. You’ve got it rigged so this old man wins every time. Who is he, your pa?”
“Why, you mouthy polecat!” Salty exploded. “Are you accusin’ this here fine lady of cheatin’?”
The man sneered and said, “I’m saying nobody wins as much as you do without some help, grandpa.”
Salty balled up his fists and took a step toward the man. “I ain’t your damn grandpa. No son or daughter o’ mine would ever spawn a whelp like you—”
The tirade was cut off abruptly by the meaty thud of fist against flesh as the man punched Salty in the jaw.
Smoke saw the blow coming and tried to get in front of Salty to block it, but there wasn’t time. The impact knocked Salty backward. Smoke was able to catch him and keep him from sprawling on the floor.
Then as Salty shook his head groggily, Smoke gave him a shove into the arms of the blonde and stepped up to meet the attack.
The man cursed him and said, “I’ll teach you to mind your own business!”
“You hurt a friend of mine, and that makes it my business, mister,” Smoke said.
The man snarled and threw another punch. His shoulders were heavy with muscle and the blow might have done some damage if it had landed.
But Smoke was cat-quick and weaved aside from the big fist. The miss made the man lose his balance. Smoke hooked a left into his ribs and then rocketed a straight right to the face. The impact shivered satisfyingly up his arm.
The man flung his arms out and went backward. Eloise gave a little scream as she clutched Salty and dragged him out of the way. The man struck the roulette table and fell onto it on his back.
Smoke figured that would finish the fight almost as quickly as it had begun. But his opponent was tough and put a hand on the table to shove himself back up. He shook his head to clear it of cobwebs and lunged at Smoke.
The man was surprisingly fast. He grabbed Smoke around the torso and tried to butt him in the face. Smoke jerked his head back to avoid that, but he couldn’t stop the man’s arms from locking around him with rib-crushing force. Smoke’s hat flew off as the collision knocked him backward.
Boots driving against the sawdust-littered floor, Smoke braced himself and stopped the man from forcing him off his feet. He cupped his hands and smacked them against his opponent’s ears.
That brought a howl of pain from the man and caused him to loosen his grip a little. Smoke hit him under the chin with a short, sizzling uppercut that made the man’s head snap back like it was on a hinge. Smoke put both hands on his chest, shoved, and broke free.
The man couldn’t get his arms up in time as Smoke hit him twice, a left and right that jerked his head first one way and then the other. Smoke bored in with a pair of punches to the body that rocked him even more.
Then a roundhouse right lifted the man off his feet and sent him flying. He crashed down on a table that broke under him and left him sprawled on the floor, tangled in debris. The man moaned but made no attempt to get up.
Smoke was breathing a little harder than he would have been after a fight like this twenty years earlier, but he felt good as he grinned, picked up his hat, and turned to Salty and Eloise, who stood beside the roulette wheel. Despite the man falling on it during the fight, the apparatus didn’t seem to be damaged.
“Reckon that finishes that,” Smoke said as he brushed sawdust off his hat and then put it on.
“It would have,” Eloise said, “if Thad Stoermer’s brothers weren’t here.”
Smoke saw that she was staring apprehensively at something behind him. He turned his head to look over his shoulder and saw three men who had been gathered around the free lunch platters when he came in.
Now they were advancing toward him with clenched fists and angry glares. Smoke saw the resemblance between them and realized their faces were very similar to the blood-smeared visage of the man he had just knocked out.
“Brothers?” he said.
“Yeah,” Salty replied, gulping a little. “And they stick together.”
The saloon’s other customers started backing off, clearly wanting no part of what was about to happen. The bartender leaned over the hardwood and pleaded, “Boys, take it easy. You don’t need to bust the place up.”
The Stoermer brothers ignored him, and Smoke could tell from the bartender’s nervous expression that the man wasn’t going to do anything to put an end to the confrontation. Some aprons would have hauled out a sawed-off shotgun from under the bar or grabbed a bungstarter and waded into the fracas themselves, but not this one.
“Reckon it’d do any good to tell ’em who you are, Smoke?” Salty suggested tentatively.
“You can give it a try if you want.” Honestly, though, Smoke didn’t believe it would help.
Salty stepped forward and held up his hands as he raised his voice and said, “Hold on there, fellas. This here is Smoke Jensen, the fastest, deadliest gunfighter there ever was. They’s been a bunch of dime novels written about him. You’re bound to have read ’em.”
“We ain’t much on readin’,” one of the brothers said.
“And he’s an old man,” added another.
“He ain’t even packin’ iron,” the third put in.
The Stoermers weren’t armed, as far as Smoke could tell. They were all stocky, beard-stubbled bruisers, but they didn’t look like gunmen.
He reached behind his back and drew the .41-caliber Lightning, which officially had been dubbed the Thunderer by Colt, but most folks called it by the same name as its .38-caliber sibling. The Stoermers came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the double-action revolver.
“That ain’t fair,” one of the brothers protested. “We ain’t got no guns.”
“But you consider three to one to be fair odds,” Smoke said with an edge of contempt in his voice.
“Three to two,” Salty said as he stepped up beside Smoke. “You got into this mess because o’ me. I ain’t gonna let you face it by yourself.”
Smoke laughed. “Salty, compared to a lot of the trouble you and I got ourselves into over the years, this isn’t really much of a mess.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” The old-timer grinned contemptuously at the Stoermers. “More like shooin’ away some bothersome gnats.”
“You talk mighty damn big, you old coot, when you’ve got a man standin’ beside you with a gun in his hand!” one of the men yelled.
“Well,” Smoke said with a reckless grin of his own, “we can do something about that.”
He set the Lightning on the roulette table.
The gun was barely out of his hand when the Stoermer brothers charged.