CHAPTER 16
“This horse of yours and I are getting along just fine, Mr. Jensen,” Tommy Spencer said a short time later as she stroked the rangy gray stallion’s shoulder. “And you acted like he was a one-man horse.”
“Well, you’re not exactly a man,” Smoke pointed out to the girl.
She grinned. “No, I’m not.” She grew more solemn as she went on, “I’m glad you killed those skunks who gunned down Ted. Maybe he and I weren’t ever going to get together the way he wanted, but he didn’t deserve what they did to him.”
“No, but he died doing his duty, for whatever consolation that is.”
Tommy drew in a deep breath, then said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Jensen? You want this big fella saddled?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re not leaving town, are you?”
“No, just going for a ride,” Smoke said.
She nodded and said, “It’s a mighty good day for it.”
She got to work. Smoke could have saddled the horse himself, of course, but he had a hunch she might have been offended if he suggested it. This was her job, and she was going to do it.
A short time later, he rode out of Salt Lick. No one he’d talked to had noticed Atkins and Rome the previous day until they were already in town, so he didn’t know from which direction they had come. Under those circumstances, one starting point was as good as another, so he headed north and rode a couple of miles before swinging to the west and starting a large circle around the settlement.
Out here on these high plains, a man could see a long way. The breeze out of the south wasn’t very strong. Smoke knew that if a large group of riders was approaching Salt Lick, he ought to be able to see the dust cloud their horses would raise. There wasn’t enough wind to completely disperse any dust.
Instead, the horizon was clear every direction he looked. No one was approaching the settlement.
That was no guarantee the town was safe, of course. Snake Bishop and his gang could still be on their way. But it didn’t seem likely they were sneaking up on Salt Lick right at this moment.
The bank had two stories and was the tallest building in town, Smoke recalled. He needed to post a couple of men on the roof to keep watch on the surrounding countryside. As flat as the terrain was, those sentries would be able to see a long way. No one would be able to get close without being spotted.
He would take care of that as soon as he got back to town and consulted with Windy Whittaker and Sarge Shaw, he decided.
Once he had made a complete circuit of the town, he headed back in. It was midday, so after turning over the stallion to Tommy at the livery stable, he walked along the street to the Red Top Café, which was considerably busier at this hour. Smoke found an empty stool at the counter and nodded to Sarge when the proprietor came over.
“Any sign of trouble?” Shaw asked.
Smoke shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Do you think there’s a chance we might actually dodge it?”
“That’s hard to say. It’s certainly possible.” Smoke smiled slightly. “That’s not what my gut tells me is going to happen, though.”
Shaw grunted and said, “Mine, either. Well, Windy’s got that list of men we came up with. Like you asked, we haven’t talked to any of them yet.”
“I’ll see him at the office in a little while, after I’ve eaten.”
“For all her faults, my Charlotte puts together a pretty good pot of stew. Want a bowl?”
“Sounds good to me,” Smoke said.
The stew was good, piping hot and full of savory chunks of beef and plenty of vegetables. Smoke enjoyed a full bowl, washed down with another cup of coffee and helped along by a couple of fluffy rolls. When he was done, he paid for the meal even though Shaw said that as the marshal, he didn’t have to. Smoke waved to Charlotte through the opening into the kitchen as he stood up and left the café.
Windy stood in the open door of the marshal’s office, hatless, with his thumbs hooked in the old gun belt as he looked up and down the street.
“Ain’t nothin’ but peace and quiet as far as the eye can see,” he reported as Smoke walked up. With a sigh, he added, “Sure wish we could count on things stayin’ that way, but I don’t reckon we can.”
They went inside and Smoke closed the door behind them. Windy went over to the desk and tapped the sheet of paper lying there.
“This here’s your army,” he told Smoke. “Them that’ll go along with it, that is.”
Smoke picked up the paper and read the names printed on it in a neat script. “Did you write this?” he asked Windy.
The old-timer nodded. “Yeah, I can read and write and even do some cipherin’, too. Learned most of it out on the trail. I never went to school but just a little bit, ’way back when I was a younker.”
Most of the names didn’t mean anything to Smoke, but he spotted several he recognized: Edward Warren, Rufus Spencer, and Apple Jack. Smoke pointed to that last one and said, “I talked to Colonel Appleton, and he agreed to help us. You and Sarge get together with him when you can and go over the defensive plans he said he’d work up.”
“Colonel Appleton, is it? I never would’a figured him for an officer. Not an easy-goin’ type of fella like him. But Sarge said we needed to put him on the list, so we did.”
“Folks will surprise you,” Smoke said. “In the meantime, can you pick a couple of good men from this bunch and see if they’ll climb on top of the bank to keep watch on the countryside around town?”
“That’s a mighty good idea,” Windy agreed. “I know just the fellas to do it, too. Shug Russell and Enoch Jones. Both of ’em used to do some buffalo huntin’. They got good eyes and don’t get spooked easy. Well, Shug’s only got one eye, but it’s a good’un.”
Smoke nodded and said, “Sounds like just the sort of men we need.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Windy said.
Smoke indulged his curiosity and said, “Before you go . . . what’s the story on Sarge and his wife? The way they were fussing at each other, when I saw her she wasn’t really what I expected.”
Windy chuckled. “They go at it hammer and tongs sometimes, sure enough, but I reckon that’s just the way they are. If you talk to either of ’em when the other one ain’t around, you can tell they plumb love each other. They just don’t like to show it around other folks for some reason. She was with the sarge when he moved here a couple years back, not long after I did. But I got the feelin’ they hadn’t been hitched very long at the time. If I had to guess, I’d say he met her in a sportin’ house somewhere and took her outta there and married her. Matches like that work out pretty well sometimes, if you got the right people involved.”
“That they do,” Smoke said, having been around a few unions like that himself.
Windy went off to recruit the two men he had mentioned as lookouts while Smoke walked back to Jonas Madigan’s house to bring the former lawman up to date on what was going on. That meant leaving the marshal’s office unattended for the moment, but Smoke wasn’t expecting any trouble just yet.
If any broke out, he would be close by and could get back to the center of the settlement in a hurry.
Not surprisingly, Miriam Dollinger was at Madigan’s house and had prepared lunch for him. She offered to warm up some food for Smoke, but he assured her that he had already eaten. Madigan was back in bed. Smoke sat with him for a while and told him the preparations that had been made so far.
“It sounds like you’re doing a good job of getting ready,” Madigan said. “I thought about puttin’ men on the bank roof to watch for Bishop and wished I’d mentioned it to you. I should’ve known you’d come up with the idea yourself. I agree with Windy; Russell and Jones are good men for the job.” Madigan paused. “Speakin’ of jobs . . . what’s mine?”
“How do you mean?” Smoke asked.
“Well, with a horde of bandits about to descend on the town at any minute, you don’t expect me to just sit here in this bed, do you?” Madigan snorted dismissively. “That ain’t hardly gonna happen!”
Miriam had come to stand in the doorway and listen to the conversation. She joined in by saying, “That’s exactly what you’re going to do, Jonas. You’re in no shape to do anything else. You shouldn’t even be walking to the kitchen for your meals.”
“Dadblast it, I ain’t dead yet! I can still walk, and I can damn sure still pull a trigger if I need to.”
“I’m not sure if I will or not. And I know you don’t want to admit it, Jonas, but your fighting days are over.”
Madigan sat back, glaring, but Smoke saw hurt in his eyes as well as anger. After the adventurous, eventful life Madigan had led, this forced inactivity had to rankle. Smoke figured it left a bad taste in the older man’s mouth. He knew that was the way he would feel about it, if he had been in Madigan’s place.
“You’ve already helped, Jonas,” he said. “If you hadn’t written that letter to me, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“And those bank robbers would’ve gotten away, and we wouldn’t have any idea that Bishop and his gang may be in these parts. I know, I know. That’s true, Smoke, but it ain’t enough. It just ain’t. And you know that”.
“Let me think on it, Jonas,” Smoke said, ignoring the warning glance Miriam slanted toward him. “I’ll keep you informed, you can count on that.”
When Smoke left a few minutes later, Miriam followed him onto the porch.
“You shouldn’t get his hopes up like that,” she said quietly. “The days of him being able to go out with a gun in his hand and fight badmen are over and done with.”
“Maybe,” Smoke said. “But if you get right down to it . . . is it really going to make that much difference?”
Miriam caught her breath. “That . . . that’s a rather callous way of looking at it, isn’t it?”
“Jonas would say it’s a realistic way. He knows he doesn’t have much time left, no matter what he does. He wants to spend it in a way that means something to him, the same way he’s spent his life up to now.”
Miriam’s hands knotted together. “I know you’re right, Smoke, but he . . . he’s come to mean so much to me, I just hate to think about . . . about . . .”
“I know.” His voice was gentle now. “We want to keep those we care about with us as long as we can. But we have to think about what’s best for them, too.”
“So if the town’s attacked, he should go out with guns in both hands and blaze away at those outlaws?”
Smoke smiled and said, “That might take them by surprise. And Jonas might acquit himself better than you think. You’ve got to remember, he’s had a lot of experience taking on owlhoots.”
Miriam sighed. “Well, perhaps it won’t come to that.”
“Maybe not,” Smoke said. But he couldn’t quite make himself believe it.