JED GIBBON’S FACE looked like hamburger, and it felt as bad as it looked. The ankle and knee he’d twisted when Magnusson had pulled him from his saddle throbbed with every beat of his heart.
What hurt worse, though, was his pride. This surprised him some. He hadn’t thought anything could damage his self-respect worse than the Old Trouble.
But having ridden out to the Double X all horns and rattles, intent on solving the whole problem in one fell swoop, then getting the shit kicked out of him and sent back to the Sundowner on his horse … well, that was just a little too much for even Jed Gibbon to take.
Knowing that riding out to the Double X had been motivated by booze and visions of grandiosity made him feel all the more silly. That’s why tonight, while the Double X was gearing up for Suzanne’s party, and after two and a half days of lying abed healing up and feeling sorry for himself, Gibbon limped into the Sundowner and ordered a glass of apple juice.
“Apple juice?” Monty Fisk said, wincing at both the request and the sight of Gibbon’s battered face.
“Until I’ve got King Magnusson and his men all locked up together in my little jail, I’m gonna be drinkin’ apple juice. So lay in a good supply of it. I’ll just pretend it’s whiskey.”
While Fisk looked around under the counter for apple
juice, Gibbon turned and scanned the room. It was nearly five o’clock, but the only business was a couple of mule skinners and a sour-looking drummer.
“Where in hell is everybody?” Gibbon exclaimed, feeling a twinge of unrest.
Fisk flushed a little and shrugged. He uncorked a stone jug of apple juice and sniffed the lip. “Probably all to home. It’s pretty cold out there, you know.”
Gibbon narrowed his eyes at the bartender, who did not return the gaze as he filled a glass. “All to home, you think, eh?” Gibbon said indulgently.
Fisk was feigning a casual air. “No doubt.”
Gibbon nodded and dropped his gaze to the glass of juice. A fine froth covered the surface of the glass. Bubbles popped and fizzed. “It don’t feel any colder than usual to me.”
“Well, who knows?” Fisk said, replacing the jug under the counter. His ears were nearly as red as the stove, which had been stoked to glowing.
Gibbon picked up the glass, scrutinized the pulpy fluid, and took a tentative sip. He made a face and spat the juice on the floor. “How long you been aging that stuff? It’s liable to get me drunker’n your snakewater.”
“Sorry, Jed, I guess that’s a pretty old jug. How ’bout some prune juice?”
“Nah, it’ll just get me runnin’. Tell ya what you can do instead, though, Monty—you can tell me where all your regulars are.”
Unable to meet Gibbon’s eye, Fisk lifted his gaze to the dimming windows at the other end of the long room and fashioned a look of exasperation. “I told you—”
“Cut the shit, Monty. They’ve gathered somewhere, haven’t they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Jed.”
“Those stupid bastards are plannin’ an attack on the Double X, aren’t they?”
Fisk sighed, giving up the ruse.
“Where are they?” Gibbon prodded.
“I’m not supposed to tell you, Jed.”
“Tell me, Monty, or I’ll arrest you for tryin’ to poison a peace officer.”
Fisk sighed again. “They’re gathering out at the Rinski place, in his barn. They’re pretty fired up this time, Jed; I don’t see them calling it off.”
“Who says I want ’em to call it off”
Fisk blinked. “What?”
Gibbon drew his pistol and checked the loads. “Hell, no, I just want to make sure they don’t get spanked and sent home like I did. I think it’s about time we stop playin’ make-believe and get organized … don’t you, Monty?”
Gibbon was high on his newfound pride, a sense of position and duty he’d never had before. Before, he’d been afraid of death. It had made him feel small and alone—a man apart. Now he realized there were things worse than death, and shame was one of them. Odd how he had King Magnusson to thank for this new insight.
Fisk returned Gibbon’s smile and shrugged. “Whatever you say, Jed.” The barman paused, his face clouding. “Say, you want me to go with you? I could grab my Greener?”
“No, you stay here and watch the town for me. Consider yourself deputized.”
The man said nothing. He smiled with relief.
Gibbon left the saloon and stiffly mounted his horse, reining the big gelding around and heading him south out of Canaan on a snowy trace that rose and fell over a series of watersheds.
It was a little-known shortcut, and he hoped it would get him to the Rinski ranch before the ranchers had pulled out
for the Double X. Gibbon had been thinking long and hard about an assault on Magnusson, and he thought he’d come up with a good plan. He didn’t want the small ranchers going off half-cocked and mucking it up.
When he pulled onto the headquarters of the Rinski ranch, it was full dark. Gibbon saw a light on in the cabin and the silhouette of someone rocking in the window. The sheriff knew it was Rinski’s daughter, and the vision of her rocking there, all alone in the dim cabin, gave him a chill beyond anything this winter night could provide.
Hearing voices in the barn and seeing over a dozen horses in the corral, their steamy breath rising toward the stars, Gibbon rode over and dismounted. He tied his reins to the corral and opened the barn door with a grunt.
A crowd of about twenty ranchmen milled in the alley before him. They stood leaning against square-cut posts and sitting on milk stools and hay bales. Two of Thornberg’s men sat with their legs dangling off the end of a wagon box. Another was stretched out in the box, head propped on an elbow. Homer Rinski was drawing in the hay-flecked dust with a stick.
Two lanterns hung from posts, spreading weak yellow light against the shadows at the back of the barn.
The men gave a start at the rasp of the door sliding open. Several went for their guns.
“It’s too late!” Gibbon yelled. “I’m King Magnusson and you’re all deader’n winter roses!”
The men froze, looking sheepish and slowly relaxing. Gibbon walked into the barn, pushed through the crowd, and shuttled his eyes around the group.
“Damn foolish, not postin’ a guard,” he said. Then, seeing that one of the “men” was Jacy Kincaid: “What in hell are you doin’ here, Jacy?”
“What are you doin’ here?” Jacy piped back, as disgusted
with the man as any of them. His singling her out because she was female didn’t help.
Homer Rinski stood slowly. “She’s one of us, Sheriff. She ranches here just like the rest of us, so just like the rest of us, she’ll defend her ranch. Lord knows nobody else is gonna do it”—he fed Gibbon a cold gaze—“so we have to.”
Gibbon regarded the man with irritation. “Don’t get your dander up, Homer. I didn’t ride out here to try and quash your rebellion. I rode out here to give you a hand.”
The men and Jacy shifted their eyes around, muttering.
“Maybe you better leave this up to us, Gibbon.” It was Verlyn Thornberg.
He rose from a hay bale holding a tin cup. The cup wasn’t steaming, and Gibbon figured it held something stouter than coffee. Thornberg’s eyes were as cold as Rinski’s, and his jaw was a straight line beneath the shadow his farm hat slanted across his face.
Gibbon’s cheeks warmed. “I deserved that, Verlyn,” he said with a slow nod. “I truly did; I understand that. I haven’t done one goddamn thing to earn your respect or your trust. But there’s something you haven’t done to keep me out of your hair, and that’s fire me.”
Thornberg stepped toward him. “You’re fired,” he said with a growl.
Gibbon shook his head. “That would take a majority vote of the city council, and”—Gibbon lifted his head to look around—“I see only three or four of you here.”
He paused, listening to the angry sighs and muttered curses.
“What’s your point?” Thornberg said.
“My point is that we’re going to declare war on King Magnusson, but we’re going to do it all real legal-like. You’re all going to be deputized, and you’re going to follow my orders.
I’m in charge. Anybody doesn’t like that can go on home and keep out of my way.”
He stopped to let this sink in. Glancing around the room at the five or six ranch owners and their dozen or so armed riders, he said, “Any questions?”
Someone said very softly, “Shit.”
Homer Rinski just stared at Gibbon, as did Thornberg. Neither said anything. They saw the cold determination in Jed Gibbon’s wasted face.
“All right, then,” he said, straightening. “Raise your right hands and repeat after me …”