“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.
“You seen Doreen, Smoke?” Rusty said.
“No. I expect she’ll be making her entrance just a tad after six. That’s the way the fashionable ladies do it, so I been told.”
“Why? Hell, she can tell time, cain’t she? She ain’t stupid.”
“No. I mean, yes, she can tell time. No, she isn’t stupid. Ladies do that so all the people will be present to look at them when they make their entrance.”
“I shore don’t know much about wimmen.”
“Rusty, after you’ve been married for five or six years, you’ll discover something.”
“What?”
“That you don’t know any more about women after all those years than you did when you got married.” “Well, ain’t that just something to look forward to?”
Smoke laughed at him and moved on, walking through the lower part of the mansion. He spoke to several of the farmers that he knew. Ralph’s father took his arm.
“I don’t know what you got planned in the way of gettin’ Miss Doreen out of this place, Smoke. But I’m with you all the way. Me, and about a half dozen other men.”
Smoke started to tell him to stay out of it, then changed his mind. Somebody had to be the first ones to stand up to Jud and his army of hired guns. If the cattlemen in the area wouldn’t, then maybe the farmers would shame them into joining them.
“All right, Chester. Here’s what you do: when you see Walt and Alice leave, you and the others follow them. I’ll tell Walt that you boys are with us.”
Chester smiled. “I put rifles in the wagon. The wife can shoot nearabouts as good as I can.”
“Good man!” Smoke gripped his arm and walked on. They stood a chance if he could just get Doreen out.
Smoke declined a glass of champagne being offered by the German gunfighter, Jaeger, who was minus the top part of an ear, thanks to Smoke. The German glared pure hate at Smoke.
“I ought to take off the other ear, Jaeger,” Smoke told him. “So you’d have a matched set. But then you’d have a hell of a time wearing a hat, wouldn’t you?”
Jaeger growled something at Smoke in German and moved on, toting his tray of drinks.
Smoke moved over to stand by Sheriff Brady’s side. The sheriff gave him a curious look.
“Have you decided whether this is in your county, or not, Sheriff?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t come here to arrest anyone. I didn’t bring any men with me. Why? Are you planning on starting something?”
“Me?” Smoke managed a shocked look. “Heavens no. Sheriff. I’m just here to have a good time.”
“Right,” the lawman’s reply was drily given. “Sure, you are.”
A pained look passed over the sheriff’s face. “Yes, unfortunately. But there is no law against a man wearing a fur robe and a jeweled crown.”
“Oh, I never said there was, Sheriff. But it might make a person question Jud’s sanity—right?”
“Like I said, Jensen: I’m not here in any official capacity.”
“Enjoy yourself, Sheriff.” Smoke moved on, snaking his way through the growing crowd. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed six o’clock.
He caught the eyes of several fanners; they gave him a slight nod and a wink. Chester had done his part; the men were with him. Smoke returned the nods and found a place next to a wall. Rusty soon joined him and with their backs to the wall, they waited.
At ten after the hour, the bugler started tooting, the guitar player started strumming, and the fiddler started sawing.
“Sounds like a cat fight to me,” Rusty said.
Then Doreen made her entrance, and the crowd oohhed and aahhed. She was dressed to the nines, all done up in silks and satins. She was playing her part to the hilt, acting like a queen as she moved through the crowd, smiling and offering her hand to the folks.
Jud stood to one side, a big grin on his big face. He looked like a damned idiot.
Walt and Alice offered their congratulations to Doreen and then Walt glanced at Smoke. Smoke nodded his head. The old rancher and his wife slipped unnoticed out the front door and climbed into their buggy, heading back toward Box T range.
In pairs, the farmers and their wives began slipping out of the mansion. At a quarter to the hour, all those who were on Smoke’s side had left. Smoke found Rusty.
“Start staying close to the Pecos Kid, Rusty. When I make my move, you grab his guns and watch my back.”
The cowboy nodded and moved off into the milling crowds.
The band was doing their best to play a tune that Smoke could but vaguely recognize. Sounded to him like they were all in different keys.
Smoke moved over to a table near the hallway where the grandfather clock was located and took a glass of champagne just as the chimes donged out seven o’clock. He finished the glass then walked up to Jud and Doreen, jerked both Jud’s guns out of leather and placed the muzzle of one in the man’s ear. Jud’s bodyguards froze, not knowing what to do.
The band stopped playing; the milling crowds were still as the word spread throughout the ground floor of the mansion.
Rusty had clobbered the Pecos Kid with a silver platter of fried chicken and grabbed his guns. The Kid lay on the floor, his head on a pile of chicken.
Smoke said, “Tell your men to start tossing their guns out the windows, Jud. If just one of them tries anything, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“See that they do it, Jason,” Jud managed the words out of his fricasseed brain and past his anger.
Six guns began sailing out the open windows.
“Get horses out front for Doreen and King Vale,” Smoke ordered.
Jason nodded at one of the bodyguards.
“Make your speech, Doreen,” Smoke told her.
Doreen spun around to face the crowd. “Jud Vale kidnapped me and brought me here against my will. I’ve been a prisoner in this house.” She looked straight at Sheriff Brady. “Do you hear me, Sheriff?”
“I hear you, girl.”
“I hate this man,” Doreen said, pointing to Jud. “I would sooner marry a grizzly bear. I planned this whole party so’s Smoke and the man I really love, Rusty, would come and rescue me.”
Rusty was grinning and blushing. He looked like a lit railroad lantern.
“I’m ashamed of you people!” Doreen yelled at the crowd of men and women. “Not a one of you would help Walt and Alice or Smoke and Rusty stand up to this nitwit!” She glared at Jud, standing with his crown tilted to one side of his big head. “To hell with you all!” Doreen shouted.
“Let’s go!” Smoke said, shoving Jud toward the door.
Outside, Doreen hiked up her expensive gown and showed Rusty bare legs as she stepped into the stirrup and mounted up. The cowboy did his best to look away, but the sight was just too tempting. One eye was going one way and the other was on a shapely leg.
“Settle down, Rusty,” Doreen whispered. “Your time is coming. I promise.”
“Have mercy!” Rusty said.
Smoke prodded Jud into the saddle. Jud hiked up his robe and showed some leg, too; but it was definitely not a scintillating experience for anyone. Especially the horse, who swung his head and tried to figure out what it was on his back.
Smoke stepped into the saddle. “Jud dies if anyone follows,” he warned the crowd. “Tell them, King Vale,” Smoke said sarcastically.
Some lucidity had returned to Jud. Having the muzzle of a .44 laid against one’s ear can do that. He twisted in the saddle. “Stay back. Our time will come. Just stay back.”
“Let’s go, King,” Smoke said. “Your royal procession is about to parade.”
The Pecos Kid woke up with a chicken leg stuck in one ear, wondering why the band had stopped playing.