CHAPTER 52

Smoke kicked his feet free of the stirrups and threw himself out of the saddle. He landed at the foot of the porch steps and took them in two leaping strides as another bullet chewed splinters from the railing. He didn’t know how bad Pearlie was hit, but the first thing he had to do was get Sally inside where she would be safe.

She was already on her feet, saying, “Smoke—!”

He wrapped both arms around her and lifted her off her feet to cradle her against his chest. With his heavily muscled arms and shoulders, he was able to carry her as if she weighed no more than a child.

He didn’t have to slow down to open the screen door. Inez heard the shots from inside the house and threw the door open. As Smoke went past her, carrying Sally, she looked out into the yard and cried, “Pearlie!”

The door slammed behind her as she rushed out. Smoke set Sally on the floor in the foyer and swung back around. He pulled the Colt from its holster on his hip and slapped the screen door aside as he charged back out onto the porch.

Inez had reached Pearlie’s side and helped him to his feet. Smoke didn’t see any blood on the former foreman’s clothes, and Pearlie confirmed that by yelling, “I ain’t hit, blast it! Just twisted my knee when I fell!”

Inez had an arm around Pearlie’s waist to support him as they hurried toward the porch steps in a crouching run. Smoke met them halfway up the steps and grabbed Pearlie’s arm with his free hand. As he helped his old friend to the porch, he felt as much as heard the wind-rip of a slug as it passed close by his head. He wasn’t sure where the rifle shots were coming from, and a handgun wouldn’t be much use against them, anyway.

Then a swift rataplan of hoofbeats made Smoke turn his head toward the sound. He saw at least a dozen men on horseback charging the house, blazing away with the guns in their hands.

“Inside!” he barked at Pearlie and Inez as he gave Pearlie a shove to hurry them along. Bullets smacked and thudded against the wall as he swung around, dropped to a knee behind the porch railing, and returned the fire. One of the attackers flung up his arms and pitched out of the saddle, but that didn’t blunt the attack. The other riders continued pounding toward the house.

“Smoke, get in here!” Pearlie shouted from the doorway as he leaned against the jamb because of his gimpy leg. He had a Winchester in his hands and was steady enough to lift the rifle to his shoulder and start cranking off rounds as fast as he could work the weapon’s lever. Another attacker fell, and a third man’s horse suddenly collapsed and sent its howling rider flying through the air.

With Pearlie providing covering fire, Smoke scuttled backward as he emptied the Colt. He ducked through the door and Pearlie retreated as well, still triggering the Winchester until Inez slammed the inner door, which was built of solid oak thick enough to stop anything short of a cannonball.

All the doors in the ranch house were like that, as were the shutters that could be closed over the windows. The house was designed and built to be defended, because the Sugarloaf had been raided before. It had been a number of years since such a shocking outbreak of violence, but Smoke would never stop being prepared for trouble.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked Pearlie.

“Yeah, I’m just a durned fool, that’s all. That first shot came so close to my ear that it spooked me and I lost my grip while I was dismountin’. That’s all. Bunged up my knee a mite when I hit the ground, but it’s nothin’ to worry about.”

Sally hurried up to Smoke and thrust a Winchester into his hands. “Fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber. I knew you’d want it full.” Her demeanor was cool and calm, yet angry. This was her home, and she wasn’t going to stand for anyone attacking it.

A fresh wave of gunfire made Smoke leap to the parlor window, which had, so far, escaped being shattered by flying lead. He saw powder smoke spurting from the barn doors, which had been pulled closed except for a small gap through which defenders could fire. One of the hands knelt in the small opening above the doors, which was used to load hay into the loft, and raked the attackers with rifle fire.

One of the raiders twisted in the saddle and snapped a shot at the man in the hayloft door. The bullet punched into the cowboy’s midsection and doubled him over. He dropped the rifle and tumbled forward through the opening, turned over once in the air, and crashed down on his back in the limp sprawl of death.

Smoke’s spirits had taken a leap when he saw the counterattack coming from the barn, but anger filled him at the sight of one of his men being killed. He shoved the window up and knelt to put the Winchester to work. It cracked twice more in swift succession, and two more raiders fell from their horses.

He and Pearlie and the men in the barn had done some significant damage to the attackers, dropping nearly half their number, and the men who were still on horseback peeled away and retreated rather than continue the assault. Smoke had no idea who they were or why they were attacking, but he was convinced of one thing—they wouldn’t just abandon whatever cause had brought them there. The fight wasn’t over.

As if to tell him he was right, a fresh burst of gunfire came from somewhere behind the house.

Pearlie had taken his rifle to the other window in the parlor. Sally and Inez stood in the foyer, just outside the arched entrance to the front room.

Smoke turned his head to look at his wife and asked, “Where’s Brad?”

Sally’s hand went to her mouth as she gasped. “The last time I saw him, he said he was going out to the barn to watch Hank Sinclair mend a saddle. Oh, Smoke, he must still be out there!”

Smoke felt the same fear that he heard in his wife’s voice and saw on her face. But he didn’t give in to it and his words had a flinty edge as he said, “Hank and any of the other boys who are in the barn will look out for him. Don’t worry, Sally, he’ll be fine.” He switched his attention to Pearlie and went on. “Stay here in case that first bunch doubles back to hit us again. I’ll see what’s going on in the back.”

He jerked open a desk drawer and reached inside to grab a handful of Winchester cartridges from a box of shells kept there. He thumbed several of them through the rifle’s loading gate to replace the ones he’d fired and then shoved the extras into his pocket, knowing he might well need them soon enough.

He reached the big kitchen and stepped onto the enclosed porch on the back of the house. Shots came from his right. The smokehouse and springhouse lay in that direction. Smoke spotted a couple of his men using the small structures for cover as they fired toward a grove of trees about fifty yards away.

The men in the trees spotted Smoke. He had barely emerged from the house when bullets began to rip through the screening around the porch. He dropped below the solid wood half-wall and returned the fire, triggering three fast shots before he paused and called to the Sugarloaf hands, “You boys get up here! I’ll cover you!”

Smoke started firing again as the two men dashed for the house. They made it to the porch safely and dropped behind the half-wall.

“Either of you hit?” Smoke asked as he paused again in his shooting. He knew even a wounded man could be pretty spry when his life was at stake.

“No, we were lucky,” one of them answered. His name was Jerry Walker, Smoke recalled. The other man was Ed Magruder. Both were experienced ranch hands in their mid-twenties who had been riding for the Sugarloaf for a couple of years.

“What were you doing around here?” asked Smoke.

Magruder said, “As soon as the shooting started, Hank told us to grab some rifles from the tack room and go out the back of the barn, then circle around here to make sure nobody tried to attack the house from the rear.”

“That was mighty smart of him,” added Walker. “We hadn’t hardly got around on this side of the house when we spotted some of the varmints in the trees back there. They opened up on us and we opened up on them. It was pretty hot and heavy there for a minute, until Ed and me made it to some cover.”

“What’s goin’ on, Smoke?” Magruder asked. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Smoke answered honestly. “We haven’t had any trouble lately except with those rustlers, and we took care of that bunch down in Black Hawk.”

He wasn’t surprised that Hank Sinclair had acted quickly and decisively in sending these men around to the other side of the house at the first sign of trouble. Hank was a veteran hand who had been through more than one range war.

“Who else is out there in the barn besides Hank?” Smoke asked. During the middle of the day, most of the men who had stayed behind on the Sugarloaf would be out riding the range. Only a handful would be at the ranch headquarters.

“Jack Floren’s there,” Walker said. “I think I heard Hank tell him to take a rifle and climb up in the hayloft.”

Smoke grimaced. That meant Floren was the man who had been shot and most likely killed.

“And Fred Judson the wrangler,” put in Magruder. “They’re the only ones. Well, except for the boy, of course.”

“The boy,” Smoke repeated hollowly, knowing perfectly well who Magruder meant.

“Yeah, Brad. The little shaver who’s Louis’s stepson now. He was watchin’ Hank mend a saddle and pesterin’ him with a bunch of questions.”

That sounded just like Brad, all right, thought Smoke. For the time being, he would have to rely on Hank Sinclair and Fred Judson to keep the youngster safe.

Smoke was going to be busy . . .

A large force on horseback suddenly charged out of the trees toward the house, and renewed firing came from the front.

The Sugarloaf was under attack from two directions, and the defenders were badly outnumbered.