The Family Jensen Read online

  Matt grunted. “Why don’t they just go ahead and start building the gallows?”

  “Well . . .”

  Matt stared at him. “They are, aren’t they?”

  “They’re getting the wood together. Everybody, ah, everybody’s expecting that the trial won’t take long. They think there’ll be a verdict by the end of the day.”

  “And a hanging tomorrow,” Matt said.

  And that was the way it was. The trial was a joke, with Longacre’s tame judge overruling every objection and denying every motion Roscoe Goldsmith made. The only defense Goldsmith could mount was to put Matt on the stand to tell his story. Matt had told the truth, laying Virginia Barry’s killing at the feet of Judd Talley, who sat in the front row of spectators with a confident smirk on his face.

  The nervous-looking jury hadn’t even withdrawn to consider their verdict. They had talked among themselves for a few moments, then one of them stood up and announced to Judge Dunwoodie, “We find the defendant guilty of murder, Your Honor.”

  That had caused a little stir in the courtroom, but not much. Dunwoodie, a thick-bodied man who reminded Matt of a fat old bullfrog, rapped his gavel for quiet and said, “That being the case, I have no choice but to pronounce a sentence of death, in accordance with the laws of this state, said sentence to be carried out forthwith, at noon tomorrow, defendant to be hanged by the neck until dead.” The gavel cracked again, even as Roscoe Goldsmith lumbered to his feet to make some feeble, last-minute objection.

  “Court’s adjourned!” Dunwoodie bellowed over him.

  So there was nothing left but to wait for the gallows to be finished. Matt sat on the bunk in his cell, aching from the beating Talley and the other hardcases had given him, thinking he should have made a break for it when he’d had the chance, law or no law. He had expected to be railroaded, but he hadn’t known his enemies would do such a swift, efficient job of it.

  They weren’t going to hang him. He made that vow to himself. He would get his hands on a gun somehow, and even though he would wind up riddled with slugs, before he went down he would get lead in Judd Talley. Count on it.

  He had told himself Smoke and Preacher would show up in time to help him, but the minutes were slipping away too fast. They would be there, sooner or later, and when they found out what had happened to him, all hell would break loose. Cyrus Longacre was going to be mighty sorry he had ever heard the name Jensen.

  That thought made a bleak smile tug at Matt’s swollen lips as he waited for someone to come get him and march him to the gallows. Or try to, anyway.

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 15

  Big Rock, Colorado

  “Be careful, Monte,” Smoke Jensen called to his friend. He grinned. “You don’t want to fall and break your neck.”

  “I’m not gonna fall and break my neck,” Sheriff Monte Carson replied from the top of the ladder. “And if I do it’s gonna be your fault, you dang chucklehead.”

  Smoke laughed. Monte Carson could get away with talking to him like that because they were old compadres, men who had ridden the river together.

  Most hombres, though, would be a mite leery of insulting a man widely considered to be one of the fastest and deadliest gunfighters to ever ride the frontier.

  Smoke hadn’t set out to acquire that reputation, but he had never run away from trouble. He was what he was and never saw any point in denying it.

  Fortunately, the gunman was just part of the man who had been born Kirby Jensen. He was also the loving, devoted husband to Sally, the successful rancher who owned the spread called Sugarloaf, the boss to loyal hands like his foreman Pearlie and young Calvin Woods, the good friend to the citizens of Big Rock such as Sheriff Carson and gambler Louis Longmont, who owned one of the local saloons. Smoke was all those things and more.

  Right then he was the fella holding the ladder while Monte Carson repaired the damage done to the jail’s roof when a bad windstorm had blown through the area the day before. The ferocious gusts had ripped some of the shingles off. Carson was attempting to hammer new ones in place.

  Holding a hammer instead of a six-gun, the sheriff leaned far to one side and muttered, “I think I can reach one more before we have to move the ladder.”

  “Monte, be careful,” Smoke said again, but he was serious. “You’re going to—”

  With a startled yell, Carson lost his balance. He dropped the hammer and grabbed for the edge of the roof to steady himself, but his frantic lunge came up short. Smoke reached up and tried to catch hold of the sheriff’s belt, but Carson had already toppled out of reach. With a heavy thud, he crashed to the ground in the alley beside the jail.

  Smoke heard the sharp cracking sound, like a tree branch breaking, and knew what had happened. Carson confirmed it by clutching at his right leg and howling in pain. Smoke knelt beside him. “Well, I was wrong. I said you were going to break your neck, and it’s only your leg you broke.”

  Eyes wide with pain, Carson looked up at his friend and said between clenched teeth, “I’ll . . . get you . . . for that . . . Smoke. You better . . . fetch the doctor.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Smoke gave his friend a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, then hurried to the mouth of the alley. He spotted Pearlie across the street, leaning against the ranch wagon parked in front of the general store. The lanky cowboy had a grin on his face as he watched Cal struggle to load boxes of goods into the wagon.

  “Pearlie!” Smoke called. When the Sugarloaf foreman turned to look at him, Smoke went on, “Go find Doc Simpson! Sheriff Carson’s hurt!”

  Pearlie’s dark, bushy eyebrows jumped in surprise. He normally moved in a slow, loose-jointed manner, but he didn’t let any grass grow under his feet as he hurried off down the street in search of the sawbones. Cal put the box he was carrying in the wagonbed, then trotted over to the alley to join Smoke.

  “What happened?” Cal asked. “Did the sheriff fall off the ladder and break his neck?”

  “No, just his leg, but I wouldn’t advise pointing that out to him,” Smoke said with a smile.

  “I heard that!” Carson said.

  Smoke was more worried about the lawman than he let on. If a broken bone received prompt medical attention, it usually healed all right, but sometimes despite everything a doctor could do, the affected limb was never the same. Big Rock depended on Monte Carson to keep the peace and a lot more. He was one of the pillars of the community. It didn’t take long for Pearlie to return with the doctor, and when they hurried into the alley, they were trailed by a small group of townspeople who had figured out that something was wrong. Smoke knew the word that the sheriff was injured would spread quickly through the settlement.

  Dr. Hiram Simpson knelt next to Carson, set his black bag down and opened it. He cut away the leg of Carson’s trousers to expose the injury. Smoke winced as he saw the unnatural way the leg was bent and the ugly lump under the skin where the broken bone was pressing against it.

  “Well, at least the bone’s not sticking out,” Simpson said. “We should be grateful for small favors, eh, Sheriff?”

  “You can . . . be grateful . . . if you want,” Carson said. “I don’t plan on . . . bein’ too happy about any of this.”

  “You’ll make a quicker recovery this way,” Simpson told him. “I’ll get the bone stabilized and splinted, and then we can take you down to my surgery and put a cast on that leg.”

  “A cast? That means I’ll be laid up for a while!”

  Simpson nodded. “That’s what usually happens when you break your leg.” He looked up at Smoke, Pearlie, and Cal. “I’ll need a couple of two-by-fours for splints, probably about a foot and a half long.”

  “We’ll go see what we can find,” Pearlie said.

  Carson let out a groan.

  Smoke asked, “Hurting pretty bad, Monte?”

  “Of course it hurts, but I groaned because I’m worried. I’ve got a couple deputies who can handle the usual problems, but if there’s any
real trouble, Big Rock’s gonna need a real sheriff.” He gave Smoke an intent look.

  Smoke lifted both hands. “Hold on, Monte—”

  “You’re worn a star before.”

  “Not that often, and I was never all that comfortable with it. Have you forgotten I was a wanted man myself for a while?”

  “You were never a real outlaw and you know it,” Carson insisted. “The charges against you were trumped up.”

  “Plus I’ve got a ranch to run.”

  “And a fine crew to run it,” the sheriff pointed out. He winced as Dr. Simpson moved his leg slightly. “Lord, Doc, if you’re gonna twist it like that, why don’t you just go ahead and saw it off!”

  “Settle down,” Simpson advised. “I’ll give you some laudanum before I actually set the leg.”

  Carson turned his head to look at Smoke again. “What about it, Smoke? Just take over for a while, until I get back on my feet. Shouldn’t be more than a week, should it, Doc?”

  “Six weeks, maybe longer,” Simpson said. “You won’t be back to full strength for several months.”

  Smoke hunkered on his heels next to Carson and thumbed his hat back on his close-cropped, ash-blond hair. “Tell you what I’ll do, Monte. I’ll send a telegram to the governor and ask him to see about getting a real lawman down here to take over for a while. Maybe a deputy U.S. marshal or somebody like that. That shouldn’t take very long, maybe a week or so, and I’ll keep an eye on things until then. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Carson said, gratitude in his voice. Even though he was in great pain, he raised his hand and shook with Smoke. “I feel better already knowing somebody’s gonna be watchin’ over the town while I can’t.”

  Pearlie and Cal came back with several boards for Dr. Simpson to choose from. The doctor straightened Carson’s leg, causing the sheriff to groan again and ask bitterly, “Why didn’t somebody think to give me a few slugs of whiskey first?” Then Simpson bound a couple boards in place as a crude splint and stepped back so Smoke, Pearlie, Cal, and a couple townsmen could pick up Carson and carefully carry him down the street to the house were the sawbones lived and practiced.

  The men from Sugarloaf came out of the house a short time later and paused on the porch. With a sly smile, Pearlie said, “You know, Cal, when Doc saw it was me who came runnin’ in, he figured I’d come to fetch him ’cause you’d been shot again.”

  “I haven’t been shot that many times,” the youngster protested.

  Pearlie snorted. “Heck, you catch lead in just about every fracas that comes along. We’ve had to dig so many slugs outta you, you’re practically a lead mine!”

  “Well, you’ve been shot a time or two yourself, as I recall.”

  “Yeah, but at least I’ve got sense enough to duck when the bullets commence to flyin’—”

  “That’s enough, you two,” Smoke said, knowing they would squabble happily for hours if nobody put a stop to it. “You can take those supplies we bought back on out to the ranch and tell Sally I’ll be staying in town for a while.”

  Pearlie frowned. “You’re not comin’ back to Sugarloaf with us?”

  Smoke explained about the promise he’d made to Monte Carson. “I’ll walk down to the train station and send a wire to the governor. It shouldn’t take long to get somebody down here to take over.”

  “But until then you’re the law in Big Rock, eh?”

  “Monte’s deputies are the law,” Smoke corrected. “I’m just keeping an eye on things for the time being. I don’t plan on pinning on the sheriff’s badge unless there’s some real trouble. The Good Lord willing, there won’t be.”

  The two men lounging at the bar in one of the town’s saloons were strangers to Big Rock. They had ridden in earlier in the day, taken a good look around—especially at the bank—and then withdrawn to have a drink. They were big, hard-faced, beard-stubbled men, and the coating of trail dust on their clothes testified to the fact that they’d done some long, hard, fast traveling in recent weeks.

  One of the men tossed back the whiskey that remained in his glass and motioned for the bartender to refill it. His companion shook his head, and put his hand over the empty glass. If the meaning of the gesture wasn’t obvious enough to start with, he said, “You’ve had enough, Crandell.”

  The stocky Crandell scowled. “Blast it, Burke, you got no right to tell me how much I drink.”

  “You want to argue about who’s got what right?” Burke asked in a soft but somehow dangerous tone.

  Crandell grimaced and shook his head. “No, no, don’t get me wrong. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.”

  “We need to go.”

  “Sure, whatever you say.”

  Burke led the way out of the saloon. Nobody paid any attention to him and Crandell as they untied their horses from the hitch rail, swung up into their saddles, and rode slowly out of town. They were just two more drifting cowpunchers, the sort of men who passed through Big Rock all the time looking for work on one of the ranches in the lush southern Colorado rangeland that surrounded the town.

  It would take a closer look for anybody to notice the cold, flintlike hardness of their eyes or the well-worn walnut grips on their revolvers.

  “So long, Big Rock,” Burke drawled as they left the settlement. “We’ll be back.”

  “I thought you said it would be too risky to hit the bank here, since the place has got a tough hombre like Monte Carson as its sheriff.”

  “You weren’t paying attention to the talk in the saloon, Crandell. I was.” A smirk curved the normally grim slash that was Burke’s mouth. “While you were pouring whiskey down your throat, somebody came in and said that Sheriff Carson fell off a ladder and broke his leg.”

  Crandell’s eyes widened as he looked over at his companion. “Really? I’ll bet he’s got deputies, though.”

  “A couple.” Burke nodded. “But from the sound of everything I heard, they’re nothing for us to worry about. They won’t be any match for us. We’ll rendezvous with Stonebreaker and the rest of the boys, and then in a day or two, we’ll pay Big Rock another visit.”

  Crandell laughed. “And leave with all the money in the bank, eh?”

  Burke nodded again. “And leave with all the money in the bank. And if those deputies or anybody else try to stop us, it’ll be their funeral.”

  Chapter 16

  When she heard the creaking of wagon wheels drifting through the open window, Sally Jensen looked up from the plate of bear sign she had just taken out of the hot grease and set aside to cool. She turned to the window and moved the curtain aside, expecting to see her husband on the big ’Paloose horse he rode as he accompanied the wagon.

  Instead she saw only Calvin Woods sitting on the wagon seat, hauling back on the reins to bring the team to a halt. Pearlie rode alongside on horseback. No sign of Smoke or the ’Paloose he had ridden into town.

  For a second, she felt a tingle of fear that something had happened to Smoke. But Pearlie and Cal were grinning and laughing as they gibed at each other about something, and that wouldn’t be the case at all if Smoke was hurt.

  Despite the fact that she was an educated, highly intelligent woman, most of the time she felt like there was nothing in the world that could hurt Smoke Jensen. Some folks would say he led a charmed life.

  Of course, that wasn’t true at all. He had been wounded many times, some of them seriously. His heavily muscled, broad-shouldered body was covered with scars from gun and knife, as Sally had good reason to know. Not only that, but Smoke had known considerable tragedy in his life. His older brother Luke had been killed during the Civil War, his father Emmett had been cut down by gold-hungry outlaws, and his sister Janey had come to a bad end as well. Smoke’s first wife Nicole and their infant son Arthur had been murdered by owlhoots. You might say much of Smoke’s life had been dogged by death. In fact, when Sally had first met him, in the Idaho town of Bury, where she had come from New Hampshire to teach school, he had been on the run from the law himself and using
the name Buck West.

  Sally’s life had taken a turn for the better the day she met Smoke, and she liked to think the same was true for him. They had been through a lot together. They had fought Indians, badmen, and the elements to forge a life for themselves on Sugarloaf. She had tended to his wounds when he was shot up. She had killed men who needed killing. And even when things had looked the worst, she had never given up.

  So the worry she felt when she saw that Smoke wasn’t with Pearlie and Cal lasted only a fraction of a heartbeat. She told herself he had either gotten sidetracked on the way back to the ranch or had stayed behind in Big Rock for some reason.

  The two ranch hands came into the kitchen a moment later, each carrying a box of supplies. Cal said excitedly, “I told Pearlie I smelled bear sign!”

  “You can eat your fill as soon as it cools off,” Sally told him, “and as soon as you tell me where Smoke is.”

  “He’s still in town,” Pearlie explained. “Sheriff Carson was tryin’ to patch up some damage to the roof of his office from that big windstorm yesterday.”

  “And?” Sally prodded when Pearlie paused and didn’t go on. Sometimes getting information out of those laconic cowboys was like the proverbial pulling of teeth.

  “Oh, he fell off the ladder,” Pearlie said. “Didn’t I tell you that part?”

  “No,” Sally said patiently. “You mean Sheriff Carson fell off?”

  “Yeah, Smoke warned him,” Cal put in. “Told him he was going to break his neck.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Sally exclaimed as her eyes widened in alarm. “Monte broke his neck?”

  “No, ma’am, I never said that.”

  “He broke his leg,” Pearlie added. “Busted it clean in two.”