The Jensen Brand Read online

  She tied the buckskin in front of the store and went up the steps to its high porch. When she opened the door and went inside, the air smelled dusty and disused, like nobody had been in there for a while. The shelves were half empty. A man stood behind the counter at the back of the store, leaning on it with an elbow as he propped a hand under his chin. His eyes were closed, and they didn’t open even when Denny walked along the aisle toward him, her boot heels thumping on the plank floor.

  “Mister?” she said, remembering to make her voice low and rough.

  He caught a sharp breath as he jerked a little. His eyes blinked open. He had graying brown hair and a long, horselike face. He straightened slowly, looking like it pained him, and looked at her in apparent confusion. Finally he said, “What do you want?”

  “This is a store, ain’t it?” Denny asked.

  “Yes, but . . .” The man opened his eyes wider. “You mean you want to buy something?”

  “That’s the general idea.” She didn’t have to fake the impatience and annoyance in her voice.

  “Oh. All right. I’m sorry, it’s just that it’s been a while . . .” The man fidgeted with the canvas apron he was wearing. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a coffeepot, some coffee, flour, sugar, and salt, and a bedroll and a couple blankets.”

  “How have you been gettin’ by without all that? Must not have been on the trail long.”

  “Long enough,” Denny snapped. “I had to, uh, sell some of my gear to get enough money to keep goin’.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s none of my business anyway—”

  “That’s right. You have what I need?”

  “I sure do. Give me a few minutes and I’ll have the order put together for you. How much you want of the staples?”

  “How far is it from here to Wyoming?”

  The man frowned in thought. “’Bout a three-day ride, I reckon. Dependin’, of course, on which part of Wyomin’ you’re headed for.”

  “Place called Elkhorn.”

  “Ohhhh.” The storekeeper sent a nervous glance in her direction. “You have friends there?”

  “Don’t know yet. I hope to.”

  “Well, it’s still in Colorado, but it’s just a mile or two shy of the border. You’ve never been there before?”

  Denny shook her head.

  “Nice young fella like you, you might want to think twice about it,” the man said. “It’s got a reputation as a mighty rough place. Lots of bad sorts hang out there.”

  A cold smile curved Denny’s lips. “How do you know I’m not a bad sort myself ?”

  “Well, you don’t . . . I mean, you’re just a young fella . . . Hate to see you go down the wrong path—”

  Denny reached quickly across the counter, caught hold of his apron, and jerked him forward. She put her face close to his, drew her lips back from her teeth, and said in a low, menacing tone, “You let me worry about my own damn path, mister.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten so close to him. She was risking him noticing that those cheeks and jaws had never sprouted whiskers.

  But his eyes were wide with fear and didn’t seem to be noticing much of anything as he stammered, “I . . . I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to poke my nose in where it don’t—”

  “Just get the supplies.” She shoved him away. “Don’t worry about nothin’ else. Except maybe you can tell me how to find this Elkhorn place.”

  “I . . . I never been there myself. Wouldn’t go. Just heard about it. But if you head north and keep the mountains on your left, after a few days you’ll see some other peaks off to the right. Those’ll be the Prophet Mountains. Elkhorn’s supposed to lie about halfway between them and the big peaks to the west.”

  “Reckon I can find it,” Denny said, nodding.

  “Reckon you can, if you want to. If you’re bound and determined to go there.”

  “I said that was what I was doing, didn’t I?”

  “Sure, sure.” The storekeeper took a canvas sack from under the counter and opened it. “So you want enough of the staples to get you to Elkhorn?”

  “That’s right,” Denny said. “Enough to get me where I’m goin’.”

  The storekeeper’s name was George Carter. He prattled the whole time he was gathering up Denny’s supplies, including introducing himself. After he told her his name, he looked at her as if expecting her to return the gesture. She started to tell him to mind his own business, then decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to start establishing the identity she was going to use.

  “Name’s West,” she said. “Denny West.”

  Denny was more often a boy’s name, so that was believable enough and she wouldn’t have to worry about remembering it. When her father, as a young man, had been on the run from the law because of bogus murder charges filed against him, he had used the name Buck West. That provided a last name for her.

  “Good to know you, Denny.” Carter sighed. “Although I reckon what with you just passin’ through, I’ll likely never see you again.”

  “Likely not,” Denny agreed.

  “Especially if you go to Elkhorn.”

  “Figure I’ll get killed up there, do you?”

  Carter didn’t say anything, just looked gloomy as he packed the supplies in the canvas sack. Done with that, he got the extra blankets and a canvas tarp and rolled them up together, tying the bundle with rawhide thongs.

  He tore off a piece of brown wrapping paper, picked up a stub of pencil, and totaled up the bill, pausing between each figure he wrote down to lick the pencil until the habit began to gnaw on Denny’s nerves.

  “Just add up the numbers, all right?” she said.

  “Huh? Oh, oh, sure, I got it right here . . . That’ll be seven dollars and thirty cents.”

  Denny took the two five-dollar gold pieces from her pocket and slid them across the counter. Carter gave her a couple of silver dollars in change, along with the smaller coins.

  “You ridin’ on out?” he asked as Denny picked up the sack of supplies with one hand and tucked the bedroll under her other arm.

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “None, but I thought you might want a drink before you go. My brother owns the saloon across the street.”

  “You got another brother who owns the blacksmith shop?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Denny frowned. “What about the stable?”

  “It belongs to my Uncle Thad.”

  Denny grunted. “They must call this place Carterville.”

  “How’d you know?”

  Denny ignored the question and went out. With coffee, biscuit makings, and extra blankets, the night promised to be more comfortable than the previous one had been. She tied the sack of supplies onto the saddle, then lashed the bedroll behind it.

  She glanced across the street at the log saloon. She had never been much of a drinker—it didn’t seem to run in the family—but she could nurse a beer along for a little while and maybe find out some more about Elkhorn from the other customers. Just two horses were still at the hitch rail, but some of the citizens of Carter ville could be in there, too.

  She untied the buckskin, led him across the dusty street, and looped the reins around the rail on that side. The door of the saloon stood open, but it was dark enough inside to make the entrance look like the mouth of a cave.

  That thought made her hesitate, but only for a second. She walked inside and looked around as her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room.

  The bar, which consisted of thick planks laid across the tops of barrels, ran across the back. Rough-hewn tables were in the front part of the room. Off to the left was, of all things, a roulette wheel, but it looked dusty, like it hadn’t been used for a long time. It might not even work anymore, Denny thought. That was another sign the settlement was just barely hanging on to its existence.

  A lantern stood on a shelf behind the bar, and another hung on a long nail driven into one of the logs that formed the w
all. They were turned low enough that their flames were feeble and flickering.

  Two men in range clothes stood at the bar, obviously the hombres who had ridden those horses up to the saloon. Behind the planks was an aproned bartender who bore a strong family resemblance to the storekeeper across the street. One table was occupied by a man in a dusty black suit, a collarless shirt, and a battered derby. He had a pack of greasy cards and lazily dealt himself a hand of solitaire, but his eyes were bleary and didn’t seem to be focusing too well on the pasteboards. Denny figured he was drunk.

  The two cowboys at the bar looked around when she came in. They were curious, especially when they realized she was a stranger. Any break from the monotony in these little frontier settlements was welcome. One of them motioned with his head and said, “Come on over and have a drink, pard.”

  Denny hooked her thumbs in her gun belt as she crossed the room. She made an effort not to cough from the smoke that hung in the air. Some of it came from the oil lanterns, the rest from the quirlies the two punchers were smoking.

  She nodded to the bartender, who said, “Something I can do you for?”

  “Beer,” Denny said. “Probably be a waste of time to ask if it’s cold, wouldn’t it?”

  That brought laughter from the cowboys, who appeared to be a few years older than her. The one who hadn’t spoken before drawled, “You’re wise beyond your years, kid.”

  “You’ll be lucky if it’s only got one snake head floatin’ in it,” the first cowboy added.

  “Ha, ha,” the bartender said. “You boys are sure funny.” He filled a mug from one of the barrels holding up the bar and set it in front of Denny. “See? No snake heads.”

  “Is that extra?” Denny asked.

  The cowboys howled with laughter. One of them, stocky and redheaded, pounded the bar.

  “Reckon the kid got you good, Grady!” he told the bartender.

  With a long-suffering sigh, Grady said, “The beer’s two bits.”

  Denny gave him one of the quarters she had gotten in change from his brother and then picked up the mug. The beer was pretty bad, but she hadn’t bought it because she wanted it.

  “You lookin’ for a ridin’ job?” the redheaded puncher asked. “Dill and me, we work for the Six Deuce spread, northeast o’ here. Could put in a good word for you if you want. Ain’t heard nothin’ lately about the spread hirin’, but our word counts a heap with the boss, don’t it, Dill?”

  “Oh, sure it does.” Dill giggled, which pretty well put the lie to the boast.

  “I’m not interested in a riding job,” Denny said. “I got some other possibilities lined up. That’s why I’m heading for Elkhorn.”

  No sooner had the words come out of her mouth than the man at the table who had been playing solitaire bolted to his feet. His chair crashed over behind him. “Elkhorn!” he cried.

  Denny’s head jerked around in time to see him clawing under his coat for a gun.

  He shouted, “Draw, you son of a bitch!”

  CHAPTER 26

  Everything happened at once.

  Fear and surprise made Denny’s heart leap so hard it felt like it was going to rip right out of her chest. At the same time, muscles and nerves reacted as they had while she was working with Pearlie the past few days. It was like one of his sudden, unexpected challenges. Her hand dropped to the gun on her hip. The Colt was out before she knew it, roaring and kicking back against her palm as she pulled the trigger.

  The man in the derby jerked under the bullet’s impact. His gun was out, too, and it went off with an ear-numbing blast. The barrel was pointed down at the table in front of him, though, and the bullet didn’t do anything but scatter the cards he had dealt a few minutes earlier. He took a stumbling step forward. The gun slipped from his fingers and thudded onto the table next to the bullet hole. He followed it, falling facedown and then rolling to the side to land on his back with his arms flung out.

  Denny stood absolutely motionless, not even breathing for a long moment while the blood thundered in her head, even louder than the echoes of the two shots that filled the room. When she finally did breathe again, it was to draw in a ragged gasp.

  “Sheee-it!” the cowboy called Dill exclaimed. “I never seen nothin’ like that draw before!”

  “I think that fella’s still alive,” the redheaded puncher said. He hurried across the room to kneel next to the man Denny had shot, then announced, “He is! He’s alive! Don’t think he will be for much longer, though.”

  Denny swallowed hard. She still couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Dill went over to join his friend beside the wounded man while Denny turned her head to look at Grady Carter. “I . . . I didn’t have any choice. He made me draw—”

  “He went for his gun first, no doubt about that,” Grady said, nodding. “We all saw it. Won’t be no trouble about the law, mister.”

  He looked scared, and his eyes kept cutting downward. Denny realized she was still holding the Colt. She started to pouch the iron, then remembered one of the things Pearlie had drummed into her head. She turned the cylinder, opened the loading gate, dumped the empty shell, and thumbed in a fresh round, then rotated the cylinder more until the hammer rested on the empty chamber.

  Then she slid the weapon back into its holster.

  Trying to keep from showing how unsteady she felt, she crossed the room to stand over the wounded man and the two cowboys. The man she had shot had his eyes open wide. He was breathing hard, and a large red stain marred the front of his dirty white shirt.

  “Has he said anything?” Denny asked. “Do you know his name?”

  “No idea what his name is,” the redhead replied, “but he said somethin’ about his wife runnin’ off with a man from Elkhorn. Said he’s been lookin’ for ’em for years, and he’d just about given up until you come in, mister.”

  “But I’m not from Elkhorn. I’m going there. Anyway, I never saw him or his wife before!” Denny looked around helplessly at Grady.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid,” the bartender said in a gruff voice. “He’s been sittin’ there playing solitaire and drinking for nearly a week, ever since he rode in. His horse is over in my uncle’s livery stable.”

  “Yep,” Dill said, “I reckon his brain was plumb pickled in tarantula juice. He didn’t know what he was doin’. He just heard the word Elkhorn and that made him go loco.”

  “Drunk or not, he was still pretty slick on the draw,” the redhead said. “He got his gun out in a hurry. But he was no match for you, kid.”

  Denny swallowed again. She was starting to feel sick. Even though she’d had only a couple sips of the beer, they threatened to come back up her throat. She wanted to look away from the face of the dying man, but she couldn’t seem to do it. Her eyes were still fastened on his agonized features as he opened and closed his mouth a couple times like a fish out of water. Then his face went slack and air rattled in his throat.

  “He’s done for.” Dill looked up at Denny. “You want me to go through his pockets, kid? Might find a letter or somethin’ with his name on it.”

  “Why . . . why . . .”

  “Well, I figured you might want to know who it was you just killed.”

  Denny ran out the door. She made it before the contents of her belly spewed from her mouth, but just barely.

  * * *

  “Fella owed me three dollars for stablin’ his horse,” Thad Carter told Denny. “Pay me that, and the nag is yours if you want it, son.”

  “What use would I have for it?” she asked.

  Carter, who looked like an older version of his nephews who ran the store, the saloon, and the blacksmith shop, shrugged. “I dunno. Pack animal, maybe?”

  Denny looked at the horse, a squat but sturdy paint. She supposed if she moved all her supplies over onto it, that would make the journey easier for the buckskin. She nodded. “All right. I’ll get your money.”

  “The horse and me will be here waitin’.”

  Denny stepped out
of the livery barn into the late afternoon sunlight. She still had a bad taste in her mouth from throwing up but didn’t trust her stomach to behave if she put anything else in it. Her nerves were settling down, though. She could feel that. Killing a man was a damned hard thing, but as she had told Grady Carter, she hadn’t had a choice. She could accept that. She had to accept that.

  It was late enough in the day she could have spent the night in Carter ville. Grady had a couple rooms in the back of the saloon that he rented out. It was the closest thing to a hotel.

  Denny wanted to leave the settlement behind her, though, even if she traveled only a few more miles before making camp. She couldn’t stay there without thinking about what it had felt like to kill that man.

  Her father had slain countless men who had been trying to kill him or someone else. Had their deaths eaten at him like this one kept gnawing at her? She had never seen any sign that Smoke Jensen was anything other than a happy, contented man with a clean conscience. Maybe he was good at hiding it . . . or maybe that was the way he truly was. Maybe he could accept the harsh realities of life without dwelling on them. She needed to develop that same ability.

  She didn’t have enough money on her to pay Carter for the horse, so she went to the buckskin and got another gold piece from her poke. As she turned away, Dill and the redhead, whose name was Stovall, came out of the saloon and saw her.

  Stovall said, “Well, hello, kid. You gonna hang around here for a while?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Stovall’s the name, and well, this is the most excitement Carterville’s seen in a long time,” Dill said. “I just wish Stovall and me could hang around for the buryin’ in the mornin’. We got to get back to the ranch, though.”

  Stovall added, “We never did find nothin’ with that fella’s name on it, and he never told his name to anybody around town as far as we know. Gid Carter, who handles the buryin’ around here, will have to carve Unknown on the marker, I reckon.” He shook his head. “Won’t be the first hombre who winds up in an unmarked grave. Been a few dark nights when I’ve worried about the same thing happenin’ to me.”