The Violent Land Read online

  Smoke landed in the street, rolled over, and came up on one knee. He had to throw himself to the side in order to avoid being trampled.

  At the same time, bullets were still flying around him. Clouds of dust swirled, kicked up by the hooves of the fear-maddened horses. It was utter chaos in the street and on the boardwalk, as gun battles often were.

  From the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Monte Carson kneeling behind a rain barrel and firing at the outlaws. One of the bank robbers, a tall, lanky man with fair hair under a thumbed-back hat, clutched at his middle and folded up as one of Monte’s bullets punched into his belly.

  Smoke had two rounds left in his Colt, since he always carried the gun with the hammer resting on an empty chamber unless he knew he was about to encounter trouble. He fired again and saw one of the outlaws go spinning off his feet as the bullet tore through his thigh.

  Smoke shifted his aim and fired his last shot. It went into the chest of the man whose shoulder he had broken with a bullet a few seconds earlier. The man dropped his revolver, staggered a few steps to the side, and pitched off the boardwalk to land on his face in the street.

  That left two of the outlaws on their feet, including the man with the sawed-off. He had broken the weapon open and was trying frantically to thumb more shells into it.

  The remaining outlaw had a canvas bag clutched in his left hand and a Colt in his right. He threw a couple of shots at Smoke and lunged toward the horses, obviously hoping to grab one of them and make a getaway.

  Smoke had to dive forward onto his belly to avoid the shots as the slugs whipped through the air above his head. He looked up and saw that the man had gotten hold of a horse and was trying to swing up into the saddle.

  Smoke surged up onto his feet and jammed his empty Colt back in its holster as he went after the man trying to escape. With a diving tackle, he crashed into the outlaw and drove him away from the horse and off his feet. Both men sprawled in the dusty street as iron-shod hooves danced perilously close to their heads. Greenbacks flew from the canvas bag as it hit the ground.

  The bank robber lashed out in desperation at Smoke, who avoided the first blow, but then caught a knobby fist on the jaw. He threw a punch of his own, hooking his right into the man’s belly. The man gasped and tried to lift his knee into Smoke’s groin, but Smoke twisted aside and took the blow on his thigh. He swung his left and landed it solidly on the man’s nose. Blood spurted hotly across Smoke’s knuckles.

  The man arched his back and threw Smoke off. As Smoke rolled away, the outlaw grabbed up the gun he had dropped and aimed it at Smoke.

  A shot blasted from the boardwalk, and the man crumpled, dropping the gun again. Smoke glanced over and saw Monte Carson lowering his revolver after the shot that had probably saved Smoke’s life.

  But that still left the shotgunner, who had snapped his weapon closed again and now swung it toward Smoke and Monte. Smoke’s Colt was empty, and so was the sheriff’s, as became evident when Monte jerked the trigger and the hammer fell with a harmless click. Smoke and Monte were close enough together that the outlaw might be able to cut them both down if he fired both barrels.

  “You damn meddlin’ sons o’ bitches!” the outlaw roared as he brought his sawed-off to bear.

  Before he could jerk the triggers, his head seemed to explode in a gory spray of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter. The scattergun fell unfired from his nerveless fingers, and his body dropped to the ground right behind it.

  Unsure of what had happened, Smoke looked along the street and saw two men sitting on horseback a couple of blocks away. One of them, a lean, white-bearded figure in buckskins and a broad-brimmed felt hat, lowered a Sharps carbine from the barrel of which curled a tendril of powder smoke.

  The old-timer hitched his horse forward, rode up to Smoke, and grinned as he said, “You just can’t stay outta trouble for any time at all, can you, boy?”

  Chapter Three

  “Preacher!” Smoke exclaimed. “You sure know how to show up at the right time.”

  “Always have,” Preacher said, still grinning. “Might should’ve showed up a few minutes earlier, though, since you only left one of the varmints for me to kill. Heard the shots as we was ridin’ in. Sounded like a right smart fracas. How come you was killin’ ’em?”

  “They tried to rob the bank,” Smoke explained.

  Preacher nodded.

  “Thought it might’ve been somethin’ like that when I saw all them greenbacks scattered around.”

  Preacher’s companion galloped up, threw himself out of the saddle, bounded onto the boardwalk, and swung a fist that crashed into the jaw of the lone surviving outlaw, who had pulled himself up onto his knees and was trying to lift his gun with a trembling hand. The young owlhoot went over backwards, knocked cold by the powerful blow.

  “While you two were flapping your gums, that varmint was about to shoot Preacher in the back,” Matt Jensen said, looking exasperated.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Preacher replied. “I figured you’d take care of him, Matt.”

  With a shake of his head, Matt asked, “What if I hadn’t been paying attention?”

  “I knew you would be,” Preacher said simply. “Smoke and me taught you well enough.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s true,” Matt said with a shrug.

  He was the tallest of the three men, a fair-haired, handsome youngster in a black Stetson and a faded blue bib-front shirt. Most women naturally took a liking to Matt Jensen, and he returned the feeling.

  With troublemakers, it was different. Matt carried a holstered Colt .44 double-action revolver on his right hip, and a Bowie knife was sheathed on his left. He didn’t hesitate to use the weapons when he needed to, and he was almost as fast and deadly with a gun as his adopted older brother Smoke.

  As Smoke thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he said, “We’re much obliged to both of you for your help, aren’t we, Monte?”

  “We sure are,” Big Rock’s sheriff agreed. He was reloading, too. As he snapped the cylinder of his gun closed, he went on, “I’d better check on the rest of those varmints and make sure they’re all dead. Gonna be wounded in the bank who need tending to as well, I’ll bet.”

  “Why don’t you go see about that?” Smoke suggested. “Preacher and Matt and I will take care of the chores out here.”

  Monte nodded and said, “Thanks.” He hurried into the bank, which was ominously quiet.

  Smoke and Matt went quickly from body to body, checking for signs of life. The young outlaw Matt had knocked out was the only one of the bank robbers still alive. He was wounded in the left leg and had lost quite a bit of blood, but Smoke thought he would probably live.

  He rolled the unconscious outlaw onto his belly, pulled the man’s arms behind his back, and used the outlaw’s own belt to lash his wrists together for the time being. That way if he came to, he wouldn’t be able to cause a problem.

  Dr. Hiram Simpson, the local sawbones, came running from his office and joined several other townspeople in crowding into the bank to see what they could do to help. Monte Carson emerged from the building a few minutes later, his features pale and drawn.

  “It’s pretty bad in there,” he told Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “Jasper Davenport, who just took over running the bank, is dead. Didn’t even make it in the job for a month before those blasted outlaws gunned him down. Mitchell Byrd’s dead, too, and Elaine Harris is wounded. Got a dead outlaw in there with most of his face shot off. I reckon that’s probably what started the battle. Appears that Mitch got his hands on a gun and shot the desperado.”

  Smoke trusted Monte’s assessment of the situation. He asked, “Does it look like Miz Harris will make it?”

  “The doc didn’t say,” Monte replied with a shake of his head.

  Smoke pointed a thumb at the unconscious outlaw.

  “Well, when he’s through in there, this fella’s going to need some attention. Matt and I can go a
head and haul him over to the jail for you if you want, though.”

  Monte nodded and said, “That’d sure be giving me a hand. I’m obliged to you boys.”

  “Get his feet, Matt,” Smoke said.

  Smoke and Matt were both very strong, so they didn’t have any trouble lifting the bank robber and toting him down the street to the sturdy building that housed Monte Carson’s office and Big Rock’s jail. All the cells were empty at the moment, so they carried the man into the one nearest the cell block door and placed him on the bunk. As soon as they had stepped out, Monte swung the barred door shut, closing it solidly.

  Preacher had followed them into the sheriff’s office.

  “Beats me why you don’t just let the rapscallion bleed to death,” he commented when Smoke, Matt, and Monte left the cell block. “Saves the bother and expense of a trial and a hangin’.”

  “That’s not the way the law works, Preacher,” Monte said. “It’s mighty good to see you again, by the way. You, too, Matt.”

  “It’s good to be here,” Matt said. “It’s been too long since the three of us have gotten together.”

  Monte asked, “You fellas want some coffee?”

  “I figure we’ll go over to the café and have some lunch before we head out to Sugarloaf,” Smoke said. “So no thanks to the coffee, but we’re obliged for the offer. Were you able to find out what happened inside the bank, Monte?”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “There were a couple of customers who didn’t get hit when the bullets started flying, and the other teller, Fred Reeves, was all right, too. They all hit the dirt, or the floor, rather, when the shooting started. Seems the outlaw who was still inside the bank tried to molest Mrs. Harris. Mitch Byrd had a Colt Lightning on the shelf under his counter. He grabbed it and shot the owlhoot, but that set off the others. I reckon it’s only pure luck that it wasn’t an even bigger massacre in there.”

  Smoke shook his head regretfully.

  “It’s too bad we weren’t able to save more of the citizens,” he said. “But at least the gang didn’t get away.”

  “Did you recognize any of the bank robbers, Monte?” Matt asked.

  “A couple of them looked familiar to me,” the lawman said. “I must’ve seen their pictures on reward dodgers. I’ve got a big pile of those posters in the desk. I’ll go through them later and see if I can match up any names with the faces. Could be you and Preacher have some rewards coming, Smoke.”

  The old mountain man snorted disdainfully.

  “I don’t care about no dadblamed ree-ward,” he said. “I’ve had fortunes come an’ go through my fingers so many times over the years, money don’t mean nothin’ to me as long as I’ve got enough for a meal and a snort o’ whiskey now and then.”

  “And Sugarloaf’s doing just fine,” Smoke put in, “turning a profit every year and I expect that to keep up as long as we don’t have a bad drought. Maybe Matt should claim the rewards.”

  “Me?” Matt exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything except wallop one of them.”

  “Those wanted posters all say dead or alive,” Monte pointed out. “You ought to at least get paid for the one you laid out, Matt. I’ll look into it.”

  “All right,” Matt said, “but I didn’t do it for the money. I was just trying to save Preacher’s scrawny old hide.”

  “I told you, I knowed he was back there—”

  Smoke cut in on the old-timer’s protest.

  “Come on, let’s get something to eat, and then we’ll head for the ranch.”

  They were about to leave the sheriff’s office when the door opened and Dr. Simpson came in.

  Smoke paused long enough to ask, “How’s Miz Harris doing, Doc?”

  “I think there’s a good chance she’ll pull through,” Simpson replied. “She was wounded in the arm and the hip. The arm wound should heal cleanly. The injury to her hip may result in her having a permanent limp. It’s too soon to say. She’s been taken down to my house, and my nurse is looking after her.” The sawbones turned to Monte Carson. “I was told you have a wounded prisoner here, Sheriff.”

  “Sure do,” Monte agreed. “I’ll take you back to his cell.” He raised a hand in farewell to Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “See you boys later.”

  When they were on the boardwalk outside, Matt chuckled and said, “Sheriff Carson must be having trouble with his eyes if he called you a boy, Preacher.”

  “I reckon so,” the old mountain man agreed, “since he didn’t notice you was a snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears kid, neither.”

  Smoke grinned and said, “Come on, you two. You can continue this squabble after we’ve had a surroundin’.”

  They walked across the street to the café. A crowd was still gathered around the bank. Smoke supposed that the surviving teller was running things for now.

  The café was doing a brisk business since it was the middle of the day, and most of the people in there were talking excitedly about the attempted bank robbery and the resulting shoot-out.

  Smoke ignored the curious looks the townspeople cast at him and his companions. He had long since gotten used to being gawked at, especially when some trouble had broken out and he’d been in the middle of it.

  The three of them sat at a table covered with a blue-checked cloth and ordered meals consisting of roast beef, potatoes, greens, biscuits, and deep dish apple pie.

  “And keep the coffee comin’,” Preacher told the smiling waitress, who promised to do so.

  “How’s Sally doing?” Matt asked while they were waiting for their food.

  “She’s fine,” Smoke said. “Anxious to see you fellas again, I expect.”

  Preacher said, “How about them hands of your’n?”

  “Cal and Pearlie?” Smoke grinned. “As quarrelsome as ever. They wouldn’t know what to do if they weren’t squabbling.”

  In that respect, Smoke’s foreman Pearlie and the young ranch hand Calvin Woods reminded him of a couple of other hombres, namely Preacher and Matt.

  “We saw something interesting while we were riding up here,” Matt said. “Did you know there’s a wagon train headed in this direction, Smoke?”

  The grin on Smoke’s face was replaced by a puzzled expression.

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said.

  “I saw dozens of wagon trains when I was a younger man,” Preacher said. “Maybe a hundred or more. Traveled with a few of ’em, too. Them pilgrims wasn’t always the smartest folks when it came to gettin’ along on the frontier, but they was determined to build new lives for themselves, I’ll give ’em that much. Shoot, I guess ever’body was a greenhorn once.”

  Matt said, “I thought you didn’t like all the immigrants who moved west. You said they civilized places too much and changed everything from the way it was back in the Shining Times.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Preacher said. “They did, and I ain’t over-fond of that so-called civilization they brung with ’em. But you can’t stop things from changin’. It’ll happen while you ain’t even lookin’.”

  Smoke asked, “You didn’t talk to the people with the wagon train, did you?”

  “Nope,” Preacher said. “We just waved at ’em and went on our way.”

  Matt said, “Why do you ask, Smoke?”

  With a shrug, Smoke replied, “I was just curious where they’re bound, that’s all. I’m not aware of any land around here being opened recently for settlement.”

  Some of the Sugarloaf stock grazed on open range, but Smoke knew that concept was dying out in the West. More and more land was being claimed officially, instead of just being there for anybody who wanted to use it. The day was coming, he knew, when cattlemen would have to file claims for the range they were using and fence it in. He didn’t like the thought of it, but like Preacher said, things changed whether a fella wanted them to or not.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that wagon train,” Matt said. “Chances are it’s headed for somewhere north of here. Wyoming, maybe, o
r even Montana.”

  “You’re probably right,” Smoke said. He saw the waitress carrying a tray loaded down with food toward their table and put the subject out of his thoughts with the casual comment, “Anyway, those immigrants don’t have anything to do with us.”

  Chapter Four

  “How much further is it, Friedrich?” the woman on the wagon seat asked the man who rode alongside the vehicle on a fine black stallion. “Will we reach this place Wyoming soon?”

  Baron Friedrich von Hoffman smiled tolerantly at his young cousin Erica. Some of the American states were larger than their entire homeland, and Erica had trouble understanding the vast distances involved in traveling across this country.

  “It will be another week at least, probably more, before we arrive at our destination,” von Hoffman told her. “We’re still in the American state called Colorado.”

  Erica shook her head in dismay. She was a beautiful young woman in her early twenties, with long, straight blond hair so pale it was almost white. At the moment, her hair was gathered into a thick braid that hung down her back under the sunbonnet she wore. She was dressed like an American immigrant woman, and von Hoffman knew that she didn’t like it.

  At least the men were able to dress more like they would have back in Germany if they were to go out hunting on their estates, in boots and riding breeches and plain shirts. Von Hoffman had a broad-brimmed brown hat on his head, and an American repeating rifle was in the saddle sheath under his right thigh.

  No one would ever mistake him for a cowboy, but he didn’t look completely out of place here.

  The baron had the tall, lean, rangy body of an aristocrat who had trained with the saber at Heidelberg. He had served in the Prussian army and was an excellent shot with both rifle and handgun. In his mid-thirties, he had a dark, hawklike face. A neatly trimmed mustache adorned his upper lip.

  He was the unquestioned leader of this wagon train. Having visited the United States many times in the past on hunting expeditions, he had decided that he would dispense with the services of a guide and wagonmaster and take charge of the journey himself.