The Jensen Brand Read online

  “This is bad,” Molly said.

  “One of those feelings you get again?”

  She frowned. “Don’t make fun of them, Nick. I’ve always been able to tell when something bad was about to happen.”

  “I’m not making fun of them,” Creighton said. “Hell, I have hunches, too.”

  “This is more than just a hunch, though. It’s like somebody’s talking to me.”

  Creighton sometimes thought she really was a little touched in the head, that maybe she actually heard voices that weren’t there. She’d had a hard life before their trails crossed, and it hadn’t always been pleasant since then. That was enough to make a person not quite right.

  Or maybe it was all true and she really did have some sort of power. Creighton didn’t know and couldn’t see that it really mattered one way or the other.

  “It’s Blue,” she said.

  Creighton’s head jerked toward her again. “Hell, no. The boy’s all right. He’s got to be.”

  “He and the others didn’t come back last night when you expected them.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything’s happened to him. The cattle could have stampeded after Blue and the boys drove them away from Jensen’s ranch. They could still be down there, trying to gather them up.”

  Molly just looked at him like he was a little boy whistling past a graveyard. Creighton bit back a curse and waited to see what was going to happen.

  He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later he saw a commotion at the canyon mouth, then the men broke apart and let two more men and a horse enter the basin. Creighton’s breath hissed between his teeth as he inhaled sharply. One of the men was leading a horse while the other guard walked alongside and braced the rider in the saddle.

  The horse was a paint pony just like the one Blue rode.

  No, it was the one Blue rode, Creighton realized, and he felt a cold, hollow spot form in his belly as the certainty of who the rider was sunk in on him. “No.”

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” Molly said.

  His head jerked toward her again as his lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. Rage boiled up inside him, and he wanted to smash his fist in the middle of her face.

  Then he brought the murderous fury under control. Molly might have predicted it, but she hadn’t caused it. Whatever had happened to Blue, it wasn’t her fault.

  As the men with the paint pony came closer, Creighton recognized them as Turk Sanford and Muddy Malone. They’d been standing guard all the way out at the other end of the canyon. He figured Blue had made it that far on his own, and they had brought him the rest of the way.

  Creighton walked out to meet them, revealing how he limped heavily on his left leg. The hobbled gait made him rock and forth as he walked. He knew it probably looked comical to his men, but none of them ever said anything about it. They knew better.

  Each awkward step reminded him of Smoke Jensen and the blood debt owed to him.

  That blood debt had just grown larger, Creighton thought as he swallowed hard. He could see Blue’s pale, pain-wracked face, as well as the dark blood on the youngster’s shirt.

  It had never occurred to him not to send his brother out on jobs like the one the previous night. One day Blue might be running the gang, and he had to know how things were done. Anyway, he had been in plenty of shooting scrapes and come out of them all right. He knew how to take care of himself. Creighton had figured that would continue.

  From the looks of it, though, Blue’s luck had run out.

  “Boss, I’m sorry!” Turk called when they were close enough. “It’s Blue!”

  “I can see that, you damn fool.” Creighton waved them on. “Take him to the cabin!” In a mixture of hope and despair, he added, “Maybe Molly can do something for him.”

  When Turk led the paint past him, Creighton saw the location of the wound and how much blood had soaked into Blue’s shirt. Any hope he might have had disappeared. Blue was shot in the belly. Nobody recovered from a wound like that without immediate medical attention, and even then such a recovery was mighty rare.

  Still feeling cold and empty inside, Creighton limped after the pony.

  Molly was waiting at the cabin. “All of you men get hold of him and bring him inside. Be careful with him.”

  Four men lifted Blue down from the saddle and carried him into the cabin. Following Molly’s commands, they lowered him onto the room’s single bunk. His head lolled loosely on his neck. He looked dead, but Creighton could hear and see that he was still breathing, although pretty raggedly.

  “I need hot water,” Molly said. “You—Muddy—you stay and help me. The rest of you go back outside.”

  “He’s my brother, damn it,” Creighton said.

  “And that’s why you’re too upset to be of any use to me. He probably doesn’t have a chance, but we’re not letting him go without a fight.”

  A fierce note had entered Molly’s voice as she spoke, and Creighton had a pretty good idea why. He had come back to the cabin one night and found Blue there, grunting and thrusting on top of Molly. Any of his other men, he would have put a bullet in their heads—well, maybe not Lupe—but he couldn’t do that to Blue. A whore was a whore and a brother was a brother, he had told himself, then said to hell with it and went away for a while. As far as he knew, they never had any idea he’d been there.

  Maybe they had been together from time to time since then. Creighton wasn’t sure. But he knew Molly was fond of the kid, and she would do her best to save him, even though the attempt was almost certainly futile.

  Why wouldn’t he have shot Lupe if he’d been the one with Molly? Lupe was a good segundo.

  Outside again, Creighton asked Turk, “What happened?”

  “Muddy and me were standing guard just like we were supposed to, Nick, when we saw Blue’s pony come over that ridge in front of the canyon mouth. Looked like he was barely hanging on, and he fell off when the horse started down the slope. When we saw who it was, we went out to help him.”

  “You mean you abandoned your post and left the entrance to the canyon wide open.” Creighton’s voice had a knife’s edge to it.

  Visibly nervous, Turk said, “We talked about that, boss, we really did. I stayed at the canyon mouth while Muddy checked on him. When he was sure it was Blue, and that he was still alive, I went to give Muddy a hand. We were pretty sure by then it wasn’t a trick or a trap.”

  “Pretty sure,” Herrera repeated with an undertone of menace of his own.

  Anger made Turk’s face flush slightly. “It was Nick’s little brother lyin’ out there. We couldn’t just leave him, no matter what our orders were. I don’t reckon you would have, either, Lupe.”

  Creighton waved away Turk’s protests. “Forget it. You were in a bad spot, Turk. I know that.”

  “When we got to the first signal fire, we told the fella there to go on out to the canyon mouth and keep his eyes open as soon as he lit the blaze,” Turk said. “So it’s not like the entrance was completely unguarded for long.”

  “I said forget it.”

  “All right, boss. Thanks.”

  Creighton looked around the basin. Things appeared to be getting back to normal. Men were lounging in front of their tents, cleaning guns, drinking, playing cards. On the other side of the basin, a pole fence with a gate closed off part of the area keeping the stolen stock before they drove it to an outlaws’ rendezvous where shady buyers took the cattle off their hands.

  That pasture was empty . . but it should have had some of Smoke Jensen’s cattle in it.

  And Blue should have been laughing and joking about how they’d rustled that stock from the Sugarloaf, instead of fighting for every breath.

  From the cabin doorway, Molly said, “You’d better come in here, Nick.”

  The grim tone of her voice and the frozen set of her face when Creighton turned to look at her told him everything he needed to know. She moved aside so he could limp into the cabin.

  Muddy stood to one side an
d shook his head. “Boss, I’m sure sorry—”

  “Get out,” Creighton said.

  Muddy hastened to follow the command.

  Creighton approached the head of the bunk.

  Molly stood at the foot. She said quietly, “I cleaned away some of the blood, enough to see that there was nothing I could do.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see how. He was conscious a minute ago, but he may have slipped away again.”

  Creighton dropped to a knee beside the bunk. That wasn’t easy with his stiff left leg, but he did the best he could. He gripped Blue’s shoulder hard.

  The boy’s eyelids fluttered at the touch and after a few seconds stayed open. “N-Nick . . . ?” he whispered.

  “I’m right here, little brother. You just take it easy. You’re going to be all right.” He knew that was a lie.

  So did Molly. Blue probably did, too. But it was what was said at a time like that.

  “Nick, I . . . I’m sorry. We didn’t get those cows . . . from the Sugarloaf. Somebody . . . jumped us. Must’ve been . . . Jensen and his men.”

  “Yeah, bound to be,” Creighton said. “What happened to the other boys?”

  “Don’t . . . know . . . Never saw ’em . . . after the shootin’ started . . . but I reckon . . . they never made it out.”

  “Don’t worry. Just that much more Jensen has to answer for. We’ll settle the score for them.”

  “And . . . for me,” Blue said.

  “You’re going to be fine—”

  “I . . . know better. Nick, is . . . is Molly here? I can’t see her . . .”

  “I’m here, Blue.” She leaned down and rested a hand on his leg.

  “You take . . . good care o’ her, Nick. She’s . . . a fine lady.”

  A tear welled from each eye to roll down Molly’s cheeks. More than likely, she hadn’t been called a lady very often, and probably no one had ever meant it as much as Blue.

  Blue swallowed and started to breathe harder. “Nick, I’m scared. I can’t see nothin’ anymore.” He lifted his head a little. “I can’t—” His head fell back and the air emptied from his lungs in a rattling sigh. His eyes were still open, but they weren’t seeing anything anymore.

  Creighton’s hand tightened on his brother’s shoulder even though Blue couldn’t feel it. “I’ll make Jensen pay, Blue,” he promised. “Him and all the rest on that damned ranch. I’ll wipe Smoke Jensen and everyone he loves off the face of the earth!”

  CHAPTER 7

  The westbound train was supposed to roll into Big Rock at 10:17 in the morning. Trains were never early, but Sally wanted to be in town by 9:30 anyway, so she climbed onto the wagon seat and took up the reins herself in plenty of time to arrive by then. She could handle a team as well as or better than most men, Smoke thought as he swung up into the saddle and nudged his horse alongside the wagon. He had tied a second mount to the back of the wagon for Louis.

  “You’re never prettier than when you’re happy like this,” Smoke said to his wife.

  “How can I not be happy? My children are coming home, and this time they’re going to be staying!” She grew more serious. “I just hope Louis’s health doesn’t force him to return to Europe later on, despite his intentions.”

  “Doctors are getting better all over, including here in the States,” Smoke said. “If he needs help, maybe he can just go to Denver, or back to Philadelphia or Boston if necessary. Even that’s a lot closer than France!”

  Of course, it could be that breathing in all the clean Colorado air might be as much of a restorative as anything else, he thought. Fresh air and hard work couldn’t cure everything, but they sure never hurt.

  The previous night had passed quietly on the Sugarloaf. After the battle with the rustlers, Smoke hadn’t expected another raid so soon, although one could never tell what owlhoots might do. Smoke wasn’t going to let his guard down. For more than thirty years, he had been ready for trouble, and he didn’t see any point in changing that attitude.

  It was a beautiful morning with huge white clouds floating over the mountains to the west and just a hint of coolness in the air in the valley. Smoke and Sally didn’t talk much on their way into the settlement. They had been together for so long, and their love for each other was so deep, that quiet companionship was normal.

  They reached Big Rock in plenty of time, as Smoke had figured they would.

  Sally brought the wagon to a halt in front of the train station. “I’m going to walk back up to the dress shop,” she informed Smoke as he dismounted and tied his horse to one of the station’s hitch rails. “I want to see what Mrs. Bannister has. Denise might want some new outfits.”

  “That’s a fine idea,” Smoke said. “I see Monte over there at the hardware store, so I’ll go talk to him.”

  They went their separate ways for the moment. Smoke stepped up on the boardwalk on the opposite side of the street from Sally and ambled along to Reese’s Hardware, where Sheriff Monte Carson was looking at a plow sitting on the walk.

  “Going to turn in your badge and take up farming, Monte?” Smoke asked with a smile on his face.

  “Not hardly,” the lawman said. “I’m too old to be wrestling a plow all day. Never did care much for the idea of farming. That’s why I, uh, took up other occupations.”

  “Went on the owlhoot, you mean.”

  “I made some bad decisions in my life,” Monte allowed. “Backing your play all those years ago wasn’t one of ’em. Never would’ve had this job and my wife if I hadn’t.” He slapped the plow handle. “No, this just made me think of a run-in I had yesterday with Arno and Haystack Gunderson.”

  Smoke let out a low whistle. “Those two were at it again?”

  “Yeah, they tangled over some redheaded calico cat and busted up the Brown Dirt Cowboy a little. When I was trying to bust them up, they accidentally knocked me down—and then Haystack fell on me!”

  Smoke winced. “That must’ve hurt.”

  “My ribs are still a little sore today,” Monte said with a rueful smile. “Luckily, I had some help handling those two Scandahoovian buffaloes.”

  “Help from your deputies?” Smoke knew that Monte was relying more and more on his assistants as age began to catch up with him. Eventually, Big Rock would have to have a new sheriff . . . but not just yet, Smoke thought.

  “No, that fella over there pitched in to give me a hand.” Monte nodded to someone across the street.

  Smoke looked in that direction and saw a mild-looking young man in a brown buckskin shirt and a brown hat walking toward the depot. As it happened, the man met Sally going the other way just as Smoke looked in that direction. He smiled, reached up and tugged his hat brim, and nodded. Sally returned the smile and the nod and said something to him. He replied to her and moved on. The encounter was brief but apparently pleasant.

  “Stranger in town, isn’t he?” Smoke said.

  “Yeah. I think he just rode in yesterday. Name is Brice Rogers. Mean anything to you?”

  Smoke thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t reckon it does. Should it?”

  “I don’t know of any reason why it should,” Monte said.

  That was kind of an odd thing to say, Smoke thought, but Monte didn’t offer an explanation and Smoke didn’t press him for one.

  He shrugged. “I thought I’d go up to Longmont’s and get a cup of coffee. Want to come along?”

  “That sounds good. Won’t find a better cup of coffee in Big Rock than at Longmont’s.” As the two men started along the boardwalk, Monte went on. “What brings you and Sally to town this morning, Smoke? I saw her drive in with the wagon.”

  Smoke grinned. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard, the way you keep your ear to the ground. Louis Arthur and Denise Nicole are coming home today.”

  “The twins? You don’t say! That’s good news. Coming for a visit, are they?”

  “Actually, according to the telegram we got, they’
re going to be staying.”

  “Well, what do you know,” Monte said. “That’s not good news, Smoke, it’s great news. Those two are as fine a pair of kids as anybody could ever want.” Monte and his wife had no children themselves, but they had been an unofficial aunt and uncle to Smoke and Sally’s youngsters when Louis and Denise were little . . . before they’d gone to Europe. “How’s Louis’s health these days?”

  “Good as far as we know,” Smoke said. “I’d like for him to be able to take over the ranch one of these days. I don’t know if he’ll ever be up to that, though.”

  “Just have to wait and see, I reckon. They’re on the train coming in this morning?”

  “That’s what the telegram said.”

  They turned in at Longmont’s Saloon. The place was more than just a drinking and gambling establishment. It was also one of the finest restaurants in Big Rock, maybe the finest. And as Monte had said, the coffee couldn’t be beat. Louis Longmont, with his Cajun heritage, saw to that.

  The dapper gambler, gunman, and saloonkeeper was sitting at one of the tables in the rear of the big room, sorting through some papers. In the middle of the morning, the saloon wasn’t busy, so he had no trouble spotting Smoke and Monte when they came in. A gesture of his elegant hand motioned for them to join him.

  Smoke looked over at the bar and told the red-jacketed man behind it, “Coffee for the sheriff and me, Stewart.”

  “Coming right up, Smoke,” the bartender replied.

  Louis already had a cup sitting on the table. He took a sip from it as Smoke and Monte pulled out chairs. “Good morning, gentlemen. Smoke, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you. How are you?”

  “Doing fine. Better today, because your namesake is supposed to be on this morning’s train, along with his sister.”

  Longmont’s eyebrows rose. “The children are coming home? Excellent news, my friend. I’ll be glad to see them again. I’m sure they’ve grown into fine young people by now.”

  “I hope so,” Smoke said as the bartender placed steaming cups of coffee in front of him and Monte.

  “How could they have done anything else, with parents like you and Sally?” Longmont said.