An Arizona Christmas Read online

  The letter explained that Smoke and his wife Sally were going to be making a trip to Arizona for Christmas and were planning to get together with Matt and Luke in Tucson, if word reached them in time and there was no other reason they couldn’t make it. Smoke wanted Preacher to come, too, if he could.

  Preacher didn’t see why he couldn’t. Yeah, he was getting on up in age, but he was still spry enough and could take care of himself. He’d been drifting for most of seven decades and didn’t plan to stop any time soon.

  True, he couldn’t fork a horse and stay in the saddle for days on end like he once could, but trains and stagecoaches would take a fellow almost anywhere he wanted to go.

  At the moment, Preacher wanted to go to the Buckhorn Saloon . . . so that was where he was headed.

  “Hey, old-timer.” The soft-voiced call came from the mouth of an alley about halfway between the Menger Hotel and the Buckhorn. Preacher paused and looked in that direction. He couldn’t spot whoever had called to him.

  “I need some help,” the unseen man continued. “Some sons o’ bitches jumped me . . . beat me up . . . I’m in bad shape here.”

  “I’ll go find one o’ them new-fangled policemen they got here now,” Preacher said.

  “No time . . . for that . . . You gotta . . . help me . . .”

  Preacher—a tall, lean man in boots, denim trousers, buckskin shirt, and a battered old brown hat—walked toward the alley. He looked scrawny at first glance, but that was because the whipcord strength in his body wasn’t apparent. His face had a permanent dark tan and a weathered, slightly squinty look. He was clean-shaven, but silvery stubble dotted his angular jaw.

  “What is it you want from me?” he asked as he entered the alley. His steps echoed from the building walls looming on both sides. “I ain’t no damn sawbones. If you’re hurt, you need to see a doctor to patch you up.”

  “You can help me,” the man said, closer now. “I reckon all the money you’ve got on you would fix me right up.”

  Two burly shapes appeared out of the shadows in front of Preacher. He heard the soft scrape of boot leather on paving stones behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see that two more men had closed in from that direction. The four men had Preacher pinned between them.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You fellas are fixin’ to rob me?”

  “That’s right, you old fool,” said the man who had lured him into the alley. “Are you soft in the head or something?”

  “Are you gonna hurt me?”

  “Afraid, are you, Gramps?”

  Ugly laughter came from a couple of the men.

  “Maybe you should be. We’re gonna give you a good beatin’ so you can’t get up and start hollerin’ for help any time soon. At your age, you decrepit old bastard, it might just be too much for you. You might not ever wake up.”

  “I figured that might be what you had in mind,” Preacher said. “Gives me a good reason for what I’m about to do, so I can tell the law later.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the second man in front of him. “What the hell’s he—”

  Preacher reached behind him and pulled out the. 38 caliber Colt Double Action Lightning revolver he had tucked behind his belt at the small of his back and concealed by the buckskin shirt hanging over it. Small enough, the Lightning was easy to carry that way, and while Preacher preferred a .44 or .45, the. 38 was potent enough for close-range work.

  “Look out!” one of the men behind him cried. “He’s got a—”

  The gun’s roar drowned out anything else he might have been saying. Flame spurted from the revolver’s muzzle as Preacher squeezed the trigger again. The two shots were so close together they almost sounded like one, but there was just enough of a gap between them that Preacher had been able to shift his aim and put one slug apiece in the two men in front of him.

  Boot soles slapped the pavement behind him as the other two men tried to rush him. Preacher whirled and darted to one side of the alley. Muzzle flame licked from the Lightning a third time. One of the men cried out, stumbled, and fell to his knees.

  “You old bastard!” the fourth would-be robber yelled. He had a club of some sort in his hand and swung it at Preacher’s head.

  Preacher ducked to let the bludgeon sweep over him with a faint whoosh. He thrust his arm out, jabbed the Lightning’s barrel against the man’s belly, and pulled the trigger twice more. Flesh muffled the booming sound of the shots.

  The man screamed, reeled back, doubled over, and collapsed. “You . . . you shot me!” he cried.

  “And I’ll sure as hell do it again, too, if you don’t get down on your belly and stay there without movin’ until the law gets here.” Preacher pulled back the Lightning’s hammer so it made a grim, metallic cocking sound.

  The thief yelled, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” and sprawled facedown in the muck of the alley.

  No point in explaining to the fella that he couldn’t shoot, Preacher thought. Not without reloading.

  The Lightning was empty.

  But the no-good skunk who’d been bent on robbing and probably beating to death an old man didn’t know that.

  He hadn’t known that some old-timers still had all their teeth . . . and knew how to use them, too.

  * * *

  San Antonio de Bexar had always been a mite on the wild and woolly side, but even so, five gunshots and a bunch of screaming and yelling right downtown, just a few yards from the fancy Menger Hotel, was plenty to bring the law running. They showed up just a few minutes later, four uniformed policemen toting riot guns.

  One of them had a bull’s-eye lantern, too. He shone its light down the alley, revealing some scrawny old geezer pointing a gun at another man lying on the filthy pavement while three other gents sprawled around in various stages of bloody distress.

  “Drop that gun, Grandpa!” one of the officers shouted.

  “No, sir,” Preacher said. “This here’s a fine pistol, and I ain’t gonna throw it down and maybe damage it. Howsomever, I will set it on the ground and back off so one of you fellas can come get it. It’s empty, anyway.”

  “Empty?” the man on the ground gasped.

  “Hell, yes. No man with any sense ’d tote an iron with the hammer restin’ on a live round. Didn’t your mama ever teach you that?” Preacher bent over, placed the revolver on the ground out of the robber’s reach, then backed off a couple steps, holding his hands out in plain sight. He didn’t know how cool-nerved those officers were, and since they all had shotguns, he didn’t want them getting antsy. Too easy to tickle a trigger a little too much and touch off one of those loads of buckshot.

  “You there,” an officer said to the thief as he advanced along the alley, “stand up.”

  “I . . . I dunno if I can. I’m shot!”

  “Well, you’d better be able to. I want you against the wall over there while we’re sorting this out.” The man snorted. “Sounded like Santa Anna had come back to town and started the war all over again!”

  “You must not be from around here,” Preacher said, “or you wouldn’t joke about it.”

  Groaning, the wounded man struggled to his feet, then lurched over against the closest wall and leaned against it with his face toward the bricks and his hands resting on them to hold him up. One of the policemen covered him while the others used the lantern light to check on the three men lying in the alley.

  The two Preacher had shot in the chest were dead. Even in near-darkness, the old mountain man had planted his slugs in their hearts.

  “This one’s still alive, but he’d better hope he won’t be for much longer, gut-shot the way he is,” was the report on the fourth robber. “On the other hand, he seems to have passed out already, so I guess he’s beyond hurting.”

  “What happened here?” one of the officers asked Preacher.

  “One o’ the varmints pretended to be hurt to lure me in here, and then they figured on robbin’ me. They said they was gonna beat me to death so I couldn’
t raise the alarm.”

  “That’s a lie!” The exclamation came from the man leaning against the wall. “My friends and I were just walkin’ along this alley, usin’ it as a shortcut, you know, when this crazy old coot showed up and started shooting at us!”

  Preacher let out a contemptuous snort. “Why in blazes would I do that?”

  “He’s crazy, I tell you! That’s why he did it!”

  “I might believe you, Miller, if I hadn’t recognized you and these other three,” said the officer with the lantern. “You’ve all been in and out of prison for robbery, assault, and attempted murder. You’re probably to blame for a good number of the dead bodies we’ve found in alleys like this. We’ve just never been able to catch you at it . . . until now.” The officer turned to Preacher. “What’s your name, mister?”

  “They call me Preacher.”

  “You’re a reverend?”

  Preacher snorted again. “Not hardly. It’s a long story that goes back a hell of a long way. Has to do with a bunch o’ Blackfeet who figured on burnin’ me at the stake. I’ve done told it so many times it wearies me to go through it again, it purely does.”

  “Well, never mind,” the officer said. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “I’m from all over. Stayin’ at the Crockett Hotel right now.”

  “You plan on leaving town any time soon?”

  “Fact of the matter is, I was fixin’ to take a trip on out Arizona way. Stop by in Colorado first, though, and meet up with some friends o’ mine.”

  “We’ll need you to stay around for the inquest on the two you killed.”

  A grotesque, choking rattle sounded from the man Preacher had shot in the belly.

  The police officer grunted and went on. “Make that the three men you killed, since that gent just breathed his last.”

  “I reckon I can hang around for a few days,” Preacher said. “Best make it quick, though. I’m too old and feeble to linger in one place any longer ’n necessary.”

  “Yeah, about as old and feeble as a mountain lion, from the looks of it,” said one of the other officers. “Where are you headed right now?”

  “Soon’s you fellas give me my gun back so I can reload, I’m goin’ on over to the Buckhorn and have me a drink. Whiskey’s the best preservative for a fella’s innards, you know.”

  The one who seemed to be in charge picked up the Lightning, checked it in the lantern’s glow, and then handed it back to the old mountain man. “San Antonio’s a modern city now. We frown on people packing guns. I have a hunch you’re not going to shoot anybody accidentally, though.”

  “This here iron o’ mine goes off, it’ll be a-purpose,” Preacher said. “You can bet ol’ Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap on that.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The Buckhorn Saloon was famous for just that—horns. If an animal sported any sort of antlers, chances were a pair was mounted somewhere on the saloon’s walls.

  Even though it had been years since Preacher had been there, he recognized one of the bartenders working behind the hardwood. The man’s face was a little rounder and softer, and the pale hair on his head was considerably thinner, but Preacher knew the man had been working in the Buckhorn the last time he’d been in San Antonio. After a moment he was even able to come up with the bartender’s name. “Howdy, Darby,” he greeted the drink juggler.

  The bartender’s sparse eyebrows rose. Clearly, at first glace he didn’t know Preacher . . . but then realization came into his eyes “Preacher? Is that really you?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” the old mountain man asked.

  “Well, I figured—” Darby stopped short.

  Preacher laughed. “Figured I’d done kicked the bucket years ago, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, no,” Darby said hastily. “Of course not.”

  “No need in denyin’ it. I know I’m pert-near ’bout as old as Methuselah.”

  “Not at all. Why, you, uh, don’t look a day over seventy, to be honest.”

  “I’ve got that beat by a mite. Hell, bein’ old is just a matter of how you feel, ain’t it? And I feel fine.” Preacher cocked his head to the side. “Might feel a little better, though, with a shot o’ your best who-hit-John inside me.”

  “Sure. Coming right up.” Darby reached for a bottle on the shelf behind the bar, then changed his mind and reached under the bar. He brought out a bottle and a glass and poured an inch of amber liquid in the glass.

  “Put about twice that much,” Preacher suggested. After the bartender complied, Preacher took a sip, said, “Ah,” and licked his lips.

  “What brings you to San Antonio?” Darby asked.

  “You know me. I never can stay in one place for too long. This was just the next place on the way to wherever I’m goin’ next”—Preacher paused—“although for one o’ the few times in a good long while, happens I do know where I’m goin’ next. Headed up to Colorado to see Smoke and his pretty lil’ missus and take a trip out to Arizona to see some other folks.”

  Darby’s eyebrows waggled again. “Arizona?” he repeated. “You remember Lije Connolly?”

  “Why, o’ course I do. Fella used to scout for the army. Did some buffler huntin’, too, if I recollect right.”

  Darby nodded. “That’s the man.”

  Preacher stroked his chin. “What’s Connolly got to do with Arizona? Last I heard of him, he was up in Dakota Territory, tryin’ to see if there was any gold left in the Black Hills.”

  “Somebody was in here not that long ago and mentioned him. Said Connolly had moved out to Arizona for his health. He’s in a pretty bad way, I think. The fella said he didn’t have much longer.”

  Preacher frowned. “I’m mighty sorry to hear that. Connolly and me got ourselves chased by a bunch of Sioux one time, back when the railroad was first buildin’ a line up through their huntin’ grounds. Barely made it to a little knob where we was able to fort up. Stood off those varmints for more ’n eight hours ’fore they got tired of it and decided we’d knocked enough of ’em off their ponies with our rifles.” Preacher took another sip of the whiskey. “Spend that long with a fella at your shoulder, both of you breathin’ the same gun smoke, you don’t soon forget him.”

  “If you’re going to Arizona, maybe you should look him up. From what the gent who mentioned him was saying, Lije settled down in Tucson.”

  “The hell you say! That’s where me and Smoke and Sally are goin’. You’re damn right I’ll look him up and say howdy, if he’s still alive and kickin’.”

  Darby started polishing a glass. “Say, you should have been around a little while ago. There was a big gun battle not far from here. People were talking about it. Sounds like two groups of thieves shot it out. Dead bodies were lying everywhere, from what I heard.” He shook his head. “You don’t see things like that very often anymore. San Antonio’s gotten civilized.”

  “A place is only as civilized as the folks who are there, I reckon.”

  “Maybe. What’s your point?”

  Preacher threw back the rest of the whiskey and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth. “Anywhere I go, I’ve still got civilization on the run.”

  * * *

  Smoke grinned as he leaned on the corral fence and watched Calvin Woods struggling mightily to stay on the back of a bucking horse. The horse was black as sin and twice as nasty, but Cal was making a valiant effort.

  Pearlie, Smoke’s foreman on the Sugarloaf, had a booted foot propped on the fence as he also watched the young cowboy battle the horse. He thumbed back his battered old black hat. “I don’t think he can do it. I think the world and all o’ Cal, but he ain’t gonna be able to stick on that loco cayuse.”

  “Would you be interested in a little wager on that?” Smoke asked as he continued to smile.

  A dozen more cowboys from his crew were gathered around the corral, whooping and hollering encouragement to Cal. Smoke enjoyed seeing the fellows who worked for him having such a good time.

&nbs
p; Pearlie glanced over at him. “What sorta stakes did you have in mind?”

  “If you win, I’ll ask Sally to fix you up a big batch of bear sign before we leave for Arizona next week.”

  Pearlie almost started to drool. There was no food in the world he liked better than the doughnuts Sally fried up. Those delicious, sugary, greasy treats could make him almost pass out with enjoyment.

  A suspicious frown suddenly creased Pearlie’s forehead. “And what if you win?”

  “Well, I’ve had my eye on that new saddle of yours.” Despite his habit of wearing dusty range clothes and working right alongside his men, Smoke Jensen was one of the richest hombres in Colorado, thanks to a gold claim he had owned since he was a young man and the highly successful ranch he had built. Smoke could afford to buy ten saddles if he wanted to.

  Pearlie’s frown deepened. The lure of bear sign was well nigh irresistible. He had already worried some about how he was going to get by while Smoke and Sally were gone. She made sure the men of the Sugarloaf ate better than any ranch crew west of the Mississippi.

  “I’ll risk it,” Pearlie said.

  At that moment the other cowboys around the corral let out a pained “Ohhhh!”

  Smoke and Pearlie looked into the corral in time to see Cal seemingly suspended in midair for a second before he came crashing down to earth several yards away from the horse that had just thrown him. A couple cowboys scrambled over the fence and dived into the enclosure to keep the stallion away from Cal by yelling and waving their hats at it.

  Smoke chuckled. “Well, it didn’t take long to settle that bet.” He didn’t mind losing. He wouldn’t have taken Pearlie’s prized new saddle away from him anyway, even if he’d won. Mostly the wager was just an excuse to rib the lanky foreman about his fondness for bear sign.

  There had been a time when Pearlie was a gunman and had ridden the owlhoot trail. He’d even been part of a gang given the task of running Smoke to ground and killing him. When Pearlie found out more about what was going on, he had changed sides in the conflict and had been one of Smoke’s best friends and most loyal employees ever since.