Hard Ride to Hell (9780786031191) (9 page)

Smoke and his men were on their way again before midday, leaving the Hannon ranch behind them.

“That Sara Beth gal is sort of pretty,” Cal ventured as he rode beside Smoke and Pearlie.

The foreman hooted with laughter.

“Sweet on her, are you?” he asked Cal. “I'm sure her pa would let you marry her. He'd get an unpaid ranch hand out of the deal, to help him run that little greasy-sack outfit.”

“Dadgum it, nobody said anything about gettin' married!” Cal's face flushed. “Anyway, I'm too young to get married. I've still got too many wild oats to sow. I reckon an old man like you wouldn't know anything about that.”

“Son, I sowed more wild oats than you'll ever see in your life,” Pearlie maintained.

They kept up their banter while Smoke thought about everything the Hannons had said. His instincts told him the answers were waiting for him in Bitter Springs.

It was midafternoon when they reached the flats and not long after that when the buildings of the settlement came into view ahead. They formed a single block, scattered somewhat irregularly along both sides of what passed for a street.

As the riders entered the town, Cal looked around and started reading some of the signs aloud.

“McKendree's Mercantile and Trading Post. McKendree's Saloon. McKendree's Livery Stable. Looks like one family owns just about everything in town.”

“Or one man,” Smoke said. It wasn't unusual for the founder of a settlement to dominate its businesses.

The store was the biggest building. It and the two saloons all sported false fronts. The rest were drab, single-story structures built of weather-faded wood.

There was a café to the right, across from the livery stable, that didn't sport the McKendree name on its sign.
BITTER SPRINGS CAFÉ
, it read simply. Smoke angled his horse toward it, and the rest of the men from the Sugarloaf did, too.

A couple of men sat on a bench on the store's front porch. Smoke sensed their eyes following the newcomers. Over at the McKendree Saloon, a man rested his forearms on top of the bat wings in the doorway and peered over them as smoke curled from a thin black cigarillo clamped between his teeth. Smoke figured there were a number of other eyes watching them as they rode along the street, as well.

He dismounted and looped the 'Palouse's reins around a hitch rack that leaned like it would fall over in a strong wind. It wouldn't hold the horses if they wanted loose badly enough, but these animals were all well-trained and wouldn't stampede without mighty good reason.

“We all goin' in?” Pearlie asked as he and the other men swung down from the saddles as well.

“Why don't a couple of you stay out here and keep an eye on things?” Smoke suggested. “I know you're all hungry since we didn't have any breakfast or lunch, but I'll have somebody else spell you as soon as they've eaten.”

Two of the men spoke, volunteering for the job. The others trooped inside, their spurs jingling and their boots thudding on the rough wooden floor.

The Bitter Springs Café didn't look like it did a lot of business. The windows weren't particularly clean, and the curtains that hung over them were dusty. Smoke saw a cobweb or two in the ceiling corners. Half a dozen tables covered with blue-checked cloths sat to the left, with a lunch counter and stools on the right. A board on the wall behind the counter had the menu scrawled on it.

Only one table was occupied. A youngish, sandy-haired man in a tweed suit and a string tie sat at it, but he wasn't eating. He had a lot of papers spread out on the tablecloth in front of him and was marking on some of them with a stub of a pencil.

Another man had taken one of the chairs from the same table and pulled it over next to the wall, where he sat with the chair tipped back and a Mexican sombrero pulled down over his face. He seemed to be asleep.

The third and final man in the café stood behind the counter. The apron he wore told Smoke he was probably the proprietor. Given the lack of business, he was most likely the cook, too, and swept out the place in the morning along with every other chore that needed to be done.

Which wouldn't be easy, because the man had only one arm. The empty left sleeve of his shirt was pinned up.

He was stocky and florid faced, with gray hair and a mustache. He gave Smoke and the other men a nod and said, “Howdy, boys. You come for lunch? I don't get many customers this time of day, but I got a pot of stew still on the stove.”

“Stew will be fine,” Smoke said, “especially if you've got coffee to wash it down with.”

“I sure do. Sit anywhere you want. I'll bring your food and coffee to you.”

“Just set it on the counter,” Smoke said. “We can get it.”

“Suit yourself. Don't let the fact that I'm a cripple bother you, though,” he added bluntly. “I'm used to it. Don't even think about it anymore. Cannonball took this left arm of mine clean off at Antietam, you know. Like to bled to death before they got me to the field hospital. Came pretty close to dyin' there, too.” The man shook his head. “Nasty place, hospitals. Just downright nasty.”

The man sitting at the table glanced up. Light from outside reflected on the lenses of the spectacles he wore.

“Joe has a talkative nature,” he said. “Indicative of the fact that he doesn't see very many people. I think Esteban and I are his only regular customers these days.”

“That ain't strictly true, Dr. Kingston,” the counterman said. “There's a little mouse comes in here just about every day lookin' for something to eat. He ain't much for payin' his bill, though.”

Smoke nodded to Pearlie and the other men, indicating that they should sit down. He went over to the table where Kingston sat and held out his hand.

“Name's Jensen,” he said.

“Dr. Charles Kingston,” the other man said as he rose to his feet and shook hands. He was an inch or two taller than Smoke, with broad shoulders under the brown tweed coat. His grip had plenty of strength in it, too.

“You're a medical man, are you?”

“Oh, no,” Kingston replied with a shake of his head. “I'm not that sort of doctor. I'm a geologist. I work for a mining company back East.”

“This isn't really mining country,” Smoke commented.

Kingston smiled.

“Not at the moment, no. But perhaps it will be, someday. My job is to search for areas that hold the potential for future endeavors.”

“You think there might be gold or silver around here that nobody's found yet?” Smoke asked.

“Or copper or zinc or any number of other elements that might prove profitable.” Kingston nodded toward the papers on the table. “I'll admit, though, that my reports haven't been promising so far.”

Joe started setting bowls of stew and cups of coffee he had filled on the counter. Smoke's men helped themselves. Smoke said, “I guess I'd better get some of that food while there's still enough to go around.”

“Why don't you come back and join me, Mr. Jensen?” Kingston invited. “You strike me as an educated man.” He paused, and then added dryly, “There aren't an abundance of them around here. No offense, Joe.”

“Oh, I ain't offended,” the counterman said. “I can read and write and cipher, but the things you talk about are as far over my head as Pike's Peak, Doc.”

Smoke got a bowl of stew and some coffee and carried them back over to Kingston's table. He pulled out a chair with his foot and sat down.

“You're wrong about me being an educated man, Doctor, at least if you're talking about formal schooling,” he said. “I've learned a lot from friends of mine, though. I used to know a fella who could quote for hours from Shakespeare and Homer, and if you wanted to talk philosophy or natural history, he was your man. Used to be a professor back East before he decided he liked fur trapping better. Not to mention the fact that I'm married to a schoolteacher.” Smoke chuckled. “I reckon that's an education in itself.”

Kingston smiled and said, “I expect you're right about that. Do you know anything about geology, Mr. Jensen?”

“Dirt and rocks, things like that?” Smoke shrugged. “Only what I've learned by riding over them, and sleeping on them some nights.”

“It's a fascinating subject. You can find almost every different sort of geological formation here in Colorado.”

“I imagine you can. The state's got all sorts of territory in it.” Smoke sipped the coffee, which was strong and hot. “What do you do, go around digging holes?”

“Or blowing them out with dynamite,” Kingston said.

That was exactly the question Smoke had been working his way around to, and he hadn't even had to ask it. Kingston had just volunteered the information.

“Then that was you doing that blasting about fifteen miles down the valley a while back?”

Kingston's smile turned into a frown.

“I didn't trespass on your land, did I? I was told that most of the valley is open range—”

Smoke held up a hand to stop the explanation.

“No, I just heard somebody talking about it,” he said. “We're not from around here.”

“I see. Well, in that case, yes, I did some excavating in that area.” Kingston waved a hand at the papers. “But as I said, the results weren't promising.”

“Uncover anything unusual, even if it wasn't gold or silver?”

“Not really.”

Smoke nodded and started eating the stew. So far the conversation had been casual, but his brain was working furiously, considering the possibilities.

Dr. Charles Kingston didn't seem like the type of hombre who'd be running a gang of wideloopers, but Smoke thought there was a good chance Kingston had uncovered that tunnel through Gunsight Ridge with his blasting. That didn't mean he had to be tied in with the rustlers, because somebody else could have come along and found the tunnel mouth after one of Kingston's explosions revealed it.

On the other hand, the geologist might be the ringleader. Smoke had only known the man for a few minutes, so he couldn't really come to a conclusion about that either way.

If Kingston
was
tied in with the rustlers, or was even their boss, he would know who Smoke was and could easily guess that Smoke and the rest of the men from the Sugarloaf had trailed the stolen cows up here. In that case, Kingston would have to deal with the threat, which meant Smoke and his companions would be in danger as soon as Kingston got word to his gang.

If Kingston didn't have anything to do with the rustling, then Smoke wasn't risking anything by talking to him. But the only way to find out which of those various scenarios was true was to keep probing.

“Did you happen to see anybody bring a herd of cattle through here earlier today?” Smoke asked. There were no pens in Bitter Springs, so the stolen cows weren't being held here.

“No, but I haven't been here all day,” Kingston replied. “Esteban and I just got back not long ago ourselves. I was checking out some hills to the east. Esteban's my assistant, by the way. He drives the wagon and helps load and unload the equipment.”

Smoke glanced at the Mexican, who still appeared to be asleep. The man could have been pretending, of course.

The café's front door opened, drawing Smoke's attention. The man who came in was about as broad as he was tall. He gave that impression, anyway. His prominent gut extended in front of him like the prow of a ship. He wore a dusty black suit, but nobody was ever going to mistake him for a preacher. His moon-shaped face bore too many marks of dissipation and decadence for him to be a sky pilot. His head was bald under a black derby, and a red beard stuck out from his jaw like a brush.

“Well, well, Joe,” he said in a rumbling voice, “this is the busiest I've seen your place in a long time. If you keep it up, you might last another two months before you go broke, instead of just one.”

Joe had lost his friendly expression as he stood behind the counter. He said, “What can I do for you, Mr. McKendree?”

“You know what you can do for me. Sell out to me, like a reasonable man.”

“If I do that, you'll be one step closer to owning the whole town.”

“Why shouldn't I own it?” McKendree demanded, sounding offended. “I founded it, didn't I?”

“That doesn't mean you've got a right to own everything.”

“That's exactly what it means,” McKendree said. “Well, you'll come around eventually. They always do.” The man's piggish eyes swung toward Smoke. “Who's this?”

“I didn't ask his name,” Joe said.

Smoke got to his feet and said, “I'm Smoke Jensen, Mr. McKendree. My spread is on the other side of Gunsight Ridge.”

“Jensen . . . Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Jensen. I know quite well. What brings you to our little town?”

“I'm on the trail of some stolen cattle,” Smoke said bluntly. “The rustlers brought them here this morning and already sold them to somebody.” Smoke's lips curved in a thin smile as he added, “You, maybe.”

McKendree's face turned dark red with rage, but his voice was carefully controlled as he said, “Do you know who you're talking to, sir?”

“The biggest man around these parts, I'm guessing,” Smoke drawled.

“In more ways than one. I'm Oliver McKendree. Bitter Springs is my town.”

“Then you must know everything that goes on around here. You're probably mixed up in it as well, neck deep.”

“Be careful, Jensen,” McKendree warned. “I don't take kindly to being accused of rustling.”

“I don't take kindly to having my cattle stolen,” Smoke said. “If you didn't have anything to do with it, you don't have to be concerned, do you?”

McKendree just glared at him without saying anything. Then he looked at the counterman again and said, “Remember what I told you, Joe. I'll pay you a fair price for this place, and you can start over somewhere else.” McKendree's beefy shoulders rose and fell. “You could even stay on and run it for me, if you like.”

“I don't reckon that's gonna happen,” Joe said curtly.

McKendree shrugged again and turned away. With one last hostile glance at Smoke, he waddled out of the café.

When the town boss was gone, Joe said, “No offense, Mr. Jensen, but if I was you I'd saddle up and ride out of Bitter Springs. McKendree's got some tough hombres working for him.”

Smoke looked at his men, smiled, and said, “So do I.”

“Yeah, but I'm talkin' about professional gun-throwers. I've heard plenty about you. I know you're supposed to be mighty fast on the shoot, but
all
of McKendree's men are. Maybe not as fast as you, but probably faster than those fellas you've got with you. No offense.”

Pearlie snorted to show that maybe he had taken a little offense at Joe's warning.

“What about those cows I was talking about, Joe?” Smoke asked. “Did you see them?”

The counterman sighed and nodded.

“Some fellas drove 'em up and held them a little way outside of town. A couple of shady cattle buyers hang around McKendree's Saloon sometimes, and one of them happened to be there. He made a deal with the men who brought in the cattle. Some of them went along with the herd, and the buyer hired a few local boys as punchers, too. They're on their way to Denver right now.”

“What about the rest of the men who brought in the cattle?”

Joe looked like he didn't want to answer, but after a couple of seconds he said, “I reckon they're still over at the saloon.”

“Thanks,” Smoke said with a nod.

“You're goin' over there, aren't you? There's gonna be gunplay.”

“That'll be up to the men I want to talk to,” Smoke said. “If they tell me what I want to know, there doesn't have to be any shooting.”

He figured the chances of that were pretty slim, though, and judging by the gloomy look on Joe's face, so did he.

“You, uh, wouldn't mind payin' for the meal before you go over there, would you?” he asked.

Smoke chuckled.

“We'll finish eating, and you'll get paid, Joe. Don't worry about that.”

Charles Kingston started gathering up his papers, tapping them against the tablecloth to square up the edges.

“You're a brave man, Mr. Jensen,” he said. “I've only been around here for a while, but long enough to know that Oliver McKendree is a bad man to cross.”

“You're leaving?” Smoke asked.

“Going to my hotel room to double-check some of my calculations.” Kingston smiled thinly. “Gunfire makes it rather difficult to concentrate on mathematics.”

“Yeah, I reckon it would. I didn't know there was a hotel in this town.”

“The proprietor of the Deluxe Saloon rents out a couple of rooms in the back. I'm sure Mr. McKendree will buy him out soon, too, and then the policy may change.” Kingston looked over at the man in the sombrero. “Come on, Esteban.”

The man stirred slowly, sat up, and thumbed back the sombrero, revealing a brown, dull-featured face. He nodded and said sleepily,
“Sí, señor.”

The two of them left the café. Smoke watched them go, and then finished his stew and coffee, still wondering as he did so about Kingston's motives.

What happened in the next little while might tell him a lot, Smoke decided.

Pearlie sat down beside him and said quietly, “That fella Kingston is a mite suspicious, Smoke. He must'a been the one who uncovered the tunnel.”

Cal joined them, turning a chair around so he could straddle it.

“Yeah,” the young cowboy said, “but Mr. McKendree seemed a lot more like the sort of fella to be ramroddin' a gang of rustlers. I'm not sure a bunch of owlhoots would ever listen to somebody like Dr. Kingston.”

They both had good points. Smoke nodded and said, “I'll take a stroll over to the saloon once everybody's finished eating. That might give us some answers.”

“Or some hot lead, anyway,” Pearlie muttered.

“You can tell a lot by who decides to shoot at you,” Smoke said with a smile.

A short time later, all the Sugarloaf cowboys were finished with their meals. Pearlie said something under his breath about dying with full bellies, but Smoke ignored the comment. He paid the proprietor for the food and coffee, then said, “We'll be seeing you, Joe.”

“I surely do hope so, Mr. Jensen,” the one-armed man replied.

As the group stepped out of the café, Smoke said, “The rest of you boys stay here for a minute. I'll go over to the saloon by myself. If I make it there all right, you can come ahead then.”

“You mean you're gonna slap a big ol' target right on your chest,” Pearlie said. “You ain't goin' out in that street alone, Smoke. No disrespect, but that just ain't happenin'.”

Smoke thought it over for a second and then nodded. Every so often, Pearlie got so stiff-necked it was just no use arguing with him. This appeared to be one of those times.

“All right,” he said. “Let's go. Everybody keep your eyes open.”

The two men stepped out of the shade of the café's awning and into the bright afternoon sun. Smoke's eyes narrowed against the glare. His vision adjusted quickly, though, and within a few steps he could see just fine.

That allowed him to spot a tiny reflection from the window built into the saloon's false front when he and Pearlie were more than halfway across the street.

“Smoke . . .” Pearlie said warningly.

“I see it,” Smoke replied. “Better split up . . . now!”

They darted away from each other, Smoke going right and Pearlie going left. At that same instant, a shot rang out and powder smoke spurted from the window in the false front. Smoke heard the bullet whine between him and his foreman. It kicked up dust behind them.

If they had turned around and tried to make it back to the café, their backs would have presented easy targets for the bushwhacker. Since they were closer to the saloon, Smoke and Pearlie charged straight toward the enemy without having to talk about the tactic.

The saloon's front windows shattered, spraying glass over the boardwalk, as gunmen opened fire inside the building. Muzzle flame jetted over the bat wings as well.

Smoke drew his Colt as he ran and tipped the barrel up to fire from the hip. Three slugs smashed through the boards of the false front. The bushwhacker dropped his rifle through the opening as he rose up. Then he slumped forward and hung over the windowsill with his arms dangling.

Smoke dived toward the boardwalk. It was raised a couple of feet off the ground, and when he rolled up against it the thick planks offered him some protection from the would-be killers inside the saloon. A glance told him that Pearlie had done the same thing on the other side of the single step leading up from the street.

After the first few seconds, the men inside the saloon were too busy ducking to try to get a shot at Smoke or Pearlie, anyway. Cal and the other Sugarloaf punchers had opened fire, too, sending a volley of lead smashing into the front of the saloon. Some of them retreated into the café, while others took cover behind water troughs, barrels, and a parked wagon.

The men in the saloon weren't going to give up without a fight. As Smoke and Pearlie lay there against the boardwalk's base, scores of slugs sizzled through the air a few feet above them, going in both directions.

Smoke caught Pearlie's eye and pointed toward the corners of the building. The foreman nodded in understanding. He started crawling toward the corner on his side. Smoke did likewise on his side.

When he reached the corner, the angle was bad for the men holed up in the saloon. Smoke was able to leap up and dash along the side of the building. There was a door back here, and some horses tied up under a couple of scrubby trees. He was about ten feet from the door when it burst open and a couple of men charged out holding guns.

They were taking off for the tall and uncut, Smoke knew, since their ambush had failed and the men from the Sugarloaf were putting up a lot stiffer fight than they had hoped for. They forgot about fleeing when they spotted him hurrying along the side of the building, though. Instead, they twisted toward him and their guns came up spouting flame.

That was a mistake, because they were facing perhaps the deadliest gunman in the West. As slugs whipped past him, Smoke fired twice, putting the first bullet in the heart of one man and sending the second one into the belly of the other.

That emptied Smoke's Colt, so he stepped forward quickly and kicked away the weapons the two men had dropped when they collapsed with Smoke's lead in them. The one he'd shot in the chest was already dead, while the gut-shot man was too busy screaming in agony to care about anything else.

Smoke put his back against the wall of the building and thumbed fresh shells into his gun while keeping an eye on the door. No one else came out that way. He heard a couple of shots from the other side of the saloon and knew that Pearlie was doing some business over there.

Then all the guns fell silent.

Smoke waited. The ominous quiet continued for several long moments. Then Cal called from across the street, “Smoke! Smoke, are you all right?”

Smoke didn't answer right away. Instead, he went through the door into the saloon, ducking around the corner of it and going in low and fast with his Colt held ready to fire.

There was no need. Four men were sprawled on the floor in bloody disarray, including the one Smoke had seen watching them when they rode into town.

From a busted window on the other side of the room, Pearlie called, “You all right, Smoke?”

“Fine,” Smoke replied. “You downed these men from the window?”

“A couple of 'em,” Pearlie said. “The other two were already ventilated by our fellas across the street.”

A quavering voice pleaded, “For God's sake, Jensen, don't shoot anymore!”

Smoke looked over and saw Oliver McKendree peeking at him over the top of the bar, where the town boss had taken cover when the bullets started to fly. Smoke smiled tightly and said, “Not so brave now that all your hired guns are dead, are you, McKendree?”

“They're not my hired guns! My men all took off when the shooting started. They said this wasn't their fight.” McKendree got to his feet and wiped anxious sweat from his face. “I may have been mixed up in some shady business now and then in my life, but I'm not a rustler, Jensen. I swear it. And I didn't have anything to do with those men opening fire on you. Sure, I let 'em drink here, but what the hell else was I going to do?”

It was a little surprising, but Smoke found himself believing McKendree. Tough gunmen like the hombres scattered around the room in various attitudes of death usually drank wherever they damned well wanted to.

But if McKendree wasn't behind the rustling, that left only one real suspect.

Smoke went to the bat wings, but before pushing them open he called, “Cal, hold your fire! I'm coming out!”

By this time Cal and the other hands had emerged from cover and were gathered across the street. Pearlie waved them over, and they all joined Smoke in front of the saloon.

“I reckon we busted up this bunch of wideloopers, all right,” Cal said with the exuberance of youth.

“We still have to round up the boss,” Smoke said.

“It's not McKendree?”

“I don't think so.” Smoke jerked a thumb at the saloon. “Go drag those bodies out. This town's too small to have an undertaker, so I reckon we'll have to plant them ourselves.”

“Where are you goin'?” Pearlie asked as Smoke started walking toward the Deluxe Saloon, Bitter Springs's other drinking establishment.

“To finish the job,” Smoke said over his shoulder.

He wasn't going in the saloon's front door. Instead, he headed around to the back. That was where those rented rooms Kingston had mentioned were located. That was where he expected to find the man he'd pegged as the ringleader of the rustlers.

He eased open a narrow door at the rear of the saloon. The short hallway just inside it was dim. Two doors opened on the corridor, one on each side. They were both closed when Smoke stepped in, but as a floorboard creaked under his weight, the door on the right was thrown open and a figure rushed out.

“Señor Jensen, look out!” a Spanish-accented voice cried. “Dr. Kingston, he is—”

Smoke was ready when Esteban jerked a knife from under the serape he wore and slashed at him. The blade would have ripped open Smoke's belly if he had been taken unaware.

As it was, he used the Colt's barrel to turn aside the knife and then stepped in to throw a punch with his other hand. The blow didn't travel very far, but it landed with all the power of Smoke's broad shoulders behind it. The impact drove Esteban's head around and fractured his jaw. He crashed against the wall, bounced off, and landed limply on the floor at Smoke's feet, out cold.