The Family Jensen (23 page)

As soon as they had gotten something to eat and let their horses rest for a while, Matt and Preacher left Smoke in Buffalo Flat with Halliday and headed back to Crazy Bear’s village.

“We may have to dodge some of Bannerman’s gun-wolves along the way,” Matt commented as they rode out of the settlement.

“Might even have to kill a few of ’em,” Preacher said. “Which would be just fine with me. That’ll be however many it is we won’t have to kill later.”

“You still think it’ll come to that if we manage to get that hearing to take place and the judge rules in favor of the Crows?”

“Them are a couple of mighty big
ifs
,” Preacher said. “And yeah, even if both them things happen, I don’t expect Bannerman to swallow ’em and let it go. I’ve seen greedy sons o’ bitches like him before. When it comes down to the nub, he’ll try to take what he wants, and everything else be damned.”

Matt nodded. “You’re probably right.”

“I know I am,” Preacher said.

They had gone several miles up the valley, following the no-man’s-land that ran between the creeks, when they spotted half a dozen riders on their right, about three hundred yards away.

“Preacher…” Matt said warningly.

“I see ’em,” the old mountain man said. “Probably spotted ’em before you did. You reckon they’re some o’ Bannerman’s bunch?”

The men suddenly spurred toward them, urging their horses forward at a gallop.

“That’s all the proof I need!” Matt said. “Let’s go!”

They wheeled their mounts to the left and leaned forward in the saddles as they sent the horses racing across the grassy valley. The closest cover was at least half a mile away, where cottonwoods grew along the creek. If they could reach the trees, they would stand a chance of fighting off Bannerman’s men.

Spirit and Horse both stretched out and ran, and while Preacher’s gray stallion wasn’t the equal of some of the horses he’d had in the past, he was almost as fast as Matt’s sorrel. Matt held Spirit back a little so he wouldn’t leave the old mountain man behind.

The faint crackle of gunfire reached their ears. Preacher looked over his shoulder and saw the orange winks of muzzle flame and the little puffs of smoke. He laughed.

“They ain’t gonna hit us at this range!” he called over the pounding hoofbeats. “They ain’t gonna catch us, neither!”

Matt saw that was true. It took only a few minutes to reach the creek. In that time, the pursuers had closed the gap slightly, but they were still well out of handgun range and they hadn’t stopped and dismounted to use their rifles.

Matt and Preacher swung out of the saddles as their horses continued across the creek, splashing through the cold, clear water. The duo carried their rifles back to the trees and crouched behind the trunks.

Preacher had brought his Winchester instead of his Sharps. “Range is too short for that Big Fifty o’ mine!” he said as he levered a round into the repeater’s firing chamber. “I can make do with this piddlin’ little Winchester.”

Matt grinned as he worked the lever on his rifle and then lifted the weapon to his shoulder. “If everything was so much better in the old day,” he said, “why don’t you still carry a flintlock?”

“Don’t think I ain’t thought about it!” Preacher snapped. He pressed his grizzled cheek against the smooth wood of the stock, squinted as he sighted over the Winchester’s barrel, then pressed the trigger. The rifle cracked wickedly as it kicked against his shoulder. One of the onrushing gunmen jerked in the saddle but managed to stay mounted as he slowed his horse and hunched over in pain. “When a ball from one o’ them old muzzle-loaders hit you, you went down no matter where you was hit!”

Matt began to fire, too. The two men poured a steady stream of lead into their attackers for several moments, wounding at least a couple more of Bannerman’s men. The gunnies reined in, turned their horses around, and fled in the face of that withering fire.

“Look at ’em turn tail and run!” Preacher whooped.

“Yeah, they’ll be running right back to Bannerman to tell him that we’re on our way to the Crow village,” Matt pointed out. “We’d better get moving before Bannerman sends more men up here to cut us off.”

They whistled their horses back to them, mounted up, and headed north again. They had asked a lot of their mounts. Spirit and Horse were getting tired. But it wasn’t too much farther to Crazy Bear’s village. Once they got there, the horses would be able to rest.

Matt was a little surprised they didn’t run into any more of Bannerman’s hired killers on the way, but he and Preacher reached the village late that afternoon without any more trouble. The barking dogs announced their arrival as usual. At least forty warriors appeared, some armed with rifles, the others with bows and arrows, just in case the visitors turned out not to be friendly. The men relaxed as they recognized Matt and Preacher.

Crazy Bear strode forward to greet them, flanked by Sandy and Starwind. “I see you’re up and around again,” Matt said to the chief, who still had bandages wrapped around his midsection.

“Try making him rest for very long,” Sandy said. “You’ll see what an impossible job that is.”

“Sort of like getting a federal judge to come in and rule on your claim on this land?” Matt asked as he swung down from Spirit’s back.

Sandy’s face lit up with excitement. “My request for a hearing has been granted?”

“Yeah. You didn’t tell us about that.”

“I would have. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up in case it never happened. When is the judge supposed to get here?”

“Tomorrow, if all goes as planned,” Matt said. “Smoke’s going to see that it does. Then we’ll be able to go into town and settle this.”

Crazy Bear frowned in confusion. “I do not understand,” he said. “Who is this judge you speak of?”

“He’s a representative of the white man’s government,” Sandy explained. “He decides what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“You mean he decides that the white man is right and the Indian is wrong,” Crazy Bear rumbled.

Matt said, “According to what we were told, this particular gent doesn’t think that way. He’ll rule on the facts of the case and follow the law.”

Crazy Bear shook his head. “When the moose grows wings and learns to soar like the eagle,” he said.

“I’m with you, Crazy Bear,” Preacher said. “I don’t put no stock in any law but this.” He rested his hand on the butt of his .44.

“Maybe it will come to that,” Sandy said, “but there’s nothing wrong with trying the other way first.”

“Unless it gets you killed,” Preacher said.

Matt said, “That’s why we’re here, to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ll deliver you to that hearing tomorrow, Sandy, and see what the judge says. After that—”

“After that, devil take the hindmost,” Preacher said.

Matt expected trouble. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Bannerman launched an all-out attack on the Crow village during the night or first thing the next morning. Instead, the night passed quietly, and Matt spent some time with Starwind. Neither of them had any intention of settling down, but there was no doubt they enjoyed each other’s company.

In the morning, Matt went to the lodge where Sandy lived with his wife Robin while they were in the Crow village. He knew the couple also had a house in Buffalo Flat and spent part of their time there, as well as making regular trips back to St. Louis where Sandy continued his efforts to secure funding for an Indian school and perhaps eventually a university on the frontier. There was talk of starting a state university in Laramie, and according to Sandy, that would be a good place for a privately supported Indian university as well. Whether that dream would ever come about was anybody’s guess, but Sandy was working at fulfilling it.

When Matt called through the entrance flap, Sandy pushed it aside and emerged from the lodge dressed in his town clothes. His hair was cropped shorter than it had been the night before. Robin followed him from the tepee and hugged Matt. Moon Fawn was with her, clutching at her mother’s skirts and smiling shyly at Matt.

Matt hunkered on his heels and grinned at the little girl. “Remember me?” he asked. She nodded. He pointed at the doll she carried. “How’s Gregor?”

“He’s fine,” Moon Fawn said. “He wants to go to town.”

“I’m sorry, little one,” Sandy said. “I’ve told you that it’s too dangerous for you and Gregor to come with me today. You and your mother have to stay here with your grandparents.”

Robin said, “I don’t like that, Sandy. If you’re going to be risking your life, I should be with you.”

“I’d rather have you here, so I don’t have to worry about you,” Sandy told her. “It’s dangerous enough, the two of you staying here. We don’t know what Bannerman will do. I’m hoping that he’ll concentrate on what’s happening in town today, rather than out here.”

Robin put her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him. “Be careful,” she murmured. “You know I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sandy said. “Matt and Preacher will see to that. Isn’t that right, Matt?”

“Do my best,” Matt promised.

Sandy kissed his wife, then knelt to hug and kiss his little girl. Moon Fawn clung to him for a moment. Then Sandy said, “Could I see Gregor for a minute before I go?”

“Do you want to tell him goodbye, too?” Moon Fawn asked.

“No, he’s been keeping something for me, and I need to get it back from him.”

Moon Fawn held out the doll.

Matt frowned as he watched Sandy slip a couple of fingers under the buckskin outfit the doll wore. There must have been a little slit in Gregor’s body under there, because Sandy appeared to be fishing around inside the doll. A few seconds later, Sandy withdrew his hand, holding between his fingers a tightly folded piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Robin asked.

Sandy gave Gregor back to Moon Fawn and straightened. He unfolded the paper and held it so Robin and Matt could see that it was some sort of official document. A grin began to spread across Matt’s face.

“Is that the deed to your claim?” he asked.

Sandy nodded. “Yes. I thought that would be a safe place to keep it, since Moon Fawn always has Gregor with her and no one would think to look inside a doll’s stuffing.”

“You mean she had it all along when those varmints kidnapped her?”

“That’s right.”

Matt laughed and shook his head. “They never knew that what they were looking for was right under their noses. But I reckon you were counting on that, weren’t you?”

“Exactly.” Sandy folded the document again and put it in a pocket inside his coat. “We should get going. We don’t want to be late for that hearing.”

The horses were ready, as was Preacher. The old mountain man had been deep in conversation with Crazy Bear while Matt was talking to Sandy, Robin, and Moon Fawn. As Matt and Sandy came up, Preacher said, “We best rattle our hocks. I don’t know what time that stage is supposed to get to town, but I reckon we better be there when it does. That judge is liable to want to start the hearin’ right away.”

“I hope so,” Sandy said. “The sooner this is settled, the better as far as I’m concerned.”

“I reckon we all feel the same way,” Matt said.

The three men mounted up. Preacher waved and called, “So long,” to Crazy Bear. Matt nodded to Starwind, who gave him an encouraging smile. Then they rode out of the village, heading south toward Buffalo Flat.

Sandy wore a bowler hat to go along with his suit. With the slightly European cast to his features he had inherited from his mother Mala, he didn’t look much like an Indian. That might work in his favor, Matt thought, although legally there wasn’t any reason it should matter.

“Do you think we’ll run into any trouble between here and town?” Sandy asked when they had gone a couple miles. He sounded a little nervous.

“I’d be mighty surprised if we don’t,” Matt said. “All along, Bannerman’s been trying to keep this from ever going to court. He won’t back off now.”

“Maybe we should have brought some of the warriors with us,” Sandy suggested.

“Maybe,” Matt agreed.

Sandy frowned. “Well, then, why didn’t we?”

“Best worry about that later,” Preacher said, his voice sharp. “Look yonder!”

Matt glanced to his left, saw a group of riders emerging from a stand of trees. “They’re over there, too,” he said, inclining his head to the right, where more riders had just come over a ridge. “Looks like they’ve got us boxed in!”

Sandy groaned in despair. “What are we going to do?”

“Make a run for it!” Matt said. His eyes searched for the nearest cover. “Head for that knoll up ahead!” He nodded toward some rocks on the top of the little hill. They wouldn’t provide much cover, but they were better than nothing.

And
something
was definitely better than nothing, Matt thought as he leaned forward in the saddle, heeled Spirit into a gallop, and heard the ominous sound of guns beginning to pop.

The three men rode hard as they headed for the knoll. Their pursuers continued to close in from both sides, but Matt thought he and Preacher and Sandy stood a good chance of reaching the little hill in time. Luckily, nobody could aim very well from the back of a galloping horse, so it would be a fluke if any of them were hit.

Bad luck sometimes happened, no matter how well-prepared you were, and misfortune struck at that moment. Sandy’s pony stepped in a hole and went crashing down in a welter of flailing legs. Sandy yelled as he was thrown off and flew through the air.

Matt reined in hard as he called to Preacher, “Cover us!” The old mountain man yanked Horse to a stop and whipped out his Winchester. He sprayed lead toward the onrushing riders as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever.

Matt raced to the spot where Sandy had fallen. The young man had landed hard but didn’t seem to be hurt. He was already scrambling to his feet. Matt extended his arm and leaned down from the saddle. Sandy grabbed Matt’s wrist and swung up behind him.

“Can your horse carry both of us?” Sandy gasped.

“Hide and watch!” Matt replied as he heeled Spirit into a run again.

The chase was on once more. Preacher slid his Winchester back in its sheath and sent Horse pounding after Matt and Sandy. The delay had allowed the attackers to close in, making their fire more accurate. Bullets kicked up dirt around the hooves of the horses as they reached the knoll and started up the slope.

Matt drew his Colt and triggered several shots at the men on the right. Preacher’s .44 blasted toward the men on the left. Slugs whined around them as they ran a gauntlet of lead toward the top of the knoll. They reached it untouched, and the three men leaped off the horses and flung themselves down behind the rocks. Matt yanked his rifle from its sheath as he hurriedly dismounted, and Preacher held on to his Winchester. Both of them fired from prone positions as they sprawled behind the low rocks.

“Keep your head down,” Matt warned Sandy. “All we have to do is hold them off for a few minutes…”

“A few minutes!” Sandy repeated as he ducked while bullets whined over his head. “What’s going to happen in a few minutes?”

A grim smile tugged at Matt’s mouth. “You’ll see.”

Bannerman’s hired killers had the knoll completely surrounded. They dismounted and hugged the ground behind rocks and hummocks of earth as they continued firing up at the three men atop the knoll. A couple minutes of fierce fighting went by, but neither side did any real damage to the other.

Then Preacher laughed and said, “It’s about time!”

“About time for what?” Sandy asked.

“For your father to play his cards in this game,” Matt said.

Dozens of Indian ponies suddenly appeared as if by magic, boiling up from the gully Matt had spotted earlier. He’d figured Crazy Bear would use it to approach the battleground and he was right. Whooping and yipping to demoralize their opponents, the Crow swept forward and charged into Bannerman’s men. Some sent rifle slugs smashing into their startled enemies, others pierced them with arrows, and some of the gunmen were trampled under the slashing hooves of the ponies. Matt and Preacher continued picking off any of Bannerman’s men they had good shots at, until dust swirled up around the base of the knoll and they could no longer see to aim.

The fighting was brief. The grim noises of battle faded away, and the dust began to settle. Matt stood up and looked down the slope to see that all of Bannerman’s gunhawks were either dead, wounded, or captured. Preacher joined him and said, “Looks like that plan we hatched with Crazy Bear worked just fine.”

Sandy stumbled to his feet. “You knew this was going to happen?” he demanded.

“We couldn’t imagine that Bannerman would let you reach Buffalo Flat for that hearing without trying to stop you,” Matt said. “So we figured to lure his men into a trap by starting out for town with just the three of us, while Crazy Bear and some of his warriors followed us and stayed out of sight.”

“In other words, the three of us were the bait!”

Matt shrugged. “Call it what you want. We figured Bannerman would send most of his men out here to stop you from getting to town while the rest of them went after the stagecoach with that judge on it. We’ve taken care of this bunch, so I don’t reckon we’ll have any more trouble between here and Buffalo Flat.” He turned and peered off toward the south, as if he could see across the intervening miles. “Now it’s up to Smoke to get that judge there safe and sound.”

Smoke and Halliday left Buffalo Flat early that morning, following the stage road that led south to Casper and ultimately on to Laramie and Cheyenne.

“There’s an overnight stage stop down on the Middle Fork of the Powder River, close to where the river splits into three branches,” Smoke said. “That’s where the coach will be startin’ from this morning, I imagine.”

Halliday nodded. “That’s the way it was when I rode it up here a few days ago.” He was mounted on a horse rented from Hoyt Dowler and seemed to be a decent rider. He had traded his town suit for range clothes, and from the way he handled himself, Smoke suspected he’d done a little cowboying at some time in the past.

It was a beautiful morning with a deep blue sky overhead. The air was so clear it seemed like the snow-capped peaks of the Big Horns to the west were close enough to reach out and touch. On such a day, it was hard to believe anything could ever change, Smoke reflected.

Then he thought about how different the West was from the untamed wilderness Preacher had first ventured into nearly sixty years earlier. Who knew what would happen in the
next
sixty years?

The mountains would still be there, Smoke thought as he glanced toward the Big Horns. It was a considerable amount of comfort to know they would endure long after he and everyone else he ever knew were gone.

The two men kept their horses moving at a steady, ground-eating pace, and they covered quite a few miles by mid-morning. If the stagecoach driver had started on the last leg of the journey at first light, as usual, he and Halliday ought to be meeting the vehicle soon, Smoke told himself.

It was only a few minutes after that thought crossed his mind when he spotted a column of dust rising in front of them.

“That’ll be the coach,” Smoke told Halliday as he pointed out the dust. Then he stiffened in the saddle and rose in his stirrups, his eyes narrowing as he peered at a second cloud of dust not far behind the first one.

“What’s wrong?” Halliday asked.

“Looks like somebody else is headed this way, too.”

“Bannerman’s men?”

“Could be,” Smoke said. “Out on these flats, it’s hard to set up an ambush because there’s not enough good cover. But those gun-wolves could’ve gotten out of sight, waited for the stagecoach to pass them, then tried to overtake it from behind. I reckon that’s what’s happening right now.”

“Then we’d better get a move on,” Halliday said as he drew his rifle from the saddle boot.

“That’s just what I was thinkin’,” Smoke said. He heeled his horse into a run.

The men galloped hard along the trail. The gap between them and the two clouds of dust closed rapidly. After a couple minutes Smoke was able to spot the stagecoach itself at the base of the first dust cloud, rocking and swaying on its thorough braces as it careened along the trail. The driver had the team at a full gallop.

“You take the right, I’ll take the left!” Smoke called to Halliday, who nodded in understanding. The two of them split up, each veering to one side of the trail so the racing coach could pass between them. Dust swirled, choking and blinding them for a second as the big Concord stagecoach flew by. Smoke heard gunshots and knew they came from the pursuers, but he couldn’t see to return the fire.

When the dust blew away and his vision cleared, he saw eight men on horseback thundering toward him and Halliday, who was drawing rein on the other side of the trail. Smoke did likewise and raised the Winchester to his shoulder. He and Halliday opened fire as the pursuing gunmen realized they weren’t chasing a defenseless stagecoach anymore.

The rifle’s lever was a blur as Smoke blasted out all fifteen rounds as swiftly as he could. He swung the barrel from left to right as he fired, and the hail of lead was rewarded by the sight of three men toppling from their saddles. Halliday’s shots were having an effect as well. Two more men fell to his slugs.

That left three hired killers still charging toward Smoke and Halliday, blazing away as they came through. Smoke rammed the Winchester back in its sheath and drew both of his .44s. The range was close enough for handguns.

Smoke emptied his right-hand gun first, since his wounded left arm was still stiff and sore. One man rocked back in the saddle and then pitched to the side, either dead or badly wounded. More dust, raised by the hooves of the gunmen’s horses, curled around him and, again, he couldn’t see very well.

One of the remaining killers loomed up in front of him, only a few yards away. Smoke twisted in the saddle as the man fired. He heard the wind-rip of the bullet pass his ear as it narrowly missed. His left arm came up, slower than usual but fast enough for him to get a shot off before Bannerman’s man could fire again. At the moment Smoke might be slower with his left hand, but he was just as accurate as ever. The gunslinger’s head jerked back as the slug smacked into his forehead and killed him. His body thudded to the ground a second later.

Smoke heard other shots and knew that Halliday was swapping lead with the remaining hardcase. When the guns fell silent Smoke holstered his right-hand Colt, then took the other revolver from his left hand in case he needed to use it fast. As the dust settled he saw that Halliday was still on the rented horse and the last of the gunmen was on the ground, writhing for a second before stiffening as death claimed him.

“You all right?” Smoke called to the detective.

Halliday nodded. “Yeah. That was the hottest shootout I’ve been mixed up in for quite a while.” A grin stretched across his angular face. “Brought back some memories…not necessarily good ones.”

“I know what you mean,” Smoke said as he began to reload. He had killed so many men over the years that he sometimes wondered if the killing was ever going to stop. Someday it would, he thought, when times were finally peaceful…but he might not be around to see it.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the stagecoach had come to a stop several hundred yards away. “We’d better go check on it,” he said to Halliday. “Make sure that judge is still all right.”

They jogged their horses toward the coach. Before they got there, the door opened and a stocky, powerfully-built man stepped out holding a rifle. He wore a town suit, but his broad-brimmed tan Stetson and well-worn boots looked more like something a frontiersman would wear. He had a close-cropped dark beard shot through with gray and looked up at Smoke and Halliday with intense, keenly intelligent eyes.

“Judge Starr?” Halliday asked as he and Smoke reined in.

The man nodded. “That’s right. Who’re you?”

“Name’s Halliday. Right now I work for a law firm in Denver.” Halliday inclined his head toward Smoke. “This is Smoke Jensen.”

Judge Starr’s somewhat bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. “The gunfighter?”

“Some call me that,” Smoke allowed. “The way I see it, I’m just a rancher.”

Starr snorted. “A rancher with one of the fastest draws in the West, if not
the
fastest. I take it you gentlemen came out to meet me and escort me the rest of the way to Buffalo Flat?”

“That’s right,” Smoke said. “We knew there was a good chance Reece Bannerman would try to stop you from getting there and conducting that hearing.”

Starr raised a hand to stop him. “I won’t allow any testimony out here on the trail that might prejudice my judgment. Save that for the hearing, gentlemen.”

Smoke frowned in irritation and said, “But those were Bannerman’s men who were tryin’ to kill you.”

“That assumes facts not in evidence.” Starr tucked his rifle under his arm. “Now, shall we go?”

Smoke bit back an annoyed curse and nodded. “Yeah, I reckon so.” He watched as Starr climbed back into the coach and shut the door. The driver called out to the team, slapped the reins against their backs, and got them moving again. Smoke and Halliday fell in alongside the vehicle.

“Reckon he’s a by-the-book judge, all right,” Smoke muttered.

“That’s just what you want,” Halliday pointed out. “That means he’ll be more likely to rule in favor of your friend Little Bear if the claim is a valid one.”

“I hope so. I don’t want to wind up havin’ to go against the government.”

Halliday frowned over at him. “You’d do that?”

“If it means stopping Bannerman and his high-powered cronies back in Washington from getting away with the biggest, dirtiest landgrab in history…I’ll do whatever it takes,” Smoke said.