Shem Turnbull and George Cash lounged in front of the Bucket O' Suds saloon, two doors down from the bank. As noon neared, the street began to clear of people. Most of the shops closed over the dinner hour. Carefully they eyed passersby. Many of the men were armed. Those who were going home would be no trouble. Already a line had formed outside the eatery on the corner, and those would have to be closely watched. Shem turned to George.
“We shoulda brought another gun. Three fellers is not enough to carry this off.”
“Oh, I don't know, Shem. They won't be expectin' anything, and their minds will be on their dinners. Ace can handle it real good.”
“Not without a little help from you,” Ace Banning declared as he walked up to his friends. “Shem, I want you inside with me. There's two armed guards. We've got only a minute, so let's move.”
* * *
Smoke Jensen downed the last of his second schooner of beer, pushed back his chair, and dug in his pocket for a cartwheel dollar. “I'll walk over to the office with you, but then I have to head right back. I've got three mares who are due to foal at any time.”
“You never opened that letter from Alvarado,” Monte complained good-naturedly.
“That's right. I'll have to read it when I get home.” Then reading his friend's expression, he added, “I'll let you know what Don Diego wrote about.”
They had reached the tall, double doors with the painted glass inserts when the sound of a gunshot came from the direction of the bank. A woman's scream followed. Smoke turned that way at once, to be stopped when Monte laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I'll take care of this, Smoke. No need for you to stick your neck out.”
Smoke cut his eyes to his friend and growled, “Even if I want to?”
Monte shook his head. “Not this time.”
He set off for the bank. Monte made it halfway down the block before the outside man saw him coming and fired his six-gun from the lawman's blind side. The bullet struck Monte in the chest. Deflected as it punched through a rib, the slug cut a path through his lung from front to rear and buried itself in the thick muscle of his back. Shock took Monte off his boots. At once, Smoke started for him.
“Watch it, there's one over there somewhere.” A pink froth formed on Monte's lips, and his voice came out far weaker than he expected.
Smoke reached his friend, his .45 Colt in hand, and glanced in the direction Monte pointed before the sheriff lost consciousness. Smoke saw his man instantly. A cruel grimace distorted the outlaw's mouth as he raised his revolver for another shot at the lawman. Smoke fired first. His round pinwheeled the man, punched through his sternum and tore apart his aorta. Charged up on adrenaline and action, he bled to death before he hit the boardwalk.
Kneeling, Smoke examined his fallen friend. Monte's face had grown pale, with a tinge of green around his lips, his breathing shallow and rapid. Smoke could hear a faint gurgle. If that bastard's killed him . . . he thought in a flash of anger. The thought came to him then. The first shot had been muffled; it had to have come from inside the bank. At once, he started that way.
* * *
It began going wrong the moment they entered the bank with bandannas tied over their faces. The employees and customers of the bank had no doubt what the masked men intended. Shem Turnbull headed for the teller cages, and Ace Banning shoved through the low swinging gate in the wall that divided the lobby from the working area. At once, the tellers raised their hands. Shem gestured with his gun barrel.
“That's right, keep 'em up until I tell you otherwise. You, get a money bag and start filling it,” he told the nearest teller.
Ace concentrated on the portly, balding man in a glassed-in cubicle. “Step out here and come over to the vault. We want all the hard money and all the greenbacks you can load in those sacks.”
Rosemont Faulkner knew better than to make vain protests about the robbers not getting away with it. He left his desk and hastened across the floor to the door of the vault. There, instead of stooping to load the bank's precious capital into a canvas money sack, he swiftly grabbed the heavy door and gave it a hefty swing. It clanged shut, and he spun the dead bolt wheel. Defiantly he put hands on his hips and spoke with relish.
“That's a time lock. It won't open again until eight o'clock tomorrow morning.”
That's when Ace Banning, already strained beyond control by the presence of two armed guards who were presently out of his sight, lost it.
“You bastard!” he screamed as the hammer fell on a cartridge, and Ace shot the bank president through the heart. A woman behind him began to scream. He spun on one boot heel and strode to the tellers.
“All right, Shem, grab everything they have and let's get out of here.”
Two minutes went by with the outlaws holding bags in one hand and tellers stuffing them. Then a loud report came from outside. Ace nodded to the door. “That's George, let's go.”
Quickly they reached the door, and Shem Turnbull flung it open. They stepped out into the presence of an angry Smoke Jensen.
* * *
“Hold it right there,” Smoke growled.
Two men stood before him, crowded into the open double doors of the bank. Each held three bulging canvas bags. They also gripped identical Smith and Wesson .44 Americans. Smoke followed his command with sizzling lead. Ace Banning dropped flat as the Colt in Jensen's hand bucked. The slug slammed into the pane of the bank door, and it shattered; shards flew inward to the chorus of screams from the three women inside. Ace fired wildly as the musical tinkle of glass sounded behind him.
His slug flew between Smoke's outspread legs. Already the last mountain man had moved his point of aim and triggered a shot that took Shem Turnbull in the thick meat of his side. He clapped a hand against it and discharged his Smith and Wesson. The .44 bullet cracked past Smoke's left ear and struck the bannister post of the balcony across the street. Smoke moved then, as Ace fired again. His third shot struck the prone Ace Banning in his shoulder, snapped the collarbone, and bored down into his lung.
At once, Ace began to gag and fight for air. His hand went slack on the revolver, and it dropped from his fingers. Smoke Jensen changed position again and fired a safety shot. Due to the small target, it gouged the back of Ace Banning. He cried out as the slug plowed along his spine and entered his right buttock. Beside him, Shem fired again.
A hot crease burned along the outer point of Smoke's left shoulder. Twisting with the impact, Smoke lined up on the bank robber and fired again. His bullet ripped into Shem's middle and punched a hole in his liver. As massive shock stole over him, he sagged back against the wall and released his hold on the money bags and six-gun. Slowly, he slid down to a sitting position. Peacemaker leading the way, Smoke Jensen walked up to them and kicked the gun away from Ace, then Shem. Years of experience told him that both would die within an hour. One of the bank guards came to the door.
“Go get Doc Simpson,” Smoke commanded the astonished man.
Ace groaned and looked up at Smoke. “Th-thank you, mister. Ahâwhoâwho are you?”
Smoke kept it cold. “I didn't send for the doctor to treat you. You'll be dead before an hour's gone by. And, I'm known as Smoke Jensen.”
Greater misery washed over the pale face of Ace Banning. “Weâahâwe didn't think you were still alive. And a lawman at that.”
His last sentence did not make much sense to Smoke, so he ignored it and replied to the first. “Your mistake.”
* * *
Dr. Hiram Simpson entered the outer treatment room of his office wiping his hands on a towel. “Let's take a look at you, Mr. Jensen.”
“First tell me, how is Monte?”
Doc Simpson sighed tiredly “It was close. I had to clean the wound channel first off. Then, when I got the bullet hole plugged, and closed the two holes in his lung, the Almighty musta smiled on me, 'cause the lung reinflated. He's healthy. he should heal that up in good time. I've given him enough laudanum that he will sleep through to evening. That should aid the healing process. But, the bullet is lodged in the thick muscle only a fraction of an inch from his spine. After having to open his chest to work on his lung, no one can go in there after it right now.”
“When can you?”
Doc Simpson read the strain in Smoke's voice. “Provided the sheriff heals as expected, I'd say someone could operate within six weeks, if that lead don't shift and paralyze him in the meantime.”
“That could happen?”
With a hesitant nod Simpson replied, “I'm not a master surgeon, but right or wrong, it is taught in medical school that foreign objects in the body can shift under certain circumstances. That's why I don't want to operate on him. I'll send for a special surgeon from Denver.”
That information did not sit well with Smoke. While Dr. Simpson worked on him, he kept at the physician to give a more accurate description of what damage had been done to Monte Carson. He remained dissatisfied when the doctor cut the last piece of tape and handed him two laudanum pills.
“Take half of one of these now. If the pain persists, take another half every six hours.”
“I don't think I'll be needing them, Doctor,” Smoke informed him, handing back the medicine. “How much do I owe you?”
“The county will pay for it. You were working as a deputy at the time.”
With that settled, Smoke shrugged into his bloodied shirt, put on his vest and hat and headed to the door. It would be a long, uncomfortable ride back to the Sugarloaf.
2
Halfway back to the Sugarloaf, Smoke started to regret his rash decision to reject the opium-based medicine. He also thought darkly about the morning's events. Why did it have to be Monte Carson who caught that bullet? Although Monte had the constitution of an ox, he was nearing sixty. People didn't heal so quickly then. Smoke knew from experience that a lung shot often led to pneumonia, which more often killed the victim than the bullet itself. In his moody thoughts, Smoke castigated himself for not having gone along with Monte. Better still, gone in his place.
No, Smoke admitted to himself, Monte had too much pride. It would have robbed him of his self-respect to acknowledge that age might be slowing his gunhand, delaying the proper read of a situation. Yet, the results spoke for themselves. Monte lay unconscious in the small infirmary off Doc Simpson's office. Smoke had a slight bullet burn on his shoulder. They had both gone about it wrong. Admitting it did not mollify Smoke in the least.
Once he had turned Cougar into the corral, in the hands of Bobby Jensen to cool him out, Smoke took the mail to the main house. Sally greeted him with a spoon dripping melted lard in one hand. “Hello, handsome. I'm fixing a batch of doughnuts. My, what a lot of mail.”
“Yep. There's a
Sears
catalogue for you.”
Sally clapped her hands. “Oh, goody, I get to buy things.”
Smoke answered her with a sidelong glance. “No, you don't. And a letter from a woman named Mary-Beth Gittings.”
“Who?”
“That's what it says. I'll give it to you inside.”
Seated at the kitchen table, Smoke distributed the mail into neat piles. While Sally chattered on and added more lard to the heated deep skillet for the doughnuts, he turned his attention to the intriguing letter from New Mexico. He opened it to find a disturbing difference in his old friend. Instead of the usual bubbling enthusiasm of this jovial grandee, who so loved to entertain, it was a gloomy account of growing difficulties. High in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains, things were not right, Don Diego Alvarado informed Smoke Jensen. He went on to illustrate:
“There is an Anglo named Clifton Satterlee, who covets all of the land around Taos. He is powerful and wealthy. He has a hacienda outside Santa Fe and is believed to have the ear of many of his fellow Anglos in the territorial government. It is also said that he has many interests and much influence in the East. He has surrounded himself with some most unsavory men, who aid him in achieving his goals by any means necessary. Amigo,” the letter went on, “there have been some incidents of violence. Men have been driven out, Anglos as well as Mejicanos.”
Absently Smoke reached to the plate holding the doughnuts. He let go of one quickly enough the moment he touched it. “They're hot,” Sally reminded him with a laugh.
Smoke went back to the letter for the final paragraph. “No one here seems capable of dealing with the man. So, forgive my presumption in asking this, old friend, but I feel that I must appeal to you to come out here and get the feel of what is going on.” Only reluctantly, it seemed to Smoke, did Don Diego add his personal difficulties. “I, myself, have lost some cattle and the lives of some of my vaqueros.” His missive concluded with some of his usual flourish. Smoke put it aside in thoughtful silence.
* * *
They rode up quietly, five beefy, hard-faced, tough men, and tied off their horses to a stone-posted tie rail outside the high-walled hacienda on Calle Jesus Salvador in Taos, New Mexico Territory. Beyond the wall they could see the red tile roof of a Spanish colonial style, two-story house. Nestled in a large valley, surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo range, the residence had an air of peacefulness. That was quickly broken when the leader, Whitewater Paddy Quinn, spoke to his henchmen.
“Remember, we ain't here to break him up, just to get him to sign.”
One of the thugs, a man named Rucker, responded with a snigger. “Right, boss.”
“Sure, I mean that, Rucker. Not a bruise. Now, let's get in there.”
Quinn stepped up to a human-sized doorway inset in the tall, double gate, and raised a large brass knocker. The striker plate bolted to the portal gave off a hollow boom as he rapped it. He kept at it until a short, swarthy servant in a white cotton pullover shirt and trousers opened the door.
“¿SÃ, señores?”
“We're here to see Mr. Figueroa.”
“¿Qué? Lo siento, no hablo Ingles.”
Paddy Quinn struggled to put his request into Spanish.
“Es necesario a hablamos con Señor Figueroa.”
His grammar might not be perfect, but he conveyed the idea.
Figueroa's majordomo brightened.
“Ay, sÃ! Vengan.”
His leather sandals made soft, scraping noises as he led the visitors across the cobbled courtyard to the main entrance.
Through a wrought-iron gate and a pair of tall double doors, a tunnellike passageway led to a lushly planted open square. A large saguaro cactus filled one corner. In the center, a fountain splashed musically. Standing beside it was a slim gentleman of medium height, his white hair combed straight back in two large wings from his temples. He wore the costume of another age, tight, black trousers, trimmed with gray stripes along the outer seams, matching cut-away coat with gray lapels. His shirt was snowy, with a blizzard of lace and a wing collar. Calf-length boots had been burnished until they shone like polished onyx. From beyond him, practice scales on a piano tinkled from an open, curtained window. He turned at their entrance, and a dark scowl quickly replaced the smile of welcome he had prepared.
“You are not welcome in this house,” he declared.
Paddy Quinn put a wide smile on his Irish face. “Sure, I'm sorry you see it that way, Mr. Figueroa. We will try to be brief, we will. I have come to arrange for the sale of this property to Mr. Satterlee.”
Figueroa glowered at him. “Then you have come on a mistaken mission, señor. I have no intention of selling.”
Beaming happily, Quinn ventured to disagree. “Oh, yes, you do.”
“No, I do not. I have told you that five times before. I have not changed my mind. Now, leave or I shall send for some of my retainers.”
At that, Paddy Quinn gave a signal to two of his henchmen. They crossed the space separating them from Ernesto Figueroa and grabbed the elderly gentleman by the arms. Quinn gestured toward the open window. With little effort, they frog-marched him to the lace-curtained window from which the music came. Quinn came up behind and shoved Figueroa's head through the opening. The scales had given over to a piece by Mozart now, played by a sweet-faced little girl.
“A nice girl, your granddaughter, she is,” Quinn observed. “Lovely, innocent, vulnerable. You'd not be wanting anything to happen to her, now would you?”
A shudder of revulsion passed through Figueroa a moment before the thugs abruptly swung him around to face their leader. He fought for the words. “You wouldn't dare.”
Quinn gave him a smile. “You're right, I would not. But I cannot account for every minute of my men's time. Come, señor. You will be more than generously compensated, an' that's a fact. You can take your lovely, expensive furniture and possessions elsewhere, anywhere you wish, and live to see her grow to womanhood. And a lovely figure she will make, it is.”
Wincing from the painful grip on his arms, Ernesto Figueroa remained defiant. “What will happen if I still refuse?”
Paddy Quinn's face changed from beaming benignity to harsh evil. “Then I will let my men have their way with her and kill her before your eyes. But not you,” he went on. “We'll be leaving you to live with what your stubbornness caused. Think about it, bucko.”
Ernesto Figueroa hesitated only a scant two seconds before his head sagged in resignation and he made a hesitant gesture to indicate he would accept. Paddy Quinn handed him the papers and even produced a travel pen and brass inkwell so the defeated man could sign.
* * *
After due consideration, Smoke Jensen decided to go to Taos. His reasoning was simple. The foaling season, from February through April, was over and the first of May not far away. Besides, he owed Diego Alvarado. He left the hands busy with the new colts and went to talk it over with Sally.
“I expected this since you first told me what the letter contained. I'll not beg you to stay here, Smoke. I know better, and you would be disappointed in me if I did. How long do you expect to be gone?”
Smoke considered it. “Ten days. Two weeks at the most.”
Sally's chuckle held a hint of irony. “I've heard that before. How are you going to travel, Smoke?”
“I'll take the Denver and Rio Grande south to Raton, then go by horseback through the Palo Flechado Pass to Taos.”
A light of mischief glowed in Sally's eyes as though she particularly liked the thought that burst on her. “That sounds easy enough. I think I'll come with you; it will be nice to see Don Diego again.”
Smoke shook his head rejecting the idea. “Who'll run the ranch and look out for Bobby?”
“Ike can run the ranch, and Bobby is grown enough to bunk with the hands and take care of himself.”
Smoke remained unconvinced. “Think about what you just said.”
“About Ike running the ranch?”
“No. About Bobby. He's thirteen, Sally. Do you remember what our others were like at that age?”
Fresh worry lines formed on Sally's forehead. “Yes . . . unfortunately I do.”
“I think you should reconsider.”
Sally stood in silence a long two minutes, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder with Smoke. “All right, you win this one. I'll be realistic and not start to worry until three weeks have gone by.”
“Nice of you,” Smoke jested, giving her a swift hug. “I will write you when I reach Taos.”
“Send a telegram instead. It will get here sooner.”
“All right.”
“Now, let me ask only one thing. What are you going to do when you have to keep your promise to that boy about taking him along on one of these trips?”
Smoke affected a groan. “I'll figure that out when the time comes. Now, dear wife, will you pack me something suitable to wear at Diego Alvarado's?”
* * *
With an impatient twist to his lips, Clifton Satterlee gazed from the narrow window of the mud wagon stagecoach that rattled and swayed along the narrow dirt roadway that led from Santa Fe to Taos. “One would think,” he muttered under his breath, “that since our nation has conquered this country, the government would put down proper paving stones.” If they did not reach the relay station soon, he swore he would leave his breakfast on the floor of the coach. Across from him, his chief partner in C. S. Enterprises, Brice Noble, sat beside Satterlee's bodyguard, Cole Granger. To the increase of his discomfort, Satterlee realized that Granger actually liked this trip. He seemed to thrive on the discomfort. Suddenly Clifton's stomach lurched, and a fiery gorge rushed up his throat. He turned sideways and hastily flung aside the leather curtain.
“Oh, God,” Satterlee groaned as he thrust his head out the window. With explosive force, he vomited into the rising plume of dust that came from under the iron-tired right front wheel. He could feel Granger's amused gaze resting on him. Damn the man!
When he recovered himself, Clifton Satterlee crawled limply back inside. Cole Granger held out a canteen for him, which he took eagerly and he rinsed his mouth. Then Granger extended a silver flask. “Here you go, Mr. Satterlee. It's some of your fine, French brandy.”
Irritation crackled in Satterlee's voice. “It's cognac, Cole. C-O-G-N-A-C.”
Hastily, Satterlee seized the container and swallowed down a long gulp. Immediately his stomach spun like a carousel. Then the warm, soothing property of the liquor kicked in, and his nausea subsided somewhat. From outside, above on the box, came a welcome cry.
“Whoa, Tucker, whoa, Benny, whoa-up, Nell. Wheel right.” He called out the rest of the team, and the momentum of the stagecoach slackened.
Satterlee addressed the rest of the occupants. “About damned time. You know, that little upset of mine has left me ravenously hungry. Or maybe it is the cognac.” He took another swig.
Cole Granger checked the stage itinerary. “There'll be a meal stop here, Mr. Satterlee.”
Brice Noble looked balefully out the window. “I certainly hope the food will be better than we had this morning. That must have been what caused your discomfort, Cliff.”
Satterlee nodded his gratitude for his partner's cover-up of his motion sickness. He hated any sign of weakness, as did Noble. Clifton Satterlee studied his partner. A man in his late forties, ten years senior to himself, Brice Noble had a bulldog face with heavy jowls. For all his youth, Noble was completely gray, his hair worn in long, greasy strands. Shorter by three inches, Noble weighed around one hundred seventy pounds and had the hard hands of a working cowboy, although Satterlee knew he had been a wealthy man for a long time. Brice had never given up his habit of carrying a brace of revolvers, in this instance, Merwin and Hulbert .44s. Satterlee knew only too well how good he could be with them. His pale blue eyes had a hard, silver glint when angered.
For his own part, Clifton made certain he never infuriated Brice. Even at six feet, two inches with longer, once stronger, arms and barrel chest, Satterlee readily acknowledged that he was no match for Noble. He sighed as he glanced down at the beginnings of a potbelly. He would have to get out and do more riding, Satterlee admonished himself. Although a lean man, Satterlee's left armpit felt chafed by the shoulder holster he wore there, and more so from the weight of the .44 Colt Lightning double-action that fitted it. Recalling its presence brought a laugh to the lips of Clifton Satterlee. He had not had occasion to draw it in anger or even self-defense in the three years since he bought it.