The Family Jensen (11 page)

Thorn and Harley galloped off to the north as Smoke leveled his guns at them. He grimaced as he realized the horses’ initial burst had already put them out of handgun range. But he didn’t think they could outrun Seven. The Appaloosa had speed and stamina to spare.

As Smoke holstered his Colts and turned, intending to run behind the building to the shed and throw his saddle on Seven, he heard Sandy groan. Smoke had seen the young man shot in the head and assumed he was dead. Sandy was still alive, but he might not be for very long, without help.

Smoke glanced in the direction where Thorn and Harley had disappeared with Robin. Dust still hazed the air as it settled from being kicked up by their horses’ hooves, but that was the only sign of them.

He could track them, Smoke thought. Preacher had taught him plenty about how to follow a trail. Although the two men were opening up a lead, Smoke knew he could find them.

And when he did, they would die.

He ran to Sandy’s side and dropped to his knees to see what he could do for the wounded young man.

Smoke took hold of Sandy’s chin and turned the young man’s head so that he could see the wound. Blood covered the whole right side of Sandy’s face, but when Smoke parted the thick, dark hair above the ear, he saw that the slug had torn a gash in the scalp instead of penetrating. Wounds like that always bled like crazy, so they looked bad, but Smoke felt confident Sandy would live. The bullet had knocked him out and he would have a hell of a headache when he woke up, but other than that he ought to be fine.

The shots had drawn some attention in town, even at that early hour. Smoke heard heavy footsteps hurrying toward him, and when he looked up he saw Marshal Calhoun about twenty feet away, shotgun in hand.

Calhoun’s eyes locked with his. The marshal yelled, “You’ve killed him!” and moved to swing the Greener up. Smoke doubted if Calhoun was aware of what Thorn and Harley had done. But it didn’t matter. Smoke saw in Calhoun’s eyes he was going to take the opportunity to kill him.

Before Calhoun could do more than start to make his move, the Colt in Smoke’s right hand snapped up and roared. Calhoun came to a sudden stop as the .44 slug ripped through his right arm. He yelled in pain, dropped the shotgun, and staggered back a step as he clapped his left hand over the wound. His face contorted with hate as he let go of his right arm and tried to make an awkward grab for his holstered pistol with his left hand.

Smoke already had his revolver’s hammer eared back again. “Don’t do it, Marshal,” he warned. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“You…you can’t get away with this, damn you!” Calhoun said. He took his hand away from his gun, and used it to clutch his wounded arm again. “You shot me!”

“Figured that was better than letting you splatter me all over with that Greener,” Smoke said coolly. “Anyway, if you’d cut loose at me, you would’ve killed Sandy here, too.”

“The Indian? He ain’t dead? He’s got blood all over his face!”

“He’s just creased and knocked out,” Smoke explained. “Now, Ballew over there is dead.”

Calhoun sneered. “I suppose you didn’t kill him, either.”

“Actually, I did,” Smoke admitted. “It was sort of an accident, though. I was trying to kill Mitch Thorn, and Ballew’s head got in the way of my slug. Those other wounds are from when he tried to kill me last night and then again this morning.”

“Why were you tryin’ to kill Thorn?”

“To stop him and Gus Harley from kidnapping Miss Garrard.”

Calhoun’s eyes opened wide with shock, confirming Smoke’s hunch that the actions of Thorn and his companions at the school had been unplanned, spur of the moment things. Calhoun didn’t know about them.

“Miss Garrard?” Calhoun repeated huskily. “The schoolteacher? Mr. Garrard’s daughter?”

Smoke straightened to his feet. “That’s right. They threw her on Harley’s horse and took off with her, heading north.”

“Son of a
bitch
! When Garrard hears about that—” Several of the townspeople had come up behind Calhoun. One of them turned and took off at a run, obviously going to spread the news of Robin’s kidnapping. Calhoun heard the rapid footsteps, turned his head and saw the man, and yelled, “Hey! Come back here!”

The townie ignored the command. Jason Garrard was a powerful man, probably the most powerful man in town, and naturally some of the citizens would be eager to curry favor with him.

“All hell’s gonna break loose now,” Calhoun said with a sigh. “You’d better tell me what happened here, West.”

“Save it for when Garrard gets here,” Smoke said. “Right now, this young fella needs a doctor.”

“The redskin?” Calhoun sounded like he thought it was ridiculous to waste medical attention on Sandy.

“Where’s the doctor’s office?” Smoke asked, his voice as hard as flint.

Calhoun sighed. “Pick him up and bring him along. I’ll show you. Got to go there myself, to have the sawbones see about this arm of mine you ventilated.”

“You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you hadn’t lost your head, Marshal.” Smoke holstered his Colts and bent to slip his arms around the still unconscious Sandy. He lifted the young man without much effort.

Because he didn’t trust Calhoun he kept a close eye on the lawman as Calhoun led him along the main street to a neat cottage with a sign out front indicating that Dr. Peter Neal practiced medicine there.

Dr. Neal was a slender man in late middle-age, with a shock of white hair and spectacles that perched on the end of his long nose. He checked both wounds quickly once Smoke had carried Sandy into his surgery and Calhoun followed along behind.

“The head wound is slightly more serious,” he decided, “so I’ll treat it first. You’ll have to wait your turn, Marshal. Try not to bleed too much on my floor.”

That didn’t sit well with Calhoun, but he just grumbled a little about it as he sat down to wait.

Jason Garrard burst in a couple of minutes later while Neal was cleaning the wound on Sandy’s scalp. “Someone told me you’d come in here,” he said with a wild look in his eyes. “What’s this about Thorn carrying off my daughter?”

“Reckon it’s true, Mr. Garrard,” Calhoun said. He nodded toward Smoke. “West there can tell you about it.”

Garrard glared at Smoke. “You! What’s your part in this, West?”

“I just happened to be there at the school early this morning when Thorn, Harley, and Ballew burst in and attacked Sandy,” Smoke said.

“Who?”

“The redskin,” Calhoun put in.

“What was he doing there with my daughter?”

Smoke didn’t try to sugar-coat it. “I imagine he was kissing her, from the way Thorn was so upset about it.”

Garrard turned to stare with murderous fury at Sandy. “Why, the damn, dirty savage! I’ll see that he hangs for molesting Robin!”

“He didn’t molest her, you damn fool,” Smoke snapped, out of patience with the whole thing. “The two of them are in love, and I reckon they have been for a while. That’s one reason Sandy was goin’ back east for a white man’s education, so he’d feel worthy of marrying Miss Garrard.”

“Marrying?” Garrard repeated in a voice that trembled from the depth of his rage. “That Indian wanted to marry my daughter?”

“And she wanted to marry him. In fact, she said she would go and live in the Crow village with him if that’s what he wanted.”

Garrard’s hands clenched into fists as he took a step toward Smoke. “That’s a lie!” he roared.

“I’ll let you get away with callin’ me a liar, Garrard…once,” Smoke grated. “What I just told you is the truth, and you’d damn well better get used to it.”

Garrard stared at him for a long moment, then with a visible effort choked out, “What about Thorn?”

“He wanted to marry Miss Garrard, too, but she wasn’t interested.”

Garrard snorted. “I never would have let her marry a cheap gunman, either.”

“I don’t know what the three of them were doing at the school so early,” Smoke went on. “Maybe Thorn knew that Miss Garrard showed up there early to get ready for the day and wanted to see her. But they caught her and Sandy together and Thorn went loco. He told Harley and Ballew to beat Sandy to death. There’s no tellin’ what he had in mind for your daughter, Garrard, but when I took a hand, he made her a hostage and dragged her out with him. Harley shot Sandy, I shot Ballew, and Thorn and Harley got away with Miss Garrard. That’s the whole story.”

Garrard digested it all for a moment, then angled his head toward Calhoun. “How’d the marshal get shot?”

“I did that in self-defense because he was about to cut loose at me with a shotgun without finding out what was going on first.”

“So you admit shooting a lawman? You’ll go to prison for that, West.”

Calhoun spoke up, saying, “Maybe you better think twice about that, Mr. Garrard. With this bullet hole in my arm, I ain’t gonna be in any shape to go after Thorn and Harley.”

Garrard’s bushy red eyebrows rose in surprise. “Are you suggesting that I turn to this…this gunfighter for help?”

“West might be the only one in these parts who can handle Thorn and Harley. Even wounded like he is, I reckon Mitch Thorn’s as dangerous as a cougar. And he’s got Miss Garrard as a hostage, to boot.”

Garrard’s nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. He glared at Smoke and said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this…but how about it, West? Will you go after those bastards and get my daughter back? I’ll pay you any price you ask.”

“I told you once before what you could do with your job offers, Garrard.”

The man’s face mottled with rage. “Damn it, West—”

Smoke held up a hand to stop him. “I’ll go after them,” he said, “but not because you asked me to. You don’t know it, but I met Miss Garrard last night. She heard that ruckus at the livery barn and offered me a place to stay. I slept in the shed behind the school last night. That’s how come I was there this morning when the trouble started.”

Garrard looked like he couldn’t believe it. “Sometimes Robin meddles in things that are none of her business,” he growled. “But I guess all that really matters is that somebody is going after her.”

“I’ll come with you once I get this wound bandaged up, West,” Calhoun offered. “I can deputize you, and since the kidnappin’ took place here in town, that’ll make it legal for us to go after Thorn and Harley.”

The offer surprised Smoke. He wasn’t sure he wanted Calhoun’s help. It was doubtful that the marshal would prove to be of much assistance, with that wounded arm. But Calhoun’s attitude toward him seemed to have shifted, and he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have some legal standing.

Calhoun would be mighty surprised, though, if he knew he was offering a deputy’s job to the notorious Smoke Jensen, gunfighter and outlaw.

“All right,” Smoke said, “providing the doc here can get you patched up pretty quickly so we can get started trailing them.”

Dr. Neal glanced around. “I’m almost finished with the young man. I’ve cleaned his wound and checked for damage to the skull. There doesn’t seem to be any. I’ll put a dressing on there, and then I can tend to Marshal Calhoun.”

Garrard said to Smoke, “What can I do to help? You need guns, ammunition, any other supplies? Anything Hammond has in his store, I’ll buy it.”

“How about you promise to leave Hammond alone and not try to put him out of business?”

Garrard’s mouth tightened in response to Smoke’s suggestion. “You can’t dictate to a man how he’s supposed to do business.”

“You can if you’re plannin’ to risk your life trying to rescue his daughter from outlaws,” Smoke said.

Garrard glared at him again, but then gave him a curt nod. “It’s a deal. Bring Robin back safely to me, and I won’t open a store to compete with Hammond. You have my word on it.”

Smoke didn’t know how good Garrard’s word was, but he had to accept it for the time being.

Dr. Neal got to work on Calhoun’s arm. The wound was a shallow one. The bullet had missed the bone, so all Neal had to do was swab out the hole and bind it up.

Smoke left the doctor’s office, intending to return to the school and saddle Seven for the pursuit of Thorn and Harley. Garrard followed him. They found a large crowd waiting for them outside.

“Is it true that Miss Robin’s been kidnapped?” a man called.

Garrard nodded. “It’s true. But Mr. West here and Marshal Calhoun are going after the men who did it and bring her back.”

Several men stepped forward. One of them said, “If you’re puttin’ together a posse, Mr. Garrard, we’d be happy to come along. Everybody in town thinks mighty highly of Miss Robin.”

“That’s right,” a woman put in. “She does a fine job teaching the children.”

Garrard looked over at Smoke. “What do you think, West?”

Smoke shook his head and said, “I appreciate the offer, folks, but we’re just after two men. A posse would complicate things more than it would help. The marshal and I will handle this.”

“You don’t reckon those two varmints would just give up if they saw a big bunch after them?” a man asked.

“I think if they saw that, they’d be more likely to go ahead and kill Miss Garrard so she couldn’t slow them down while they made their getaway,” Smoke said bluntly. He turned to Garrard and went on, “Get a couple boxes of .44s, enough supplies for several days and meet me back here. Tell Calhoun to get his horse ready. We’ll ride in about fifteen minutes.”

Garrard nodded. “All right. West…I can’t thank you enough for—”

“Save it,” Smoke said. Garrard might be sincere in his gratitude, but Smoke didn’t want to hear it. The man still reminded him too much of his old enemies Richards, Potter, and Stratton. Smoke had told the truth when he said he wasn’t doing it for Garrard. He was doing it for Robin, pure and simple, and maybe a little for Sandy, too.

They would have trouble, now that their romance was out in the open, but Smoke couldn’t do anything about that. His only worry was bringing Robin back safely to Buffalo Flat. Once he had done that, and settled things with Thorn and Harley, he intended to ride on without wasting any more time.

His destiny still waited for him in the rough frontier town of Bury, Idaho.