Brotherhood of Evil (26 page)

Chapter 53

Night had fallen by the time Smoke, Pearlie, and Cal neared Big Rock. Smoke's keen senses and instincts had allowed them to dodge several more outlaw patrols as they rode toward the settlement. They reined in half a mile shy of the edge of town, stopping in the shadows under a grove of cottonwoods.

“According to what Trask told Sally, he's got Monte Carson and some other folks locked up in the jail,” Smoke said quietly. “I'm going to see if I can get there without being seen so I can talk to Monte. I might even be able to get him and the others out.”

“And let me guess,” Pearlie said. “Cal and me are gonna get left behind again.”

“Nope,” Smoke replied with a grin. “Pearlie, you try to get to Longmont's Saloon. Louis will know what's going on in town, and he'll back any play we make.”

“What about me?” Cal asked.

“Head for the livery stable,” Smoke told him. “The outlaws probably have their horses there. Some of them, anyway. If a ruckus breaks out, you stampede those animals, Cal. That'll put Trask's men at a disadvantage if we have to make a run for it.”

Cal nodded. “You can count on me, Smoke.”

“I know that. Meet back here in a couple hours, if you can. And both of you, stay out of sight as much as possible. That bunch is liable to shoot anybody they find on the street.”

Pearlie and Cal nodded in understanding. All three men knew what a big risk they would be running, but there was nothing else that could be done.

They left their horses tied loosely in the trees and split up to proceed on foot toward Big Rock. With luck they would be coming back for their mounts, but if they didn't, eventually the animals would get free and return to Sugarloaf.

Smoke employed all the stealthy tricks he had learned from Preacher as he made his way through the night. He used every bit of cover and shadow he could find. Covering the half-mile or so of ground took him more than an hour. Twice he had to lie absolutely still, not even breathing, while outlaw sentries walked past almost close enough for him to reach out and touch them.

He had just arrived at the back alley that led to the jail when nearby footsteps made him freeze again in a patch of shadow behind the hardware store. A man with a Winchester tucked under his arm stepped out of the narrow passage between the store and the neighboring building. He stopped and looked in both directions along the alley.

His attitude was casual. It was obvious he hadn't heard anything suspicious. He was just making a perfunctory check.

Smoke stood still, breathing shallowly. About fifteen feet away, the gunman was close enough that Smoke could be on him in two bounds.

It wouldn't hurt to start narrowing the odds. As soon as the man turned away, Smoke decided, he would go after the hombre and put a dent in his skull. He started to slide the Colt on his hip out of its holster. . . .

“Anything back there, Masters?” another man asked from closer to the street.

“Nope,” replied the man Smoke was watching. “Not even a damn ol' alley cat movin' around back here tonight.”

The other man chuckled as he strolled along the passage and stepped out to join Masters. “I reckon even the cats have heard they need to stay off the street or get shot.”

Masters dug in his shirt pocket and brought out the makin's. The other man did likewise. Smoke's jaw tightened. From the looks of it, they were going to stand there and roll quirlies, stealing a few minutes from their scheduled rounds.

When they had rolled the cigarettes, the man from the street scratched a lucifer to life on the wall and set fire to both gaspers. The glare from the match didn't quite reach to where Smoke was standing with his back pressed to the wall, next to a stack of empty wooden crates.

“How much longer you reckon we're gonna be here in this burg?” Masters asked idly.

“Until the doc gets what he wants, I suppose.”

“You mean Smoke Jensen.”

“That's why we're here, ain't it?”

“Yeah, but I'm not sure exactly what Trask wants with him. From everything I've heard about Jensen, he's hell on wheels. I wouldn't want to be within a hundred miles of the man . . . unless I was gettin' well paid for it.” Masters shrugged. “Which we are, I guess.”

“Why Trask wants Jensen is his business, and I don't want anything to do with that part of it. Our job is just to deliver him.”

These two would be mighty surprised, Smoke thought, if they knew their quarry was standing less than twenty feet away from them.

“I don't mind tellin' you, that fella makes my blood run cold,” Masters mused.

“Jensen, you mean?”

“No. Doc Trask.” Masters lowered his voice. “You know he was responsible for what happened to Lonesome Dan.”

“Dan volunteered,” the other man snapped. “He didn't have to let Trask do whatever it was he did.”

“You know, I've heard stories . . . Some fellas say there were more men that turned out like Dan.”

“Shut up. Just keep your trap closed, Masters. You know we're not supposed to be talkin' about things like that. If the major was to get wind of it . . . well, you know how close him and Trask are.”

“All I know is I'm ready for this job to be over and done with.”

“No argument there. But Jensen's bound to surrender soon as he finds out the doc's got his wife.” The other man dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out with the toe of his boot. “Come on. Let's get back to it.”

They turned and walked back toward the street.

In the darkness, Smoke smiled grimly. Those killers were counting on something that wasn't true. Trask didn't have Sally. She was safe in that cave up in the high country, leaving Smoke free to deal with the outlaws without having to worry about her.

He drifted off into the shadows, setting out to do just that.

Chapter 54

Cal had been in the middle of plenty of ruckuses since he had met and gone to work for Smoke Jensen. Trouble just seemed to gravitate naturally to him and those around him. All of those perilous adventures had turned out all right in the end, and Cal had no doubt that this one would, too. He had that much confidence in Smoke.

At the same time, in the back of Cal's mind was the realization that everybody's luck ran out eventually. Maybe fate would finally catch up to Smoke and his friends.

With a little shake of his head, Cal put that thought out of his mind. Just considering the possibility was being disloyal to Smoke, he told himself sternly. Anyway, in a dangerous situation, it was best to concentrate on one thing at a time.

He didn't want to slip up and get caught and focused his attention on staying out of the outlaws' sights as he carefully made his way toward the livery stable.

He reached the big, cavernous barn and tugged on the back door. It was barred from the inside, which was no surprise at that time of night. The front door might be open, but Cal wasn't going to risk stepping out into the street where he would be in plain view if one of the invaders looked his way.

He moved silently along the side of the building until he reached a small window that opened into the tack room where the night hostler slept. Most of the time, his friend Wendell Barnes held down that chore.

Despite the chill, the window was open a couple inches to let in fresh air. Cal raised himself on his toes and hooked his fingers over the sill. He put his mouth close to the gap and called in a whisper, “Wendell! Wendell, are you in there?”

He had to repeat that several times before he heard somebody stirring inside. A voice thick with interrupted sleep muttered, “What the hell?”

“Wendell, don't strike a light!” Cal said. “It's Calvin Woods. I'm here at the window.”

A dark shape moved on the other side of the glass. Whoever it was shoved the pane up, then a tousled, sandy-haired head thrust out and Wendell said in obvious surprise, “Cal? What in blazes are you doin' here? I thought you were out at the Sugarloaf.” The young hostler's voice caught a little as he added, “I worried those damn gun-wolves might've killed you.”

“It wasn't for lack of tryin' that they didn't,” Cal said. “Move back. I'm gonna climb in there.”

“Let me give you a hand.”

With Wendell's help, Cal clambered through the window. Relief went through him when his boots hit the floor of the tack room. At least while he was inside, none of the outlaws would come along and shoot him on sight.

Wendell was fully dressed except for his boots, since the night hostler never knew when he might have to help somebody with a horse. He ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture barely visible to Cal in the gloom. “I really was afraid you were dead. Those fellas have been talking all over town about how they took over the ranch, wiped out most of the crew, and made Mrs. Jensen their prisoner.”

“Well, part of that's a lie, plain and simple,” Cal stated. “They don't have Miss Sally. Pearlie and I got her away from there when they raided the place.”

“Then Pearlie's alive, too?”

“Yep.”

“Then why do they keep sayin' that about Mrs. Jensen bein' their prisoner?”

“I don't know,” Cal admitted. “Maybe that's what they want you folks in town to think so you'll be more likely to cooperate with 'em. Or maybe they really believe it because that's what their boss told them for some reason. I reckon all that can be hashed out later”—his voice took on a grim edge—“after Smoke gives 'em what they've got coming.”

“Where
is
Mr. Jensen?”

Cal opened his mouth to answer the question but then hesitated. What if Wendell sold them out to the gunmen who had taken over Big Rock?

He realized how ridiculous that idea was. He and Wendell had been friends for several years. They had played checkers and pitched horseshoes together. Wendell wasn't going to betray him or Smoke.

“He's somewhere around town,” Cal replied. “He and Pearlie and I snuck in tonight to do a little scouting.”

“What about Mrs. Jensen?”

“She's someplace safe.” He was vague about that answer not because he distrusted Wendell but rather because the fewer people who knew where Sally was, the safer for her.

A fella couldn't be tortured into telling something he didn't know, Cal thought bleakly.

“Now I've got a question for you. Have you seen hide or hair of Matt Jensen or Preacher today?”

A frown creased Wendell's forehead as he repeated, “Matt Jensen? That's Smoke's brother, right?”

“Yeah.”

Wendell shook his head. “I haven't seen Matt Jensen in quite a while. Nor Preacher. He's the old mountain man, Mr. Jensen's friend?”

Preacher was more like Smoke's adopted father, thought Cal, but it wasn't the time to go into that. He just nodded.

“Noooo . . .” Wendell said, shaking his head slowly. “There was an old man who came into town yesterday, but he was a peddler, not a mountain man. He had the bodies of three of those outlaws with him, though, slung over horses tied to the back of his wagon. He had the whole bunch in a ruction for a while, until they decided he was harmless.”

That sparked Cal's interest. Smoke had told them about the battle he and Matt and Preacher had had with three men guarding the road outside of Big Rock. He wondered if there could be any connection between that fight and the peddler Wendell had mentioned....

A thought suddenly occurred to Cal. “What did that peddler look like? Did you see him?”

“Oh, yeah. I saw him, all right. I even played checkers with him. His wagon's parked in the barn, and his mules are out in the corral. He's kind of a scrawny old-timer, looks like he's been through a lot in his life. He said his name's Art.”

Cal stiffened and caught his breath. He had heard the story of how a young fur trapper named Art had been captured by the Blackfeet many, many years ago. They held a grudge against him for killing so many of their warriors, and they had planned to burn him at the stake.

Instead Art had saved his own life by starting to preach to the Indians. He had kept it up for hours on end, all night and into the next day, and his captors had come to believe that he was touched in the head. Since it was bad medicine to harm a crazy man, they'd let him go instead of killing him . . . and once that story got around, Art's fellow trappers had dubbed him Preacher.

The name had stuck.

With his heart pounding a little, Cal realized the peddler who had driven his wagon into Big Rock had to be Preacher. He didn't have any idea how the old mountain man had gotten involved in that masquerade, but it was the only answer that made any sense. “That peddler—where is he now?”

Wendell shook his head. “I don't know. After he brought his wagon in yesterday evening, he asked if he could sleep up in the hayloft. I thought it would be all right, so I told him sure, to go ahead. That's the last I saw of him. When I got up this morning”—Wendell's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug—“he was gone. I don't have any idea where he went. Is that important, Cal?”

That explained why Preacher hadn't kept the rendezvous with Smoke out at Knob Hill, Cal thought. Something had happened to the old mountain man, or else he wouldn't have vanished from the stable's hayloft.

The question was whether Preacher was hiding out somewhere else, had been captured by the outlaws . . . or was dead.

Chapter 55

Several blocks away and on the other side of Big Rock's main street from where Cal was talking to Wendell Barnes, Pearlie stopped. The Sugarloaf foreman hated sneaking around. He wasn't good at it, and it went against his personality, which tended more toward barging into trouble head-on and bulling his way straight through it.

However, he couldn't afford to do that. With the odds facing him and Cal and Smoke, they had to be careful. If they got themselves captured, there was no telling what would happen to them. Or to Miss Sally, and that was even more important in Pearlie's mind. Every man on the Sugarloaf crew would give his life for her, or for Smoke, and Pearlie was no different. That was the sort of loyalty those two inspired.

Whether he liked it or not, he stuck to the shadows, listened carefully, and made sure it was safe before he took a step as he approached the back of Longmont's Saloon.

Louis Longmont and Smoke had been friends for years and had fought side by side in many battles. The gambler was also a fast gun, fast enough to shade just about anybody on the frontier except the very top level pistoleers. Pearlie couldn't even begin to imagine him giving up meekly to Trask's hired killers.

For that reason, he worried that Longmont was already dead. It would be a blow to Smoke if it turned out to be true.

The saloon's rear door was locked, Pearlie discovered when he carefully tried the knob. He bit back a curse as he listened to the noises that came faintly from inside the building. He heard men talking, the clatter of the roulette wheel, the tinkling strains of music from the piano. It sounded like a normal evening in the saloon, but he suspected the only ones enjoying it were the outlaws who had taken over.

He moved along to a window. The room on the other side of it was dark. Probably a storage room, he thought, drawing the bowie knife from the sheath at his waist. He worked at the wood with the razor-sharp point until he was able to wedge the blade between the window and the sill. He put pressure on it until, with a rending sound, the catch on the window gave and it slid upward a couple inches.

Pearlie grimaced at the sound, but a little noise couldn't be helped. He didn't think it had been loud enough to have been heard in the saloon proper. He hoped it hadn't been, anyway.

He sheathed the blade and raised the window far enough for him to climb through it. He had just gotten inside when he heard a heavy footstep on the other side of the door leading to the rest of the saloon.

Moving quickly, he put his back to the wall and stood where the door would conceal him if it opened. He drew his gun and held it up beside his head with his thumb looped over the hammer, ready to draw it back.

Sure enough, the knob rattled and the door opened. Light spilled into the room from the other side, throwing a man's shadow on the floor. He stepped into the room, advancing far enough that Pearlie could see his face in profile.

Instantly, Pearlie recognized the lumpy, craggy features. They belonged to a man named Glenn, who was one of Louis Longmont's bartenders. He wore a white shirt with sleeve garters, a string tie, and a vest. He didn't glance in Pearlie's direction as he muttered to himself, “Where the hell's that crate o' rye?”

Pearlie relaxed. He had worried that one of the outlaws might have heard him breaking in at the window and come to investigate, but clearly it was just a coincidence that Glenn had come into the storeroom at that moment. In the light that slanted through the open door, Pearlie saw crates of bottled liquor stacked around the room.

He knew he had to take a chance. Staying where he was, behind the door, he whispered, “Glenn! Glenn, don't holler or jump. It's me, Pearlie!”

Despite the warning, the startled bartender jumped a little. He quickly got the reaction under control, and didn't yell in alarm. With wide eyes, he turned his head to look over his shoulders and opened his mouth to say something, only to stop when Pearlie held the index finger of his free hand to his lips.

Glenn's surprised look disappeared and he nodded his head just slightly to let Pearlie know that he understood. “Dadgummit, how come I can never find anything when I'm lookin' for it?” He rummaged through the storeroom and moved crates around.

“That's good,” Pearlie whispered. “If any of those hardcases are watchin' you, they'll think you're still lookin' for whatever it is you came after.”

“Got a crate of Maryland rye back here somewhere,” Glenn said, keeping his voice low and barely moving his lips. “Thought you was dead, Pearlie.”

“Not hardly. And neither's Smoke.”

Glenn's breath hissed between his teeth. “He's back?”

“Damn right he is,” Pearlie said.

“Those gunnies out at the ranch . . . they got Sally.”

“No, they don't. She's safe, Glenn.”

The bartender sighed. “Well, thank the Lord for that. A lot of folks here in town have been worried about her, the way those varmints keep boastin' about her bein' their prisoner.”

“That's what they were after, but it didn't happen. Reckon they're tryin' to make folks think it did, anyway, so Smoke'll get wind of it and surrender to save her life.” Pearlie grunted. “They don't know Smoke Jensen.”

“What can we do to help?” Glenn asked. He continued pretending to search for the whiskey.

“Let Louis Longmont know that Smoke's back. I'd like to talk to him if I could.”

“That's just it,” Glenn said regretfully. “Mr. Longmont ain't here. He's gone to Denver. Won't be back for another four or five days.”

Pearlie breathed a curse. A formidable ally was gone. In the inevitable showdown that was coming, they could have used Longmont's help.

Nothing could be done about that bit of bad luck, so they would have to prevail over the invaders without the gambler.

Pearlie moved on to the other thing that had brought him there. “Have you seen Matt Jensen or Preacher around here in the last day or so?”

“Matt and Preacher?” Glenn sounded surprised. “I sure haven't, and I haven't heard any talk about them. Are they supposed to be here in Big Rock?”

“They were headed in this direction yesterday,” Pearlie explained. “They were supposed to get the lay of the land and then meet up with Smoke again. But they never came back.”

“Damn,” Glenn breathed. “You think that bunch killed them?”

Honestly, Pearlie couldn't imagine any owlhoots getting the best of Matt or Preacher, but there had to be a reason the two men had vanished. “I don't know.”

“Well, if they were captured, chances are they're locked up in the jail. That's where Trask's gunman put Monte Carson and the mayor and the other members of the town council.”

“The jail . . .” Pearlie said. Smoke had been headed there to talk to Sheriff Carson. If Matt and Preacher were there, maybe Smoke already knew about it. Shoot, he might've even busted them out already, thought Pearlie, although he hadn't heard any commotion.

“Pearlie, are you gonna fight back against the outlaws?” Glenn asked.

“Yeah, that's the idea, as soon as Smoke figures out how to go about it.”

“Well, when the time comes, plenty of men in town will pitch in to help you,” Glenn declared in a grim, angry voice. “We've got scores to settle with that bunch. We managed to hide a few guns when they went through town gatherin' 'em up, and we can fight with shovels and pitchforks and anything else we can get our hands on.”

“Can you pass the word to be ready when hell breaks loose?”

Glenn made a face. “That ain't gonna be easy. They've got the whole town locked down at night. Nobody's supposed to be out. I can let the swamper and the girls who are still here know, though.”

A bartender, a swamper, and a few saloon girls, thought Pearlie. It wasn't much of an army, but sometimes a fella had to make do with what he could get. “You do that. Meantime, I'm goin' back out that window and see if I can get to the jail. Smoke may be there—”

Another footstep sounded outside the storeroom, and a harsh voice asked, “What the hell are you doing in there, bartender? You've been gone a long time.”

Pearlie pressed his back against the wall again. He nodded to Glenn. They had said everything that needed to be said.

“I can't find that damn rye,” Glenn told the man who had questioned him. “I know it's supposed to be here—Ah, there it is!” He chuckled as he bent over to pick up a small crate. “If it'd been a snake, it would've bit me.”

“I've got a forty-five bullet that's gonna bite you if you don't get a move on,” the outlaw said.

Glenn went out and drew the door closed behind him. Pearlie let out the breath he had been holding.

He holstered his gun and went swiftly to the window.

He had just thrown a leg over the sill when somewhere in Big Rock, guns started to roar.