He was glad to put the little no-named village behind him as he rode north toward the mining town of Red Light.
By the end of the day, he was deep in the mountains and climbing higher through the twisting and winding passes. He’d been here before, back when he was a boy, roaming the wilderness with the mountain man, Preacher. He remembered a quiet little stream and was looking for it. Smoke loved the high country. It was here amid the splendor of the mountains that he felt most at home, most at peace with himself and his surroundings.
He did not dwell on the death of the rancher, Red Lee. To Smoke’s way of thinking, the deaths of bullies and those who took from society more than they gave were no more meaningful than the hole a man leaves after sticking his finger into a quiet creek. Nothing.
Smoke Jensen did not know how many men he himself had killed. He knew the figure was very high. If he never had to draw a gun on another man, it would suit him just fine. But if he had to kill again, a bully, a rapist, a murderer, a man who rode roughshod over the rights of decent people, it would not cause him to lose a second’s sleep.
Courts were fine and dandy. A needful thing, he supposed, to protect those who could not protect themselves. Smoke needed no such protection. He could take care of himself, his loved ones, his property. And if anyone violated anything he loved or protected or owned, they would have to face him, and courts be damned. His was a simple code, one if followed by all men would make the world a simpler place in which to live: You leave me alone, I will leave you alone. You have a right to a personal opinion, just as I do. But no more than I do. If you violate my space, you will have to fight me. Smoke knew he was an anachronism. He knew that courts and lawyers and judges were responsible for making the world a safer place, but a much more complicated one. And he felt it didn’t have to be.
Smoke rode his own trails, followed his own code of conduct, and tried to live a good life. And he did not give a damn whether others liked it or disliked it.
He found the spot where he and Ol’ Preacher had camped so many years ago, and to his delight it had not been disturbed by the destructive hand of man. He made his camp and fished for his supper and was just washing up the skillet when a man halloed the camp.
“I’m friendly,” the man called. “I done et, so you don’t have to feed me, but I sure would like a cup of that coffee I smell.”
“Come on in,” Smoke called.
The man was not young, probably in his late sixties, Smoke guessed. A miner, to judge by the equipment his mule carried. Smoke pointed to the coffeepot and the man squatted down and poured himself some, using his own tin cup, which had certainly seen better days.
“Leavin’ Red Light,” the miner volunteered. “ ’Tain’t no fit place to be no more. Done gone lawless and mean. If you’re headin’ that way, mister, I’d suggest you give it a second thought.”
“I was thinking about checking it out.”
The miner shook his head. “Then you’re headin’ into trouble.” He eyeballed Smoke. “Although I’d allow as to say you look like a man who could handle ’bout anything that was throwed at you.” He looked at Smoke’s Colt. “That ain’t new,” he remarked. “But it’s seen some use,” he added drily.
“Some.”
“I ain’t never gonna go back up yonder, so I can tell you who to look out for and what’s wrong with the place,” the miner said. “And that’s easy. Everything is wrong. Don’t trust the sheriff or none of his deputies. They’re all in the pocket of Major Cosgrove, who’s a thief and a murderer and an all around no-good. He talks fancy and lives in a fine home. But he’s no-’count. Red Light’s a boomin’ town now, and mean to the core. Must be seven, eight hundred people all crowded up there. It’ll stay that way ’til the gold is gone. Then there won’t be fifty people left. Jack Biggers is the big rancher in the area. He’s just as mean and no good as Sheriff Bowers and Major Cosgrove. As are the men who work for him. It’s just not a good place to tarry, son. I’d give it some thought.”
“How about other ranchers in the valley?”
“You know about the valley, huh? They ain’t but two other ranchers. Jack Biggers and Fat Fosburn. Jenny Jensen and an old man named Van Horn is holdin’ the kid’s ranch agin’ long odds. The powers that be want the girl’s ranch. The other ranchers was burned out, run out, or killed. I fear for the girl’s life, I do. For them men would as soon kill a girl as shoot a snake. She come into all her ma’s property. But most of it ain’t fitten for a decent girl to be associated with.”
“Oh?”
“No, sir. It ain’t. All but the ranch. It’s a beautiful little ranch in that valley. And my, my, it do have good water and graze. But Jack Biggers wants that property for hisn. And what Jack Biggers wants, he gets.” He finished his coffee and stood up, moving toward his horse and mule. “Well, I thank you for the hospitality. I got me a favorite place ’bout three, four miles down the way. But I smelled that coffee and got to salivatin’. See you, young feller.”
Before Smoke could ask another question, the miner had swung into the saddle and was gone. Smoke went to his pack and began removing what he felt he might need, including a ten-gauge Colt revolving shotgun that he had had for many years. He had sent it back to the factory in Hartford to have it reworked and refinished and they’d done a bang-up job. It was originally a 27-inch barrel and he’d sawed that off to within a few inches of the forestock. At close range it could clear an entire room of all living things. The cylinder held five rounds, and Smoke had loaded them and a sackful of other shells himself.
He took his pistols and cleaned them carefully, loading them up full. For the time being, he would not wear his left hand holster but instead tuck the second pistol behind his gunbelt. He had a hunch — unless somebody recognized him, he could, for a time, ride in and be known as K. Jensen with nobody the wiser. At least it was worth a try.
He cleaned and loaded his rifle and rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. He wondered what kind of business his sister might have had that would not be “fitten” for a young lady to go near.
Smoke topped a rise and looked down at the town of Red Light. He took an immediate dislike to the place. The streets were crooked and twisty and narrow, the buildings all jammed up against one another. Like most boom towns, it was a mishmash of buildings and tents and wagons. Even from where he sat above the town he could hear the shrill and false laughter of hurdy-gurdy girls, busy separating miners from their gold dust and nuggets, and behind it all the banging of tinny-sounding pianos.
Smoke had deliberately not shaved his upper lip since leaving the ranch, and his mustache was nearly grown out, since he had a naturally heavy beard. The mustache made him look several years older and a hell of a lot meaner. The mustache was beginning to droop down toward his chin and made Smoke look like he’d just come off the hoot-owl trail.
“All right, Buck,” Smoke said. “Let’s go check out this dump.”
The livery was on the edge of town and Smoke reined in and swung down. A young boy of about thirteen came out and pulled up short at the sight of the huge, mean-eyed horse.
“I got a stall for you, mister, but you’re gonna have to handle that hoss yourself.”
“What’s the matter, Jimmy?” a loudmouth hollered from a boardwalk so new some of the boards had not yet lost their sawmill color. “You want me to show you how to handle a hoss?”
“Nick Norman,” Jimmy whispered. “He’s a really bad one, mister. A bully.”
“Tell him if he thinks he’s man enough to handle this horse, come on and try,” Smoke returned the whisper. “Don’t worry about him coming back at you. He’ll be so stove-up he won’t be able to walk for six months. If he lives.”
“Well, why don’t you come show me, then, Nick,” Jimmy called.
“I’ll do that,”