Brotherhood of Evil (18 page)

Chapter 38

Leaving Smoke and Sally alone for a while so they could enjoy their reunion, the Sugarloaf foreman and the young cowboy greeted Dog—an old friend of theirs—rounded up the horses belonging to Trask's men, and dragged the bodies of the fallen outlaws into a grisly heap off to one side of the line shack.

Smoke and Sally walked off under some trees, so Pearlie took advantage of the opportunity to haul the dead man out of the shack and add his carcass to the pile.

“What are we gonna do with 'em, Pearlie?” Cal asked. “It'd take a mighty big grave to hold all those polecats.”

“Yeah, and I don't feel like doin' that much diggin',” Pearlie responded. “I was thinkin' we'd tie the varmints over their saddles and send the horses trottin' back down the mountain. Chances are they'll go back where they came from.”

“And Trask will know he's lost seven more men. We're whittling 'em down, aren't we?”

“Yeah,” Pearlie said as he rubbed his chin. “Problem is, there was a whole passel of 'em to start with. At this rate, they're liable to outlast us.”

“You can't be happy about anything, can you, you sour old cuss?”

“Reckon I'll be happy when we've got all those owlhoots off the Sugarloaf and things get back to normal around here,” Pearlie said.

“I thought finding ourselves in a whole mess of trouble
was
normal around here.”

Pearlie squinted. “If I had my hat with me, I'd take it off and wallop you with it, youngster.”

Smoke and Sally walked up in time to hear the good-natured squabbling. Even though he knew the gibes didn't mean anything, he said, “Save your hostility for the enemy, you two. And keep an eye out. Somebody else might have heard all the shooting that went on earlier and come to investigate it.”

Pearlie nodded. “I been watchin' the slopes lower down. Ain't seen anything movin' yet.”

“We're a long way from ranch headquarters. I doubt if they heard it down there. We don't have any way of knowing where Trask's other patrols might be, though.”

Pearlie looked at Sally. “You told Smoke about that fella who calls hisself a doctor?”

“Of course I did. You didn't think we were over there under the trees just whispering sweet nothings in each other's ears, did you?” She blushed a little, which in Smoke's eyes just made her prettier.

“We might've done a little of that,” Smoke said with a grin, then he grew more serious. “But yes, Sally told me about Dr. Trask and his men.”

“You know who he is, Smoke?” Cal asked. “Is he an old enemy of yours?”

Smoke shook his head. “I never heard of the man until just now, unless he was using some other name when I knew him. Sally described him to me, though, and he doesn't sound that familiar. Could be a lot of men in the world who look something like that.”

A little shiver went through Sally. “You wouldn't believe that if you'd seen him close up like I did, Smoke. Once you'd looked in his eyes, I don't think you'd ever forget him. You can see the madness in him.”

“A fella's got to be crazy if he thinks he can just waltz in and take over the Sugarloaf like that, not to mention Big Rock,” Pearlie said.

“That seems to be just what he's done,” Smoke pointed out. “I don't know why, don't know what he intends to gain by it, but that doesn't really matter. The important thing is figuring out how we're going to stop him.”

“I don't mind sayin', I feel a whole heap better about things now that you're back, Smoke,” Pearlie said. “But that don't change the fact that there's four of us and dang near a hundred o' those hardcases.”

“Fewer than that now,” Cal said, “after the fight at the ranch and what happened here. I'll bet we've done for at least a dozen of them, maybe more.”

Pearlie frowned. “All right. So the odds are only twenty to one, instead of twenty-five. That still don't bode well for our chances, kid.”

“It's not quite that bad,” Smoke said with a faint smile.

“You're talking about Matt and Preacher and Luke, aren't you?” Sally asked him.

“Luke didn't come back with us, I wish he had. He wanted to get back to his bounty hunting, or so he claimed. I think mostly he's just not real comfortable being around people he cares about. He's not used to it.” Smoke paused. “But Matt and Preacher were with me when we ran into some of Trask's men on the road the other side of Big Rock, and they've gone on into town to see if they can find out what's behind all this. That's why I brought Dog with me.”

Sally wore a worried frown as she said, “I'm sure Trask left plenty of men in Big Rock to keep things under control there. Matt and Preacher are liable to be riding right into trouble.”

“Maybe,” Smoke said. “Or maybe not. Those two are tricky enough I'm not sure trouble could find them unless they wanted it to.”

Chapter 39

Preacher's instincts told him to grab the gun in his waistband and blaze away at the men charging toward him on horseback, but that wasn't what a traveling tinker and peddler would do, so he suppressed the impulse.

At least, he would as long as the men didn't open fire. If they commenced to burning powder, all bets were off.

They didn't shoot, but they did surround the wagon, the mule team, and the three horses tied on behind the vehicle.

One of the riders leaned over, grasped the hair on a head that hung limp in death, and lifted it. “Damn!” he yelled. “It's Dalby!”

“The other two are Harkness and Jenkins,” a second man reported. “They were on guard duty out along the road that follows the railroad tracks into town.”

“And that's where I found 'em,” Preacher said, raising his voice so he could be heard clearly. “They'd been gunned down. I couldn't just leave 'em alayin' there in the road, so I rounded up their horses and loaded 'em up. Figured I'd turn 'em over to the sheriff in town.”

One of the men covering him grunted. “You can forget about that. There's no law in Big Rock anymore except us.”

Preacher squinted and cocked his head to the side. “So it's like that, is it? Well, that don't make no never mind to me. If you fellas are friends of these boys and want to take 'em off my hands, that's all I'm worried about. Just untie them reins and I'll be amoseyin' on my way—”

“You can forget about that, you old pelican,” snapped the man he'd been talking to. “You're not going anywhere.”

“Now, hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute—”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

Preacher jerked a thumb at all the goods hanging from the wagon and said with a note of pride in his voice, “Can't you tell? I'm a peddler . . . and a tinker, to boot. If you got anything needs fixin', chances are I can fix it.”

One of the other men leaned forward in his saddle and sounded out the name painted on the wagon. “Isaac . . . Hersch . . . ko . . . witz. What kind of a name is that, Cully?”

“One that doesn't look like it fits this old coot,” the spokesman said.

Preacher frowned. “I'm liable to take offense, you keep callin' me
old
that way.”

Cully let out a harsh bark of laughter, then demanded, “What's your name?”

“They call me Art,” Preacher said. “I bought this wagon from Ike Herschkowitz, as he'd be happy to tell you if he was here.”

“Art what?”

Preacher scratched his jaw. “You know, it's been so long since I used my full handle, I sort of disremember. Just call me Art. That'll do.”

“And you're just a traveling peddler?”

“Yep.”

“We're going to search this wagon, you know. If we find anything that tells us you're lying, you'll be sorry.”

Preacher waved a hand. “Search all you want. You won't find nothin' but the finest trade goods west o' St. Louis.” He hoped that was true. He hadn't thought to look in the back of the wagon.

One of the other men dismounted and opened the door at the back of the wagon compartment. Preacher felt the vehicle shift under the man's weight as he climbed in. A couple tense minutes went by, then the man stepped down from the wagon. “Looks like a load of junk to me. I don't reckon we have to worry about this old geezer, Cully.”

“There you go with that
old
business again,” Preacher complained.

“Shut up,” Cully said. “Did you see anybody else out there on the road where you found these bodies?”

“Do you want me to shut up or do you want me to answer your questions?”

Cully raised his gun, looped his thumb over the hammer, and eared it back.

Preacher raised a hand. “All right. Take it easy. I didn't see nobody. Didn't hear no shootin', neither, so the fracas that laid those fellas low musta happened a while 'fore I come along.”

One of the men who had been looking at the bodies rode forward. “Cully, Harkness's horse is missing. I never saw that big ugly gray stallion before.”

Cully eased the hammer down on his gun and lowered the weapon. “One of the damn owlhoots who shot it out with them must've gotten unhorsed during the fight. Maybe he grabbed Harkness's mount to ride off.” Cully looked at Preacher. “You happen to know anything about that?”

“Not a blessed thing,” Preacher declared with utter sincerity. It had been decades since he'd learned how to tell a convincing lie, and he hadn't forgotten in all that time.

“You believe him?” a man asked Cully.

After a moment's thought, Cully nodded. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Preacher lifted the reins a little. “I can go on about my business, then.”

“If anybody in this town wants to buy that junk of yours, that's fine,” Cully said. “But you're not going anywhere.”

“You mean I got to stay here?”

“That's exactly what I mean.” Cully waved a hand at the other men, who holstered their guns and began to disperse, riding back down the street toward the saloon they had come from. “Just stay out of trouble and you won't be hurt.”

“How long am I gonna be stuck here?” Preacher whined.

“Until we're finished with the business that brought us to Big Rock.”

“What might that be?”

Cully glared. “Asking questions is a good way to get yourself killed.”

“Sorry,” Preacher muttered. “Didn't mean no offense.”

“But I'll say this,” Cully went on. “It all depends on a man named Smoke Jensen. Heard of him?”

“Seems like I have,” Preacher said. Just about everybody in that part of the country had heard of Smoke, no matter who they were, so it wouldn't do to pretend ignorance.

“The sooner he cooperates with us, the sooner this is all over,” Cully said. “And since our boss is holding his wife prisoner, Jensen better play along if he ever wants to see her again.”

It took an effort, but Preacher kept his face emotionless. The varmints had Sally! Smoke had been worried about that, and rightly so, it seemed.

But the outlaws had made the worst mistake of their life. Smoke would see to it that they got what they had coming, and Preacher and Matt would give him a hand.

That thought made the old mountain man glance along the street. He didn't see any sign of Matt, which wasn't all that surprising.

He wondered if the young fella had made it into town yet. Where was he?

Chapter 40

Lorena Morton picked up one of the pieces of broken desk and sighed.

“Let me clean that up for you,” Matt offered. “It's kind of my fault it's busted.”

“It's not at all your fault. You were just trying to help me . . . Charles.”

He knew why she called him that. She was trying to get in the habit. Now that she had established the lie with the men who had taken over Big Rock, she had to keep up the pretense of being his sister.

In whispers, so he wouldn't be overheard from outside, he had explained to her who he really was and what he was doing there. She had been stunned to hear that he was Smoke Jensen's brother.

“That's who they're really after,” she had told him, keeping her voice down. “There's a rumor going around town that their boss, a man named Trask, is holding Mrs. Jensen hostage out at Sugarloaf.”

That news made a jolt of anger go through Matt. He knew how deeply Smoke loved Sally, and he had visited in their home enough that he loved her, too. The thought of her being in the hands of a bunch of ruthless hardcases made him furious.

He knew he needed to keep his emotions under control if he was going to carry out the mission. He explained to Lorena how he and Smoke and Preacher had run into the guards a couple miles on the other side of town and then split up to find out what the situation was.

Matt already had a lot of the information he had come for, thanks to Lorena and her quick thinking. Her nimble wits had salvaged things after he'd come bulling in.

Of course, he had saved her from being molested, so they were sort of square on that score, he thought.

A faint note of warning sounded in the back of his mind as he spilled everything to her. He had no way of knowing that she wouldn't run to Trask's men and betray him. He didn't consider that very likely, but he couldn't rule it out.

Sometimes, though, a fella just had to put his faith in his instincts . . . and they'd told him he could trust Lorena Morton.

“Do you even have a brother?” he had asked her.

“No. All my family is dead. That's why I . . . I left my home back in Missouri and came out here to teach school. This is my first year in Big Rock.”

Once everything was out in the open, he helped her clean up the damage from the fight and put the desks and benches back in order.

“You're going to have to come home with me, you know. They're liable to be watching, and I've already told them that you live with me.”

“Are you sure that's all right?” Matt asked. “I don't want to do anything to compromise a lady's reputation.”

Lorena smiled. “There's nothing improper about a brother and a sister sharing a house, is there?”

“No, I reckon not,” Matt said as he put his hat on.

Of course, the feelings that he had when he looked at Lorena weren't exactly brotherly.... “I'll have to come back here later, though.”

“Why?”

“I'm supposed to meet my friend Preacher here, once we've both had a chance to look around and see what's going on.” Matt shrugged. “Then we'll have to get out of town and find Smoke so we can tell him about it.”

Lorena nodded. “I see. Well, you do whatever it is you need to do, and I'll help you any way I can.”

“I'm obliged to you.”

“Not at all. Whatever those terrible men are planning, they have to be stopped. Just . . . be careful, Charles. I . . . I wouldn't want anything to happen to you.”

He thought he detected a husky quality in her voice that didn't exactly sound sisterly.