“That was mighty smart of him,” added Walker. “We hadn’t hardly got around on this side of the house when we spotted some of the varmints in the trees back there. They opened up on us and we opened up on them. It was pretty hot and heavy there for a minute, until Ed and me made it to some cover.”

  “What’s goin’ on, Smoke?” Magruder asked. “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Smoke answered honestly. “We haven’t had any trouble lately except with those rustlers, and we took care of that bunch down in Black Hawk.”

  He wasn’t surprised that Hank Sinclair had acted quickly and decisively in sending these men around to the other side of the house at the first sign of trouble. Hank was a veteran hand who had been through more than one range war.

  “Who else is out there in the barn besides Hank?” Smoke asked. During the middle of the day, most of the men who had stayed behind on the Sugarloaf would be out riding the range. Only a handful would be at the ranch headquarters.

  “Jack Floren’s there,” Walker said. “I think I heard Hank tell him to take a rifle and climb up in the hayloft.”

  Smoke grimaced. That meant Floren was the man who had been shot and most likely killed.

  “And Fred Judson the wrangler,” put in Magruder. “They’re the only ones. Well, except for the boy, of course.”

  “The boy,” Smoke repeated hollowly, knowing perfectly well who Magruder meant.

  “Yeah, Brad. The little shaver who’s Louis’s stepson now. He was watchin’ Hank mend a saddle and pesterin’ him with a bunch of questions.”

  That sounded just like Brad, all right, thought Smoke. For the time being, he would have to rely on Hank Sinclair and Fred Judson to keep the youngster safe.

  Smoke was going to be busy . . .

  A large force on horseback suddenly charged out of the trees toward the house, and renewed firing came from the front.

  The Sugarloaf was under attack from two directions, and the defenders were badly outnumbered.

  CHAPTER 53

  Sam Brant lowered the field glasses from his eyes and grated a bitter curse. He had been watching the attack from a hilltop about a quarter of a mile from the Sugarloaf ranch house, and so far he didn’t like what he had seen.

  “That’s Smoke Jensen down there!” Brant exclaimed. “He’s supposed to be dead—or at least in Montana!”

  Two members of the gang were with him, but he had thrown the rest of his force against the ranch, splitting them into two equal groups. Jensen and the other man who had ridden up to the house with him had taken a considerable toll on the bunch that had attacked from the front. Brant wasn’t sure how it was going in the back, but a lot of gunfire was coming from that direction, so his men hadn’t waltzed in and taken over as he had hoped. As would have happened if everything had gone according to plan.

  Brant was a tall, gaunt, hawk-faced man with gray hair under his steeple-crowned hat. He and his partner Bert Rome had served in the army together, twenty-five years earlier, before they had decided that it would be more profitable selling guns to the Indians instead of fighting the savages.

  That enterprise had led to other criminal activities, and eventually a third partner had joined them, a man named Eli Markham, better known as the Santa Rosa Kid. The Kid was a former hired gun who had drifted all the way across the line into full-blown outlawry, and he was as useful a tool as Brant and Rome had ever picked up.

  Even though the Kid got an equal share, the other two men did all the thinking for the trio. What the Kid was good for was killing. Point him at anybody they wanted dead, and the Kid would take care of it, usually grinning and laughing while he did it.

  What no one knew except Brant and Rome was that when they’d decided the Kid had outlived his usefulness, they were the ones who tipped off the law where to find him. They figured the Kid would never let himself be taken alive. He had been, but that hadn’t helped him. He’d been tried and convicted and hanged, all in pretty short order.

  Fortunately, Steve Markham was just as dense as his old man had been. They had been able to recruit him for the gang and convince him to be their inside man on the Jensen ranch without any trouble. Somewhere along the way, they would have betrayed him, too . . . but only after they’d gotten their hands on the fortune in ransom money they intended to demand from Sally Jensen.

  But Smoke Jensen wasn’t dead after all. Brant had worried about that when he hadn’t heard from Rome, who was in charge of the Montana part of the operation, or from Steve Markham. He’d told himself that Rome just hadn’t had time to get to a telegraph office yet, but he hadn’t been able to fully believe that. For some reason, misgivings had gnawed at Brant’s guts, which never happened when they were pulling a job.

  His worries had been justified, and for a fleeting moment, Brant wondered if he ought to just cut his losses and ride away. Maybe some plans just weren’t meant to work.

  “What’re we gonna do, Sam?” Sherm Winslow asked.

  Winslow was short and fair and balding, with a pot gut and a permanently sunburned face. He didn’t look all that threatening, but he was the best man with a shotgun Brant had ever seen.

  And the last thing anybody saw who was unlucky enough to find themselves looking down the barrels of Winslow’s Greener.

  Brant’s other companion was a mountain of a man named Reese Butler. More than one hombre had made the mistake of thinking that Butler was just a slow-moving tub of lard. They generally got their ribs crushed or their necks snapped for making that mistake.

  In answer to Winslow’s question, Brant said, “We’re going down there.” He shoved the field glasses back in his saddlebags. “I haven’t seen any sign of Louis Jensen. Maybe he and his wife didn’t get back when they were supposed to.”

  “Ain’t he a sickly sort, though?” asked Butler. “Maybe he just stays in the house and don’t never come outside.”

  Brant ignored that and went on. “There might be something almost as good in the barn, though. Remember that kid we saw going in there?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” said Winslow.

  “Well, he didn’t come back out, so he’s still in there. And he’s Louis Jensen’s stepson, according to what Steve Markham told us. That means he’s Smoke Jensen’s stepgrandson. He ought to be worth a hell of a lot of ransom, too.”

  Winslow frowned “I dunno, Sam. He ain’t a blood relative. Anyway, you said Smoke Jensen wouldn’t pay any ransom, that he’d be more likely to track us down and kill us if we took his kid. That’s why you decided to wait until he was gone before we hit the ranch and grabbed Louis. And then killin’ him up in Montana would really open the door for us to collect from his widow.”

  Brant forced down the irritation he felt welling up inside him. “You’re not doing anything except telling me things I already know, Sherm. A man’s got to be able to adapt when things don’t work out like he’s planned. Jensen’s not dead, and he’s not gone. He’s here, and we’ve got to deal with him. And I don’t believe he’d be as likely to risk a kid’s life by being stubborn.”

  In reality, that was just a hope on Brant’s part. He didn’t know how Smoke Jensen would react to the kidnapping of his new grandson. But the way things had worked out, short of abandoning the whole plan that was all Brant and his men could do.

  Brant hitched his horse into motion and started down the hill. Winslow and Butler fell in on either side of him.

  “We’ll go in the back of the barn,” Brant said. “Whatever you do, don’t kill the kid. Anybody else who’s in there, though . . . blow ’em to hell.”

  * * *

  Brad cowered inside an empty stall as he listened to the thunderous roar of guns that filled the barn. Whenever it got too loud, he clapped his hands over his ears. He just wanted it to end.

  At the same time, he felt a strong sense of shame eating away at his insides. He knew there was at least one more rifle on the rack inside the tack room. He ought to go in there and get it, he told himself, so he could fight back against the evil men who had invaded the Sugarloaf.

  But he was afraid. He was a kid, after all. He couldn’t fight grown men, especially ones who didn’t hesitate to gun down their enemies. He had seen Jack Floren lying out there where he had fallen from the hayloft, not moving, with a dark puddle forming under and around him. That was blood, Brad knew, and Floren was dead.

  Besides, Hank Sinclair had told him to go back there and hide. “Crawl under the straw if you have to,” he had said. “It’ll stink like hell, but you don’t want those varmints to find you.”

  No, he didn’t want that, thought Brad. He sure didn’t.

  It seemed like the shooting had been going on forever, but it had only been a few minutes. Brad wished his mother was there, but as soon as that thought went through his head, he was glad she wasn’t. Wherever she and Louis were, they were safe.

  The person Brad really wished was in the barn with him was Smoke. That would make all the difference in the world. Smoke would never let anything bad happen to him.

  Brad’s head jerked up as he heard a sound from the back of the barn. Fred Judson, the wrangler, had barred the door there so nobody could get in, then Fred had joined Hank Sinclair at the front of the barn so they could shoot at the attackers. But it sounded like somebody was trying to get in back there, and although the bar had looked secure to Brad, the thought still scared him . . .

  He ought to go and tell Hank and Fred, he thought. They would know what to do.

  He scrambled to his feet and had just stepped out of the stall into the center aisle when a loud crash sounded and the barn’s back door flew open, the brackets that held the bar having been torn from the wall by the impact. The huge man who had just broken down the door stumbled through the opening and weaved to the side so two more men could charge in right behind him. One held a rifle, the other a shotgun.

  Hank Sinclair and Fred Judson had heard the crash. Both men raced into the aisle carrying their rifles. The intruder with the shotgun fired first, bracing the terrible weapon’s stock against his hip. The double charge of buckshot smashed into Judson’s chest and shredded it to bloody ribbons. He flew backward as if a giant had just yanked a string attached to his back.

  The third attacker had his rifle at his shoulder. From just outside the stall where he’d been hidden, Brad watched in horror as flame lanced from the Winchester’s muzzle and split the gloom inside the barn with orange flashes. The rifle cracked three times, and with each shot, Hank Sinclair jerked and twisted. Finally, he collapsed onto his knees and then folded to the ground.

  The huge man who had broken down the door spotted Brad and rumbled, “There’s the kid!” He made a grab for Brad’s arm and moved with such surprising speed that Brad didn’t have a chance to dart away. The man gathered him in, lifting him and holding him wrapped up in arms like tree trunks.

  The rifleman who had just killed Hank Sinclair stepped up and gave Brad an ugly grin. “You’re coming with us, Brad, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”

  The fact that the man knew his name didn’t make Brad feel one bit better. In fact, he was so scared that he was numb all over and was convinced that he was about to die.

  CHAPTER 54

  Smoke, Jerry Walker, and Ed Magruder laid down a withering fire from the back porch as the mounted attackers charged the house. Bullets smacked into the walls around them in seemingly endless fashion. It would take a long time to patch all those gouges and holes, Smoke thought wryly as he peered over the Winchester’s sights and squeezed off another round.

  Despite being outnumbered, he and his two companions had the advantage of good cover. The raiders were out in the open. They suffered heavy losses, dead and dying men and horses spilling on the ground, and after an eternity that actually didn’t last much more than a minute, the survivors wheeled their mounts and pounded away. Smoke, Walker, and Magruder hurried them along with a few more well-placed shots.

  As the gunfire died away to be replaced with a ringing silence, Smoke said to the two cowboys, “You fellas hold the fort back here. I need to see what’s going on up front.”

  “Don’t worry about us, Smoke,” said Magruder. “If those skunks come back, we’ll durned well fumigate ’em.”

  Staying low in case any of the raiders who had fled were thinking about trying a long-range shot, Smoke slid back into the house and then hurried toward the parlor. He didn’t hear any shots coming from there and hoped Sally, Pearlie, and Inez were all right.

  Sally was in the foyer, holding a revolver. Smoke recognized Pearlie’s Colt and knew he must have given it to her in case any of the attackers managed to break in the front door. Pearlie still knelt at one of the parlor windows. Inez had taken Smoke’s place at the other front window and held a rifle. A tendril of smoke still curled from its barrel, testifying to its recent use.

  Smoke put a hand on Sally’s shoulder and asked her, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Smoke,” she assured him. “I didn’t have to do anything. Inez and Pearlie are the ones who fought off those men.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve been sick—”

  “I’m fine,” she said again. “Maybe still a little weak from the illness, but I haven’t had any fever for a couple of days.”

  “I know.” He nodded and turned to Pearlie. “Those varmints light a shuck?”

  “Yeah,” Pearlie said, “after leavin’ a few more carcasses out there. And it happened sudden enough that it was almost like they got some sort of signal tellin’ ’em to break off the attack.”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “Smoke . . .” Pearlie’s rugged face was set in grim lines as he paused. “There toward the end of the ruckus, I didn’t hear any shootin’ from out in the barn.”

  “My God,” Sally said. “Brad.” She reached for the front door.

  Smoke stopped her, gently moving her back away from the entrance. “I’ll go see about him. Some of those men could still be lurking around out there. They might be trying to trick us into thinking they’re gone.”

  Smoke’s instincts told him that wasn’t the case, that the raiders who had lived through the fight were gone, but the other possibility couldn’t be ruled out and he wasn’t going to let Sally risk her life on that. “Cover me from the window,” he told Pearlie as he closed his free hand around the doorknob and stepped out onto the front porch with the Winchester held at the ready.

  No shots rang out. Smoke’s head was on a swivel, moving constantly as he searched for danger. Seeing none, his long strides carried him quickly across the ranch yard toward the barn. He paid particular attention to the sprawled bodies of the raiders, in case any of them were only pretending to be dead. None of them moved, though. Flies were already starting to congregate around some of them.

  When he reached the open doors, he hooked one with a booted foot and jerked it wider, then went through the gap in a rush. His eyes needed a second to adjust to the gloom after being in the afternoon sunlight outside.

  He cursed bitterly as soon as he spotted the two huddled shapes lying on the hard-packed dirt of the barn’s center aisle. He hurried to the side of each man in turn but didn’t stop to examine the bodies. A glance was enough to tell him that Hank Sinclair and Fred Judson were dead, gunned down brutally by intruders who must have gotten into the barn from the rear.

  A second later Smoke saw the busted-down door and wondered what sort of battering ram they had used to do that. Not that it mattered. The bastards had forced their way in, and that was all that was important. That, and . . .

  “Brad!” Smoke called. “Brad, where are you?”

  There were a lot of hiding places in a cavernous barn and stable, he told himself. Brad could have crawled into one of them and stayed there safely, not budging even when Hank and Fred were killed. He could emerge from whatever hidey-hole he had found and come running to Smoke . . .

  “Brad!”

  The name echoed hollowly, mockingly, from the rafters.

  Smoke bit back another curse and started searching. He looked in every stall on both sides of the aisle, then in the others at the rear. That crazy mustang Rocket tossed his head and whinnied, but that didn’t tell Smoke anything. He called Brad’s name several more times but still didn’t get a response.

  “Smoke!” That was Pearlie’s voice, coming from the front of the barn.

  Smoke swung around and hurried in that direction, thinking that maybe Pearlie had found Brad somewhere.

  The former foreman was alone, though, standing just inside the entrance holding his rifle. “Smoke, did you find the younker?”

  Smoke shook his head, unable to put into words the unavoidable answer to Brad’s whereabouts.

  “Miss Sally’s about to go loco from worryin’,” Pearlie went on. “It’s all Inez can do to keep her calm. I sure wish we could take Brad in there to see her.”

  “So do I,” Smoke said, “but the only ones here are Hank Sinclair and Fred Judson.”

  Pearlie nodded grimly. “I seen ’em. They was good boys, Smoke. The men who done this—”

  “They’ll pay for it—the ones who got away,” vowed Smoke. “And they’ll pay for taking Brad, too. If anything happens to that boy . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to finish. After a couple of seconds, he drew in a deep breath and said, “I’d better go tell Sally.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Pearlie glanced over his shoulder. “Then I’ll get some of the fellas and we’ll do what we can for Hank and Fred.”

  The two of them started across the ranch yard, weaving around the carnage of dead raiders and horses, only to stop abruptly when they heard hoofbeats rapidly approaching. They swung their rifles up as a horseman appeared, riding hell-for-leather toward the ranch house.

  “Hold your fire,” Smoke said a second later. “That’s Monte Carson.”

  The sheriff slowed his horse as he came closer. Monte’s eyes widened as he looked around at the bodies littering the open area in front of the house. Relief was in his gaze as he turned it toward Smoke and Pearlie and reined in. “I’m glad to see you fellas are still alive, but Lord, it looks like you fought a war here!”

 

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