William Johnstone - Texas Bloodshed

As the group tied up their horses at the hitch rack in front of the bank, Otter moved closer to Clete and said quietly, “Lawman.”

Clete followed the direction the Crow’s eyes were indicating and saw a burly, middle-aged man moving along the boardwalk several buildings away.

“Yeah, I see him,” Clete said. “His name’s Monte Carson. Used to have sort of a name as a fast gun, but he’s been totin’ a badge here for several years and people have pretty much forgotten about him. I wouldn’t underestimate him, but I don’t reckon he poses much of a problem for us, either.”

“Anything goes wrong, I’ll kill him first,” Otter said.

Clete nodded in agreement. Otter would stay with the horses and watch the street. If shots erupted in the bank, the Crow would lift his rifle and drill Sheriff Monte Carson immediately so he couldn’t interfere with the gang’s getaway.

Otherwise, Otter would wait until the other outlaws left the bank, and if anyone tried to follow them and raise a ruckus, then he would kill Carson.

Either way, there was a very good chance the sheriff would die in the next few minutes.

Clete glanced at everyone else and got nods of readiness from all of them except Denny, who just did what Chick told him to, anyway. The six of them stepped up onto the boardwalk and moved toward the bank’s double doors.

Otter’s head turned slowly as his gaze roamed from one end of the street to the other. This town had been peaceful for too long, he thought wryly. If that hadn’t been the case, someone surely would have noticed the seven human wolves who had ridden in together, not even trying to mask their intentions as they closed in on the bank.

Otter frowned slightly as he thought about the name of the town. Big Rock ... There was something familiar about that. He knew he had heard of the place for some reason. But he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was.

It didn’t matter, anyway. After today Big Rock would be famous because the Murdock gang had cleaned out the bank and killed a few of the citizens.

A broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man in range clothes rode past on a big gray stallion. Otter noticed the horse—a fine one, indeed—but paid little attention to the rider, even when the man reined in and spoke to the sheriff. Otter couldn’t hear the conversation between Carson and the broad-shouldered man.

He didn’t think any more about it, convinced of its utter unimportance.

“Matt and Preacher are coming here?” Sheriff Monte Carson asked with a grin.

“That’s right,” Smoke Jensen said as he rested his hands on his saddlehorn and leaned forward to ease his muscles after the ride into Big Rock from his ranch, Sugarloaf. “In fact, they should be riding in today, according to the letter I got from Matt.”

“I’ll be glad to see ’em again,” Monte said. “Good Lord, Preacher must be a hundred years old by now!”

Smoke chuckled.

“He’s not quite that long in the tooth yet, and he never has looked or acted as old as he is. I reckon he’ll slow down one of these days, but the last time I saw him he seemed as spry as ever.”

Sometimes it seemed to Smoke that he had known the old mountain man called Preacher his entire life. It was hard to remember that he had been sixteen years old when he and his pa first ran into Preacher, not long after the Civil War. Preacher had been lean, leathery, and white haired even then, and he hadn’t seemed to age a day in the years since.

It was Preacher who had first called him Smoke, after seeing young Kirby Jensen handle a gun. So fast that the sight of his draw was as elusive as smoke, Preacher claimed. The young man’s hand was empty, and then there was a gun in it spitting fire and lead, and there seemed to be no step in between. Preacher had predicted then that Smoke would become one of the fastest men with a gun the frontier had ever known, and he was right.

But Smoke was one of the few men who had overcome his reputation as a gunfighter and built a respectable life for himself. Marrying the beautiful schoolteacher Sally Reynolds, whom he had met while he was living the life of a wanted outlaw under the name Buck West, probably had a lot to do with that. So had establishing the fine spread known as Sugarloaf and settling down to become a cattleman.

Despite that, trouble still had a way of finding Smoke. He had to use his gun more often than he liked. But he hadn’t been raised to run away from a challenge, and anybody who thought that Smoke Jensen wasn’t dangerous anymore would be in for an abrupt awakening if they threatened him or those he loved.

An abrupt and usually fatal awakening.

Preacher wasn’t the only visitor headed for Big Rock. He and Matt Jensen had agreed to meet in Denver and come on to the settlement together. In the same way that Preacher was Smoke’s adopted father, Matt was his adopted brother, although there was nothing official about it in either case. Smoke had taken Matt under his wing when the youngster was still a boy, the only survivor from a family murdered by outlaws, and with Preacher’s help had raised him into a fine young man who took the Jensen name when he set out on his own.

Although still relatively young in years, Matt had gained a wealth of experience, both while he was still with Smoke and afterward. He had already drifted over much of the frontier and had worked as a deputy, a shotgun guard, and a scout. He had tangled with outlaws, renegade Indians, and badmen of every stripe.

Twice in the fairly recent past, Smoke, Matt, and Preacher had been forced by circumstances to team up to defeat the schemes of a group of crooked politicians and businessmen that had formed out of the ashes of the old Indian Ring. This new Indian Ring was just as vicious as the original, maybe even more so, and even though they seemed to be licking their wounds after those defeats, Smoke had a hunch they would try something else again, sooner or later.

He hoped they wouldn’t interfere with this visit from Preacher and Matt. It would be nice to get together with his family without a bunch of gunplay and danger.

Those thoughts were going through Smoke’s mind as he realized that Monte Carson had asked him a question. He gave a little shake of his head and said, “What was that, Monte?”

“I just asked what time Matt and Preacher are supposed to get here,” the sheriff said.

“I don’t know for sure. They’re riding in, and I figure they’ll be moseying along. Preacher doesn’t get in a hurry unless there’s a good reason to. I thought I’d go over to the café, get something to eat, then find something to occupy my time while I’m waiting for them.”

Monte grinned.

“Come on by the office,” he said. “We’ll have us a game of dominoes.”

Smoke was just about to accept that invitation when gunshots suddenly erupted somewhere down the street.

CHAPTER 2

There were several customers in the bank when Clete and his men walked in, but they didn’t appear to be the sort to give problems. The men looked like storekeepers, and a woman stood at one of the teller’s windows, too, probably some clerk’s wife depositing butter and egg money.

The two tellers were the usual: pale, weak hombres not suited for doing a real man’s work, or anything else. At a desk off to one side sat the bank president, fat and pompous in a suit that wasn’t quite big enough for him.

Clete hated all of them, just by looking at them. They were sheep, and he was a wolf. They deserved to have their money taken away from them, to his way of thinking.

And their lives, too, if they got in his way.

The banker glanced up from his desk as the men entered the bank, then looked again with his eyes widening in shock and fear as he obviously realized what they were and what was about to happen. He started to get to his feet, but Clete already had his gun out and pointed it at the man.