LITMIR.BIZ

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started hollering something awful.

      “Ain’t he gonna die?” the barkeep asked. “I’d lak to have them boots of his.”

      “Sooner or later. Is there any hard candy for sale in the store?”

      “Hard candy!”

      “Yeah. I got some kids working for me. They all probably have a sweet tooth.”

      “Hell, I don’t know!”

      Smoke shrugged and walked into the store area of the building. He was thinking that he’d better buy a couple boxes of .44’s. Way things were going he’d probably need them.

      The news of the gunfight had reached the ranch before Smoke returned. Walt and Cheyenne met him in the barn.

      “Did you run into some trouble, boy?” the old rancher asked.

      “Couple of two-bit gunhands who thought they were better than they really were.” Smoke stripped the saddle off Dagger, hung up the reins, rubbed him down, and began forking hay into his stall.

      Cheyenne and Walt were silent for a time. Walt broke it. “Swenson came by here, all flusterated. Said you cut them boys down faster than the blink of an eye.”

      “Like I said, they weren’t as good as they thought they were.”

      Cheyenne grunted and spat a brown stream onto the barn floor. “I knowed Burt Rolly’s dad. He wasn’t no good neither. Utes kilt him years ago. Died bad. They never sung no songs about him. What was that other hombre’s name?”

      “Sam Teller.”

      The old mountain man and gunfighter shook his head. "Must not have been much to him. I never heared of him.”

      Cheyenne limped off. He still carried a Sioux arrowhead in his hip. Slowed him down when the weather changed.

      “Doreen finally got around to telling me that you two had a little run-in, Smoke.”

      “Not much of one. I would just like to know why everyone is lying to me.”

      The rancher was silent for a time. "You want to explain that remark, Smoke? ’Cause if you don’t, old man or not, I’m goin’ in the house for my six-gun and call you out!”

      Smoke chuckled. “Yeah ... you probably would, too, Walt. But I’m going to let my statement stand. None of you have leveled with me. I’ve seen the quick looks passed between you whenever I touch on certain subjects. What’s going on, Walt?”

      “Doreen is a good girl, Smoke.”

      “I never said she wasn’t.”

      “She isn’t married to Clint Perkins.”

      “I didn’t think she was. The boy is a wood’s colt, huh?”

      “How’d you guess?”

      “Just that, a guess. Is the boy’s father Clint Perkins?”

      “Yes. They went together for a time—on the sly. Then he got her all puffed up and ran out on her. He kept tellin’ Doreen how they was gonna move to California and he was gonna change and ... lies and lies, that’s all they was. He’d climb a telegraph pole for a lie and leave the truth layin’ on the ground.”

      “So Doreen figured that a make-believe outlaw husband was better than no husband at all?”

      “That’s about it. Clint is a no-good, Smoke. He started out doin’ good, I’ll give him that much; he really did do good. Then he turned bad. The young man is not right in the head.”

      “All that about him seeing his parents killed and running off into the timber ...?”

      “Lies. You got to understand something, Smoke. I was the first white man to settle in this part of Idaho. Back in ’38. The first one. I built me a cabin and got settled in and then went back for Alice. When we got here, the Injuns had burned the cabin down. We built again and fought off Injuns until they got to where they’d leave us alone. I prospered. Found some color and panned it. Found some more color and mined that out. I got money, Smoke. Plenty of it. I got money in a half-dozen banks. Hell, I don’t need this ranch or the cattle. I kept on to it for my boy.”

      The old man paused to light his pipe and Smoke waited.

      “But he married into trash. Pure trash. That woman— damn her black heart wherever she is—wasn’t nothin’ but a whore. That’s all she was. Anyways, they had a son. Clint. His name ain’t Perkins, it’s Burden. But she run off with him and changed it.”

      “Wait a minute, wait a minute! This is getting confusing. Back up. Where is your son?”

      “Dead. Ten years back. He turned into a drunk after that woman run off and left him. Staggered around here drunk and crazy in the head and heart for years. He never hurt nobody. He was just a fool there at the end. Jud Vale killed him. Shot him for sport one night over at the tradin’ post where you was this day. Made it last a long time. Shot his legs out from under him, then busted his hands and arms with .44’s. It was a awful thing for one human to do to another. Jud and that no-good foreman of his, Jason, just left my boy there in the mud to bleed to death. He ain’t never hired nothing but trash over there at the Bar V. Most of them runnin’ from the law somewheres.”

      “Where does Clint fit into all this?”

      The old man laughed bitterly. “That’s funny, son. Really funny. You see, I hired some fancy detectives to hunt that witch-woman down and bring my grandson back to me. They found her and brung him back. Bad seed, Smoke. He’s just bad. But the more I got to lookin’ at him, the more I began to suspect he wasn’t none of my blood. The day he run off for the last time, he told me. My boy Clint didn’t father him. Jud Vale did.”

      4

      Smoke walked outside the barn with Walt and paused to roll a cigarette. “Does Jud Vale know about Clint being his son?”

      “Oh, yeah. That’s why he wants Clint dead and Doreen his so bad. He suspects, and rightly so, that I changed my will leaving everything to Doreen. He don’t want no wood’s colt hanging around, messin’ everything up. And with Doreen his woman, willing or not, he could produce a false weddin’ license and claim it all. At worse, he could tie it up in court for years.”

      “Jud sounds like a real nice fellow.”

      “A regular Prince Charming,” the old man said sourly.

      “I’m glad you told me this, Walt.”

      “Me and the old woman talked about it last night. We agreed that it wasn’t right for you to come in here and lay your life on the line for us, and us not to level with you. I’d have gotten around to tellin’ you, son.”

      “You say you found gold around here?”

      “A small pocket of it. I panned it plumb out. There was enough for me to invest in one thing or the other and become a well set up man. That’s another thing, Smoke. Jud Vale knows about me panning the gold. But I never could convince the hard-headed no-good that there ain’t no more gold. The gold I panned washed in here from God knows where, and the small pocket I mined is gone. Nature is a funny critter, Smoke. She’ll sometimes put precious minerals in a place where they just ain’t supposed to be. And when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. There just ain’t no more.”

      “But Jud Vale doesn’t believe that.” It was not a question.

      Walt sighed. “No. The man’s a fool when it comes to money. Greediest man I ever saw in all my life. Got hisself a regular palace on his spread. And Doreen believes the man is in love with her; obsessed, is the way she put it. He’s finally found something that he can’t have; he can’t buy it or steal it, and he’s furious about it.”

      “He might try to take her by force.”

      “That

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