William W. Johnstone by Law of the Mountain Man Page B

don’t you try. I’m sure tired of hearing you shoot off your mouth,” Smoke told him, no fear in his voice.
    Pike looked confused for a moment. This kid didn’t seem to be at all afraid of him. Odd. Pike was as big and strong as he was ugly. And he had been a loud-mouth bully all his life. People just didn’t talk to him like this kid was doing. “I think I’ll just kill you for that, kid.”
    Smoke laughed at him.
    Pike and partner reached for their guns.
    Four shots thundered in the low-ceilinged room. Four shots so closely spaced they seemed as one thunderous roaring. Dust and bird’s nest droppings fell from the ceiling. Pike and friend were slammed out through the open doorway. One fell off the rough porch, dying in the dirt street. Pike, with two holes in his chest, died with his back against a support post, his eyes wide staring in disbelief that the kid, any kid, could be so fast. Neither man had managed to clear leather before the death blows hammered them into the hot, yawning, smoking gates of Hell.
    All eyes in the black powder-filled and dusty barroom moved to the young man standing by the bar, a Colt in each hand.
    “Good God!” a man whispered the words in awe. “I never even seen the draw!”
    Preacher had moved the muzzle of his Henry to cover the men at the tables. The bartender put his hands slowly on the bar, indicating that he wanted no trouble.
    “We’ll be leaving now,” Smoke said, holstering his Colts and picking up his purchases from the counter. He walked out the door without looking back.
    Outside, Smoke stepped over the sprawled, dead legs of Pike and walked past his dead friend.
    “What are we ’posed to do with the bodies?” a man asked Preacher.
    “Bury ’em.”
    “What’s that kid’s name?” another called. “Smoke Jensen.”
    Smoke brought himself back to the present, standing and watching Matt shoot. The boy turned with a smile on his lips, waiting for approval from the most famous gunfighter in all the West.
    “You’ll do to ride the river with, Matt,” Smoke told him.

9
    Smoke walked back to his room in the barn, his thoughts still lingering back over the years—long and bloody years. He tried to recall the year he’d killed that trash over at Rico. 1868, he thought it was.
    He’d have to watch Matt, and watch him carefully.
    He looked up as Cheyenne entered the room, his wise old eyes still startled at the speed of the young boy.
    “Cheyenne, take the boy under your wing, just like Preacher did me. Teach him what Preacher taught me. He’s going to need all the help he can get, I’m thinking.”
    Cheyenne nodded. “First time one of them so-called gunslicks of Jud Vale tries to draw down on that boy and gets plugged in the brisket, the boy is gonna be legend. Like another young man I do seem to recall from some years back.”
    Smoke nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been recalling it myself. Matthew’s sure got the speed and the eye, Cheyenne. But I don’t think it’s God-given. I think it’s passed up from Hell!”
    “Mayhaps you be right. I have thought the same thing myself more’un a time or two. Now then, Jamie ain’t real fast, but he’s shore enuff a good shot. And Leroy is a fine rifle shot but ain’t worth a puma’s poot with a short gun.Damn near shot hisself in the foot awhile ago.”
    “How about the others?”
    Rusty walked in, hearing the last. “They’ll do. Smoke. They ain’t no burnin’ firebrands with short guns, but they generally hit what they aim at. I been teachin’ them to take their time and aim, even though the lead might be flyin’ around them.”
    “Good advice. Sometimes hard to follow though,” he said the last with a grin.
    “I heard that,” Rusty returned the grin. “Been there myself a time or two.”
    Cheyenne poured a cup of coffee from the ever-present battered old pot and squatted down on the rough board floor. “I been doin’ some head-figurin’ whilst you was gone, Smoke. Jud’s got hisself a regular