“I don’t know. I’ve seen Jensen fight before. I’m going with him.”
With an angry roar, Shelton rushed Matt again, and Matt stepped aside, avoiding him like a matador sidestepping a charging bull. And, like a charging bull, Shelton slammed into a hitching rail, smashing through it as if it were kindling. He turned and faced Matt again.
There was no more kibbitzing in the crowd now. They grew quiet as they watched the fight, studying it to see whether quickness and agility could overcome brute strength and power.
Shelton swung again, and again Matt avoided the blow. Matt counterpunched and, as before, scored well. But, as before, Shelton merely laughed it off. Matt learned quickly that he could hit Shelton anytime he wanted, and though individually the punches seemed ineffective, Matt saw that there was a cumulative effect to his efforts. Both of Shelton’s eyes began to puff up, and there was a nasty cut on his lower protruding lip that started blood flowing down the big man’s chin.
Then Matt caught the big man in the nose with a hard right, and he knew that he had broken it. The nose, like the cut lip, began to bleed profusely, and torrents of blood began to flow. Matt looked for another chance to strike his nose, but Shelton started protecting it, and he couldn’t get through.
So far, except for the opening blow, not one of Shelton’s great swinging blows had landed. Then, Shelton managed to connect with a right which struck Matt on the shoulder. Matt felt as if he had been hit by a club, and he could feel it all through his arm. That single blow had the possibility of ending the fight, for though Matt held his left up, it was for show only. He was, in effect, fighting this big man with only one arm.
Then, when Shelton threw another whistling blow at him, Matt avoided it, counterpunching with a solid right, straight at Shelton’s Adam’s apple. It had the effect Matt wanted, and the big man grabbed his neck with both hands, then sunk to his knees, gasping for air.
Matt stepped up to him.
“You won’t suffocate, but you are going to think that you will, because it is going to swell a lot more and it’s going to be even harder to breathe than it is now,” he said. “My advice to you is to go lie down somewhere with your head somewhat lower than your neck. Be still for a while. It will take you a few days, but you will recover.”
Shelton looked up at Matt and tried to speak, but the only thing to come from his throat was a squeaking rattle.
Matt held up his hand and moved his finger back and forth. “Oh, and don’t try to talk, it’ll just make matters worse,” he said.
As Matt walked away from the kneeling man, listening to the banter of the onlookers as they exchanged the money they had bet on the fight, someone called out to Matt.
“Mr. Jensen, I have a telegram for you.”
Matt recognized the telegrapher and walked over toward him.
“I didn’t want to bother you during the fight,” the small, bespectacled man said as he handed the message to Matt.
“I appreciate that, I guess,” Matt said. He gave the telegrapher a half-dollar.
“Thank you, sir,” the little man said. “Will you be wanting to reply?”
“Depends on the message,” Matt said. He opened the envelope and read the message under the light of a streetlamp.
NEED YOUR HELP FOR A CATTLE DRIVE. CAN YOU COME? SMOKE.
Matt followed the telegrapher back to the Western Union Office.
YES. I WILL COME TOMORROW. MATT
Chugwater, November 6
Three men; Emerson, Pigg, and Jenks, were sitting together at a table in Fiddler’s Green.
“That’s him over there, standin’ at the bar talkin’ to the bartender. His name is Duff MacCallister,” Emerson said. Emerson was a particularly ugly man with a drooping eyelid and a mouth full of bad teeth.
“He’s a big bastard,” Pigg said. Pigg and Jenks were only marginally less ugly than Emerson. Pigg had a beard, not one that he groomed, but one that seemed to have trapped within its unkempt bristles food from his last several meals. Jenks had a long, hooked nose and dark, beady eyes.
“That don’t matter. We ain’t goin’ to rassle him,” Emerson said. “We’re just goin’ to have him tell us where at his gold mine is.”
“And you’re sure he has a gold mine?”
“That’s what ever’ one says. It ain’t supposed to be a very big one, but it’s big enough that he’s built himself one of the best ranches in Wyoming,” Emerson said.
“I hope your plan works,” Jenks said.
“Don’t worry, it will work,” Emerson said resolutely. “Come on, let’s go see the lady.”
Meghan Parker wasn’t all that surprised whenever a man would happen to come into her dress shop. That was because from time to time someone would want to buy a dress for his wife, and he would want it to be a surprise, so he would have Meghan help him. But this time it was three men who came in, and that was unusual. Also, there was something about the three that made her feel a bit uneasy.
Her fear was justified when all three of them pulled guns and pointed them at her.
“Is it true what they say about you?”
“I’m not sure. What do they say about me?”
“They say that you are Duff MacCallister’s woman.” The man doing the talking had the ugliest teeth Meghan had ever seen; a few were broken so that they were jagged-looking. All of them varied in color from yellow to black.
“Mr. MacCallister is a friend of mine, yes,” Meghan said.
“Uh, huh. Well answer me this, Missy. Is he friend enough that more’n likely he wouldn’t want to see something happen to you?”
“Mr. MacCallister wouldn’t want to see something happen to any innocent person.”
“That’s good enough for me. Pigg, go on down there to the saloon and tell MacCallister he’d best come out into the street.”
“What is all this about?” Meghan asked.
“Gold, Missy. This is about gold,” the one with the bad teeth said. “Now, you come with us.”
“I can’t leave my store,” Meghan said.
“Ha! You don’t be worryin’ none about your store.”
“Where are we going?”
“Not far. Just out into the street. Pigg, you go get MacCallister like I told you. Jenks, when we get out there, you run ever’one off the street so there ain’t no one out there but us.”
Biff Johnson had just said something funny and Duff was laughing when Pigg went back into the saloon, this time holding a pistol in his hand.
“MacCallister!” he called. “We’ve got your woman out in the middle of the street. If you don’t want to see her kilt, best you get on out there.”
It was very shortly after Pigg summoned Duff that Duff’s cousin, Falcon MacCallister, rode into Chugwater in answer to Duff’s call for help. Falcon realized at once that something unusual was happening because it was mid-morning, and First Street, a street that should have been busy with commerce, was nearly deserted. He did see people, but they were standing behind the corners of buildings, or looking cautiously through doors and windows at the few people who were on the street. One, he noticed, was Duff. Duff was standing alone, facing three men who were fanned out across the street in front of him. The man in the middle had a beautiful young woman in front of him, and he was holding a gun to her head.
Falcon didn’t know any of the three men, but he did recognize the young woman. It was Meghan Parker, the young woman who owned a dress shop and was a one-quarter partner in Duff’s ranch. Whether that partnership would ever become anything more, Falcon didn’t know, but he was pretty sure it would. That is, he was sure it would, if this situation could be resolved successfully.