Smoke frowned. He had no idea what this Macklin was talking about. “Mister, I don’t know what you’re getting at or where you get your information, but I’m telling you flat out that’s a lie, and I’m willing to back my words up any way you choose.” Smoke waited just a beat. “Are you?”
Macklin let his hand drop to his side, and before he could blink, Smoke’s Colt was in his hand, cocked, and pointing at his chest from a distance of two inches.
Macklin’s face turned pale and he took a step back. He’d never seen anything like it. He hadn’t even seen Jensen’s hand move before it was holding a gun.
Macklin slowly raised his hands. “You gonna shoot me down in cold blood too, Jensen?” he managed to croak through a throat that was suddenly very dry.
Smoke shook his head and holstered his gun. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Macklin turned and walked away, saying over his shoulder, “Well, I’ll be sure and remind you next time we meet.”
Smoke watched him leave the saloon, and then he went back to the table and took his seat.
“You find out what he wanted?” Louis asked.
Smoke shook his head. “No, but he’s got a powerful hate for me going on. Seems to think me and my friends shot someone close to him down in cold blood.”
“Where’d he get that crazy idea?” Cal asked.
Smoke shrugged. “He wouldn’t say.”
“You don’t think it’s about that fracas we had up in Canada, do you?” Louis asked.
Smoke shook his head. “No, I don’t see how anyone could think we were the aggressors in that fight.”
“Well, like you say, he’s got a powerful hate on,” Pearlie said, glancing at the batwings. “I could see it in his eyes.”
“Yeah,” Cal added, a worried look on his face as he stared at the batwings the man had just pushed through. “I’d sure watch my back if I was you, Smoke. A man as pissed off as that man is ain’t gonna think twice ‘bout shooting you in the back.”
TEN
Carl Jacoby, who was watching the doorway to Longmont’s Saloon from an alley down the street, was astonished when Dan Macklin walked hurriedly out of the batwings, jumped on his horse, and hightailed it around the far corner onto a back street leading to their hotel. His back was stiff and he didn’t even glance behind him as he rode away like his pants were on fire.
Carl had been expecting some fireworks from Macklin, but he hadn’t heard any gunshots and there didn’t seem to be a crowd forming or anyone coming out of the door looking for Macklin. Couldn’t have been much of a gunfight with this little a reaction.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself as he turned and walked quickly up the alley toward the hotel’s back entrance, hoping to find Macklin and find out what had gone on in the saloon. He could tell something had happened from the way Macklin looked as he rode down the street, but he couldn’t imagine what it could be.
When he got to the rear of the hotel, he saw Macklin’s horse tied to a hitching rail there and the back door partially open.
He went inside, and stopped as he passed the doorway to the hotel bar when he saw Macklin standing at the bar with a bottle of whiskey in front of him and a glass to his lips.
Jacoby moved next to him at the bar, noticing his face was flushed and he was covered with sweat. His hand holding the glass was shaking so much that Jacoby was afraid Macklin would spill it all over himself if he tried to drink from it.
Without speaking, Jacoby took the whiskey bottle, poured himself a small drink, and stood there as he sipped, waiting for Macklin to speak and wondering just what the hell had happened to shake his friend up so.
After a moment, and after he’d slugged down another drink, without spilling too much, Macklin turned toward Jacoby and leaned his elbow on the bar. “Carl, you were right ‘bout Jensen.” He shook his head. “I ain’t seen nothin’ like it in all my born days.”
“What happened in there, Mac?” Jacoby asked, wondering how Macklin had been able to see Jensen’s draw since he hadn’t heard any gunfire.
Macklin poured himself another drink, but this time he sipped it instead of swallowing it down in one gulp. “I think the man must have eyes in the back of his head. I followed him and his friends into the saloon, and I took up a station at the bar and commenced to drink me a beer while I kept a look on him out of the corner of my eye. He must’ve noticed me watchin’ him or something, ‘cause he come over to the bar where I was standin’ and he braced me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked me what was it I wanted. When I didn’t exactly answer his question and I accidentally let my right hand move toward my gun, he drew his pistol.”
Jacoby let his lips curl in a small smile, knowing what was coming next. “Pretty fast, huh?”
“Fast ain’t exactly the word I’d use, Carl. More like lightning, I think. One second I was looking in his eyes, as cold and black as a snake’s, an’ the next second his hand was full of iron and I was staring down the barrel of a Colt—and the thing is, I didn’t even see his hand move.” He took another sip of whiskey, his hand more stable now.
“You know how when you’re facing somebody an’ they’re fixin’ to draw, you can usually see a twitch of their arm muscle or a shift in their eyes ‘fore they hook and draw?” he asked, his face pale.
Jacoby nodded. He knew what Mac meant. There was almost always some telltale sign before a man committed himself in a gunfight. Knowing this and recognizing it was what gave professional gunfighters the edge in such contests.
“Well,” Macklin continued, “there was nothing about Jensen that even hinted he was going for his gun. One minute he’s looking me in the eye, just talking as natural as you please, and the next he’s somehow got a gun in his hand stuck against my chest and his eyes are hard and black as flint.”
Jacoby’s eyes narrowed. “And he didn’t threaten you or hit you or anything like that after he drew his pistol and had the drop on you?”
Macklin shrugged, dropping his gaze to stare into his whiskey. “Who needs to threaten when you can draw a six-killer like that?”
“But Mac,” Jacoby said earnestly, “can’t you see what I’ve been trying to tell you? Jensen ain’t no cold-blooded killer. He had the drop on you in front of his friends. If he was a showboat or looking to impress ‘em, he could’ve pistol-whipped you or even shot you down. Hell, this is his town. No one would’ve blamed him. But he didn’t.”
Macklin’s expression became thoughtful. “No, he didn’t, an’ you’re right. There wasn’t nothin’ I could do to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to.”
Jacoby turned back to the bar and downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass. “Maybe we’d better try and talk some sense into Sarah, or at least get her to hold off until we can figure out what we got to do.”
Macklin smirked and drained his glass in one long swallow. “Hell, there ain’t no need in worryin’ ourselves over that, Carl, my friend. Old Man MacDougal wants Jensen dead, an’ so does his daughter Sarah. As far as them two are concerned, once they’ve made up their minds on something, it’s as good as gold.”
“But maybe we can convince them they’re wrong about him,” Jacoby argued.
Macklin laughed. “You ever try to tell Sarah anything she didn’t want to hear, boy?”
Jacoby nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean. She is a mite stubborn at times.”
“No, Carl. A mule is a “mite’ stubborn. Sarah is full-on-all-the-time stubborn.”
“So, what are we gonna do?”
Macklin sighed. “I guess we got to do like you say and at least try to make her see reason.” He chuckled. “Hell, worst she can do is chew our ears off.”