“Maybe if we get her to hold off for a while and to watch how Jensen operates around town. Maybe she’ll start to see that he ain’t exactly the monster she thinks he is.”
“I still think we’re whistlin’ in our hats, but like you say, it won’t hurt to try and talk some reason into her, though the words reason and woman don’t ordinarily belong together.”
Macklin headed on over to the café while Carl walked to the general store down the street. Once inside, he caught Sarah’s eye, mouthed the words “Sunset Café,” and then left, hoping she’d understand that he needed to talk to her.
Sarah waited until Carl had been gone for a few minutes and then she went over to Peg Jackson, who was stocking a shelf in the rear of the store.
“Peg,” she said, “I’m going to go over to the Sunset Café and get some coffee. I’m a little sleepy today and I need something to pick me up. Would you like for me to bring you back a cup?”
“That would be delightful, Sarah, and could you also get me a piece of one of those sweet cakes they make so well over there?”
“Certainly,” Sarah said, and she took off her apron and walked down the block and around the corner to the café.
Carl and Dan were sitting in a corner booth toward the back away from any windows. Macklin didn’t want to be seen with Sarah now that he’d managed to arouse Jensen’s suspicions.
Sarah joined them at the table after making sure that no one she knew was in the place. After the waitress had taken their orders and placed coffee for all of them on the table, Sarah spoke. “Now, what’s so all-fired important that you wanted to meet here in the middle of the day where everyone in town can see us together?”
Jacoby sat back, waiting for Macklin to speak. “Well, I had a talk with Jensen today,” Macklin said.
“You what?” she exclaimed, almost yelling. When several patrons turned to glance at her, she sat back and tried to calm herself down. “What did you do, Mac?” she asked in a calmer tone of voice, but it was clear she was still furious.
“Don’t get upset, Sarah,” Macklin said, shushing her as he looked around to make sure no one was watching them any longer. “I didn’t tell him anything I just wanted to get a feeling for the feller, that’s all.”
Sarah’s face was flushed with anger. “And did you, Mac?” she asked in a lower voice this time. “Did you get a feeling for the man who killed my brother?”
Macklin glanced at Jacoby, who nodded, and then he leaned forward, speaking earnestly. “Yes, I think I did, Sarah, an’ I don’t think he did what everybody in Pueblo thinks he did.”
She sat back, a look of astonishment on her face. “You don’t think he shot Johnny down?”
Macklin also sat back, trying to think how he could convince her of what he felt was the truth. “Oh, I think he probably shot Johnny,” he said. “But I don’t think it was in cold blood or that he ambushed him. Jensen is too fast to have to do that. In fact, he’s plenty fast enough to have killed Johnny and all the others in a fair fight.”
Her mouth fell open in astonishment. “And just how did you determine this, Mac?” she asked sarcastically. “Did you walk up to him and say, “By the way, Mr. Jensen, I’d sure like to see how fast you are on the draw. Could you oblige me and show me your moves?’”
Macklin flushed in embarrassment. He wasn’t used to anyone talking to him like this, especially not young women who were still wet behind the ears. “No, Sarah, I didn’t do that. I just prodded him a little until he drew on me. That’s when I saw how fast he was, and believe me, it was plenty fast.”
Sarah looked around, shaking her head. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, as if to herself. Then she looked up and stared into Macklin’s eyes. “Let me remind you of something you’ve evidently forgotten, Mac. You work for my dad, and he sent you here for one reason, and that is to kill Smoke Jensen or to guard my back while I do it. Isn’t that right?”
Macklin nodded reluctantly. “Yes, but I think Angus and you are both wrong about what happened that day. And if Jensen killed Johnny in a fair fight, which Johnny probably started, then I don’t think Jensen should be killed for it.”
Sarah slowly sipped her coffee, her eyes burning into Macklin’s. After a moment, she turned her gaze to Jacoby.
“Is this how you feel also, Carl?”
Jacoby nodded. “Yes, it is, Sarah. We’ve both looked into this before you got here, and everyone in this town thinks Jensen is straight as an arrow. They don’t have one bad thing to say about him, and no one in this town would ever believe he’s a backshooter or ambusher.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” she said, her voice low and hard. “I think you’re both full of . . . well, hot air.”
Jacoby reached his hand across the table and tried to put it on hers. “We just don’t want you going off half-cocked, Sarah, and either killing an innocent man or getting yourself shot up.”
Sarah moved her hand away from Jacoby’s, her lips tight. “This is going to take some thinking about,” she said. “I’ll send a wire to my dad and see what he thinks about all this. I may have to ask him to send me some more help, men who know their place and are loyal to him.”
“Be careful what you say in a telegram,” Macklin warned. “Remember, everyone in this town knows Smoke Jensen.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Mac. You got other things to be worried about, like what my daddy’s going to say when I tell him you’ve gone over to the other side.”
“Aw, Sarah,” he said, but she held up her hand.
“Now, get out of here, the both of you. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
After they left, she called the waitress over and ordered two pieces of the sweet cakes. One for Peg and one for her.
While she waited for her order, she sat there thinking on how she could word a telegram so her daddy would know what was going on without letting the telegrapher know what she was doing.
As she sat there, she wondered just what it was about Smoke Jensen that enabled him to fool so many people into thinking he was a good man. It never crossed her mind that perhaps they were right about him and that she and her father were wrong.
ELEVEN
Cletus Jones pulled his mount to a stop in a cloud of dust in front of the MacDougal ranch house and jumped to the ground. He had a feeling the telegram he’d picked up in Pueblo from Sarah MacDougal was important enough to need Angus’s immediate attention.
Cletus had been MacDougal’s foreman for as long as he could remember. They’d both come out here to Colorado Territory back when there were more Indians that white men, and had fought hard to carve a ranch out of the wilderness.
Cletus had been best man for Angus MacDougal’s wedding, and he was godfather to both of the old man’s children—now there was only Sarah since Johnny was dead.
As he ran through the front door, Mrs. MacDougal called out, “Cletus, don’t you go running on my hardwood floors that’ve just been waxed!”
He tipped his hat and smiled, but didn’t slow down appreciably as he headed toward the study/office where Angus could always be found this time of day.
Angus swiveled around in his leather high-backed chair and regarded Cletus with raised eyebrows. “Who lit a fire under your saddle, boy?” he asked in his rough, gravely voice. Cletus was just about the only man on the ranch that Angus would allow to burst in on him unannounced.
“I got this here message from Miss Sarah, Boss,” Cletus said, pulling a wrinkled yellow envelope from his breast pocket. It was wet with sweat from his rapid ride from town. “The telegraph man said it came in yesterday but it was too late to get it out here by then.”
Angus frowned, but didn’t say anything as he slit the envelope with a thumbnail and pulled out the telegram. At first, he’d been very angry at her for taking off after Smoke Jensen on her own without consulting him. But after thinking about it, he’d realized he would have expected a son to do it, and Sarah had always been as good as, and often better than, his son had been at managing the ranch.