With a sigh, he tuned into his wounds. They ached, but not too bad. With the instincts of a man who lived somewhat like a wild animal, Luke knew he wasn’t going to die from his injuries after all. For that, he could thank whoever had come along and found him in that old cabin.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside the room. Sally came back in, followed by a tall man with very broad shoulders. She stepped over and pulled the curtains over the window, shielding Luke’s eyes from the bright light. “I’m sorry, I should have thought to close these before I left. The sun must be blinding you.”
Luke was looking at the man who stood next to the bed, but cleared his throat and managed to squeak out a few words. “That’s all right. The sun was warm. Felt good.”
The man’s face was too rugged to call handsome, although it was the sort of face women usually found attractive. The strong features were topped by close-cropped, ash-blond hair. In him, Luke saw both his mother and his father, the resemblance vivid enough to almost take his breath away.
He knew he was looking at his brother. He almost said Kirby’s name, but stopped himself in time.
The man gave him a friendly smile. “Welcome to the Sugarloaf. Sally was afraid we were going to lose you, but I took one look at her and told her not to worry. I know a stubborn varmint when I see one.”
“He ought to,” Sally put in. “He sees one looking back at him from the mirror every morning.”
The man chuckled. “I’m Smoke Jensen. This is my ranch.”
“L-Luke. Luke Smith.”
“Pleased to meet you. We’ll shake and howdy later, when you’re feeling better. Right now you need some rest, Mr. Smith. You lost a lot of blood. Stubborn or not, it’s a miracle you survived the trip up here from the Sangre de Cristos.”
“How . . . how did I . . .”
“How’d you get here?” Smoke asked. “An old prospector heard a bunch of shooting and decided to go investigate.”
The old-timer had been trying to protect his potential payoff, Luke thought.
“He had a couple friends visiting him at the time,” Smoke went on, “a pair of old mountain men. They all went looking and found you still alive in a cabin with a bunch of dead men outside. It must have been quite a battle.”
Luke managed to nod slightly. “It was,” he whispered.
“Anyway, you’d been shot up and were running a fever. You were out of your head and did a lot of ranting and raving while they were taking care of you. You mentioned my name several times, and those mountain men knew who I was. I have a lot of friends among those old-timers. They figured I might know you, and when they thought you were strong enough, they decided to bring you up here.” Smoke paused and gave Luke an intent look. “Do we know each other, Mr. Smith?”
Luke forced himself to shake his head. “S-sorry. Never saw you before.” Those words practically broke his heart. He knew he was looking at his own flesh and blood.
Nearly twenty years had passed since he’d seen his little brother, and he couldn’t even acknowledge that. Kirby—Smoke—had built a fine life for himself. Why ruin that by admitting the shot-up stranger was really his disreputable, bounty-hunting failure of a brother?
Smoke frowned. “Then why were you talking about me while you were feverish?”
“Hell . . . I don’t know. Like you said . . . I was out of my head. Maybe I heard somebody else talking about you . . . before I got shot. I know the name . . . You’re some sort of . . . gunfighter.”
“That’s a reputation I never set out to get.” Smoke’s face settled into grim lines.
The moment passed quickly, and he smiled again. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that you’re safe here, and your wounds are starting to heal. Now that you’re awake again, you can concentrate on resting and getting better.”
“Why would you ... go to so much trouble for me?” Luke asked. “For a . . . stranger?”
Sally answered his question. “Nobody who needs help is a stranger on the Sugarloaf, Mr. Smith. That’s just the way we are around here.”
“I can’t . . . pay you.”
Smoke’s face hardened again. “You don’t know Sally and me, so we’ll let that pass. Are you hungry?”
Luke suddenly realized he was ravenous. It had probably been quite a while since he’d had any solid food. “Yeah. I could . . . sure eat.”
“I have a pot of stew on the stove downstairs,” Sally said. “I’ll bring some up to you, although it’ll be mostly broth starting out.”
“That sounds . . . mighty good, ma’am. I’m . . . obliged to you.” Luke looked at Smoke. “And to you.”
“De nada,” Smoke said, then before he could go on, somebody knocked on the open door.
Luke cut his eyes in that direction and saw a tall, gangling cowboy standing in the doorway, holding a battered black hat in one hand.
Smoke looked toward the doorway and asked, “What is it, Pearlie?”
“Hate to bother you, Smoke, but Cal just rode in and told me somebody caved in a bunch of boulders on the Fortuna Ridge waterhole. Covered it up completely. We’ll have to move the cows on that range, since they won’t have any water.”
“Could it have been a natural rockslide?” Smoke asked with a troubled frown.
“Didn’t sound like it from what Cal said. He told me he rode up to the top of the ridge and found a place where a bunch of horses stopped this mornin’. He figured some of Baxter’s men dabbed their loops on one of them boulders and used their horses to start it rollin’. That’s all it would’ve took. But you can ride up there and take a look for yourself, if you want.”
Smoke shook his head. “I trust Cal’s opinion. He’s a good hand, even if he is pretty young. But there’s no way of knowing it was Baxter’s men who ruined the waterhole.”
“We don’t know they were the hombres who took them potshots at us the other day, or ran off that jag of cattle, but who else could it be? You got any other enemies around here right now?”
“Simeon Baxter claims he just wants to be neighbors with us.”
Pearlie let out a disgusted snort, then glanced at Sally. “Sorry for almost sayin’ what I almost just said,” he apologized.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sally told him with a smile. “I was probably thinking the same thing about Simeon Baxter. All I had to do was look at the man to know he can’t be trusted . . . and I think you know that, too, Smoke. You just want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Yeah, well, that’s starting to wear a little thin,” Smoke admitted. “Pearlie, tell the boys to saddle up. We’re going to take a ride over to the Baxter spread.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” Pearlie said with undisguised enthusiasm. “I’ll tell ’em to oil up their smoke poles, too.”
“We’re not going to ride in shooting.”
“No, but we may have to ride out that way.”
Smoke didn’t dispute that speculation.
Luke saw the worried glance Sally directed in her husband’s direction as Pearlie hurried away down the corridor.
“Is this going to turn into another range war, Smoke?” she asked.
“I hope not. I’ve had my fill of those, and I know you have, too. But I’m not going to let Simeon Baxter bull his way in and take over. You know me better than that.”
“Yes. I do.”
“And you wouldn’t want me to be like that, anyway.” Smoke went to her and kissed the thick dark hair on top of her head.
“No, I don’t suppose I would,” she agreed. “But I wish you’d be careful, anyway.”