The perpetrators had left a note.
Don’t be writting no more bad artacles about
Lord Denbigh or we will kum back and do
more damige to you nex time.
“Who would do such a thing?” Millie asked between sobs.
“It’s fairly apparent, isn’t it?” John replied. “Denbigh did it.”
“We don’t know that,” Marshal Tipton said.
“The note doesn’t suggest that to you, Marshal?” John asked.
“Just the opposite,” Tipton said. “Denbigh is an educated man. Now, I’m not as smart as you are, but even I know how to spell the words come, and damage.”
“I don’t mean Denbigh did it himself,” John said. “I mean he had it done.”
“Maybe there are just some people in town who got upset with you because you’ve been coming down pretty hard on Denbigh in your stories. Denbigh has done a lot of good for this town.”
“Really? What good has he done?”
“Let’s just say he does a lot of business with the town.”
“Yes, by allowing only the businesses he wants to stay, and squeezing out the others. He’s killing this town, Marshal Tipton. And the people in town know it, only they are too frightened to do anything about it.”
“So you plan to mount a one person campaign do you, Bryce?”
“If I am the only one willing to do anything about it, then yes, I will mount a one person campaign.”
“Uh—huh,” Tipton said, stroking his jaw as he surveyed the shambles of the newspaper office. “And look what it got you.”
“It has set me back a bit, I’ll admit,” John said. “But it won’t stop me. It’ll take me a day to clean up. I’ll have the paper out this Thursday, just as I do every Thursday.”
“I’ll help you pick up all the type, Mr. Bryce,” a young boy of about twelve said.
“Thank you, Kenny.”
“I can go get Jimmy to help too, if you want me to.”
“That would be nice,” John said. He turned toward the group of people still standing outside the office, and seeing Ernie Westpheling, called out to him.
“Ernie, would you help me set the printing press back up?”
“Sure thing.” Ernie, who had been a colonel during the Civil War, was a local businessman who owned a gun store.
A couple other men also volunteered to help, and within a few minutes the printing press had been righted and was once again in its proper place. John surveyed it for a moment or two, then patted the press with a big smile.
“Not a scratch,” he said. “It takes more than a few of Denbigh’s hooligans to put ole George out of business.”
“George? I thought your name was John,” one of the men who had helped him said.
“It is. George is the name of my printing press.”
“You’ve named your press?”
“Sure. It’s not only a part of this newspaper, it is the heart of the newspaper.”
“What are you going to do about your window?” Ernie asked.
“I’ll have to order a new glass from Bismarck,” John said. “In the meantime I guess I’ll just board that side up.”
“What are you going to do about this, Marshal?” Ernie asked.
“I’ll look into it, see if I can find out who did it,” Tipton replied. “But if I don’t come up with any witnesses, I don’t know what I can do.”
“There has to be a witness somewhere,” Millie said. “It had to make a lot of noise when they broke out the window.”
“You live no more than a couple blocks from here, Mrs. Bryce. Did you hear anything?” Tipton asked.
“No.”
“The newspaper belongs to you and your husband, so you would be even more attentive, I would think. You heard nothing, but you expect others in the town did?” Tipton shook his head. “No ma’am, I don’t expect I’m going to find anything.”
“That’s because you aren’t looking in the right place,” John said. “You and I both know who is behind this.”
Tipton glared at John, but he said nothing.
Central Colorado
“Is the son of a bitch still following?” Cyrus Hayes asked Emmet Cruise. The two men had stopped for a moment in order for Hayes to relieve himself, and Cruise crawled up onto a rock to look back along the trail.
“Yeah, he’s there,” Cruise said.
“What the hell? Are we leaving bread crumbs or something?” Hayes asked as he buttoned his trousers. “Who the hell is that, and how is he staying on our trail?”
“I don’t know who he is, but he’s good,” Cruise said.
“Yeah, well, let’s go,” Hayes said. “The more distance we can put between us and him, the better I will feel.”
Earlier that morning, Hayes and Cruise had robbed the Rocky Mountain Bank and Trust in Pueblo, Colorado, and, during the robbery, had shot down in cold blood, a teller and two customers. The two customers, a man and his pregnant wife, had been friends of Matt Jensen. Because of that, even before the state got around to offering a reward for two bank robbers and murderers, Matt went after them.
Knowing they would be pursued, the two outlaws took great pains to cover their true trail, while leaving false trails for anyone who would follow. Reaching a stream, they rode right down the middle of it, confident they were erasing any sign that could possibly be followed.
For most trackers that might work, but not for Matt. He had learned his tracking expertise from Smoke Jensen, who had learned his own skills from an old mountain man named Preacher, arguably, the best tracker who had ever lived. Because that know-how had been passed down, Matt was almost as accomplished as Smoke or Preacher. He could follow a trail through the water by paying attention to such things as rocks dislodged against the flow of water, or silt disturbed by horse’s hooves, leaving a little pattern in the water for several minutes afterward.
He was tracking down the streambed when a rifle boomed and a .44-40 bullet cracked through the air no more than an inch from his head.
He leaped from his horse and ran though the stream, his feet churning up silver sheets of spray as he ran. The rifle barked again. Right on top of that he heard the flatter sound of a pistol shot. Almost simultaneously two bullets plunged into the water close by.
Reaching the bank on the opposite side of the stream, Matt dived to the ground then worked his way toward a nearby outcropping of rocks. He sat with his back against the biggest of the rocks while he took a few deep breaths.
“Who are you?” one of the men called out to him.
“My name is Jensen,” Matt called back.
“Jensen? Matt Jensen? Son of a bitch!” The outlaw had obviously recognized Matt’s name. There was fear in his voice.
“Which one are you?” Matt called back. “Are you Hayes or Cruise?”
“What? I’m Hayes. How did you know our names?”
“Half the town saw you two boys riding away from the bank, and half the ones who saw you, knew who you were.”
“What are you after us for, Jensen?” Hayes called. “I’ve heard of you, but I ain’t never heard that you was someone who would chase a fella down for the reward. Is that why you are chasin’ us?”
“I’m not after the reward.”
“Then if you ain’t after the reward, what the hell are you comin’ after us for?”
“It seems the thing to do,” Matt said without being specific as to his reasons.
“Well, mister, you made a big mistake,” Hayes shouted. “’Cause all you’re goin’ to do now is get yourself kilt!”
Hayes and Cruise fired again, and once more the bullets whistled by harmlessly.
“You still there?” Hayes called.
“I’m still here.”