Massacre Canyon by William W. Johnstone Page B

possible.
    Somebody had shot at him from the rear of the blacksmith shop, Smoke recalled. That couldn’t have been the man he shot out of the hayloft. That hombre hadn’t had time to get up there. As that thought went through Smoke’s brain, he wheeled his horse back toward the smithy.
    The shop door stood open. Smoke dropped from his saddle and ran toward it at an angle, stopping before he got there to press himself against the building’s front wall.
    â€œIf you’re in there, mister, throw your gun out and come out behind it with your hands in the air,” Smoke called. “Nobody’s going to shoot you if you give yourself up.”
    Silence came from the shop.
    Smoke reached out with the barrel of his Winchester, hooked the partially open door with it, and threw the door all the way back. That didn’t draw any fire.
    But a second later he heard a sudden curse, followed immediately by a shot and a howl of pain. Somebody was hurt in there, possibly an innocent citizen of Fletcher’s Gap.
    Either that or it was a trick.
    Smoke couldn’t afford to take that chance. He went through the door low and fast.
    Another shot blasted, the muzzle flash bright and garish in the gloom of the shop’s interior. Smoke spotted the big forge. A man crouched on the far side of it and aimed a revolver at him for a second try.
    Before the man could pull the trigger again, a shape loomed up behind him. A big, balding man with blood on his shirt and his right arm hanging limp swung a hammer in his left hand. The hammer smashed into the gunman’s left shoulder and drove him to the ground, shrieking in agony. Smoke figured that terrible blow had shattered every bone in the man’s shoulder.
    He took a quick step and used the Winchester’s barrel to knock the gun out of the man’s other hand. The bushwhacker collapsed, no doubt passing out from the pain of his injury.
    â€œHold your fire, mister,” rumbled the big man who had struck him down. “I reckon if this fella’s out to kill you, we must be on the same side.”
    â€œI’d say the same thing about that bullet hole in your arm,” Smoke replied. “Are you all right?”
    The big man glanced down at his injury. He shrugged his other shoulder and said, “I will be. This don’t amount to much.”
    Outside, Pearlie yelled, “Smoke! Smoke, where are you?”
    â€œIn here, Pearlie,” Smoke called. He looked at the big man again and went on. “You’re the blacksmith and liveryman here, aren’t you?”
    â€œThat’s right. Jasper Hargrove. And you’re Mr. Jensen, from the Sugarloaf. We’ve met a time or two.” Hargrove grinned. “When I heard a couple of these damned fools talking about buying some horses stolen from your ranch, I knew you’d be along directly to hand ’em their needin’s.”
    Smoke smiled. Pearlie came into the barn and reported, “Me an’ Cal cleaned out the rest of these rats, Smoke. Hope you didn’t figure on any of ’em livin’ through the altercation.”
    â€œThis one did,” Smoke said with a nod toward the man Hargrove had struck down. “We’ll have a talk with him when he wakes up.”
    Pearlie squinted at the unconscious man and said, “I’ll fetch a bucket of water. See if we can’t hurry that along a mite.”
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    As Smoke suspected, a couple of the men they had followed to Fletcher’s Gap had been wounded in the earlier fight, and the group had stopped here to patch up their injured and wait to see if anybody was coming after them. While they were doing that, they had herded all of the settlement’s inhabitants into the saloon and had been keeping them there at gunpoint, with the exception of Jasper Hargrove, who was the unofficial “mayor” of Fletcher’s Gap. He had hidden in the livery stable, in a storm cellar hollowed out under