N
INETEEN
Monte Carson, acknowledging Pearlie's superior tracking skills, let him lead the way up the trail northward toward Pueblo.
Pearlie leaned over the side of his mount, and sometimes he even dismounted to squat next to some tracks, as he looked for the telltale signs of the passage of a wagon with new iron rims on the wheels. This caused the group to move slowly, something Cal in his youthfulness chaffed at.
“Jiminy, Pearlie, can't you go no faster'n that?” he complained.
Louis glanced over at him. “It won't do much good to race along, making good time, if we're going in the wrong direction, Cal.” Louis looked up at the sky. “And this snow covering up the tracks isn't helping matters any either.”
“I know, I know,” Cal agreed. “It's just that I'm really worried about Smoke.”
Sally smiled grimly. “We all are, Cal, but we mustn't let that keep us from doing the right thing in searching for him. It is very difficult to keep a clear mind when one is worried or frightened, but that is precisely when it is most important to do so.”
Suddenly, up ahead, Pearlie got down off his horse and knelt next to some tracks just to the side of the road. “Looky, here,” he called, pointing down. “Here's where the wagon got off the road a little bit an' outta all the other tracks. It's our buckboard, all right,” he said, swinging back up into the saddle.
Monte grinned, taking out his six-gun and opening the loading gate to check his loads. “Now, we can ride full out and see if we can catch up to those . . . owlhoots,” he said, glancing at Sally and editing his last few words so as not to offend her.
“But not too fast, Monte,” Louis advised. “We don't want to ride so fast we run up on the scoundrels without being ready for them, something easy to do in a storm like this. That could get Smoke killed in a hurry.”
Monte nodded and set his hat down tight on his head. He leaned over the saddle horn, spurred his horse, and kicked it into a gallop, with the others following right behind with bandannas tied over their noses and faces to help against the frigid north wind they were riding right into.
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Meanwhile, up ahead a few miles, Bob Bartlett, Juan Gomez, and Billy Free had taken up positions on either side of the trail where it narrowed between two large outcroppings of boulders. The forest on either side of the trail was very thick with brush and the land there had a steep slope to it, which would make it almost impossible for anyone to move around and flank them without becoming targets from the high ground.
“How're we gonna know who to stop, Bob?” Billy asked. “How're we gonna be able to tell if they're trackin' Jensen or not, especially in this storm? Hell, I can't see shit through all this snow.”
“Don't much matter, Billy,” Bob answered. “For the next twelve hours or so, till it gets full on dark, we're gonna stop anybody an' everbody who tries to come up that there trail. That way we can be sure nobody can catch up to us âfore we get to the ranch in Pueblo.”
“But I don't hanker on killin' no innocent people, Bob,” Billy said, his forehead creased in a frown. “I know Jensen deserves what he's gonna get, but shooting down some regular men who just happen to be in a posse just don't seem right to me,” he complained.
“I didn't say nothin' âbout killin' nobody, Billy,” Bob said. He looked around at the spot they had chosen to defend the trail. “From up here, we can keep anybody from passin' without having to kill âem. We just shoot a couple of hosses out from under the riders, hit some rocks close by âem, an' I have a feelin' they gonna be hightailin' it back to Big Rock.” He paused and added, “An' the way this snow is fallin', they'll play hell getting a clear shot back at us.”
Billy nodded, relieved. He glanced across the trail to where Juan Gomez was sitting looking over a large rock. “You think Gomez got that message too?” he asked. “Ol' Juan likes to use his gun a little too much for my taste.”
Bob followed his glance. “He'd better of gotten the message, since I told him flat out if he killed anybody Angus would have his scalp. The old man don't want this to turn into a range war. He just wants his revenge on the man that killed his son.”
Suddenly, from across the trail came a low whistle. When they looked, they saw Juan pointing down at the trail as it rose to meet them.
A couple of hundred yards away, five riders could barely be seen riding at speed up the road into the teeth of the storm. Bob held up his hand to keep Juan from firing too soon, and he and Billy lay down across the top of the rock they were behind and took careful aim with their Winchesters.
Once the riders got in range, Bob gently squeezed the trigger on his long gun.
Down below, the rider in the lead was thrown head over heels as his horse swallowed its head and collapsed underneath him.
As the other riders jerked their mounts to a halt, both Billy and Juan fired at the same time. Billy missed, but the horse Juan was aiming at screamed and crow-hopped for a few seconds before it too fell to the ground.
Louis struggled to get his leg out from under his big Morgan. When the horse fell, it trapped Louis's leg underneath it.
Sally jumped off the big Palouse she was riding and ran to Monte's side. She gently rolled him over and found he was conscious, but barely. The unexpected fall had clearly stunned him badly.
She looked around quickly. There was no good cover nearby. They'd have to retreat at least a hundred yards back up the trail to find someplace to hide.
Pearlie jumped down off his horse and ran to help her, while Cal did the same with Louis. In minutes, supporting him between them, Sally and Pearlie were moving Monte back up the trail and away from the ambushers.
Louis, once Cal had helped him get up, took a moment to put a bullet into the head of his wounded horse so he wouldn't suffer. One look at Monte's mount told him the gelding was already dead, so Louis swung up into the saddle behind Cal and they galloped back up the trail heading for cover.
When they came abreast of Sally and Pearlie, who were still struggling with a dazed and incoherent Monte, Louis swung out of the saddle and took Sally's place helping Pearlie, while Sally rushed to get control of hers and Pearlie's horses and keep them with them.
As they hustled Monte up the trail, Louis looked back over his shoulder toward the place where the shots had come from. The snow was blowing so hard he could barely see the spot, and he was surprised there hadn't been any more gunplay. He knew the men hiding up there could have killed them had they so desired, even with the reduced visibility of the snowstorm. Why they hadn't was a mystery he didn't have time to puzzle out now. He had to get Monte under cover and then determine if he needed immediate medical help.
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Up on the ridge, Bob nodded in satisfaction. They'd done a good job stopping those pilgrims from getting up the trail. He had no idea who they were, whether they were a posse after Jensen or not, but it didn't make any difference. No one was going to pass their way on this day, no matter who they were.
“You see that, Bob?” Billy asked.
“What?”
“I think one of those people was a woman,” he answered. “I could see her long, black hair hanging out from under her hat when she ran to that man that was on the ground.”
“So?” Bob asked.
“I just can't believe if'n that was a posse that they'd let a woman ride along. Leastways, I ain't never seen no woman on a posse before.”
“Like I said before,” Bob said, “it don't matter none who's down there. The fact is, it's our job to keep everybody from passing.”
He looked back over his shoulder. “Now, I'll keep an eye on those galoots down there, an' you can get back there an' stir up that fire. I'm thinkin' some hot coffee'd sure go down good right now to take the chill out of my bones.”
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Down below, Sally had laid Monte down on his back and was sponging his forehead with cool water from her canteen. As snowflakes began to accumulate on his shirt, she had Pearlie cover him with a blanket.
“How are you feeling, Monte?” she asked when he began to shiver.
“I . . . I don't rightly know, Sally,” he said with a confused look in his eyes. “Where are we and what happened to me?” he asked with a groan.
“We're on the trail after Smoke's kidnappers, Monte, and someone shot your horse out from under you, causing you to take a bad fall.”
“Smoke's kidnappers?” he asked, clearly still confused and unsure of what was going on.
Louis frowned and touched Sally on the shoulder, indicating he wanted to talk with her out of Monte's hearing.
She got up and they walked a short distance away, turning their backs to the north wind to lessen the chill. “I think he's got a concussion, Sally,” he said. “I've seen it before when someone got hit on the head. It makes them forget what they've done the past few days, and it can be very serious.”
“I know,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at Monte's pale face. “We've got to get him back to Big Rock where Dr. Spalding can take a look at him.”
“You think he's fit to ride a horse?” Louis asked, doubt in his voice.
“Not by himself,” she answered. “But if you ride behind him and help hold him in the saddle, I think he can do it.” She glanced up at the snowflakes drifting down. “He's going to have to, Louis. This storm looks like it's going to be pretty bad, and I don't know if he will survive a night of freezing temperatures, not in his condition.”
“I agree,” Louis said. He looked around at the terrain surrounding them. “Anyway, they've got us pretty well boxed in here, and I don't see any way past them without a larger force of men.” He grinned sourly. “And especially not with the five of us having only three horses left.”
Sally went back over to Monte. “Monte, we're going to try and get you up on a horse,” she said. “Louis is going to ride with you on the way back to Big Rock.”
As Pearlie and Cal helped Monte to his feet, he leaned over and vomited in the weeds. Louis glanced at Sally and shook his head. He knew from past experience this was not a good sign in men with head injuries.
It took both Cal and Pearlie to get Monte up on the horse and to hold him there while Louis climbed up behind him. “You just hold on to the saddle horn, Monte, and I'll do the riding for both of us,” Louis said, putting his arms around Monte to grab the reins.
Since she was the lightest, Sally rode double with Cal while Pearlie had his own horse to himself.
“Pearlie, since you're riding alone, why don't you hightail it on back to Big Rock and see if you can get the doc to come out to meet us with a buckboard? That way he can get to see Monte sooner,” Louis suggested.
Pearlie touched his hat and put the spurs to his mount, heading back down the trail as fast as he could ride.
It was slow going as they rode toward home. Louis was afraid to push the horse too fast lest he stumble in the snow or jar Monte and cause more problems inside his head.
“Who do you think that was back there that shot us up?” Cal asked as they rode.
“It must have been some of the people that took Smoke,” Sally said.
“I wonder why they didn't try and kill us,” Louis said. “They certainly had a good chance to do so.”
Sally shook her head. “I don't know, Louis. Perhaps their only quarrel is with Smoke and they don't want to kill anyone else unless they have to.”
“But if they're that angry with Smoke, why take him?” Louis asked. “Once they had the drop on him, why didn't they just kill him and be done with it? That would have been a lot less dangerous and would have made a lot more sense than taking him prisoner.”
“I don't know, Louis,” Sally said, “but I do intend to find out, and God help whoever is behind this.”
Louis glanced at Sally and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. He'd seen that look before in Smoke's eyes, and it always meant someone was about to die.
Suddenly, he felt very sorry for whoever had taken Smoke, for he knew their days were numbered.
T
WENTY
Smoke moved through the night as fast as he could, considering the snowstorm made the darkness almost absolute and he was running through snow that was getting deeper by the minute. It was only his excellent night vision that kept him from breaking an ankle or impaling himself on a tree limb or other natural obstruction in the heavy forest he was traversing.
Knowing the storm, like most early fall storms, was coming almost directly out of the north, he realized all he had to do to keep on track was to keep the wind directly in his face. That way he avoided traveling in circles as most inexperienced men did when moving in unfamiliar territory.
Smoke knew the mountain ranges all around them were closest directly to the north, and getting up into the High Lonesome was his only chance to avoid the men who would surely be on his trail no later than daybreak.
He knew from earlier in the day that the closest mountain was about seven miles away and that he had absolutely no chance to make it before daylight, not on foot traveling through darkness in snow that was rapidly getting up to his mid-calves. The only good thing about his rapid advance was that the exertion was keeping his body temperature high enough to avoid frostbite due to exposure to the extreme cold.
The bad news was that his only weapon was a five-inch clasp knife and he was completely without any other supplies or food. He laughed out loud into the freezing north wind. Only a mountain man, and a crazy one at that, would think that he had any chance at all against more than a dozen well-armed men on horseback on his trail under these conditions.
Well, this crazy old mountain man still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and if he could keep from freezing to death long enough, he'd show them a thing or two.
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The wind was howling and the snow was blowing almost horizontally when the camp began to wake up the next morning. Dawn was evident only through a general lightening up of the snow since there was no morning sun to be seen.
Cletus, as usual, was the first to arise, and he piled fresh wood onto the smoldering coals of last night's campfire. He filled pots with water and heaping handfuls of coffee in preparation for an early breakfast. He knew from his observation the night before that Smoke Jensen had escaped his bounds, but he pretended not to notice the empty space where Smoke had lain the previous night as he busied himself around the fire.
As men slowly gathered around the fire, holding out hands to get them warm and gratefully accepting mugs of steaming coffee, he told Jimmy Corbett to get started cooking some fatback and beans in the large skillets they'd brought along.
“Don't worry with trying to make biscuits in this storm,” he said. “We've still got some left from last night's dinner that ought'a do.”
“Gonna have to dip them sinkers in coffee to get âem soft enough to chew,” Jason Biggs said, grinning. “Otherwise you're liable to break a tooth on âem.”
Cletus was about to reply when Wally Stevens hollered from over near the tree Smoke had been under, “Hey, ever'body, Jenson's gone!”
Cletus forced a surprised look on his face and ran over to where Smoke was supposed to be lying. “Well, I'll be damned,” he exclaimed, straightening up and looking around with his hands on his hips. “The bastard's not here.”
“I don't see no ropes,” Stevens said, looking around on the ground and pushing mounds of snow aside, “so maybe he couldn't get them loose and his hands are still tied.”
“What's going on here?” Sarah asked as she appeared out of the blowing snow.
“Looks like Jensen has somehow managed to escape from the camp,” Cletus said, trying to appear disgusted with the turn of events.
“Escaped?” Sarah asked, her voice astounded. “How in the world was he able to do that?”
“I don't know, Miss MacDougal,” Biggs said, “but he can't have gotten far in this storm, not on foot.”
“How do you know he didn't take one of the horses?” she asked, causing everyone to make a mad dash off to the side where the horses were all tired to a tether rope.
After a quick count, Cletus assured everyone that Smoke hadn't in fact taken any of the mounts.
The men went back to the camp and began to make a circle around the periphery, trying to locate any tracks Smoke might have left.
After an hour of searching, they all decided the storm had covered any traces he might have made.
They gathered around the fire to get warm again and to discuss what they ought to do. “You got any bright ideas, Clete?” Biggs asked. “'Cause I surely don't relish going back to the ranch and having Mr. MacDougal chew my ears off for letting Jensen get away from us.”
Cletus thought for a moment as he finished off his mug of coffee. Finally, he looked around. “All right, here is what I think. Jensen could have gone in only two directions, north or south.”
“Why do you say that?” Stevens asked.
“'Cause if he headed either east or west, all he's gonna find is a big prairie with almost no cover to speak of. Jensen's too smart to put himself in that position, âcause in this weather, no cover means he'd freeze to death. Now, if he heads south back towards his home, we got three men behind us guarding the trail. If, on the other hand, he heads north towards the nearest mountain range, then he's got a good chance of hiding out from us if he makes it.”
“So,” Sarah said, “you think he's probably gone north toward the mountains?”
Cletus shrugged. “It's what I'd do in his place.” He made a grimace of disgust. “'Course, we're gonna have to cover all the directions, just in case he tried to fool us by going someplace we wouldn't think he'd try.”
“That's gonna split us up pretty good,” Stevens said.
“Not really,” Sarah said. “Remember, Jensen's on foot and doesn't have any weapons. We can send one man east and one man west. If he's out there in the open, they should be able to run him down before nightfall and take him prisoner again.”
“What about south?” Cletus asked.
“I think one man should be able to get back down the trail and warn Bartlett and Gomez and Free to be on the lookout for him,” she said. “That should leave us plenty of men to undertake a campaign to catch him before he can get too far into the mountains if he headed north.”
Cletus shook his head in admiration. “Missy, I wish I'd had you running my outfit during the war. You plumb got a mind for tactics.”
“Well, I'd suggest we get a move on,” she said. “Clete, you pick the men to go east and west and south, and I'll see to getting their canteens filled with hot coffee to keep them from freezing to death on the way.”
“We got time to eat first, Miss MacDougal?” Stevens asked, his face hopeful.
“Certainly. We can't go out into this storm on a manhunt with our bellies empty, now can we, men?”
Cletus laughed. “Jimmy, get those beans to cookin', boy, we got a man to catch.”
“Yes, sir,” Corbett answered, using a long stick to stir the coals under the trestle that contained the pot of beans and fatback.
As Sarah began to fill canteens with hot coffee, Cletus looked at her and shook his head. He'd never seen a better performance. No one would ever suspect that she'd let Jensen go herself, and he damn sure wasn't going to enlighten anyone.
He stepped over to the edge of the fire and stood looking into the north wind, in the direction Jensen must have gone if he was to have any chance to avoid capture.
What would it take for a man to have the courage to take off on foot into a blizzard like this with no weapons and no warm clothes to speak of? he wondered.
He chuckled to himself, knowing full well the answer to that question. A man would have to be completely without hope of survival otherwise to take a chance like that, and Jensen certainly knew that for him to stay in camp would mean certain death.
As Sarah called to him that the beans and fatback were ready, he turned and shook his head. The man didn't stand a chance in this weather, he thought, but at least freezing to death was probably less painful that a bullet.