T
WENTY-SEVEN
Smoke was indeed watching the group as Cletus's men weaved in and out of the forest on their way higher up onto the mountainside.
“Time to sow a little hate and dissent,” he mumbled to himself as he took the telescope from his eye and picked up the old Winchester he'd stolen.
Instinctively he aimed a little lower than it looked like he should, since he was shooting downhill. He was a good three hundred yards up the hill and was well hidden, lying on his stomach behind a ponderosa pine that'd been felled by lightning. He'd stacked snow on the brim of his hat so the only thing visible from below would be his dark eyes. Not much of a risk since his targets were so far away.
He put the bead on the end of the rifle barrel about three inches above the head of one of the men far off to the right, and slowly squeezed the trigger. He didn't expect to hit the man, but he hoped the rifle was accurate enough to at least come close enough to scare the man.
The rifle exploded and kicked back against his shoulder. Smoke immediately pulled the gun back to him and lowered his head a couple of inches. He knew it'd take the sound of the gunshot a second or two to reach the men below, after the bullet had already landed.
The man Smoke had aimed at screamed at the top of his lungs and pitched sideways off his horse. Suddenly, most of the men below were firing their pistols and rifles in all directions as the sound of Smoke's gunshot echoed and re-echoed around the mountainside, distorting the direction from which it had actually come.
The man Smoke knew as Cletus rode rapidly over to the wounded man, lying low along his mount's neck to make himself less of a target.
As soon as Cletus got to the man, he jumped off his horse and held his hands up in the air, hollering, “Stop shooting! Cease firing!” as loud as he could.
The gang's shooting slowed and finally stopped, but it was clear to Smoke from the way the men turned their heads back and forth that they were frightened. It was also clear that most of these men weren't gunslicks or hired guns, but merely cowboys who were out of their depth in this kind of fracas.
When the men had stopped their firing, Cletus told the ones nearby to keep a sharp lookout and he bent down over Billy Free, who was lying in the snow, holding his right arm with his left hand and moaning and groaning as he writhed on the ground.
Cletus said, “Hold on, Billy. Let me take a look at where you got hit.”
Free moaned again, but moved his left hand. Cletus saw a hole in Free's right arm just below the shoulder that was leaking blood slowly. A good sign that no major artery had been hit.
Cletus raised the arm, causing Free to clamp his jaws together and to almost shout out in pain. The bullet had gone through the arm, and was sticking in the heavy leather of Free's fur-lined winter coat.
Cletus took Billy's bandanna from around the boy's neck and wrapped the arm tight enough to stop the bleeding, making Billy groan again. “Good news, Billy,” Cletus said. “The bullet went right on through and the bone ain't broken. You should do all right if'n it don't get infected.”
“Did anybody see where the bastard fired from?” Billy asked as he struggled to sit up in the snow.
Cletus shook his head. “No. Evidently, he was far enough away that nobody saw the muzzle flash nor heard the report until he'd ducked back in hiding.”
Suddenly, there was a loud thumping sound followed immediately by the sharp report of a rifle shot, and Wally Stevens's horse screamed and reared up before collapsing onto a shouting Wally.
Wally hollered as loud as he could for somebody to get his damn horse off his leg.
“I . . . think it's broken,” he sobbed, grimacing and holding his right thigh with both hands.
George Jones and Sam Jackson jumped off their horses, and struggled to lift Wally's horse enough for him to slide his leg out.
Sure enough, the leg just below the knee was bent at an unnatural angle. Luckily, there was no bone sticking out, but the leg was going to have to be set, and it was a sure thing that Wally was not going to like that, nor the long ride back to the ranch on horseback.
Cletus waved his arms. “You men get off your horses and take cover behind trees,” he shouted. “And for God's sake, see if you can spot where the gunshots are coming from.”
The men complied with Cletus's order, and soon all of them were hugging trees in a wide semicircle, their eyes pointed up the hill as they looked for any sign of Jensen.
Up above, Smoke smiled and eased back away from the tree trunk he was behind. Now, he had all the men that were after him sitting around watching for him. As the temperature dropped they'd get colder and colder since they weren't able to move around. Just what he wanted, and they wouldn't dare gather around a fire because it would make them perfect targets.
He grinned as he eased up into his saddle and walked his horse over a ridge and away from the men below. Now, he had to find a good spot to make a fire so that when darkness fell, he'd be able to heat some coffee and finish off the last of his bacon and jerky and get some of the chill out of his bones.
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An hour later, after Wally's leg had been set and a couple of tree limbs used as a splint, Cletus looked around at his men. They were all shivering and slapping their arms against their chests as they hid behind trees looking for any sign of movement up above them.
It suddenly dawned on Cletus what Jensen was up to. The sly son of a bitch wanted his men half-frozen to death and scared to move.
Damn, he thought. He got to his feet, feeling an itchy sensation in the back of his neck as he imagined the mountain man drawing a bead on him. “Come on, men,” he shouted, waving them to their feet. “It's gonna be dark âfore long an' we gotta find a place to make camp.”
Bob Bartlett, whose face was red and chapped from the cold, stammered out, “It's gonna get colder'n a well-digger's belt buckle tonight, Clete.”
“Yeah,” Carl Jacoby agreed, looking up at the darkening sky, which was full of dark roiling clouds. “And it looks like more snow's on the way too.”
“Exactly,” Cletus agreed. “That's why we've got to find a place we can defend that's protected from above so we can make a fire and get warm.”
“I ain't sittin' next to no fire an' makin' myself an easy target,” Sam Jackson said grimly.
Cletus shrugged. “Good, Sam. Then when morning comes we'll throw your frozen carcass on the coals to thaw you out so you can sit a saddle.”
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By the time darkness had fallen, Cletus had managed to find a series of large boulders that were lying in a line across the slope of the hillside. He had his men make a camp on the downhill side where they'd be safe from gunshots from above, and he built a large fire.
“Clete,” Sarah said when she saw the pile of brush and limbs he'd stacked up. “Jensen will be able to see that fire for miles.”
He shrugged and grinned. “You think he don't already know exactly where we are, Missy?”
“Uh . . . I guess he does at that,” she agreed.
“Now, I'm gonna build this here fire and get some hot vittles into the men, âcause if'n I don't, they're gonna freeze to death. But while we're eating, I'm going to have some sentries out so that Jensen won't be able to sneak up on us or take any potshots at us.”
“You think sentries will stop him?” Sarah asked.
“Probably not, but I think Jensen's gonna be doing just what we're doing tonight. Trying to stay outta the storm and get some heat into his body. I don't care how long he was a mountain man. That don't keep his blood from freezing just like anybody else's.”
When she nodded, he slapped her on the back. “Now, get on over there and help the men get some coffee made and some beans and fatback cooked up so's we can eat.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Cletus, sir,” she said, snapping off in insolent half salute and grinning as she turned and moved over to the packhorse that carried their supplies.
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They'd just finished eating when a gunshot came from down the hill, followed quickly by a shout, “Yo, the camp!”
The men sitting around the fire all jumped to their feet, their pistols in their hands and worried looks on their faces as Cletus shouted, “Put those guns away, men. That's Mac Macklin's voice.”
Moments later, Angus MacDougal and the men with him rode slowly into the light of the campfire. Daniel Macklin was riding at MacDougal's side.
“Damn, Clete,” Angus said as he dismounted and walked over to stand near the fire with both his hands outstretched in front of him. “That fire feels good. I'm froze clear down to the bone.”
Clete looked over at Juan Gomez. “Juanito, would you boys cook up some more beans and fatback and put some more coffee on to boil. Looks like we got company for supper.
“How'd you find us in the dark?” Cletus asked Angus.
“Hell, boy, you can see this fire for five miles,” Angus answered. He looked around at how Cletus had arranged the fire behind the boulders so his men were protected from above.
He nodded in approval. “Right smart move, Clete, making your camp here.”
Cletus smiled and turned to pour himself some coffee from the pot. Guess the old man's forgotten all the times we camped out surrounded by hostile Indians in the old days, he thought.
T
WENTY-EIGHT
As they sat by the fire next to each other, Angus told Cletus that he was taking over the hunt for Jensen.
“You're welcome to it, Angus,” Cletus said, relieved that he wouldn't be in charge any longer. “I got no more stomach for this anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?” Angus asked around a mouthful of bacon and beans.
Cletus drank his coffee, staring over the rim at the fire without looking at Angus. “I just don't think Jensen is the killer you make him out to be, Angus.”
Angus swallowed his food. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You mean you don't believe he killed my Johnny?” he asked.
Cletus turned to look at him. “No, I know he killed Johnny, Boss. It's just that I think Johnny probably didn't give him no choice in the matter, that's all.”
“Bullshit!” Angus growled. “He shot my boy down in cold blood.”
Cletus shook his head. “First off, Angus, Johnny weren't no boy, he was a full-growed man, though I got to admit he often didn't act like it.”
Angus glared at Cletus, hate in his eyes at this desecration of his son's memory.
Cletus went on. “Not only that, but on the ride back here, after Sarah betrayed him and took him prisoner, Jensen risked his own life to save hers.”
Angus opened his eyes wide in disbelief. “What?”
Cletus told him the story of Smoke and the rattlesnake and how he'd thrown himself in front of Sarah.
Angus clamped his jaws shut. “That don't make no never mind. Fact is, he killed Johnny and for that he's gonna die, no matter what he did for Sarah.”
From the other side of Angus, Sarah interjected, “Daddy, I think you ought to listen to Clete. He's right about Jensen. He isn't a cold-blooded killer like you say.”
Angus's face twisted up in hatred and he swung a backhand, slapping Sarah across the face.
“Don't you dare say nothing against your brother, girl,” he snarled. “He was worth two of you.”
As Sarah's hand went to her face, Cletus reached across Angus and grabbed his wrist, twisting hard until Angus groaned in pain. “That tears it, Angus. I'm through with you and your little gang of killers. And if I ever hear of you laying another hand on Sarah”âCletus paused and looked over at herâ“I'll personally come out there and beat the living shit out of you!”
Cletus got to his feet and helped Sarah to hers. He put a palm against the side of her face, his eyes sad. “I'm sorry, Missy.”
She glanced from Cletus back down to her father. “Me too, Clete. Come on. Let's get out of here.”
The two walked over to the string of horses and began to saddle their mounts.
“You leave me now, Clete, and you'll never work in Colorado again!” Angus shouted at their backs.
As Cletus and Sarah swung up into their saddles, Cletus shook his head at the old man. “I wouldn't make threats you ain't gonna be able to carry out, Angus. For my money, I don't think you got one chance in ten of riding off this mountain alive.”
“And just where do you think you're going, young lady?” Angus growled at Sarah.
She sat up straight in her saddle. “I'm going home to pack my things. It's about time I left home and made my own way in the world.”
“Well,” Angus snorted, “good riddance to the both of you. You'll both come crawling back to me when you realize I'm right about all this.”
Cletus shook his head. “No, Angus, we won't be back. And I don't think you've been right about anything for a very long time.”
They jerked their reins and rode off alongside one another without looking back, leaving Angus staring after them as the darkness swallowed them up.
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Smoke heard this exchange from where he stood in the darkness less than a dozen yards away. It had been no trouble for him to sneak near the camp, moving between the sentries as silent as a ghost in the pitch-black night. He could have snuck up to any of them and killed them before they knew what was happening, but he wanted to end this with as little loss of life as he could. There'd already been too much killing.
The knee-deep snow helped to cover any sounds he might make, but would show his tracks later in the morning light. He smiled to himself, unworried about that. He planned to give the men in the gang plenty of other things to be thinking about before the sun rose in the morning.
Moving slowly and staying out of the light of the campfire, Smoke snuck over to the string of horses where they were tethered along a rope stretched between two trees. He walked along the broncs, his hands lightly touching their rumps so they wouldn't get nervous and whinny, until he came to the pack animals. Their packs had been removed and sat on the ground next to them, and he was lucky the men hadn't bothered to take the boxes of supplies and ammunition and explosives up near the fire where they would have been safe.
It took Smoke five trips to carry all of the boxes of dynamite and gunpowder and extra cartridges a couple of hundred yards away from the camp. He needed them to be that far away for what he had planned. On his last trip, he used his clasp knife to cut the rope holding the horses, but made no effort to scatter them. That would come later.
When he was far enough away, he opened the boxes and took out fifteen or twenty of the sticks of dynamite, along with their fuses and detonators, and stuck them in a saddlebag. He then took a fuse, cut it two feet long, and stuck it and a detonator into a stick of dynamite. He took a can of gunpowder and, using his skinning knife, he opened the top, wincing at the scraping sound the knife made.
He set the can between the boxes of dynamite and gunpowder and cartridges and put the stick of dynamite in it, nestling it down into the powder. He struck a match and lit the fuse, and then ran as fast as he could around the edge of the camp until he was on the opposite side from where he'd set the supplies.
While he waited for the fuse, he took out one of the sticks of dynamite from his saddlebag and stuck a detonator and a very short two-inch fuse into the end of it.
Three minutes later, the dynamite and gunpowder and cartridges all went up with a tremendous bang. The fireball from the explosion rose fifty feet in the air, and set the top of one of the ponderosa pines on fire.
The force of the explosion blew men off their feet and tossed them about like rag dolls, causing several to suffer broken arms and lacerations from flying debris.
The extra cartridges in the pack were set off by the blast, and bullets flew through the air like a swarm of angry hornets, wounding two men. The rest of the gang threw themselves on the ground with their hands over their heads while they screamed in fright and terror as slugs whined past their ears.
Smoke kept his head down until things had quieted down. Men slowly got to their feet, shaking their heads and pulling their pistols from their holsters as they moved off in the direction of the explosion.
Suddenly, Daniel Macklin shouted, “Hey, Mr. MacDougal, the horses are all gone!”
Angus got to his feet and brushed himself off, his ears ringing and his nose running from all the dust and dirt in the air.
“Well, just don't stand there, men. Round âem up!” he shouted, pointing with both hands as horses ran around in the forest, as frightened as the men were.
Once all of the men had stumbled out of the camp and out into the woods looking for horses, Smoke leaned over the boulder he was hiding behind and pitched his stick of dynamite into the campfire.
He'd managed to run only a dozen yards when the dynamite went off, exploding in the campfire and blowing what was left of the camp into smithereens.
At least half of the men's saddles were destroyed, along with most of their sleeping blankets and ground covers. All of the rest of the food supplies were ruined, with the exception of several cans of Arbuckle's coffee, which were smashed and dented but remained somehow intact.
As the bedraggled group of cowboys and gunslicks limped their way back into what was left of their camp, a light snow started to fall.
Angus gritted his teeth and glared at the skies above. “This is perfect,” he growled, “just perfect!”
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By the time morning came, Angus's men had managed to find about three quarters of the horses, and the injured and wounded had been patched up as best they could with what supplies they had remaining.
Another campfire had been built, and the men breakfasted on coffee made with melted snow. There wasn't any food left that was worth eating.
The snow continued to fall, but at least the wind was not too strong, and the temperature actually seemed a bit warmer than it had been the night before.
All in all, the men counted themselves lucky there'd been no loss of life in the explosions of the night before.