Chapter 11
Before he and Pearlie had crept around here, Smoke had made it clear what his men were supposed to do. Some of their shots ripped into the ground just in front of the trees, while others smacked into the trunks and whistled through the branches overhead. They weren't missing by much, coming close enough with their slugs to make the two bushwhackers give up the standoff and beat a retreat. Smoke and Pearlie heard their boots thudding against the ground as they fled.
“Here they come!” Pearlie whispered.
“Split up and wait until they're close,” Smoke ordered as he leaned his Winchester against the tree and drew his Colt.
Pearlie stepped over to one of the other trees and pressed his back against it so he couldn't be seen. The running footsteps came closer.
The bushwhacker who was in the lead raced past Smoke. With blinding speed, Smoke leaped out from behind the tree and struck, reversing his pistol so that the butt thudded against the man's head. The bushwhacker's hat softened the blow's force somewhat, but it was still enough to send the man tumbling off his feet with a pained grunt.
Smoke heard a rustle of movement as Pearlie tackled the second man. At the same time Smoke stepped forward and kicked away the rifle his man had dropped. He pressed the barrel of his revolver against the back of the man's head and reached down with his other hand to draw the weapon from the bushwhacker's holster.
“You're caught, mister,” he said. “Try anything and I'll blow your brains out.”
That was the last thing he intended to do, but the rustler didn't have to know that.
The thudding of knobby-knuckled fists on flesh made Smoke glance toward his friend. He couldn't make out any details in the shadows, but he saw the struggling shapes churning around. A gunshot roared, but Smoke could tell by the jet of flame from the muzzle that the weapon was pointed upward as Pearlie and the other bushwhacker wrestled over it.
A sudden smack sent one of the figures slumping to the ground. Smoke dropped to a knee beside the man he had captured, ready to lift his gun and fire if the other bushwhacker had been victorious.
Instead, it was Pearlie's voice that called softly, “Smoke?”
“I'm here,” Smoke replied. “I got mine.”
“Yeah, same here,” Pearlie said.
Smoke took hold of his prisoner's collar and rose to his feet, hauling the man upright with him.
“Don't try anything,” he warned. “My trigger finger is mighty itchy right now. Those are my cattle you stole tonight, and one of my men you shot.”
The man swallowed with an audible gulp.
“You're Smoke Jensen?” he asked.
Smoke's voice was hard as flint as he answered, “That's right.”
The prisoner started muttering something. Smoke couldn't make out the words at first, but after a few seconds he realized the man was saying a prayer.
“Save it,” he said as he gave the prisoner a shove. “Anyway, where you're going, the fella with the horns and the forked tail is in charge.”
The rest of the Sugarloaf men had stopped shooting. Pearlie raised his voice and shouted, “Hold your fire, boys.” Smoke herded his prisoner out of the trees, while Pearlie took hold of the unconscious man's feet and dragged him into the open.
From the stand of pines to the right, a familiar voice called, “Mr. Jensen? Is that you?”
“That's right, Slewfoot,” Smoke replied. “Come on out. Or do you need help? Are you wounded?”
The tall, skinny cowboy limped out of the trees carrying his rifle.
“Naw, I'm fine,” he said. “Did you get those jaspers who had me pinned down?”
“They're right here,” Smoke said.
Slewfoot came up and asked, “What're you gonna do with 'em?”
Smoke made his voice hard again and said, “The same thing any honest man would do with rustlers and murderers . . . string 'em up!”
“Murderers!” Slewfoot repeated. “You mean that Barstow kid who got ventilated . . . ?”
“Dead,” Smoke said. He looked at Pearlie and the other men, hoping they could see him well enough in the moonlight to realize the ruse he was trying and not give it away.
Pearlie was quick on the uptake, as usual. He said, “Yeah, the poor kid bled to death before anybody could get him back to the ranch house. That makes it murder, sure enough. Want me to fetch my lasso, Smoke?”
“That'll be fine,” Smoke replied. “And bring mine, too. We'll find a tree with a good branch and have both of these bastards dancing on air before you know it.”
The prisoner finally spoke up again, saying in a shaky voice, “You . . . you can't do that. We're entitled to a trialâ”
“It just so happens I brought a dozen men with me tonight,” Smoke broke in. “That's the right number for a jury. We'll have a trial if you want, and I'll be the judge and pass sentence when you're found guilty.”
“Seems like a waste of time to me,” Pearlie said. “I'll be back in a minute with them lassos and the rest of the fellas.”
He trotted off into the night.
The prisoner swallowed again and went on, “Look, you don't have to kill me, Mr. Jensen. Just give me my horse and I'll ride on, and I give you my word I'll never set foot in this part of the country again. You can shoot me on sight if I do.”
“I can shoot you right now if I want to,” Smoke said, “but I'd rather see you hang.”
“I didn't kill anybody, I swear it! I didn't fire a shot tonight.”
Slewfoot said, “You were shootin' at me, damn it!”
“Well . . . I meant when we were driving off those cows. That's all I did. Some of the other boys handled all the gunplay. I'm not responsible for that cowboy gettin' killed!”
“You were part of it,” Smoke said coldly. “To my way of thinking, that makes you just as guilty as the man who pulled the trigger.”
“No . . . no, you can't . . .”
The man sounded like he was about to start bawling. Smoke didn't feel any pity for him, but the time had come to make a play.
“There might be something you can doâ” he began.
The rustler didn't let him finish.
“Anything!” the man said. “Anything you want, Jensen.”
“Tell me where the rest of the bunch was taking those cows.”
The prisoner hesitated, saying, “I . . . I can't. The boss wouldâ”
“Kill you? Is that what you were about to say?” Smoke asked. “What in blazes do you think is fixing to happen to you here? You can talk, or you can kick your life out at the end of a hangrope. The choice is up to you.”
The rustler didn't say anything. His fear of the man he worked for had to be pretty strong to make him clam up in the face of a necktie party.
While they were waiting for Pearlie, Smoke drew Slewfoot aside. After warning the crippled cowboy not to show any reaction, he whispered the good news that Steve Barstow was actually still alive. Slewfoot looked relieved, but didn't do anything else except nod slightly.
Pearlie came back a few minutes later, along with the rest of the group from the Sugarloaf. The other riders all dismounted and formed a circle of grim faces. Now there were a dozen men surrounding the prisoners. The rustler who was conscious ran his fingers through his tangled hair and rubbed his face as he moaned in despair.
“All right,” he said, the words seeming to bubble out of his mouth. “I'll tell you what you want toâ”
The other rustler, who had appeared to still be out cold from the blow Pearlie had landed, must have been shamming, because he lunged up from the ground with no warning and rammed a shoulder into the nearest man. He yanked a six-gun from the cowboy's holster, tipped up the barrel, and fired.
The bullet wasn't aimed at Smoke or any of the Sugarloaf riders, though. Instead it slammed into the chest of the man Smoke had been questioning. The slug's impact made the rustler stagger back a step and collapse.
The gunman tried to swing the revolver toward Smoke and get off a second shot, but he was nowhere near fast enough. Smoke's Colt was already in his hand. Even if it hadn't been, his draw would have shaded the rustler's attempt. Smoke fired, aiming for the man's shoulder.
Two things ruined that plan. One was the poor light, and the other was the way the rustler swayed to the right just as Smoke pulled the trigger. The man must have been trying to avoid the shot, but he ran right into it instead. The bullet ripped through his throat and made blood spurt from severed arteries.
The rustler dropped the gun and clapped his hands to his throat, but there was no way he could stop the flood of crimson. His knees unhinged, and he dropped to the ground where he made a grotesque gagging sound and thrashed around for a couple of seconds before lying still.
Smoke knew the man was dead. He ignored the corpse and leaped to the side of the first rustler, dropping to one knee. The man had his hands pressed to his chest. Dark worms of blood crawled between his splayed fingers.
“Your partner shot you because he knew you were about to talk,” Smoke said. “But you can still tell me what you wanted me to know. Where will we find the cattle your bunch stole?”
“I didn't . . . didn't kill nobody. . . .”
“Don't worry about that now,” Smoke said. “Just tell me where the rest of the gang went.”
“Through . . . through the tunnel . . . Ah!”
With that sharp outcry, the man's back arched. A second later, he slumped again. His head fell to the side.
“He's dead, Smoke,” Pearlie said.
Smoke nodded.
“I know. And I'd already figured out those stolen cows must have gone through the tunnel, so that doesn't really tell me where they wound up.”
“We got a place to start lookin', though, wherever that tunnel leads to.” Pearlie took off his hat and scratched his head. “Danged if I ever heard of a tunnel runnin' through Gunsight Ridge.”
“Neither have I,” Smoke said as he got to his feet. “While we're doing that, some of you fellas search these men. See if they have anything in their pockets that might tell us where they came from.”
Pearlie, Cal, and Steve Barstow accompanied Smoke as he headed for the tunnel. When they reached the dark opening, Cal fashioned a torch from several broken pine boughs that he lashed together with a piggin' string he took from his pocket. He lit the makeshift torch with a sulfur match, and when the brand was burning brightly, he held it over his head to light their way as the men started into the tunnel.
The dark opening reminded Smoke more than ever of the mouth of a beast. He was about as icy nerved as a man can get, but he didn't like holes in the earth. They made him think about what might come crawling out from them.
This tunnel didn't go down below the surface, though. It bored straight through the ridge. Smoke told Cal to hold the torch close to one of the walls.
“I don't think this passage was man-made,” he said. “I think an underground river used to run through here, before whatever earthquake thrust the ridge up, thousands of years ago.”
“Why ain't nobody ever seen it before?” Pearlie asked. “I've ridden along this stretch of Gunsight Ridge dozens of times. I would've noticed it.”
“Not if it was covered up and you weren't looking for it,” Smoke said. “I think a rock slide must have plugged up the entrance, sometime in the past. Maybe far in the past. But then somebody came along, found the other end of the tunnel, followed it this far, and realized that if he could just break through the rocks, he'd have a back door onto Sugerloaf range that nobody else knew about.”
Pearlie rubbed his chin. His fingertips rasped on the beard stubble that covered his lean, angular jaw as he frowned in thought.
“Pretty smart,” he said after a moment. “So then the fella decided to use the tunnel to drive off stolen cows.”
Smoke nodded and said, “That's the way it looks to me.”
The tunnel was big enough for that. It was about thirty feet wide, and the arched ceiling rose about twenty feet. The floor was stone, so there weren't any tracks to prove that the rustled cattle had come through here, but they had the declaration of a dying man and the fact that there was no other place the cows could have gone.
The smoothness of the walls, ceiling, and floor was what told Smoke the tunnel had been formed by flowing water instead of being chipped out by tools in the hands of men. No telling how far back in the past that had been, he mused as he stood there looking around in the light of the torch Cal held.
“Reckon we can pick up the trail again at the other end?” Pearlie asked.
“That's what I'm hoping. Go back and get the other men and the horses. One more thing . . . Steve, I want you to ride back to the ranch.”
Barstow had come into the tunnel with Smoke, Pearlie, and Cal. He said, “I been keepin' up all right, haven't I, Mr. Jensen? Why are you sendin' me back?”
“You've kept up just fine,” Smoke assured the young cowboy. “But there's no telling how far this chase is going to lead us, and you'll need some rest if that arm is going to heal properly. Besides, I've got a couple of chores for you. I want you to tell Mrs. Jensen what we've found. She needs to know it may be a spell before we get back. Also, I want to get word to Monte Carson in Big Rock about this tunnel.”
Monte Carson, who like Pearlie, had once been a hired gun who found himself on the wrong side from Smoke, had given up that life and become the sheriff in Big Rock, the nearest town to the Sugarloaf ranch. He and Smoke had been good friends for several years now.