12
Mary Carson was showing Juanita Sanchez how to make biscuits in the small cabin where she was being held prisoner.
“I pretty good with tortillas and tamales,” Juanita said as she watched Mary roll dough into a flat sheet and then cut out circular pieces and place them on a sheet greased with lard, “but I never made biscuits.”
Mary smiled as she reached up to wipe flour off her nose. “It really isn't all that difficult, Juanita. The main thing you have to remember is not to cook them too long, or they become as hard as rocks.” She glanced sideways at the Mexican. “Perhaps that's why some cowboys call them sinkers.”
Juanita giggled, just as Jim Slaughter and Whitey and Swede walked into the cabin.
“Well,” Slaughter said with a frown, “I see you women are gettin' along all right.”
Juanita blushed and stepped back away from Mary, as if she were afraid of seeming too friendly to the
gringa.
Mary placed the metal sheet with the biscuit dough on it into the stove and closed the metal door. She turned and stared at the three men without a trace of fear on her face. “I was just showing Juanita how to make biscuits. I figured you men might like a change of pace from the Mexican food you seem to eat for every meal.”
“I no do nothing wrong, Señor Slaughter,” Juanita said, fear making her voice quaver.
Slaughter waved a dismissive hand. “I know you didn't, Juanita. Now, why don't you leave us so we can have a little talk with Mrs. Carson?”
“
SÃ
, Señor.”
After the woman left, Slaughter stepped to the stove, took a steaming coffeepot off the burner, and poured coffee for himself and his men.
They sat at the table, and he motioned for Mary to take a seat with them.
After she sat down, Slaughter wasted no time in preliminary conversation, but got right to the point of his visit.
“I hear from my men that a man named Smoke Jensen has joined your husband and they're on their way here.”
He watched Mary's expression closely to see what effect his announcement would have on her.
She smiled and nodded. “I figured he would,” she said.
“You knew this was gonna happen?” Swede asked, leaning forward and staring at her through narrowed eyes.
“Of course,” she replied, looking from one to another of the men. “Big Rock is a small community, and we all tend to help one another out when needs be.”
“Just what do you know about this Smoke Jensen?” Slaughter asked.
“He's the only man I know who's faster on the draw and more dangerous than my husband, Mr. Slaughter.”
Slaughter's face showed his puzzlement. “But why would a man go so far as to travel several hundred miles and risk his life just to help a neighbor out in something that's none of his business?” he asked.
“Perhaps it's because you kidnapped me, Mr. Slaughter. You see, in the West, men value their womenfolk above all else. I've heard of men being hanged just for showing disrespect for a lady, and to go so far as to steal a man's wife to try and collect a debt . . . Well, it just isn't done where I come from.”
“That don't exactly answer my question, Mrs. Carson. This Smoke Jensen has quite a reputation as a gun hawk and a killer. He ain't no gentleman who's likely to go around avenging women who are disrespected, as you put it.”
Mary leaned back in her chair and got a strange look on her face. “There's a lot you don't know about Smoke Jensen, Mr. Slaughter. It may well be that this situation has a . . . particular significance to Smoke.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'm going to tell you men a story about Smoke that my husband once told me. It may explain why Smoke will never let you get away with what you've done.”
Slaughter pulled a cigar out of his pocket, struck a lucifer on his boot, and lit it. As thick clouds of pungent, blue smoke trailed from his nostrils, he said, “Go ahead.”
“When Smoke was just a young man, in his first years living in the mountains, he took a young woman as his wife. They lived up in the high lonesome for a couple of years. They had a baby, a son that Smoke loved very much.” Mary's eyes misted as she recalled the details of the story.
“At the time, there was a price on Smoke's head and a band of bounty hunters tracked him up into the mountains. As luck would have it, when the men arrived at the small log cabin in the woods where Smoke and Nicole lived, Smoke wasn't there. One of their cows had wandered off and Nicole told him they needed milk for their son to drink, so Smoke went looking for the cow. While he was gone, the bounty hunters burst into the cabin, guns drawn. They were furious when they found Smoke wasn't there, and as men will, they began to do horrible things to his wife and son, trying to find out where Smoke had gone to . . .”
* * *
Some primitive sense of warning caused Smoke to pull up short of his home. He made a wide circle, staying in the timber back of the creek, and slipped up to the cabin.
By then Nicole was dead. The acts of the men had grown perverted and in their haste, her throat had been crushed.
Felter sat by the lean-to and watched the valley in front of him. He wondered where Smoke had hidden the gold.
Inside, Canning drew his skinning knife and scalped Nicole, tying her bloody hair to his belt. He then skinned a part of her, thinking he would tan the hide and make himself a nice tobacco pouch.
Kid Austin got sick to his stomach watching Canning's callousness, and went out the back door to puke on the ground. That moment of sickness saved his lifeâfor the time being.
Grissom walked out the front door of the cabin. Smoke's tracks had indicated he had ridden off south, so he would probably return from that direction. But Grissom felt something was wrong. He sensed something, his years on the owl-hoot back trails surfacing.
“Felter?” he called.
“Yeah?” Felter stepped from the lean-to.
“Something's wrong.”
“I feel it. But what?”
“I don't know.” Grissom spun as he sensed movement behind him. His right hand dipped for his pistol. Felter had stepped back into the lean-to. Grissom's palm touched the smooth wooden butt of his gun as his eyes saw the tall young man standing by the corner of the cabin, a Colt .36 in each hand. Lead from the .36s hit him in the center of the chest with numbing force. Just before his heart exploded, the outlaw said, “Smoke!” Then he fell to the ground.
Smoke jerked the gun belt and pistols from the dead man. Remington Army .44s.
A bounty hunter ran from the cabin, firing at the corner of the building. But Smoke was gone.
“Behind the house!” Felter yelled, running from the lean-to, his fists full of Colts. He slid to a halt and raced back to the water trough, diving behind its protection.
A bounty hunter who had been dumping his bowels in the outhouse struggled to pull up his pants, at the same time pushing open the door with his shoulder. Smoke shot him twice in the belly and left him to scream on the outhouse floor.
Kid Austin, caught in the open behind the cabin, ran for the banks of the creek, panic driving his legs. He leaped for the protection of a sandy embankment, twisting in the air, just as Smoke took aim and fired. The ball hit Austin's right buttock and traveled through the left cheek of his butt, tearing out a sizable hunk of flesh. Kid Austin, the would-be gun hand, screamed and fainted from the pain in his ass.
Smoke ran for the protection of the woodpile and crouched there, recharging his Colts and checking the. 44s. He listened to the sounds of men in panic, firing in all directions and hitting nothing.
Moments ticked past, the sound of silence finally overpowering the gunfire. Smoke flicked away sweat from his face. He waited.
Something came sailing out the back door to bounce on the grass. Smoke felt hot bile build in his stomach. Someone had thrown his dead son outside. The boy had been dead for some time. Smoke fought back sickness.
“You wanna see what's left of your woman?” a taunting voice called from near the back door. “I got her hair on my belt and a piece of her hide to tan. We all took a time or two with her. I think she liked it.”
Smoke felt rage charge through him, but he remained still, crouched behind the thick pile of wood until his anger cooled to controlled venom-filled fury. He unslung the big Sharps buffalo rifle Preacher had carried for years. The rifle could drop a two-thousand-pound buffalo at six hundred yards. It could also punch through a small log.
The voice from the cabin continued to mock and taunt Smoke. But Preacher's training kept him cautious. To his rear lay a meadow, void of cover. To his left was a shed, but he knew that it was empty, for it was still barred from the outside. The man he'd plugged in the butt was to his right, but several fallen logs would protect Smoke from that direction. The man in the outhouse was either dead or passed out; his screaming had ceased.
Through a chink in the logs, Smoke shoved the muzzle of the Sharps and lined up where he thought he had seen a man move, just to the left of the rear window, to where Smoke had framed it out with rough pine planking. He gently squeezed the trigger, taking up slack. The weapon boomed, the planking shattered, and a man began screaming in pain.
Canning ran out the front of the cabin, to the lean-to, sliding down hard beside Felter behind the water trough. “This ain't workin' out,” he panted. “Grissom, Austin, Poker, and now Evans is either dead or dying. The slug from that buffalo gun blowed his arm off. Let's get the hell outta here!”
Felter had been thinking the same thing. “What about Clark and Sam?”
“They growed men. They can join us or they can go to hell.”
“Let's ride. They's always another day. We'll hide up in them mountains, see which way he rides out, then bushwhack him. Let's go.” They raced for their horses, hidden in a bend of the creek, behind the bank. They kept the cabin between themselves and Smoke as much as possible, then bellied down in the meadow the rest of the way.
In the creek, in water red from the wounds in his butt, Kid Austin crawled upstream, crying in pain and humiliation. His Colts were forgottenâuseless anyway; the powder was wetâall he wanted was to get away.
The bounty hunters left in the house, Clark and Sam, looked at each other. “I'm gettin' out!” Sam said. “That ain't no pilgrim out there.”
“The hell with that,” Clark said. “I humped his woman, I'll kill him and take the ten thousand.”
“Your option.” Sam slipped out the front and caught up with the others.
Kid Austin reached his horse first. Yelping as he hit the saddle, he galloped off toward the timber in the foothills.
“You wife don't look so good now,” Clark called out to Smoke. “Not since she got a haircut and one titty skinned.”
Deep silence had replaced the gunfire. The air stank of black powder, blood, and relaxed bladders and bowels, death-induced. Smoke had seen the men ride off into the foothills. He wondered how many were left in the cabin.
Smoke remained still, his eyes burning with fury. Smoke's eyes touched the stiffening form of his son. If Clark could have read the man's thoughts, he would have stuck the muzzle of his .44 into his mouth and pulled the trigger, insuring himself a quick death, instead of what waited for him later on.
“Yes, sir,” Clark taunted him. He went into profane detail about the rape of Nicole and the perverted acts that followed.
Smoke eased slowly backward, keeping the woodpile in front of him. He slipped down the side of the knoll and ran around to one wall of the cabin. He grinned. The bounty hunter was still talking to the woodpile, to the muzzle of the Sharps stuck through the logs.
Smoke eased around to the front of the cabin and looked in. He saw Nicole, saw the torture marks on her, saw the hideousness of the scalping and the skinning knife. He lifted his eyes to the back door, where Clark was crouching just to the right of the closed door.
Smoke raised his .36 and shot the pistol out of Clark's hand. The outlaw howled and grabbed his numbed and bloodied hand.
Smoke stepped over Grissom's body, then glanced at the body of the armless bounty hunter who had bled to death.
Clark looked up at the tall young man with the burning eyes. Cold slimy fear put a bony hand on his shoulder. For the first time in his evil life, Clark knew what death looked like.
“You gonna make it quick, ain't you?”
“Not likely,” Smoke said, then kicked him on the side of the head, dropping Clark unconscious to the floor.
When Clark came to his senses, he began screaming. He was naked, staked out a mile from the cabin, on the plain. Rawhide held his wrists and ankles to thick stakes driven into the ground. A huge ant mound was just inches from him. And Smoke poured honey all over him.
“I'm a white man,” Clark screamed. “You can't do this to me.” Slobber sprayed from his mouth. “What are you, half Apache?”
Smoke looked at him, contempt in his eyes. “You will not die well, I believe.”
* * *
“Jesus,” Swede whispered, sweat appearing on his forehead.
Slaughter shook his head to clear it of the images Mary had implanted in his mind. “What happened to the rest of the men who rode off?” Whitey asked, though he thought he knew the answer.
Mary shook her head. “You don't want to know. Suffice it to say, they all died in horrible ways at Smoke's hand.”
Slaughter stared at her through narrowed eyes. “So, you think our taking you has made this a personal matter with Jensen, huh?”