Code of the Mountain Man

“Johnny North, a neighbor of Smoke Jensen's.

Cotton Pickens, a rancher from up Wyoming way, and this, Earl, is Charlie Starr.”

“I am awed and humbled, sir,” Earl said, with genuine emotion in his voice. “You rank among the few men who have become a legend in your own time.”

“Thank you, sir,” Charlie replied, shaking hands with the gambler/gunfighter. “I may take it that you are a friend of Smoke Jensen?”

“You may. Let’s go into my office, and I’ll bring you up to date on Smoke’s troubles.”

Larry Tibbson had taken the first stage out of Big Rock, heading down to where Smoke was hiding out. He kept a very low profile and kept his big mouth shut concerning his opinions of Smoke Jensen. He decided that since the town was growing so quickly—he didn’t have sense enough to know what was causing the rapid growth, nor that it would very likely bust as quickly as it boomed-he would hang out his shingle in the newly named town of Rio. Everybody needed the services of a good attorney from time to time, and this looked like the ideal spot to make some quick money.

But my word! Larry thought, stepping off the stage, it was so rowdy here. All these rough-looking fellows carrying guns and knives right out in the open. Shocking! He had never seen anything like it.

And their boorish behavior was offensive to someone of Larry’s gentle sensibilities. All the more reason to stay, he thought. Bring some refinement to the savages.

He managed to get the last room available in the hotel—and he did that by paying five times the usual going rate.

“Them sheets ain’t been slept on but three times,” the man told him, in protest over Larry’s demand for clean sheets. “The last feller used ’em didn’t appear to have no fleas."

“Change the sheets!”

“All right, all right,” the newly hired room clerk grumbled.

Larry turned to the stairs and was stopped in his tracks at the sight of Louis Longmont dismounting and shaking hands with what appeared to be a constable of some sort. It was hard to tell in this barbaric setting, since lawmen, for the most part, did not wear uniforms denoting their profession, as was the case in more civilized parts of the nation.

Louis Longmont . . . here? Larry walked to the window of the saloon and looked out, seeing the six-guns belted around the millionaire’s waist. So the rumors were true after all, Larry mused. The man was an adventurer. But was he here to hunt down Smoke Jensen, or to aid the gunfighter?

And who was that long-haired, grizzled-looking older man shaking hands with the constable? Obviously some sort of gunfighter, but it was hard to tell, since all those gathered around the constable wore two guns, tied down. It was so confusing out here.

With a sigh, Larry turned to climb the stairs. He angled over and spoke to the room clerk, whose small station was at the end of the bar.

“Do you have inside facilities?” Larry inquired.

“Huh?”

“Water closets inside.”

“Hell, no!”

Larry shook his head and headed for the room.

“You forgot your bags,” the room clerk called.

“Carry them up for me.”

“Tote your own damn bags, mister!”

Larry climbed the stairs, sweating under the load of his trunk. All in all, he thought, the West just had to be the most barbaric and inhospitable place he had ever traveled.

“How many men in Slater’s bunch?” Johnny asked.

Earl spread his hands. “Fifty to seventy—five are the numbers I keep hearing.”

“Smoke’s a tough ol’ boy,” Charlie Starr said. “But he’s not indestructible. He’s gonna need some help with this one. Come the morning I’ll provision up and head out for the lonesome. Louis, I think you and Johnny and Cotton ought to stay close to here. This town’s a-fixin’ to bust wide open and Earl, here, is gonna need some help keepin’ order. ’Sides, Smoke needs all the friendly ears he can use right here.”

“I agree,” Louis said. “Sooner or later, Smoke is going to tire of the mountains and come into town, and to hell with the U.S. Marshals. We need to be here to back him up.”

Johnny had left Big Rock before Larry Tibbson started with all his mouth, so all he knew about the Eastern lawyer was that he’d come trying to spark a married woman, Sally, and that was a stupid thing to do. If Smoke had been home, the lawyer would be cold in the ground with the worms playing the dipsy-doodle around his sewed-together lips. Which was about the only way anybody could get a lawyer to shut up.

Someone had set up a portable saw mill and was already backed up with orders for lumber. The sounds of sawing and hammering and nailing and cussing overrode any other sound in the town. With Earl Sutcliffe as the marshal, few dared to fire a pistol, even for fun. And the whole town knew within minutes of their arrival that Cotton Pickens, Johnny North, Charlie Starr, and Louis Longmont were on the side of the law with Earl Sutcliffe. That knowledge smoothed out just a whole bunch of otherwise sharp and explosive tempers. It would take a puredee damn fool to go up against those five.

“Now,” Earl said, “we have to see about rooms for you gentlemen.”

Louis shook his head. “No need. Andre is hiring people now to erect my saloon and gambling hall. We’ll have board floors and wooden sides, but a canvas top. I’ll have the workmen build an addition to the saloon for us. Until then, we’ll sleep out under God’s blanket.”

“I’m gonna start puttin’ my provisions together,” Charlie said. “I get it done soon enough, I just might take off while there’s a few hours of daylight left.”

“Get whatever you need and charge it, Charlie,”

Earl told him. “Your money is no good in this town.”

Charlie looked at the man. “I ain’t no broke saddle bum, Earl.”

“Of course, you’re not,” Louis said with a smile. “If you wish, you can settle up when you return from the mountains.”

“I just might do that. See you boys.” The old gunfighter left the office.

“Whew!” Johnny said. “That, fellers, is one randy ol’ puma.”

“I concur,” Louis said. “Have you ever seen him in action, Earl?”

“No, never.”

“Awesome. He’s a little slower than he used to be, I would imagine. But still one of the fastest guns around. And he never misses.”

“I would like to get word to Smoke that you are here,” Earl said. “But I haven’t the foggiest where he might be.”

Louis shrugged his shoulders. “Knowing Smoke as I do, he probably already knows. Although how he manages to learn those things mystifies me.”

“Indians say that eagles come tell him,” Cotton said.

“I’ve heard that, too,” Johnny said.

“If he knows you gentlemen are here,” Earl said drily, “it is probably because he squatted on a mountain and watched the road below through field glasses.”

“I like the eagle story better,” Louis said, and the men burst out laughing.

A bounty hunter they called Slim Williams wasn’t laughing. He had left the road miles from the newly named town of Rio and headed into the high country. He’d come upon tracks: a man riding and a pack horse behind.

He found where the man had stopped and dismounted for a drink of water at a rushing mountain stream. A big man, judging by his boot tracks. And Smoke Jensen was a big man.

Then he lost the trail. Slim wandered around for a hour and never could pick it back up. He had sat his horse for a time, smoking a cigarette and thinking things through. His eyes caught movement in the timber, about a hundred yards away. Then the man—-and he was sure it was a man—was gone.

“What the hell?” Slim said. He rode his tired horse over to the spot where he’d seen the movement and dismounted. There were tracks, and the print was about the same size as those he’d seen back at that little crick. But this man was wearing moccasins. And it hadn’t been no Injun, neither.

Slim was sure of that. This man seemed to have some sort of black bandanna tied around his head, and his hair had been cut short.

He walked back to where he’d left his horse reined. The damn horse was gone!

“Shotgun!” Slim called. “Come on, Shotgun. Come to Slim, boy.”

Silence greeted him from the high country timber.

Slim began to worry. He could make it back to the road; he wasn’t worried about that. But all his possessions were in the saddlebags or tied in his bedroll.

“Shotgun! Now come on, boy. Come to Ol’ Slim, Shotgun.”

Slim spun around, a Colt leaping into his hand as the voice came out of the timber. “Shotgun was tired. He needed a rest.”

“Who the hell are you, mister? You gimmie back my damn horse, you thief!”

“A back-shooting murderer calling me a thief.”

The voice laughed. “That’s very funny.”

Slim cussed him.

Smoke said, “You looking for Smoke Jensen?”

“That ain’t none of your concern, mister.”

“I can lead you to him.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I get half the reward money, though.”

“You go suck an egg, mister.” Slim thought for a moment. “Tell you what I’ll do, mister. You step out so’s I can see you, and we’ll talk.”

“You put that gun up, and I’ll do that.” The voice was closer, and coming from a different location each time.

Damn, Slim thought. The man moves like a ghost. And I know that voice from somewheres. “Deal.” Slim holstered his gun, thinking that if the man was planning to kill him, he’d have done so already.

“Turn around.” The voice came from behind him.

Slim turned, and felt his stomach do a slow rollover. He was facing Smoke Jensen. “Hello, Smoke. It’s been a long time. Years.”

“You should have stayed home, Slim,” Smoke told him.

“Man’s got to make a livin’, Smoke.”

“You know damn well those warrants out on me are bogus. You’re a man-hunter, Slim. Out for the money I got no use for scum like you.”

“You ain’t got no call to talk to me like that, Smoke. This ain’t nothin’ personal ’tween us. You’ve kilt more’un your share of men. You ain’t no better than I am.”

“We’ll let God be the judge of that, Slim. You came looking for me, now you’ve found me. Make your play.”

Slim began to sweat. He hadn’t planned on this. He’d planned on back-shootin’ Smoke. His tongue snaked out to wet dry lips. “We can deal, Jensen. I can just ride on out of here and not look back.”

“That’s the same deal you made with the breed, Cloudwalker. Then you shot him in the back, all the time knowing he was an innocent man.”

“Hell, Smoke, he was a damn Injun!”

“He was an innocent man. I’ve stayed with Crows and Utes and Sioux and Cheyenne. I have a lot of good Indian friends. It doesn’t make any difference to me if a man is red, white, Negro, or Oriental.”

“Don’t preach to me, Jensen!” Slim got his dander up. “I don’t need no goddamn gunslick sermonizin’ to me.”

“Draw, Slim!”

Slim grabbed for iron. Smoke’s .44 slug caught him dead center in his chest and knocked him back against a tree. He finally managed to pull iron, and Smoke’s second shot tore into his belly.

Slim screamed as the .44 slug ripped through his innards like a white-hot branding iron. His .44 dropped from dying fingers. He slumped to the cool ground.

“You gonna bury me proper, ain’t you, Jensen?” he gasped the question.

“I’ll toss some branches and rocks over you, Slim.

I don’t have a shovel.”

“I hate you, Jensen!”

“I don’t understand that, Slim. What did I ever do to you to cause you to hate me?”

“Jist . . . bein’ . . . you!” Slim closed his eyes and died.

Smoke went through Slim’s pockets before he piled branches and rocks over the body to discourage smaller animals, all the while knowing that a bear could, and probably would, rip it apart in seconds. He would give the money to some needy family. There was no indication that Slim had a family. Smoke shoved one of Slim’s .445 behind his gunbelt and kept the other one in leather, hanging on his saddle horn. He inspected the late Slim’s Winchester .44-.40. It was in excellent condition, and this one had an extra rear sight, located several inches behind the hammer, for greater accuracy. He found three boxes of .44-.40s in the saddlebags. Slim also had a nice poke of food: some bacon and bread and biscuits and three cans of beans that would come in handy on the trail.

Smoke hesitated, then carved Slim’s name on the tree that towered over the man. He put the date below the name and mounted up and pulled out, knowing that shots carry far in the high thin air of the lonesome.

He stopped once, looking back at Slim Williams’ final resting place. “You should have picked another line of work, Slim. That’s, about the best I can say for you. God’s gonna have the final word anyway.”

Chapter Twelve

“Them was shots,” Crocker said. “Come from over yonder." He pointed. “Let’s go!”

“That’s Horton’s assigned area,” Graham said.

“Hell with Horton,” Crocker blew away the myth about honor among thieves. “Don’t you want that money? Man, that’s five thousand apiece if we cut it up.”

“What’d you mean: if we cut it up?” Causey asked.

“All right, when we cut it up. Does that make you feel better?”

“Let’s ride!” Woody said. “Damn all this jibber-jabber. Smoke’ll be in the next county ’fore we get done talkin’.”

They found where Smoke had carved Slim’s date of death in the tree.

“Knowed him,” Dale said. “He was good with a gun.”

“Not good enough,” Haynes summed it up. “Let’s drag him out and go through his pockets.”

The men tore away the rocks and branches and searched the stiffening form of Slim. They found nothing of value. Woody did take the man’s boots, putting them on and throwing his worn-out boots by the body. They left Slim sprawled on the ground, one big toe sticking out of the hole in his dirty sock.

A bear came lumbering out of the timber and sniffed the dead man. He dragged Slim off a few hundred yards and covered him up with branches. When Slim ripened some he would be back for a meal.

“Hey, old man!” the young man called out to Charlie Starr, as Charlie sipped his whiskey prior to hitting the saddle for the high lonesome.

Charlie ignored him.

“I’m talkin’ to you, old shaggy-haired thing you!”

Most of the men in the crowded saloon were chance-takers and gamblers and gun-hands and bounty hunters. None of them knew the gray-haired man with the tied down guns, the wooden handles worn smooth, but they could sense danger all around him.

Charlie took a small sip of his whiskey—holding the glass in his left hand—and decided to wait it out. He'd been around for a long time, and knew there was a chance—albeit a small one—that he could avoid having to deal with this young smart-mouth. Maybe his friends would sit him down. Maybe.

“Damn!” the young gunslick yelled. “His hair’s so shaggy it’s blockin’ his ears. Maybe we ought to give him a haircut.”

We! Charlie thought. More than one. But maybe his friends will stay out of it. Maybe.

“Bobby . . .” a young man said, pulling at the young smart-mouth’s arm.

“Shut up!” Bobby said. “You don’t have the balls for this, stay out of it.”

Charlie sipped his drink. The whiskey tasted good after the dust of the road. He’d been a hard-drinkin’ man in his younger days. Now he enjoyed just an occasional drink, liked to linger over it. In peace. Young Bobby was pushing. Hard. Just a few more words and he would step over the line. Charlie hoped the young man would just sit down and shut up.

“Goddamn mangy old fart!” Bobby yelled. “You wear them two guns like you think you’re hot stuff. Turn around and prove it!”

There it was, Charlie thought. He would have liked to just finish his drink and walk out the door. But the code demanded that he do otherwise.

No, Charlie corrected that. It wasn’t just the code. It was much more than that. It came with manhood. It was part of maintaining one’s self-respect. It . . .

Larry Tibbson walked down the rickety stairs and stepped into the barroom.

. . . was just something that a man had to do. Right or wrong, and Charlie had thoughts about that, it just had to be.

“I called for hot water!” Larry said.

“Shut up and git out of the way,” the bartender told him.

“You goddamn old turd!” Bobby hollered. “Turn around and face me.”

“What on earth is taking place here?” Larry asked, looking around him. “And where is my hot water. I want to take a bath.”

The barkeep reached over the bar and pulled Larry to the far end of the long bar. “Shet your trap, boy,” he told Larry. “Lead’s a-fixin’ to fly.”

Charlie finished his drink and slowly set the glass on the bar. He turned around, his hands by his side. “Go home, boy,” he told Bobby. “I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.”

“Well, you got it!” Bobby told him.

“Why?” Charlie asked. “I don’t know you. I never seen you before in my life. Why me?”

“ ’Cause I think you maybe believe you’re a gunhawk, that’s why.”

“Son, I was handlin’ guns years before you were born. Now why don’t you just sit down and finish yur drink, and I’ll just walk out the bats?”

“Yellow!” Bobby sneered at him. “The old man’s yellow. He’s afraid of Bobby Jones.”

Charlie smiled. “I never heard of you, Bobby. Are you lookin’ for a reputation? Is that it?”

“I got a rep!”

“I ain’t never seen none of your graveyards, boy.”

“You just ain’t looked in the right place. As far as that goes, where’s your graveyards?”

“All over the land, son. From Canada to Mexico. From Missouri to California.”

“You say!”

“That’s right, son. I say.”

Earl Sutcliffe pushed open the batwings and stood there, sizing up the situation. “What’s the trouble here?”

“Stay out of this, marshal,” Bobby said. “This is between me and this old goat here.”

“You know who that old goat is?” Earl asked.

“Don’t make no difference to me. I don’t like this old coot’s looks, and I told him so. He’s afraid of me.”

Earl laughed. “Boy, that man is not afraid of anything. That’s Charlie Starr.”

Bobby looked like a horse just kicked him in the belly. His face turned white and sweat popped out on his forehead. But he had made his bed—or in this case, dug his grave—and now he would be forced to lie in it. Unless he backed down.

“Give it up, son,” Earl told him. “Sit down and live.”

Bobby’s hands hovered over the pearl handles of his brand new matching .45s. Those raggedly-looking guns of Charlie’s looked to Bobby like they was so old they probably wouldn’t even fire. Looked like they’d been converted from cap and ball to handle brass cartridges.

Bobby stepped down into the damp, Chilly grave he’d just dug for himself. “You’re yellow, old man!” he shouted. “Charlie Starr’s done turned yellow. You’re standin’ on your reputation, and I’m gonna be the man who jerks it out from under you.”

Charlie straightened up, his mouth tight and his face grim. Earl knew it was nearly over. A man can only take so much, and Charlie had given the young punk more than ample opportunity to back down. “Enough talk,” Charlie said. “Make your play, you stupid little snot.”

“Here now!” Larry said. “This has gone entirely too far. You there,” he said to Charlie. “You stop picking on that boy.”

“Shut up,” Earl told him.

Louis Longmont, Johnny North, and Cotton Pickens had walked into the saloon, standing on either side of Earl. “Fifty dollars says the kid never clears leather,” Louis offered up a wager.

“You’re on,” a young man at the table where Bobby should have stayed seated said. “That there’s Bobby Jones. He’s faster than Smoke Jensen.”

“He couldn’t lick Smoke’s boots,” Charlie said.

“What!” Bobby screamed. “Draw, you old fart!”

“After you, boy,” Charlie told him. “I don’t ever want it said that I took advantage of a young punk.”

“I ain’t no punk!”

“Then show that you’re a man by sittin’ down and lettin’ me buy you a drink. That’s my final offer, son.”

“You mean, that’s your final statement. ’Cause I’m gonna kill you, Starr.”

“That’s it,” Louis muttered. He knew, as did everyone else in the bar, that those words, once spoken, were justification to kill.

Charlie shot him. His draw was so smooth, so practiced, so fast, so professional, that it was a blur to witness. Flame shot out the muzzle of his old long-barreled .44. Gray smoke belched forth, obscuring vision. Bobby was jarred back as the slug ripped his belly and wandered around his guts, leaving a path of pain wherever it traveled.

He imagined himself jacking the hammer back on his .45 and pulling the trigger. He actually did just that. But his guns were still in leather. He leaned against a support post and finally dragged iron.

Charlie let him cock his .45 before he put another slug in the punk’s guts. Bobby yelled and slumped toward the floor, sliding down the post and sitting down heavily. He pulled the trigger and blew off several of his own toes. He screamed in pain and tried to lift the .45. It was just too heavy.

The .45 clattered to the littered floor.

“By God,” one of Bobby’s friends declared. “That’ll not go unavenged.” He stood up, a pistol in his hand.

Charlie drilled him in the brisket and doubled the young man over like the closing of a fan. The young man fell, landing on Bobby.

Bobby screamed in pain.

“You still owe me fifty dollars,” Louis reminded the gut-shot punk who’d wanted revenge for Bobby.

“Help me!” the second punk bellered. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy, my belly’s on fire.”

“My God!” Larry yelled. “Somebody get a doctor and call the police.”

He was ignored.

Bobby’s other friends sat quite still at the table, their faces a sickly shade of green.

“Gimme a drink and one of them eggs over yonder,” Charlie told the bartender. “Shootin’ always makes me hungry.”

“You barbarian!” Larry yelled at him.

Charlie noticed the man wasn’t wearing a gun, so he did the next best thing. He walked over to him and slapped Larry across the mouth, knocking him down.

“I’ll sue you!” Larry hollered.

Bobby broke wind and died.

His friend yelled, “Help me!”

Charlie punched out his empties, loaded up full, holstered his gun, and began peeling the egg.

“Somebody run fetch that new undertaker feller that just set up business down the street,” the barkeep suggested. “I wanna see that shiny black hearse and them fancy-steppin’ horses.”

“You’re all mad!” Larry said, getting to his shoes.

“Somebody get a doctor for that poor boy.”

“Ain’t no doctor,” a man told him. “Go get the barber.

“The barber!” Larry exclaimed in horror.

“There’s a Ute medicine man down on the La Jara. But that young pup’ll done be swelled up and stinkin’ something awful time he gets here. That old Ute’s pretty good, but I ain’t never heard of him raisin’ the dead.”

“Halp!” the second punk yelled.

His voice was getting weaker.

“Won’t be long now,” Earl said, bending over the gut-shot young man. “Where’s your next of kin, lad?”

“I don’t wanna die!”

“Then you should have chosen your companions with a bit more care. Next of kin?” '

“I got a sister up in Denver. But she threw me out a couple of years ago.”

The batwings flapped open, and a man dressed all in black stood in the space. “I heard shooting!”

“My, but your hearing is quite keen,” Earl commented drily.

“I am the Reverend Silas Muckelmort. A minister of the gospel. I have come to this town to bring the word of God to the sinners who lust for blood money. Has that young man passed?” He pointed to Bobby

“Cold as a hammer,” Cotton told him.

“Then it is my duty to tend to his needs,“ the Rev. Muckelmort said.

“You keep your shit-snatchers off my body!” a small man dressed in a dark suit said, stepping into the barroom. “I’m the undertaker in town.”

“His spiritual needs, you jackass!” Silas thundered.

“Pass the salt and pepper,” Charlie told the barkeep. “I can’t eat an egg without salt and pepper."

Smoke holed up in the most inhospitable place he could find, very near the timber line, knowing the outlaws would, most likely. find the most comfortable spot they could to bed down for the night. He had already found a spot he would use to leave his horses, in an area so remote it would be pure chance if anyone stumbled upon them. Tomorrow he would ride there and leave them, packing on his back what he felt he would need in his fight against the bounty hunters and the Lee Slater gang.

Smoke rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. The next several days were going to be busy ones.

He was up and riding before dawn, having committed to memory the trail to the cul-de-sac where he would leave the horses. He was there by mid-morning. He transplanted several bushes over to the small opening and carefully watered them. To get to the opening, he had to ride behind a thick stand of timber, then angle around a huge boulder, and finally take a left into the lush little valley of about ten acres with a small pool next to a sheer rock wall. The grass was belly high in places; ample feed for the horses for some time. If he did not return, they could easily find their way out.

Smoke put together a pack whose weight would have staggered the average man. He picked it up with his left hand.

He sat for a time eating a cold . . . what was it Sally called a mid-morning meal? Brunch, yeah, that was it, and wishing he had a potful of hot, strong, black coffee But he couldn’t chance that. He would hike a few miles and then have a hot dinner—lunch, Sally called it—and drink a whole a pot of strong cowboy coffee. He wanted the scum and crud to see that smoke. He wanted them to come right to that spot. By the time they got there, he would have a few surprises laid out for them.

He walked over and spoke with Buck for a few moments. Rubbing his muzzle and talking gently to the big horse. Buck seemed to understand, but then, everybody thinks that of their pets and their riding horses. Shotgun, the pack animal, and Buck watched Smoke pick up his heavy pack and leave. When he was out of sight, they returned to their grazing.

Smoke hiked what he figured was about three miles through wild and rugged country, then stopped and built a small, nearly smokeless fire for his coffee and bacon and beans. While his meal was cooking and the coffee boiling, he whittled on some short stakes, sharpening one end to a needle point. After eating, he cleaned plate and skillet and spoon and packed them away. Then he went to work making the campsite look semi-permanent and laying out some rather nasty pitfalls for the bounty hunters and outlaws.

That done, he tossed some logs on the fire and slipped back into the timber where he’d hidden his pack. He waited.

Curly Rogers and his pack of hyenas were the first to arrive.

Smoke was back in the timber with the 44-.40, waiting and watching.

The outlaws didn’t come busting in. They laid back and looked the situation over for a time. They saw the lean-to Smoke had built, and what appeared to be a man sleeping under a blanket, protected by the overlaid boughs.

“It might not be Jensen,” Taylor said.

“So what?” Thumbs Morton said. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone got shot by accident.”

“I don’t like it,” Curly said. “It just looks too damn pat to suit me.”

“Maybe Slim got lead into him?” Bell suggested. “He may be hard hit and holed up.”

Curly thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. Yeah. That must be it. Lake, you think you can Injun up yonder for a closer look?”

“Shore. But why don’t we just shoot him from here?”

“A shot’d bring everybody foggin’. Then we’d probably have to fight some of the others over Jensen’s carcass. A knife don’t make no noise.”

Lake grinned and pulled out a long-bladed knife. “I’ll just slip this ’tween his ribs.”

As Lake stepped out with the knife in his hand, Smoke tugged on the rope he’d attached to the sticks under the blankets. What the outlaws thought to be a sleeping or wounded Smoke Jensen moved and Lake froze, then jumped back into the timber.

“This ain’t a gonna work,” Curly said. “We got to shoot him, I reckon. One shot might not attract no attention. Bud, use your rifle and put one shot in him. This close, one round’ll kill him sure.”

Bud lined up the form in the sights and squeezed the trigger. Smoke tugged on the rope, and the stickman rose off the ground a few inches, then fell back.

“We got him!” Bell yelled, jumping up. “We kilt Smoke Jensen. The money’s our’n!”

The men raced toward the small clearing, guns drawn and yelling.

Taylor yelled as the ground seemed to open up under his boots. He fell about eighteen inches into a pit, two sharpened stakes tearing into the calves of his legs. He screamed in pain, unable to free himself from the sharpened stakes.

Bell tripped a piece of rawhide two inches off the ground and a tied-back, fresh and springy limb sprang forward. The limb whacked the man on the side of his head, tearing off one ear and knocking the man unconscious.

“What the hell!” Curly yelled.

Smoke fired from concealment, the .44-.40 slug taking Lake in the right side and exiting out his left side. He was dying as he hit the ground.

“It’s a trap!” Curly screamed, and ran for the timber. He ran right over Bell in his haste to get the hell into cover.

Smoke lined up Bud and fired just as the man turned, the slug hitting the man in the ass, the lead punching into his left buttock and blowing out his right, taking a sizeable chunk of meat with it.

Bud fell screaming and rolled on the ground, throwing himself into cover.

Thumbs Morton jerked up Bell just as the man was crawling to his knees, blood pouring from where his ear had once been, and dragged him into cover just as Smoke fired again, the slug hitting a tree and blowing splinters in Thumbs’ face, stinging and bringing blood.

“Let’s get gone from here!” Curly yelled.

“What about Taylor?” Thumbs asked, pulling splinters and wiping blood from his face.

“Hell with him.”

With Curly supporting the ass-shot Bud, and Thumbs helping Bell, the outlaws made it back to their horses and took off at a gallop, Bud shrieking in pain as the saddle abused his shot-up butt.

Smoke lay in the timber and listened to the outlaws beat their retreat, then stepped out into his camp. He looked at Lake. The outlaw was dead. Smoke took his ammo belt and tossed his guns into the brush. He walked over to Taylor, who had passed out from the pain in his ruined legs. He took his ammunition, tossed his guns into the brush, and then jerked the stakes out of the man’s legs. The man moaned in unconsciousness.

Smoke found the horses of the men, took the food from the saddlebags, and led one animal back to the campsite. He poured a canteen full of water on Taylor. The man moaned and opened his eyes.

“Ride,” Smoke told him. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

“I cain’t get up on no horse,” Taylor sobbed. “My legs is ruint.”

Smoke jacked back the hammer on his .44. “Then I guess I’d better put you out of your misery.”

Taylor screamed in fear and crawled to his horse, pulling himself up by clinging to the stirrup and the fender of the saddle. He managed to get in the saddle after several tries. His face was white with pain. He looked down at Smoke.

“You ain’t no decent human bein’. What you’re doin’ to me ain’t right. I need a doctor. You a devil, Jensen!”

“Then you pass that word, pusbag. You make damn sure all your scummy buddies know I don’t play by the rules. Now, ride, you bastard, before I change my mind and kill you!”

Taylor was gone in a gallop.

Smoke shoved Lake’s body over the side of the small plateau and began throwing dirt over the fire, making certain it was out. Then he sat down, rolled a cigarette, and had a cup of coffee.

All in all, he concluded, it had been a very productive morning.

Chapter Thirteen

The townspeople all turned out for the funeral parade that morning. Bobby had had enough money on him to have a fine funeral, complete with some Wailers the Reverend Muckelmort had hired. He’d found someone with a bass drum and a fellow who played the trumpet. It was a sight to see, what with the thumping of the bass drum and the tootin’ on the trumpet.

Muckelmort was something of a windbag. By the time he’d finished with his lengthy graveside harangue, nobody was left but the wailers—they were paid to stay—everybody else had retired to the saloon.

Nobody knew the second punk’s name, and herd only had ten dollars on him, so he was wrapped in a blanket and stuck in an‘ un-marked hole. Two dollars went to the gravedigger, two dollars for the blanket, two dollars for the preacher, and the remaining four bucks went to buy drinks after the service. Somebody recalled that four of them had ridden into town together. But the other two had split just after the shooting. One of them was heard to say that milkin’ cows wasn’t all that bad after all. He was headin’ back to the farm.

The RCMP had ridden in and collected the last prisoner, and the jail was empty.

When the morning stage rolled in, it was filled with reporters, all from back East. “Be another stage in this afternoon,” the driver told Earl. “We’re gonna be runnin’ two a day while this lasts. We must have passed five hundred people on the road, all headin’ this way.”

Sheriff Silva rode in, looked around, cussed, and then commented to Earl that he reckoned he’d better hire some more deputies. Fifteen minutes later, he swore in Louis, Johnny, and Cotton. Louis asked him if he’d received warrants for Smoke’s arrest.

“I tossed ’em in the trash can,” the sheriff said.

“There ain’t no lawman out here gonna try to arrest Smoke Jensen. Not none that has a lick of sense. I know all about that shootin’ in Idaho years ago. It was a fair fight, if you wanna call Smoke bein’ out-numbered twenty to one fair. Those warrants are bogus.”

A miner riding into town loping his mule as hard as he could cut off the conversation. He pulled up short at the sight of all the activity. When he’d been here last month there hadn’t been more than seventy-five people in the whole damn town. Now it looked to him like there was more than a thousand.

With a confused look on his face, he tried to kick the mule into movement. But the mule was smarter than the rider. When a mule is tired or is loaded too heavily, it just won’t move and no amount of cussing or kicking or threatening will make it move. The miner slid out of the saddle and ran up to Sheriff Silva and the other deputies.

The mule sat down in the street.

“Big shootin’ about ten miles out of town, Sheriff,” the miner said, pointing. “I don’t know if they was outlaws or bounty hunters—one and the same if town, strip it bare, and leave this part of the country?”

“It’s a possibility that I’ve considered. At first I think his plan was to hit the miners and the stages carrying gold and silver out. Maybe he might still do that. But I think now that Jensen has his brother’s men out looking for him, he just might turn his back on Lee and use the men he has to wipe this town clean.”

“Brotherly love doesn’t run very deep in that family, does it?” Earl said softly.

Silva shrugged. “That’s just a guess on my part. Who the hell really knows what Lee and Luttie will do?”

The men fell silent in the noisy, busy town, their eyes on the mountains that loomed around them. All of them had one overriding thought: Could Smoke pull this off?

Charlie Starr watched with some amusement in his hard eyes as Curly’s group tried to treat the wounded. He had left his horse and walked to within fifty yards of the outlaw band’s camp, casually leaning up against a tree at the edge of the clearing.

Bud was lying on his stomach, his britches down around his boots, his bare butt shinin’ in the sunlight, while Thumbs Morton poured alcohol on the bullet holes. That set Bud off, Jerking and squalling.

One side of Thumb’s face was swollen and red-looking.

Bell Harrison had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, and Taylor’s legs, from the knees down, were wrapped in dirty, bloody bandages.

“I’m a-gonna kill that son of a bitch!” Bell said, considerable heat in his voice. “Torture him. Make it last. Burn him. I’ll start with his feet in a fire and work up. I hate Smoke Jensen.”

Charlie grinned. Smoke had really done a job on this bunch of no-goods.

“My legs is real hot, boys,” Taylor said with a moan. “I’m burnin’ up. I think Jensen put something on them stakepoints. Poison, maybe.”

Probably so, Charlie thought. He probably found him some bear shit and smeared the points with it. Or he might have used some poisonous plant leaves. Ol’ Preacher taught him every mean and dirty trick in the book when it came to survival. You boys done grabbed hold of a grizzly bear’s tail when you decided to take on Smoke Jensen.

“I can’t do no more for you, Bud,” Thumbs said.

“I hate Smoke Jensen!” Bell said.

Charlie worked his way around the clearing until he had reached a spot about twenty yards from the bitching and moaning group of deadbeats. He pulled both .44s from leather and jacked the hammers back.

“What the hell was that?” Curly said, grabbing up a rifle and looking all around him.

“I didn’t hear nothin’,” Taylor said.

“I wonder if Jensen give Lake a decent buryin’?” Thumbs said.

“About the same as I’m gonna give you,” Charlie said, and stepped out and started shooting.

Curly recognized the man at once. Charlie Starr! He jumped away from the group and headed for the horses, none of whom had been unsaddled. Curly wanted no part of Charlie Starr. Smoke Jensen was bad enough, but combine him with Charlie, and that was just too much.

Curly left his fearless little group to fight it out by themselves.

Charlie’s first slug knocked Bell sprawling, his right arm hanging broken and useless by his side. Thumbs Morton was hit in the right side, the bullet shattering a rib and angling off to tear through a kidney. He lifted his six-gun, a curse forming on his lips, and got off one round, which missed.

Charlie didn’t miss. He didn’t even flinch as the slug from Thumbs‘ gun tore bark from a nearby tree. He leveled his long-barreled .44 and shot Thumbs in the belly, knocking the man down, hard-hit and dying.

Bell struggled to his boots and lifted his left-hand gun. Charlie perforated the man’s belly, and Bell would never again have to worry about indigestion or how to keep his hat on his head with only one ear. Now all he had to worry about was facing God.

Charlie stepped back into the timber and was gone, leaving Bud and Taylor alive in the middle of carnage. He’d seen Curly Rogers hightail it out. Charlie knew Curly from way back. Knew him for the coward and the bully he was. Let him go; they would meet up again.

Charlie walked swiftly back to his horse, reloading as he went. He swung into the saddle, and was gone, a warrior’s smile on his lips.

“Oh, my God!” Taylor yelled, the pain in his legs fierce. “What are we gonna do, Bud?”

Bud couldn’t even stand up. His britches and his galluses were all tangled up around his boots.

“Oh, Lord, I don’t know!” Bud wailed. “I wish I’d never heard of Smoke Jensen. I wish I’d never left the farm.”

“I think I’m gonna die, Bud. My legs is swellin’ something awful.”

“Hell with your legs. My ass hurts,” Bud moaned.

Several of the groups had returned to base camp as night grew near. They all gathered around as Lee Slater listened to Curly’s babblings, a disgusted look on his ugly face. He finally had enough and waved Curly silent. “Goddamnit, boys!” he yelled. “Smoke’s jist one man. You’re lettin’ him buffalo you all.”

“What about Bud and Taylor?” Horton asked.

“What about them?” Lee demanded. “Hell, they know the way back to base. We’ve all been shot before and managed to stay on a horse. If they got so much baby in them they can’t ride through a little pain, we don’t need them.”

The young punks, Pecos, Miller, Hudson, Concho, Bull, and Jeff, all nodded their agreement and hitched at their gunbelts. None of them had ever been shot so they really didn’t know what they were agreeing to. It just seemed like it was the manly thing to do.

‘We put out guards this night,” Lee said. “They’ll be no more of Jensen slippin’ up on us.”

Miles away, Smoke had no intention of slipping up on anything that night, except sleep. Let the outlaws sweat it out and get tired and nervous. He would fix a good meal and rest.

Charlie had found him a nice comfortable little hidey-hole and was boiling his coffee and frying his bacon. He would get a good night’s sleep and start out before dawn the next morning.

Back in Rio, a half dozen more rowdies had ridden in, on their way to the Seven Slash Ranch. They reined up in front of the saloon and swung down from the saddle, trail weary from a long day’s ride. A whiskey would taste good.

“Keep movin’, boys,” the voice from behind them said.

They turned, and what they saw chilled them right down to their dirty socks. Louis Longmont, Cotton Pickens, Johnny North, and Earl Sutcliffe stood in the now quieted street, all of them with sawed-off shotguns in their hands. To a man they kept their hands very still.

“We just wanted to buy a drink of whiskey, Earl,” John Seale said.

“You won’t buy it here. None of you. Ride on to the Seven Slash if you want a drink.”

“How’d you know? . . .” Mason Wright cut that off in mid-sentence. But it was too late; he’d tipped his hand and he knew it.

The others gave him dirty looks.

“Pack it in, Louis,” Frankie Deevers said, looking at the millionaire gambler. “If you don’t, you’re gonna lose this pot. Believe me.”

Louis smiled. “And who says life is not a game of chance, eh, Frankie?”

“Put them Greeners down, and we’ll take you all right here and right now,” a gunny snarled at Louis.

“Now, now, Willis,” Louis said. “You know how talking strains your brain.”

Larry chose that time to step out of the saloon/hotel for a breath of fresh air. The beery, sweaty odor from those unwashed cretins in the bar had drifted up to his room and was making him nauseous. But Larry was wising up to the West and after giving the group in the street a quick look, he moved down the boardwalk, well out of the way.

“Longmont,” Willis said. “I ain’t never liked you. You got a smart damn mouth hooked to your face. I’ve always heard how bad you was, but I’m from Missouri, and I gotta be showed. So why don’t you just show me?”

Louis lowered the shotgun and leaned it against a water rough. He swept back his coat and said, “Anytime you’re ready, Willis.”

Johnny, Earl, and Cotton backed off, still holding the express guns up and pointed at the gunnies.

“You can take him, Willis,” Frankie said. “He’s all showboat; that’s all he is.”

“A hundred dollars says he can’t,” Louis smiled the words.

“You got a bet, gambler!”

Willis made his play. Louis shot him just as the man cleared leather, the slug knocking him back on the steps leading up to the boardwalk. Willis lifted his gun and Louis plugged him again. Bright crimson dotted his dirty white shirt.

“You dirty son!” Willis gasped, still trying to jack back the hammer of his .45.

His friends desperately wanted to get into the fray, but the muzzles of those sawed-offs were just too formidable to breech.

“I can still do it!” Willis said, his blood staining his lips. He cocked his .45 and lifted it.

Louis shot him a third time, this time placing his shot with care. A blue/black hole appeared in the center of Willis’ head. He died with his mouth and his eyes wide open.

“You owe me a hundred dollars,” Louis said, looking at Frankie.

“I’ll pay you,” Frankie spoke through tight lips.

A young gunny who had ridden in with the hardcases and had not been recognized by any of the lawmen asked, “Is Jensen faster than you?”

“Oh, yes,” Louis told him. “Smoke Jensen is the fastest man alive.”

The young gunny took off his gunbelt and looped it on the saddle horn. “If it’s all right with you boys, I’ll just have me one drink to cut the dust, a bite to eat at that cafe over yonder, and then I’ll ride out of town. Not in the direction of the Seven Slash.”

“You yellow pup!” Mason Wright told him. “I knowed you didn’t have no good sand bottom to you.”

“Shut up, Mason,” Earl said. “The boy is showing uncommonly good sense.” He looked at the young man. “Go have your drink and something to eat.”

“Thank you kindly, sir.” The rider walked up the steps and entered the barroom, the batwings slapping the air behind him.

Louis walked to Frankie. “A hundred dollars, Frankie. Greenbacks or gold.”

Frankie paid him. “Your day’s comin’, Louis. You just remember that.”

“If it comes from the likes of you, Frankie, it’ll come from the back.” Frankie flushed deeply. “Because you don’t have the courage to face me eye to eye, with knife or gun or even fists, for that matter.”

Louis was a highly skilled boxer, and Frankie knew it.

“We’ll see, Louis. We’ll see.”

“How about now, Frankie?” the gambler laid down the challenge. “You want to bet your life?”

“Let’s go, Frankie,” Mason urged him. “We can deal with this bunch later.”

Incredible! Larry thought. The man is a millionaire and is risking his life in a dirty street of a backwater town. I do not understand these men and their loyalty to someone of Smoke Jensen’s dubious character.

The gunhands rode out of town, leaving Willis’ body still sprawled on the steps of the saloon. Muckelmort and the undertaker came running over, squabbling at each other.

“Get a good night’s rest, Smoke,” Johnny North muttered, looking at the darkening shapes of the mountains all around the little town. “There’s gonna be hell to pay in the morning, I’m thinkin’.”

Chapter Fourteen

The body of Willis was toted off—Muckelmort and the undertaker would go through his pockets to determine the elaborateness of the funeral—and the town began once more coming back to life as darkness settled in. The saloon was doing more business than it could handle, and the owner actually wished the other saloons would hurry up and get their board floors down and the canvas sides and roof up to take some of the pressure off his place.

Louis volunteered to take the first shift, and the others went to bed early—they each would do a four hour shift.

In the mountains, the outlaws slept fitfully, not knowing when or even if Smoke Jensen or that old warhorse Charlie Starr would strike.

Charlie and Smoke, camped miles apart, slept well and awakened refreshed. They rolled their ground sheets and bedding, boiled their coffee and fried their bacon, then checked their guns, and made ready for another day.

The members of Lee Slater’s gang, their size now cut by three more, were quiet as they fixed their breakfast and drank their coffee. Taylor and Bud had ridden in during the early evening, and Taylor’s condition had both depressed and angered the outlaws. His legs were swollen badly, and the man had slipped into a coma as blood poisoning was rapidly taking his life.

“That there’s the most horriblest-lookin’ thing I ever did see,” Woody commented, looking at Taylor. “Smoke Jensen don’t fight fair a-tall.”

“My ass hurts!” Bud squalled.

“Pour some more horse liniment on it,” Lee told a man.

Bud really took to squalling when the horse medicine hit the raw wounds. Everyone was glad when he passed out from the pain and the hollering stopped. ‘

The men mounted up and pulled out, a silent and sullen group of no-goods.

“How long do we intend to remain here?” Albert asked Mills, over breakfast.

“Until we come up with a plan to capture Smoke Jensen,” the senior U.S. Marshal said. “Anybody got one?”

No one did.

“Pass the beans,” Mills said.

Back in Washington, D.C., the chief of the U.S. Marshal’s Service looked across his desk at a group of senators. The senators were very unhappy.

“Smoke Jensen is a national hero,” one senator said. “He’s had books and plays written about him. School children worship him, and women around the nation love him for the family man he is. The telegrams I’m receiving from people tell me they don’t believe these murder warrants are valid. I want your opinion on this matter, and I want it right now.”

Without hesitation, the man said, “I don’t believe the charges would stick for a minute in a court of law. But a federal judge signed them, and we have to serve them.” He smiled. “But the information I’m receiving indicates that our people out West are not at all eager to arrest Smoke Jensen.” He lifted a wire from Mills Walsdorf. “They have, shall we say, dropped out of sight for a time.”

“Then the Marshal’s Service is out of the picture?” another senator questioned.

“For all intents and purposes, yes.”

The senator lifted a local newspaper. “What about these hundreds of bounty hunters chasing Jensen?”

The marshal shook his head. “You know how that rag tends to blow things all out of proportion. The reporter they sent out there to cover this story wouldn’t know a bounty hunter from a cigar store Indian. He’s never been west of the Mississippi River in his entire life . . . until now.”

Another senator lifted a New York City newspaper and started to speak. The marshal waved him silent. “That paper is even worse. Smoke Jensen is probably up against a hundred people . . .”

“A hundred?” a Senator yelled. “But he’s just one man.” ‘

The marshal smiled. “You ever seen Smoke Jensen, sir?”

“No, I have not.”

“I have. One time about ten years ago when I was working out West. Three men jumped him in a bar in Colorado. When the dust settled, two of those men were dead and the third was dying. Smoke was leaning up against the bar, both hands tilled with .44s. He holstered his guns, drank his beer, fixed him a sandwich, and went across the street to his hotel room for a night’s sleep. I’m not saying he can pull this thing off and come out of it without taking some lead, but if anyone can do it, Smoke Jensen can. I can wish him well. But other than that, my hands are tied until some other federal judge overrides those warrants.”

“Judge Richards has left town on a vacation,” a senator said. “He’ll be back in two weeks, so his office told me.”

“He’d better stay gone,” the marshal said. “ ’Cause when Smoke comes down from those mountains, I got me a hunch he’s Washington bound with a killin’ on his mind.”

“Well, now!” another senator puffed up. “We certainly can’t allow that.”

The marshal smiled. “You gonna be the one to tell Jensen that, sir?”

The senator looked as though he wished the chair would swallow him up.

Smoke released his hold, and the thick springy branch struck its target with several hundred pounds of impacting force. The outlaw was knocked from the saddle, his nose flattened and his jaw busted. He hit the ground and did not move.

Smoke led the horse into the timber, took the food packets from the saddle bags, and then stripped saddle and bridle from the animal and turned it loose.

Smoke faded back into the heavy timber at the sounds of approaching horses.

“Good God!” a man’s voice drifted through the brush and timber. “Look at Dewey, would you.”

“What the hell hit him?” another asked. “His entar face is smashed in.”

“Where’s his horse?” another asked. “We got to get him to a doctor.”

“Doctor?” yet another questioned. “Hell, there ain’t a doctor within fifty miles of here. See if you can get him awake and find out what happened. Damn, his face is ruint!”

“I bet it was that damn Jensen,” an unshaven and smelly outlaw said. “We get our hands on him, let’s see how long we can keep him alive.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “We’ll skin him alive.“

Smoke shot the one who favored skinning slap out of the saddle, putting a .44-.40 slug into his chest and twisting him around. The man fell and the frightened horse took off, dragging the dying outlaw along the rocks in the game trail.

“Get into cover!” Horton yelled, just as Smoke fired again.

Horton was turning in the saddle, and the bullet missed him, striking a horse in the head and killing it instantly. The animal dropped, pinning its rider.

“My leg!” the rider screamed. “It’s busted. Oh, God, somebody help me.”

Gooden ran to help his buddy, and Smoke drilled him, the slug smashing into the man’s side and turning him around like a spinning top. Gooden fell on top of the dead horse, and Gates screamed as the added weight shot pain through his shattered leg.

Horton and Max put the spurs to their horses and got the hell out of there, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Smoke slipped back into the timber.

The screaming and calling out for help from Gooden and Cares were soon lost in the ravines and deep timber of the lonesome. Dewey lay on the trail, still unconscious.

Smoke seemed to vanish. But even as he made his way through the thick brush and timber, he knew he had been very lucky so far. He fully understood that there was no way he was going to fight a hundred of the enemy without taking lead at some point of the chase and hunt.

He just didn’t know when.

Lee and his bunch muscled the dead horse off Cates and to a man grimaced at the sight of his broken and mangled leg.

“We got to set and splint it,” Curly said. “Anybody got any whiskey?”

A bottle was handed to him. Curly gave the bottle to Cates. “Get drunk, Gates. ’Cause this is gonna hurt.”

Cates screamed until he passed out from the pain.

Gooden was not hurt bad, just painfully, the slug passing through and exiting out the fleshy part of his side. Dewey’s face was a torn, mangled mess. He was missing teeth, both eyes were swollen shut and blackened with bruises, and his nose and jaw were shattered.

“We got to get ’em, boss,” Boots said. “Both Jensen and that old coot, Charlie Starr. This is gettin’ personal with me, now. Me and Neal go way back together.”

“What you got in mind? I’m damn shore open to suggestions.”

“I go in after him on foot. Hell, he can hear horses comin’ in from a long ways off. My daddy was a trapper and a hunter up in Northwest Territories. I can Injun with the best of them.”

Lee shook his head. “I like the idea, but two would be better than one. You might get him in a crossfire.”

“I’ll go with him,” Harry Jennings volunteered.

“I’d like to skin that damn Jensen alive.”

Both Jennings and Boots were old hands in the timber, and they carried moccasins in their saddlebags. They left behind boots and spurs, took two day’s provisions and struck out, following the very faint trail that almost anyone leaves in the brush: bent-down blades of grass, a broken twig or lower limb from a scrub tree, a heel print in damp earth.

“He ain’t that far ahead of us,” Boots whispered, after having lost the trail at mid-morning and then picking it up a few minutes later. Boots was a thieving, murdering no-account through and through, but he was just about as good a trailsman as Smoke. “Grass hadn’t started springin’ back yet. No talkin’ from now on—he’s close. Real close. Come on.”

Smoke had watched his backtrail. He had felt in the back of his mind that sooner or later somebody would try him on foot. Leaving his pack on the ground in some brush, he climbed a tall tree and began scanning his backtrail with his field glasses. On his second sweep he caught the two men as they skirted a small meadow, staying near the timber.

Smoke backtracked and left a trail, not a too obvious one, for that would be a dead giveaway, but a trail a skilled woodsman would pick up. He had a hunch those two men behind him were very good in the woods, for he hadn’t been leaving much of a trail for anyone to follow.

Back at a narrow point in the game trail, he quickly rigged a swing trap, using a young sapling about as big around as his wrist. The shadowy brush-covered bend in the trail should keep even the most skilled eyes from seeing the piece of dirt-rubbed rawhide he’d placed as the trip.

Smoke carefully backed off about twenty yards and bellied down against the cool earth under some foliage and took a sip of water from his canteen. Tell the truth, he was grateful for the time to rest.

“Pssttt! he heard the call from one of the men.

He could not yet see them, but they were very near.

Stay on the trail, boys, he silently wished. Just stay on the trail. Do that, and I’ll soon have just one to contend with.

Jennings eased forward, his smile savage as he saw the just crushed foliage on the trail. He touched it; it was very fresh. Smoke Jensen was only minutes ahead of them. Just minutes away from being dead meat, and Jennings and Boots would be thousands of dollars richer.

His left boot stepped over the trip" the right toe or his boot snagged it. Jennings experienced a savage blow in his belly, just below the V of the rib cage. Then the pain hit him. The most hideous pain he had ever experienced in his life. He forced his eyes to look down. He screamed at the sight A stake had been rawhided to the sapling. He had tripped a wire or something that had released the booby trap. The stake was now buried in his belly, his blood gushing out.

“Jesus God!” Boots whispered as he crept around the dark trail and saw what Smoke Jensen had done.

“Oh, my Lord!” Jennings wailed. “l cain’t stand the pain. Shoot me, Boots. Shoot me!”

“Yeah,” Smoke’s voice came out of the thick vegetation beside the trail. “Shoot him, Boots.”

“You son of a bitch!” Boots yelled, dropping to his knees on the old trail. “You ain't no decent human bein’. This ain’t fightin’ fair a-tall.”

Smoke laughed at the protestations of the outlaw/murderer/rapist. His laughter was taunting.

Jennings’ screaming was a frightful thing to hear. He stood in the center of the game trail, afraid to move, both hands clutching the bloody end of the stake.

Smoke tossed a stick to his right. As soon as the stick hit the ground, Boots’s rifle barked three times, as fast as he could work the lever.

Smoke laughed at his efforts.

Boots cussed Smoke. Called him every ugly and profane and insulting name he could think of, anything to draw the man out where he could get a clear shot at him.

Nothing worked.

“You ain’t got no right to do this!” Boots yelled. “This ain’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Jesus Christ, Boots,” Jennings moaned. “You got to help me. I cain‘t stand no more of this.”

Boots thought hard for a moment. He knew there was nothing he could do for Jennings. He was dying before his eyes. Not even a doctor right now could save him. Blood was dripping from Jennings’ lips; that told Boots the stake had rammed right through the man’s stomach. The point of the stake was sticking out the man’s back.

Jennings died before Boots’ eyes. The man’s legs were spread wide, and both hands held onto the end of the stake. The thick sapling kept him in an upright position.

Boots didn’t know what the hell to do. He knew that Smoke was over yonder, just ahead and to his right . . . at least the last time he’d laughed he was. But the way the man moved, hell, he might be anywhere by now.

Boots got down on his belly and started crawling away from the bloody scene. He was scared; he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. A thrown stick landed just a few inches from his nose, and Boots almost crapped his longhandles.

“Wrong way, Bootsie,” Smoke called.

“Stand up and fight me like a man, goddamn you!” Boots yelled. “Give me a chance.”

“The same kind of chance you gave those little girls you raped and tortured and scalped and killed, Bootsie?”

“I didn’t scalp nobody! That was Dolp what done that. And you done kilt him.”

“I’m going to kill you, too, Bootsie.”

“I surrender!” Boots shouted. “I give up. You got to take me in for a trial. That’s the legal way.”

“I’m a wanted man, Bootsie,” Smoke said with a chuckle. “I’ve got murder warrants out on me. That’s why you boys are chasing me. To collect those thousands of dollars. Now how in the hell can you surrender to me?”

Boots silently cursed. Didn't do no good to cuss out loud. Jensen wasn’t gonna be rattled by that. Boots knew he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He could shuck his guns and stand up, his hands in the air. But as sure as he done that, Jensen would probably gut—shoot him. He knew how Jensen felt about criminals.

He was a thug and a punk and a lot of other sorry—assed things-—he knew that, wasn’t no point in makin’ excuses for what he’d done-but Boots was a realist, too. He knew damn well he was a dead man anyway it went. “I’m a gonna stand up, Jensen,” he called. “My rifle's on the ground. My gun’s in leather. We’ll fight this out man to man. I’ll . . .”

He screamed in fright as a hard hand closed around one ankle and jerked just as he was standing up. Boots hit the ground, belly-down, knocking the breath from him. Something with the strength of a bear flipped him over and tore the gunbelt from his waist. He watched belt and guns go sailing into the woods.

He looked up into the cold brown eyes of Smoke Jensen. God, the man was big.

“Get up,” Smoke told him.

Boots crawled to his moccasins and watched as Smoke smiled at him and lifted his hands, clenching them into big leather-gloved fists. Boots grinned. Bare-knuckle, stomp and kick fighting was something he liked. He might have a chance after all.

“Okay, Jensen. Now you’re playin’ my game. I’m a-gonna stomp you into a greasy puddle.”

Smoke hit him flush in the mouth and knocked him up against the bloody body of Jennings. Boots recoiled in horror and lunged at Smoke, both fists flailing the air.

Smoke hit him a combination left and right that staggered the outlaw and pulped his already split lips. Boots shook his head and tried to clear it. But Smoke pressed him hard, not giving him a chance to do anything except try his best to cover up.

Boots held his fists in front of his face. ‘Smoke hammered at his belly with sledgehammer blows. Boots felt ribs crack and knew that Jensen was going to beat him to death. He tried to run. Smoke grabbed him by his dirty shirt collar and threw him back onto the trail.

“Get up and fight, you yellow bastard,” Smoke told him.

Boots crawled to his feet, wondering if Smoke was going to kick him. That’s what he would have done if it had been Jensen on the ground. He started to raise his fists, and Smoke drove a right through his guard and flattened his nose. Blood and snot flew from his busted snout, and Boots backed up against a tree as his eyes watered and his vision turned misty.

He heard Smoke say, “This is for those little girls back on the trail, Boots. For that poor woman and that man you sorry lumps of shit used for target practice.”

Pain exploded in wild bursts in Boots’ chest and belly and sides as Jensen pounded him unmercifully. Ribs popped and splintered like toothpicks. The last thing Boots would remember for awhile was those terrible cold eyes of Smoke Jensen.

He knew then why people called him the Last Mountain Man.

Chapter Fifteen

Al Martine and his bunch came upon Jennings and Boots in the midafternoon. Several of the outlaws lost their lunch when they found them.

Boots screamed hideously when the outlaws tried to move him.

‘Jensen busted all his ribs,” Al said, a coldness touching his guts. “Them ribs is probably splintered into his innards.” He looked down at Boots. “There ain’t nothin’ we can do for you, Boots.”

“Shoot me,” Boots whispered.

Al just looked at him. “We’ll get Jensen for you, Boots. That’s a promise.” Boots whispered something. “I can’t hear you, Boots. What’d you say?”

“Give it up,” Boots said through his pain. “Leave the gang. Leave the mountains. Go to farmin’, or something. It you’re gonna outlaw, git a thousand miles away from Jensen. He’s a devil. Leave him alone.”

“You don’t mean that?” Zack said. “That’s just your pain talkin’.”

“Don’t you want revenge?” Lopez asked.

Boots grinned a bloody curving of the lips. “Hell, boys. That ain’t gonna do me no good. I’m dead.” And he died.

Since none of them had shovels, they wrapped Boots Pierson and Harry Jennings in their blankets and covered them with branches. None of them had a Bible, either. The outlaws just stood around and looked at each other for a time. The gang of young punks rode up just as the last branch was put on the pile.

“Taylor’s dead,” Pecos announced. “Blood poisonin’ kilt him, I reckon.” ,

“This ain’t workin’ out like we planned, Al,” Crown said. “This was supposed to be an easy hunt. Ever’ day we’re losin’ two, three men to Jensen or Charlie Starr. Another week and there ain’t gonna be none of us left.”

“Yeah,” Lopez said. “And Jensen could be Injunin’ up on us right now."

All of them quickly found their mounts and hauled out of there. They rode until they came upon Ray’s group and brought them up to date.

“A stake through his belly?” Keno said, his voice filled with horror. He shuddered. “Jesus, man, that ain’t no fair way to fight no fight.”

Concho said, ‘Jensen ain’t playin’ by no rulebook.”

“Did we ever?” Pedro asked softly in an accented voice. “Unlike the rules set forth in lawbooks and courts of formal law, Jensen is giving us what we have given so many other people over the years. The way I see it, there is only two things we can do: continue the hunt until we kill Jensen or he kills us, or turn tail and run away.”

“I ain’t runnin’ from Jensen,” the young punk Concho said, swelling out his chest. “I think I can take him in a stand-up shoot-out.”

“You are a fool,” Lopez told him bluntly. “I have seen Jensen work. He is smooth, my young friend, and very, very quick. His draw is a blur that the eyes cannot catch.”

“I’m faster,” Concho said.

Lopez shook his head and said no more. Let the young punk find out for himself, he thought. When he challenges Smoke Jensen, he will have a few seconds of life left him to ponder his mistakes as the gunsmoke clears, and he rides to Hell.

“It’ll be dark in a few hours,” Al said, looking up at the sky. “And it’s gonna rain. Let’s get back to the base camp and tell Lee what happened.”

Smoke sat in his lean-to and drank his coffee and ate his early supper. He felt that outlaws being what they were, he would be reasonably safe from search in the cold, pouring rain. They would be too busy staying dry to look for him.

But he still carefully put out his fire before he rolled up in his blankets and closed his eyes.

Since Mills and his marshals were going to stay a spell where they were, they made. their camp a secure and snug one, using canvas "and limbs. The quarters were close together, with a cooking area just in front, easily accessible to all.

“This should bring the killing to a halt for a time,” Mills said, looking out at the driving rain. “Maybe,” he added. “I don’t approve of what Smoke is doing, but I understand why he’s doing it.”

“There is a strange code out here,” Albert said. “One that I’m sure our fathers swore to —at least to some degree.”

“Or swore at,” Sharp said.

“Probably a little of both.” Harold poured a cup of coffee and stared out at the silver-streaked gloom of late afternoon.

“Even after all this is said and done,” Winston said. “We’re still going to have to enforce the law once the warrants you requested on all those outlaws arrive.”

“Yes,” Mills said. “The San Francisco office is supposed to be getting them to Denver by train, then stagecoach to Rio. I requested them to be posted to the local marshal’s office. I’ll ride into town in a few days and check. By that time, I hope all this .. . nonsense concerning Smoke will be over.”

The deputy U.S. Marshals looked at each other. They hoped the same thing. None of them wanted to confront Smoke Jensen with an arrest warrant. None of them knew if they would even try to do that. Aside from the fact that he was the most famous gunslinger in the West, they all genuinely liked the man.

Most of the miners within a forty-mile radius of the fight had left the mountains and descended on Rio. They didn’t want to be caught up in the middle when the lead started flying. As it was, many of them had been close enough to hear the shots from Smoke and Charlie’s guns. And from the guns of the outlaws.

Made a man plumb edgy.

Louis’ saloon and gambling hall had been erected —due in no small part to the fact that Louis paid three times what others did for workmen. A smaller building had been built in the rear; this housed the kitchen, living quarters, and a privy attached to the building for maximum comfort and privacy. Cotton was on duty on the streets, and Louis and Johnny sat in the rear of the big wood and canvas saloon and talked in as low tones as the drumming of the rain overhead would permit. Earl was out of town.

“You heard that miner over yonder, Louis,” Johnny said, cutting his eyes to a miner who had just come into town and was now sucking on a mug of beer. “What’d you think?”

“As near as I can figure —discounting the inevitable exaggeration—Smoke and Charlie have killed seven or eight of Slater’s gang, and a couple of bounty hunters. This storm will probably blow out of here sometime tonight—it’s raining too hard to keep this up long—so the hunt will resume tomorrow. Slater has to be getting frustrated, and frustration leads to desperate and careless acts. Smoke is fighting several fronts, and using varying tactics, including guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare is a nasty business. It’s demoralizing for those on the receiving end of it. Slater’s people and the bounty hunters will be shooting at shadows from now on. And it’s going to be just as dangerous in those mountains for Smoke and Charlie as it is for the outlaws and bounty hunters. Smoke will take some lead in this fight, my friend. I don't see how he can avoid it, and I would imagine he has already mentally prepared himself for it.”

Johnny listened to the rain beat against the canvas for a moment. “Seems like trouble has been on Smoke’s backtrail nearabouts all his life. Ever since I’ve known him—and years before that—all Smoke wanted was to be left alone to run his ranch, love his wife and kids, and live in peace. He changed his name and hung up his guns for several years, but no man should have to do that. That just isn’t right. He never wanted the reputation of gunfighter. Never got a dime out of any of them Penny Dreadful books or plays about him. He didn’t want the money. But he’s a man that won’t take no pushin’. Man pushes Smoke, Smoke’ll push back twice as hard as he got. Them mountains best be cleaned good by this rain, ’cause come the mornin’, they’re gonna run red with outlaw blood.”

The terrible storm raged over the mountains and then trekked east. Before dawn, Smoke was wide awake and looking at a star—filled sky. It was still dark when he broke camp, picked up his heavy pack, and headed down out of the high lonesome to face the ever—growing numbers of bounty hunters and the Lee Slater gang.

“Come on, boys,” he muttered to the chattering squirrels and the singing birds. “Let’s get this over with. I want to get back to Sally and the Sugarloaf.”

A rifle cracked and bark stung the side of his face. Smoke hit the ground, struggled out of his pack, and wormed his way forward, the .44-.40 cradled in his arms.

“I seen him go down!” a man yelled.

“Down is one thing,” another voice was added. “Out is another. Jensen’s hard to kill.”

“Move out,” a third voice ordered. “But watch it. He’s tricky as a snake.”

Three men, Smoke thought. Bounty hunters or outlaws? He didn’t know. He didn’t really care. Man comes after another man for no valid reason, that first man better be ready to understand that death is walking right along beside him.

“Where is the bastard?” the shout echoed through the lushness of timber.

Smoke saw a flash of color from a red and white checkered shirt, and put a .44-.40 slug in it. The man screamed and went down, kicking and clawing. Lead sang around Smoke’s position, whining and howling as fast as the hunters could work the levers on their rifles. Smoke stayed low, and the lead sailed harmlessly over his head.

“Oh, God!” the wounded man moaned. “My shoulder’s broke. I can’t move my arm.”

Smoke watched as a hand reached up and shook a bush, trying to draw his fire. He waited. The hand reached up again and exposed a forearm. Smoke shattered the arm. The man screamed in pain. Smoke fired again, and the man’s screaming choked down to silence.

“Back off, john,” a voice called. “He’s got the upper hand now.”

“What about Ned?” a pain—filled voice called.

“Ned’s luck ran out.”

Ned, Smoke thought. Ned Mallory, probably. A bounty hunter from down New Mexico way. He lay still and listened to the two men back off and move through the brush. After a few minutes, he heard their horses’ hooves fade away. He made his way to Ned and stood over the dead man. His first slug had broken the man’s forearm; the second slug had taken him in the throat. It had not been a very pleasant way to die. But what way is?

Smoke refilled his .44 loops with the dead man’s cartridges and left him where he lay. He was not being unnecessarily callous; this was war, and war is not nice any way one chooses to cut it up.

He figured the shots would draw a crowd, and he headed away from that location, but every direction he walked, he saw riders coming before they saw him.

Smoke cussed under his breath. “All right,” he muttered. “If this is the way it’s going to be, all bets are off. I can’t fight any other way.”

He lifted his .44-.40 and blew a man out of the saddle, the slug taking him in the center of his chest.

“Over yonder!” another man yelled, pointing, and Smoke sighted him in. The man moved just as he squeezed the trigger, and that saved his life, the slug hitting his shoulder instead of his chest. The rider managed to stay in the saddle, but he was out of this hunt, his arms dangling uselessly by his side.

A round stung Smoke’s shoulder, drawing blood, and another just missed his head. Smoke emptied another saddle, the rider pitched forward, his boot hanging in the stirrup. The horse ran off, dragging the manhunter.

Smoke slipped back into the timber and jogged for several hundred yards before he was forced to stop to catch his breath. He chose a spot where his back and his left flank would be protected and rested. He could hear the sounds of horses laboring up the grade.

“He’s trapped!” a man shouted. “We got him now, boys, Let’s go.” He forced his tired horse up the slope, and Smoke sighted him in, squeezed the trigger, and relieved the nearly exhausted animal of its burden. The hunter bounced on the ground and then lay still.

Smoke drank some water and ate a piece of dry bread and waited. He was in a good spot and thought he saw a way out of it should it come to that. But he didn’t think it would‘ The manhunters would soon realize that the advantage was all histhis time—and probably back off.

After a few minutes, a shout rang up the slope. “Give it up, Jensen! They’s a hundred men ringin’ this range. You can’t get out. Come on down, and we’ll take you in alive for trial.”

“Sure you will,” Smoke muttered.

A man deliberately ran from his cover for a short distance, exposing himself for no more than two or three seconds.

“Fool’s play, boys,” Smoke whispered. “You must have cut your teeth on amateurs.”

He held his fire.

The manhunters began firing indiscriminately, the slugs howling around the rocks and trees. They were trying for a ricochet, not knowing that Smoke had taken that into consideration when he chose the spot to hole up. They wasted a lot of lead and hit nothing.

Another group rode in, and the men began arguing among themselves. Smoke shouted, “Why don’t you boys try for the Slater gang? The mountains are full of them. There’s about fifty of them, and they’re all wanted by the law.”

“Nickel and dime rewards, Jensen,” he was told.

“You’re worth a lot more.”

“Look around you,” Smoke verbally pointed out. “The ground is covered with the blood of those who thought the same thing. Think about it.”

The bounty hunters fell silent as some of them did just that.

Rested, Smoke took that time to slip through the rocks and make his way around his left flank. But he had to leave his heavy pack, taking with him only what he absolutely needed for survival. He packed that in his bedroll and groundsheet, tied it tight, secured it over one shoulder, and Injuned his way out of the rocks.

When he had worked his way several hundred yards above his last location, he paused and looked down. The sight did not fill him with joy. There were at least thirty men in position, grouped in a semicircle, around where the manhunters believed him to be.

A grim smile curved his lips. He took four sticks of dynamite from his roll and planted them under four huge boulders, making each fuse slightly longer than the other. Then he lit the fuses and got the hell gone from there.

The explosives moved three of the huge boulders, sending them cascading down the mountain, picking up small boulders as they tumbled. Even from his high-up location, he could hear the screaming of the men as the boulders, large and small, crushed legs and arms and sent the manhunters scrambling for cover.

“You opened this dance, boys,” he said. “Now it’s time to pay the band.”

“Good God!” Cotton said, as the first of the shot up and avalanche victims came limping and staggering back into town.

Johnny stepped out into the muddy street and halted the parade of wounded. “Where’d you boys tangle with Smoke Jensen?”

A man with a bloody bandage tied around his head said, ‘just south of Del Norte Peak. They’s a half a dozen men buried under the rocks. Jensen is a devil! He caved them rocks in on us deliberate.”

“And I suppose you boys were just ridin’ around up there takin’ in all the scenery, huh?” Johnny said sarcastically.

The man didn’t answer. But his eyes drifted to the badge on Johnny’s chest. “You the law. I want to swear out a warrant agin Smoke Jensen.”

Johnny laughed at him. “Move on, mister.

There’s a new doctor just hung out his sign clown the street.”

“You ain’t much of a lawman,” another bounty hunter sneered at him. “What’s your name?” He spoke around a very badly swollen Jaw.

“Johnny North.”

The manhunter settled back in his saddle with a sigh and kept his mouth shut.

“Move on,” Johnny repeated. “And don’t cause any trouble in this town or you’ll answer to me.”

Cotton and Louis had stepped out, Louis out of his gambling house and Cotton out of the marshal’s office to stand on the boardwalk and watch the sorry-looking sight.

Cotton and Johnny joined Louis. “I count twelve in that bunch,” Louis said. “Did he say there were half a dozen buried under rocks?”

“Yeah. Smoke musta started a rock slide. Earl said he took a case of dynamite with him. When’s Earl gettin’ back? I ain’t seen him since he rode up to the county seat.”

“Today, I would imagine. He said he’d be gone three days. He was going to send some wires. I don’t know to whom, but I suspect they concern Smoke.”

“You think he really knows the President of the U—nited States?” Cotton asked.

“Oh, he probably does.” Louis smiled. “I do.”

Smoke reared up from behind the man, jerked the rider off his horse and slammed on to the ground. He hit him three times. Three short vicious right-hand blows that crossed the man’s eyes, knocked out several teeth, and left the rider unconscious. Smoke knew the guy slightly Name of Curt South. He was from Utah, Smoke remembered. A sometimes cowboy, sometimes bounty hunter, sometimes cattle thief, and all around jerk. He released Curt’s shirt, and the man fell to the ground, on his back, unconscious. Smoke left him where he lay and swung into the saddle. The stirrups were set too short, but he didn’t intend to keep the horse long.

Smoke headed across country, for the deep timber between Bennett Mountain and Silver Mountain. After a hard fifteen minute ride, Smoke reined up and allowed the horse to blow while he inspected the bedroll and saddle bags. The blankets smelled really bad and had fleas hopping around them. He threw them away and kept the ground sheet and canvas shelterhalf. He found a side of bacon wrapped in heavy paper and some potatoes and half a loaf of bread that wasn’t too stale. He smashed Curt’s rifle against a rock and swung back into the saddle.

Minutes later, he came around a clump of trees and ran right into the outlaw Blackjack Simpson —literally running into him. The two horses collided on the narrow game trail and threw both Lee and Smoke to the ground, knocking the wind out of both of them. Blackjack came up to his knees first and tried to smash Smoke’s head in with a rock. Smoke kicked him in the gut and sent the man sprawling.

Guns were forgotten as the two men stood in the narrow trail and slugged it out. Blackjack was unlike most gunmen in that he knew how to use his fists and enjoyed a good fight. He slammed a right against Smoke’s head and tried to follow through with a left. Smoke grabbed the man’s arm, turned, and threw him to the trail. Blackjack got to his feet, and Smoke busted his beak with a straight right that jarred the man right down to his muddy boots. The blow knocked him backward against a tree.

With the blood flowing from his broken nose, Blackjack came in, both fists swinging. Smoke hit him a left and right combination that glazed the man’s eyes and buckled his knees. Smoke followed through, seizing the advantage. He hammered at the man’s belly with his big, work-hardened fists, the blows bringing grunts of pain from Blackjack and backing him up.

Smoke’s boot struck a rock and threw him off balance. Blackjack grabbed a club from off the ground and tried to smash in Smoke’s head. Smoke kicked him in the parts, and Blackjack doubled over, gagging and puking from the boot to his groin.

Smoke grabbed up the broken limb and smacked Blackjack a good one on the side of his head. Blackjack hit the ground and didn’t move.

Smoke took the man’s guns and smashed them useless, then caught up with the spooked horse. He took Blackjack’s .44-.40 from his saddle boot and shucked out the ammo, adding that to his own supply. Then he smashed the rifle against a tree.

He knew he should kill Blackjack; the man was a murderer, rapist, bank robber, and anything else a body could name that was low-down and no-good. But he just couldn’t bring himself to shoot the man.

Trouble was, he didn’t know what the hell to do with him.

“Can’t do it, can you, Jensen?” Blackjack gasped out the words.

“Do what, Blackjack?” Smoke backed up and sat down on a fallen log.

“You can’t shoot me, can you?”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“That’ll get you killed someday, Jensen.” The man tried to get to his feet, and Smoke left the log and kicked him in the head.

Smoke took Blackjack’s small poke of food from his saddlebags, cut Blackjack’s cinch strap and slapped the horse on the rump. He swung into his saddle and looked at the unconscious outlaw.

“I should kill you, Blackjack. But I just can’t do it. If I did that, I’d be across the line and joined up with the likes of you. God forbid I should ever enjoy killing.”

He rode into the timber, straight for trouble.

Chapter Sixteen

Those men who came into Rio thinking the hunt for Smoke Jensen would be no more than a lark took one last look at those manhunters who staggered out of the mountains and hauled their ashes out of the country.

With their departing, they left behind them only the hardcases of the bounty hunting profession. Men who gave no thought to a person’s innocence or guilt. Men who were there only for the money.

“Amazing,” Earl said, gazing at the ever-growing number of manhunters converging on the town. “The mountains are full of members of the Lee Slater gang—all with a price on their heads—-and these dredges of society would willingly consort with them to get to Smoke.”

“There isn’t much to them,” Louis agreed. “I’ve seen their kind all over the West. Most lawmen don’t like them, and few decent members of society have anything more than contempt for them. But I suppose in some instances, they do provide a service for the common good.”

“Name one,” Johnny said sourly

“I would be hard-pressed to do so,” Louis admitted. He cut his eyes. “Well, now. Would you just look at this.”

The men looked up the street. Luttie Charles and his crew were riding in, and his crew had swelled considerably. The men of the Seven Slash turned in toward the marshal’s office, where Earl and the other ‘deputies’ were standing on the boardwalk. The men sat their saddles and stared at the quartet.

“Loaded for bear,” Cotton whispered, taking in the bulging saddlebags and bedrolls.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “I got a hunch this ain’t no good news for Smoke.”

“I am here to announce our intentions, gentlemen,” Luttie said.

Earl stared at the man, saying nothing.

“Smoke Jensen is a wanted man, correct?” Luttie asked, his smile more a nasty smirk.

“That is, unfortunately, correct,” the Englishman acknowledged.

“That being the case,” Luttie said, “we have come to offer our services toward the cause of law and order.”

“Like I said,” Johnny whispered. “No good news for Smoke.”

“We want this to be legal and above board,” Luttie said. “So we came to the appointed law first.”

“Get to the point,” Cotton said bluntly.

“We are going into the mountains to bring back the murderer Smoke Jensen,” Luttie spoke around his smirky smile.

“Dead or alive,” Jake said.

The Karl Brothers, Rod and Randy, giggled. Both of them were about four bricks shy of a load, and were men who enjoyed killing.

Johnny spat on the ground to show his contempt for the goofy pair.

Rod grinned at him. “If you wasn’t wearin’ that tin star, I’d call you out for that, North.”

Johnny reached up, unpinned the badge, and put it in his pocket. “Then make your play, you stupid-lookin’ punk.”

“No!” Luttie’s command was sharply given. “We have no quarrel with the law, and that’s an order.”

Rod relaxed and grinned at Johnny. “Some other time, North.”

“I’m easy to find, goofy.”

“Anything else you gentlemen need to know before we pull out?” Luttie asked.

“That about does it, l suppose,” Earl told him.

“Ain’t you lawmen gonna wish us luck?” One-Eyed Jake asked.

“Personally, I hope you fall off your horse and break your damn neck,” Cotton told him.

“You ain’t got no call to talk to me like that!” Jake protested.

“You wanna do something about it?” Cotton challenged.

“Let’s ride, boys,” Luttie said. “We got a killer to bring to justice.”

“Maybe later,” One-Eyed Jake said.

“Anytime,” Cotton told him.

The Seven Slash crew and the hired guns who rode among them slopped out up the muddy street.

“Sixteen more after Smoke’s hide,” Johnny spoke the words bitterly. “Smoke’s gonna need all the luck and skill he can muster to come out of this alive.”

“How about them wires you sent, Earl?” Cotton asked.

Earl shook his head. “The marshal’s service is out of it. But until a panel of federal judges can gather and review all the evidence against Smoke, the warrants stand.”

“Damn!” Louis said.

“Quite,” the Englishman said. “And Sheriff Silva said if we went into the mountains to help Smoke, there would be warrants issued for us. He said he was sorry about that, but that was the way it had to be.”

“l can understand that,” Johnny said. “He’s stickin’ his neck out pretty far for Smoke now.”

Louis looked toward the mountains. “We’ve all been concentrating on how Smoke is doing. I wonder how Sally is coping with all this?”

“Sally’s gone!” Bountiful yelled, bringing her buggy to a dusty, sliding halt.

“What?” Sheriff Monte Carson jumped out of his chair. “What do the hands say?”

“I finally got one of them to talk. He said he took her down to the road day before yesterday, and she hailed the stage there. He said she had packed some riding britches in her trunk, along with a rifle and a pistol. She was riding the stage down to the railroad and taking a train from there. Train runs all the way through to the county seat. Lord, Lord, Monte, she’s just about there by now. What are we going to do?”

Monte led her into his office and sat her down. Bountiful fanned herself vigorously. He got her a drink of water and sat down at his desk. “Nothin’ we can do, Miss Bountiful. Sally’s gone to stand by her man. And them damn outlaws and manhunters down yonder think they got trouble with Smoke. I feel sorry for them if they tangle with Miss Sally. You know she can shoot just like a man and has done so plenty of times. She’s a crack shot with rifle and pistol. Smoke seen to that.”

“I just feel terrible about this. I should have guessed something was up when I saw her oiling up that .44 the other day. But out here . . . well, we all keep guns at the ready.”

“T’wasn’t your fault, Miss Bountiful. She’s doin’ what she feels she has to do, is all.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a bandana. “This situation is gettin’ out of hand.”

Lee Slater and his bunch came upon Blackjack just as he was getting back on his feet. The man’s face was swollen from the kick he’d received from Smoke. That kick had put him out for nearly half an hour.

“Cut my cinch and smashed my guns,” Blackjack mumbled. “I’m gonna kill that dirty bastard!”

“There’s a lot of people been sayin’ that,” Ed told him. “So far the score is Jensen about fifteen and the other side zero. And we’re the other side.”

Someone rounded up a horse for Blackjack and loaned him a spare gun. Blackjack swung the horse’s head.

“Where are you goin’!” Lee shouted.

“To kill Smoke Jensen,” Blackjack snarled. “And this time I’m gonna do it.”

Lee started to protest. Curt waved him silent. “Let him go. You know how he is. When he gets mad, he’s crazy. Hell, we’re better off without him until he cools down.”

“’Spose he gets to Jensen afore we do?” Ed asked.

“They’ll be one less to share the reward money with,” Curly said. “Blackjack ain’t gonna take Jensen; ’lessen he shoots him in the back.”

“Let’s make some coffee,” Ed suggested. “I could do me with some rest.”

None among them had considered how, as wanted outlaws, they would collect any reward money should they manage to capture Smoke.

Nearly everyone on Main Street had seen the elegantly dressed lady step off the train and stroll to the hotel, B porter carrying her trunk. As soon as She signed her name, the desk clerk dispatched a boy to run fetch the sheriff.

Sally had signed the register as “Mrs. Smoke Jensen.

Sheriff Silva was standing in the lobby, talking to several men, and he nearly swallowed his chewing tobacco when Sally walked down the stairs.

She was wearing cowboy boots and jeans—which she filled out to the point of causing the men’s eyeballs to bug out—a denim shirt which fitted her quite nicely too, and was carrying a leather jacket, She had a bandana tied around her throat, and a low crowned, flat-brimmed hat on her head. She also wore a .44 belted around her waist and carried a short-barreled .44 carbine, a bandoleer of ammo slung around one shoulder.

‘Jesus Christ, Missus Jensen!” Sheriff Silva hollered. I mean, holy cow. What do you think you’re gonna do?”

“Take a ride.” Sally told him, and walked out the door.

Silva ran to catch up with her. “Now you just wait’a minute, here, Missus Jensen. This ain’t no fittin’ country for a female to be a-traipsin’ around in. Will you please slow down?”

Sally ignored that and kept right on walking at a rather brisk pace.

She turned into the general store and was uncommonly blunt with the man who owned the store. “I want provisions for five days, including food, coffee, pots and pans and eating utensils, blankets, ground sheets, and tent. And five boxes of .44s, too. Have them ready on a pack-frame in fifteen minutes. Have them loaded out back, please.”

“Now you just hold up on that order, Henry,” Sheriff Silva said.

“You’d better not cross me, Henry,” Sally warned him, a wicked glint in her eyes. “My name is Mrs. Smoke Jensen, and I can shoot damn near as well as my husband.”

“Yes’um,” Henry said. “I believe you, ma’am.”

“And you,” Sally spun around to face the sheriff, “would be advised to keep your nose out of my business.”

“Yes’um,” Silva said glumly, and followed her to the livery.

Sally picked out a mean-eyed blue steele that bared its teeth when the man tried to put a rope around it. Sally walked out into the corral, talked to the big horse for a moment, and then led it back to the barn. She fed him a carrot and an apple she’d picked up at the store, and the horse was hers.

“That there’s a stallion, ma’am!” Silva bellered. “He ain’t been cut. You can’t ride no stallion!”

“Get out of my way,” she told him.

“It ain’t decent, ma’am!”

“Shut up and take that pack animal around to the back of the store.”

“Yes’um,” Silva said. “Whatever you say, ma’am.” While Sally was saddling up, he turned to the hostler. “Send a boy with a fast horse to Rio. Tell them deputies of mine down there that Sally Jensen is pullin’ out Within the hour and looks like she’s plannin’ on joinin’ up with her husband. Tell them to do something. Anything!”

“Sheriff,” the hostler said, horror in his voice.

“Don’t look. She’s a-fixin’ to ride that hoss astride!”

“Lord, have mercy! What’s this world comin’ to?”

“Looking for me, boys?” Smoke called.

Crocker and Graham spun around, dropping their coffee cups, and grabbing for iron.

But Smoke was not playing the gentleman’s game. His hands were already filled with .44s. He began firing, firing and cocking with such speed the sounds seemed to be a continuous roll of deadly thunder. Crocker literally died on his feet, two slugs in his heart. Graham was turned completely around twice before he tumbled to the earth. He died with his eyes open, flat on his back and staring upward.

Smoke reloaded, listened for a moment, and then walked to the fire, eating the lunch and drinking the coffee the outlaws had fixed and no longer needed.

He drank the pot of coffee, kicked out the fire and left his tired horse to roll and water and graze, throwing a saddle on a fresh horse that was tied to a picket pin. He took what was left of a chunk of stale bread, sopped out the grease in the frying pan to soften it up, and finished off his lunch.

He looked at Crocker and Graham. “Nothing personal, boys. You just took the wrong trail, that’s all.” He swung into the saddle and put the camp of the dead behind him. Ray’s group came upon the bodies of Crocker and Graham and sat their horses for a time, looking around the silent camp.

“I’d like to think they et a good meal ’fore Jensen or that damned ol’ Charlie Starr come up on them," Keno said. “But if I was to bet on it, I’d wager that Jensen kilt ’em and then sat down an’ et their food.”

He shook his head. “We’re gonna lose this fight, boys. Somebody is shore to get lead in Jensen, least the odds lean thataway, but in the end, we’ll lose.”

Sonny shook his head. “It just ain’t possible what he’s a-doin’. By rights, we should have kilt him the first day or two. This makes nearabouts ten of us he’s kilt—and half a dozen or more bounty hunters—and we ain’t got no clear shot at him yet. I just ain’t likin’ this, boys.”

Jerry nodded his head in agreement. “I got me a bad feelin’ in my guts about this fight. But, hell, way I see it, we ain’t got no choice ’cept to go on with it.”

Ray swung down from the saddle. “Let’s give the boys a buryin’. Stoke up that far, McKay, make some coffee.”

“We got no quarrel with you, Charlie,” Luttie told the old gunfighter. “It’s Jensen we’re after.”

Charlie had stepped out of the timber, blocking the trail. His hands were by his side, by the butts of his guns, and his eyes were hard and unblinking. “You got a quarrel with Smoke, you got a quarrel with me. That’s the way it is. So I hope you made your peace with God.” He jerked iron and opened the dance.

Two of Luttie’s hands went down before anyone could react to the sudden gunfire. Horses were rearing and screaming in fright; several of the riders were dumped from the saddle. Charlie shot Nick Johnson between the eyes, and he fell over against Luttie, knocking the man from the saddle and falling on top of him in the brush.

Charlie took a round in his side, flinched from the painful impact, jerked out two spare six-guns from behind his gunbelt and kept on throwing lead.

A young hand who fancied himself a gunslick pulled iron and jacked the hammer back. One of Charlie’s slugs caught him in the chest and knocked him to the ground. He died calling for his mother.

Charlie’s left leg folded under him as a .45 hit him in the thigh. He went down rolling into the brush. Just as he got to his boots and staggered off into the timber, toward his horse, he turned and blew another of Luttie’s hired guns out of the saddle. Ted Danforth took the slug in the belly and hit the ground. He died on his knees.

Charlie managed to get into the saddle and point his horse’s head south, toward Rio.

“No need to chase after him, Luttie,” Jake said, after the spooked and screaming horses had been settled clown. “He’s had it. I seen him take at least three slugs. He’s dead in the saddle by now.”

Luttie looked around him at the carnage. “That old bastard just jumped out and killed five of my men. I ain’t believin’ this!" He was rubbing the bump on his head where his noggin hit a rock. “I started out with sixteen top guns, and my people has been cut damn near a third in less than a minute and a half. Jesus Christ!”

“But now Smoke is alone up here,” One-Eyed Jake pointed out.

“Wonderful,” Luttie said sourly.

* * *

Blackjack reined up when he spotted the ground-reined horse. That wasn’t the horse Smoke had been riding, but he could have changed horses somewhere along the way. Blackjack stepped down from the saddle and took cover behind a tree, his eyes sweeping the area in front of him. He should have been looking behind him.

Blackjack was so mad he wasn’t thinking straight. His head ached where Smoke had kicked him, and his nose and mouth hurt, too. All he could think about was killing Smoke Jensen. And he didn’t want to do it quick, neither. He wanted Jensen to suffer. He had plans for Smoke Jensen. Painful plans.

But a higher power had already checked off Blackjack’s name in the book of life.

“You should have stayed where I left you, Blackjack,” Smoke said from behind the outlaw.

Blackjack whirled around, a curse on his lips and his right hand filled with a .45. Smoke shot him twice, in the belly and the chest as the .44 rose in recoil.

Blackjack sighed once and fell back against the tree he’d thought was giving him cover. The .45 fell from his numbed hand. “Damn you, Jensen!” he gasped.

“Sometimes the cards just don’t fall right,” Smoke told him.

The light was fading around Blackjack.

“Any family?” Smoke asked.

“None that would give a damn about me dyin’.”

“Too bad.”

“You’re a .. . devil, Jensen! You musta . . . come here from somewhere’s outta hell.” His legs would no longer support him. He slumped to the ground.

Smoke kicked the .45 far from Blackjack’s reach and walked toward his horse, reloading as he walked. Blackjack’s voice stopped him.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Stay with me ’til I’m gone, Jensen—please?”

“All right,” Smoke said.

Smoke walked to him, reached down, and took the .41 derringer Blackjack had slipped from behind his big silver beltbuckle. Blackjack let his hand fall to his side.

“Damn you!” the outlaw moaned. “How’d you know?”

“I didn’t. But people like you never change.” He broke open the derringer and checked the loads. Full. He slipped the tiny gambler’s back-up behind his belt.

“I’ll see you in hell, Jensen!”

“Maybe. I’ve done some things that probably qualify me for that place.”

Blackjack fell over on his side. We was all so shore about this. Fifty, sixty . . . of us. One of you. I just cain’t understand it.” He shuddered and grabbed the ground in his pain. “What is it that . . . makes you so damn hard to kill?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m right, and you boys are wrong.”

Blackjack laughed bitterly.

“You got any money you want me to give to a church or an orphanage, Blackjack?”

Blackjack sneered past bloody lips and said some pretty terrible things about churches, orphans, the public in general and Smoke in particular.

He died with a curse on his lips.

“I don’t understand it either, Blackjack,” Smoke said to the dead outlaw.

Smoke stripped the saddle and bridle from Blackjack’s horse and turned the gelding loose. “Run free for a time, boy. You earned it.”

The last mountain man walked to his horse and swung into the saddle. “Let’s go meet what I was born to meet, boy,” he said. “No point in prolonging this.”

Chapter Seventeen

“What?” Earl almost lost his English cool. “That’s what the sheriff said,” the young man told him. “Missus Sally Jensen is headin’ into the mountains.”

Louis took off his badge and handed it to Earl. “I hereby resign my commission,” he told him. “The rest of you stay here. I’ve got to get into the mountains and head her off.”

“Look!” a citizen said, pointing up the muddy street.

“That’s Charlie!” Johnny shouted, running toward the man who appeared to be unconscious in the saddle.

“Get the doctor!” Cotton yelled, running after Johnny.

They gently took Charlie from the blood-soaked saddle and laid him down on the boardwalk. Charlie’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m hard hit, boys.”

“You’ll make it, you old war-hoss,” Johnny told him.

“I put about five or six of ’em down Tore they plugged me,” the old gunfighter said. “Seven Slash bunch.”

“Don’t talk, Charlie,” Lilly LaFevere said, kneeling down beside him.

“Hello, baby,” Charlie grinned up at her. “I ain’t seen you in ten years.”

“Nine,” she corrected him. “We was down on the border. Now hush your mouth.”

“Tired,” Charlie whispered. “Awful tired.”

“Take him to my quarters and put him in my bed,” Lilly told the men. “Move him gentle like. I count three bullet holes in his ornery old hide.”

She looked around her. “Where’s that goddamn sawbones?”

“He’s on the way,” a citizen said. “Is that really Charlie Starr?”

“Yeah,” Lilly said. “Now get the hell outta the way and give the man room to breathe.”

“I’m gone,” Louis said. “See you boys later.”

“You got enough grub?” Cotton asked.

“They’ll be food in the saddlebags of the outlaws,” Louis told him. “I’ll have a week’s supply fifteen minutes after I hit the mountains.”

He lifted the reins and was gone.

With his knife and strips of rawhide, Smoke made a pack out of two saddlebags, then carefully repacked all the supplies he’d taken from several dead men. He had a good five days’ food and plenty of ammo.

He tried not to think about when his luck was going to run out.

But he knew it would, sooner or later. The odds were just too great against him.

He was only a few miles away from where he’d left his horses—as the crow flies—but he didn’t want to head there, just yet. He stripped saddle and bridle from his borrowed horse and turned it loose to roll and water and graze. Then he picked up his pack and rifle and headed into the deep timber, to a place he remembered when roaming the country with old Preacher.

“You may get me, boys,” he said to the sighing winds and the soaring eagles high above him. “But you’ll pay a fearful price before you do.”

“Scum,” Louis said to the two riders.

“Huh?” one asked.

“I said you’re scum,” Louis repeated.

Stan and Glover had gotten separated from Noah’s group. They’d been wandering around in circles when they came upon the tall, well-built man dressed all in black. Kind of a dudey lookin’ fellow—except for those guns of his. They looked well-used. And his coat was brushed back to give him free access to the Colts. He was just standing in the middle of the trail, smiling sort of strange-like. Now he was insulting them.

“Git out of the way, fancy-pants!” Glover told him.

“I like it here.”

“Well, you about a stupid feller, then. I might decide to just run you down with this here horse. What do you think about that?”

Louis smiled. “I think your blow-hole is overloading your mouth, punk.”

Glover and Stan exchanged glances. It just seemed like nothin' had worked out right since they’d left the West coast and come to Colorado. All them hayseeds and hicks out in the rural areas of the coast states knowed who the Lee Slater gang was, and they kowtowed and done what they was told. But it seemed like that ever since they’d come to Colorado, all that was happenin’ was they was gettin’ the crap shot out of them. And nobody seemed to be afraid of them.

“You a bounty hunter, mister?” Stan asked.

“You might say that. I hunt punks. And it looks like I found me a couple.”

“I’m gettin’ tarred of you insultin’ me!” Glover popped off.

“Yeah,” Stan flapped his mouth. “We’re lookin’ for Smoke Jensen so’s we can collect the reward money.”

“You dumb clucks,” Louis said with a chuckle. “You’re part of the Lee Slater gang. You’re all wanted men, with bounties on your own heads. How in the devil do you think you’re going to collect any reward money?”

Stan and Glover exchanged another look. That hadn’t occurred to either of them.

“Uhhh . . .” Glover said.

“Well . . .” Stan said.

“Get off your horses, throw your guns in the bushes, and start walking,” Louis told them.

Stan told him what he could do with his orders. Sideways.

Louis shot him. His draw was like a blur and totally unexpected. Stan pitched from the saddle, and Louis turned his gun toward Glover just as the outlaw was jerking iron. Louis waited; a slight smile on his lips as the man cursed and jacked back the hammer.

That was as far as he got before Louis drilled him dead center in the chest, the slug knocking the outlaw out of the saddle, dead before he hit the ground. Quite unlike him, Louis twirled his six-shooter twice before dropping it back in leather.

“Punks,” he said scornfully.

He went through their saddlebags and took, out bacon, potatoes, bread, onions, and coffee. Fortunately, he did have with him his own coffee pot and small frying pan. The one he took from Stan’s saddlebag was so coated with old grease and other odious and unidentifiable specks it was probably contagious just by touch. With a grimace of disgust, Louis tossed it into the bushes.

He stripped both horses of saddle and bridle and turned them loose, then swung back into the saddle and headed out. He did not look back at the dead outlaws lying sprawled on the trail.

It was nearing dusk when Al Martine and his bunch spotted Smoke high up near the timber line in the big lonesome.

“We got him, boys!” Al yelled, and put the spurs to his tired horse.

A rifle bullet took Al’s hat off and sent it spinning away. The mountain winds caught it, and it was gone forever.

“Goddamn!” Al yelled, just as another round kicked up dirt at his horse’s hooves, and the animal started bucking. It was all Al could do to stay in the saddle.

A slug smacked Zack in the shoulder and nearly knocked him from the saddle. The second shot tore off the saddle horn and smashed into Zack’s upper thigh, bringing a scream of pain from the outlaw.

“He’s got help!” Pedro yelled. “Let’s get gone from here.”

The outlaws raced for cover, with Zack flopping around in the saddle.

Smoke looked down the mountain. “Now who in the devil is that?” he muttered.

Sally punched .44 rounds into her carbine and settled back into her well-hidden little camp in a narrow depression with the back and one side a solid rock wall.

“Who you reckon that was a-shootin’ at us?” Tom Post yelled over the sounds of galloping horses.

“I don’t know,” Crown returned the yell. “But he’s hell with a rifle, whoever he is.”

Using field glasses, Sally watched them beat a hasty retreat, and then laid out cloth and cup, plate and tableware, and napkin for her early supper. just because one was in the wilderness, surrounded by Godless heathens, was no reason to forego small amenities.

She opened a can of beans, set aside a can of peaches for dessert, and spread butter on a thick slice of bread. Before eating, she said a prayer for the continuing safety of her man.

“Hello the far!” the voice came out of the timber.

Louis edged back into the shadows and lifted his Colt. “If you’re friendly, come on in.”

“I reckon we’re friendly,” came the call. Two men stepped into the small clearing. “We’re all in this together, a-huntin’ that damn Smoke Jensen. Share your coffee, friend?”

“Why, certainly!” Louis called out cheerfully.

“Step right on in, boys.”

“Kind of you.” The men stepped closer. “I’m Nick Reeves, and this is my partner, Mike Beecham.”

Louis knew them both. No-goods from down near the Four Corners.

“What might your name be, mister?” Mike asked, squatting down by the small fire. “I think I know the voice, but I cain’t hardly see you in them shadows.”

“Louis Longmont, you cretin!”

Both men yelled, cussed, and grabbed for iron. Louis had both hands filled with .44s, and the campsite thundered with shots, the moist evening air filling with gray smoke.

Louis reloaded then dragged the bodies away, heaving them over a small cliff. He went through their saddlebags and found more food, a goodly amount of .44 ammo, and some stinking socks and dirty longhandles. He kept the food and the ammo and turned their horses loose after relieving them of saddle and bridle. He returned to his fire and slowly ate his supper, scoured out his pan and plate, then broke camp and moved on about a mile, before bedding down for the night.

“Got more bounty hunters in the mountains than boys left in the gang,” Lee Slater said glumly.

He sat staring into the flames of the campfire and sucking on a bottle of rye whiskey.

His brother, Luttie, sat across the fire from him, equally morose. He took a drink from his bottle and wondered how all this was going to turn out. The shock of losing five of his men in a matter of seconds earlier that day still had not entirely left him. He wondered if his boys had managed to get enough lead in that damned ol’ Charlie Starr to kill him. He doubted it.

“Twelve dead, last count,” Lee said. “Six wounded. And you lost five of your boys to Starr.”

“You don’t have to keep reminding me,” Luttie said sourly. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had kept a tight rein on your boys. The dumbest damn thing you did was attackin’ Big Rock and shootin’ up the place. The second dumbest thing you done was shootin’ Smoke Jensen’s wife. And the third dumbest thing you done is torturin’ and rapin’ and killin’ that family up north of here.”

“Aw, shut up!” Lee told him.

“Don’t tell me to shut up! I told you to come straight here and stay out of trouble on the way. We could have had it all, Lee. We could have taken a million dollars worth of gold and silver from the miners and stages and banks and done been gone from this damn place. But, oh, hell, no. You had to surround yourself with idiots and screw it all up.”

“If he’s talkin’ about idiots, he must be talkin’ about you boys,” Lopez said to the Karl Brothers.

Rod gave him a dirty look, and Randy gave him an obscene gesture.

“We got Smoke to the north of us,” Curt said. “A damn good rifleman to the East of us, and it looks like Louis Longmont is to the south of us.”

“And a bunch of U.S. Marshals camped at the edge of the mountains,” Dale pointed out.

“Maybe it’s time to haul out of here,” Max suggested.

“I’ll be damned!” Lee snarled at him. “Good God, people! Countin’ Luttie’s bunch, they’s nearly fifty of us left, all told, and we’re lettin’ two or three people whup us. What the hell’s the matter with you? No one or two people ain’t never whupped fifty people. We’re doin’ somethin’ wrong, is all. We got to study this out and find out what it is.”

“Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont ain’t no average two people,” Al Martine pointed out. “And that rifleman that hit us this afternoon wasn’t no pilgrim, neither. Now you think about this—all of you: hittin’ Rio is out the winder. They’d shoot us to pieces in ten seconds. The miners has all shut down and gone into town; they ain’t diggin’ no gold, and they shore ain’t shippin’ none. The county seat is out of the pitcher; Sheriff Silva ain’t no man to fool with. So where the hell does that leave us?”

“My ass hurts!” Bud complained.

“He’s up there,” Ace Reilly said, his eyes looking at the timber line. Good light of morning, the air almost cold this high up.

Big Bob Masters shifted his chew from one side of his mouth to the other and spat. “Solid rock to his back,” he observed. “And two hundreds yards of open country ever’where else. It’d be suicide gettin’ up there.”

Ace lifted his canteen to take a drink, and the canteen exploded in his hand, showering him with water, bits of metal, and numbing his hand. The second shot nicked Big Bob’s horse on the rump, and the animal went pitching and snorting and screaming down the slope, Big Bob yelling and hanging on and flopping in the saddle. The third shot took off part of Causey’s ear, and he left the saddle, crawling behind some rocks.

“Jesus Christ!” Ace hollered, leaving the saddle and finding cover. “Where the hell is that comin’ from?"

Big Bob’s horse had come to a very sudden and unexpected halt, and Big Bob went flying ass over elbows out of the saddle to land against a tree.

He staggered to his feet, looking wildly around him, and took a .44 slug in the belly. He sank to his knees, both hands holding his punctured belly, bellering in pain.

“He’s right on top of us,” Ace called to Nap. “Over there at the base of that rock face.”

Smoke was hundreds of yards up the mountain, just at the timber line, looking and wondering who his new ally might be. He got his field glasses and began sweeping the area. A slow smile curved his lips.

“I married a Valkyrie, for sure,” he muttered, as the long lenses made out Sally’s face.

He saw riders coming hard, a lot of riders. Smoke grabbed up his .44-.40 and began running down the mountain, keeping to the timber. The firing had increased as the riders dismounted and sought cover. Smoke stayed a good hundred yards above them, and so far he had not been spotted.

“Causey!” Woody yelled. “Over yonder!” he pointed. “Get on his right flank—that’s exposed.”

Causey jumped up, and Smoke drilled him through and through. Causey died sprawled on the still damp rocks from the misty morning in the high lonesome.

“He’s up above us!” Ray yelled.

“Who the hell is that over yonder?” Noah hollered, just as Sally fired. The slug sent bits of rock into Noah’s face, and he screamed as he was momentarily blinded. He stood up, and Smoke nailed him through the neck. Smoke had been aiming for his chest, but shooting downhill is tricky, even for a marksman.

Big Bob Masters was hollering and screaming, afraid to move, afraid his guts would fall out.

Smoke began dusting the area where the outlaws and bounty hunters had left their horses. The whining slugs spooked them and off they ran, reins trailing, taking food, water, and extra ammo with them.

“Goddamnit!” Woody yelled, running after them. He suddenly stopped, right out in the open, realizing what a stupid move that had been.

Smoke and Sally fired at the same time. One slug struck Woody in the side, the .44-.40 hit him in the chest. Woody had no further use for a horse.

Smoke plugged Yancey in the shoulder, knocking the man down and putting him out of the fight. Yancey began crawling downhill toward the horses, staying to cover. He had but two thoughts in mind: getting in the saddle and getting the hell gone from this place.

“It’s no good!” Ace yelled. “They’ll pick us all off if we stay here. We got to get out of range. Start makin’ your way down the slope.”

The outlaws and bounty hunters began crawling back, staying to cover. Smoke and Sally held their fire, neither of them having a clear target and not wanting to waste ammo. They took that time to take a drink of water, eat a biscuit, and wait.

Haynes, Dale, and Yancey were the first to reach the horses, well out of range of the guns of Smoke and Sally.

Haynes looked up, horror in his eyes. A man dressed all in black was standing by a tree, his hands filled with Colts.

“Hello, punk!” Louis Longmont said, and opened fire.

Chapter Eighteen

The last memory Haynes had, and it would have to last him an eternity, was the guns of Louis Longmont belching fire and smoke. He died sitting on his butt, his back to a boulder. Yancey tried to lift his rifle, and Louis shot him twice in the belly.

Dale turned to run, and Louis offered him no quarter. The first slug cut his spine, the second slug caught him falling and took off part of his head.

Louis reloaded his Colts, then picked up his rifle and took cover.

“We yield!” Nap Jacobs yelled.

“Not in this game,” Louis called.

“Somebody come hep me!” Big Bob Masters squalled. “I cain’t stand the pain!”

The pinned-down gunmen looked at each other. There were four of them left. Nap Jacobs, Ace Reilly, and two of Slater’s boys, Kenny and Summers.

All knew Big Bob Masters was not long for this world. His yelling was growing weaker.

“I ain’t done you no hurt, Longmont!” Ace yelled. “You got no call to horn in on this play.”

“But here I am,” Louis said. “Make your peace with God.”

The silent dead littered the mountain battlefield. Below them, an outlaw’s horse pawed the ground, the steel hoof striking rock.

“And I don’t know who you is over yonder in the rocks,” Nap yelled. “But I wish you’d bow out.”

“I’m Mrs. Smoke Jensen!” Sally called.

“Dear God in Heaven,” Ace said. “We been took down by a damn skirt!”

“Disgustin’!” Nap said.

Kenny looked wild-eyed all around him. He was mumbling under his breath. His eyes held a touch of madness, and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving. Drool leaked from his mouth. “I’m gone,” he said, and jumped up.

Three rifles barked at once, all the slugs striking true. Kenny was slammed backward, two holes in his chest and one hole in the center of his forehead.

Nap looked over at Ace. “This ain’t no cakewalk, Ace. We forgot about Smoke’s reputation once the battle starts.”

“Yeah,” Ace said, his voice low. “Once folks come after him, he don’t leave nobody standin’.”

“I got an idea. Listen.” Nap tied a dirty bandana around the barrel of his rifle and waved it. “I’m standin’ up, people!” he shouted, taking his guns from leather and dropping them on the ground. “I walk out of here, and I’m gone from this country, and I don’t come back.” He looked at Ace. “You with me?”

“All the way—if they’ll let us leave.”

“I ain’t playin’, Ace. If they let us go, I’m gone far and long.”

“My word on it.”

“How about it, Jensen?” Nap shouted.

“It’s all right with me,” Smoke returned the shout.

“But if I see you again, anyplace, anytime, and you’re wearing a gun, I’ll kill the both of you. That’s a promise.”

“Let’s go,” Nap said. “I always did want to see what’s east of the Mississippi.”

The three of them shifted locations, leaving the dead bodies behind them. They knew all those shots would soon bring other troublehunters on the run.

Louis reached out to stroke the blue steele’s head, and the stallion almost took some fingers off. Louis got his hand out of the way just in time.

“Vicious brute!” he said.

The stallion walled his eyes and showed Louis his big teeth.

“Gentle as a baby,” Sally said, giving him a carrot. The stallion took the carrot as gently as a house pet.

“We’ve got to get Sally out of here,” Smoke said.

“I concur,” Louis said. “However . . .”

“You can both go straight to hell!” she cut off Louis’ words. “I didn’t travel two hundred and fifty miles from the Sugarloaf to sit in some hotel room. I came to stand by my man, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

Smoke shrugged. “You were about to say, Louis? . . .”

“That it might not be possible to get Sally out of the mountains. Bounty hunters and assorted other crud and punks were still pouring into town when I left. We cut the odds down some today, but I’ll wager that double that number came into the mountains.”

Smoke had taken a big, tough-looking horse from the mounts that the dead would no longer need. They had all carried food in their saddlebags, so that problem, at least, was solved. They had plenty of coffee and ammo as well.

“If we could just find a place to hole up until those warrants are lifted,” Smoke said wistfully. He was weary of the killing. Weary of the blood and pain and sweat and tension.

Louis shook his head. “No, my friend. That wouldn’t stop most of them. The blood lust is high and hot now. They’re like hungry predators on a blood scent.”

Smoke drained his coffee cup and tossed the dredges. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got to find a place that we can defend.”

“He’ll make it,” the young doctor said, stepping out of the room and gently closing the door behind him. “That is one tough man in there.”

Charlie Starr was sleeping with the aid of some laudanum.

The doctor dropped three chunks of lead on the table. “I dug one out of his leg, one out of his side, and another was lodged in his arm. Another bullet grazed his head. He’ll have a frightful headache for a time, and a hat would be uncomfortable, but he’ll be flat on his back a long time before he needs a hat.”

“Don’t you bet on that,” Lilly told him. “That’s a warhoss in there in my bed.” She grinned wickedly. “And it ain’t the first time he’s been in my bed.” The doctor blushed. “I’ve wore him down to a frazzle a time or two myself. You got any pills you want me give him?”

“You’re staying with him?”

“Night and day until I’m sure he’s all right.”

Earl stepped into the room. “You’ve got to see this, Johnny,” he said. “You might never see another sight like it.”

Johnny walked outside and stood with Earl and Cotton, staring at the lawyer Larry Tibbson. Larry had bought himself some cowboy clothes, from hat to boots, and was wearing two pearl—handled .45s and carrying a Winchester rifle. There was a bandoleer of ammo looped across his chest.

“He wants to be a deputy,” Earl said.

“Boy,” Johnny said, after he recovered from his shock at the sight. “Are you tryin’ to get yourself killed?”

“I am going into the mountain to aid Miss Sally,” Larry said stiffly.

“Miss Sally don’t need no aid from you,” Johnny bluntly told him. “Boy, if you go blundering around up in them mountains, you probably gonna get lost and eat up by a bear. That’s the best way you might leave this world. The worst is gettin’ taken alive by them outlaws and havin’ them stick your bare feet in a fire for the fun of it.”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Larry informed him. “I’ll have you know that I belong to the New York City Pistol Club, am a very good shot, and have been duck-hunting many, many times.”

“That’s good, Lawyer. Dandy,” Cotton said. “I’m proud of your accomplishments. But have you ever faced a man who was shootin’ at you? And plugged him?”

“Heavens, no!”

The men stood for fifteen minutes, begging and pleading with Larry to give up his plan. He stood firm. Finally Earl sighed. “Go get me a badge, Cotton. We’ll swear him in. That might give him some edge.”

“Get him killed,” Cotton said. He stepped off the boardwalk and paused, looking back. “I seen Mills in town just before the stage run. Did he say anything to any of you? He looked sort of jumpy to me. Excited, I guess it was.”

“No,” Earl said. “I saw him. He met the stage and was gone before I could talk to him. And I wanted to tell him about Charlie.”

“I wonder what he’s got up his sleeve?”

“I shall endeavor to join with that stalwart group,” Larry said.

“Whatever that means,” Cotton said, walking off.

“Here they are,” Mills said excitedly, jumping from his horse. “The warrants on the Lee Slater gang. Saddle up, men! We’re riding for the deep timber.”

The men broke camp quickly and were in the saddle within fifteen minutes.

“We’ve got a few hours of daylight left,” Mills said. “We’ll get in close and camp, hit the outlaws at first light.”

“Ah . . . Mills, We don’t know where they are," Albert pointed out.

“We’ll follow the sounds of shooting,” Mills spoke the words in a grim tone. “And we’ll put a stop to it before it can escalate further.”

The marshals exchanged glances.

“Pin your badges to your jackets,” Mills ordered. “These men have got to learn to respect the law.”

“And you think these badges are going to do that?” Moss asked.

“Certainly!”

“Right,” Winston said, with about as much enthusiasm as a man going to his own hanging.

Larry was dismayed when he could not find a proper English riding saddle anywhere in town. But he was not discouraged. He left town armed to the teeth, sitting in a Western rig, bobbing up and down in the saddle as he had been taught. The horse wore a very curious expression on its face.

“He’s gonna get killed,” Cotton predicted.

“Maybe not,” Earl said. “Men like that seem to lead a charmed life. But there is one thing for certain: he won’t be the same man coming out as he is going in.”

Not a single shot was fired in anger the rest of that day. When the news of the shoot-up on the slopes reached Lee and Luttie, they signaled their men back to camp for a pow-wow.

Even some of the bounty hunters had lost their enthusiasm for the chase.

“Has to be bad when Nap and Ace give it up,”

Dan Diamond opined.

“Big Bob gone,” Morris Pattin said. “He was one tough son of a bitch.”

Several bounty hunters—older, tougher, and wiser hands—quietly packed their gear and pulled out. In the Lee Slater group, Bud, Sack, Cates, Dewey, and Gooden rode into Rio under a white flag and turned themselves in to the sheriff’s deputies. Bud had passed out in the saddle a half a dozen times from the pain in his buttocks.

“We might have to amputate,” the doctor said, after winking at Johnny.

“Cut off my ass!” Bud yelled, then he really started bellering.

Smoke, Louis, and Sally worked until dark rigging their new defensive position above the timberline in the big lonesome. Smoke planted almost all of his dynamite under heavy boulders in carefully selected spots while Louis rigged deadfalls far below their position; they might not fall for them, but it would make them cautious. Then they all set about gathering up wood for a fire.

“We’ll take a lot of them out,” Smoke said. “But they’ll eventually breech our position. Just before they do, we’ll slip out through that narrow pass behind us and blow it closed. It’ll take them half a day to work around this range. By that time we’ll be long gone . . . hopefully,” he added. “We’ll have us a good hot meal this evening. They know where we are; our trail is too easy to follow. Anyway, we’ve got to have a fire this high up; we’d freeze to death without it. Let’s settle in and rest and eat. It’s going to get busy come first light.”

Larry built a fire large enough to endanger the forest. And it wasn’t just for heat. Spooky out here. All sorts of strange sounds were coming out of the darkness surrounding him. Larry imagined huge bears staring at him, vicious packs of wolves, and slobbering panthers waiting to pounce and eat him if he let the flames die down.

He needn’t have Worried about four—legged animals. No woods’ creature would come within a mile of that mini-inferno he kept feeding during the night. All in all, Larry cleared about an acre of land getting fuel for the fire. It looked like Paul Bunyan had been on a rampage.

“Who in the hell is that down yonder?” Curley asked, looking at the glowing bright spot surrounded by a sea of darkness.

“That goofy lawyer we was told about,” Carbone said, returning from his stint on guard. “The one with a crush on Sally Jensen.”

“Oh,” the others said, and dismissed Larry without another thought.

Mills and his marshals came upon Larry just after first light. He was trying—unsuccessfully—to fry a potato in bacon grease.

“You got to peel it and cut it up first,” Moss told him.

“Oh,” Larry said. “I employ a cook back home. I’m not much of a hand in the kitchen.”

“I never would have guessed,” Mills said. “Who are you?” He asked. He’d never seen anyone try to fry a whole potato.

“I am an attorney from back East. I have come into these battle—torn mountains to offer my assistance in bringing to justice the hooligans and ruffians who are endangering Miss Sally Jensen’s life.”

'“Sally Jensen!” the marshals all hollered. Mills said, “Are you saying that Smoke’s wife has joined him?”

“Most assuredly. I am not a man of violence, but with this new development, I felt compelled to pick up arms and race to the rescue.”

“Let me fix breakfast,” Hugh said. “After I build another fire,” he added. “I can’t get within five feet of the one you got.”

“Are you lost?” Winston asked.

“Oh, no.” Larry smiled. “I may not be much of a cowboy—as a matter of fact, I’m not a cowboy at all—but I spent some time at sea. It would be difficult to get me lost anywhere. I take my bearings often.”

“Can you use those guns?” Sharp asked.

“I’ve never shot a man before. But I’m quite good at target shooting. Have you ever shot a man?”

“Ah . . . no,” Sharp admitted.

“Any of you?” Larry questioned.

The marshals all looked embarrassed.

“This is going to be quite an expedition we’re mounting,” Larry mused.

Far in the distance, the faint sounds of gunshots drifted to them.

“I think we’d better forego breakfast,” Larry said.

“Let them bang away,” Smoke said. “They’re far out of range and shooting uphill. All they’re doing is wasting ammunition.”

Louis lay behind cover and counted puffs of smoke until he grew tired of counting. He looked at Smoke. “Over thirty down there.”

“And more coming,” Smoke replied, cutting his eyes to the East.

Sally was looking through field glasses. “Eleven of them. And another bunch right behind them.”

“How many in the second bunch, honey?”

“They’re too far off to make out yet. Now they’ve disappeared into the timber.”

“Gathering like blowflies on a carcass,” Louis said, his words filled with contempt. “Blowflies one day and maggots the next.”

The three of them were in a natural rock depression with a clear field of fire in all directions except the rear. They had hauled in branches and dead logs the previous afternoon and stacked them to their rear, against the stone face. The wood would soak up slugs and would prevent any ricochets. They had lain in a goodly supply of dry dead wood and had eaten a hardy breakfast and had a fresh pot of hot coffee ready to drink.

Sally suddenly giggled. Smoke looked at her.

“You want to tell me what’s so funny about this situation?”

“You remember me telling you about a man named Larry Tibbson?”

“The lawyer fellow from New York who tried to spark you when you both were in college?”

“That’s him.”

“What about him?”

She brought him up to date.

Smoke chuckled, the humor touching his eyes. “He’s got nerve, I’ll give him that. Does he have any idea what might have happened to him had I been home?”

“I think he does now.”

Louis poured them all coffee in tin cups and passed them around. The air was cold early in the morning; the hot coffee and the small fire felt good to them as they waited.

The firing stopped.

“They’ll be moving soon,” Louis said. His eyes touched the eyes of Smoke. The gambler minutely nodded his head. While Sally had slept, Smoke and Louis had talked. Smoke and Sally’s children could get along without a father, but they needed a mother. If bad turned to worse, Louis was to take Sally and make a run for it, even if he had to punch her unconscious to do it. The dynamite was in place, and if Smoke was trapped on this side of the narrow pass, so be it.

“They’re moving,” Sally said. “They’ll be able to get within range of us.”

“Yes. Then we’ll start picking them off,” Louis said. “We have all the advantage. Our position is like a fort. We’re shooting downhill, and that is easier to compensate for than shooting uphill. We have food and water and warmth. Know this now, Sally: come the night, they’d overrun us. At dusk, we’re going to start the avalanche and make a run for it. I . . .”

“I heard you both talking last night,” she said softly. “You won’t have to knock me out to make me go.” She opened her pack and took out a smaller package wrapped in canvas. “These are medicines and bandages, Smoke. Potions to help relieve pain and to fight infection. I did not include any laudanum. I knew even if you were badly hurt, you wouldn’t take it.”

He kissed her gently while Louis discreetly looked away, a smile on his lips. She clung to him for a moment, then pulled back and squared her shoulders and took several deep breaths, getting her emotions under control and blinking away the tears that had gathered. “You come back to me now, you hear me, Smoke Jensen?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smoke smiled at her. “I’m going to take some lead, honey,” Smoke told her. “I’d have to be the luckiest man alive not to. But I’ll make it out of this. And that’s a promise.”

A slug thudded into the logs they had place against the rock wall behind them.

“They’re in range,” Louis said.

Smoke and Sally moved into position. Sally had lain aside her short-barreled carbine and had taken a longer-barreled, more accurate lever action from the saddle boot of a dead outlaw. She lined up the sights on part of a leg that was sticking out from behind a large rock and squeezed off a round.

The man started screaming hideously.

“You busted his knee, baby,” Smoke told her.

“That’s too bad,” she said with a wicked grin. “I was aiming a little higher than that.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Cease and desist,” Mills shouted to a group of riders. “I’m a United States Marshal.”

The riders all jerked iron and began pouring lead at the marshals and Larry. They dove for cover, leading their horses into timber.

“I’m a deputy sheriff of this county!” Larry shouted. “I order you in the name of the law to stop this immediately.”

A slug howled past his nose and slammed into a tree, spraying him with bits of bark and bloodying his chin.

“Cretinous son of a bitch!” Larry mumbled, from his suddenly attained position flat on his belly on the ground. “No respect for law and order.”

“You’re learning,” Mills said. “I had to.”

The riders dismounted and took cover, continuing their firing at the marshals and Larry.

“Did you recognize any of them?” Winston asked.

“No. I think they’re bounty hunters. But that doesn’t make any difference now.” Mills cared back the hammer on his Winchester.

“What do you mean?” Larry asked.

“They were warned as to who we are; they ignored that and fired at lawmen. That makes them criminals.” Mills sighted in one of the manhunters who had taken cover behind a tree that was just a tiny bit too small. He shot the man and knocked him sprawling. “Fire, damnit!” he ordered his men.

Two of the outlaws, or bounty hunters—the trio on the mountain didn’t know and didn’t care which—tried to carry the man with the busted knee down the slope. Smoke and Louis dropped them. The wounded man began his long rolling slide down the slope, screaming in pain as he hit rocks and scrub bushes. When he reached a flat, he lay still, either dead or unconscious.

“Riders coming,” Sally announced, handing Smoke the field glasses.

Smoke studied the men. “Luttie Charles and his bunch. I count . . . ten, no, eleven of them.”

“Getting crowded down there,” Louis remarked, biting the end off of an expensive imported cigar he’d taken from a silver holder and lighting up. When the ash was to his liking he laid the stogie aside and punched two more rounds into his rifle and jacked back the hammer, sighting in on an exposed forearm.

“That’s a good hundred and fifty yards,” Smoke

said. “Five dollars says you can’t make the shot.”

"You just lost five dollars,” the millionaire industrialist/adventurer/gambler said, and squeezed the trigger.

The man yelled as the slug rendered his arm useless. He rolled to one side and exposed a boot. Smoke shot him in the foot, and the outlaw began the slow slide down the slope, hollering and screaming as he rolled and slid downward.

One man jumped out from cover to stop his buddy and Smoke, Sally, and Louis dusted the ground all around him. It was too far for accurate shooting, but after doing a little dancing, the outlaw jumped back into cover, unhit but with a new respect for those three on the mountain.

The arm and foot-shot outlaw rolled off a plateau and fell screaming for several hundred feet. His screaming stopped when he impacted with solid rock. It sounded like a big watermelon dropped from a rooftop to a brick street.

“Fall back! Fall back!” the shout drifted to the trio. “This ain’t no good. We’ll take them come the night.”

“Nap time,” Louis said, and promptly stretched out, his hat over his face, and went to sleep.

The bounty hunters—those left alive—called out their surrender to Mills. They had suffered two dead and four wounded. Mills ordered the dead buried. When that was done, he lined up the living.

“I just don’t have the time to arrest you properly and transport you into Rio for trial and incarceration,” he told them. “But I have your names—whether they are your real names is a mystery that might never be solved—and your weapons. Ride out of here and don’t come back. If I ever see any of you again, I shall place you under arrest and guarantee you all long prison terms. Now, move!”

The manhunters gone, the marshals and Larry exchanged glances. They were all a little shaky from the fire-fight, but all knew they had grown a bit in the experience field.

“I would say we conducted ourselves rather well,” Larry said, trying to stuff and light his pipe with trembling fingers. He finally gave it up and put the pipe into a pocket.

“You did well,” Mills said, putting a hand on Larry’s shoulder. “I believe we all proved our mettle. I’m proud to ride with you, Larry.”

“The shooting appears to have stopped,” Moss said, looking toward the high peaks where they believed Smoke to be holed up.

“That’s still a good day’s ride from here,” Mills said. “Let’s get cracking.”

The day dragged slowly on without another shot being exchanged. The outlaws and bounty hunters built fires for cooking and for warmth and waited for the night.

Smoke was silent for a time, deep in thought. Finally he made up his mind. He looked at his wife. “I want you gone from here, Sally, while there is good light to travel. I don’t see the point in waiting for the night. It’s a pretty good bet that nearly all of the manhunters and outlaws are right down there below us. You should have an easy ride back to Rio. Louis, take her out of here.”

“All right,” the gambler said. “I agree with you. But first let’s load you up full and get you all the advantage we can give you.”

They had taken all the rifles from the saddle boots of the dead outlaws and bounty hunters, as well as a dozen pistols. They were all loaded up full and placed within Smoke’s reach. It would give him a tremendous amount of firepower before having to stop and reload.

Louis slipped out behind the rock wall to saddle up the horses and give Smoke and Sally a few moments alone.

“I’ll make one last plea and then say no more about it,” Sally said. “Come with us.”

Smoke shook his head. “They’d just follow us, and we’d have to deal with it some other place. They’d probably even follow us back to the Sugarloaf or into town and that would get innocent people hurt or killed. So I might as well get it over with here and now.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “See you in Rio, honey.”

“You better get there,” she told him with a forced grin. “ ’Cause if you don’t, I’m going to be awfully angry.”

“Let’s go,” Louis called from behind the rock wall. “We’ve got some clouds moving in.”

Smoke shook hands with the gambler, and then they were gone, the rock wall concealing their departure from the many blood-hungry eyes below them.

Smoke put a fresh pot of coffee on to boil and gave the long fuses leading from his position to the dynamite a visual once-over. Everything seemed in order. He ate slowly, savoring each bite, and then rolled a cigarette and drank several cups of coffee. He knew it was going to be a very long and boring afternoon. But he was going to have to stay alert for any kind of sneak attack the outlaws might decide to launch at him.

Twice he went back to check on his horse. The animal seemed well rested and ready to go. The last time, with about an hour of daylight left, Smoke saddled him up and secured his gear.

As the shadows began to lengthen over the land, Smoke checked all his weapons. He could see the men moving toward him. A lot of men. He checked both flanks; men were moving in and out of the sparse timber and coming toward him. Still out of range, but not for long.

Smoke emptied the coffee pot and kicked out the fire, leaving only a few smoldering sticks. He drank his coffee and pulled his .44-.40 to his shoulder, sighting a man in and gently squeezing the trigger. The rifle fired, and the man fell to his knees, tried to get up, and then pitched forward on his face. Smoke shifted positions and emptied one rifle into the thin timber on his left flank. A scream came from the shadowy scrub. He emptied another rifle into that area and several men ran out, one limping badly, all of them heading down as fast as they dared, getting out of range.

Lead began howling off the rocks in front of him while others slammed into the logs behind him. Men began rushing from cover to cover, panting heavily in the thin mountain air. This high up, the heart must work harder. Smoke fired and one man did not have to worry about breathing any longer.

The .44-.40 slug hit him in the face and tore off most of his jaw. He rolled and bounced his way down the mountain, leaving smears of blood along the way.

Rock splinters bloodied Smoke’s face. He wiped the blood away and shifted to the other side, firing as he went, so the others would not know he was alone on the mountain.

On the right side of his little fort, Smoke noted with some alarm how close the manhunters were getting. He looked straight down the mountain. Men were moving in on him, working their way from sparse cover to sparse cover . . . but still coming. He ended the journey for two of them, head and neck shots. Smoke grabbed up a .44 carbine and began spraying the lead below him as fast as he could Work the lever. That one empty, he grabbed up another and ran to the other side. The manhunters were getting closer. Too damn close. A slug ripped through the outside upper part of his left arm, bringing a grunt of pain.

Time to go!

He ignored the pain and ripped his shirt to see how bad it was. Not too bad. He tied a bandana around the wound, then picked up a smoldering stick and lit the fuses. Smoke ran behind the rock wall and grabbed the horse's reins, running and leading the horse toward the narrow pass. He did not want to be in the saddle when the explosives went off. It was going to make a hell of a lot of noise, and the horse would be spooked.

“I think we got him, boys!” a man yelled. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

The outlaws and manhunters came screaming and yelling triumphantly up the mountain. When no shots greeted them, they began cheering and slapping each other on the back.

The explosives blew, each charge five to ten seconds behind the other. One of Lee’s co-leaders, Horton, about seventy-five yards from the small fort, looked up in horror at the tons of rock cascading toward them. He put a hand in front of his face as if that alone would stop the deadly thunder. A watermelon-sized rock, hurtling through the air, took his hand and drove it into his head.

His buddy, Max, seemed to be rooted to the mountain side, numbed with fear. He would forever be a part of the mountain as tons of rock buried him.

Pecos and his gang of young punks had not advanced nearly so far as the others. Screaming in terror, they ran into the timber and were safe from the deadly cascade.

McKay’s legs were crushed, and Ray was pinned under a boulder. Both lay screaming, watching their blood stain the ground and life slowly ebb from them.

Lee Slater and his group, Al Martine and his pack of no-goods, and part of another team watched from below as the carnage continued high above them.

Al lifted field glasses and grimaced as he watched through the thick dust as Sonny tried to outrun the rampaging tons of rock. He could see the man’s face was tight and white from mind-numbing fear. Sonny was swallowed by the rocks. All but one arm. It stuck out of the huge pile, the fingers working, opening and closing for a moment, a silent scream for help. The fingers suddenly stiffened into a human claw and stayed that way. As soon as the buzzards spotted it they would rip, tear, and eat it to the bone.

Jere and Summers almost made it. They had lost their weapons and were running and falling and stumbling down the mountain. Their mouths were

working in soundless screams, the pale lips vivid in their frightened faces. Several huge boulders hit a stalled rockpile and came over, seeming to gain speed as they traveled through the air.

“Split up!” Al yelled. But his warning came too late and could not be heard over the now-gradually dying roar of the avalanche.

The boulders landed square on the running men, squashing them against the rock surface of the mountain.

Al Martine crossed himself and cursed the day he ever agreed to leave California.

A bounty hunter known only as Chris turned to look behind him and tripped, falling hard, knocking the wind from him. “No!” he screamed, just seconds before the tons of rock landed on him. One boot stuck out of the now-motionless pile of stone. The boot trembled for a moment, then was still.

Huge clouds of dust began drifting upward to join the night skies.

“I’d a not believed no one man could have done all this,” Whit said, his voice husky from near exhaustion. He sank to his knees and put his hands to his face, trying to block from his mind all that he’d just witnessed.

Mac came limping out of .the dust, dragging one foot. Reed was behind him. He did not appear to be hurt.

Luttie Charles, accompanied by his men, walked slowly up the slope to stand by his brother.

“Incredible,” Luttie said, his voice small.

They all cringed and jumped, some yelling and running away, as another dull thud cut the darkening day.

“Musta been a pass back yonder,” Milt said. “And

Jensen just blowed it.”

Rod and Randy giggled.

“Loco!” Lopez muttered.

Luttie started counting. Thirty men left standing here out of nearly seventy. Maybe eight or ten bounty hunters still working the wilderness alone. He coughed as the dust from the avalanche drifted down the mountain. Luttie waved his people farther back.

“Well make camp at the base down yonder,” he said, pointing. “Eat and rest and tomorrow we can take him.”

“How you figure that?” his brother asked.

“You’re forgetting, I know this country.” He turned to his foreman, and the man grinned.

“I’ll take two of the boys and plug up the only hole out of that area,” the man said. “The gambler and the woman probably done made it out, but Smoke won’t try it at night-too dangerous. We got him now, boss. Pinned in like a hog for slaughter.”

The lonely cry of a lobo wolf drifted to them, abruptly changing into the blood-chilling scream of a big puma.

“Look!” the punk Peco yelled, pointing.

At the crest of the mountain, the men could just make out the figure of a man, sitting his saddle. The scream of the puma came again.

“It brings chills to my arms,” Pedro said. “He is calling like el gato. Daring us to come and get him.”

Smoke screamed his panther scream again, the sound drifting and echoing around the mountains, touching all those who hunted him. A big puma answered the call, the scream fading off into the puma’s peculiar coughing sound.

Martine and Pedro looked at each other, neither of them liking this at all.

Smoke threw back his head and howled like a big wolf. It was so real that somewhere in the timber a big wolf replied, others joining in, lifting their voices in respect to a brother wolf.

“I’ve had it,” Reed said. “The rest of you do what you want to, but as for me, I’m gone.”

“You’re yeller! Jeff,” one of Peco’s punks sneered at Reed.

Wrong thing to do.

Reed palmed his .45 and put a hole in Jeff’s chest. The punk hit the rocky ground and died.

“Anybody else want to call me yeller?” Reed said, jacking back the hammer of his pistol.

No one did.

“I'll watch your back for you, Reed,” Dumas said. “You got a right to leave if’n you want to.”

“Let me tell you all something, boys,” Reed said. “That man up yonder was born with the bark on. We’ve all hunted him, trapped him, cornered him, and he’s tooken some lead. Bet on that .. .” He shivered as Smoke’s wolf howl drifted to them; it was soon joined by others. “Jesus God, I can’t stand no more of that. Makes my blood run cold. I think the man’s got some animal in him. Injuns think so.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “And he’ll probably take some more lead afore this is all over. You might get a bunch of lead in him. But you’ll all be dead, and he’ll be standin’ when it’s all over. Bet on it. And I will be too. ’Cause I’m leavin’. Goodbye.”

Smoke howled again.

The men looked toward the crest of the mountain.

Smoke was gone, but his call still wavered in the air.

“Where’d he go?” Crown asked, the question almost a cry of fear.

No one replied. No one knew.

Carbone lifted his hands and looked at them. They were trembling. .

Lopez noticed the trembling hands. “Si,” he spoke softly, in a voice that only Carbone could hear. “I understand. He is of the mountains, one with the animals, brother of the wolf.”

And us?” Carbone asked in a soft tone.

I think, amigo, that if we pursue the last mountain man, we are dead.”

Chapter Twenty

Smoke had approached the pass leading out of the valley very cautiously. He took his field glasses and squinted at the pass in the dim light the moon provided. The pass looked innocent enough, but warning bells were ringing in his head. He picketed his horse and approached the narrow pass on foot. The closer he got the more certain he became that the pass was guarded. He heard the faint whinny of a horse and stopped cold, listening. Another horse answered. Smoke began backtracking.

He returned to his horse and removed the saddle. He took his small pack, two rifles, and his saddlebags, then turned the animal loose. There was plenty of water and good graze in the valley. If the horse never found its way out, it would live a good and uneventful life.

Smoke returned to a spot near the mouth of the pass and rolled up in his blankets after eating a can of beans and the last of his now very stale bread. He slept soundly, awakening while the stars were still diamond—sparkling high above the mountains. He lay for half an hour, mentally preparing for the battle ahead.

They had him trapped, but he had been trapped before. Smoke was outnumbered and out-gunned. He’d been there before, too. He lay in his blankets and purged his mind of all things that did not pertain to survival. He’d had lots of practice at that. He became a huge, dangerous, predatory animal. He became one with the mountains, the trees, the animals, the rocks, and the eagles and hawks that would soon be soaring above him, looking for food.

He came out of his blankets silently. He rolled his blankets in the ground sheet and left them. If the fight lasted more than one day, and he was forced to spend another night in the mountains, well, he’d been cold before. More than once in his life he had lain down on a blanket of leaves with only fresh-cut boughs covering him. He slung one rifle and picked up the other.

He did not think of Sally or his children. He had no thoughts of friends or family. He forced everything except survival from his mind. He had told Louis where he had cached supplies and his horses. If he died in this valley, Louis would see to his stock.

Just as dawn was streaking the sky with lances of silver and gold, Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man, threw back his head and screamed like an enraged panther.

The chirping of awakening birds and chattering of playing squirrels ceased as the terrible scream cut through the forest and echoed around the mountains.

Smoke was telling his enemies to come on; he was ready to meet them.

* * *

"My God!” Mills said, standing at the base of the mountain where so many men had died of gunshots and the avalanche. The sunlight was bright on the side of the slope, the rays reflecting off of dark splotches of dried blood.

“The rumbling we heard yesterday,” Larry said.

“Yes,” Moss replied, looking at the hands and arms and legs sticking out from under tons of rock. His eyes touched upon what was left of two men who’d been crushed under huge boulders, the boulders rolling on after doing their damage.

“I can say in all honesty, I have never seen anything like this,” Winston said.

“Do you suppose the fight is over?” Sharp asked.

“No,” Albert called, squatting down off the rock face. “A group of men rode out of here. Heading that way.” He pointed.

Mills consulted a map he’d purchased at the assayer’s office. “If Smoke is still behind this death mountain, he’s probably trapped. According to this, there is only one way in and one way out of that little valley. And you can bet the outlaws and bounty hunters know it and have sealed off the entrance.”

“How far are we from the mouth of that pass?”

Larry asked.

“I’m not sure, but—”

The sounds of a shot echoed to them.

“It’s started,” Hugh said.

Smoke opened the dance, His .44-.40 barked, the slug taking Dumas in the throat. The outlaw gasped and gurgled horribly and died as he watched his life’s blood gush from the gaping wound.

Smoke lay about seventy-five yards from the mouth of the pass and watched and waited with all the patience of a great puma sunning itself.

“We got ourselves an em-pass-see goin’ here,”

Tom Post said.

“A what?” Lee asked.

“We can’t go in, and he can’t come out.”

Rod and Randy giggled.

One-Eye looked at Morris Pattin and shook his head in disgust. Morris nodded his head in complete agreement.

“We got to go in,” Luttie said. “We got to get him. It’s a matter of honor, now. We’re finished in this country. No matter what, we’re done here.”

Ed and Curt exchanged glances and began crawling toward the mouth of the pass. They passed the bloody body of Dumas and tried not to look at it. Slowly, one by one, the others followed them, staying low on their bellies, offering Smoke no target. They knew that some of them were going to die breeching the mouth of that narrow pass. They also knew that once inside, they could track Smoke Jensen down and kill him. The money was unimportant now. Not even a secondary thought. Their honor was at stake. One man, Smoke Jensen, with a little help, had nearly destroyed a huge gang. He had to pay. That was their code.

They understood it, and Smoke Jensen understood it.

Bobby Jackson jumped up and ran toward the rocky mouth of the pass, firing as fast as he could work the lever of his rifle. Smoke put a slug into his belly, and the man folded up on the ground, his rifle clattering on the rocks.

But four outlaws had worked a dozen yards closer to the entrance.

A bounty hunter called Booker ran into the clearing and jumped for cover. He almost made it through unscathed. Smoke’s .44-.40 barked, and the slug hit Booker in the hip, turning him in the air. He hit the ground hollering in pain. But he was inside the valley and still holding onto his rifle.

“Come on!” Booker shouted, and began laying down a withering fire, forcing Smoke to keep his head down.

Tom Post, Martine, and Mac made it inside the valley and fanned out. Smoke saw them and backed up, crawling on his belly into a thick stand of timber. The other manhunters poured into the valley, sensing victory. That was very premature thinking on their part.

A rifle slug grazed the side of Smoke’s head, knocking him to one side and addling him for several moments. He felt the warm stickiness of blood oozing down his cheek. He forced himself to ignore it as he shifted positions.

Smoke found better cover and sighted in on a man. Mac took the slug just below his belt buckle and hit the ground howling, unable to move his legs. The bullet had angled up and exited out his back, tearing his spinal cord. Keno dragged the screaming man back toward the entrance to the valley.

“I cain’t move my legs!” Mac hollered. “I’m crippled. Finish me, Keno.”

“All right,” the outlaw said, and shot the man between the eyes.

Outside the valley, reporters and the curious had gathered nearby, but not so close as to risk getting shot. After Louis and Sally had told their stories, the town of Rio emptied in a rush. Saloonkeepers had set up shop and were doing a brisk business in the wilderness. They kept people busy racing back and forth to town for more whiskey.

Sally was bathing in Louis’ quarters. She had no intention of returning to the wilderness. She would be waiting here for her man—when he returned. Not if. When. Louis had posted one of his men at the front and at the back of his quarters, with orders to shoot to kill any man who tried to breech Sally’s privacy.

Louis was sitting by Charlie Starr’s side, in a chair by the bed. Charlie was pale and hurting, but getting stronger.

“I know that valley,” Charlie said. “Found it with Kit back in ’48. Peaceful, pretty little place.”

“It isn’t peaceful now,” Louis told him.

“How many you guess are in there after him?”

“Twenty to thirty.”

“He’ll take lead.”

“He knows it. And so does Sally. But this last round is his. He told me so.”

“It’s got to be that way, Louis. It’s the code of the mountain man. Preacher taught him that. You and me, we just shortened the odds some.” He sighed. “I’ve known that boy for a long time. Me and Preacher went way back together. Them gunnies in that valley now, they don’t really know what they’re up agin. It’s been play time so far. Now Smokes gonna get nasty. He laid in his blankets this mornin’ and put ever’thing out of his mind except stayin’ alive. He Injuned and made his peace with the gods. Asked the wind and the rain and the lightning and the animals and the trees and the mountains to help him. He’s not quite human now, Louis. And as bad hurt as he might get, when this is over, he might stay up there for several hours or several days, fixin’ his mind so’s he can once more be fit to associate with normal human bein’s. Depends on how bad it gets in his head.”

Louis stirred in his chair. “I never saw him the way you just described him.”

“Be thankful. It’s a fearsome sight.”

Lilly came in and shooed Louis out. She took a bottle of sleeping medicine from the bureau and poured a tablespoon full. Charlie took it without grumbling. He smiled at the madam.

“When I get my strength back, I’m gonna repay you, Lilly.” He winked.

She returned the wink. “The saddle’ll be ready for you to ride, Charlie. Now go to sleep.” She drew the curtains to the small quarters in the big wagon. As she stepped down to the ground, her eyes flicked to the mountains. She’d been knowing Smoke Jensen ever since he was just a little tadpole roaming the country with that old reprobate Preacher. She’d heard Charlie telling Louis about how Smoke turned into some sort of unstoppable inhuman creature when he got all worked up. She knew it to be fact. She’d seen it one time. She hoped to God she never had to see it again. But she would, at least one more time. And soon.

It was a terrible, fearsome thing to witness.

* * *

Steve Bolt was crawling through the lushness of the little valley. He had dreams of being the man who killed Smoke Jensen. The money wasn’t important—it was the reputation he sought.

“Lars?” he whispered. His partner was supposed to be a few yards away, to his right.

Lars didn’t reply.

“Lars! Come on, man, where are you?”

Steve raised up on his elbows, and his face froze with fear. Lars was standing up, sorta like a scarecrow, both arms wedged over low branches. His throat had been cut. Steve stood up to his knees, opening his mouth to scream.

A spear, about six feet long and sharpened on one end, caught him in the chest and drove all the way through him. Steve uttered a long, low moan as the pain registered in his brain. Both hands gripped the spear, and he tried to pull it out. He screamed in pain and gave that up.

“What’s the matter, Steve?” another manhunter called in a low whisper.

Steve could only grunt in pain. His eyes were fixed on a tall, very muscular man who suddenly appeared about ten yards in front of him. He was hatless, his face bloody. His shirtfront was bloody. But it was his eyes that froze Steve’s tongue. The brown eyes had a gold tint about them—they seemed to glow with rage. The man—it had to be Jensen—held several long spears in his left hand.

“Steve!” the call came again.

Steve found his voice and screamed like he had never done before in his life. He cut his eyes. The tall bloody man had disappeared.

“Good God!” the third bounty hunter said, running over to Steve. His eyes touched the lifeless body of Lars, hanging from the branches. “No,” he whispered.

That was the last thing he whispered. A long spear, hurled with strength that the average man only dreams about, struck the manhunter in the chest with such force it knocked him back against a tree. He died on his boots.

Keno was the first to find the three bounty hunters. He immediately dropped to his knees for cover and looked wildly around him. His mouth and throat and lips were suddenly very dry. And he realized that he was scared. Very badly seared. He’d been an outlaw since no more than a boy; he’d done some terrible, awful things and seen even worse. But he had never before faced such a man as Smoke Jensen. There were no rules. Jensen was a savage, through and through. Worser than any damn Injun that ever lived.

“Martine?” Keno called as softly as he could and still have a chance to be heard.

“’Bout twenty yards behind you, Keno. What you got?”

“Steve, Lars, and that other fellow. All dead. Lars’ throat is cut ear to ear. Steve and his buddy was kilt with spears.”

Martine cursed softly in Spanish.

“Que haces?” Lopez questioned.

Mason Wright came running up, both hands filled with Colts. His eyes became wild with rage when he saw the three dead bounty hunters. “Jensen!” he screamed. “Goddamn you, Jensen. Me and Lars was compadres. You’ll pay for this, you cowardly bastard. Step out here, face me.”

A rifle cracked and a blue-black hole appeared in Mason’s forehead. The gunfighter slumped to the ground, stayed on his knees for a moment, then fell over on his face. Both Colts went off when he hit the ground, and Keno screamed in pain as a slug tore through his shin and exited out the back of his calf. He rolled on the ground, yelling.

“Oh, Jesus!” Keno squalled. “You shot me, you stupid idiot! Oh, God, it hurts.”

Luttie ran up, looked around, and hit the ground. “Fill the woods with lead,” he yelled.

“Everybody start shooting.”

Lead started flying from all directions in all directions. “Don’t shoot at me, you fools!” Luttie screamed. “Form a skirmish line, left and right of me. Jesus Christ, men, think!”

The outlaws and bounty hunters formed up and began filling the timber ahead of them with lead. But Smoke was gone. He knew if he was to survive, he had to think twice as fast as the outlaws and be two steps ahead of them at all times.

He chanced a return to the pass entrance, hoping against hope. But after scanning the entrance, he knew it had been posted with men. Safely behind and to the north of the outlaws, Smoke paused for a short rest while he looked around him at the high peaks surrounding the valley. Was this valley really a box? He knew a lot of cowboys called any canyon or valley they could not ride a horse out of a box. Maybe it was—maybe it wasn’t. He was going to find out. Only problem was, he had no blankets to combat the intense cold of the high lonesome should he be trapped up there and have to spend the night.

A bullet slammed into a tree, just missing his head. Smoke jumped for cover.

“Here he is!” came the shout. “Come on, boys. Now we got him.”

“Where, Malone?”

“Work your way north towards me. I’ll keep him pinned down. That’ll put him ’twixt you and me.”

Smoke put a .44-.40 ’twixt Malone’s ribs, right in the center of the V of the ribcage.

“Oh, God!” Malone yelled. “He plugged me.”

Smoke ran to Malone and kicked the man’s rifle away from him, smiling as he saw the rolled up ground sheet and blanket tied across the man’s back. He tore it from him and took his pistols.

“Help me,” Malone moaned.

Smoke pointed his rifle at Malone and jacked back the hammer.

“Oh, Jesus!” the outlaw squalled. “Not thataway!”

“Then shut up and die quietly.” Smoke was gone, running into the timber north of the gutshot outlaw and at the base of a formidable-looking peak.

“He’s run towards the mountains, boys!” Smoke heard Malone’s yell, and knew he had to stand and fight for a time.

He bellied down behind a rotting log and punched rounds into his Winchester. One outlaw ran across the small clearing, running to help Ma-

lone. Smoke dropped him. The man threw his rifle high into the air and hit the ground. He did not move.

“You a devil, Jensen!” Malone yelled. “He was a-comin’ to help me.”

“Stay along the timberline,” Luttie told his men. “Don’t expose yourselves.”

“What about Malone?” Jake asked.

“You want to go help him?”

Jake did not reply. The men stayed in cover until Malone’s screaming ceased. They did not know if he had passed out or if he was dead. Most didn’t care one way or the other.

“He’s tooken Malone’s bedroll,” Whit said. “See yonder. It’s gone.”

“He’s going to try for the peaks,” Lee said. “But you said this was a box.”

“It is.” But that nagged at Luttie. He knew there were only two ways that a man could ride a horse in or out. Jensen had blown one of them closed. But was it possible for a man to climb out? He didn’t know. He’d never tried it, and didn’t know of anyone who ever had.

Luttie silently cursed. But if any man could climb out, it would be that damn Smoke Jensen.

“Fan out,” Luttie ordered. “We can’t let him get into the highup. Remember what he done last time.”

The outlaws and manhunters started cautiously fanning out. Some of them were rapidly losing their taste for the hunt and would leave if they got a chance. Honor be damned.

Smoke silently melted into the timber and the brush, climbing higher. He would pause now and then to scan the peaks with field glasses. A cup of coffee would taste good right now, but he didn’t have any and could not dare risk a fire even if he did.

He found a small pool of clear, cold water and bathed his wounds carefully, treating them with the medicines Sally had packed for him. The wounds were not serious, and he knew that high altitudes slowed infections.

Smoke took the time to rig some deadfalls and other more lethal traps. That done, he hiked up another hundred yards and found a good location. To hell with it! He was tired and was going to rest.

“Come on, boys,” he muttered. “You want me, here I am!”

Chapter Twenty-one

They almost got him.

It was one of those freak shots that had nothing at all to do with skill. The slug howled off a rock, hit a tree a glancing blow, and struck Smoke in the side. Had it not lost much of its force, it probably would have killed him.

Smoke looked at the hole in his side. The bullet had hit the fleshy part of his back and exited out the front. It looked awful, hurt like hell, but was not a serious wound. It was, however, going to impede any attempts at climbing.

Smoke shifted positions, working his way out of the rocks and getting into a natural depression that offered less chance of a ricochet. He checked the sun. About ten o’clock, he figured. It was going to be a very long day.

Smoke sighted in what appeared to be a man’s arm and fired. He missed his shot, but the outlaw yelled and scrambled back down the hill, finding a more protected spot.

Smoke kept his head down while the lead hammered and howled all around him. He knew they were advancing toward him during the fusillade, but it couldn’t be helped. While the outlaws frantically punched fresh rounds into their rifles, Smoke sighted in a man running hard for cover . . . and alarmingly near Smoke’s position. The .44-.40 slug busted him, turning him around like a top. Smoke’s second shot ended the spin.

“He got Tap!” a man yelled, jumping up in anger and excitement.

Smoke got him, too. He couldn’t tell if it was a killing shot, but the man went down limp and didn’t move.

“Damn!” he heard a man say. “Whit’s had it.”

“I’ve had it too,” another man said. “I’m gone. Done. Finished.”

Two more agreed with him, and Smoke let them leave, even though he had a clear shot at one of them and a maybe shot at another.

Smoke pulled back. He was so muddy and bloody he blended in with the earth and the foliage. He ached all over and longed for a hot tub of water with a big bar of soap. What he got was dirt and rocks and twigs kicked into his face by a bullet. He wiped his vision clear and slipped into cover, hia face bleeding.

He watched through a sturdy mountain bush as a man limped from one tree to another. Smoke ended his limping with a single shot.

“Damnit!” a man said. “I told Keno to head back out of the valley.”

“He shore ain’t goin’ nowheres now,” another man said. ’Ceptin’ the grave, if he’s lucky.”

“I want his boots,” a man yelled. “l was with him when he stole ’em. Them’s brand new. Mine’s wore slap out.”

Keep talking, Smoke thought, shifting around to face the direction of the closest voice and caring back the hammer on his Winchester.

He waited and saw what he felt was the tip of a boot. The boot moved just a bit, exposing several more inches of leather. He laid a bead and squeezed the trigger. A howl of pain erupted from behind the cluster of low rocks.

“My foot’s ruint!” a man yelled. “Oh, God, it hurts! He blowed my toes off.”

“Now you shore need some boots,” a man told him, ending it with a dirty laugh.

Smoke put three fast rounds into the bushes where he felt the smart-mouth was hiding. He watched as a man rose slowly to his feet. He looked down at his bullet-perforated and bloody shirt front. “You bastard,” the outlaw said, then toppled over on his face.

“It ain’t workin’, Luttie,” the sound came to Smoke. “He’s pickin’ us off one by one.”

“Then leave, you yeller-belly!” Luttie said. “You’re paid up. Haul your ashes.”

“I believe I’ll just do that little thing. I’m pullin’ out, Jensen. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Don’t shoot. I’m gone.”

Smoke let him go while the remaining outlaws poured lead into Smoke’s position. Smoke stayed low, hating it, knowing they were inching closer, but unable to prevent it.

He heard panting coming from only a few feet away and knew if he didn’t move, they would have him cold.

“Goddamnit, he must have moved!” the voice was only inches away.

“He’s got to be in there. Are you stone blind, Crown?” Lee yelled.

No. Crown was just stone dead. Smoke shot him in the belly at point-blank range, pulled out the man’s twin Remingtons and emptied them downhill. He lunged out of the hole and ran into the bushes, lead whining and howling and clipping branches and thudding into trees all around him.

“Somebody kill him, damnit!” Luttie screamed. “Cain’t nobody shoot straight no more?”

Smoke climbed higher, pausing often to rest. His wounds were taking a toll on him, gradually sapping his strength. Although still bull-strong, he couldn’t last another day; he knew that. He had to bring this fight to an end.

Something slammed into his head and knocked him spinning. The last thing he remembered was falling into darkness.

“They claim they killed him,” Mills said, after speaking to several people in the huge crowd around the mouth of the valley entrance.

“I don’t believe it,” Winston said.

Mills shrugged his shoulders. “Smoke is a mortal man, Winston. A big tough bear of a man, but still mortal. Look, I don’t want to believe it either, but face facts. He’s been fighting terrible odds for days.”

“Where’s the body?” Larry asked, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“They said he fell down into a ravine. No way to retrieve the body. But they have his rifle.”

“Oh, my God!” Hugh shook his head. “It must be true.”

“We’ll arrest the outlaws as they come out,” Mills ordered. “If they offer just the slightest hint of resistance, kill them on the spot.”

“You don’t mean that, Mills!” Sharp said.

“The hell I don’t!”

Sally looked up into the face of Lilly LaFevere. Johnny North, Cotton, Earl, and Louis were with her. All their faces were grim.

“Give it to me straight,” Sally said.

“Word is they killed your man, honey.”

“Where’s the body?”

“A bounty hunter told a reporter that it can’t be recovered. Smoke supposedly fell off into a ravine after being shot in the head,” Louis said grimly “We’re riding to the valley. Sheriff Silva and a posse are here now, to keep order. Stay with her, Lilly.”

“I’ll do that.”

Cold.

Smoke opened his eyes and for one panicky moment felt he was blind. But it was dried blood that had caked his eyes shut. He dug the blood away with as little movement as possible, not wanting to draw attention. His entire left side hurt, and the right side of his head throbbed with pain. But not ins? left side. Curious. He wondered how that could be?

When his vision cleared, he realized just how bad his position was.

He was lying on a ledge that jutted out a few yards from the face of the ravine. It was about a five hundred foot drop to the bottom. Smoke looked up and guessed that he’d fallen no more than fifteen or twenty feet. When he hit, the bedroll had protected his head. That was why only the bullet-creased side ached. When he hit, he had rolled against the face of the cliff, protected from eyes above by a little outcropping of rock. He was stiff and sore and bruised all over . . . but he was alive.

He lay still for a moment, going over his problems, and they were many. He rolled over on his stomach and had to stifle a groan of pain as his torn and bruised body protested.

The ledge snaked around a bend. He had no idea what lay around that bend. He had no rope to aid in his climbing out. He had no idea how badly hurt he might be. He had no idea how far the ledge ran. If he stayed where he was, he would die. It was that simple. If he tried to climb out, the odds of his making it were slim to none.

But he damn sure was going to try.

Food. He had to eat. He fumbled around in his saddle bag and found some hard crackers. He ate them, drank a swallow of water left in his busted canteen, and felt better. If I felt any worse, he thought with dark humor, I’d be dead.

Smoke wriggled around on the ledge, being very careful not to get too close to the edge, for the rock looked very flaky and unstable there. On his belly, he checked his guns which had stayed in leather thanks to the hammer thongs. The guns were dirty, and he carefully cleaned them, working the action and reloading. He checked the knife on his belt and the shorter-bladed knife in his leggings. Both were still in place and both still sharp enough to shave with.

Smoke was tired, so very, very tired. He would have liked to just lay his head on his arm and go to sleep. Maybe just rest for a few moments. He shook himself like a big shaggy dog. No time for rest. He felt for his pocket watch and was not surprised to see it busted, the hands stopping at eleven—thirty—five. He judged the time to be close to four, maybe four-thirty. He didn’t have all that much daylight left him.

Taking a deep breath, he crawled forward.

Wouldn’t it be interesting, he thought, to come face to face with a mountain lion on this narrow trail with a five hundred foot drop below?

He decided it would not be interesting. Just deadly for one of them.

He crawled on, smiling at what faced him a few yards around the curve in the trail. The mountain pass ended, but it did not end sheer; it ended in an upside down V. Now, if there were just sufficient handholds or jutting rocks that were stable, he could climb out. It was only about twenty feet to the top, and he could hear no sounds above him except the sighing of the mountain winds. He reached the end of the narrow ledge and rested for a time. God, he was worn out.

Smoke crawled to his knees and put one foot on the other side of the narrow gorge. He willed himself not to look down. The slight protruding of rock felt secure under his foot, and he leaned forward, gripping two outcroppings, one in each hand. He lifted his left foot to a toehold about two feet off the trail, and now he was committed to the mountain.

It took him twenty minutes to climb about twenty feet, and using brute strength while dangling over a five hundred foot drop was not something he wished to repeat. Ever.

When he crawled over the top he was exhausted.

If he had not been wearing leather gloves, he probably would not have made it; the rocks would have cut his hands to bloody ribbons. He belly-crawled into a copse of timber and rolled up in his blankets. He had to rest.

“Can you believe this?” Mills almost shouted the words, as he waved a court Order that was hand-delivered to him that afternoon.

“Yeah, I can believe it,” Johnny said. The marshals and the deputies had returned to town after the court order had been delivered.

Judge Richards had obviously pre-signed pardons for all the outlaws in the Lee Slater gang The order had just been found and delivered.

“I turned all the jailed outlaws loose,” Earl said. “I thought Sheriff Silva was going to have a heart attack.”

It was midnight in Rio, and the town was sleeping. The outlaws were due to ride in the next day, as soon as the reward money was stagecoached in on the afternoon stage, to collect their blood money. And outlaws being what they are, they were also going to collect the reward money that had been on the heads of their now departed friends.

“The end of an era,” Larry said, soaking his feet in a bucket of lukewarm water. “I would have liked to have met Mr. Smoke Jensen, to shake his hand and tell him how wrong I was about him.”

“Don’t sell Smoke short,” Louis said. “I’ll not believe he’s dead until I see the body.”

“But he fell off a mountain!” Mills said. “Or rather down into a deep chasm.”

“Yes,” the gambler said. “And chasms and ravines have outcroppings that are not always visible from above. I don’t believe he’s dead.”

“Neither do I,” Johnny said. “Hurt, yes. Dead?” He shook his head. “No.”

“Sally?” Earl asked.

“I don’t think she believes it either.”

“I aim to be in the street when them outlaws ride in tomorrow,” Johnny said.

“Me, too,” Cotton said.

“I’ll be with you boys,” Earl made three. “I shall certainly be there,” Louis said, standing up.

“Count me in,” Larry surprised them all. “I owe this much to his memory. I certainly maligned the man while he was alive.”

Six U.S. Marshals’ badges hit the desk. “And we shall be standing with you,” Mills said.

“Gonna he a hell of a party,” Cotton summed it up with a wicked grin.

Smoke awakened at midnight. He was aching and sore, but feeling a lot better. His clothes were stiff with dried blood and mud and sweat, but his hands opened and closed easily. He rolled his blankets and started walking. Less than an hour later, he found a riderless horse, still saddled and bridled. Probably had belonged to one of the dead outlaws or bounty hunters. He stripped saddle and bridle from the animal and let it graze and roll while he went through the saddlebags and poke-sack and found food, coffee, frying pan, and coffee pot.

He checked out the rifle in the boot; it was loaded full with .44s. He led the horse back behind some boulders and picketed the animal. Then he built a fire and fried bacon and potatoes and made a pot of coffee. Being a coffee-loving man, he drank the coffee right out of the pot while his food was cooking, then he settled down and ate leisurely and drank more coffee out of a cup.

An hour later, he had carefully put out the fire and was in the saddle, riding for the pass. The pass was deserted when he rode through it. On the other side of the pass, however, he could see where it looked like hundreds of people had held a wild party. Empty beer kegs and empty whiskey bottles lay all over the place.

“I wonder if they were celebrating the news of my death?” he muttered, then rode on.

He came upon what appeared to be a dead man lying by the side of the road that led to Rio. He dismounted and knelt down beside him, rolling him over. Not dead, just dead drunk. Smoke slapped him awake.

The man opened his eyes and started to scream when he recognized the man standing over him. Smoke put a hand on the man’s mouth, shushing him.

“Don’t yell,” he told him. “You understand?”

“But you’re dead!” the man said, after Smoke removed his hand.

“I’m a long way from being dead,” Smoke corrected him. “Do I look dead to you?”

“No. But you shore look some terrible tore up.”

“Tell me what went on back by the pass.”

The man brought Smoke up to date, still convinced he was conversing with a ghost.

“I see,” Smoke said, when the man had finished. “You're going to freeze to death if you lay out here the rest of the night.”

“It don’t seem to have bothered you none! ’Sides, I got me a claim about a mile from here. I can make it, providin’ I don’t run into no more ghosts.”

Chuckling, Smoke left the man and rode on. Just about ten miles outside of town, Smoke found a good place to camp and bedded down for the rest of the night. He slept deeply and awakened well after dawn, feeling at least part of his enormous strength once more returning to him. He did a few exercises, copied after a great cat’s stretchings, to get the kinks out of his muscles, then cooked the last of the dead outlaw’s food and boiled the last of the coffee.