Out of Range

TWENTY-NINE

A half hour before the sun broke over the eastern mountains, while the mist still hung tight to State Lake, Joe heard the black gelding snort in alarm. From somewhere in the shadowed trees where the trail tunneled through, an approaching horse called back. Joe's eyes shot open in his sleeping bag, and despite the cold, it was as if an electric current had jolted him awake.

He had bedded down on a ground cloth in the tall grass behind a gnarled stand of ancient pine trees. Somewhere around three in the morning, after rereading the spiral notebook and coming to surprising conclusions, he felt he could no longer stay in the cabin and wait. He felt trapped in there, with no way of knowing if Smoke was coming back for him and, if so, from which direction. So he had stoked up the stove so that smoke would curl out of the chimney pipe as if the cabin were occupied, and dragged his sleeping bag and the ground cloth out into the night. He slept in his clothing with the shotgun parallel to his legs.

Sitting up, he could see the front door of the cabin through the tree trunks. The black gelding, his ears straight up, looked down the trail in the direction where the approaching horse had responded. It was colder than he had anticipated as he unzipped his sleeping bag, the cold numbing his hands and face. He rolled out of the bag, hearing the frozen grass crunch beneath him. He rose to his knees and stayed hidden behind brush while peering down the trail in the same direction the gelding was looking.

Smoke, who had obviously dismounted, appeared out of the shadows on foot. His big blocky form was unmistakable. Clouds of condensation billowed around his head, then snapped away into the air. Joe thought it was remarkable that a man so large could walk so quietly.

It took ten minutes for Smoke to position himself in front of the door of the cabin. The outfitter had approached as if he were hunting-taking a few slow steps, stopping to look around, sniff the air, and listen. Joe was frozen on his knees, the icy metal of the shotgun stinging his hands.

Smoke held his big revolver in one hand and the bottle of Wild Turkey in the other. Joe could see less than a half-inch of the liquid sloshing in the bottle as the man moved. There was a clumsiness about him, his movements slow and deliberate. Joe tried to remember how much whiskey had been left the night before-a half-bottle at least.

"Joe Pickett, you in there?" Smoke hollered at the door. "Come out, sir. Let's settle this." To Joe, it sounded like "Lesh settle thish." Smoke was blind drunk.

Joe rose to his feet, hoping his knees wouldn't pop from the cold and alert Smoke. He shouldered the shotgun and stepped quietly through the brush and trees until he was less than twenty feet behind the outfitter.

He racked the pump of the shotgun. "Drop your weapon and turn around, Smoke" Joe's voice sounded stronger than he thought it would. He fought a trembling in his chest muscles that wasn't from the cold.

Smoke snorted as if amused, and his shoulders listed as he turned his big head slightly. "Didn't expect you to be there," he slurred. "I expected you'd be all nice and warm in your cabin."

"Drop the gun, Smoke."

Smoke turned a little more. The gun remained at his side. "Didn't I hear that somebody took a gun off of you once? An outfitter?"

Joe was thinking the same thing, but he didn't answer. That had happened five years before, but would always stay with him.

"Drop it and we'll talk. My offer still stands"

"Oh, the offer," Smoke said. "I'm not taking it. I tole you that."

Clumsily, Smoke turned and the quick movement seemed to make him swoon. He staggered, regained his balance, set his feet, and looked through bloodshot eyes at Joe.

"That was a good trick, hiding in the grass"

"I expected you to come back," Joe said. "I didn't want things to get western."

Smoke nodded slowly, as if Joe had delivered a complicated theory and it took him a moment to digest it.

"But they will," Smoke said.

"They don't have to."

"This is the way I go out," Smoke said, as much to himself as to Joe. "In a blaze of glory. What do you think I could do if my license was taken away from me? If I lost my grandpa's elk camp?"

"There are plenty of things to do," Joe said.

"Then why aren't you doin' 'em?" he asked, and smiled. "Instead, you're sleeping in the cold with a damned shotgun"

"Smoke-"

"It ends here," Smoke said, squinting. "I just got to figure out which one of you to shoot" The muzzle of the revolver started to rise, and Joe could see its gaping mouth.

"Don't do that," Joe said. "Come on …"

The pistol fell back. Smoke grinned. "What, can't you shoot a fella who's looking you in the eye?"

Joe thought about the bear, how he had frozen. How Trey had fired because Joe couldn't. This was different, though, he thought. Smoke wasn't really going to go through with this. Hell, Joe thought, I like Smoke.

"There you are," Smoke growled. "I got a fix on you now."

Casually, Smoke raised the gun again and fired. The explosion was ear-shattering, and despite the sudden red-hot roar of pain in his side and the ringing echoing in his head, Joe could hear dry pine needles rain down on the grass.

"Got you," Smoke said, letting the gun down slowly from where it had kicked over his head until it settled again at eye level. His watery eyes were swimming. "Why ain't you fallin'?"

Joe peered down the barrel of his shotgun and shot Smoke square in the middle of his chest. He racked in another slug as Smoke stumbled back a few feet, a confused look on his face. He could see a wisp of smoke rising from a hole the size of a quarter in the outfitter's sheepskin coat.

Joe watched the gun, which had dropped back to Smoke's side, start to rise again.

"Don't make me …" Joe said.

The gun rose unsteadily but purposefully, and Joe shot him again in the chest. This time, the outfitter dropped straight down as if he were a puppet with his strings clipped. His gun fell to the ground on one side, the whiskey bottle on the other.

"Oh, my God," Joe said, running to Smoke and falling to his knees. The outfitter was breathing shallowly in quick breaths, his eyes fluttering, his face horribly contorted.

Smoke said, "It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts…"

Beneath him, a pool of dark blood flooded through the grass, steaming in the cold with a sharp metallic smell.

"It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts …"

Setting his shotgun aside, Joe found one of Smoke's big callused hands and squeezed it. There was no pressure back. The outfitter coughed a wet, hacking cough and a dollop of blood shot out through one of the holes in his coat, spattering Joe's sleeve.

"Smoke?"

"It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts …"

Joe looked up toward the cabin, wondering stupidly if there was a first-aid kit inside. But the outfitter had taken two twelve-gauge slugs in his chest. There was no way anyone could fix him now, or save him.

"Smoke, can you hear me?"

It really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts…

With a rattle that sounded exactly like a playing card in a bicycle spoke, Smoke seized up and his hand clenched back and his last blood-smelling copper breath wheezed out of his chest like a bellows.

Joe stayed motionless, his eyes closed tight, until the sun broke over the mountains moments later and he felt the sudden warmth on his back. Letting Smoke's hand drop, he stood and his head reeled, and he nearly fell on top of the body. His side screamed at him, and his right arm was shaking uncontrollably. For the first time, he looked down. Blood had soaked through his three layers of clothing and glinted darkly in the morning sun. He took a sharp breath through gritted teeth, hoping the pain would stop searing him, but it didn't. He needed something to put the fire out.

Blindly lurching through the trees, almost tripping over his sleeping bag, he made it to the rocky edge of the lake and pitched forward into the icy water.

As the water numbed him and pink curlicues of blood swirled to the surface from where the bullet had creased his ribs and inner arm, he thought, I've shot and killed a man, and it was awful.