“Goddamnit!” he cursed. “I’ll see you in Hell, Black. I’ll personally send you there.”
He looked around him. “Where are you, Sally?”
The wind sighed and gave no answers.
“But, Jeanne…?” Toni said.
“If she’s alive, we’ll find her,” Sally assured the woman. “Right now we’ve got to stay low and quiet. The raiders are still beating the bushes for us. Now stay calm. We’ll get out of this.”
“Your husband…?” Toni whispered.
“My husband is a hard man to kill. Now listen to me, Toni. These words are going to sound unfeeling to you. But I know how Smoke thinks. Smoke can take care of himself. If he’s alive. And I’ve got to face that. Right now, he would want me to concentrate on survival. That’s what we’ve got to do. We’re no good to anybody dead. Come the night, I’ve got to strip some pants off of a dead hand and get you in them and out of that stupid-looking riding habit.”
“Men’s pants!”
“Yes, damnit, men’s pants. That thing you’re wearing would hang up on every twig and branch. We’ve got to be able to move quickly and silently. Have you ever fired a gun?”
“Heavens no!”
“This valley we’re in. How long is it?”
“I…don’t know. But it’s very long and winding. Miles. And Sally? There aren’t that many ways in and out.”
“I was afraid of that. They chose the ambush site well. We’re boxed in and you can bet they’ve got the passes covered. So we’re better off staying right here for the time being. Well, I’ve got a rifle and my pistol, and my cartridge belt is full. Right now, we need blankets and food and water. Horses would be nice, but I think we’re probably better off on foot. Now, Toni, you stay right here. Don’t you move one inch from this spot. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t leave me, Sally!”
“I’ve got to. I’ve got to get supplies. If I don’t, we’ll die. Don’t move from here, Toni. For God’s sake, don’t move.”
“I promise I won’t. I swear it, Sally.”
“I won’t be gone long. Perhaps an hour. If I’m lucky, less than that. You stay low and quiet.” She smiled at the woman. “You’re tougher than you think, Toni. We all are when the going gets rough.” She patted her arm and slipped into the brush. Away from Toni, she paused to compose herself. She was scared, but she couldn’t let Toni see that.
“Smoke, honey,” she muttered. “Where are you?”
6
Sally found Jake’s body. The boy had been gut-shot and had dragged himself off in the bushes to die.
“Dear merciful God,” Sally murmured. “Fifteen years old.” She tugged the boy’s jeans off and started to cover him up, then thought better of it. That would be a sign that she sure wouldn’t want the raiders to find. “Sorry, Jake. You were a good hand.”
Unlike Smoke, she had caught a glimpse of the brand on the horses of the raiders. The Circle 45. And one had seen her looking at the brand just a second before she leaped into the darkness of the bushes, dragging Toni with her. So they had to kill her. They couldn’t afford to let her live and be a witness against them.
Circling, Sally found the body of one of the new men. Forrest. She took his gun and gun belt and hat and left him as she had found him. She made her way cautiously to the campsite and studied it for several moments before slipping up to the smoldering ruins of the wagons. All the bodies had been dragged away. She could see that sign. She grabbed up two blankets, a full canteen, a tarp, a knife still in its sheath, and a sack of canned foods. She was disappearing into the brush just as Smoke made his way up to the ruins.
Smoke had found no more bodies, and, like Sally, he read the sign where the bodies had been dragged off. He squatted, only his eyes moving, picking out the scattered articles he wanted. He moved very quickly, scooping up a blanket—there was a ground sheet and a blanket tied behind the saddle of his horse—a side of bacon that was half buried in the dust, a battered coffee pot and a sack of Arbuckles, another canteen and a loaf of bread that had been only slightly scorched by the fire. Then he was gone.
“You made a big mistake, Mr. Black,” he muttered, swinging into the saddle. “You left me alive.”
“Now listen up,” Bobby told the young cowboys. “We’re afoot, we ain’t got no weapons, and we’re in big trouble.” He looked at Louie, Dan, Sonny, and Guy. “And yeah, I’m just as scared as you are. But Mr. Smoke made me ramrod of the remuda crew, so I’m givin’ the orders. You take them. Understood?”
The quartet of very scared boys nodded their heads.
“We’re in a pretty good place here. This blowdown ain’t gonna let no horses through, and there ain’t no cowboy gonna do nothin’ much that he can’t do from the saddle. So we stay right here. There’s water to drink from that crick over yonder, and we all got a little poke of food. It ain’t much. But it’s got to do. We can’t talk above a whisper. We can’t move around. Just remember this, we seen them brands. Circle 45. So that means them thugs got to kill us all. If we keep our heads, maybe they’ll give up after a time, thinkin’ they got us all. It’s the best I can do, boys.”
Denver eased his old bones into a more comfortable position in the rocks where he lay about a mile from the ambush site. He wasn’t hurt bad, just bruised all to hell and gone. He’d managed to grab some gear just as that damn horse hit him and knocked the crap out of him. He had a canteen of water, some biscuits, and a rifle. And he was alive.
Harvey and Jeff, Smoke’s regular hands, lay in a thicket and tried to blend in with the earth. Jeff had a bullet in his leg and Harvey’s left arm was busted. But they were alive.
Tim was the only one of the new hands to make it out alive. But he was weaponless, except for the sheath knife he carried in his boot. He’d seen those dirty bastards shoot down and ride down his friends with no mercy. One thing Tim knew for a dead-bang fact was that he was going to find those responsible and make them pay a terrible price. He’d prayed to God to give him the wherewithal to do just that.
Jeanne lay behind a log and listened to the men search for her. She cringed when she heard the things they said they were going to do with her and to her when they found her. She clutched a butcher knife in her right hand. Maybe they would do those terrible things. But she’d make one of them pay a fearful price before the others got to her. Then she listened to them ride off and the silence that followed was just about as terrifying. Jeanne did not think she had ever been this frightened. She rose from her hiding place and had not walked a hundred yards before discovering the body of one of Smoke’s men. She stifled a scream and knelt down by the body, making up her mind to do what she felt she must.
She tugged off his boots and forced herself to pull off his jeans and shirt. Always keeping a wary and watchful eye, Jeanne undressed and then dressed in jeans and a men’s shirt. The cowboy’s holster was empty. She looked around frantically for his gun. No gun; she couldn’t find it.
Now she felt she had a chance of staying alive. If she could just get her fear under control.
Smoke picketed his horse near water and sat down to think matters through. Several times he’d come very close to being spotted on horseback, so he decided to stay on foot until he had scouted the valley through and arrived at a plan of action.
Clint Black had no choice but to kill them all. He could leave not one of them alive. Keeping that in mind, Smoke had ridden back to the bodies he’d found and pulled out the marking stake. That was a sign of a survivor that he just couldn’t leave behind. Then, only a short time afterwards, from where he sat on the ridges, he had watched Circle 45 riders return to the bodies and drag them off. There was to be a mass grave somewhere to the south of the ambush site.