He and Nate had scouted out the long valley and found only a few passes. Clint had planned his ambush well. But how did he know a herd was coming? How could he have known? Toni and Jeanne’s attorneys were Boston-based, and the twins had assured Smoke they had told no one locally about the herd. A puzzle.
Smoke tensed at the sound of a steel-shod hoof striking stone. He quickly shifted locations, moving into brush at the edge of the small clearing. His big hand closed around a rock about the size of an apple. His smile was hard, for Smoke had always been pretty good at chunking stones.
A Circle 45 rider, his dark duster tied behind the saddle, walked his horse slowly into the clearing. He gave the area a close once-over and then turned his horse, putting his back to Smoke. Smoke rose up, took aim, and flung the stone. The rock smacked into the rider’s head and knocked him slap out of the saddle. He hit the ground and did not move. His horse trotted off a few yards and stopped.
Smoke moved from his hiding place and walked slowly toward the seemingly lifeless form. He walked slowly so he would not alarm the horse. He wanted that canteen, rifle, and rope. And he might have a bait of food in the saddlebags.
The rider’s skull was busted open. He was alive, but just barely. Smoke looked down at the man and felt no pity, no remorse. Nothing. The man had chosen his way of life. To hell with him.
Smoke took the man’s gun belt and then dragged the raider into some bushes and dumped him. He pulled the saddle off the horse and picketed it with his own. The saddlebags contained a sack of cartridges, some dirty socks, and two biscuits and bacon wrapped in paper. Smoke ate those, drank some water, and felt better. He then wrapped the dead man’s weapons in a ground sheet and carefully hid them under a rotting log. If he found any of his own people alive, the chances were, they would need weapons.
With a grim expression on his face, Smoke picked up his rifle and started walking. He was going hunting.
Toni had not moved. But she was so relieved to see Sally that she could not contain her tears. Wiping her eyes, she whispered, “They came so close, I thought sure they would see me. I could hear them talking. They were saying vulgar, filthy things about what they would do to the women once they found us. I have never heard such disgusting things.”
“They’re not going to do anything to us,” Sally assured her. “Put these jeans on while I go through the supplies I brought back. Go on, Toni, do it.”
So they searched this area, Sally thought. Good. Maybe they won’t be back.
But deep inside, she knew they would. And the search would be much more thorough this time, probably with men on foot. But she didn’t share that with Toni.
Clint Black stood in the big family room of his house and glared at his foreman, Jud Howes. He got his temper back under control and took several deep breaths. “You’re certain that none of the bodies found were those of women?”
“Positive, boss. We checked real close. All men and boys.”
“And the bodies have been disposed of?”
“They’ll never be found.”
“What’d you do with them?”
“Put ’em in Jackson’s Cave. Way back in there. I’ll take dynamite up there later and seal the entrance.”
“That’s good. But be sure that you do that, Jud. The cattle?”
Jud shook his head. “They’re scattered from one end of that valley to the other, boss. It’ll take every hand we got a good two-three weeks to round them all up.”
“We’ll deal with that problem later. Just be sure that no one enters that area until we’re done.”
“Right, boss. I’ve got them covered.”
“Get every hand we can spare in there. Search that area, find those damn people, and kill them.”
“Right, boss. One thing puzzles me, though. Some of the guys we found didn’t have no pants on.”
“Probably didn’t have time to pull them on, don’t you imagine?”
“Yeah…we hit ’em hard and fast, for a fact.”
“Get busy, Jud. Let’s wrap this thing up and put it behind us.”
Smoke rested the rest of that day and tended to his wounds and bruises. There was a bottle of horse liniment in the dead raider’s saddlebags—the one with a busted head—and Smoke treated his bruises with that. He bathed his splinter wound and bound it with a strip of the dead man’s shirt, once it had dried after Smoke washed it in the stream. One of the night herder’s horses had found him, seeking human company, and Smoke found a pair of fresh socks and some .44 rounds in the saddlebags. As soon as the sun went down, Smoke went on the prod.
He had caught the smell of food cooking and decided he’d drop in for a bite…uninvited. He wanted a cup of coffee in the worst way.
And he wanted to spill some Circle 45 blood.
He put Sally as far out of his mind as he could. It wasn’t a heartless act on his part, it was just practical.
He could hear the lowing of cattle from various parts of the valley, some faint, some no more than two hundred yards off. The cattle were probably scattered all to hell and gone. Smoke left the timber and fell in with a small bunch of cattle, slapping a few on the rump to get them moving in the direction he wanted to go. He got in the center of the bunch and crouched low.
When he drew close to the dot of flames from the campfire, he left the cattle and moved into the timber. He began huffing and coughing like a puma. The sound was so real it scared the cattle and they ran off a few hundred yards. Smoke used their noise to work close to the camp.
“Damn painter out yonder,” a man said. “And close too.”
“He won’t come near the flames,” another said. “Turn that bacon, Wilson. I’ll give these beans a stir.”
“You hope he don’t come close,” another said.
Smoke had pinpointed the raider’s fires. The nearest one to his location was a good two miles away. Smoke moved in closer. Four men sat around the fire. A real stupid thing to do, for it destroyed their night vision. But that didn’t make any difference, for in about thirty seconds, the only thing they’d be seeing was Hell.
He lifted his rifle and let it roar, working the action as fast as he could. When the roaring was only an echo, Smoke was running toward the fire and the food and the dead and dying bodies. He stripped the bodies of weapons and ammo.
One was still alive. “Damn your eyes!” he groaned.
Smoke, normally not a profane man, told the dying raider what he thought of men who would kill boys and women. The venom in his words shocked the man. Then, as the raider lay bleeding and dying by the fire, Smoke took two thick slices of bread, made a sandwich of the bacon and dug into the beans, then calmly poured himself a cup of coffee.
“You ain’t human!” the raider managed to gasp the words.
Smoke threw back his head and howled like a great gray wolf, the howling echoing around the valley. Another wolf across the valley joined in the night’s chorus as the raider lay on the ground, his eyes wide in astonishment.
Smoke huffed and coughed like a puma and then smiled at the man. But he was smiling at a dead man. Smoke dumped the weapons on a ground sheet, bundled it up, and, taking the pot of beans and the bread, vanished into the night.
A mile away, Sally smiled. “That first call was no wolf,” she told Toni. “That was Smoke. He’s alive!”
Jud was the first to reach the death scene. He looked at the four men sprawled in their own blood and cussed.
“Jud,” a Circle 45 hand said. “They was cookin’ beans when I was over here.”
“So what?”
“The pot’s gone. Whoever done this took their guns and the bean pot.”
“I think we’re in trouble, Cleon. Big trouble. I don’t think that body Fatso thought was Jensen was really him. I think Jensen’s out yonder. I think that was Jensen howlin’ like a lobo.”