“He ain’t but one man, Jud. And we got fifty men.”
“Forty-six,” Jud quietly corrected.
7
Harvey and Jeff had heard the gunshots and then the howling of a lobo wolf. They had looked at each other and smiled. They’d been with Smoke a long time, and they’d both heard him talk to the wolves and the pumas many times. They snuggled back into their hiding place. The raiders didn’t know it, but they were in trouble.
Sally lay back on the ground sheet and smiled as she snuggled into her blanket. Her man was alive and on the prowl. The Circle 45 men had grabbed onto something they couldn’t turn loose of. And they were about to find that out…in blood. Their own.
Smoke returned to his hidden camp and ate the beans, sopping out the juice with the bread. He wished he had another cup of coffee, but a man can’t ask for everything.
Jud Howes was riding hard for the ranch. Clint had to be informed of this new development. With Jensen alive, that really put a fly in the ointment. Jud had heard about that crazy German fellow who’d chased Smoke all over the country—with a passel of hired gunslingers helping him—hunting Jensen like you would an animal. Smoke had turned the whole thing around and the hunters became the hunted in the deadliest game they’d ever found themselves in. Jensen won.
“Damn!” Jud said. “I wish that fool Baylis had stayed down in Wyoming and kept his mouth shut.”
Denver eased his bruised body and smiled when he heard the wolf howling and the gunshots. He had him a hunch that Smoke Jensen was alive and well and on the prod. He just hoped that Miss Sally and those other two women were all right.
Smoke rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
Just as gray was tinting the skies, Smoke took his rifle and eased down toward the valley floor. He’d picked out a good location the past afternoon and planned on really getting this war under way.
His anger and grief and sadness were buried deep within the man, the coals banked, kept hot and smoldering. Today was the day he was going to show Clint Black and his renegade hands that wars are not that easily won.
He just wished he knew whether Sally was alive or dead.
Harvey held the limb back with his good arm, but if that rider didn’t come on, he was going to have to turn loose; his arm was trembling from the strain.
The Circle 45 hand looked around, was satisfied that this area was clean, and rode on. Harvey released the thick limb and the green, springy wood impacted with the raider’s face. Harvey cringed as the sound of bones and teeth breaking came to him. The thick limb had caught the Circle 45 hand smack in the mouth, knocking him out of the saddle, knocking him unconscious, and smashing his face.
Harvey grabbed the reins and calmed the spooked horse. He limped over to the unconscious raider and ripped off his gunbelt, slinging it around his waist. He took the Winchester from the boot and removed the saddlebags and canteen. He turned around and almost messed his longhandles when he saw a man standing a few yards away. The Colt leaped into his hand and he almost killed a friend.
“Whoa, Harvey!” Tim said in a hoarse whisper. “For God’s sake, man, don’t shoot.”
“Jesus, Tim. I’m sorry, boy.” He holstered the Colt.
The men grinned and shook hands. “You alone?” Tim asked.
“Got Jeff with me. He’s got a slug in his leg. But I don’t think it’s broke. Come on, help me tie this no-count in the saddle.”
They took the raider’s blanket and ground sheet, tied him, belly across the saddle, and slapped the horse on the rump. The animal went bumping out of the timber and loping across the meadow.
“As many tracks as there is out yonder,” Tim said, “they’ll have a time tryin’ to track that horse back to us. You got a good hole to hide in?”
“You bet. Come on.”
Jeanne pulled back into a thicket as the search intensified. Once the searchers came so close, she could have reached out and touched the leg of a horse. She was still badly frightened, but that fright had been tempered by anger and a strong resolve to survive. She knew nothing of guns, but if she could get her hands on a weapon, she would by God learn. What had happened, and what was happening to her and the others, was an outrage that she was not going to tolerate. She knew from listening to the raiders talk that her sister and Sally were alive. She knew that Smoke Jensen was alive and fighting back. She knew that some other cowboys had not been found. So that meant they had a chance of surviving this terrible act of…of what? She didn’t know why Clint Black had done this. Could think of no logical reason.
She fought back tears.
Smoke sighted the rider in and the Winchester roared. It was a righteous hit, the slug knocking the Circle 45 hand from the saddle. The man did not move. Smoke bellied down and waited. It was not a long wait.
Three Circle 45 riders came pounding to the scene, which told Smoke they didn’t have a whole lot of sense. Smoke emptied two of those saddles before the third one could lay on his horse’s neck and get the hell gone from that place.
Smoke ran down the slope, ripped gunbelts from the three and gathered up the reins and ran back up the slope into the timber. He quickly roped the horses together, mounted up, and changed locations, moving about a mile before he once more left the saddle and got into position behind some rock, an earthen embankment behind him.
“Mr. Smoke?” The boy’s voice came from behind him.
Smoke turned his head and looked up into the pale face of Bobby, peering over the lip of the embankment.
Smoke grinned at the boy. “You’re pretty good, Bobby. Not many men could have Injuned up on me.”
“I didn’t, sir,” the lad admitted. “I was layin’ up here watchin’. I got Louie, Dan, Sonny, and Guy hid out in a blowdown about five hundred yards from here.”
“Good! Good! Take those guns I’ve got looped on the saddle horns and those canteens and food and bedrolls. Get back in there and stay put. Don’t use those guns unless the night riders are right up on you and there is no way out. I know where you are, now, and I’ll be back. We’ll get out of this, Bobby. I promise you.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Smoke. I’m gone.”
“Get the men out of there,” Clint told his foremen. “We’re losing too many hands to that damn Jensen. He’s turned into a savage. Get them all out and plug up the passes. Hell, we can keep them in there forever.”
Jud wasn’t too sure about that, but he wasn’t running this show. He pulled out his pistol and fired the prearranged signal. From his hidden position, Smoke watched the hands stop, listen to the shots, then turn and ride toward the north end of the long valley.
“Your boss doesn’t have much taste for the battle,” he said aloud, then stood up. “Dirty, low-down, cowardly, ambushing son of a bitch!” he added.
Jeanne rose up to her knees just as the unshaven lout spotted her and opened his mouth to yell. She threw the butcher knife with all her strength, with no hope of doing any damage to the rider.
The knife turned slowly in the air and an astonished Jeanne watched as the blade buried itself in the rider’s shoulder. He dropped his six-gun and yelled, the scream startling the horse. The animal took off like a lightning bolt, the rider holding on. Jeanne ran to the gun, picked it up, and cocked it. Holding it with both hands, she pointed it and pulled the trigger.
The slug just nicked the horse on the butt and he pitched his rider; the Circle 45 hand landed on his head, breaking his neck. Jeanne ran to the man; fighting back waves of nausea at the sight of the corpse, she jerked off the man’s gun belt and ran back into the timber.
“Missy!” The call turned her around, bringing up the pistol.
Jeanne started weeping tears of joy at the sight of Denver, hobbling painfully toward her. “Oh, my God!” she cried.