“Chinooks, Martha,” he told her. “Sometimes it means spring is just around the corner. But as often as not, it’s a false spring.”
“I’ll start breakfast,” she said.
Smoke pulled on his clothes and belted his guns around him. He stepped outside and smiled at the warm winds. Oh, it was still mighty cool, the temperature in the forties, but it beat the devil out of temperatures forty below.
“Tell Sally I’ll milk the cows, Martha. Breakfast ought to be ready when I’m—”
His eyes found the horse standing with head down near the barn. And he knew that horse. It belonged to York.
And York was lying in the muddy snow beside the animal.
Smoke jerked out his .44 and triggered two fast shots into the air. The bunkhouse emptied in fifteen seconds, with cowboys in various stages of undress, mostly in their longhandles, boots, and hats—with guns in their hands.
Sally jerked the front door open. “It’s York, and I think he’s hard hit…”
“Shot in the chest, boss!” a cowboy yelled. “He’s bad, too!”
“You, Johnny!” Smoke yelled to a hand. “Get dressed and get Dr. Spalding out here. We can’t risk moving York over these bumpy roads.” The cowboy darted back inside the bunkhouse. Smoke turned to Sally. “Get some water on to boil and gather up some clean white cloths for bandages.” He ran over to where York was sprawled.
Pearlie had placed a jacket under York’s head. He met Smoke’s eyes. “It don’t look good. The only chance he’s got is if it missed the lung.”
“Get him into the house, boys.”
As they moved him as gently as possible, York opened his eyes and looked at Smoke. “Dagget and Davidson and ’bout a dozen others, Smoke. They’re here. Ambushed me ’bout fifteen miles down the way. Down near where them beaver got that big dam.”
Then he passed out.
Johnny was just swinging into the saddle. “Johnny! Tell the sheriff to get a posse together. Meet me at Little Crick.”
The cowboy left, foggy headed.
York was moved into the house, into the new room that had been added while Smoke and Sally were gone east.
Smoke turned to Pearlie. “This weather will probably hold for several days at least. The cattle can make it now. Leave the hands at the lineshacks. You’ll come with me. Everybody else stays here, close to the house. And I mean nothing pulls them away. Pass the word.”
Smoke walked back into the house and looked in on York. Sally and Martha had pulled off his boots, loosened his belt, and stripped his bloody shirt from him. They had cut off the upper part of his longhandles, exposing the ugly savage wound in his chest.
Sally met her husband’s eyes. “It’s bad, Smoke, but not as bad as I first thought. The bullet went all the way through. There is no evidence of a lung being nicked; no pink froth. And his breathing is strong and so is his heart.”
Smoke nodded, grabbing up a piece of bread and wrapping it around several thick slices of salt meat he picked from the skillet. “I’ll get in gear and then Pearlie and me will pull out; join the posse at Little Crick. All the hands have been ordered to stay right here. It would take an army to bust through them.”
Sally rose and kissed his lips. “I’ll fix you a packet of food.”
Smoke roped and saddled a tough mountain horse, a bigger-than-usual Appaloosa, sired by his old Appaloosa, Seven. He lashed down his bedroll behind the saddle and stuffed his saddlebags full of ammo and food and a couple of pairs of clean socks. He swung into the saddle just as Pearlie was swinging into his saddle. Smoke rode over to the front door of the house, where Sally was waiting.
Her eyes were dark with fury. “Finish it, Smoke,” she said.
He nodded and swung his horse’s head—the horse was named Horse. He waited for Pearlie and the two of them rode slowly down the valley, out of the high country and down toward Little Crick.
By eight o’clock that morning, Smoke and Pearlie had both shucked off their heavy coats and tied them behind their saddles, riding with only light jackets to protect them from the still-cool winds.
They had met Dr. Spalding on the road and told him what they knew about York’s wound. The doctor had nodded his head and driven on.
An hour later they were at the beaver dam on Little Crick. Sheriff Monte Carson was waiting with the posse. Smoke swung down from the saddle and walked to where the sheriff was pointing.
“Easy trackin’, Smoke. Two men have already gone on ahead. I told them not to get more’un a couple miles ahead of us.”
“That’s good advice, Monte. These are bad ones. How many you figure?”
“Ground’s pretty chewed up, but I’d figure at least a dozen; maybe fifteen of them.”
Smoke looked at the men of the posse. He knew them all and was friends with them all. There was Johnny North, at one time one of the most feared and respected of all gunslingers. There was the minister, a man of God but a crack shot with a rifle. Better hit the ground if he ever pulled out a six-shooter, for he couldn’t hit the side of a mountain with a short gun. The editor of the paper was there, along with the town’s lawyer, both of them heavily armed. There were ranchers and farmers and shopkeepers, and while not all were born men of the West, they had blended in and were solid western men.
Which meant that if you messed with them, they would shoot your butt off.
Smoke shared a few words with all of the men of the posse, making sure they all had ample food and bedrolls and plenty of ammo. It was a needless effort, for all had arrived fully prepared.
Then Smoke briefed them all about the nature of the men they were going to track.
When he had finished, all the men wore looks of pure disgust on their faces. Beaconfield and Garrett, both big ranchers in the area, had quietly noosed ropes while Smoke was talking.
Monte noticed, of course, but said nothing. This was the rough-edged west, where horse thieves were still hanged on the spot, and there was a reason for that: Leave a man without a horse in this country, and that might mean the thief had condemned that man to death.
Tit for tat.
“Judge Proctor out of town?” Smoke asked.
“Gone to a big conference down in Denver,” Monte told him.
Beaconfield and Garrett finished noosing the ropes and secured them behind their saddles. They were not uncaring men. No one had ever been turned away from their doors hungry or without proper clothing. Many times, these same men had given a riderless puncher a horse, telling him to pay whenever he could; if he couldn’t, that was all right, too.
But western men simply could not abide men like Davidson or Dagget or them that chose to ride with them. The men of the posse lived in a hard land that demanded practicality, short conversations, and swift justice, oftentimes as not, at the point of a gun.
It would change as the years rolled on. But a lot of people would wonder if the change had been for the better.
A lot of people would be wondering the same thing a hundred hears later.
Smoke swung into the saddle. “Let’s go stomp on some snakes.”
26
The posse caught up with the men who had ranged out front, tracking the outlaws.
“I can’t figure them, Sheriff,” one of the scouts said. “It’s like they don’t know they’re headin’ into a box canyon.”
“Maybe they don’t,” Pearlie suggested.
One of the outriders shook his head. “If they keep on the way they’re goin’, we’re gonna have ’em hemmed in proper in about an hour.”
Garrett walked his horse on ahead. “Let’s do it, boys. It’s a right nice day for a hangin’.”
The posse cautiously made their way. In half an hour, they knew that King Rex and Dagget were trapped inside Puma Canyon. They was just absolutely no other way out.
“Two men on foot,” Monte ordered. “Rifles. And take it slow and easy up the canyon. Don’t move until you’ve checked all around you and above you. We might have them trapped, but this is one hell of a good place for an ambush. You—”