Just for a moment, Smoke studied the darkened outline of the home on the hill. And then it came to him. A cave. He would be a hundred dollars that King Rex had built his home in front of a cave, a cave that wound through the mountain and exited out in the timbered range behind Dead River. And he would also bet that White Wolf and his braves knew nothing of it. It might exit out into a little valley where horses and gear could be stored.
Cursing in disgust for not thinking of that sooner, Smoke slipped on into the night, seeking a good spot to set up a defensive position.
He paused for a moment, until York had opened fire, showing Smoke where the ranger had chosen to make his stand. And it was a good one, high up on the right side of the ridge overlooking the town, as Smoke stood looking north. With a smile, Smoke chose his position on the opposite side of the street, above the first store one encountered upon entering the outlaw town.
Below him, the outlaws had settled down, taking up positions around the town. Smoke could see several bodies sprawled in the street, evidence of York’s marksmanship with his Henry.
A handful of outlaws tried to rush the ranger’s position. Hard gunfire broke out on either side and above York’s position. White Wolf’s Utes were making their presence known in a very lethal manner. For years, the outlaws had made life miserable for the Utes, and now it was payback time. With a vengeance.
A horseman came galloping up the street, toward the curve that exited the town. The man was riding low in the saddle, the reins in his teeth and both hands full of six-guns. Smoke took careful aim with a rifle he’d picked up in the saloon and knocked the man out of the saddle. The rider hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up on his feet. A dozen rifles spat lead. The man was hit a dozen times, shot to bloody rags. He dropped to the roadway, his blood leaking into the dirt.
The horse, reins trailing, trotted off into an alley.
Smoke hit the ground, behind a series of boulders, as his position was found and rifles began barking and spitting in the night, the lead ricocheting and whining off the huge rocks, spinning into the night.
A Ute came rolling down the hill crashing against the boulder behind which Smoke was hiding. Smoke rolled the brave over and checked his wound—a nasty wound in the brave’s side. Smoke plugged it with moss and stretched the Indian out, safe from fire. The Ute’s dark eyes had never left Smoke’s face, and he endured the pain without a sound.
Smoke made the sign for brother and the Indian, flat on his back returned the gesture. Gunfighter and Indian smiled at each other in the gunfire-filled night above the outlaw town.
Smoke picked up his rifle as the Indian, who had never let go of his rifle, crawled to a position on the other end of the line of boulders. Smoke tossed him a bag of cartridges and the men began lacing the town with .44 rifle fire. The .44s, which could punch through a good three inches of pine, began bringing shouts and yells of panic from the outlaws in the town below.
Several tried to run; they were knocked down in the street. One outlaw, his leg twisted grotesquely, tried to crawl to safety. A slug to the head stopped his strugglings.
Smoke spoke to the Ute in his own language. “If they ever discover how few we are up here, we’re in trouble, brother.”
The Ute laughed in the night and said, “My people have always fought outnumbered, gunfighter. It is nothing new to us.”
Smoke returned the laugh and began working the lever on his Henry, laying a line of lead into a building below their position. The sudden hard fire brought several screams of pain from inside the building. One man fell through a shattered window to hang there, half in and half out of the building.
The Ute shouted a warning as a dozen outlaws charged their position, the men slipping from tree to tree, rock to rock, working closer.
Smoke quickly reloaded the Henry and laid two .44s on the ground beside him, one by each leg. There was no doubt in his mind that the outlaws would certainly breach their position, and then the fighting would be hand to hand.
Smoke heard the ugly sound of a bullet striking flesh and bone, and turning his head, he saw the Ute fall backward, a blue-tinged hole in the center of his forehead. With his right hand, Smoke made the Indian sign for peaceful journey and then returned to the fight.
He took out one outlaw who made the mistake of exposing too much of his body, knocking the man spinning from behind a tree; a second slug from Smoke’s rifle forever stilled the man.
Then there was no time for anything except survival, as the outlaws charged Smoke’s position.
Smoke fought savagely, his guns sending several outlaws into that long darkness. Then his position was overrun. Something slammed into the side of his head, and Smoke was dropped into darkness.
14
He was out for no more than a few seconds, never really losing full consciousness. He felt blood dripping down the side of his face. He was still holding onto his guns, and he remembered they were full. Lifting them, as a dozen shapes began materializing around him in the night, Smoke began cocking and pulling the triggers.
Hoarse screams filled the air around him as the slugs from his pistols struck their mark at point-blank range. Unwashed bodies thudded to the ground all around him, the dead and dying flesh unwittingly building a fort around his position, protecting him from the returning fire of the outlaws.
Then, half-naked shapes filtered silently and swiftly out of the timber, firing rifles and pistols. By now, the remaining outlaws were too confused and frightened to understand how a man whom they believed to be dead from a head wound had managed to inflict so hideous a toll on them.
And then the Utes came out of the timber, and in a matter of seconds, what had been twenty outlaws were no more than dying, cooling flesh in the still-warm mountain air slightly above Dead River.
The Utes vanished back into the timber, as swiftly and as silently as they had come.
Smoke reloaded his guns, pistols, and rifles, and slung the rifles across his shoulders. He wrapped his bandana around his head and tied it, after inspecting his head-wound with his fingers and finding it not serious; he knew that a head wound can bleed hard and fast for a few moments, and then, in many cases, stop.
He loaded his pistols, then loaded the sawed-off shotgun. Then he began making his way down the hill, back into the town of Dead River. He was going to take the fight to the outlaws.
He stopped once to tie a white handkerchief around his arm, so not only the Indians would know who he was but so the posse members would not mistakenly shoot him.
He slipped down to the building where the outlaw was still hanging half out of the window and quietly checked out the interior. The building was void of life. Looking up the street, he could see where he, York, and the Utes had taken a terrible toll on the population of the outlaw town. The street, the alleys, and the boardwalks were littered with bodies. Most were not moving.
He did not know how much time had transpired since he and Ranger had opened the dance. But he was sure it was a good half hour or forty-five minutes.
He slipped to the south a few yards and found a good defensible position behind a stone wall that somebody had built around a small garden. Smoke pulled a ripe tomato off the vine, brushed the dust off it, and ate it while his eyes surveyed the street, picking out likely targets.
He unslung the rifles, laid his sack of guns and cartridges by one side, the express guns by his other side, and then picked up and checked out a Henry.
He had found a man stationed on top of a building. Sighting him in, Smoke let the other outlaws know he was still in the game by knocking the man off the roof with one well-placed shot to his belly. The sniper fell screaming to the street below. His howling stopped as he impacted with earth.