Sugarloaf Ranch
Smoke and Sally were sitting on the front porch watching a couple of the cowboys pitching horseshoes.
There was a clang, then a yell of triumph. “Ha! I got me a leaner!”
“Yeah? Well watch this.”
The next cowboy threw and his horseshoe knocked the leaner away, then fell down, ringing the stob.
The other cowboys yelled in approval.
“Look at that, would you? Mack is good!”
“He ain’t good, he’s just lucky,” the first cowboy said, dejectedly.
“You’ve got something to tell me, don’t you, Smoke?” Sally asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“I know you, Smoke. I can read you like a book.”
Smoke chuckled. “I guess I better never lie to you, huh?”
Sally laughed. “You couldn’t lie to me if you tried. Now, what is it you have to tell me?”
“You remember me telling you about John Jackson?”
“Of course I remember. You spent a year with him, teaching him how to become a westerner.”
“I need to go see him.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? I’d love to meet him. Didn’t you say he got married? Oh, don’t tell me,” she added excitedly. “They have a child now. Of course you must go. We must go.”
Smoke shook his head and put his hand out on Sally’s hand. “It’s not that kind of visit, I’m afraid. And we aren’t going, I’m going.”
“Oh,” Sally said, obviously disappointed by the reply. “What is it? Is John in some sort of trouble?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“From what I can gather, the Crow killed his wife and child, and he has gone on a personal vendetta. But now the Crow are fighting back. They’ve sent twenty warriors after him.”
“I see,” Sally said, quietly.
“Sally, I can’t just . . .”
“I know,” Sally said, interrupting him. She put her other hand on top of Smoke’s hand. “I know that you have to do what you have to do.”
Smoke lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thank you for approving.”
“I’m not sure that I do approve,” Sally said. “But I understand. God help me, I do understand.”
It took Smoke two weeks to get to the upper Missouri River valley, but it only took him one more week to find John, once he arrived. That was because Smoke had spent enough time with John, right here, in this very location, that he had a pretty good idea as to where he should look. And once he got into the area, he was able to track him.
Smoke smelled the cooking meat, and he knew, intuitively, that it was John. He approached slowly, though not necessarily quietly. He wanted John to hear him approaching, and he wanted him to realize that it was a measured, rather than a secretive approach.
He found John squatting by a small fire on the banks of Porcupine Creek. He had a piece of meat on a green twig, leaning out over the fire.
“What are you cooking?” Smoke asked.
“Become finicky, have you?” John replied.
Smoke dismounted and walked over toward the fire. “Well, when I come this far to be your dinner guest, I like to know what I’m eating.”
“Something I found dead.”
“Smells good, anyway.”
John stood and stuck out his hand. “I guess you’ve heard about my particular situation.” It wasn’t a question, it was an observation.
“Hell, John, there isn’t anyone between here and El Paso who hasn’t heard what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” John said. “I sort of thought it might be getting around.”
“Let me ask you something . . .”
“No, I’m not eating livers,” John said, answering before the question was completely asked.
“Why does everyone think that you are?”
“I took a bite of them, the first time. And I’ve been letting the Crow think that I’m eating the livers.” John chuckled. “It seems to have gotten them a little upset.”
“A little upset? You are their biggest enemy right now.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted. If you’ve heard about this, you also know what those bastards did to Claire and little Kirby.”
“Yes, I heard,” Smoke said. He smiled. “Kirby? Your baby’s name was Kirby?”
“I didn’t think you would mind.”
“I’m honored,” Smoke said. “But I’m also saddened that he had such a short life. And I’m saddened by what happened to Claire.”
“Then you can understand why I’m doing, what I’m doing,” John said.
Smoke sighed. “What do you know about the Big Dog Warrior Society of the Crow?”
John shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never heard of it.”
“Well, of all the Indians, the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Apache, the Comanche, the Big Dog Warrior Society of the Crow is the most fierce. When they set out to make war against an enemy, they take an oath, to kill that enemy, or to, literally, die trying. John, twenty of them are after you.”
“I may have already run across them; I’ve killed a few Crow, here and there.”
“No,” Smoke said. “If you’ve killed a few here and there, you have not encountered the Big Dog Warriors. They won’t come after you, here and there. There are twenty of them, and they will all come after you all at the same time.”
John carved off a piece of the meat and tasted it.
“It’s done,” he said, pulling it away from the fire. He carved it up, then gave a big piece of it to Smoke.
“Uhmm,” Smoke said. “This is very good. You’ve come some distance from when I first saw you, losing a fight to a turkey.”
“I’ve worked at it,” John replied.
The two men ate in silence for a moment or two before John spoke again.
“If these fierce warriors are coming after me, en masse, as you say, I expect you had better put distance between you and me soon as you finish eating.”
“Uh-uh,” Smoke said. “I’m not leaving.”
“Smoke, I’m the one they’re after. There’s no need in you getting yourself killed.”
“Didn’t you name your son after me?”
“I did.”
“Then, like I said, I’m not leaving. I have a personal stake in this now.”
“All right,” John said. “I welcome your company.”
“John, when we first met, I was the teacher, and I taught you everything I know about living in the mountains, trapping, hunting, and just generally surviving. But you are the soldier. You went through the same war my pa did, and you were over in Asia with the French Foreign Legion, so now, you are the teacher. We’ve got twenty armed men coming after us, and we are but two. Do you have any suggestions as to how we find them and deal with them?”
John smiled. “Yeah, I do. First of all, we let them find us. And I know exactly where we need to be found.”
“Where?”
“It’s a small cabin I discovered not too far from here. The walls are thick, we’ll have good cover as long as we are in there.”
Smoke shook his head. “I don’t know as I want to be confined in a cabin,” he said. “If they burn it down around us, we’ll be trapped.”
“Ah, my friend,” John said, holding up his finger. “This cabin can’t be burned down. It is made of adobe.”
“Adobe? Up here, in the woods?”
“I know. I was surprised too, when I found it. But it’s there all right. Now, all we have to do is leave a trail they can follow, so they’ll come to us.”
“I agree. But the trail can’t be too obvious,” Smoke said. “We have to make them think that we are trying to cover it up. We don’t want them to know that we want them to find us.”
John smiled and nodded. “You’d make a good army officer, Smoke. You catch on fast.”