“Damn you, Jensen!” John Flagg screamed, struggled to get his horse under control and finally managing to jerk his .45 out of leather.
Smoke shot him between the eyes.
John Flagg’s horse bolted and ran right over Maria, knocking the woman over the side of the slope. She rolled and tumbled down the bank and hit the creek just as von Hausen was getting to his feet. She hit him squarely across the knees and both of them went under, flailing and waving their arms and slipping and sliding on the slick rocks in the creek.
Smoke lit another stick of dynamite and dropped it to the trail below him. Then he cut out at a fast run through the timber.
The charge blew and knocked Utah Red off his horse. The hired gun went rolling down the slope and slammed into von Hausen and Maria just as they were crawling out of the creek. They returned to the creek.
Slick Finger Bob was tossed out of the saddle and landed on his belly on the trail. He had just enough wind left in him to roll frantically off the trail to avoid having his head smashed by the hooves of the panicked horses. He felt himself going over the edge and grabbed at an ankle. Marlene’s ankle. The two of them went over the side of the steep embankment and began the fast tumble down.
Von Hausen had just enough wind left him to crawl up the bank of the creek. He almost made it. Slick Finger Bob and Marlene banged into him and knocked him clear to the other side of the fast-rushing mountain stream. Von Hausen’s head hit a rock and he was out.
The mountain trail grew quiet. John T. peeped around a tree trunk and took in the sight before him. Two men were down and dead as a hammer. Tom Ritter lay on his belly and John Flagg was on his back, a hole right between his eyes. One Eye looked dead; then John T. saw his fingers began to twitch. A whole bunch of people appeared to be in the crick below, squallin’ and bellerin’ and cussin’ and hollerin’ for help. John T. couldn’t see Ed Clay nowheres. Dick Dorman had been tossed from his horse and landed on his bad ankle. He had passed out from the pain.
John T. motioned toward Cat Brown to take the south end of the trail while he climbed the bank on the north end. It only took a couple of minutes for them to see that Jensen was gone.
Marlene was crawled up the slope, her eyes wild with hate and fury, her mouth working overtime, spewing out every cuss word she knew in several languages. She was mud from head to boots.
John T. looked around and finally found his horse and tied a rope to the saddlehorn, dangling the other end down to the creek. “Tie it around his majesty’s shoulders,” John T. called. “We’ll pull him up.”
“What about me!” Maria shrieked.
“Drag your own ass up here,” John T. muttered, “We’ll git to you,” he hollered. “Just take it easy.”
Von Hausen was hauled up the slope. He lost his boots and his pants during the salvage effort.
Slick Finger Bob was crawling up the slope, pushing Maria ahead of him.
“Get your hands off my backside!” she screamed at him.
“Well, goddamnit, lady, what else am I gonna push against?”
“Don’t touch me!”
“All right,” Slick Finger said, and removed his hands and got out of the way.
Maria hollered all the way back down.
26
Smoke put the muzzle of a .44 against Ed Clay’s head. “I’ll give you a choice, partner,” Smoke told him. “Leave or die. What’s it going to be?”
“You give me a chance, Mister Jensen, and I’m gone. I won’t join up with the others. You don’t have to give me a horse, a gun, or nothin’. Just let me leave and you’ll never see me again.”
“Head straight east,” Smoke told him. “There’s a settlement on the Clear. If I see you in these mountains, I’ll kill you.”
“The only people that’s gonna see me from now on is my momma and daddy, back in Nebraska.”
“Get gone.”
Ed Clay got gone. Smoke doubted he’d return to Nebraska, but he also felt he’d never see the man again.
Smoke tossed Andrea into the saddle, tied her hands, and swung aboard his Appaloosa. He headed north, deeper into the Bighorns.
“Found Ed’s horse,” Henry Barton said. “But there ain’t a sign of Ed.”
The camp looked like a field hospital. Dick Dorman and von Hausen were stretched out side by side. Maria was off to one side, badly shaken and bruised up from her trips to the creek. Utah Red had hurt his leg on the way down the slope and was bitching and moaning. Slick Finger Bob had a cut on his face and a knot on one knee. Sandy was still addled and acting goofy from his head impacting against a rock. One Eye had a egg-sized lump on his noggin from Smoke’s thrown rock.
Marlene finally got von Hausen awake and was pouring hot soup down his throat. Roy Drum had retrieved von Hausen’s boots and pants, falling into the creek himself. The pith helmet was ruined, cracked wide open.
Gunter knelt down beside von Hausen. “Two dead,” he told him. “Ed Clay’s missing. Several of the men are injured, but not seriously.”
Von Hausen coughed up creek water. “The spirit of the men?” he questioned.
“As long as we keep paying them, they’ll continue.”
“We’ll continue,” von Hausen said. “As long as he has Andrea, we really have no choice, now, do we?”
Cat Brown rode back in and swung down. “I found Jensen’s tracks. He’s headin’ straight north. The woman’s still with him.”
“And leaving tracks a fool could follow,” von Hausen said, not putting it as a question.
“That’s right, boss.”
“We’ll rest here and push on at first light.”
Marlene glanced at him. There was a grimness in his voice that she had never heard before. She wondered what it meant.
“When are you going to turn me loose?” Andrea asked.
Supper was over, she had the rope around her waist, the knots so tight she had broken off her nails trying to loosen them—to no avail.
“When the hunt is over,” Smoke told her.
“You mean, after you’ve killed them all.”
“I didn’t kill that fellow this morning, now, did I?”
“I could talk to Frederick. I’m sure he would cease immediately once he sees I am safe and unhurt.”
“Frederick is mine,” Smoke told her. “I’m going to kick his face in.”
“You!” she said mockingly. “Frederick will destroy you. He is a skilled pugilist.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ve seen him fight two men at once and whip them both.”
“Good for him. In a ring?”
“Certainly. One of Frederick’s opponents would tire and the other would come in.”
“Rules to it, hey?”
“But of course.”
“I’ll have to say a little prayer before bed tonight that when we do lock horns, Frederick doesn’t beat me up too bad.”
“Now you’re being sarcastic.”
“Go to sleep, your ladyship. Tomorrow is going to be very exciting.”
Sandy Beecher heard a rustling behind him. He left the saddle and stared hard at the thick brush. The mid-morning was cloudy and cool, with the skies looking like rain. The bushes did not move again.
For the first time he noticed the thin vine that stretched across the trail. From ground level, he could see that it was attached to the bush that had moved. Sandy got to thinking on that. Now if the vine was attached to the bush, that meant that whoever jerked on it was...
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. “Behind me.”
“That’s right,” Smoke whispered. “You’re a mighty young man to die.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You might. That’s up to you.”
“The others are fanned out all over this mountain, lookin’ for you. You let me get back on my horse, and I’m gone. That’s a promise.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“ ’Cause I’m tellin’ you the truth. Where’s Ed Clay?”
“If he’s not dead on the trail, he told me he was heading back to Nebraska.”