“That there is a thought to think about,” Grissom agreed. “But that Ute said she was all swole up with kid, gettin’ ready to turn fresh.”
“So?”
“What about the kid?”
Canning shrugged that off. “I ’member the time up in north Colorado when we hit an Injun camp — surprised them. That were fun. After we had our fun with some young squaws, I found me a papoose just a-hollerin’ and grabbed him up by the heels. Swung him agin a tree. Head popped like a pistol shot.”
“That were a Injun kid. This here be a white baby.”
“No never-mind. Richards said to kill ’em all. Don’t want to leave no youngun around to grow up and git mean.”
The bounty hunters all agreed that made sense. And they would pleasure themselves with the woman — then kill her.
“I want Smoke,” Kid Austin said. The older bounty hunters smiled. “I want him face on so’s I can beat him at his own game. You all just watch me.”
“Yeah, Kid,” a man called Poker said. “You a real grizzly, you are.”
“I just need one chance.”
It’s probably the only one you’ll get, too, Felter thought. ’cause if the Preacher look him under his wing and taught him right, this Smoke will be a ring-tailed looter.
The first week in April, a violent pre-season thunderstorm, spawned by a week of abnormally warm weather, struck the valley, scattering the herd of breeding horses.
“I’ve got to get some of them back,” Smoke said. “We’ve got to have them for breeding stock. But I hate to leave you and Little Preacher alone.” His face was worry lined, for he knew with the warm weather, the bounty hunters would be riding hard to get him.
She laughed away his fears. “We have to get that cow back for milk, and there is no telling where that fool cow ran off to. And don’t forget, I’m a pretty good shot.”
“I might be gone for several days.”
“Honey,” she said touching his face, “it was the hand of Providence that brought us that cow — Lord knows how it got out here. But you’ve got to get it back for the baby.” She pressed a packet of food on him. “I’ll be packing while you’re finding the herd — and the cow.” She laughed. “You always look so serious when you’re milking.”
“Never did like to milk,” he said.
He left reluctantly, knowing he had no choice. As he rode away on Seven, he stopped once, turning in the saddle, looking back at his wife, holding their son in her arms. The sun sparkled off her hair, casting a halo of light around the woman and baby. Smoke lifted a hand in goodbye.
Nicole waved at him, then turned and walked back into the cabin.
To the northeast, still many hard miles away, just leaving the last fringes of heavy forest and tall mountains behind them, rode the bounty hunters. Since the middle of March they had fanned out in the mountains, asking questions of any white man and several friendly Indians. The Indians told them nothing, but several white drifters told them of a cabin in the valley, on a knoll, with a little creek running behind it. Where the Delores leaves the San Juans, head southwest, you can’t miss it.
Canning’s thoughts were of the yellow-haired woman.
Felter thought about the money.
Kid Austin thought of being the man who killed the gunfighter/outlaw Smoke. What a name he’d have after that — and all the women he wanted.
Smoke worked long hours, gathering his precious herd of mustangs and Appaloosa, tucking them in a blind canyon, holding them there while he searched for the others. He found the cow and the old brindle steer that had wandered up with her, probably, Smoke concluded, the only survivors of an Indian attack on a wagon train.
During the late afternoon of the second day out, Smoke thought he heard the faint sounds of gunfire carrying on the wind, blowing from the north, but he could not be certain. He listened intently for several moments. He could hear nothing except the winds, sighing lonely off the far mountains. He returned to his work.
“Fine-lookin’ woman,” Canning said, looking at Nicole. She was sprawled in semi-awareness on the floor. His eyes lingered on her legs where her dress had slid up when she was knocked to the floor. The bodice of the dress was ripped open, exposing her breasts. Canning licked his lips.
The bounty hunters had destroyed the interior of the cabin, looking for gold that was not there.
One bounty hunter sat in a chair, cursing as he bandaged a bloody arm. “She can shoot,” he said. “Damn near tore my arm off. Somebody see ifn you can find a bottle of laudanum.”
Felter’s eyes found the body of Stoner lying in front of the cabin. “Yeah, she sure can shoot. Just ask Stoner.”
“If he answers you,” Kid Austin said, “the back door’s mine.”
They all laughed at this.
“Drag his body out of sight,” Felter said. “Don’t want to spook this Smoke when he rides up. And hide your horses. We’ll take him when he comes in.”
Kid Austin opened his mouth to protest.
“Shut up,” Felter cut him off. “Maybe you’ll get a crack at him, maybe not. I’d like to take him alive, torture him, find out where the gold is.”
He knelt down beside Nicole, his hands busy on her body.
Arthur began crying.
“Shut that kid up!” Felter snarled. “’Fore I shoot the little snot.”
Canning picked up a blanket and walked to the cradle. He folded the wool and held it over the baby’s face for several minutes. The child kicked feebly, then was still as life was smothered from it.
Nicole was stripped naked and shoved into the bedroom. Her hands were tied to the bedposts. Arthur was silent, and Nicole knew, with the awareness mothers seem to possess, her son was dead.
She began weeping.
She opened her eyes, and through the mist of tears, watched Canning drop his trousers to the floor.
The perverted afternoon and evening would wear slowly for Nicole.
And Smoke was a day’s ride from the cabin on the knoll in the valley.
Thirteen
On the morning of the third day out, Smoke pushed his horses closer to the cabin, a feeling of dread building within him. Some primitive sense of warning caused him to pull up short. He left the cow, the steer, and the horses in a meadow several miles from the cabin.
He made a wide circle of the cabin, staying in the timber back of the creek, and slipped up to the cabin.
Nicole was dead. The acts of the men had grown perverted and in their haste, her throat had been crushed.
Felter sat by the lean-to and watched the valley in front of him. He wondered where Smoke had hidden the gold.
Inside, Canning drew his skinning knife and scalped Nicole, tying her bloody hair to his belt. He then skinned a part of her, thinking he would tan the hide and make himself a nice tobacco pouch.
Kid Austin got sick at his stomach watching Canning’s callousness, and went out the back door to puke on the ground. That moment of sickness saved his life — for the time being.
Grissom walked out the front door of the cabin. Smoke’s tracks had indicated he had ridden off south, so he would probably return from that direction. But Grissom felt something was wrong. He sensed something; his years on the hoot-owl back trails surfacing.
“Felter?” he called.
“Yeah?” He stepped from the lean-to.
“Something’s wrong.”
“I feel it. But what?”
“I don’t know.” Grissom spun as he sensed movement behind him. His right hand dipped for his pistol. Felter had stepped back into the lean-to. Grissom’s palm touched the smooth wooden butt of his pistol as his eyes touched the tall young man standing by the corner of the cabin, a Colt .36 in each hand. Lead from the .36s hit him in the center of the chest with numbing force. Just before his heart exploded, the outlaw said, “Smoke!” Then he fell to the ground.