The old man laughed. “Wal, you jist keep that information inside that head of yourn and off your tongue. You do that and I won’t tell nobody I know where Rowdy Jake Kelly was retared to. You still got money on your head, Rowdy.”
“Man, I heard you got kilt! Shot all to hell and gone over to Needle Mountains.”
“Part of it’s true. I got all dressed up in my finest buckskins, rode an old nag up into the hills, and laid me down to die. Lordy, but I was hurtin’ some. Longer I laid there the madder I got. I finally got up, said to hell with this, and rode off. Found me one of my Injun kids—or grandkids, I ain’t real sure which—and she took care of me. You keep hush about this, now, you hear?”
“I never saw you afore this day,” Rowdy Jake Kelly said.
The old man nodded, picked up his jug of whiskey, and rode off.
Buck had left the trading post and followed the Big Lost River north. He pushed his horses, rested them, then pushed them hard again, putting as many miles as possible between himself and the trading post. He had a hunch the men back at the trading post would be hell-bent for Bury. They were bounty hunters; he knew from the look. He smiled grimly at what they might think if they knew they had been within touching distance of the man called Smoke.
Buck found himself a hidden vantage point where he could watch the trail, and settled in for the evening. He built a hand-sized fire and fixed bacon and beans and coffee. Using tinderdry wood, the fire was virtually smokeless. He kept his coffee warm over the coals.
Just at dusk, he heard the sounds of riders. Three riders. He watched as they passed his hiding place at a slow canter, heading north, toward the trading post at Mackay. He watched and listened until the sounds of steel-shod hooves faded into the settling dusk. Using his saddle for a pillow, Buck went to sleep.
Just as the first rays of dawn streaked the horizon, Buck was fording the Big Lost, heading for the eastern banks and the Lost River Range. He did not want to travel those flats that stretched for miles before reaching Challis, preferring to remain in the timber.
He wanted to take his time getting to Bury for two reasons: One, he wanted the story of the shoot-out at the trading post to reach the right ears—namely, Potter, Stratton, and Richards. Men like that could always use another gun, and Buck intended to be that other gun. Two, he still had that nagging sensation of being followed. And it annoyed him. He knew,
The eighty-mile ride from the trading post to Challis passed slowly, and Buck took his time, enjoying the sights of new country. Buck was a man who loved the wilderness, loved its great beauty, loved the feeling of being alone, although he knew perfectly well he certainly was not alone. There were the eagles and hawks who soared and glided above him. The playful camp-robber birds, the squirrels and bears and puma, the breathless beauty of wild flowers in early summer. No, he was not alone in the wilderness. Alone was just a state of mind. Buck had only to look around him for company, compliments of nature.
Sensing more than hearing movement, Buck cut toward the west and into the deep timber of the Lost River Range. He quieted his horses and waited in the timber. Then he spotted them. It was a war party, and a big one. From this distance—he couldn’t risk using his spyglass, for it was afternoon and he was facing west, and didn’t want to risk sunlight bouncing off the lens—he could only guess the tribe. Nez Perce, Bannock—maybe Sheepeater. Preacher had told him about the little known but highly feared Sheepeaters.
Buck counted the braves. Thirty of them, all painted up and looking for trouble. He cursed under his breath as they reined up and dismounted, after sending lookouts in all directions.
Were they going to make camp? Buck didn’t know. But he knew it was awfully early for that.
To the south, Borah Peak, almost thirteen thousand feet high, loomed up stark in the high lonesome. The highest peak in the state, Borah dominated matters for miles.
Buck sat it out for several hours, watching and waiting out the long minutes. The horses seemed to sense the urgency of the moment and were very quiet. Occasionally, Buck would slip back to them to pat and water them, whispering gently to the animals, keeping them still and calm.
Returning from his last trip to the animals, Buck looked out over the valley he was high above. He grunted, not in surprise, but rather an “I should have known” grunt.
The Indians were gone, having left as swiftly and silently as they had come. Buck lay still for another ten minutes, mulling the situation over in his mind.
The war party had built no fires, either cook or signal. They had met with no other Indians. Why had they stopped? Buck had no idea. But he knew one thing: he damn sure wasn’t going to head out after them. Whichever direction the war party had taken, he planned to head in the other direction. And he did. Before two minutes had passed, Buck had tightened cinches and was heading out. He found where the war party had ridden south, so he swung Drifter’s head and pointed his nose north, toward the muddy, brawling town of Challis, located just to the northwest of the Salmon River. Buck would hang around Challis for a few days, listening to the miners talk and attempting to get the feel of what the townspeople thought of Bury, some thirty-five miles north and slightly east.
Challis was one short business street, more saloons than anything else, with tents and shacks and a few permanent-looking homes to the north. Most of the shacks appeared to have been tossed in their location by some giant crap-shooter.
Buck stabled his horses—he wasn’t worried about anyone stealing Drifter, for the stallion would kill anyone who entered his stall—and taking his Henry repeating rifle, a change of clothing, and his saddlebags, Buck walked toward the town’s hotel.
After checking in, Buck went to a barber shop and took a hot bath, a young Chinese man keeping the water hot with additional buckets of water. After Buck had soaped off the weeks of dirt and fleas, he dressed in dark trousers, white shirt, and vest. He left his boots to be shined and settled in the barber chair.
“Short,” he told the barber. “And trim my beard.”
“Passin’ through?” the barber asked.
“Could be. Mostly just drifting.”
The barber had noted Buck’s tied-down guns. Being an observant man, and one raised on the frontier, he knew a fast gun when he saw one. And this man sitting in his chair was a gunhand, and no tinhorn. The butts of his .44s were worn smooth from handling, with no marks in the wood to signify kills. Only a tinhorn did that, and tinhorns
