Smoke fought back his urge and put a hand to his reddened cheek. “You struck me!” he cried. “How dare you strike me, you—you animal!”
The man laughed as his friends walked across the plaza to join him. “What you got here, Jake?” one of them asked. “Looks to me like you done treed a girl dressed up in britches.”
“I don’t know what the hell it is, Red. But he shore talks funny.”
“Le’s see if he’ll fight, Shorty,” Jake said.
The three of them began pushing Smoke back and forth between them, roughing him up but doing no real physical damage; just bruising his dignity some. A crowd had gathered around, most of the men drinking, and they were getting a big laugh out of the sissy being shoved back and forth.
“Now, you all stop this immediately!” Smoke protested, putting a high note of fear into his voice. “I want you to stop this now…you hooligans!”
“Oh, my!” the outlaw called Red said, prancing around, one hand on his hip. “We hooligans, boys!”
Shorty reached out and, with a hard jerk, sent Smoke’s trousers down around his ankles. Red shoved Smoke, who hit the ground hard and stayed there.
“I guess Cahoon was right, Shorty,” Red said. “He ain’t got a bit of sand in him.” Then he turned and gave Smoke a vicious kick in the side, bringing a grunt of pain from him.
Forcing himself to do it, Smoke rolled himself up in a ball and hid his face in his hands. “Oh, don’t hurt me anymore. I can’t stand pain.”
The crowd laughed. “Hell, Jake,” Red said. “We wastin’ our time. Sissy-boy ain’t gonna fight.”
Not yet, Smoke thought.
“Le’s make him eat some horseshit!” Shorty suggested.
“Naw, I got a better idee. ’Sides, there ain’t fresh piles around. We done found out what we come to find out: He’s yeller.”
“That shore was funny the time we made that drummer eat a pile of it, though!”
Shorty then unbuttoned his pants and urinated on Smoke’s legs. The crowd fell silent; only Jake and Red thought that was funny.
Smoke’s thoughts were savage.
The three hardcases then left and the crowd broke up, with no one offering to help Smoke to his feet.
Smoke hauled up his britches, found his sketch pad, and brushed himself off, then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he walked across the plaza. As he passed by the sheriff and the U.S. Marshal, Smoke whispered, “I think I’m in.”
He stopped to brush dirt off his shirt.
“Picked a hard way to do it,” the sheriff said. “I’d a never been able to lay there and take that.”
“Let’s just say it’s going to be interesting when I come out of this costume,” Smoke whispered.
“We’ll be there,” Wilde whispered. “There is a packet for you in your room. Good luck.”
The packet contained a U.S. Marshal’s badge, his written federal commission, and a letter.
On the night of Smoke’s seventh day in Trinidad, two hours after dusk, unless Smoke could get a signal out to tell them differently, the U.S. Marshals, and various sheriffs and deputies from a four-county area, beefed up with volunteers from throughout the area, would strike at Dead River. They would begin getting into position just at dusk. It would be up to Smoke to take out the guards at the pass. Do it any way he saw fit.
And to Smoke’s surprise, the marshal had a plant inside Dead River, one that had been there for about six months.
A woman. Hope Farris.
It would be up to Smoke to contact her. The marshal had no way of knowing whether she was dead or alive; they had received no word from her in several months.
They feared she might have been taken prisoner. Or worse.
Good luck.
“Yeah,” Smoke muttered, burning the note in the cutoff tin can that served as an ashtray. “I am sure going to need that.”
He pulled out of Trinidad before dawn the next morning, after resupplying the night before. He headed west, avoiding the tiny settlements for the most part. But a threatening storm forced him to pull up and seek shelter in the small town of Stonewall.
And Stonewall was not a place Smoke cared to linger long. The town and the area around it was torn in a bitter war between cattlemen and the lumber industry on one side and the homesteaders on the other side, over grazing and lumber interests.
Smoke knew he would have to be very careful which saloon he entered that night, if any, for each side would have their own watering holes in this war. Finally he said to hell with having a drink and sketching anyone. He got him a room and stayed put.
He pulled out before daylight, before the cafe even opened, and made his way to Lost Lake. There he caught some trout for breakfast, broiling them. Looking around, far above the timberline, Smoke could see the tough and hardy alpine vegetation: kinnikinnick, creeping phlox, and stunted grass.
After a tasty breakfast and several cups of strong hot coffee, Smoke bathed quickly—very quickly—in the cold blue waters of Lost Lake.
Shivering, even though it was the middle of summer, he dressed and had one more cup of coffee. He was still a
