Smoke and York cut across the Sangre de Cristo range, in search of the cave Davidson and his men had used to escape.
Sally got the wire one day before the Boston and New York newspapers ran the front-page story of the incident, calling it: JUSTICE AT DEAD RIVER. The pictures would follow in later editions.
John read the stories, now carried in nearly all papers in the East, and shook his head in disbelief, saying to his daughter, “Almost fifty men were hanged in one morning. Their trials took an average of three minutes per man. For God’s sake, Sally, surely you don’t agree with these kangaroo proceedings?”
“Father,” the daughter said, knowing that the man would never understand, “it’s a hard land. We don’t have time for all the niceties you people take for granted back here.”
“It doesn’t bother you that your husband, Smoke, is credited—if that’s the right choice of words—with killing some thirty or forty men?”
Sally shook her head. “No. I don’t see why it should. You see, Father, you’ve taken a defense attorney’s position already. And you immediately condemned Smoke and the other lawmen and posse members, without ever saying a word about those poor people who were kidnapped, enslaved, and then hung up on hooks to die by slow torture. You haven’t said a word about the people those outlaws abused, robbed, murdered, raped, tortured, and then ran back to Dead River to hide and spend their ill-gotten gain. Even those papers there,” she pointed, “admit that every man who was hanged was a confessed murderer, many of them multiple killers. They got whatever they deserved, Father. No more, and no less.”
The father sighed and looked at his daughter. “The West has changed you, Sally. I don’t know you anymore.”
“Yes, I’ve changed, Father,” she admitted. “For the better.” She smiled. “It’s going to be interesting when you and Smoke meet.”
“Yes,” John agreed. “Quite.”
It took Smoke and York three days after crossing the high range to find the cave opening and the little valley beneath it.
“Slick,” York said. “If they hadn’t a knocked down the bushes growin’ in front of the mouth of that cave, we’d have had the devil’s own hard time findin’ it.”
The men entered the cave opening, which was barely large enough to accommodate a standing man. And they knew from the smell that greeted them what they would find.
They looked down at the bloated and maggot-covered bodies on the cave floor.
“You know them?” Smoke asked.
“I seen ’em in town. But I never knowed their names. And I don’t feel like goin’ through their pockets to find out who they was, do you?”
Smoke shook his head. Both men stepped back outside, grateful to once more be out in the cool, fresh air. They breathed deeply, clearing their nostrils of the foul odor of death.
“Let’s see if we can pick up a trail,” Smoke suggested.
Old Preacher had schooled Smoke well. The man could track a snake across a flat rock. Smoke circled a couple of times, then called for York to join him.
“North.” He pointed. “I didn’t think they’d risk getting out into the sand dunes. They’ll probably follow the timber line until they get close to the San Luis, then they’ll ride the river, trying to hide their tracks. I’ll make a bet they’ll cut through Poncha Pass, then head east to the railroad town. They might stop at the hot springs first. You game?”
“Let’s do it.”
They picked up and lost the tracks a dozen times, but it soon became apparent that Smoke had pegged their direction accurately. At a village called Poncha Springs, past the San Luis Valley, Smoke and York stopped and re- supplied and bathed in the hot waters.
Yes, about a dozen hard-looking men had been through. Oh, five or six days back. They left here ridin’ toward Salida. They weren’t real friendly folks, neither. Looked like hardcases.
Smoke and York pulled out the next morning.
At Salida, they learned that Davidson and his men had stopped, bought supplies and ammunition, and left the same day they’d come.
But one man didn’t ride out with the others.
“He still in town?” Smoke asked.
“Shore is. Made his camp up by the Arkansas. ’Bout three miles out of town. But he’s over to the saloon now.”
Salida was new and raw, a railroad town built by the Denver and Rio Grande railroad. Salida was the division point of the main line and the narrow-gauge lines over what is called Marshall Pass.
“What’s this ol’ boy look like?” York asked.
The man described him.
“Nappy,” Smoke said. “You got papers on him?”
“’Deed I do,” York said, slipping the hammer thong off his .44.
“I’ll back you up. Let’s go.”
“You look familiar, partner,” the citizen said to Smoke. “What might be your name?”
“Smoke Jensen.”
As soon as the lawmen had left, the man hauled his ashes up and down the muddy streets, telling everyone he could find that Smoke was in town.
