transportation, but also weapons and food and some shelter against the elements. He was ready now to go to war.
He took the telescope and moved to the edge of the copse of trees. He panned the scope all around the downslope area that he could see. There was no sign of any pursuit just yet, which meant he probably had enough time to fix a fire and to eat and make some coffee.
He took the reins of the horse and led it around and through the trees until he found some boulders sitting so there was a small protected space out of the chilly wind on the mountainside.
Using his boot, he scraped the snow down to where the horse could forage enough grass to fill its belly. Unfortunately, the man hadn’t carried any grain for his mount, but a few days on grass wouldn’t hurt the horse.
He took the saddle and blanket off, and used the reins to fashion a makeshift hobble for the animal, since he didn’t know if he could trust it to remain nearby if only ground-reined.
Once his horse was taken care of, he gathered up an armful of dead tree limbs and deadfall from around the boulders. He made a small pile between the boulders, with the smaller sticks on the bottom and the larger ones on top.
He opened the saddlebags and took out the woven blanket. Since the grass around was all covered with snow, it couldn’t be used to start the fire. It was too wet. So, he unraveled an inch or so of the blanket, wadded up the yarn, and stuck it under the kindling. When he lit it with a lucifer, it was only moments before he had a small fire going.
He’d picked up only long-dead wood, so there was very little smoke, though there was enough to spot if the men below were looking, and he knew he’d have to make this nooning fast.
He took out the bacon, sliced it with the skinning knife he’d taken from the man’s boot, and laid the strips out on a wide, flat rock. This he laid gently in the edge of the fire.
While the bacon was cooking, he poured the contents of the can of Arbuckle’s coffee into the sack the bacon and jerky and biscuits had been in, and then he filled the empty can with snow. He placed it near the fire so the snow would melt.
As the bacon cooked and the water began to boil, Smoke dumped a handful of coffee grounds into the water in the can. Using the skinning knife, he cut one of the biscuits open, and then speared the bacon and put it between the halves of the biscuit and began to eat.
The biscuit was very hard, but it softened a bit as the grease from the bacon soaked into it, and soon he could chew it without worrying about breaking a tooth off.
When the coffee was boiling, he wrapped the blanket around his hands and pulled the can away from the fire. He set it down and waited for it to cool down enough so he could drink it.
“All the comforts of home,” he mumbled to himself, happy to be free at last.
Thirty minutes later, he kicked snow into the fire to put it out and got back in the saddle. He’d dumped the whiskey out of the canteen after taking a sip or two, and replaced it with hot coffee. He’d also saved some of the biscuit and bacon sandwiches for an evening meal, since he doubted he’d be able to make a fire after darkness came.
He spurred the horse into motion and as it walked up the slope, he glanced behind him. Sure enough, the pine tree limbs he’d tied to the horse’s tail were dragging along, smoothing over the prints the horse was making in the snow. It wasn’t perfect, and if the men chasing him had a good tracker along, they could still follow him. But to see and follow the tracks, the tracker would have to walk—they couldn’t be seen from horseback. This would slow their chase considerably, and for every minute they delayed, the high winds of the High Lonesome were making his tracks that much harder to follow.
He moved farther and farther up the slope, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders as the temperature got colder and colder the higher he went. He glanced upward and smiled to see dense, dark clouds again forming around the distant peaks, whipped around and around by the high winds up on top of the mountain. He knew this meant more early winter storms were on the way, along with temperatures many degrees below zero.
“We’ll see how those boys like mountain weather,” he said to the back of the horse’s head as they slowly ascended toward the snow-covered peaks above them.
Several miles away, Cletus got to his feet as his men finished their noon meal. He moved over next to where the horses were tied and found Jason Biggs standing there, a pair of binoculars to his eyes.
“You see anything, Jason?” he asked as he began to build himself a cigarette.
“Couple’a elk an’ a bear, but nothin’ that looked like a rider on horseback.” He hesitated, and then he added, “I did see what looked like a thin plume of smoke, but with the winds up there it was hard to tell.”
Cletus put a match to his cigarette and nodded his head through the smoke. “Yeah, there’s just too many trees up there. A hundred men could be ridin’ around up there and if they was careful, we wouldn’t see nothin’ from down here in the flats.”
Biggs turned to him. “So, you ready to go upland an’ get us a son of a bitch?” he asked, still angry over the death of his friend Charley Blake.
Cletus nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I was kind’a hoping Mac would’a been back from talking to Angus, but we can’t wait any longer if we want’a get up the side of that mountain ’fore dark.”
“Good, ’cause I’m itchin’ to get that sumbitch in my sights.”
Cletus put his hand on Biggs’s shoulder. “Jason, you know we’re going up there to capture Jensen, not assassinate him, don’t you?”
Biggs showed his teeth, but it was more a grimace than a real smile. “You do what you got to do, Clete, an’ I’ll do the same.”
Cletus decided to let it drop. He too was pretty pissed off about Blake, though he could understand why Jensen had done what he’d done. As he’d told Sarah, a man running for his life will do just about anything he has to in order to survive.
Cletus got his men saddled up and headed toward the steep slopes of the mountain in the distance. Like Smoke, he too noticed the clouds whipping around the peaks, and knew they were going to be in for some rough weather before too long.
