and she was mad clear through. When she got within swinging distance she let him have it, giving him five in the mouth and dropping him to the ground.
Parnell lay flat on his butt, blood leaking out of a busted lip, looking up at his baby sister. He wore a hurt expression on his face. He blinked and said, “I suppose, Sister, that is your quaint way of saying no?”
Smoke and the others burst out laughing. The laughter spread and soon Fae and Rita were laughing. No one paid any attention to the bodies littering the yard and the areas all around the ranch complex.
Parnell sat up and rubbed his jaw. “I, for one, fail to see the humor in this grotesque situation.”
That caused another round of laughter. They were still laughing as Ring walked up, leading several horses, one with the body of the neck-broke outlaw draped across the saddle.
“Crazy folks,” Ring said. “But nice folks.”
Sixteen
“This ain’t worth a damn!” Jason summed up the night’s action. “Nine dead and six wounded. Couple more nights like this and we might as well hang it up.”
“Shore got to change our plans,” Lanny agreed. “We should have hit McCorkle first.”
“Well, you can bet they all is gonna be on the alert after this night,” No-Count Victor said. “Hell, let’s just go on and kill that stupid Dooley and his sons and settle for this spread.”
“No!” Lanny stopped that quick. ”It’s got to be the whole bag or nothing. Think about it. You think Cord and Smoke would let us stay in this area, on this spread? And what about Dooley’s wife; you forgettin’ about her?”
“I reckon so,” Cat said sullenly.
Both Jason and Lanny had been admiring Cat’s matched guns since he’d arrived. They were silver-plated, scroll-engraved, with ivory grips. Smith & Wesson .44’s, top break for easier loading. They both coveted Cat’s guns. Both of them had thought, more than once: When this is over, I’ll kill him and take them fancy guns.
Honor extended only so far.
A wounded man moaned in restless unconsciousness on his bloody bunk. Before he had passed out, he had drunk a full bottle of laudanum to ease the pain in his chest. Pink froth was bubbling past his lips. Lung shot, and all knew he wasn’t going to make it.
“You want me to shoot him, Jason?” Nappy asked.
“Naw. He’ll be gone in a few hours. If he s still alive come the mornin’, we’ll put a piller over his face and end it thataway. It won’t make so much noise.”
Smoke stepped out before first light, carrying his rifle, loaded full. It had come to him during the night, and if it came to the range-robbers, the small band of defenders would be in trouble. They could starve them out; a few well-placed snipers could keep them pinned down for days. He hated to tell Fae, but Smoke felt it would be best to desert the ranch and head for Cord’s place. If they stayed here, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.
He looked around the darkness. Before turning in, they had stacked the bodies of the outlaws against a wall of a ravine. At first light, they would go through their pockets in search of any clues to family or friends. They would then bury the men by collapsing dirt over the stiffening bodies. There would be no markers.
Smoke smelled the aroma of coffee coming from the bunkhouse, the good odors just barely overriding the smell of charred wood from the remnants of the barn. Smoke walked to the bunkhouse, faint lanternlight shining through the windows.
“Comin’ in,” he announced just before reaching the door.
“Come on,” ol’ Spring called. “Got hot coffee and hard biscuits.”
Before Smoke poured his first cup of coffee of the day, he noticed the men had already packed their warbags and rolled their slim mattresses.
“You boys read my mind, hey?”
“Figured you’d be wantin’ to pull out this mornin’,” Hardrock said, gumming a biscuit to soften it. He had perhaps four teeth left in his mouth. “What about the cattle?”
Smoke took a drink of the strong cowboy coffee before replying. “Figured we’d drive them on over to Cord’s.”
“Them no-goods is gonna fire the cabin soon as we’re gone,” Silver Jim said. “After they loot it.” He grinned nastily. “We all allow as to how we ought to leave a few surprises in there for them.”
Smoke, squatting down, leaned back against the bunkhouse wall and smiled. “What you got in mind?”
Hardrock kicked a cloth sack by his bunk. The sack moved and buzzed. “I gleamed me a rattler nest several days back. ‘Fore I snoozed last night I paid it a visit and grabbed me several. I figured I’d plant ’em in the house ’fore we left, in stra-teegic spots.” He grinned. “You like that idee?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Thought you would. Soon as Miss Fae and that goosy brother of her’n is gone we’ll plant the rattlers.”
Smoke chewed on yesterday s biscuit and took a swallow of coffee. “You reckon any varmits got to the bodies last night?”
“Doubtful,” Charlie said. “Ring stayed out there, close by. Said he didn’t much like them people but it wouldn’t be fitten to let the coyotes and wolves chew on them. Strange man.”
Pistol looked toward the dusty window. “Gettin’ light enough to see. I reckon we better get to it whilst it’s cool. Them ol’ boys is gonna get plumb ripe when the sun touches ’em.”
The men put on their hats, hitched up their britches, and turned out the lamps. “I’d hate to be an undertaker,” Hardrock said. “Hope when I go I just fall off my horse in the timber.”
“By that time, you’ll be so old you won’t be able to get in the saddle,” Silver Jim needled him.
