The three men walked toward their horses and stepped into the saddles. They rode toward the east, fast disappearing into the night.
The old gunslingers joined Cord by the tree. “Gonna be some fireworks this night,” Silver Jim said. “Pistol, you ’member that time me and you and that half-breed Ute hit them outlaws down on the Powder River?”
Pistol laughed in the night. “Yeah. They was about twenty of them. We shore give them what-for, didn’t we?”
“Was that the time y’all catched them gunnies in their drawers?” Hardrock asked.
“Takes something out of a man to have to fight in his longhandles. We busted right up into their camp. Stampeded their horses right over them, with us right behind the horses, reins in our teeth and both hands full of guns. Of course,” he added with a smile, “that was when we all had teeth!”
The men rode slowly, saving their horses and not wanting to reach the ranch until all were asleep. They kept conversation to a minimum, riding each with their own thoughts. They did not need to be shared. Facing death was a personal thing, the concept that had to be worked out in each man’s mind. None of the three considered themselves to be heroes; they were simply doing what they felt had to be done. The niceties of legal maneuvering were fast approaching the West, but it would be a few more years before they reached the general population. Until that time, codes of conduct would be set and enforced by the people, and the outcome would usually be very final.
The men forded the Smith, careful not to let water splash onto the canvas sacks containing the giant powder bombs. On the east side of the river, they pulled up and rested, letting their horses blow.
The men squatted down and carefully checked their guns, making sure they were loaded up full. Only after that was done did Lujan haul out the makings and pass the sack and papers around. The men enjoyed a quiet smoke in the coolness of Montana night and only then was the silence broken.
“We’ll walk our horses up to that ridge overlooking Dooley’s spread,” Smoke spoke softly. “Look the situation over. If it looks OK, we’ll ride slow-like and not light the bombs until we’re inside the compound. Lujan, you take the new bunkhouse. Beans, you toss yours into the bunkhouse that was used by Gage and his boys. I’ll take the main house.” He picked up a stick and drew a crude diagram in the dirt, just visible in the moonlight. “We’ve got about a hundred and fifty rounds between us all loaded up for the first pass. But let’s don’t burn them all up and get caught short.
“Beans, the corral is closest to your spot; rope the gates and pull ’em down. The horses will be out of there like a shot. We make one pass and then get the hell gone from there. We’ll link up just south of that ridge. If we get separated, we’ll meet back at the Smith, where we rested. I don’t want to bomb the barn because of the horses in there. Ain’t no point in hurtin’ a good horse when we don’t have to.”
Lujan chuckled quietly. “I think when the big bangs go off, there will be no need for Beans to rope the gates. I think the horses will break those poles down in a blind panic and be gone.”
“Let’s hope so,” Smoke said. “That’ll give us more time to raise Cain.”
“And,” Beans said, “when them bombs go off, those ol’ boys are gonna be so rattled they’ll be runnin’ in all directions. I’d sure like to have a pitcher of it to keep.”
Lujan ground out his cigarette butt under a boot heel and stood up. “Shall we go make violent sounds in the night, boys?”
The men rode deeper into the night, drawing closer to their objective. It was unspoken, but each man had entertained the thought that if Dooley had decided to strike first this night, Cord would be three guns short. If that was the case, and they were hitting an empty ranch, Dooley would experience the sensation of seeing another glow in the night sky.
His own ranch.
The three men left their horses and walked up to the ridge overlooking the darkened complex of the D-H ranch. They all three smiled as their eyes settled on the many horses in the double corral.
Without speaking, Smoke pointed out each man’s perimeter and, using sign language, told them to watch carefully. He gave the soft call of a meadowlark and Lujan and Beans nodded their understanding, then faded into the brush.
They watched for over an hour, each of them spotting the locations of the two men on watch. They were careless, puffing on cigarettes. Smoke bird-called them back in and they slipped to their horses.
“What’d you think?” Smoke tossed it out.
“Let’s swing around the ridge and walk our horses as close in as we can,” Beans suggested.
“Suits me,” Lujan said.
“Let’s do it.”
They swung around the ridge and came up on the east side of the ranch, walking their horses very slowly, keeping to the grass to further muffle the sound of the hooves.
“They’re either drunk or asleep,” Beans whispered.
“With any kind of luck, we can put them to sleep forever,” Lujan returned the whisper. He reached back for the canvas sack and took out a giant powder bomb, the others following suit.
They were right on the edge of the ranch grounds when a call went up. “Hey! They’s something movin’ out yonder!”
The three men scratched matches into flames and lit the fuses. Beans let out a wild scream that would have sent any self-respecting puma running for cover and the horses lunged forward, steel-shod hooves pounding on the hard-packed dirt road.
Smoke reached the house first, sending Dagger leaping over the picket fence. He hurled the bomb through a front window and circled around to the back, lighting the fuse on his second bomb and tossing it into an upstairs window. The front of the house blew, sending shards of glass and splintered pieces of wood flying just as Smoke was heading across the backyard, low in the saddle, his face almost pressing Dagger’s neck. He was using his knees to guide the horse, the reins in his teeth and both hands filled with .44’s.
The upstairs blew, taking part of the roof off just as the bunkhouses exploded. All the men knew that with these black powder bombs, as small as they were, unless a man was directly in the path of one, or within a ten-foot
