Cutting down the odds would certainly help. Perhaps a little night work? Like headhunting?
Smoke smiled a warrior’s smile, thinking: Why not?
He remembered Preacher’s words: “You’ll always be a fighter, boy—a warrior. You’ll take the quiet home life for a time, then the itch will git to where you cain’t jist sit at home and scratch it. And then you’ll head for the high lonesome, lookin’ for trouble. And knowin’ you, boy, you’ll find it.”
Smoke rounded up Cheyenne and Rusty and took them to one side. “I’ll be gone for a couple of days, maybe longer. I don’t like the odds, so I think I’ll do something about them.”
“You crave some company?” Cheyenne asked.
Smoke shook his head. “No. This is something that’s best left to one man. I’ll be pulling out at dusk.”
“You going to tell Walt and the wimmin what you’re up to?” the old gunfighter asked.
“I’ll tell Walt. If he wants to let the women in on it, that’s up to him.“
“If anybody can pull it off, you can, son. You had the best teacher in the world in Preacher.”
Smoke certainly agreed with that last sentence. There had been no finer night fighter in the world than Preacher. “I’ll start getting my gear together. Rusty, fix me up with a packet of food enough to last two days.”
The cowboy nodded and walked away. Smoke turned back to Cheyenne. “My horse is too well known. put a rope on that steeldust for me, will you? He’s mean as hell but he’s mountain bred and quick as lightning and can go all day and still have bottom left.”
“He’s a good one. I’ll dob him for you.”
Smoke filled up all the loops in his gunbelt and filled up a bandoleer, slinging that around his shoulder. He slipped another box of .44’s into his saddlebags and made sure his moccasins were tucked into the leather. He would soon slip out of his boots and into the moccasins when it was time for the night stalking to begin. He sat down on his bunk and began putting a finer edge on his Bowie knife. That done, he walked to a stone building behind the barn and opened the locked door with a key he had found in a cabinet in the storeroom. He had a hunch what he would find, and his hunch was correct.
He filled a small sack with sticks of dynamite and caps and fuses. He might not be able to cut the head off the snake, but he was sure intending to tweak its tail.
11
Smoke talked to Jamie and Matthew before he pulled out into the night.
“Tell the boys to ride carefully and keep a sharp eye out. I’m going into the lion’s den, and there is no telling what Jud Vale will have his men do in retaliation after I’m through.”
“There used to be a lot more farmers in this area than there is now, Mr. Smoke,” Jamie said. “Women and girls has been tooken and misused by Vale and his riders. Men has been tarred and feathered and horsewhipped and killed. Killed outright if they was lucky. A deputy sheriff come in here once. He just disappeared. There ain’t been no more lawmen come around the Bear. Jud Vale is pure trash, Mr. Smoke. Trash livin’ in a big fancy house, with servants and such as that. When he can get them to stay, that is. He fancies young women all around, to wait on him. And he abuses them in ways we heard that would make you sick to your stomach, so they leave as soon as they can get a way out. You cain’t tell us nothin’ about Jud Vale and what he might decide to do.”
“The more I hear about this man the more I think the best thing to do would be to just go in and chop his head off, so to speak,” Smoke said.
“Ain’t gonna be that easy, Mr. Smoke. Not even for you. Jud ain’t never alone. He’s got half a dozen bodyguards with him all the time. Men that have been with him for years, my pa says.”
“We’ll see, boys. We’ll see. I might not be able to do much more than rattle the bars on his cage this time around. But, by God, he will know that his territory has been violated.”
Walt came out to the barn just moments before Smoke was to pull out. “Clint Perkins is in the area, Smoke, Don’t ask me how I know—I can’t explain the feelings I get when he’s close. I just know. You be careful.”
“Whose side is he on, Walt?”
“His own,” the old rancher said bluntly. “He’s like a goose; wakes up in a new world every day. I always knew he was about half nuts. Now I think he’s gone slap dab crazy.”
Smoke led the steeldust out of the barn and swung into the saddle. “I’ll see you in two or three days, Walt.”.
“Be careful, boy.”
Smoke rode slowly away from the ranch and into the night. He fought shy of the roads and well-traveled trails as he worked his way toward the range of the Bar V. Editor Argood had told him that there was not one single person on the Bar V payroll that was worth the gunpowder it would take to blow their brains out. To a man, Argood said, they were bullies and trash and petty criminals and all wanted by the law somewhere. The people in the area put up with them because Jud Vale kept them all on a tight leash. Jud had forbidden them to enter Montpelier, restricting their carousing to a few small towns and trading posts in the area around the Bar V range.
All in all, Smoke concluded as he rode through the night, a snake pit could best describe the Bar V . . . and that included the owner.
With a tight smile on his face. Smoke thought that the next couple of days and nights should prove to be quite interesting.
Before leaving the Box T, Smoke had taken tape and silenced anything that might jingle. Only the clop of the steeldust’s hooves and the occasional creak of saddle leather could be heard. By midnight, he was on Bar V range. He would ride for a while, then dismount and stand listening for several moments. He began passing bunched and sleeping cattle and slipped his rope free, knowing he would soon make contact with a night herder. If his luck held, the night herder would think him one of the Bar V riders—at least long enough for Smoke to dab a loop over the man and cause a little mischief.
