room and sending bits of glass and coal oil from the expensive lamps spraying. Jud Vale and his men hit the floor, yelling and cussing. The second .44 round whined off the polished wood of the dining room table and stopped in the china hutch, destroying several plates and cups. The third round bounced off a kettle in the kitchen and whined wickedly around the stove before rolling across the floor and coming to rest about three inches from Jud Vale’s nose.
The men began crawling across the floor, toward the rear of the house. Smoke anticipated that move, and
“Somebody get around to the side of the house!” Jud yelled. “Try to get him in a crossfire.”
But Smoke was off and running, coming to rest behind the gazebo in the side yard. He saw the bodyguard come chugging around the corner and knocked a leg out from under him. Dragging his limb, the man crawled back around to the front of the mansion.
Jud and his men moved to the side of the house, but by this time, Smoke had again changed locations, back to the rear of the house. He decided he’d pressed his luck enough for this day, and took a stick of dynamite out of his pocket, capping and fusing the thunder stick. He lit it and let it fly and was heading for the creek before the sputtering stick landed.
The charge landed on the ground and rolled under the porch. When it blew, it tore the whole porch off the rear of the house and busted most of the windows in the back of the mansion.
Smoke stopped at the creek bank long enough to empty his rifle into the back of the house and then ran toward the ridge and his horse.
Inside the mansion, their hearing momentarily impaired from the booming of the giant stick, Jud and his men hugged the floor until the rifle fire stopped. Their ears ringing, the men crawled to their knees.
“That wasn’t Clint Perkins,” Jud said, his voice seeming to come out of a well. “That was Smoke Jensen. Bet on it!”
Chuckling, Smoke cut the Bar V hand loose, laid the barrel of his pistol on the back of the man’s head, insuring that he would be out for some time to come, and mounted up, riding off.
He had a full day of headhunting to do.
The hand Smoke had busted on the noggin finally found noggin the size of a hen’s egg.
“Jensen,” he told Jud.
“Which way did he ride out?”
“Don’t know. He busted me on the head. I just now come to my senses. I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”
Jud cussed and stomped and paced up and down behind the mansion and the ruined porch. He fought to keep his anger under control and managed it.
“Get the boys in,” he told Jason. “Jensen was raised by Preacher. Probably the best Injun fighter the West ever seen. He’s gone headhunting, bet on it. If the boys stay out, he’ll do us some more damage. Get them back here, pronto.”
Jason looked confused. “Jesus, Boss. How? They’re scattered all forty miles.”
Jud Vale sat down on a stump and cussed. Smoke Jensen planned all this, he concluded. He didn’t know how, or even the why of it, but it was all Smoke Jensen’s fault. He convinced himself of that. Damn Smoke Jensen to the pits of Hellfire!
Jud again calmed himself and did a little mental figuring. As of last evening, he had 18 hands on the payroll. He had hired 25 men at fighting wages—God knows they hadn’t earned a penny of it—and he was giving another 15 or 20 men—he forgot the exact number—money just to hang around. Three riders had deserted him last night, thanks to that damn Clint Perkins; or had it been Perkins? And two more had been so badly beaten they were out of it for several days. Maybe a week. So savagely mauled that they hadn’t even been able to leave the bunkhouse when Perkins and then Jensen attacked the house. He had lost two of his most trusted men to the guns of Perkins. Jensen had busted the leg of another. And a third had his head busted open.
“Damn!” he muttered. He looked up at Jason. “You boys stick close to home. I reckon them forty-odd men out A gunslick whose Christian name was Wilber Hammersmith—his friends called him Hammer—thought a damn puma had done jumped onto his back, knocking him from the saddle. Then he looked up into the eyes of Smoke Jensen, sitting on top of him, and suddenly felt an urgent need to relieve his bladder.
He cut his eyes as Jensen balled his right hand into a huge fist. “Aw, hell, man!” he managed to say before his whole head exploded in pain.
And speaking of his head . . . when he finally awakened, he had a whale of a headache, his whole world was upside down, and his head was unnaturally cold.
Hammer figured out why his world was upside down. It wasn’t the world—it was him! Jensen had taken Hammer’s rope and strung him upside down from a tall limb. After stripping him down to his long handles and taking his boots and socks and guns.
But how come his head was so cold? He had always been right proud of his blond hair. He finally managed to get his hands free and to his head.
He screamed as if he’d been mortally wounded, the sound echoing around the hills and ridges.
That damn Smoke Jensen had taken his knife and shaved his head!
“Halp!” Hammersmith started hollering as he swayed in the breeze at the end of the rope. His own rope. “I’m a-gonna kill you, Jensen!” Hammersmith squalled. “Damn your eyes, you heathen! This ain’t right. Halp!”
Buck Wall thought he heard someone hollering. He pulled up and listened. Yep. Someone was sure hollering all right. Coming from over that next ridge, he thought. He eased over that way and found the source of all the noise.
“Boy,” he said to Hammer. “How come you got yourself all tied up like that there?”
“Cut me down, damnit!” Hammer squalled.
