Smoke didn’t need a fortune-teller to know where they were heading: to Red Malone’s spread.
“Do we follow them?” Toby asked, coming out of the hotel carrying a rifle.
“Not a whole bunch of us. That’s what they want. They’d set up an ambush point and nail us. Jim,” he called, “saddle me a horse. Not Star. He needs a rest.”
Smoke looked around. “Judge, deputize Pete Akins. Pete and Jim will stay here. Sal, come on. Let’s do some head-hunting.”
Sally pressed a couple of biscuits and salt meat in his hand while the hotel cook made a poke of food for the men to take with them. Smoke gulped down a cup of coffee and then was in the saddle, riding a long-legged buckskin with a mean look in his eyes.
“I know that horse,” Sal said. “That’s the stableman’s personal ride. He’s a good one.”
Smoke nodded and the men were off, leaving the road just outside of town and cutting across country. From their tracks, it was clear that the outlaws had arrogantly elected to stay with the road, daring Smoke and any others to chase them.
The short cut that Smoke chose was one pointed out to him by Jim; and Sal knew it as well or better. It would cut off miles getting to the Lightning spread. It was rough country; high-up country.
The men rode the mountain trails and passes in silence. A great gray wolf watched them from a ridge. Smoke spoke to the wolf in Cheyenne, one of several Indian languages that Old Preacher had taught him. Preacher had taught him that for man to fear the wolf was downright ignorant. Preacher had said that he’d never known of a man being attacked by a wolf unless that man was threatening the wolf or got too close to a fresh kill. Either way, according to Preacher, it was the man’s fault, not the wolfs.
“Magnificent animals,” Sal said, looking at the timber wolf. “But they don’t make good pets worth a damn.”
“They’re not meant to be pets,” Smoke agreed. “God didn’t put them here for that. Damn stupid hunters keep killing them, and the deer and elk population suffers because of it. They’re part of the balance of nature. I wish the white man would understand that. Indians understood it.”
The wolf stood on the ridge and watched the men pass. Then it turned and went back to its den, where it was watching over the cubs while its mate hunted for food, which is a lot more than can be said for a great many so- called superior humans.
“There they are,” Sal pointed out.
Smoke looked to his right and slightly behind him. A group of riders, tiny from this distance, rode far below them. About twenty-five of them.
“We’ll be a good fifteen minutes ahead of them after we cut off up yonder,” Sal said. “I know a place that’ll be dandy for an ambush.”
“Take the lead, Sal. I’ll follow you.”
The men rode down from the high country, the temperature warming as they descended from the high-up into a valley. Wildflowers had burst forth, coloring the landscape with brilliant summer hues.
Smoke was going to add some more color to the scenery: blood-red.
The two men left their horses safe within boulders and timber and, with their rifles, got into place. They were about fifty yards above the road. This was not the stage road, but an offshoot that led to and stopped at Malone’s ranch, some miles farther on. They were on Lightning range.
Sal pointed that out.
“Good,” Smoke replied. “Maybe they’ll hear the shots and come to lend their buddies a hand. We’ll lessen the odds against the town if they do.”
Sal took that time to point out that should that occur, the two of them would be outnumbered something like forty to one.
Smoke grinned and patted the bulging saddlebags he’d taken from behind his saddle. “Have faith, Sal. If worse comes to worse, well blast our way out.”
“There ain’t a nerve in your body, is there, Smoke?”
“Oh, I’ve known fear, Sal.” Smoke thought for a moment, then smiled. “Back in ’69, I think it was.”
Both men laughed, then sobered as the outlaws came into view, riding around a curve in the road, still too far away for accurate shooting.
“Wish we had brung one of them fancy rifles you took from them foreigners,” Sal said. “We’d a sure tried it out.”
Smoke eared back the hammer on his Winchester. “They’ll be in range in about a minute. I’ll take the left side, you take the right.”
“Good,” Sal said flatly. “I can recognize Ernie’s horse from here. Ain’t neither one of them worth a damn for anything.”
“Here we go, Sal.”
The men lifted the rifles to their shoulders, sighted in, took up slack on the triggers, and emptied two saddles.
The outlaws appeared confused as their horses reared and bucked at the gunfire and the sudden smell of blood. Instead of turning left or right, or retreating, the outlaws put the spurt to the animals’ flanks and came forward.
“Like shootin’ clay pigeons standin’ still,” Sal muttered, and emptied another saddle.
Smoke grabbed several taped-together sticks of dynamite from the open saddlebag, lit the fuse, and tossed it
