“Oh, they’re around,” John T. said. “Six feet under.”
“Yonder’s the hangin’ tree,” Cosgrove said softly. “With the rope still on it.”
“Makes my throat hurt just lookin’ at it,” Paul Melham said. “I got an idea: why don’t the most of us just ride on through and we’ll be waitin’ for y’all outside of town? This is a stacked deck if I ever seen one. They’s men on rooftops with rifles, too.”
“Boss?” John T. looked at von Hausen.
“Yes. Good idea. Ride on. You men leading the pack animals stay to help load.”
Von Hausen’s stomach muscles knotted up when he led his group into the general store. There were men all around the store, all armed with sawed-off shotguns.
“We mean no harm to anyone,” Gunter said. “We just want to resupply and we’ll be gone within the hour.”
“Fine,” the owner of the general store said. “But you gonna find this mighty expensive shoppin’.”
Marlene looked at a freshly printed sign and smiled. Beans: $4.00 a lb. Taters: $6.00 a lb. Sugar: $15.00 a lb. Coffee: $20.00 a lb. And so on.
Von Hausen found the whole thing humorous and laughed when she pointed out the sign to him. “Obviously a depressed area, my dear. Let them have their fun. Spread our wealth among the colonials, so to speak. It’s good public relations, you know.”
They bought their supplies, paid for them, and were gone in thirty minutes. At the edge of town, Bob Hogan pointed out a row of fresh-dug graves, the mounds still muddy. “Smoke Jensen came through,” was all he had to say.
Frederick glanced at Hans and arched an eyebrow. “Formidable opponent,” he said, and rode on.
Ol’ Preacher talked about this country, and took Smoke through it when he was just a boy. The old mountain man told Smoke all about the rendezvous he’d attended in the Snake River country back in the early ’30’s. The event was held close to where three Wyoming rivers meet: the Snake, Greys, and Salt.
Smoke rode deeper into the High Lonesome, memories of Ol’ Preacher all around him. It seemed to Smoke that his friend and mentor was guiding him on.
After leaving the settlement, Smoke had angled over, crossed the Salt River Range, and followed the Greys up. He was not far from where the old mountain man, William Sublette, had reached a particularly beautiful and lonesome place and named it Jackson Hole, after another mountain man and close friend, David Jackson. Preacher had told him that was back in ’29, long before the damn settlers started coming in and civilizing everything they touched.
Five decades later, there were still damn few settlers in the area, but those hardy ones who had come, had stayed. The valley where Smoke was heading was approximately forty-eight miles long and about six to eight miles wide, with mountains pushing thousands of feet into the sky all around it and in it.
Smoke was going to test those following him. He was going to give them a little taste of what was in store for them if they persisted in hunting him clear up into the High Lonesome of northwest Wyoming, where the peaks pushed two-and-a-half miles into the sky and one misstep meant death.
Here in the hole is where he’d find out if those on his backtrail really meant to kill him. For if that was true, he would leave some of them to be buried among the Aspen, Englemann spruce, Douglas fir and lodgepole pine. And where the mountain men used to join the wolves in their howling, lending their voices to the ever-sighing winds of the High Lonesome.
7
“Magnificent country,” Gunter said, riding in a valley between the towering mountains.
“Some of us will enjoy it for eternity, I think,” Angel said.
The words had hardly left his mouth when John T. called for a halt. Frederick rode up to the point. “What’s the matter?” the German asked.
John T. pointed to a strange design of rocks in the middle of the trail. “That’s the matter.”
“What does it mean?”
“That’s the Blackfoot sign for warning. Tellin’ us not to come any further.”
“Oh!” Marlene said, riding up. “Will we get to shoot some red wild Indians?”
“No Injun put that there, your ladyship,” John T. told her. “Smoke Jensen done that.”
“How do you know that?” Hans asked.
“See that little squirmly lookin’ thing off to one side? That’s the sign for smoke. He’s tellin’ us that from here on, the game is over.”
“Good, good!” Frederick said. “He’s throwing down the glove.” He dismounted and with his boots, kicked the strange assemblage of rocks apart.
“How will Smoke know we’ve picked up his challenge?” Gunter asked.
“ ’Cause he’s watchin’ us right now,” John T. said. “Bet on it.”
The howl of a wolf touched them, the quivering call echoing all around them.
Montana Jess looked at John T. “And there he is.”
“Yep. And there he is,” John T. said.
Frederick looked all around him. The silence of the deep timber was all he could feel and see. “Jensen!” he
