called. “Smoke Jensen! Your time has come to die. Not by a faster gun, but by a man who is much more intelligent than you. You’ll see, Jensen. You’ll see.”
Jerry Watkins glanced at Mike Hunt. The two gunmen from West Texas shrugged their shoulders. They’d heard brags before.
Von Hausen took his rifle from his specially-made saddle boot. “Well, come on!” he said impatiently. “Our quarry is challenging us to hunt him. So, let’s hunt him.”
John T. looked down from his saddle. “You want us in on this?”
“No,” von Hausen said. “We’re just going to toy with him a bit this time.”
“Uh-huh,” John T. said. He swung down from the saddle and led his horse away.
Von Hausen and the others loaded up and took the caps from the telescopic sights. Von Hausen grinned. “We’ll have some fun with him now.” He levered in a round and started blasting at the quiet of the woods.
The others in his party followed suit and between the six of them put about eighty rounds into the woods, the slugs howling off rocks, scaring the birds, scarring the trees, and ruining the peacefulness of the hole.
“All right,” Smoke said, and lifted his Winchester .44-.40 he’d bought back at the settlement. “Now we know.” His first round tore the saddle horn off of von Hausen’s horse and sent the animal bucking and snorting in fear. His second slug tore up the earth at von Hausen’s feet and put the German nobleman on the ground. His third slug howled wickedly off a boulder and just missed—as was his intention-Gunter’s head. He hit the ground and hugged it.
The women-who had never been under fire—shrieked and ran for cover.
Hans gallantly stood his ground. He raised his rifle to fire at the puffs of gunsmoke coming from above him and Smoke put a round between the man’s boots, showering and stinging his ankles with rocks. Hans hit the ground and sprawled out quite unaristocratically.
Smoke shifted positions immediately, vanishing silently as a great gray wolf back into the thick timber.
John T., cold-blooded killer that he was, had taken cover-just like the rest of his crew—before the echo of the first shot had died away. John T. had the general location of Smoke spotted, but damned if he was going to expose himself to Smoke’s deadly fire. Not yet. They had plenty of time.
“Swine!” von Hausen said, getting to his knees and brushing himself off. He shook both his fists at the wilderness.
“Wonder what that means?” Ford asked his buddy Cosgrove.
“I don’t know. But it sure sounds nasty.”
“Are you ladies all right?” Gunter called to the women, huddling behind a huge boulder.
“Yes. We’re quite all right,” Andrea returned the call. “That man really must be of terribly low quality to fire on women, don’t you think?”
The fact that she fired first at Smoke apparently never entered her mind.
Cat Brown and Paul Melham exchanged glances, Cat saying, “That’s a strange way of lookin’ at it.”
“Ain’t it the truth. Women start shootin’ at me, I’m damn sure gonna return the fire.”
“Break up into groups,” von Hausen ordered the gunfighters. “Five groups. The first group to corner Smoke Jensen and lead me to him gets an additional five thousand dollars. We start the hunt first thing in the morning. John T., find us a suitable place to make camp.”
“We break up into groups of five,” John T. said. “One group stays with the Germans and we’ll switch around ever’ day so’s ever’body can get the same chance at the additional money.” He rolled him a cigarette. “Damn sure beats the hell out of killin’ homesteaders. I think,” he added.
Smoke had worked his way back to his horses and was gone, vanishing back into the rugged wilderness. He rode through the harsh and unforgiving terrain with the ease of a man who was comfortable with the elements; at home with them. The mountains, the desert, the swamps ... they are neither for nor against a man. They are neutral. But if one is too survive, that person must understand what he is up against and work with his surroundings, never against them.
Smoke understood that. Probably the men of the west riding with the Germans knew it too. He doubted any of the others did. And eventually, he would use that lack of knowledge and their natural arrogance to work against them.
He could have easily killed von Hausen and the others a few moments ago. But he did not want to kill anymore. He wanted to dissuade them from this stupid hunt.
He wondered if that was possible?
He didn’t think so, but he had to try.
Briscoe killed a deer and the meat was cooking as the night began closing in around the hunting party in the Tetons. The hunters were very quiet, each with their own thoughts in this harsh land. Miles away from them, in a very carefully selected spot, Smoke sat before his own small fire—which he would soon extinguish for safety’s sake—and cooked his supper and boiled his coffee. It had been years since he’d been in this country, but all the trails and creeks and rushing mountain streams and cul-de-sacs were mapped in his mind.
He was camped between Hunt Mountain and Prospectors Mountain. To the west lay Fossil Mountain, the east, Phelps Lake. Below him were the hunters. He could actually see their fires, when he stepped out of the rocks which concealed his camp.
“Vain, silly people,” Smoke muttered to the night. “Leading others to their death if they keep this up.”
A wolf howled in the night, and Smoke smiled. He could commiserate with the wolf; knew just how the animal felt. Knew how it felt to be hunted for no real reason. He knew the wolf posed no real threat to mankind; never had and never would, if people would just give it room to hunt and exist. But Smoke knew that much of humankind was timid and selfish; much of what was left were just like those hunting him: the types of people who wanted to kill for the sake of blood-letting alone, enjoying seeing their prey suffer. Smoke had no use for those types. None at all.
