was at it.
He’d cross the Yellowstone tomorrow, and once he crossed Monument Creek, he’d be in the big lonesome once more. There he’d start the fireworks.
“He crossed the road,” Montana Jess said, riding back to the main party. “He’s headin’ for the Divide.”
“Why, for God’s sake?” Hans blurted. “I thought he was going to take us into this park area?”
“He is,” John T. told him. “But he don’t want to get amongst a bunch of visitors when he opens this dance. He’s probably waitin’ for us ’tween the Beaverdam and the Monument. And it’ll take us a good week to get over there.”
Ol’ Walt smiled with deadly humor. And he’s runnin’ you yahoos out of supplies, too, the cook thought. You folks just ain’t yet figured out that you’re up agin a professional.
Ol’ Walt had given a lot of thought to just pullin’ out some night and leavin’ these blood-crazy people. But he wanted to stick it out and see the final outcome. He figured it was gonna be right interestin’.
“Take the point, Utah,” John T. told the man. “Jensen ain’t makin’ any effort to hide his tracks.”
That became very apparent the next day when Utah gave a whoop and the party came on a gallop.
“Those are mine!” Andrea shrieked, looking at a pair of bloomers hanging from a tree limb by the trail. “I lost them when the packhorses bolted and scattered the supplies.” She snatched the bloomers from the limb and stuffed them in her saddlebags, her face crimson. “The nerve of that man,” she fumed. “The gall of that . . . that ... heathen.”
“Jensen has a very strange sense of humor,” Gunter remarked. “Especially when one considers he does not have that much longer to live.”
Walt shook his head at that remark. These people still hadn’t got it through their noggins that Jensen wasn’t plannin’ on dyin’. Jensen was plannin’ on killin’ them.
Walt met the dark and serious eyes of Angel Cortez. The Mexican gunfighter knows, the cook thought. He knows just how deadly this business is. Of all of them here, Angel’ll be the one to hold back and maybe come out of this alive. Angel had told him the only reason he came along was that he’d been buddyin’ with Valdes and the outlaw had convinced him to come along. He had nothing against Smoke Jensen and had yet to fire upon the elusive Smoke.
Angel nodded his head and smiled at Walt. The two men reached a silent understanding.
They swung back into the saddle and pulled out, both of them hanging back at the rear of the column.
“These people,” Angel said, “I think they are playing a fool’s game.”
“I know they are,” Walt told him.
“I have tried to convince my compadre, Valdes, that what we are doing is the same as hunting a panther in his own territory while armed with no more than a stick. He does not see it that way. I think Valdes will die in this terrible wilderness.”
“If his lordship up yonder don’t call this fool thing off, they’s gonna be a lot of people die up here,” Walt said.
“Do you think Jensen would harm the women?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. No decent man wants to harm a female. And Jensen is a decent man. I think he’ll do everything in his power not to harm them. He might turn them female manhunters over his knee and wallop the beJesus out of their backsides. Lord knows they sure need it.”
Angel grinned. “Now to witness that would be worth the ride, I think.”
Walt chuckled. “Shore would be some caterwaulin’ goin’ on, for a fact.”
“Why can’t the men we ride with see that Jensen is goading us on? He is deliberately leading us into another ambush. He is going to whittle us down one by one. You see it, I see it, why not the others?”
“Them blue-bloods up yonder is too damned arrogant to see anything past the end of their noses. The rest of these outlaws and gunslicks ... well, all they can see is big money danglin’ in front of them.”
“And the reputation of being among the men who killed Smoke Jensen,” Angel added.
“True. But what they’re gonna get, Angel, is nothin’ but a very cold and lonely grave.”
“Is there such a thing as a grave that is not cold and lonely, senor?”
Smoke had laid down a trail that a one-eyed, city slicker could follow. And he was waiting for his pursuers. He had chosen his spot well, and only after careful scouting. He had a mountain pass at his back, a pass that he had found only after very carefully searching the area. Inside the pass, there was a small valley hollowed out by millions of years of winds and rains and slides. There was water for his horses and good graze for four or five days. He would move his horses into the green pocket when he spotted his hunters coming across a dusty plain some five miles in the distance. The area being chosen with just that thought in mind. Unless of course they moved through at night. But Smoke didn’t think any of them would be willing to take that chance. He’d probably still be able to smell the dust. Unless it rained, he thought with a warrior’s grim humor.
Now he was ready to get this show on the road. He had some bulls to buy before the summer was over and he was anxious to get back to the Sugarloaf ... and Sally.
The gunfighters and man-hunters traveling with von Hausen and party knew this was too easy; knew Smoke was setting them up. But none of them really knew this country. Only John T. and Utah had ever even been in this area, and maybe Montana Jess—except for Walt Webster, and the old cook had told only Angel about his knowledge of the wilderness. The two of them had become good friends on the long ride north. Valdes had begun to shun Angel, preferring instead the dubious company of the other gunslingers.
Angel had taken it philosophically with only a very Latin shrug of his shoulders. “He is a greedy man, that Valdes. And that is something I have told him to his face more times than once. It makes him ver’ angry. But he knows better than to draw on me.”
“You pretty good with that iron, huh, boy?” Walt asked.
