“Cosgrove’s had it,” Roy said, reaching the column. “Jensen shot him right through the heart.”
“Goddamnit!” Ford cussed. “Me and Cos buddied all over the west together.” Before anyone could stop him, Ford had spurred his horse and was racing up the trail. He shucked his rifle out of the boot just as he passed his ex-partner in crime, stone dead on the rocks beside the trail.
Smoke led the rider in the sights and let him come on. He could hear Ford cussing and hollering in his rage. “Come on,” Smoke muttered. “I want you close enough so maybe your horse will come this way and I can see if you’ve got anything to eat in your saddlebags.”
Ford was less than a hundred yards from Smoke’s position when Smoke pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Ford in the center of his chest and Ford joined his buddy on the trail. He hit the ground and did not move. His horse kept right on going. Smoke jumped down into the rocks and grabbed the horse’s trailing reins, talking to the spooked animal, calming it down.
He found some salt meat and biscuits wrapped in a clean cloth and nothing else of value. He stripped saddle and bridle from the animal and turned it loose. Then Smoke climbed back into position and had breakfast ... compliments of Frederick von Hausen.
13
Von Hausen studied Smoke’s position through binoculars, studying every angle carefully. Finally, with a curse and a shake of his head, he cased his field glasses and returned to where his group had gathered.
“Whatever else the man may be, he knows tactics,” von Hausen said. “He could hold off an army from his position. It would take several days to get to one end or the other of this canyon then find a way through and work our way behind him. If we split our people and try to trap him in there, he’d know it because of the damned flats on both sides of us, and the high ground to our rear. To charge him would be suicide. It’s a standoff.” He looked around him. “Where is Langston?”
“Trying to work his way out to get a shot at Jensen,” John T. told him.
Von Hausen had decided, several days back, that the sporting aspects of this hunt could go to hell. Just kill Jensen, he told his people.
“Where is he leading us?” von Hausen asked. “Or is he leading us anywhere? The man doesn’t think like anyone I ever knew. He’s unpredictable. In every war there are plans, tried and true, that are followed by both sides. This man is a ... a savage. I can’t work out what he is going to do from one day to the next.”
“Do we make camp here?” Walt asked. “I gotta know so’s I can start cookin’.”
A single shot rang out. Von Hausen ran to the rocks, the others right behind him. Don Langston lay sprawled on his back below them, his fancy inlaid rifle shining in the sunlight, on the rocks some twenty feet from the body. Langston had been shot right between the eyes.
Walt shifted his chewing tobacco and spat. “I’d say he got a mite too close. I’ll go put the beans on.”
“Hey, Baron!” the shout came across the rocky flats. “How about you and me settling this?”
“What do you mean, Jensen?” von Hausen yelled.
“Just what I said. You and me, pretty-boy. Stand up, bareknuckle fight. The best man wins.”
“Marquess of Queensberry rules?”
Smoke’s laughter was taunting. “Anyway you want it, Baron. We’ll hold it in Denver.”
“That’s right-Denver. In front of a crowd at a ring. I’m not going to take a chance out here on one of your rabid skunks shooting me after I beat your face in.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Utah Red said. He was now able to see out of both eyes, but his face was lumpy and still mottled with bruises.
“Oh, I could take him in a ring,” von Hausen boasted. “It might be fun.”
“How about it?” Smoke shouted.
“I think not, Jensen. You can’t run forever.”
“Hell, I’m not running now, von Horse-face. Why don’t you come on across and get me.”
Von Hausen’s face reddened at the slur upon his name. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”
Smoke told von Hausen what he thought about the German’s ancestry.
Obviously, Walt concluded, he don’t think much of it.
“You are a foul, stupid man, Jensen,” von Hausen hurled the words.
“But I’m a better man than you, von Hose-nose,” Smoke called. “I don’t need an army to do my fighting.”
Frederick touched his nose.
The men fired, but it was done half-heartedly. The distance was just too great to hope for any damage.
After the firing had ceased, von Hausen called, “How about that, Jensen?”
Silence was his reply.
“You don’t suppose we got him with a ricochet?” Cat Brown questioned.
“We wouldn’t be that lucky,” Pat Gilman said. “He’s just playin’ ’possum, hopin’ one of us will go over there to check it out.”
“Hold your positions,” von Hausen said. “We’ve already lost three this day.”
