He stopped long enough to fix his supper and boil his coffee, then moved on another couple of miles before finding a good spot to spend the night. He was up and moving before dawn, pushing west. He was not all that familiar with this region. Years back, he and Preacher had cut north at the stone trees and headed up into Montana. Preacher had told him about the western part of this region, but Smoke had not personally seen it.
He cut southwest, heading for the Gallatin Range. As he rode, he added up how many people-approximately- von Hausen had left. As close as he could figure it, he still had about twenty-five people after him, including the women, and he damn sure wasn’t going to discount them.
His horses began acting skittish, eyes all walled around and ears pricked up. Smoke reined up and listened. And he didn’t like what he heard. This was grizzly country and it was spring, with the mother grizzlies out of the den with cubs. A big grizzly can be as much as seven feet tall and weigh close to a thousand pounds. Smoke heard the huffing sound of a grizzly, and the whining of cubs, and the sounds were close. And he also smelled fresh blood. That probably meant that the grizzly had killed a fresh dropped elk calf and would be awfully irritated at anything that interrupted her meal.
Smoke left the trail and moved east for about a mile, getting away from the grizzly and her cubs-if any-and her meal. Smoke had enough to worry about without the added danger of a grizzly bear.
When his horses had calmed down, he cut west and once more picked up the trail. Although a bear steak would taste nice, there was no way Smoke would kill a mother with cubs. Preacher had instilled in Smoke a deep love and respect for the land and the animals that lived there. Should he kill a bear, there was no way he could come close to using the meat, and no one around to give it to. Smoke had never killed any type of animal for the so-called sport of killing, and never would. He had nothing but contempt for those who killed without need.
There was another reason that humans should be extremely careful in grizzly country: a grizzly can run up to thirty miles an hour; no way a human being could out-race one. But grizzlies, because of their bulk and long straight claws, seldom climb, even as cubs.
Ol’ Preacher had told Smoke that there was only two kinds of trees in grizzly country: them that he could climb and them that he couldn’t.
Smoke hoped that von Hausen and his party didn’t run into a grizzly. Those stupid people would make no effort to avoid contact. They’d just shoot it.
Smoke rode for several days, sometimes making an effort to conceal his tracks, but oftentimes not. He crossed Panther Creek, Indian Creek, and made camp at the north end of Grizzly Lake. Roaring Mountain was somewhere off to his east, he believed, as was Obsidian Cliff, an outcrop of black volcanic glass that was used by various Indian tribes over the centuries for arrow-points. Geyser Basin was to his south. Hot ground, Preacher had told him. Burn your feet, so said Preacher.
That afternoon, before the sun went down and Smoke could still see to write, he scoured the area until he found a large flat rock. Using a small rock, he scratched out a message. Before he left the next morning, he carefully placed the rock in the center of the trail. There was no way von Hausen could miss it if he came this way.
Then he left the trail and headed on over toward Solfatora Creek. He had another ambush to set up.
“Some of the men are grumbling,” John T. informed von Hausen. “ ’Bout half of them want to quit.”
“We discussed this last evening, John T.,” von Hausen said. “Among the six of us.” He tossed the man a small leather sack filled with gold coins. “Several thousand dollars in there, John T. Spread that out among the men. That should make them happy. And tell them there will be a thousand dollar bonus for every man who finishes this.”
“They’ll stay after this,” John T. said.
“The great unwashed,” Gunter said after John T. had left. “They are the same all over the world.” He opened a container of caviar and spread a bit on a cracker. He smiled, but there was a worried look in his eyes.
The next morning, Pat Gilman was riding point. He came up on the flat rock in the trail and read the words. He felt his guts churn and another part of his anatomy tighten up. He yelled for John T.
John T. sat his saddle and read the words scratched on the big flat rock.
I HAVE RUN OUT OF PATIENCE. FROM THIS POINT ON THERE WILL BE NO COMING BACK FOR ANY OF YOU IF YOU FOLLOW ME. THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING.
Von Hausen read the scratchings. He turned to the men. “Anybody want to quit?”
No one did. They all had big money in their eyes. It was easy to forget those men lying lonely in cold graves on the trail behind them when their pockets were jingling with gold coins and big money waiting at the end of the line. What they should have realized, but didn’t, was that only death awaited them at the end of this line.
“How are the supplies holding out, Walt?” Hans asked.
“If we can kill a deer every other day or so we’ll be all right. As far as eatin’ goes. I ‘spect if Jensen keeps thinnin’ the culls out like he’s been doin’, we’ll have plenty.”
“I really wish you would stop that kind of talk,” Gunter said.
“You wanna fire me and Angel? You say the word and we’ll damn sure leave right now.”
“Settle down, old man. You’re entitled to your opinion. Relieve Pat at the point, Briscoe.”
One minute off the trail, following the hoof-prints of Smoke’s horses, a shotgun roared.
“Down!” Hans shouted, as he left the saddle.
They all waited, crouched in the early summer foliage that grew thick and lush in the darkness of the timber. But no more shots were heard.
“Jensen!” von Hausen yelled. “Jensen!”
He received no reply.
“Smoke Jensen!” von Hausen tried again. “Stand and fight like a man, damn you!”
“He wouldn’t be fightin’ us with no shotgun,” Montana Red said, after a moment of deep woods silence. “You ’member we come up missin’ the shotgun that night he attacked the camp and figured it got burned up or blowed up. He musta tooken it and rigged an ambush.”
