She trembled with excitement. There was no thrill on earth like that of killing a man. Nothing compared to it. Nothing.
She wondered how it would feel to slip the noose around Smoke Jensen’s neck.
16
Smoke rode hard for several miles, then stopped to let his horses blow. He quickly built a small fire, ripped his jeans around the bullet wound, and took a look at it. The slug had lost some of its power when it struck the leg, but still had enough punch to tear a hole. He felt all around the wound and could feel the slug buried just beneath the skin. He took the hot sterilized blade and slipped the point under the skin, digging around and popping the slug out, his face dripping with sweat from the cauterization of the wound. That would have to do it. If the wound felt infected by morning, he’d cut it open, pour gunpowder in, and burn out the infection. He’d done it before, so he wasn’t looking forward to a repeat performance. It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked.
He swung back into the saddle and headed out. He was going to the temporary headquarters of the park superintendent. Von Hausen and his people could not afford to let anyone live. For their plans to succeed, anyone who knew they were in the park had to die. And Smoke was sure that by now, the surveyors, the scientists, and the superintendent and his staff knew about von Hausen. They had to be warned.
Smoke pointed his horse’s nose toward the temporary headquarters of the superintendent. He had a hell of a ride ahead of him.
“You know where the home of the man who runs this place is located?” Angel asked.
“North. Up near the Montana line. And von Hausen knows it, too.”
“I heard them talking, too, my friend.”
The men had stopped to rest their horses and to make plans. “We for sure got men comin’ after us, Angel,” Walt said. “He can’t afford to have us get free and bump our gums.”
“We’ll ride on until we find just the right spot,” Angel said. “Then we will take some of the pressure off of Mister Smoke Jensen, si, amigo?”
Walt grinned. “Right, my friend.”
The men swung into their saddles and headed north.
“We got to be careful with Ol’ Walt and Angel,” Mack Saxton said, when they had stopped to rest their horses. “That old man’s a pistolero from way back.”
“He ain’t nothin‘,” Lou Kennedy said. “I used to think he was, ’til he started takin’ Jensen’s side in this. He’s just a wore out old man is all he is.”
“An old rattler’ll kill you just as quick as a young one,” Mack said. “And Angel ain’t no one to fool with neither.”
“He’s just a damn greaser is all,” Nat Reed said. “Full of beans and hot air. I’ll take him.”
Mack walked away to relieve himself in the bushes, thinking: Get us all killed is what you’ll do. Angel Cortez is a bad man to fool with.
Smoke pushed his horses hard. He had the entire Washburn Plateau to travel before he reached the superintendent’s quarters. And he knew he also had to deal with those behind him at some point along the way. He had to take some of the pressure off.
Smoke made a cold camp that night, not wanting to risk a fire, and was stiff and sore when he rolled out of his blankets the next morning. It was dark as a bat’s cave so he couldn’t look at his leg. He’d do that later; but when he touched the area around the wound, the leg was not hot with infection. He saddled up and headed north.
“He ain’t makin’ no effort to hide his tracks,” Roy Drum said. “And he’s headin’ straight north.”
“To the park headquarters,” John T. said. “If he reaches there ...” He let that trail off.
“It won’t make any difference,” von Hausen said. “We can leave no one behind. No one. Man, woman, or child who knows we were in the park.” He looked at the men. “It has to be that way. We’ll all hang if word gets out about the soldiers. Do it my way, and you’ll all be rich men. I promise you that.” He looked up at the leaden sky. “What is wrong with this wretched place? It’s supposed to be summer, but the temperature seems to be falling and those clouds look like snow clouds.”
“They probably are,” Drum told him. “This is Yellowstone, Baron. Hell, it’s liable to snow in July.”
“But the vegetation is out and blooming,” Hans said.
“It ain’t gonna freeze hard enough to kill this stuff,” Drum told him. “It’s liable to be seventy-five degrees tomorrow. Let’s go find Jensen today and finish this.” He stepped into the saddle.
The temperature continued to drop during the day. Winter was not yet ready to completely lift its hand from the Yellowstone. It began to spit snow and the women began to complain (the men would have started it first but that was not the manly thing to do).
Von Hausen decided to stop for the night, although it was only mid-afternoon.
Smoke kept going, not pushing his horses as hard as the days behind him, but at a steady, mile-eating pace. He smelled the woodsmoke before he could see it through the snowfall. He dismounted and slipped through the foliage, strange now in green and white. He pulled up short with a smile on his lips. Then he went back to get his horses.
“Hello, the camp,” he called.
“Mister Jensen!” Charles Knudson called. “My word, didn’t the Army find you?”
“No. I found them.” He dismounted and stripped his horses of their burden and rubbed them down before he thought to see to himself. Warming his hands by the fire, he explained what had happened.
“All ... dead?” Gilbert the scientist asked. “The patrol has been murdered?”
“Yes.” Smoke poured a cup of coffee and drank it down. It was the first he’d had in several days. It was still too damn weak. “Where is the superintendent?”
