Resting his rifle against a cabin wall, he cut down the deer and carried it out to the Indians. Another Shoshoni jumped off his pony to take it, cradling almost a hundred pounds of raw meat and bones in his arms.
The Shoshoni leader spoke, his voice softer to convey his gratitude. “You will be welcome in our village, White Giver of Meat. We leave you as friends in peace.”
“
With the deer slung over a pony’s rump, the six Shoshoni reined their ponies away from the cabin, riding north up a very steep ridge that would take them into the worst of the winds and snow.
“Tough people,” Smoke said under his breath, hearing Sally come out as the Indians rode off.
Sally came over to stand beside him, watching the buffalo-robed men disappear into a veil of snow-flakes. “Food was all they wanted,” she said. “I’m glad you gave it to them. We have more than enough for ourselves.”
“Their leader told me his people were starving up in Wyoming country… that white buffalo hunters had killed off most of the herds and Shoshoni children were dying of hunger.”
“We’ve both seen what buffalo hunters can do. It’s a shame to see all that meat wasted,” Sally said, “especially when Indian children are dying from starvation.”
Smoke picked up the snowshoe, thinking out loud, “Our government doesn’t seem to mind breaking its word to a few Indians,” he replied to her remark. “Never had much use for politicians or the army in the first place. The more I hear about what they’re doin’ to most plains tribes, the less use I have for ’em.”
Sally took his arm. “We’ve done all we can for them now. You can’t change the world, Smoke. The government in Washington is going to continue its policy toward the Indians no matter how we feel about it.”
He saw the Shoshoni as they crossed the high ridge in one brief letup in the storm. “I know you’re right, Sally. I can’t change the world, maybe, but when I see a wrong bein’ committed it makes me wish I’d started shooting politicians and bureaucrats a long time ago. I’ve killed my share of men who carried guns, but there’s times when it seems to make more sense to kill the bastards who run this country.”
“I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to talk about killing at all this winter.”
Smoke squeezed her delicate hand. “We won’t. If people will just leave us the hell alone.”
“Maybe they will,” she said hopefully. “Raising good cattle should be a peaceful enterprise. For so many years now I’ve been hoping your past would be forgotten, so we could get on with our lives together, as ranchers. You’re not a gunfighter anymore, and I hope the word spreads.“
He turned her toward the cabin, ducking his head into the wind and snow. Sally would never understand that for some men a gunfighter’s reputation followed them all the way to the grave, in spite of their best intentions to change.
He had asked the Shoshoni to tell solitary white mountain men they encountered where he was, what part of the Rockies he was in, and that his name meant
He was wearing his old deerskin leggings, bloodstained in places from previous battles, one clear cold morning after the storm moved south, taking aim at a fat young doe to replenish their fresh meat supply. They had plenty of jerky and smoked fish, but every so often Smoke got a hankering for venison, the tender backstrap fried in a skillet or slow-roasted on a spit above a bed of coals. In a clearing half a mile from the cabin, he watched the doe paw through snow to find grass, unaware of his presence entirely. Sighting down his Winchester, he aimed for the deer’s heart, hoping to make it a quick kill, when something to the east alerted the doe to danger, a distant noise or a scent on the wind. She bounded off into the ponderosa forest, leaving Smoke without a clear shot.
“Damn,” he whispered, looking east to where the deer had sensed a threat seconds earlier.
Out of old habit, he didn’t look at anything in particular, the way Preacher had taught him, waiting for something to move on a snowy mountainside dotted with pines and leafless aspen. Tiny hairs prickled on the back of his neck… something, or someone, was up there. Was someone watching him, he wondered, standing in the shadow of a pine, motionless, unwilling to make the first move, becoming a target, hunted rather than a hunter if the danger frightening the deer had two legs. Black bears and much larger grizzlies would be in hibernation by now. Mountain lions hunted all winter, and it could be a big cat up there somewhere, one of the most difficult wild animals to kill because it rarely came close to the smell of men.
He studied the slope, frosty breath curling away from his nostrils in below-freezing cold. Nothing moved.
“If it’s a man, he’s a careful son of a bitch,” Smoke said softly. It could be more Shoshoni hunters, he guessed, another party ranging far to the south looking for meat. With that looming as a possibility he decided to creep backward and make for the cabin to make sure of Sally’s safety. While she was more than capable of taking care of herself in most any situation, he couldn’t let her face hungry Shoshoni alone. Sally was a hell of a shot with a pistol or a rifle, and she had his Spencer, along with one of his ivory-handled Colts.
When nothing showed itself on the mountain, he backed away to the shadow of another pine and inched from tree trunk to tree trunk on the balls of his feet, heading for the cabin by a route through stands of pine… longer, but far safer if he was being watched from the eastern slope, a sensation that lingered as he made his way among dense trees. He was certain now that someone was up there, a sixth sense telling him this was no mountain lion or late-feeding bear.
He was close to the cabin, less than a quarter mile, when he heard a voice that sent him ducking behind a ponderosa trunk.
“You ain’t near as cautious as you used to be, Smoke!” It came from a snow-covered ledge two hundred yards away, a shout. “If I’d took the notion, I coulda dropped you a couple of times. I ain’t sayin’ you ain’t still one of the best, but that easy life yer livin’ close to town has made you careless!”
He grinned, recognizing the voice now, swinging away from the tree to stand in plain sight, his rifle barrel lowered near the ground. “Show yourself, Del! You’ve got me cold! I’m a city slicker now!”
A shaggy mane of black hair peered above the ridge, with a beard to match. The man grinned a toothless grin and stood up with a long-barrel Sharps balanced in one hand. “It’s damn sure good to see you, Smoke! Been a hell of a long time!”
