“We leavin’ that soon?” Pearlie asked. “It’s still a touch on the chilly side.”
“It’s a long trip, and comin’ back with those gentle bulls will be slow,” Smoke answered. “We’ll leave next Friday, and anybody who wants to ride along with us is welcome company.”
“I’ll ride to the Williams place,” Johnny offered, as Cal was helping unload the packhorses. “One thing, Mr. Jensen,” he added, glancing over to Sally as she went in the house with an armload of winter clothes. “While I was in Big Rock the other day, Mr. Longmont said he read somethin’ in the Denver newspaper, that there was big trouble down in New Mexico. Folks are callin’ it the Lincoln County War, an’ you said Lincoln County was where we had to go to meet Mr. John Chisum an’ pick up them bulls. Mr. Longmont said there was dead bodies all over the place, an’ it might not be a safe place to be.”
While this wasn’t particularly good news, Smoke said, “It isn’t our war, Johnny. We’ll stay out of it If we can.”
Pearlie chuckled. “I never did know you to avoid no kind of war. If there’s any killin’ goin’ on wherever we’s headed, I’m dead sure we’ll get in on our share of it.”
Smoke didn’t want any danger discussed in front of Sally. “Don’t say any more about it, Johnny, not when Sally’s in hearing distance.”
“Yessir. I mean, no sir, I won’t.”
“It’s because she worries too much,” he explained, unsaddling the bay Palouse colt.
Pearlie muttered, as he stripped the saddle off Sally’s mare, “Maybe it’s because she’s got good reason to worry. This outfit ain’t exactly famous fer ridin’ the other way when lead’s flyin’.”Fifteen
They made up quite a group riding south along the base of the Rockies, following a cattle trail that would take them to Durango before they crossed over the New Mexico line, Cal and Pearlie and Johnny, then Cletus Walker and Bob Williams, along with a seasoned cowboy from the Williams ranch by the name of Duke Smith. Smoke left Tinker Warren to help out at the ranch and watch over Sally while they were away. He trusted Tinker, and the old man could shoot straight if he had to, which was just as important as his cowboying skills when Smoke considered he was there to protect the most important thing in his life… Sally.
“Snow’s already melted in this low country,” Pearlie said, “an’ here it is only the middle of April.”
Cletus Walker offered his opinion on the subject. “Ain’t near as pretty this far south, an’ it sure as hell ain’t as good grazin’ land.” Cletus was a stocky man in his fifties, a good neighbor and friend although he and Smoke rarely saw each other, his spread being over ten rugged miles east of Sugarloaf.
“It’s warmer,” Bob Williams remarked, a lanky bachelor who ran cattle in lowlands south of Smoke and Sally, “but I’ll agree with Cletus that this is junk land compared to what we’ve got. There ain’t hardly enough grass most places in this valley to keep a jack-rabbit alive.”
Duke Smith, not much older than Cal, said, “It’s damn sure different all right. I never rode this trail afore, but I been up the Goodnight twice. Believe me, if you figure this part of Colorado ain’t got much grass, wait’ll you see the Goodnight down in the south part of New Mexico. You can count the blades of grass an’ not run out of fingers in some of them stretches along the Pecos.”
Cal had been unusually quiet for several days after they left the ranch. He rode silently beside Smoke as though his mind was on something else. “Down along the Pecos is where they’s havin’ that big fight, accordin’ to Mr. Longmont. Lincoln County is where he said most of it was, an’ that’s right where we’re headed. They’s callin’ it the Lincoln County War, if you’ll remember.”
“It isn’t our fight,” Smoke told him. “We’re buyin’ cattle and that’s all. No sense getting yourself all worked up over it, Cal. I promised Sally we’d ride a hundred miles in the wrong direction to stay out of trouble.”
“It’d be the first time,” Pearlie observed dryly. “Seems we make a habit outa ridin’ a hundred miles to look fer a Fight on occasion.”
Cal swallowed, seeming edgier than Smoke had ever seen him. “Just so nobody starts shootin’ at us before they know we ain’t on either side.”
There were times when Cal reminded Smoke of himself as a boy growing up, when he was known by his given name, Kirby Jensen, in a bleak part of southeastern Missouri at the edge of the Ozark Mountain range. He remembered too how his Pa, Ernmett, went off to war and how lonely he felt, trying to scratch a living out of thin soil to help support his Ma. It was after the war when he and his Pa rode west, running into the filthiest-looking old man he’d ever seen, dressed in greasy buckskins, calling himself Preacher and never anything else. It was another step toward manhood for Kirby Jensen, and a chance meeting where he earned the nickname Smoke early on, a meeting and a friendship that had changed Smoke Jensen’s life forever. And now Cal was becoming a man, one step at a time as it must always be, learning lessons that would keep him alive, as well as making him a man who could be a trusted friend and perhaps, later on, a deadly adversary. Cal had the basics, the things it took inside—courage and true loyalty to those who stood by him. His uneasiness now over the trouble in Lincoln County was just his way of preparing himself to stand and fight beside Smoke and the others if the need arose.
Smoke recalled his frontier education with Preacher, his own early fears, until Preacher taught him how to stay alive… and how to kill when necessary. With those skills came confidence, along with experience. While Preacher had been a hard taskmaster at times, he explained that it was necessary, that life-and-death struggles are unforgiving, usually allowing no mistakes. It had been hard to live up to Preacher’s expectations, without understanding it was a rite of passage into manhood in a land filled with sudden violence and harsh conditions. More than any other single thing, Preacher had taught him to rely on himself.
Smoke wondered if these memories were coming back because of the footprint Del had found at Willow Creek Pass, and the story Ned Buntline had told of encountering a solitary mountain man up there who handed Buntline his life. That would be just like Preacher, to help a tenderfoot in trouble and then abandon him as quickly as he’d arrived. Or was Smoke merely trying to comfort himself with the thought that Preacher was still alive up in the high lonesome, living out his final years?
Leading a string of spare horses, Duke pointed to a distant line of trees wandering back and forth to the south, stretching across the far horizon. “That looks like a river way off yonder,” he said.
“It’s the San Juan,” Cletus told him, before Smoke could say it. “Means we’re gettin’ mighty close to the New Mexico Territory line. Durango oughta be off to the west a few miles.”
Smoke setded back against the cantle of his saddle, hearing the bay Palouse colt’s hooves squish through melting snow and mud with some satisfaction. The young horse was proving itself to be like its sire, Horse, a solid trail pony with endurance and an easy gait, with enough stamina to outlast most other breeds in this part of the country. Crossing their mares on a good Morgan stud, he and Sally could raise tough cow horses with early speed at
