“What’s your business, mister?” Jack asked.
“Just looking. No harm intended. Thought I might beg a cup of coffee.”
“After midnight?”
The man shrugged. “Never hurts to check. I wouldn’t of woke up nobody if I didn’t see somebody at a fire.”
He had a slight accent that suggested Spanish lineage, possibly an Anglo father and Mexican mother which was a common pairing in the Southwest. “You could have approached our nightriders instead of sneaking up like a fox looking for chickens. What’s your name?”
“Smack.”
“What’ your full name?”
“Just Smack.”
“That’s what we’ll put on your marker then.”
“What marker?”
“For your grave, if we’ve got time to dig one.”
Smack pushed his hat back, and Jack could see his eyes now and the fear that resided in them.
Smack said, his voice not so confident now, “I ain’t done nothing that deserves a hanging. You can’t do that.”
“We can do that. A lot of men who didn’t deserve it have been strung up. That man behind you. His name’s Roper. He’s our hangman. Keeps a rope on his saddle with the knot already tied.”
“What kind of people are you?” Smack asked.
Jack could see he was being taken seriously now, and he had a hunch about this man. “I guess I can tell you since you won’t live to tell anybody. Have you ever heard of Lookout Canyon?”
“Maybe.”
“Yes or no. Or we’ll get the hanging done and get back to sleep. Roper, why don’t you go get your rope, and we’ll get this done.”
Hawley said, “Sure enough, Boss. Ain’t had this kind of fun since the old cottonwood tree at the Lucky Five.” He disappeared through the trees.
Smack said, “Yeah. Yeah, I know Lookout Canyon. Been there.”
“Well, that’s where we’re headed. We’ve got wagons full of trade goods, all kinds of foodstuffs, guns, whiskey, and some gold bullion we can’t get rid of north of the Rio Grande without questions being asked. We want to do business with the Comancheros.”
“I can help,” Smack said. “I’m with the Comancheros. I do scouting work for them. That’s why I was here—to see if you were worth a raid. I saw you loading up in San Angelo this morning. Figured you wouldn’t have all these men if you didn’t have a load worth attention.”
Jack said, “And once you confirmed it, you were going to contact a band of the vermin and sic them on us?”
“Just tell them what I saw. But no need if you’re headed for Lookout Canyon. You let me go, I can ride ahead and sort of blaze a trail for you . . . let them know you’re good folks and that you’ll be along with goods to sell or trade. See that they treat you like friends.”
“You would really do that for us?” Jack wanted to beat the hell out of the miserable bastard, but he figured he did not have anything to lose by playing the game. He could not lynch a man, never did have the taste for it. And they did not need the nuisance of a prisoner to watch over. There was a chance the guy might help them get through the figurative gate, which was objective number one. At the least, if Smack did what he claimed he would, they might avert an attack along the trail.
“You let me go, and I’ll get my horse and head out tonight. I ain’t one to forget a good turn. I promise.”
Jack figured Smack’s word was worth a pile of cow shit, but he replied, “Git, before Roper gets back.”
Smack didn’t need to be told a second time. He wheeled, splashed across the stream and crashed through the trees and brush toward a knoll above the camp.
Mitch leaped over the stream, and Roper emerged from the trees, and they both came up to Jack.
Roper, towering over both of the others, said, “Figured you was joshing the feller, Boss. And I sure don’t have no hangman’s noose on my rope. Don’t want nothing to do with folks on the other end of a rope. I seen two of my people mob-lynched. It’s a sight that sickens a man’s soul.”
Jack knew about that. He had been too late to stop a few hangings when he was a Ranger and had come across the aftermath. Worst, though, was when he had been helping a sheriff hold off a mob trying to take an accused killer of a woman from a rickety jailhouse. They had been overrun, and both the prisoner and sheriff had been hung from the big oak “hanging tree” on the town square. He had been spared because of his Ranger badge and a fear of the wrath of the Texas Rangers when they learned one of their own had been a victim.
As it turned out, the prisoner had been innocent, and one of the leaders of the mob, the woman’s husband, had been the killer diverting the blame to his wife’s illicit lover. Jack had at least brought the husband to justice in the aftermath, but the man got off with a prison sentence. The prosecutors declined to file charges against any participants in the hanging because they thought they were doing their civic duty. He hated mobs to his very core whether the objective was a lynching or any other act to overrun a man’s personal freedom or property outside the structure of the law.
Jack sighed. “I’m going to see if I can grab some shuteye, gentlemen,” Jack said, suddenly realizing he still held his Colt. He pressed it into his holster and walked away.
When he returned to his bedroll, he was glad to see that Sierra still slept. He removed his boots and gun belt and tossed his hat aside and slipped into the blankets. He felt Thor lie down on the bedroll’s edge and press against him, and Jack reached his arm out of the blanket and
