“Lemme drink some coffee, man!' the outlaw said. “Catch my breath. I been ridin’ all night to get here.” He drained his cup and tossed the dredges. “A federal judge back East done put out warrants on Smoke Jensen. Murder warrants from that shootin’ over to Idaho some years back. Three warrants. The reward money totals over thirty thousand dollars to the man who brings him in—dead or alive.”
“Well. now,” Lee said, sitting down on a log. ‘Ain't that something? What’s Jensen doin’ about this sicheation?'
‘He’s on the run. Somewhere betwix here and the border.”
Lee brought the man up to date on the attacks of the previous night.
“Thirty thousand dollars,” outlaw Boots Pierson whispered. “That’s a fortune. A man could live real good for a long time with that money.”
“They’s more news,” the man who brought the word said, pouring himself more coffee. “The word is out, and bounty hunters from all over is comin’ in. If we’re gonna do something about Jensen, we damn well better get movin’ ’fore all them other hardcases come a-lookin’.”
“That there’s a puredee fact,” Tom Post said.
Lee looked at his men, knowing that any plans he might have had were now gone with the wind. All his men were thinking about was that thirty thousand dollars reward and the reputation that went with being the man who brung in Smoke Jensen belly down acrost a saddle.
The camp of crud and no-goods broke up into small groups, all talking at once about what all that reward money could buy them. Women, whiskey, and gambling, for the most part.
“All right, all right!” Lee finally managed to shout the camp silent. “Let’s plan. Now for sure we can’t go after him in a bunch. He’d see and hear us coming miles away So let’s split up into groups of six. That’d be damn near ten groups workin’ the mountains. Y'all talk it over and form up with men you wanna ride with. Then we’ll settle down and go over what group is gonna cover what area.”
The men split up into groups of six and seven, each group made up of men who had known each other for a long time, or who knew the other’s reputation.
Lee had started out with a small army of crud, over seventy-five men. He was now down to nine groups of six each. Fifty-six men. He thought about that for a minute. Fifty-four men. Whatever!
Lee found him a stump of pencil and sat down, scribbling on a dirty envelope. Four were either in jail or being transported back to states that had warrants on them. Jensen had killed two on the trail coming into town. A half a dozen had left the gang after the raid against Big Rock. That meant that Jensen had killed about ten the previous night . . . give or take two or three. The man was a devil, for a fact, but he was still only one man. They would find him, and they would kill him.
Lee waved his group over to him. To his mind, he had chosen well the five men who would ride with him. They were all vicious killers. Curt Holt, Ed Malone, Boots Pierson, Harry Jennings, and Blackjack Simpson.
The young punks had banded together, as Lee had figured they would, with the punk kid Pecos their leader. All the other groups were electing leaders. Curly Rogers was bossing one group, Al Martine another. Whit was fronting another group and Ray yet another. The last two were being led by Crocker and Graham.
Personally, Lee didn’t give a damn which group got Smoke Jensen, just as long as somebody got him. Not that he didn’t think thirty thousand was a lot of money. It was. But there was a lot more than that to be had in these mountains once Jensen was out of the way.
Lee stood up and hitched at his gunbelt. “Let’s ride, boys. We got us a legend to kill.”
Chapter Eleven
But legends oftentimes grow out of fact. And Smoke Jensen was not an easy man to kill. There had been many over the long and bloody years who had thought that fact not to be true. Somebody had buried them all.
Smoke rode the big buckskin through the windy and lonely high country, once again a man with a price on his head. But this time, the price came from a corrupt judge. And Smoke would deal with him when this little matter in the mountains was settled. He didn’t know just how he would deal with him, but deal with him he damn sure would.
Smoke sat the saddle like a man born to it. His back was straight and his eyes constantly moving, scanning the terrain ahead of him and on both sides.
He stopped to rest on a bluff high above the road that led to the little village, and he was not surprised to see wagon after wagon heading for the town. There were wagons and buggies of all descriptions and men on horseback, all heading for the town. It wasn’t gold or silver that drew them there—although that was a part of it. It was the news that Smoke Jensen was a wanted man.
Smoke rested his horses and squatted down, his field glasses in his big hands, and studied the passing parade unfolding far below him.
He grunted as he picked out two of the West's most notorious bounty hunters: Ace Reilly and Big Bob Masters. They were riding together.
There was Lilly LaFevere in her fancy buggy, with several wagon loads of ladies of the evening right behind her. He saw several well-known gamblers that he was on speaking terms with.
Then he laughed aloud. There was Louis Longmont, riding a beautiful high-stepping black, with a wagon pulled by four big mules right behind him,
driven by his personal valet and cook . . . he wondered if it was still Andre? Louis Longmont, a millionaire professional gambler who owned a casino in Monte Carlo, who owned banks and railroads and entire blocks of cities, and who was one of the most feared gunfighters in all the world. In the wagon would be jars of caviar, cases of fine French wines, and plenty of Louis’ favorite scotch whiskey, Glenlivet.
Smoke felt a lump knot up in his throat as he scanned the road below. There was Cotton Pickens from up in Puma County, Wyoming. Their paths had crossed a time or two, when Smoke had pulled Cotton out of a couple of bad spots. Now he’d come to help out Smoke.
“Well, I’ll just be damned!” Smoke whispered, as he focused his glasses on Johnny North, who had a ranch about twenty miles from Smoke and Sally’s Sugarloaf. Johnny had married the Widow Colby and hung up his six- shooters years back. Now he had cleaned them up, oiled the leather, and strapped them on and was coming to help his neighbor.
“My God!” Smoke said, as his eyes touched upon a man with gray shoulder—length hair. “I was told you were dead!”
He was looking at the legendary Charlie Starr.
Smoke chuckled. “Going to get real interesting around the town very soon,” he muttered. “Real interesting.”
Smoke leaned back against a huge boulder and rolled a cigarette, lighting up. If he was right in his thinking, Lee Slater was probably right now splitting up his gang into small groups and starting a concentrated search for their prey . . . that being Smoke Jensen. Smoke smiled. He hoped Lee would do that. Small groups were easier to handle.
He smoked his cigarette and carefully extinguished it. He took his field glasses and once more studied the increasing traffic on the road below.
The town was going to boom for a time. The stage line would put on more stages and roll them in and out at least once a day from north and south, and maybe more than that.
“Well, now,” Smoke said, as he picked out Dan Diamond, another bounty hunter. The man riding with him was familiar, but it took Smoke a minute or so to put a name on the face. Nap Jacobs. Nap was a thoroughly bad man. Fast with a gun and seemingly without a nerve or a scruple in his entire body. And he didn’t like Smoke at all. And there was Morris Pattin, another bounty hunter who hated Smoke Jensen.
Smoke tightened the cinch on Buck and put the pack back on the pack animal. “Time to go, boys. I’m going to find you both a nice little box canyon, with good graze and water and let you both rest for a time. Then I’m going to lay out some ambushes.”
* * *
“Good to see you again, Earl!” Louis said, stepping up on the boardwalk and shaking hands with the Englishman.
“By the Lord! It’s grand to see you, Louis. It’s going to get rather interesting around this little village before very long. Who are your friends?”
