Bobby broke wind and died.
His friend yelled, “Help me!”
Charlie punched out his empties, loaded up full, holstered his gun, and began peeling the egg.
“Somebody run fetch that new undertaker feller that just set up business down the street,” the barkeep suggested. “I wanna see that shiny black hearse and them fancy-steppin’ horses.”
“You’re all mad!” Larry said, getting to his shoes.
“Somebody get a doctor for that poor boy.”
“Ain’t no doctor,” a man told him. “Go get the barber.
“The barber!” Larry exclaimed in horror.
“There’s a Ute medicine man down on the La Jara. But that young pup’ll done be swelled up and stinkin’ something awful time he gets here. That old Ute’s pretty good, but I ain’t never heard of him raisin’ the dead.”
“Halp!” the second punk yelled.
His voice was getting weaker.
“Won’t be long now,” Earl said, bending over the gut-shot young man. “Where’s your next of kin, lad?”
“I don’t wanna die!”
“Then you should have chosen your companions with a bit more care. Next of kin?” '
“I got a sister up in Denver. But she threw me out a couple of years ago.”
The batwings flapped open, and a man dressed all in black stood in the space. “I heard shooting!”
“My, but your hearing is quite keen,” Earl commented drily.
“I am the Reverend Silas Muckelmort. A minister of the gospel. I have come to this town to bring the word of God to the sinners who lust for blood money. Has that young man passed?” He pointed to Bobby
“Cold as a hammer,” Cotton told him.
“Then it is my duty to tend to his needs,“ the Rev. Muckelmort said.
“You keep your shit-snatchers off my body!” a small man dressed in a dark suit said, stepping into the barroom. “I’m the undertaker in town.”
“His spiritual needs, you jackass!” Silas thundered.
“Pass the salt and pepper,” Charlie told the barkeep. “I can’t eat an egg without salt and pepper.'
Smoke holed up in the most inhospitable place he could find, very near the timber line, knowing the outlaws would, most likely. find the most comfortable spot they could to bed down for the night. He had already found a spot he would use to leave his horses, in an area so remote it would be pure chance if anyone stumbled upon them. Tomorrow he would ride there and leave them, packing on his back what he felt he would need in his fight against the bounty hunters and the Lee Slater gang.
Smoke rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. The next several days were going to be busy ones.
He was up and riding before dawn, having committed to memory the trail to the cul-de-sac where he would leave the horses. He was there by mid-morning. He transplanted several bushes over to the small opening and carefully watered them. To get to the opening, he had to ride behind a thick stand of timber, then angle around a huge boulder, and finally take a left into the lush little valley of about ten acres with a small pool next to a sheer rock wall. The grass was belly high in places; ample feed for the horses for some time. If he did not return, they could easily find their way out.
Smoke put together a pack whose weight would have staggered the average man. He picked it up with his left hand.
He sat for a time eating a cold . . . what was it Sally called a mid-morning meal? Brunch, yeah, that was it, and wishing he had a potful of hot, strong, black coffee But he couldn’t chance that. He would hike a few miles and then have a hot dinner—lunch, Sally called it—and drink a whole a pot of strong cowboy coffee. He wanted the scum and crud to see that smoke. He wanted them to come right to that spot. By the time they got there, he would have a few surprises laid out for them.
He walked over and spoke with Buck for a few moments. Rubbing his muzzle and talking gently to the big horse. Buck seemed to understand, but then, everybody thinks that of their pets and their riding horses. Shotgun, the pack animal, and Buck watched Smoke pick up his heavy pack and leave. When he was out of sight, they returned to their grazing.
Smoke hiked what he figured was about three miles through wild and rugged country, then stopped and built a small, nearly smokeless fire for his coffee and bacon and beans. While his meal was cooking and the coffee boiling, he whittled on some short stakes, sharpening one end to a needle point. After eating, he cleaned plate and skillet and spoon and packed them away. Then he went to work making the campsite look semi-permanent and laying out some rather nasty pitfalls for the bounty hunters and outlaws.
That done, he tossed some logs on the fire and slipped back into the timber where he’d hidden his pack. He waited.
Curly Rogers and his pack of hyenas were the first to arrive.
Smoke was back in the timber with the 44-.40, waiting and watching.
The outlaws didn’t come busting in. They laid back and looked the situation over for a time. They saw the lean-to Smoke had built, and what appeared to be a man sleeping under a blanket, protected by the overlaid boughs.
“It might not be Jensen,” Taylor said.
“So what?” Thumbs Morton said. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone got shot by accident.”
“I don’t like it,” Curly said. “It just looks too damn pat to suit me.”
“Maybe Slim got lead into him?” Bell suggested. “He may be hard hit and holed up.”
Curly thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. Yeah. That must be it. Lake, you think you can Injun up yonder for a closer look?”
“Shore. But why don’t we just shoot him from here?”
“A shot’d bring everybody foggin’. Then we’d probably have to fight some of the others over Jensen’s carcass. A knife don’t make no noise.”
Lake grinned and pulled out a long-bladed knife. “I’ll just slip this ’tween his ribs.”
As Lake stepped out with the knife in his hand, Smoke tugged on the rope he’d attached to the sticks under the blankets. What the outlaws thought to be a sleeping or wounded Smoke Jensen moved and Lake froze, then jumped back into the timber.
“This ain’t a gonna work,” Curly said. “We got to shoot him, I reckon. One shot might not attract no attention. Bud, use your rifle and put one shot in him. This close, one round’ll kill him sure.”
Bud lined up the form in the sights and squeezed the trigger. Smoke tugged on the rope, and the stickman rose off the ground a few inches, then fell back.
“We got him!” Bell yelled, jumping up. “We kilt Smoke Jensen. The money’s our’n!”
The men raced toward the small clearing, guns drawn and yelling.
Taylor yelled as the ground seemed to open up under his boots. He fell about eighteen inches into a pit, two sharpened stakes tearing into the calves of his legs. He screamed in pain, unable to free himself from the sharpened stakes.
Bell tripped a piece of rawhide two inches off the ground and a tied-back, fresh and springy limb sprang forward. The limb whacked the man on the side of his head, tearing off one ear and knocking the man unconscious.
“What the hell!” Curly yelled.
Smoke fired from concealment, the .44-.40 slug taking Lake in the right side and exiting out his left side. He was dying as he hit the ground.
“It’s a trap!” Curly screamed, and ran for the timber. He ran right over Bell in his haste to get the hell into cover.
Smoke lined up Bud and fired just as the man turned, the slug hitting the man in the ass, the lead punching into his left buttock and blowing out his right, taking a sizeable chunk of meat with it.
Bud fell screaming and rolled on the ground, throwing himself into cover.
Thumbs Morton jerked up Bell just as the man was crawling to his knees, blood pouring from where his ear had once been, and dragged him into cover just as Smoke fired again, the slug hitting a tree and blowing splinters in Thumbs’ face, stinging and bringing blood.
