rockpile and came over, seeming to gain speed as they traveled through the air.
“Split up!” Al yelled. But his warning came too late and could not be heard over the now-gradually dying roar of the avalanche.
The boulders landed square on the running men, squashing them against the rock surface of the mountain.
Al Martine crossed himself and cursed the day he ever agreed to leave California.
A bounty hunter known only as Chris turned to look behind him and tripped, falling hard, knocking the wind from him. “No!” he screamed, just seconds before the tons of rock landed on him. One boot stuck out of the now- motionless pile of stone. The boot trembled for a moment, then was still.
Huge clouds of dust began drifting upward to join the night skies.
“I’d a not believed no one man could have done all this,” Whit said, his voice husky from near exhaustion. He sank to his knees and put his hands to his face, trying to block from his mind all that he’d just witnessed.
Mac came limping out of .the dust, dragging one foot. Reed was behind him. He did not appear to be hurt.
Luttie Charles, accompanied by his men, walked slowly up the slope to stand by his brother.
“Incredible,” Luttie said, his voice small.
They all cringed and jumped, some yelling and running away, as another dull thud cut the darkening day.
“Musta been a pass back yonder,” Milt said. “And
Jensen just blowed it.”
Rod and Randy giggled.
“Loco!” Lopez muttered.
Luttie started counting. Thirty men left standing here out of nearly seventy. Maybe eight or ten bounty hunters still working the wilderness alone. He coughed as the dust from the avalanche drifted down the mountain. Luttie waved his people farther back.
“Well make camp at the base down yonder,” he said, pointing. “Eat and rest and tomorrow we can take him.”
“How you figure that?” his brother asked.
“You’re forgetting, I know this country.” He turned to his foreman, and the man grinned.
“I’ll take two of the boys and plug up the only hole out of that area,” the man said. “The gambler and the woman probably done made it out, but Smoke won’t try it at night-too dangerous. We got him now, boss. Pinned in like a hog for slaughter.”
The lonely cry of a lobo wolf drifted to them, abruptly changing into the blood-chilling scream of a big puma.
“Look!” the punk Peco yelled, pointing.
At the crest of the mountain, the men could just make out the figure of a man, sitting his saddle. The scream of the puma came again.
“It brings chills to my arms,” Pedro said. “He is calling like el gato. Daring us to come and get him.”
Smoke screamed his panther scream again, the sound drifting and echoing around the mountains, touching all those who hunted him. A big puma answered the call, the scream fading off into the puma’s peculiar coughing sound.
Martine and Pedro looked at each other, neither of them liking this at all.
Smoke threw back his head and howled like a big wolf. It was so real that somewhere in the timber a big wolf replied, others joining in, lifting their voices in respect to a brother wolf.
“I’ve had it,” Reed said. “The rest of you do what you want to, but as for me, I’m gone.”
“You’re yeller! Jeff,” one of Peco’s punks sneered at Reed.
Wrong thing to do.
Reed palmed his .45 and put a hole in Jeff’s chest. The punk hit the rocky ground and died.
“Anybody else want to call me yeller?” Reed said, jacking back the hammer of his pistol.
No one did.
“I'll watch your back for you, Reed,” Dumas said. “You got a right to leave if’n you want to.”
“Let me tell you all something, boys,” Reed said. “That man up yonder was born with the bark on. We’ve all hunted him, trapped him, cornered him, and he’s tooken some lead. Bet on that .. .” He shivered as Smoke’s wolf howl drifted to them; it was soon joined by others. “Jesus God, I can’t stand no more of that. Makes my blood run cold. I think the man’s got some animal in him. Injuns think so.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “And he’ll probably take some more lead afore this is all over. You might get a bunch of lead in him. But you’ll all be dead, and he’ll be standin’ when it’s all over. Bet on it. And I will be too. ’Cause I’m leavin’. Goodbye.”
Smoke howled again.
The men looked toward the crest of the mountain.
Smoke was gone, but his call still wavered in the air.
“Where’d he go?” Crown asked, the question almost a cry of fear.
No one replied. No one knew.
Carbone lifted his hands and looked at them. They were trembling. .
Lopez noticed the trembling hands. “Si,” he spoke softly, in a voice that only Carbone could hear. “I understand. He is of the mountains, one with the animals, brother of the wolf.”
And us?” Carbone asked in a soft tone.
I think, amigo, that if we pursue the last mountain man, we are dead.”
Chapter Twenty
Smoke had approached the pass leading out of the valley very cautiously. He took his field glasses and squinted at the pass in the dim light the moon provided. The pass looked innocent enough, but warning bells were ringing in his head. He picketed his horse and approached the narrow pass on foot. The closer he got the more certain he became that the pass was guarded. He heard the faint whinny of a horse and stopped cold, listening. Another horse answered. Smoke began backtracking.
He returned to his horse and removed the saddle. He took his small pack, two rifles, and his saddlebags, then turned the animal loose. There was plenty of water and good graze in the valley. If the horse never found its way out, it would live a good and uneventful life.
Smoke returned to a spot near the mouth of the pass and rolled up in his blankets after eating a can of beans and the last of his now very stale bread. He slept soundly, awakening while the stars were still diamond—sparkling high above the mountains. He lay for half an hour, mentally preparing for the battle ahead.
They had him trapped, but he had been trapped before. Smoke was outnumbered and out-gunned. He’d been there before, too. He lay in his blankets and purged his mind of all things that did not pertain to survival. He’d had lots of practice at that. He became a huge, dangerous, predatory animal. He became one with the mountains, the trees, the animals, the rocks, and the eagles and hawks that would soon be soaring above him, looking for food.
He came out of his blankets silently. He rolled his blankets in the ground sheet and left them. If the fight lasted more than one day, and he was forced to spend another night in the mountains, well, he’d been cold before. More than once in his life he had lain down on a blanket of leaves with only fresh-cut boughs covering him. He slung one rifle and picked up the other.
He did not think of Sally or his children. He had no thoughts of friends or family. He forced everything except survival from his mind. He had told Louis where he had cached supplies and his horses. If he died in this valley, Louis would see to his stock.
Just as dawn was streaking the sky with lances of silver and gold, Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man, threw back his head and screamed like an enraged panther.
The chirping of awakening birds and chattering of playing squirrels ceased as the terrible scream cut through the forest and echoed around the mountains.
Smoke was telling his enemies to come on; he was ready to meet them.
* * *
