“The killers switched one of the horses for some reason. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
“Yeah, but why would they do that?”
“I don’t know.” Pike’s voice hardened. “We’ll ask them when we catch them.”
“You’re sending men after whoever it was?”
“That’s right,” Pike said with a decisive nod. “Round up the best trackers in the gang and get out there where it happened. See if you can pick up the trail or at least find something that might tell us who killed those men.”
“Are you gonna tell the doctor about this?” As Cully asked that question, he sounded a little nervous for the first time during the conversation.
“Not yet,” Pike said after a moment’s consideration. “Not until I have something more solid to report to him.”
“I’ll get those boys and start out right away,” Cully promised.
“See that you do.”
As Cully left the town hall, Pike sat down again. He leaned back in his chair and frowned, no longer seeing the papers spread on the desk in front of him.
Losing three men was an annoyance. Losing three men under mysterious circumstances was worse. He didn’t like it when things happened with no explanation.
Maybe he would hunt up that old peddler and ask him some questions. The whole matter might turn out to be nothing important, but Pike wasn’t going to take that chance.
Chapter 42
Everything in the big ranch house was set up to Dr. Jonas Trask’s satisfaction. He needed only one more thing in order to complete his research.
Smoke Jensen.
Trask tried to curb the impatience he felt. He had no way of knowing exactly when Jensen would arrive in the area, but it was bound to be soon. The doctor’s agents in Arizona had wired him when Jensen left in the company of three other men. Even if Jensen had been taking his time on the return trip, he ought to show up any time in Big Rock or at the ranch.
Trask wondered who those other three men were, but he didn’t consider the matter of any real importance. No doubt they were friends of Jensen’s, but they were of no interest to Trask.
Only Smoke Jensen, the so-called fastest gun in the West, held the secret Trask desired to make his own.
Major Pike was under orders to make it known in Big Rock that Sally Jensen was a prisoner on the ranch. All the men who had come to the Sugarloaf with Trask had similar orders. No matter who Jensen encountered first upon his return to the area, he would receive the news that his wife was a captive and the only way for him to save her life was to surrender.
As long as he didn’t discover that Sally had escaped, her safety was the only leverage Trask needed to get what he wanted. Of course, it was always possible that she would be recaptured soon. Plenty of capable men were searching for her.
He sat in a comfortable leather armchair in Jensen’s office, reading what was supposed to be a scholarly tome by a German scientist named Von Junzt. Actually, it was filled with all sorts of mystical claptrap. Still, Trask found it contained a few nuggets of useful information, if one could wade through all the nonsense.
The massive, dull-faced servant called Dan stood nearby, waiting stolidly for orders. He would stand there without moving all day if necessary and never complain.
Dan’s hair had grown back out to conceal most of the huge scar on his head, but Trask knew it was there. He had very few regrets in life. A brilliant mind had no need for regrets; what lesser intellects would regard as mistakes were only opportunities that had not yet borne fruit, he knew.
If there was one thing he might have done differently, Dan was the living representation of it. Lonesome Dan Sloane had been a superb member of the organization, a valued subordinate to Major Pike. He had been eager to take part in the doctor’s research . . . and just look at him.
Well, he still played his part the best he could under the circumstances, Trask thought with a sigh as he turned his attention back to the German’s fevered scribblings.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the hall. One of the men, McCoy, stuck his head in the open door. “Doctor, I hate to bother you, but there’s something out here you need to see.”
“What is it?” Trask asked impatiently as he marked his place in the book with a finger. “Don’t be deliberately obtuse, man.” He saw McCoy grimace and figured he didn’t know what the word meant. Surely he could figure it out from the context, Trask thought.
“There’s some dead men,” McCoy explained.
Well, that held the promise of being at least somewhat interesting. Trask removed his finger from the page and replaced it with the ribbon marker attached to the book. He set the volume aside and stood up. “Come along, Dan.”
Without a word or any change of expression, Lonesome Dan followed Trask out of the room.
“They came in tied over the saddles of their own horses,” McCoy babbled. “I don’t know what to make of it, boss.”
“How many men are you talking about?” Trask asked as they reached the front door.
McCoy waved as they stepped out onto the porch. “Four right now. I sent some of the boys out to have a look around and make sure there’s not any more.”
Trask stopped short at the sight of the four horses standing there, each with a dead man draped over the saddle and tied into place, as reported. Men stood holding the reins to keep the skittish horses from spooking more. From the looks of it, they didn’t care for the grim burdens they carried.
“You say they came in on their own?” Trask asked.
“Yes, sir. Just wandered up. Horses’ll do that, you know, when they’re loose and have got their heads. They’ll nearly always go back where they came from. But here’s the funny thing—”
“I don’t think there’s anything amusing about these men being killed,” Trask snapped.
“No, sir, you’re right,” McCoy agreed quickly. “I mean it’s odd. I know these fellas and their horses, and some of ’em . . . well, they’re on other men’s horses. Men who, uh, ain’t here.”
“From which we can draw two conclusions. The first being that whoever loaded them on these horses didn’t know which mount went with which corpse.”
McCoy nodded. “That’s what I figure.”
As if he hadn’t heard, Trask went on, “The second being that in all probability there are other mismatched pairs somewhere in the vicinity.” He drew in a deep breath. “More of my men who have been killed.”
“Yes, sir, Doctor. I thought the same thing. That’s why I sent some fellas to have a look around.”
Trask was annoyed briefly by the way McCoy put his reasoning on the same level as his own, but he ignored it as he went down the steps to one of the men holding the reins. “They were shot, I take it?”
“That’s right. Ventilated good and proper, in fact.”
“Were these men all members of the same search party?”
“Yeah. They were checkin’ out some of the high pastures north of here.”
“Get them down.”
Men sprang to carry out the doctor’s order. Knives slid from sheaths and sawed through bindings. Hands grasped the corpses and lowered them to the ground. In a matter of moments, the four dead men were laid out on their backs.
Their faces were frozen in rictuses of death. Dark brown stains where blood had dried were visible on their clothes. Some had been shot only once, while the others were riddled with several wounds.
Trask studied them dispassionately. Loss of life bothered him only in its wasted potential. Someday when his research was complete, they could have been so much more.
A shout made him lift his head. Riders were coming in, leading two more horses carrying the same sort of grisly load. One of the animals had two bodies strapped to it.
Those dead men were cut loose and placed with the others.
The man who had come to get Trask studied them, matching up the corpses with the animals that had brought them back to the ranch headquarters. He turned to Trask
. “They’re all accounted for, Doctor, except one horse that could’ve wandered off after the fight. I don’t reckon we’ll find any more.”
“Unless whoever did this strikes again.”
McCoy went on excitedly. “We’d better send some more men up there right away.”
Trask shook his head. “Whoever did this will be gone by now. I make no claim to being any sort of military tactician, but even I know that.”
“You reckon it was that Jensen woman they were lookin’ for? When she got away from here, a couple ranch hands were with her. They might’ve taken that missing horse for her to ride.”
“Possibly,” Trask said. Even as he spoke, he didn’t believe it. He knew how unlikely it was that a woman and two cowboys had gunned down more than twice their number of hardened killers.
No, Trask thought as he felt anticipation begin to grow inside him, there was a much more plausible explanation for the deaths of his men.
Smoke Jensen had returned.
Chapter 43
Before the dead gunmen had been loaded on their horses, Smoke had checked the bodies and appropriated the boots that had belonged to the one with the smallest feet. They were still a bit too big for Sally, but they fit much better than the ones she’d been wearing.
“It’ll always make me feel a little queasy, knowing that I’m wearing a dead man’s boots,” she said as they got ready to leave the line shack.
“Better that than tearing your feet up on rough ground,” Smoke told her.
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
They took all the ammunition and several extra guns from the dead men. In a war like the one they might be facing, it was impossible to have too much firepower.
They searched saddlebags for supplies, but all they found were some jerky and pipe tobacco. Pearlie took the tobacco, although his pipe was back in the bunkhouse at Sugarloaf—if one of the varmints who had raided the ranch hadn’t stolen it—and he strapped on a sheathed bowie knife one of the men had been wearing.
From the line shack, they took what was left of the supply cache. It would keep them going for a few days. Up in the high country, the men could always rig snares to catch small animals, so they wouldn’t starve. And water was plentiful in the small creeks that flowed from springs higher up.
Smoke, Sally, Pearlie, and Cal mounted up and headed higher in the rugged northern reaches of the Sugarloaf. Smoke knew that eventually they would reach the end of his range, but boundaries didn’t mean much to him at the moment.
Keeping Sally safe did.
“What are you planning to do, Smoke?” she asked as she rode alongside him. “I know you’re not going to keep running and hiding out from those men.”
“I want to find someplace for you to stay where you won’t be in danger.”
“Danger doesn’t bother me. I’ve faced it plenty of times before, remember?”
“I remember,” Smoke said grimly. “I also remember seeing you lying there with an outlaw’s bullet in you, looking like you were dead. I thought you were. I don’t want you to ever go through something like that again.”
“I know,” she said, her voice soft. “And I love you for being so worried about me. But I also know the men at the ranch who were captured are in danger now, and so are the people in Big Rock. Those are your friends, Smoke. You have to do something about it. And you can’t let your concern for me stop you.”
“I don’t intend to. There’s a cave almost as high up on this mountain as you can go. Nobody can get near it without being seen. One man can hold off an army from up there, as long as his ammunition holds out. We’re going to spend the night there, then tomorrow you and Cal will stay there while Pearlie and I ride back down and deal with this.”
“Hey!” Cal objected. “You’re gonna leave me behind? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I do,” Pearlie said. “I’m just itchin’ to take the fight to those polecats, Smoke.”
“Your job is just as important, Cal,” Smoke told the youngster. “I’m counting on you to keep Sally safe.”
“Why not leave me up there alone, if you’re bound and determined to keep me out of the fight?” Sally suggested. “You know I can handle a rifle, and if Cal goes with you and Pearlie, that’s one more man on your side.”
Cal grinned with pride at being described as a man. He looked like he was fit to bust about it, in fact.
“I’ll think about it,” Smoke said. “For right now, let’s just keep climbing.”
They did so, going higher and higher up the mountainside as the sun began to sweep down toward the western horizon.
Finally, not long before dusk, they reached the base of a long, rocky slope mostly bare of vegetation. It led up to a towering cliff.
Smoke pointed. “The cave is at the bottom of that cliff. Nobody can get at it from above, and with this open ground below it, a man with a rifle can pick off anybody who tries to attack this way.”
“Is there any water up there?” Pearlie asked.
“No, but all our canteens are full. We’ll leave them, and whoever stays will have enough to last for a few days if they’re careful with it.”
Sally said, “That’s one more reason to take Cal with you and leave me alone up here. One person can make the water and supplies last twice as long as two.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Smoke admitted.
“Of course, I’d rather you just take me with you . . .”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“That’s what I figured,” she said. “But I still think you should take Cal with you. You can leave Dog here with me. Nobody’s going to be able to sneak up on me with him around.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Smoke said, but he already knew that Sally was right. With the odds facing him, he would need all the help he could get. In a scrap, Cal, despite his youth, was a seasoned fighter and a good man to have on his side.
“The three of you stay here,” Smoke went on. “I’ll ride up and have a look at the place. I’ve never known any bears to den up in it for the winter, but you never can tell.”
“It’s too early for that,” Pearlie said.
“Maybe. No point in taking a chance.”
That was exactly what Smoke was doing—not taking a chance with his wife’s life. He would be out in the open as he climbed that slope. If anybody happened to be watching through field glasses and decided to try a long-distance rifle shot, it would be aimed at him, not Sally.
In the fading light, his stallion picked its sure-footed way upward toward the cliff. Nothing happened, and a few minutes later he reached the top. The cave was more of an overhang than an actual chamber carved into the rock, but it had a small ledge in front of it where boulders had lodged in the past after toppling from the cliff. Those boulders provided plenty of cover. The open area under the overhang was about thirty feet wide, twenty deep, and the roof curved down from a ten-foot-high opening at the front.
It was a nice, cozy hideout. In the light that remained in the sky, Smoke could see that it was empty. Some old bits of brush showed that animals had denned up there at some time, but none recently.
That brush would serve as fuel for a cooking fire during the day, but it would have to be a cold camp at night. That high up, once darkness closed down, a fire could be seen for a long way, like a beacon.
Smoke scanned the slopes of the surrounding mountains and hills as far as he could see. Nothing out of the ordinary was moving. He lifted his arm and waved for the others to come on up. He was confident that Sally would be safe there for a while.
The thought that he and his allies might fail in their campaign against Jonas Trask and his men never entered Smoke’s mind. He didn’t have an arrogant bone in his body, but he possessed a quiet confidence that he and his friends would do their best . . . and in the past, their best had always been more than good enough to emerge victorious against all sorts of odds.
Although he would feel a little better
about the situation if he knew how Preacher and Matt were faring in their mission to Big Rock.
Chapter 44
After the encounter with Cully, Preacher drove the wagon on down the street. He glanced at Louis Longmont’s saloon and thought about how nice it would be to go in there and cut the trail dust from his throat with a beer.
He couldn’t risk that, though. Longmont was too canny and observant. If the gambler/gunman who was one of Smoke’s oldest friends was anywhere around, he would see through Preacher’s meager disguise in an instant.
Preacher didn’t want to venture into any of the usual haunts he visited whenever he was in those parts. He kept an eye out for someplace he’d never been and found it in a hash house with a painted sign that read Loo’s.
He hauled back on the reins, brought the wagon to a stop, and climbed down, tying the team to a hitch rail. The mules stood there, heads drooping in weariness after a long day of pulling the wagon. He’d need to take them to a livery stable later, so they could be cared for properly, but they could wait while he tried to find out more about what was going on in Big Rock.
Considering how few people were on the street, Preacher wasn’t surprised when he went into the hash house and found that it didn’t have any customers. The proprietor, a short, round-faced Chinese man, was the only person in sight. He stood behind the counter resting his elbows on it. His chin was propped in his hands. He showed a little interest when Preacher walked in but didn’t straighten from his glum pose. “You want something?”
“Maybe a bowl o’ chili and beans, if you got it,” Preacher said. “Or some hash an’ eggs ’d be good, too.”
The little man perked up. He straightened and put his hands on the counter “You want to buy food? Really?”
“That’s what this place is for, ain’t it?”
“Yes, yes, of course, but no one comes in since those—” The man stopped short and frowned at Preacher. “Those men are friends of yours? The ones running the town now?”
“Nope. Never saw ’em before, and didn’t know they was here until I drove in just now. Don’t much like the looks of ’em, neither. I’m just a driftin’ peddler and tinker, not an owlhoot like them.” Preacher didn’t bother keeping the genuine dislike out of his voice. He figured the fella would be more likely to talk if he thought his visitor was a kindred spirit.
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