The Violent Land

by William W. Johnstone

  Behind him, Matt lunged through the firelight, grabbed the saddlebags from the rock, and whirled around with his arm extended. When he let go, the saddlebags whipped through the air above the pool, spinning around and around and vanishing into the darkness.

  Matt threw himself back into the shadows. He heard the thud as the saddlebags landed high in the rocks that formed the southern wall of the pool, but that was it. No explosion. He lay there for a minute, catching his breath, and then crawled away, taking a different angle up the hillside than the one Smoke had taken.

  Smoke lay behind a tree and thumbed fresh cartridges into his gun. When all six chambers were filled, he moved again, but this time he didn’t fire and he used all the stealth at his command not to make noise as he ghosted through the brush.

  Rifle shots continued to crack, but after a moment the guns fell silent as the would-be killers realized they didn’t have any targets anymore. Firing now just gave away their own position.

  That was the beginning of a deadly game played in the dark as Smoke and Matt searched for the men who wanted to kill them. Since their eyes weren’t much good under these circumstances, they relied on their ears and even on their noses. It was Smoke’s sense of smell that finally led him to his quarry. He homed in on the harsh scent of tobacco that told him one of the men he was after was fond of cheap, three-for-a-nickel cheroots.

  On his belly, he moved closer until he heard an urgent whisper.

  “Where do you reckon they went?”

  “How the hell do I know?” a second man answered. “I can’t see in the dark.”

  “Well, neither can I, so I say we get outta here while we still can!”

  “You want to go back to Kane and Yancy and tell ’em we failed? Hell, Dick’s liable to beat us within an inch of our lives if we do that!”

  “Maybe so, but that’s Smoke and Matt Jensen down there! Won’t be even an inch of our lives left if those two get hold of us.”

  He was right about that, Smoke thought with a faint smile. Although there was a chance he and Matt might let them live, if the opportunity arose.

  “I wish Hubbard hadn’t spotted ’em ridin’ up here,” the first man went on. “Then Dick wouldn’t have sent us after ’em.”

  That confirmed that Kane’s men were still spying on the Rafter 9. The news didn’t surprise Smoke at all. Kane would want to keep an eye on how things were progressing on the ranch, and from the sound of it, his men had standing orders to kill Smoke and Matt if they got the chance.

  By nature, Smoke didn’t sit back and wait for things to happen. He was more likely to take the fight right to his enemies. It was about time to do that with Jethro Kane, he thought.

  First, though, he and Matt had to get out of this trap and deal with the job that had brought them up here into the hills. As far as he could tell, there were only two bushwhackers. It would be easy enough to get behind them and get the drop on them.

  He was doing that when a horse suddenly let out a sharp whinny somewhere nearby. Something had spooked the animal. There was a racket in the brush.

  One of Kane’s men cursed while the other exclaimed, “The horses are loose! Grab ’em!”

  Smoke seized the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. He lunged to his feet and started toward the men. With the horses causing such a commotion, they wouldn’t hear him coming.

  A dark figure loomed up in front of him. Smoke brought his gun crashing down on the man’s head. At the same moment, a rifle went off. Several shots blasted from a revolver. That had to be Matt trading shots with the second man, Smoke thought.

  A stray bullet could be just as dangerous as one that was aimed. Smoke dropped to one knee to make himself a smaller target. He put out a hand and felt for the man he had clouted. His fingers touched cloth. He followed the man’s arm up to his shoulder. The hombre was on the ground where he had collapsed, out cold.

  A man groaned and wheezed in the darkness.

  “Somebody ... help me!” he gasped. “Please!”

  That was the second man, not Matt, and it didn’t sound like he was pretending to be wounded. But a trick was always possible, so Smoke didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Neither did Matt.

  “Walt! You gotta ... do somethin’ ... I’m shot ... in the gut.”

  Smoke waited. It was a little nerve-wracking, kneeling there in the darkness while a few yards away a man gasped and groaned away what was left of his life. When Smoke heard the breath rattle for the last time in the man’s throat, he knew it was over. No cheap gunman was that good an actor.

  “Matt?” Smoke called. “Are you hit?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Matt’s voice came back. “What about the other one?”

  “I’ve got him right—” Smoke began as he reached down with his free hand to touch the man he had knocked out.

  But before he could do that, something smashed into his stomach with stunning force. He realized in that instant of pain that the man had been shamming and had just kicked him in the belly. Agony filled Smoke, and he couldn’t get his breath. The gunman rolled, hitting his legs and knocking them out from under him.

  “Smoke!” Matt yelled. He had to know something was wrong, but he couldn’t start shooting because he didn’t know where Smoke was.

  Smoke tried to force himself back up, but the desperate blow had been powerful enough to almost paralyze him. His muscles didn’t want to work. He made a grab for the bushwhacker but missed as the man struggled to his feet and lunged away.

  “Get ... him!” Smoke managed to call to Matt as the gunman went crashing downhill through the brush.

  Matt didn’t know how bad Smoke was hurt, and he wanted to go to his adopted brother. But Smoke had said to go after the other bushwhacker, the one that was getting away, and Matt thought he knew why.

  If the man made it back to the Boxed JK and told Kane that Smoke and Matt were up here poking around the creek that turned into the underground stream that fed the springs on Kane’s ranch ...

  Well, if that happened, Kane might be smart enough to figure out what was going on, and then it wouldn’t matter that they were on land legally claimed by the Rafter 9. Kane would know that his water supply was in danger, and he would come storming up here with his whole crew of gun-wolves and do anything to stop Smoke from changing the course of the stream. So the fleeing bushwhacker had to be stopped.

  Colt in hand, praying that Smoke was all right, Matt bounded down the slope after the gunman. He could track the man by the racket he made. Matt triggered a couple of shots after him, but that just seemed to make the man go faster. Matt wasn’t surprised he hadn’t hit anything, firing blindly in the dark like that.

  The campfire he’d built earlier was still burning down by the pool. Matt saw it ahead of him. He was moving so fast he almost lost his balance and wound up skidding and sliding down toward the water. As he caught himself, he spotted the fleeing man on the other side of the pool, clambering over the rocks.

  Matt lifted his Colt and fired, but at that moment the gunman tripped over something and went sprawling. The fall saved his life as Matt’s bullet whined over his head. He came back up in a hurry, and now he had a revolver in one hand and in the other clutched the thing he had tripped over.

  The saddlebags full of dynamite.

  Matt was in the edge of the firelight, so the bushwhacker could see him. The man snapped a couple of frantic shots at him, one of which came close enough that Matt heard the bullet rip through the air near his head.

  But he couldn’t return the fire, because he might hit the dynamite. Smoke wanted to place the explosive carefully, not just set off a huge blast.

  “Drop that, you fool!” Matt yelled. “It’s dynamite!”

  The gunman looked down in horror at the saddlebags, then opened his hand and let go of them. In that instant, Matt thought that maybe he had made a mistake. Just because getting thrown around earlier hadn’t set off the dynamite, that didn’t mean a jolt now wouldn’t do the job.


  But the saddlebags thumped harmlessly to the ground at the man’s feet.

  With his pistol leveled, Matt ordered, “Drop your gun, mister! It’s all over!”

  For a second, he thought the man was going to do what he was told. But then the man’s face twisted with anger and hatred, and he yelled, “Go to hell!”

  His gun came up, flame gouting from its muzzle.

  Matt crouched and returned the fire. He saw his opponent stagger as one of his slugs drove into the man’s chest. Smoke might have wanted to take one of them alive, but things hadn’t worked out that way. The man’s gun arm sagged as he pressed his other hand to his chest and blood flowed over his fingers, an even deeper crimson than usual in the firelight.

  But the man hadn’t dropped his gun, and Matt’s eyes widened as time seemed to slow down while the barrel tracked closer and closer to the leather bag lying among the rocks. The man hunched over as a death spasm went through him. Even though Matt was too far away to really see it, in his mind’s eye he saw the man’s finger contracting on the trigger ...

  “Ohhhh, hellllll!” Matt yelled as he threw himself backwards and scrambled away from the pool as fast as he could.

  Hell was right. Flame licked from the barrel of the gun, and an instant later an earth-shaking explosion seemed to engulf the entire hillside.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Smoke had made it to his feet. He probed his midsection gingerly and decided that nothing was broken and no lasting damage had been done to his guts. The kick had been hard enough to paralyze him momentarily, and he would probably have a big bruise on his belly, but that was all.

  As he started down the hill, he heard gunfire below, along with Matt’s shout. Smoke broke into a staggering run, eager to reach his brother and help Matt corral the other bushwhacker.

  He had taken only a few steps when the earth jumped under his feet and sent him tumbling down the slope as a roar like the mightiest clap of thunder in history filled the night.

  There was only one explanation for that, Smoke thought as he rolled over several times and came to a stop with his arms over his head to protect it from what he knew was coming.

  All six sticks of dynamite had gone off at the same time, creating a huge explosion. That blast would have thrown a lot of rocks and debris high into the air.

  And what went up ...

  Smoke lowered his head and tried to bury it even deeper under his arms as chunks of rock began to pelt down around him like big, hard drops of rain. Some of them struck his arms, back, and legs, and although they stung like blazes, none of them were big enough to do any real harm. The stone wall around the pool must have been completely pulverized by the explosion.

  Smoke didn’t know how that had happened and didn’t care. All he was worried about at the moment was how close Matt had been to the blast.

  The echoes rolled away over the hills and gradually began to fade. Debris stopped falling from the sky. Smoke fought his way to his feet and started down the hill again.

  “Matt!” he called. “Matt, where are you?” There was no answer. Smoke Jensen wasn’t a man given to fear, but right then, he was afraid for Matt.

  As he approached the pool, the stench from the explosion filled the air along with a cloud of smoke and dust that made Smoke cough. The campfire was gone, blown out and scattered by the blast.

  He heard a groan somewhere nearby, and the sound made his heart leap.

  “Matt!” he shouted, then realized that if Matt had been this close to the explosion, he probably couldn’t hear anything. The roar would have deafened him, at least temporarily.

  Smoke dug a match out of his pocket and snapped it into life with his thumbnail. By the flickering glare, he spotted a couple of booted feet sticking out from under some blown-down aspens. Hoping that was Matt, Smoke hurried to the trees, shook out the match, and began pulling the broken trunks aside.

  It didn’t take long to uncover the man buried beneath them. Smoke struck another match. Relief flooded through him as the light revealed Matt’s face. He was scratched and bloody but didn’t seem to be badly hurt. Smoke got an arm around his shoulders and lifted him.

  Matt groaned again. His eyes fluttered open, and he said, “Wha ... wha’ happen ... ?”

  “All that dynamite went off,” Smoke told him. “You were almost caught in the explosion. From the looks of it, you made it into these trees, and they broke the force of the blast enough to save your life, even though they sort of buried you when they got blown over.”

  Matt blinked groggily at him.

  “Stop whisperin’ ... Smoke ... You sound like ... you’re so far away... .”

  Smoke realized that Matt hadn’t understood much of his explanation. Just as he had thought, Matt was partially deaf from the blast. But the fact that Matt could hear anything boded well. His hearing would probably come back.

  “It’s all right,” Smoke said, raising his voice. “You’ll be fine.”

  “That other bushwhacker ...”

  “Did he get away?”

  “He was ... standin’ on top of... that dynamite ... when it ... when it ...”

  Matt couldn’t go on. He was still too stunned to form the words.

  “That’s all right,” Smoke told him. Matt had said enough. If the second gunman had been right on top of the dynamite when it went off, he wouldn’t be hightailing it back to the Boxed JK to tell Jethro Kane what they were doing.

  In fact, there wouldn’t be enough left of the unlucky varmint to bury, or probably even to pick up.

  Dawn revealed what the explosion had done.

  The pool was gone. The blast had sprayed it all over the hillside, vaporizing it.

  But the creek still flowed, and with the rock wall that had formed the pool destroyed, there was nothing to stop the water from running on downhill. It was flowing steadily toward the headquarters of the Rafter 9.

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly what I intended,” Smoke said to Matt as they stood beside the stream watching it run. “But since it was one of Kane’s men who was responsible for it, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, either.”

  Matt had recovered from almost being caught in the explosion. He was battered and bruised, even more so than Smoke, but his iron constitution would allow him to bounce back in a hurry. He still had a little echo in his ears at times, but his hearing was mostly all right.

  “That’s going to make a good creek for the baron,” he said. “He may have to have his men dig out a channel for it here and there, but I think there’s a good chance he can bring it right through the middle of his range.”

  “It’ll make a big difference, all right,” Smoke agreed.

  “But Kane’s liable to declare all-out war once he realizes what’s happened.”

  Smoke nodded grimly.

  “I know that, too. But if there’s got to be a showdown, it’s better to have it sooner rather than later. If Friedrich’s going to build this ranch into something and start himself a town, too, he doesn’t need the shadow of a range war hanging over him.”

  “I guess we’d better let him know what’s happened.”

  Their horses had been far enough away from the blast that they hadn’t been injured, although the explosion had spooked them and made them run off. The animals were used to gunfire, so it took a lot to make them skittish. Six sticks of dynamite going off definitely qualified. Smoke had found them without much trouble, though, and brought them back to the former site of the pool where he and Matt had camped.

  The two men mounted up now and started toward the Rafter 9 headquarters. They were leaving the other bushwhacker’s body for the scavengers.

  “Do you think that hombre meant to pull the trigger and set off the dynamite?” Smoke asked Matt as they rode.

  “I don’t know,” Matt replied with a shake of his head. “He might have. Maybe he figured he could take me to hell with him. Or maybe he just jerked the trigger involuntarily as he was dying. I’ve seen that happen plenty of t
imes.”

  So had Smoke. All it took was for nerves and muscles to contract as the death throes went through a man.

  “I don’t reckon we’ll ever know for sure,” Matt went on.

  “No,” Smoke agreed, “and it doesn’t matter, either. Kane’s lost two more men and a big part of his water supply. That’s what’s important.”

  They followed the new course that the creek was carving out for itself. From the amount of water that was flowing, Smoke figured the explosion must have closed off the underground route, possibly for good. All that water had to go somewhere, and geography dictated that it was going toward the Rafter 9 headquarters.

  The new creek took some twists and turns along the way and formed some new pools here and there that would serve as waterholes for the stock that von Hoffman would run on his range. Smoke and Matt soon outdistanced the water, which would take time to work its way across the ranch. But it was coming, and it was going to make all the difference in the world, Smoke thought.

  They came in sight of the ranch house and the outbuildings at mid-morning. Preacher rode out to meet them. Not surprisingly, the keen-eyed old mountain man had spotted the two riders approaching.

  “What in tarnation happened up there last night?” Preacher demanded as he turned his horse and fell in alongside Smoke and Matt. “We heard what sounded like thunder, but there weren’t a cloud in the sky! Matt, you look like somebody’s been beatin’ you with a stick.”

  “Something like that,” Matt said. “Only it wasn’t a stick, it was half a dozen aspen trees.”

  “What in blazes are you talkin’ about?”

  Smoke said, “That ‘thunder’ you heard was really half a dozen sticks of dynamite going off, Preacher.”

  “Jehosaphat! Did you set it off on purpose?”

  “Well ... not really. But it did the job we set out to do. Did it even better than I intended, in fact.”

  “You turned that crick in this direction?”

  Smoke nodded.

  “In a few days, the baron will have a nice little stream running right across his ranch. It ought to give him all the water he needs for his herds.”