William W. Johnstone (24 page)

Race went down first, sinking to his knees in the dirt, dropping his guns as life left him.

Smoke felt a bullet tear his cheek and another slug rip a narrow gouge on the outside of his left thigh. Smoke and Barry Almond faced each other, guns belching fire and death. Smoke had known that Barry was going to be hard to put down, and the bounty hunter was livng up to his reputation.

As the fourth slug from Smoke’s .44’s hit Barry, the man went down to one knee, cursing as he slumped to the dusty and rutted road. Using all his strength, he lifted his left hand .44.

Smoke shot him between the eyes just as Cal managed to work his way past his terrible pain to lift his guns. Smoke turned and fired twice just as Rusty’s Winchester barked and Walt’s express gun roared. The last of the Almond Brothers died on his belly in the dirt, torn to bloody bits by the three guns.

The silence was shatteringly loud for a moment. Then Smoke broke the stillness as he ejected empty brass and began reloading. The spent brass tinkled as it struck small rocks in the road. Loaded up, Smoke holstered his Colts and turned to face Walt, still standing on the porch of the trading post.

“Thanks, Walt.”

“Felt good,” the old rancher said. “In more ways than one. I knew that night back at the crick I’d misplaced my backbone for too long.”

Max groaned and cursed as he lay in the dirt, his blood staining the earth under him.

of the dying man’s reach. “He ain’t got long,” the puncher said, glancing at Smoke.

Max looked up at him and cussed the redhead.

“If I was a-goin’ where you’re goin’, partner,” Rusty told him, “I believe I’d try to clean up my mouth some.”

The last words to pass the bounty hunter’s lips were curses.

“You boys put them down,” Bendel said, coming out of his saloon with several shovels. “You can damn well help me plant them.”

They looked up at the sounds of hooves clip-clopping up the road. Several gun hands from the Bar V were riding out, bedrolls lied behind the saddle and their saddlebags bulging full.

“We ain’t huntin’ no trouble,” one told Smoke, eyeballing the carnage sprawled in the dirt. “We’re pullin’ out.”

Smoke knew the man and knew he was no coward. Something had happened at the Bar V. “What’s the problem, Jake?”

“The mainest thing is you, Smoke. This here poker game has done got too rich for my blood. I’ll hire my guns out to whoever pays the price, and you know that. But I ain’t no thief. I ain’t never stole nothin’ in my life.” That curious moral streak that so many men who lived by the gun surfaced in Jake. “That damn Luddy Morgan and his bunch of no-goods come in. Rim Reynolds and Perry Simmons and that crazy Phil What’s-His-Name is due in anytime. I ain’t havin’ no truck with that trash.”

“If we’re lucky, Jake, we’ll never see each other again,” Smoke told him.

“You’re gonna have to ride clear over to Oregon if you want to see me, Smoke. And since I ain’t on Vale’s payroll no more, I can tell you this much without be-trayin’ no confidence: Jud’s gonna attack the Box T—I don’t know when or I’d tell you. He’s gonna burn the place to the
ground, kill ever’body there, and then bury the bodies deep…”

Walt’s lips tightened at that.

“He’s gonna remove all sign that there was ever a building on the place,” Jake continued, “and he ain’t prancin’ around wearin’ that stupid robe and crown no more, neither. He’s come to his senses … for a while, at least. But the fool is liable to go off agin any time. He’s worser than any cow who ever et loco weed when he drops off the deep end.”

A hired gun pulling out with Jake spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt and said, “Them ol’ boys that’s comin’ in is all bad, Smoke. And the ones that’s stayin’ is just as bad. Jud’s gonna take this here fight right down to the killin end.” He noted the thin trickle of blood oozing down Smoke’s cheek. “You lucked out agin, Smoke. An inch over and somebody would be plantin’ petunias on your grave.”

Smoke nodded in agreement. His leg hurt but he knew it was not a serious wound. He’d had enough lead dug out of him to fill a good-sized gunnysack. “How many men does Jud have?”

“I’d say nearabouts a hundred,” Jake told him. “Maybe more. He’s promisin’ them the moon and the stars and wimmin and apple pie and ever’thang else ’ceptin’ his drawers iffen they’ll stay with him and see this thing through. I reckon most of them will do that. Me and the boys here just couldn’t see to do that. I never did like the idea of fightin’ wimmin and kids.” He looked at Rusty. “You got yourself a good woman with that Do-reen. She’ll stand by a man when the goin’ gets rough. Wish I could find one like that. See you boys.” He lifted the reins and Jake and his buddies rode on.

“Well,” Rusty said. “Let’s plant these ol’ boys and get back to the ranch. Looks like we’re in for some excitement. Lord knows,” he added drily, “we been so bored of late.”

Walt had doubled the supplies and borrowed pack horses to bring the additional staples to the ranch. There, Smoke made a slow walking inspection of the area surrounding the complex. There could be nothing else done to make the place any more secure.

After supper, he called a meeting in the lantern-lit barn.

“Here’s the way it’s going to be, people. No one leaves this area. No one. Not for any reason. Jud is going to hit us, and he’s going to hit us hard. When? Very soon, I’m thinking. He should be able to sit a saddle most anytime.” He noticed the smiles at that and had to join them in the rough humor. But his smile faded quickly. “I thought that after the so-called party at the Bar V the other night, and what happened afterward, that Sheriff Brady would do something—anything! But that doesn’t appear to be the case. I don’t know whether Jud has bought him off, or what. Maybe the sheriff just doesn’t want to get involved. Whatever the reason, it looks like we’re in this thing all by ourselves. We can handle it. But it’s going to get rough and dirty. Any of Jud’s hired guns with an ounce of mercy in them have pulled out. What’s left is the crud. That’s what’s going to be hitting us. Be ready for it. That’s it.”

Smoke looked at the young kids, kids that were growing up fast.
Too fast, probably, for he saw no fear in their eyes. Did they really know the danger that faced them, or was this just kid excitement? Probably a combination of both, he thought.

“I’ll stand the first watch,” Walt said. “Then Smoke and Rusty and Jackson can divide up the rest. We’re going to have to do this every night. Three-hour pulls for each of us until it’s over.”

“Anybody seen or heard anything from Clint?” Alice asked.

No one had.

“The last time I spoke with him,” Smoke said, “he said he was having one of his spells—one of his moods is what he called it. He wouldn’t come close to me.”

“That’s probably good for you,” Doreen said. “He gets murderous when those things take hold of him. He thinks everybody is his enemy.”

There was nothing else to say, so Walt broke up the meeting by telling everyone to go to bed. He got his rifle and took up a position by the corral, taking the first watch.

Smoke slept a few hours and then went out to relieve the rancher. It was one of those Idaho nights that inspire poets to write the loftiest and most eloquent of verses. The heavens were filled with stars that clung so close to earth one could almost feel they were touchable.

“Quiet,” Walt said, standing up and stretching. “Everything is at peace with the other, I reckon. Well, almost. Even the birds stopped calling a few minutes ago.”

Smoke tensed. “No birds are calling?”

Walt was silent for only a few seconds, then he cursed himself for being an old fool!’ ’Dammit! What’s the matter with me? I’ll alert the others. The old rancher took off in a bowlegged lope.

Smoke ran toward the bunkhouse, catching up with Walt and telling him to get to the house and get Little Micky into the root cellar; he’d alert the others.

Smoke knew better than to bust into the bunkhouse with everyone on the alert. That would be a good way to catch a bullet. He paused at a window.

“They’re here, boys!” he called softly. “Get to your positions and keep the lights out doing it.”

He rousted Jackson and Rusty and they ran to preset positions around the compound. None of them saw the youngest of the kids leave the bunkhouse and race across the area, stopping by the side of the barn for a moment, and then slip into the darkness of the huge barn.

Chuckie and Clark and Jimmy and Buster grinned at each other. They’d had the very devil of a time gelling just the rocks for their slingshots; but they’d finally found some with just the right texture and their weapons were strongly made, their pockets bulging with smooth little stones.

They knell down in the darkness and waited. They could hear Smoke up in the loft on one end of the barn, talking to Jackson who was up in the loft on the other end.

The boys waited in silence, slingshots in their hands.

Smoke searched the darkness of his perimeter but could see nothing out of the ordinary. If Jud and his men were out there—and that was still iffy—they were on foot and staying very quiet.

Chuckie thought he heard something behind him, at the far end of the barn. He looked at the others. Their eyes were wide; they had heard it, too. Then the very faint sound came again, but this time it was closer.

Someone was in the barn with them, and it wasn’t anyone from the Box T. The boys knew all the positions of those friendly.

Chuckie slipped a rock into the pocket of his slingshot and ever so slightly shifted positions. Then he saw the clearly outlined figure of a man. And the shape of the hat told him it was no one from the Box T. Chuckie lifted his slingshot, pulled the rubber taut, and took aim. He let the
rock fly and his aim was true. The rock struck the man in the center of his forehead and knocked him off his boots. The man made one grunt of pain as the rock hit him and then lay still on the barn floor.

Smoke was down the loft ladder in seconds. He looked at the slingshot-armed boys and sighed. It was too late to send them back to the house. But he couldn’t help but feel proud of them. They were a gutsy bunch.

Smoke moved to the fallen man. He didn’t know him.

“What’s goin’ on down there?” Jackson whispered from the hayloft.

“One of Jud’s men,” Smoke returned the whisper. “The boys dropped him with a slingshot.” Jackson chuckled softly.

“That means they’ve infiltrated us. Look sharp, Jackson.”

Smoke cut several lengths of binder twine and securely tied the hired gun. He stuck the man’s guns behind his belt and took his rifle. He looked at the boys looking at him. “I ought to spank you,” he whispered. “But I feel too proud of you to do that. Now, dammit, boys, stay down and out of sight! This is not a game.”

“Yes, sir,” Buster said, as Smoke headed for the ladder.

Smoke had just cleared the landing when Rusty’s rifle barked from his position in the bunkhouse. A man cried out in pain as the bullet struck true. Smoke ran to the hay door as gunfire began pouring in from all sides of the ranch complex.

Below him, the boys readied their slingshots as they crouched down behind bales of hay.

Jackson sighted a running figure, fired, missed, and fired again. The second slug dusted the man and sent him sprawling to the ground, side-shot and out of it.

Then the compound was filled with running men as they left their positions on the near-barren hills and ridges around the ranch and charged. Smoke could hear, over the gunfire, the sounds of horses coming hard.

The first wave of running men were cut down by the savage fire from the house, the barn, and the bunkhouse. Their bodies lay sprawled under the starry sky. One man, only slightly wounded, tried to make the barn. He was knocked to his knees by slingshot-propelled rocks and then knocked unconscious as a rock fired by Buster hit him on the side of the head and dropped him to the ground.

The boys grinned at each other.

Doreen sighted in a man and pulled the trigger, the Winchester slamming her shoulder. The slug caught the hired gun in the chest and ended his career.

Susie turned one around with a rifle shot and Alice finished him with a pistol. The rancher’s wife was calm and steady, this being nothing new to her. She’d fought Indians for years before this.

One of Jud’s men reached the outside bunkhouse wall. Jamie shot him between the eyes as he carelessly poked his head up just a tad too far.

Then the hard-running horses came into view, the riders carrying burning torches. The first half-dozen to reach the compound were blown out of their saddles by rifle fire. The boys in the lower level of the barn then went to work, sending rocks which impacted with horses’ butts.

One man was knocked out of the saddle as a rock struck him on the jaw. He fell on his torch and quickly became a living firebrand. He rose screaming to his feet, his clothing ignited, and tried to run. Walt ended his agony with a bullet to the head.

The horses went into a panic as the rocks pelted them, stinging and confusing and angering them. The horses began bucking and jumping, trying to escape the hurting stones. Riders were tossed to the ground and shot down by rifle and pistol fire.

One managed to reach the house and jumped in through a window. Doreen picked up a pot of coffee from
the stove and tossed the contents on the man, the scalding coffee catching him flush in the face. He dropped his guns and began screaming in agony, running around the room, crashing into furniture in his frantic rush to get away from the awful pain.

Alice shot him in the head and permanently ended the wailing.

A bounty hunter ran into the barn as rocks from slingshots pelted him, stinging but not stopping his charge for cover.

Little Chuckie grabbed up a pitchfork, tines out, and braced himself against the impact. The gun hand ran right into the pitchfork, knocking Chuckie down as the tines tore into his belly. Screaming in pain, the gunny ran toward the other end of the barn. The handle of the pitchfork, sticking several feet out of his belly, hit a wall and stuck there. The gunny screamed his life away, unable to pull the handle from the crack in the stable wall or free himself of the tines.