The bounty hunter wheeled around, his eyes wide with panic, the rifle in his hands coming up. But Smoke’s forward charge knocked the man sprawling, loosening his grip on the Winchester. The man opened his mouth to yell a warning. With one hard swing of the long-bladed knife, Smoke ended the life of the hunter.
He took the man’s rifle, pistol, and ammo, and then dragged the body into the pile of brush. Smoke made his way back to Dagger, using a different route, stashed the weapons, patted the big stallion on the neck, and once more headed out into the woods.
This time out, he was going to show Jud Vale what he thought of a man who would declare war on women and young boys.
And he would write the message in blood.
Smoke stayed near the top of a ridge, working his way along, keeping to the brush and timber, not skylining himself. At the highest point of the ridge, Smoke bellied down and made his way to the crest.
A Bar V hand chose that lime to stick his head up and look Smoke right in the eyes. Smoke recovered from his shock before the puncher and clobbered the cowboy right between the eyes with the butt of his Winchester, sending the man sprawling backward, his forehead bleeding.
Smoke was over the crest and on top of the hand before the man could recover. Smoke busted the man on the side of the jaw with the butt of the rifle and the hand’s eyes rolled back in his head. He was out for a long time, with a broken jaw.
Smoke tossed the man’s pistol into the brush and smashed the man’s rifle useless against a tree trunk. He moved down the ridge, mad and on the warpath. A Bar V gunny spotted him and raised his rifle to fire. Smoke leveled his Winchester and shot the man in the belly, doubling him over and bringing a scream of pain.
Now the fire had reached the hot grease and the war was on.
The landscape seemed to erupt with ugly and very hostile gun hands as Smoke dived for cover just as unfriendly fire began zinging and popping and ricocheting all around him.
Jumping behind a fallen log, Smoke wriggled his way to the other end and rolled into a small depression in the earth. Below him, the Bar V gunnies were shouting and cussing.
Smoke leveled his Winchester and put an abrupt and permanent halt to one gunfighter’s swearing. The .44 slug caught the man in the chest. The hand’s rifle went flying as blood stained the front of his shirt.
Smoke lunged out of the depression and made the timber before the others could get him in gun sights; shooting uphill was just as tricky as shooting downhill.
On the crest of the ridge, in deep timber, Smoke settled in for the siege. He dusted one Bar V gunny’s position, sending the man hugging the earth and losing his hat. Just for spite, knowing what value Western men put on their hats, Smoke lifted his rifle and knocked the hat spinning, ventilating the Stetson.
The gunny cussed Smoke, loud and long.
Smoke ducked down as the lead began whining wickedly all around him, bringing the thought to his mind that now would be just a dandy time to haul his ashes out of that particular location.
During a break in the firing, Smoke eased back, clearing the crest of the ridge, and began making his way west, working in a slow, careful semicircle until coming to a better, if temporary, area in which to work.
He lifted his Winchester, sighted in a foot sticking out from behind a large rock, and squeezed the trigger. The yowl of pain that followed told him he had taken another gunny out of the fight. The man was screaming in pain from his bullet-shattered ankle.
Another gunny, with more guts than sense, left his safe position to move to what he felt was a better one.
Smoke shot him, the bullet going in his left side and tearing out the right side, spinning the man like an out-of-balance top and dropping him to the hard, rocky ground. He did not move.
Smoke punched more .44’s into his Winchester and made life miserable for a gunhand who was crouched behind a tree. The man decided to seek better cover and made a run for it. Smoke knocked a leg out from under him and the man rolled down the hill, hollering and cussing. He finally managed to break his downhill rolling by grabbing onto a small tree and painfully work his way behind it. Smoke let him be, and concentrated on the others.
But the fight was gone from this bunch. Smoke watched without firing as they began working their way down the hill, staying in cover, carrying and helping the wounded back out of range of Smoke’s deadly rifle fire.
He left his position and worked his way back into deep timber, paralleling the gunnies’ retreat, sensing from their urgency and the direction of their travel that they were heading for their horses. He was waiting for them when they reached the picket line.
Smoke shot one badman in the belly and dusted another gunhand before they all left in a confusing and disorderly retreat, some of them losing their weapons as they stumbled and ran away.
Smoke ran into the camp, grabbed up the fallen weapons, and stuck them in empty saddle boots. He grasped as many reins as he could, swung into a saddle, and led the horses back to where he had left Dagger. There, he tied and grouped the horses and headed back for Box T range.
All in all, it had been quite a profitable day.
It was late night before Smoke reached the ranch house. He put the horses into the corral, told the boys to strip the gear from them and clean and store the weapons. He switched horses and then filled a sack with dynamite and caps and fuses, and was back in the saddle, heading once more for Bar V range.
He made a cold camp, slept for a few hours, and was up about three in the morning. He checked his guns and then saddled up. With a grim smile on his lips, Smoke went headhunting under the stars.
About two miles from the main house, and not running into a single Bar V hand, Smoke moved several hundred head of cattle toward the direction of Jud’s mansion and then tossed two sputtering sticks of dynamite near the bunched-up herd of Bar V cattle. The explosions sent them into a snorting, wild-eyed stampede heading straight for the mansion.
Smoke tagged along to see what other mischief he could get into this fine night.
The hard-running cattle hit the mansion grounds at full speed, demolishing several outhouses and destroying one corral. Smoke drove half a dozen of the frightened cattle into the mansion and then circled, tossing a stick of dynamite into a bunkhouse.
The charge of giant powder blew out one entire end of the bunkhouse and sent gun hands—in various stages of undress—rolling and running and crawling in all directions.
The dust kicked up from the wildly stampeding herd only added to the confusion, limiting visibility to only a few yards in any direction. Smoke’s horse ran into one long handle-clad gun hand, knocking the man to the ground. The gun hand screamed as the horse’s steel-shod hooves ripped flesh and cracked bone.
Jud Vale appeared on the balcony of the second floor of the mansion, clad only in his underwear. He was jumping up and down and screaming almost incoherently. “Somebody come up here and get this goddamn cow out of my bedroom!” he finally managed to squall.
With his six gun, Smoke put several slugs around Jud’s bare feet. The man did a frantic little dance, and hollering to beat sixty, leaped back into the bedroom, obviously preferring the company of a smelly wild-eyed cow to the lead that was sending splinters into his tootsies.
A puncher grabbed onto Smoke’s leg, trying to pull him out of the saddle. Smoke laid the barrel of his Colt against the man’s head, splitting it wide open and dropping the man to the ground.
Hot lead came awfully close to Smoke’s cheek and that convinced him that it was time to move. Riding bent low over his horse’s neck, Smoke galloped around to the back of the house. Jud had just rebuilt the back porch and replaced all the windows at the rear of the house.
Smoke lit another fuse with the small can of burning punk and tossed the stick under the back porch.
Jud’s wild cussing could just be heard over the confusion.
Smoke had cleared the creek and was heading into the starry darkness as the porch blew. The giant powder demolished the newly rebuilt porch and once more broke all the windows from the rear of the mighty mansion.
“Goddamn you, Jensen!” Jud’s voice rang out over the dusty night. “I’ll get you for this. I swear I’ll get you! I’ll stake you out over an anthill and let them eat your eyes. I’ll...”
Laughing as Jud’s voice faded, Smoke headed for the deep timber.
Dawn found him cutting fence wire and scattering Jud’s cattle all to hell and gone. An hour later he had blown two dams and torn down several line shacks.
He looked up at the sounds of pounding hooves and cut his horse toward a long-deserted cabin and barn about half a mile away. The story was that the cabin and barn had belonged to a rancher and his wife. Jud had moved in and moved them out, after killing the rancher’s son and badly wounding the rancher.
Smoke chanced a glance over his shoulder. There were ten or twelve riders coming hard at him, but still too far away for accurate shooting on their part.
As he rode toward the cabin, Smoke made his plans as he bent over the horse’s neck, keeping a very low target. The cabin was built into a hill. The sod roof had long since become a living thing as the grass from the hill caught life and flourished.
Smoke dismounted at a run and threw open the door, leading the horse inside. He knelt in the open doorway and leveled his Winchester, clearing one saddle of a hired gun. The horse trotted on toward the cabin as the other gun hands veered off, left and right, seeking some sort of cover. They all knew how deadly Smoke was with any type of weapon.
Smoke grabbed the reins of the spooked pony, pulled the rifle from its boot, tore loose the canteen—that would give him three full canteens—and jerked off the saddle bags. He slapped the pony on the rump, sending it on its way.
Smoke slammed the door and dropped the old bar across it just as rifle shots began slugging into the logs of the cabin. He led the horse into the rear part of the house, as far out of harm’s way as possible, gave it a hatful of water, and returned to the front of the cabin. If worse came to worst, he could pull grass from off the roof and feed the animal.
He smiled when he saw the kitchen. Luck was with him. Some of the Bar V hands had used the cabin as a line shack, and used it recently. Staying low, Smoke closed the still sturdy inside shutters—put there long ago against Indian attack—and tried the pump in the kitchen. Cold clear water gushed forth. He opened the cabinet. Cans of beans and peaches looked back at him. He selected a can of peaches and opened it with his knife, then ate the peaches and drank the juice.
“All the comforts of home,” he muttered, then checked the Winchester he’d jerked from the boot of the riderless horse. It was full up.
He looked into the saddlebags of the hired gun who now rested face down on the ground. Several biscuits with salt meal, three boxes of 44’s and a spare pistol and holster under one flap. Dirty underwear under the other flap. He kept the biscuits, the pistol, and the 44’s.
Smoke moved to a gun port and looked out. He could see a man slowly working his way toward the house, but still too far off for a shot. Smoke let him come on.
He moved to the other side of the house just in time to see a man run from tree to tree. This one was well within range. Smoke earred the hammer back on his Winchester and waited. The gun hand broke cover and made a run for the corral. Smoke stopped him at midpoint, the .44 slug turning him around as it hit his side. Smoke didn’t finish the man, choosing instead to let him lie on the ground and scream in pain. That would work on his buddies much more than a death shot.
Smoke sat down on the floor, his back to an overturned table as the lead really began to fly in his direction. He ate one of the salt meat biscuits and sipped water from his canteen and let the attackers expel all the ammunition they wanted to.
After a time, the hostile fire slacked off and then died. Smoke smiled a grim curving of the lips and moved to the window. He let out a long groan. He waited, and then groaned again.
“We got him!” a man shouted. “We really got the bassard this time!”
“Oh, yeah?” came the sarcasm-filled question. "And who wants to be the one to walk up and look inside the cabin to be sure?"
No one replied.
“That’s what I figured,” the man said.
Smoke removed the bar from the door and moved back to the overturned table laying his rifle on the floor, pulling his Colts and easing back the hammers. He waited. When they opened that door—and he figured they would come all bunched up for moral support—more than a few of them were going to be in for a very nasty surprise.
Once more, the outside air was filled with lead. Smoke waited.
“Hell, he’s had it,” a man called. “I’m goin’ in.”
“I’ll go with you,” another called, and several more added their agreement to that.
Smoke waited.
He heard the jingle of spurs as the hired guns and bounty hunters approached the cabin. Smoke had removed his boots and arranged them behind the table, placing them so it appeared he was lying dead, his body concealed behind the table. He slipped on moccasins and then stepped back into the shadows of another room.
The front door was pushed open with the barrel of a rifle.
“See anything?” a man asked.
“Hell, are you crazy? I ain’t stickin’ my head in yonder!”
“I see his boots,” another said, looking through a gun slit. “He’s all sprawled out and stone cold dead behind a table.”
The room crowded with men.
Smoke opened fire, the Colts belching sparks and flame and death. He pulled the pistol he’d taken from the saddlebags and ended the lopsided gunfight. One lone gun hand tried to rise up and shoot him. Smoke shot him between the eyes. “Your mamma should have told you there’d be days like this,” Smoke said.
He then counted the bodies. Six. He figured maybe three were left on the outside still alive, and that included the badly wounded man by the corral.
He reloaded and moved toward the open door, staying close to the log wall. “Come on, boys!” he shouted. “Come join the party.”
“Hell with you, Jensen!” a man shouted. "They’s always another day. We’re gone!”
“Then ride, scumbag!”
The man cursed him. A moment later, the sounds of horses galloping away reached Smoke.
Smoke gathered up all the weapons and tied the rifles together. He found a bounty hunter’s horse and stuffed the saddlebags full of pistols and gun belts, looping some over the saddle horn. He secured the rifles to the saddle and led the horse to the cabin. Shoving the dead out of the doorway, Smoke led his own horse outside and mounted up. He walked his horse over to the corral and looked down at the man lying on the ground. The man was dead. He left him there and rode out into the plain. The first man he’d shot put of the saddle was lying on the ground, on his back, his eyes open and staring at Smoke. His shirt front was covered with blood.
“You’re a devil” the man gasped.
“I’ve been called worse,” Smoke acknowledged from the saddle.
“I ain’t gonna make it, am I?”
“Not likely.”
The man cussed him but made no attempt to reach for the pistol still in leather.
Smoke waited until the man stopped cussing and tried to catch his breath. "Anything you want me to do for you?"
“Fall out of the saddle dead!”
Jud Vale had hired hardcases, for sure. No give in them. “Would you really have shot one of those little boys over at the Box T?”
“Just as fast as I’d shoot you, Jensen.”
“Then I don’t think I’ll turn my back to you.”
“It wouldn’t be a smart thing to do, for a fact.”
Smoke sat his saddle for a few minutes. The gunny began to cough up blood. Twice he tried to pull his pistol. But the thong covered the hammer and he could not clear leather. The gunny died with a curse on his lips.
Smoke turned his horse and slowly rode toward Box T range.