“Good men,” Smoke told him. He walked the interior of the fort which formed a crude half circle, stopping to talk for a moment with everybody. Paula and Thomas had left to guard the rear exit of the valley, relieving Robert at the lonely post. Two were sent so one could sleep while the other stayed awake during the long night. It might get so busy that they could not be relieved for many hours. And Walt had wanted the shift changed while there was still light to see.
He found Angel cleaning his rifle. “Senor Smoke,” the Mexican gunfighter greeted him with a smile. “I think for some out there,” he pointed toward the edge of the ridge, “this is going to be a good night to die.”
“It might be a terrible thing to say, Angel; but I sure hope so.”
“Not so terrible a thing when bad men chase good people,” Angel said soberly.
“You do have a point, Angel.” Smoke returned to his bedroll, slipped into a jacket, for the late afternoon was turning very cool, and filled his jacket pocket with cartridges. He poured another cup of coffee and then took the plate of food that was handed to him. He ate with a good appetite and rinsed out his plate in a pan and returned to the ramparts.
Walt had done a really bang-up job in securing the interior of the fort. The tents were set well back, too far back for anyone to throw a torch into them. A stray bullet might ricochet and scream off the rock of the sheer face behind them and hit someone, but that would be a long shot. All things considered, their position was a secure one.
“I have always heard that this was the hardest part of a battle,” Gilbert said. “The waiting.”
“You heard right,” Smoke told him. “When the shootin’ starts, a man doesn’t have time to be scared. Scared-time is over. You don’t have time to think about anything except staying alive.”
“Would it make me sound callous if I said I believe I am actually looking forward to this fight?”
Smoke smiled. “No. It’s like you said: you folks are feeling a lot of anger and resentment toward that pack of hyenas down the ridge. With good reason. You want to strike back at them. That’s understandable. I do too, believe that.”
“Sometimes you speak like a very well-educated man, Mister Jensen.”
“I married a schoolteacher,” Smoke said with a smile. Gilbert chuckled as Smoke moved away, making yet another round inside the fort.
Roy Drum returned from his afternoon’s circling around the mountain. He poured a cup of coffee and shook his head. “There ain’t no other way in. If you want them folks, Baron, we got to go up that ridge and take ’em. And before you ask me if I’m shore about there bein’ no other way in, yeah, I’m shore.”
Von Hausen looked disdainfully at the man. “It isn’t just a matter of
me
wanting them, Roy. It’s you and all the rest of the men as well.”
“Yeah,” Roy said wearily. He sat down on the ground with a sigh. “I know that. But I ain’t makin’ no suicide charges up that ridge. And it would be suicide. I just ain’t gonna do that, for nobody.”
“If we done it durin’ the day,” John T. said,“ I’d agree with that. But they can’t see no better at night than we can. We can look at the damn ridge and see there ain’t no traps set for us. That’s as plain as the nose on your ugly face.”
“I’ll con-cede the trap part,” Roy said with a smile. “But they’s some ladies who think I’m right cute.”
“They must be blind,” Montana Jess said.
Von Hausen stood quietly, letting the men banter back and forth. This was not something he could just flatly order them to do.
“It might work to our advantage to let them stew for one night,” Gil Webb said.
John T. shook his head. “You’re forgettin’ about all them dead soldier boys back down the trail that probably was supposed to have reported back in a long time ago. Every hour we stall, means we’re that much closer to a hangman’s noose.”
“I’ll stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger ’fore I let myself be tooken in alive,” Utah Red said. “I don’t favor stretchin’ no rope.”
The men were unanimous in that.
“Well,” John T. said. “Let’s talk this thing out. We all know what we got to do, it’s just when that’s gotta be settled.”
“I’ll leave that up to you men,” von Hausen said. He returned to his tent and closed the flap against the chill of the approaching night.
“Damn big of him,” Cat Brown said.
Smoke had gone to where Angel had stacked his gear from the pack horse and dug out the sack of dynamite and caps and fuses. He prepared a dozen sticks and using thin strips of rawhide, tied them to nice-sized throwing lengths of branches he’d cut off. He gave three to Walt, three to Angel, and kept six for himself. He went to the pile of torches and passed them out.
“Put out the fire,” he ordered. “That will give us better night vision.”
“It’ll be cold,” Perry said.
“I’d rather be cold alive than cold dead,” Smoke put a stopper in that kind of talk quickly.
Gilbert grinned at him in the waning light. “Very aptly put, Smoke.”
Smoke watched as Carol broke open her double-barrel shotgun and checked the loads. She had a bandoleer of shotgun shells looped over one shoulder.
She was not a big woman, and had elected not to use buckshot. She was afraid the charge might knock her down. But she was using a heavy load of birdshot that would make life miserable for anyone who caught a load of it.
Smoke smiled, thinking if she caught someone in the butt with that birdshot, they’d be damned uncomfortable sitting a saddle for some time.
He peered out through one of the gunslits. Night was gently closing in around them. Nothing moved below. That he could see. But they would come this night. He was sure of that. He’d bet on it.
They all were, with their lives.
20
Smoke caught a glimpse of a shadow moving near the base of the hill. He stared; there it was again. “Here they come,” he whispered to Gilbert, manning a post a few yards away. “Pass the word.”
The alert was quickly and quietly passed up and down the line of defenders.
“I can’t see a thing,” Gilbert whispered.
“They’ve probably blackened their faces with mud,” Smoke returned the whisper. “For sure they’ve taken off their spurs and dressed in the darkest clothing they had with them. Those down there might be trash, but they’re professionals, too.”
“And desperate men,” Blanche added. She was posted only a few yards to Smoke’s left.
Smoke had not had to tell the women what would happen to them should the man-hunters breech the ramparts and get their hands on them. The women knew.
“I see something moving down there,” Blanche whispered hoarsely.
“Let them get closer,” Smoke said. “Make damn sure you’ve got a target. The closer they are, the better your chances of a good hit.”
A figure loomed close to the ramparts. Carol’s shotgun roared twice. An outlaw screamed over and over in pain. The birdshot had taken him on the shoulders, neck, and the lower part of his face. He dropped his rifle and put both hands to his birdshot-peppered cheeks and jaw. He screamed again, lost his footing on the slope, and went rolling elbows over butt down the hill.
“One down,” Carol muttered, and pulled out the smoking hulls, tossing them to the ground and reloading.
Smoke’s lips moved in a warrior’s smile. No doubts now as to how Carol would react.
“Good,” Gilbert said. “Very good shot, Carol.” He lifted his rifle and fired at a shadow. The bullet howled off a rock and the outlaw dropped belly-down on the ground.
Angel found a target and drilled a man-hunter in the leg, the force of the bullet knocking the man down and sending him rolling and squalling down the hill.
“Back!” John T. called. “Back down the hill.”
“Let them have it!” Smoke yelled, and the cool night air thundered with the sounds of rifle, pistol, and shotgun fire from the defenders on the hill.
Out of range, von Hausen stood tight-lipped, his face white with anger and his hands clenched into big fists, as John T. gave the orders to retreat. He watched impassively as Jerry Watkins came staggering in, the lower part of his face and his neck bleeding badly from the birdshot that had peppered him. The man was fortunate that the blast had not taken him a few inches higher and blinded him. Had that occurred, one of them would have had to shoot the man. Von Hausen was in no mood to waste any time with a blind person.
Tony Addison came hobbling in, his arm around the shoulders of Cat Brown. Tony’s leg was bleeding from a
.44 Winchester slug that had taken him in the thigh and his face was pale and tight against the pain.
John T. walked up. “No good, boss,” he told von Hausen. “It looks like it’s suicide day or night. They just flat stopped us cold. You can’t get no footin’ up that hill.”
Frederick stared at him, then nodded his head curtly and walked away.
Utah grumbled, “Why don’t he take his royal ass up that hill and try it one time?”
“ ’Cause that’s what he’s payin’ us big money to do,” John T. told him. “Or have you forgotten that?”
“Don’t crowd me too hard, John T.,” Utah warned the man.
The two skilled gunhandlers stood in the close darkness and stared at each other for a moment. A very tense moment since feelings were running high and the surging blood of each man was hot for killing.
“You boys cool down,” Montana said. “Just back off. This ain’t no time for us to start squabbling amongst ourselves.”
“Montana’s right,” Pat said. “That’s what them folks up on the hill want; for us to turn on each other. Now settle down. We got wounded to look after.”
Utah nodded his head. “Sorry, John T.”
“It’s OK, Utah,” John T. replied. “We’re all on a short string this evenin’. Come on. Let’s see about the boys and get us some coffee.”
The defenders on the hill were quietly jubilant.
“Do you think we killed anybody?” Charles asked. No one had left their post.
“I know we put some out of action,” Smoke said. “How hard they’re hit I don’t know. Good shooting, Carol.”
“Thank you. Now if you all will excuse me, I have to throw up.” She beat it to the bushes behind the camp.
“Natural reaction,” Smoke said, punching out empties and reloading his six-guns. “I think I did the same thing first time I killed a man, back in ’65 it was. In Kansas, I believe. I was about thirteen or fourteen. Bunch of Pawnees jumped us. Me, my dad, and an old mountain man called Preacher. If I didn’t upchuck, I damn sure wanted to. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You think they’ll be back this night, Smoke?” Blanche asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Let’s get out of here and get out of America while we still can,” Hans urged.
“Shut up, Hans,” Gunter told him.
“No. No, I won’t shut up,” the man said. “I’ll have my say and you all can be damned! We’re not that far from a port in San Francisco. We can board ship and take the long way back. By that time most of the outcry will be over. What we’re doing now is foolish. We won’t be extradited out of Germany. So we take a few jokes at our expense; we’re all grown people. We can endure that. Isn’t that better than facing western justice ? All I’m asking is that you give it some thought.”
“What about the men?” Maria asked.
“Pay them off as agreed and let them go. They certainly aren’t going to talk about this. They’d be putting a noose around their necks.”
“Has the thought occurred to you, Hans,” Marlene said, “that the men might not let us go?”
Hans looked startled. “What do you mean?”
“She means, Hans,” von Hausen said, “that we have as much to lose as the men, and the men aren’t going to just let us ride out of here and get away. If there is punishment to be had, it will be shared equally.”
“The Americans have a phrase for it,” Andrea said. “It’s called being between a rock and a hard place.”
Gunter laughed at that.
Hans shook his head. “There has to be a way out of this for us.”
Von Hausen looked hard at the man he used to call his friend. If Hans kept this up, he thought, he knew of one way out for Hans Brodermann. He met the eyes of the others and knew they felt the same about it.
“Every other person try to catch some rest for a couple of hours,” Smoke passed the word up and down the line. “If you feel yourself nodding off, wake up the person next to you. We’ve got to stay alert.” He walked back to the coals—all that was left of the fire—and poured a cup of coffee. It was still hot and tasted good.
Smoke knelt by the fading coals and drank his coffee. Those below them had to try again this night. Time was not on the side of Baron von Hausen and those with him.
The defenders had scored two hits so far. But Smoke didn’t think they were killing hits. That light load Carol was using would kill, but it would have to be at fairly close range. More than likely, the man she shot was very uncomfortable, but still able to fight, unless she blinded him. In that case, Smoke felt certain von Hausen would finish him off—or one of those cold-hearted women with him.