3
The men watched as Buck rode away, ramrod straight in the saddle. Jerry said, “That young feller is faster than greased lightning.”
“Faster than Jesse, I betcha!”
“Ain’t no faster than Wild Bill, though,” Paul said.
Jerry spat on the ground. “Wild Bill ain’t crap!”
“You don’t say!” Carl turned on his friend. “I suppose you gonna tell us Wild Bill didn’t clean up Abilene?”
“He sure as hell didn’t. I know. I were there. Me and Phil Coe. I seen Wild Bill shoot him with a pair of derringers after Phil done put his gun away. Then he turned around and shot the marshal, Mike Williams. Wild Bill better not ever try to brace that there Buck West. Buck’s a bad one, boys. Cold-eyed as a snake.”
It would be almost exactly two and one half years later, on the afternoon of August 2, 1876, in Deadwood, South Dakota, when a cross-eyed, busted-nose wino named Jack McCall would blow out Hickok’s brains as he studied his poker hand of Aces and Eights. Wild Bill would be thirty-nine years old.
“I think Potter ought to know about this here Buck West,” Jerry said. “Think I’ll take me a ride later on. Let Buck get good and gone.”
“We’ll tag along.”
Late that afternoon a stranger rode up to the trading post and walked inside. He cradled a Henry repeating rifle in the crook of his left arm. “I seen the fresh grave out back,” he said to the barkeep. “Friend of yourn?”
“Hell, no! Don’t git me to lyin’.”
“Man ought to have a marker on his grave, don’t you think?”
“I’ll git around to it one of these days. Maybe. Big Jack was all they called him.”
“Better than nothin’. I don’t reckon he died of natural causes?”
“Not likely. You gonna talk all day or buy a drink of whiskey?”
The buckskin-dressed old man tossed some change on the wide rough board that passed for a counter. “That buy a jug?”
“And then some. No, sir. That Big Jack fancied hisself a gunhand, I guess.” He placed a dirty cup and a clay jug of rotgut on the counter. “But he done run up on a ringtailed-tooter this day. Feller by the name of Buck West. You heard of him?”
“Seems I have, somewheres. Bounty hunter, I think. But he’s a bad man to mess with.”
“Tell me! Why, he drew so fast a feller couldn’t even see the blur! Big Jack’s hand could just touch the butt of his .36 when the lead hit him in the center of the chest. Dead ’fore he hit the ground.”
The old man smiled. “That fast, hey?”
“Lord have mercy, yes!” He eyeballed the old man. “Ain’t I seen you afore? You a mountain man, ain’t you? Ain’t so many of you old boys left.”
“Not me, podner. I’m retared from the east. Come out here to pass my golden years amid the peace and tranquility of the High Lonesome.”
The bartender, no spring chicken himself, narrowed his eyes and said, “And you jist as full of shit now as you was forty year ago, you old goat!”
The old man laughed. “Wal, you jist keep that information inside that head of yourn and off your tongue. You do that and I won’t tell nobody I know where Rowdy Jake Kelly was retared to. You still got money on your head, Rowdy.”
“Man, I heard you got kilt! Shot all to hell and gone over to Needle Mountains.”
“Part of it’s true. I got all dressed up in my finest buckskins, rode an old nag up into the hills, and laid me down to die. Lordy, but I was hurtin’ some. Longer I laid there the madder I got. I finally got up, said to hell with this, and rode off. Found me one of my Injun kids—or grandkids, I ain’t real sure which—and she took care of me. You keep hush about this, now, you hear?”
“I never saw you afore this day,” Rowdy Jake Kelly said.
The old man nodded, picked up his jug of whiskey, and rode off.
Buck had left the trading post and followed the Big Lost River north. He pushed his horses, rested them, then pushed them hard again, putting as many miles as possible between himself and the trading post. He had a hunch the men back at the trading post would be hell-bent for Bury. They were bounty hunters; he knew from the look. He smiled grimly at what they might think if they knew they had been within touching distance of the man called Smoke.
Buck found himself a hidden vantage point where he could watch the trail, and settled in for the evening. He built a hand-sized fire and fixed bacon and beans and coffee. Using tinderdry wood, the fire was virtually smokeless. He kept his coffee warm over the coals.
Just at dusk, he heard the sounds of riders. Three riders. He watched as they passed his hiding place at a slow canter, heading north, toward the trading post at Mackay. He watched and listened until the sounds of steel-shod hooves faded into the settling dusk. Using his saddle for a pillow, Buck went to sleep.
Just as the first rays of dawn streaked the horizon, Buck was fording the Big Lost, heading for the eastern banks and the Lost River Range. He did not want to travel those flats that stretched for miles before reaching Challis, preferring to remain in the timber.
He wanted to take his time getting to Bury for two reasons: One, he wanted the story of the shoot-out at the trading post to reach the right ears—namely, Potter, Stratton, and Richards. Men like that could always use another gun, and Buck intended to be that other gun. Two, he still had that nagging sensation of being followed. And it annoyed him. He knew, felt, someone was back there. He just didn’t know who.
The eighty-mile ride from the trading post to Challis passed slowly, and Buck took his time, enjoying the sights of new country. Buck was a man who loved the wilderness, loved its great beauty, loved the feeling of being alone, although he knew perfectly well he certainly was not alone. There were the eagles and hawks who soared and glided above him. The playful camp-robber birds, the squirrels and bears and puma, the breathless beauty of wild flowers in early summer. No, he was not alone in the wilderness. Alone was just a state of mind. Buck had only to look around him for company, compliments of nature.
Sensing more than hearing movement, Buck cut toward the west and into the deep timber of the Lost River Range. He quieted his horses and waited in the timber. Then he spotted them. It was a war party, and a big one. From this distance—he couldn’t risk using his spyglass, for it was afternoon and he was facing west, and didn’t want to risk sunlight bouncing off the lens—he could only guess the tribe. Nez Percé, Bannock—maybe Sheepeater. Preacher had told him about the little known but highly feared Sheepeaters.
Buck counted the braves. Thirty of them, all painted up and looking for trouble. He cursed under his breath as they reined up and dismounted, after sending lookouts in all directions.
Were they going to make camp? Buck didn’t know. But he knew it was awfully early for that.
To the south, Borah Peak, almost thirteen thousand feet high, loomed up stark in the high lonesome. The highest peak in the state, Borah dominated matters for miles.
Buck sat it out for several hours, watching and waiting out the long minutes. The horses seemed to sense the urgency of the moment and were very quiet. Occasionally, Buck would slip back to them to pat and water them, whispering gently to the animals, keeping them still and calm.
Returning from his last trip to the animals, Buck looked out over the valley he was high above. He grunted, not in surprise, but rather an “I should have known” grunt.
The Indians were gone, having left as swiftly and silently as they had come. Buck lay still for another ten minutes, mulling the situation over in his mind.
The war party had built no fires, either cook or signal.