The Drift of Smoke
Copyright© 2025 by Datuner
Chapter 5: The Ambush
He cut through the forest, circling around a hill and went down the trail with the long striding walk of a woodsman, but when he was among the trees he waited and listened. Mountain air is clear, and sound carries. Now he was at the top of a steep bluff up which they must come, but at first he heard nothing.
He could glimpse a ranch in the distance, but he saw no movement there, nor were there any horses in the corral. That meant that all of the riders were out.
He moved among the trees, ears tuned for the tiniest sound. He was feeling better now. His headache was gone, his senses were alert. He liked the clear, cold air, and he felt keenly the excitement of the hunt. For he was both the hunter and the hunted.
He skirted a clump of aspen, moved through its outer edge, heard a hoof strike stone, and held himself still. The sound came from somewhere down the mountain.
Near the trail he squatted on his heels and studied the ground over which he must travel, looking to left and right where he might retreat. The rock on the far side of the valley stood up like a great stone loaf, with only one long diagonal crack seaming the surface. They were coming.
He arose soundlessly and moved ghostlike among the trees, where there were occasional boulders and rock slabs. Close to the trail, he listened for the creak of a saddle, the grunt of a climbing horse, the rattle of gear.
Hawkins moved among the trees, each step deliberate, each sound measured. Mountain air was clear; every shift in the wind carried a message. The trail ahead carved through pine and aspen, sunlight slicing the forest floor in jagged beams. He paused, hand resting on his Colt, eyes scanning the shadows, listening to the whisper of leaves.
A twig snapped, far below, and he froze. Someone was coming, or had been there moments ago. Footprints, fresh, too fresh, crossed the faint trail. Cody Brown had flanked him. The others were likely behind, pushing forward with rifles cradled, eyes trained on every rise.
Hawkins slid low, pressing against a boulder. He studied the curve of the ground, noting each potential kill zone, each blind spot. The aspen leaves shimmered in the light, a thousand tiny mirrors that could betray him or mask him. Patience was a weapon, every heartbeat a measure of his advantage.
The first figure appeared, moving slow, careful, scanning the ridges. Hawkins held his breath. One deep exhale, and a round sang through the air. The man dropped, the sound swallowed by the mountain. No alarm, no chaos, only the forest adjusting around the quiet of death.
Hawkins shifted position, moving like a shadow, diagonal through cover, eyes on the next rise. The others advanced, unaware their flank had been shattered. He counted silently, marked the angle of sunlight, the slope of the land. Each decision precise: when to shoot, when to stay unseen, when to vanish entirely.
A rustle to the left. Another figure. Rifle leveled, aiming for the ridge. Hawkins fired twice. Dust and rock erupted. The shot missed, but the aim faltered. Advantage shifted, just for a moment, in Hawkins’ favor. He moved again, sliding down the slope, letting shadows swallow him, letting the earth guide his steps.
Hours passed. Each figure that came into view was either a mark or a shadow. Hawkins never stopped, never allowed a glimpse of panic, never revealed the rhythm of his breath. The mountain became a cathedral of silence, punctuated by the occasional crack of rifle fire, the faint rustle of leaves, the soft scuff of a boot on stone.
By midday, he was high on the ridge, watching the valley below. Trails converged, but none came close enough to see him. Dust rose faintly where others had passed. A glint of sunlight on metal. A shadow bending over a ridge. Hawkins noted it, stored it in memory, then melted into the cover of a boulder, heart steady, eyes cold.
He waited. Calculated. Predicted. Every heartbeat measured, every movement a question, every shadow a possible answer. He was not just tracking them, they were tracking him, and he let it. He wanted them to believe the hunt was theirs. He would let them tire, misstep, and fall into the trap he laid with nothing but patience and silence.
Evening came. The sun dipped behind the peaks, shadows stretching long and black. Hawkins perched on a high ridge, surveying the land. Seven men, scattered, cautious, moving like ghosts themselves. One misstep, one glance too far, and it would be over.
He adjusted his hat, thumbed cartridges into the Colt, and breathed the cold mountain air deep. Tonight, he would rest, but the hunt never stopped. In the forest, in the valley, in every shadow cast by the dying light, the game had begun, and Hawkins was ready to play it to the end.
How many men were there? He had seen many good fights among top-notch marksmen where nobody scored any hits, for a marksman was often adept at choosing cover, at moving. Even to a skilled rifleman, light, shadow, and movement can be deceptive.
He took his time, waiting, thinking it out. Brown must have left the trail, moving along the mountain on foot, trying to outflank him. The others were no doubt still on the trail, limited to the narrow passes and the faint paths that wound through the pines. There weren’t many places to leave it without being seen.
Only the aspen leaves whispered in the wind until ... something else.
He turned swiftly, drawing as he turned. It was Cody Brown, and he had come up, Indian like, through the trees. He was smiling as he aimed his rifle.
The gun bucked in Taylor Hawkin’s fist, and he saw Brown’s face stiffen with shock. Hawkins fired again, and saw the gunman’s shirt marked where the bullet struck.
Brown backed up a step and sat down hard, a look of stunned surprise on his face, and then his rifle went off, the bullet digging dirt at his feet.
The echoes ricocheted among the rock, died away, and left only silence. In the silence Taylor Hawkins thumbed two cartridges into his gun.
Ghostlike, he eased back into the shelter of the trees, letting the shadows swallow him. From this vantage he had a diagonal view of the trail, the faint curve of worn earth cutting through the grass. Anyone approaching would come into sight long before they reached him. He could pick one off at least, maybe two, before they could drop from view.
Hawkins listened. Footfalls far below, careful, methodical, carried through the thin air. He moved deeper into the trees, slipping from shadow to shadow, his breath tight in his chest but controlled. In these woods, he felt at home. The wind whispering through the needles, the faint murmur of voices drifting from the trail, the stillness pressing around him, all of it familiar, almost comforting in its quiet rhythm. He could almost imagine the forest itself was holding its breath with him.
He sighted along his rifle, waiting, and waited some more. Then the shot came.
Coldness swept over him, not the sharp chill of fear, but that hollow, creeping kind that burrows when a man knows he’s been hit. The impact came before the sound, a heavy punch buried in his shoulder that lit his arm and chest with fire. His breath caught. He knew exactly what it meant. Still, he told himself it wasn’t bad. Not yet.
He had been watching the trail below, eyes narrowed against the glare, following the faint stir of dust where the men had paused. And then, in a single instant, he realized how foolish he’d been. Letting his attention drift, thinking maybe they’d lost the sign, maybe they’d slowed, maybe ... anything. Fool move. That lapse could cost him everything.
He slid back among the pines, moving low, tight, each step calculated to make no more sound than a shadow falling. His pulse hammered in his ears.
“Move in slow, Zeb,” a voice called from the slope above, calm, cold, certain. Darrant’s voice. “We’ve got him. He hasn’t got a chance.”
Hawkins felt the weight of the words, and the forest seemed to lean in closer. Above him, the trees shifted in the breeze. Below him, the trail cut a pale line through the green, carrying the enemy straight toward him. Every nerve in his body bristled, though he didn’t so much as twitch. He was wounded, cornered, but not yet broken. Not yet.
He clenched the rifle tighter, felt the sting of the shot in his shoulder, and prepared to move slow, deliberate, silent. The hunt had begun again, and this time, he would decide the terms.
The sound of it steadied Hawkins’ mind. Darrant was confident, too confident, and confidence could make a man careless.
His left arm hung heavy, numb clear to the fingers. He touched his shoulder; his hand came away slick and wet. Blood. He wiped it on his pants leg so it wouldn’t drip, dark streaks vanishing into the dust and pine needles. Then he eased backward, letting the slope take him, working down and across the mountain’s face.
The hillside was steep, quilted with pine and yellow clumps of aspen, their leaves whispering in the wind. The air smelled sharp, sap, dust, gunpowder. Somewhere above, Darrant was moving, ghost-quiet. Below, others crept up from the trail. They meant to hem him in like hounds around a wounded cat.
He switched his rifle to his left hand and used the other to pull himself along, knees brushing the soft bed of needles. The forest muffled him, but every movement felt loud as thunder in his own ears.
A rustle broke to his right, a boot scraping stone. Then silence again. Darrant was there somewhere, waiting. Hawkins could almost feel the man’s eyes on him.
He flattened out, inching through the aspens until he could see light glinting through their pale trunks. He slid a little farther down, then rose in a crouch and scuttled several yards, breath hissing between his teeth. He dropped again, listening.
“There! I saw him!” Zeb’s voice, raw and close.
Brush crashed downslope. Then Zeb broke through the thicket, not forty yards away. His hat was gone, his hair wild with sweat, eyes bright with the fever of the hunt. They locked eyes in that instant.
Zeb’s rifle came up, steady and sure. “Come on! I got him!” he shouted, voice shrill with triumph.
Even as he fired, Hawkins’ rifle cracked from under his arm, the barrel braced awkwardly against his ribs. Zeb saw the muzzle flash and had a heartbeat to think, He’ll never hit anything that way.
Then the world shifted. Something twisted under Zeb’s heel. His rifle fired into the ground. He blinked, puzzled, trying to understand why the weight had gone out of his arms. He started to lift the gun again, but his body betrayed him, the strength ran out like water through a sieve. He fell to his knees.
The ground where he landed was dark with blood. His blood.
A cough tore through him, sharp and wet. He touched his mouth and saw red, not just red, but froth. It glistened in the sun, light pink and terrible. He stared, uncomprehending, then fear crept in slow and cold.
Lung shot. He knew it. A man didn’t come back from that.
He dropped the rifle and clawed open his shirt, eyes blurring. The hole in his chest was small, almost dainty. A trickle ran from it, thin and steady. It looked like nothing much at all, and yet every breath was shallower than the last.
He tried to call out. “Cal! Help me! For God’s sake—” The cry died halfway, breaking into a rasp of pain.
There was no answer, only the faint sound of men moving through brush, still hunting Taylor Hawkins.
Zeb picked up his rifle and stumbled along the slope. The weight of it felt foolish now. He didn’t want to find Hawkins anymore. Didn’t want to find anyone. He wanted his horse, the trail home, the cool shade of the barn.
He kept moving, legs rubbery, the world tilting around him. He thought of the farm, the girl there, the one who’d smiled shy once when he brought feed. What was her name? Sarah, maybe. She’d patch him up. She’d know what to do.
The trail came up out of the trees, sun blazing in strips through the branches. He stumbled into it, breath wheezing, blood dark on his shirt. A few more yards and he could see where the horses were tied.
He fell. The ground met him softly, pine needles cushioning the drop. Sunlight broke through the trees in gold sheets, warm on his face. It reminded him of spring back in the Virginia hills, the old place where the creek ran clear and cold, where he used to lie in the grass and listen to water tumbling over stone. He could almost smell it now, the sweetness of it.
He thought he’d just rest a moment. The pain was fading, and the sun felt good. He’d get up soon enough, once the world stopped spinning. Maybe his ma would come, she always had. She’d find him. She’d know what to do.
The breeze moved gently through the trees, and the forest went quiet again.
Taylor Hawkins was in the aspens. The slender trunks stood shoulder to shoulder, pale and straight as soldiers at parade rest. Their white bark shimmered in the cold light, dappled with black scars and shadows, so close together that a man could barely see ten yards ahead. Here, in this maze of trees, a bullet would be as useless as prayer. There wasn’t one chance in a hundred of a clean shot finding him. No clear line of fire from any direction, only confusion and whispering leaves.
He pressed himself against a trunk, the breath hissing through his teeth. The smell of sap and damp bark filled his nose. Somewhere behind him, a rifle bolt clicked. He felt the sound in his ribs.
He got to his feet and ran, weaving, ducking, half-crawling through the trees. Every move sent a hot ache through his shoulder, but he didn’t dare stop. He needed distance, needed sky and cover, anything but stillness.
Behind him came a shot, then another, and the sharp smack of a bullet tearing into wood. White splinters sprayed his face. He kept running.
He broke through the trees into a slanting strip of light, found a narrow game trail, and hit it at a dead run. His lungs burned. He didn’t know how far he could go; the wound was bleeding bad, his left arm useless. But if he stopped, only death was waiting.
He ducked through another patch of aspen, feet sliding in the soft leaves, and suddenly saw a rocky cleft cutting upward through the slope, a break in the wall that led toward the crest.
Could he make it? Could he climb fast enough before they reached the base?
He went into the cleft without hesitation, clawing his way upward. The climb was near vertical in spots. Rocks broke loose and tumbled below him, bounding off stone with a noise that carried like gunfire. His wounded shoulder burned white-hot, and every movement cost him breath.
From below came a shout, then a shot that tore stone near his head. Fragments stung his cheek. He didn’t look back. He reached the top, rolled over the edge, and found himself beside a boulder balanced on the rim like a held breath.
Lying on his back, he set both moccasined feet against it and shoved. For an instant it resisted. Then it moved, teetered, and went roaring down the cleft.
The crash shook the mountain. A yell of warning echoed upward, then a scream. Loose stones followed, tumbling after the big one, clattering and booming in a long, angry rush. Hawkins dragged himself up and stared down the slope, seeing nothing through the dust and pine smoke rising from the slide.
He turned away.
He was in a high valley now, the air thin and sharp, the silence immense. Grass covered the floor like green smoke, rippling in the mountain wind. Snow still lingered along the shaded edges, blue in the hollows, and patches of white lay beneath the pines where the sun never reached. Beyond a low ridge to the north lay the other valley, the one where the cabin stood, where the hunt had begun.
He started across the meadow, running until his legs faltered, then slowing to a walk. His shoulder throbbed, and blood slicked the fabric of his shirt. He crossed the grass on a diagonal, aiming for the darker timber beyond. Entering the trees, he found a patch where snow hadn’t yet fallen, and moved through as silently as he could.
At the halfway mark up the ridge, he stopped to catch his breath. The altitude and the wound were gnawing at his strength. He crouched behind a deadfall, eyes on the slope below, and pulled out a handkerchief to plug the wound. The bleeding frightened him more than the pain. A man could lose himself by inches without ever feeling it.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, the first man, coming careful, rifle forward. Hawkins steadied his own weapon across a branch, easing his breathing until his heartbeat slowed. The man moved up, pausing for a look, and Hawkins let him step into the V of his sights. He took in a breath, let a little out, and squeezed.
The rifle cracked. The man spun, dropped, tried to rise, then folded into the needles.
Hawkins used the rifle to lever himself up, not waiting to see if the man moved again. He had no time. He went on, step by dragging step, climbing into the thin air. His head swam. His pulse sounded like hoof beats in his ears.
When he reached the next shelf of the ridge, he paused again and looked back. Below, scattered figures were crossing the meadow, small and slow like bugs on a green plate.
He sat down, braced the rifle on his knees, and sighted in. They were six, maybe seven hundred yards away, far, but not impossible. Even a miss at that range could make them cautious. He thought of Billy Dixon at Adobe Walls, that legendary shot that knocked a Comanche from his horse near a mile off. Hawkins smiled grimly. That had been a Sharps .50. He was no Dixon, but he could still make them think twice.
He fired five shots in steady rhythm. The echoes rolled through the valley like thunder. Below, the men scattered, some dove for cover, one stumbled, fell, and rose again clutching his arm.
Hawkins reloaded and pushed himself to his feet. He was trembling now, not from fear but from the weight of fatigue.
The top of the ridge wasn’t far, a bare crest of gray rock with only tufts of grass between patches of snow. He climbed the last few yards, gasping, and dropped to his knees at the summit. The wind there was cold and clean, sweeping over him in long sighs.
He looked out. The world stretched in all directions, the ridges, the far blue mountains, the cut of valleys like the ribs of some ancient beast.
He knew they would come after him. But now they would move slowly, not sure when or from where his next shot might come.
He started to rise again, meaning to cross the ridge and get down into the next valley, but his knees gave way and he dropped hard. He stayed there, listening to the wind.
Too open. Too exposed. No place to fight.
He rolled sideways, once, twice, three times, until he was below the crest, the rock biting into his ribs. He grabbed a spur of stone and hauled himself upright. The ridge was a knife-edge between two hanging valleys, scoured smooth by glaciers long gone. Spruce clung to the slopes, roots twisted deep into the rock, and among them stood the ancient bristle-cone pines, black and stooped like old men.
He worked along the side of the ridge, careful with every step. The wound had stopped bleeding for the moment, but weakness rode in his limbs like lead. A fall here would finish him.
He stopped by a gnarled spruce to breathe. A camp-robber jay hopped down a limb above him, bold and curious, tilting its head. It gave a sharp, mocking cry, the sound startlingly loud in the stillness.
He smiled faintly, then moved on.
The ground below was broken with rock and the gray litter of fallen trees, the bones of centuries. He found a narrow slide of loose shale and rode it down, boots skidding, arms wide for balance. He landed in a patch of fern and columbine, the green broken by streaks of sunlight.
He pushed himself up with his rifle and kept going, through another stand of spruce, until the trees fell away before a meadow, a quiet floor of grass and flowers waving in the breeze. He hesitated, eyes sweeping the far side.
Nothing moved.
He stepped out, rifle ready. The grass muffled his boots. His shadow stretched long before him, trembling across the flowers.
At twenty paces he looked back, nothing. At twice that, still nothing.
Ahead stood a rocky point, a low moraine scattered with boulders. Some cover, at least. He set his sights on it, moving at a steady, ground-eating walk.
He’d been a fair runner in his younger days, but this wasn’t a footrace on level ground, and there were rifles behind him now. He kept his breathing even, eyes flicking toward the rocks.
Then ... a crack of wood behind him.
He turned. A man was there, stepping from the trees, rifle lifting.
Hawkins took off like a startled deer.
The first shot sang past his ear, close enough to feel the wind of it. He cut to the side, changing direction with every stride. Another bullet kicked dust from the grass in front of him.
He saw a shallow wash in the meadow floor and dove for it, sliding hard, rolling into the hollow. It was barely deep enough to hide a badger, but it was something. He flattened out, rifle across his arms, and crawled forward on his elbows. His shoulder was bleeding again, he could feel the warm dampness spreading under his shirt, but he didn’t stop.
The shallow wash deepened slightly as it ran toward the moraine. He wormed along it until he was near the rocks, then lunged the last few feet and rolled into cover.
A shot cracked behind him, another too high.
Then silence.
He lay still, chest heaving, eyes scanning the open field. Nothing moved out there now.
They’d seen the smoke, heard the shots, but they weren’t eager to cross that open ground again. Not with him waiting somewhere among the stones.
Taylor Hawkins let his head drop back against the rock. His pulse steadied. The mountain air felt like fire in his lungs, but he was alive. For now.
And alive was enough.