Blood of the Mountain Man (15 page)

“Willie?”

“Yeah.”

“You stay put, now. Don’t move around none. More men’s a-comin’.”

Smoke spotted a flash of a red-and-white-checkered shirt and fired, instantly changing position. He heard a cry and the sounds of a man thudding into a tree or log. Smoke knew he’d made a righteous shot.

“I’m hard hit!” a man groaned. “Oh, God, he’s shot me in the belly.”

“Stay down and quiet. We’ll get you out. The boys will be here in a little while.”

But by then, I’ll be gone, Smoke thought.

On his belly, Smoke began inching his way in a long, slow half circle. As he crawled, he listened to the voices calling back and forth in frustration. “Cain’t nobody see him?”

“I ain’t seen him yet.”

“I have!” Willie yelled. “Sort of. He’s big as a mountain and meaner than a puma.”

“He’s just a man,” another voice added, and this

one was so close to where Smoke had crawled it startled him.

“Are you sure George is dead, Willie?”

“Sure? Hell, yes, I’m sure. Half his head is gone.” The man only a few yards from him grew impatient and shifted his weight. Through the thin brush, Smoke could see the man, half-turned away from him. He waited with the patience of a stalking Apache. He man turned his head and Smoke could see his profile. Lucky Harry, a gunfighter from California. Fat had imported some pretty good talent. Willie and George had chosen the wrong profession at the wrong time. But only one of them was left to question the choice . . . if question it he did.

Willie answered that. “I’m loose!” he hollered. “Damn you, Jensen. Me and George was pards. I’m gonna kill you, do you hear me?”

“Idiot,” Lucky muttered. Then he was gone, moving silently and swiftly out of Smoke’s sight.

Smoke knew that Lucky, and men like him, were as wary as an old wolf. They would take no unnecessary chances. That was why they had stayed alive after years in the man-hunting and gun-for-hire business.

“Damn your murderin’, ambushin’ heart!” Willie yelled, his voice filled with rage. “Stand up and fight me like a man, Jensen.”

Nitwit! Smoke thought. You won’t last in this business, boy.

“Git down, you damn fool!” a man called.

Smoke wasn’t interested in putting lead in Willie; at least, not at this point. The other men were the dangerous ones, and they weren’t going to make any rash moves. Only if Willie threatened him directly would he gun him down.

A slight movement caught Smoke’s eyes. Slowly he lifted his rifle. A man’s arm came into view. Smoke sighted in the arm and squeezed the trigger. The gunhand screamed in pain as the slug ruined his left elbow. He would go through life with limited use of the arm. Smoke rolled from his position as the lead started whining all around him.

He rolled down into a natural depression and stayed there until the lead stopped singing its deadly song. He groaned loud and long, knowing that surely no one would fall for that old ruse.

But Willie did.

“Got him, by God!” Willie shouted, jumping to his feet. “I’ll gut-shoot that sorry no-good.”

“Damn!” Smoke muttered, rolling over on his belly and peering over the lip of the depression.

Willie was running toward his position, a rifle in his hands and a wild look on his face.

Smoke knocked a leg out from under him, the slug striking the young man just above the knee and sending him crashing and hollering to the rocky ground. Willie’s rifle clattered on the rocks as he grabbed at his leg with both hands. He scooted and hunched for cover, bleeding all the way.

“You better hunt you another line of work, boy,” a man’s voice called out from behind rocky cover. “You just ain’t suited for this one.”

Smoke stayed where he was, but shifted a few feet to get behind a bush, scant cover but better than nothing.

The man with the busted elbow could not contain a groan of pain. “I’m bleedin’ bad,” he called out. “And Boots is dead. This ain’t no good.”

“All right,” the man who seemed to be the leader of this bunch called after a few seconds. “Start backin’ down toward where we left the horses. Jensen can’t get out. We’ll just wait.”

“Don’t bet he can’t get out, Walt,” Lucky called. “You don’t know Jensen like I do.”

Has to be Walt May, Smoke thought. I put lead in him ten years ago. So this will be highly personal for Walt.

“I’m clear,” Lucky called. “I got Chookie with me. Willie, you can ride Boots’s horse. He ain’t got no more use for it.”

Chookie must be the one with the busted elbow, Smoke thought.

“I’m a-comin’,” Willie called out. “I got to drag this busted leg. I’ll kill you someday, Jensen!” he screamed out. “Damn you, I’ll kill you.”

Smoke reloaded his guns and waited. The sounds of galloping horses drifted to him and he slipped down and picked up the rifle Willie had dropped, taking it with him. He walked over to Boots and took his guns, slinging the gunbelt over one shoulder and picking up his rifle. He looked at the dead George. A slug had entered the man’s head from the side, just above the temple area, and made a real mess when it exited.

Smoke saddled up and rode out, but he headed north, not south, staying in the timber. Fat’s ranch would be, for the most part, deserted, the men riding hard for the timber. Smoke would see just how much chaos he could cause there, and then ride into town to check on Jenny’s “business” interests.

Smoke sat his saddle and watched the dozen or so men ride south, toward his last position. Smoke figured he had maybe thirty minutes, forty at the most, to do his mischief at Fat’s ranch. Plenty of time. He loaded up all the pistols and kept the best rifle he’d picked up, discarding the other one.

“All right, Buck,” he said. “Let’s go be neighborly and pay a visit to Fat’s spread.”

He stayed on the ridges and in the timber until he was within a half mile of the ranch complex. He could see no one working or loafing around the buildings. Fat was not married, so there was no danger of any women or kids getting hurt. Biggers and Cosgrove were also bachelors. Smoke studied the layout for a few seconds, then smiled.

“Let’s go, Buck,” he said.

He walked Buck slowly down the ridge and onto the flats. A rider who did not appear to be in any rush attracted little attention. Just another wandering cowpoke riding the grub line.

Smoke swung down in front of the bunkhouse and was greeted by a man wearing a stained apron. “Howdy,” the man said. “Coffee’s hot and you can fix you a sandwich, if you like.”

“That’s neighborly of you. Folks down the way told me to avoid this place. They said it was an unfriendly place.”

“It is. That’s why tomorrow’s my last day. I got me a job down South. You best eat ’fore those no-’count riders Fat hired gets back. That’s the surliest bunch I ever seen in all my life.”

“Why not leave now?” Smoke suggested.

The man looked at Smoke for a long moment. “Oh, my God! You’re . . .”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll be packed and gone in five minutes!”

‘You do that.”

While Smoke was busy wrecking everything in the main house, the cook galloped away. Smoke dumped out and mixed flour and salt and sugar and coffee and beans. He smashed plates and threw pots and pans outside into the dirt. Using his knife, he slashed feather ticks and ruined blankets and easy chairs. He tore down drapes and curtains and threw them into the dirt of the front yard. Then he set about smashing every window in the house by tossing chairs and benches and footstools through them. He hadn’t had so much fun since he was kid. When there was nothing left in the ranchhouse to smash, break, turn over, or throw in the fireplace, Smoke set fire to the outhouses, tore down the corral and set the horses free, then tossed a flaming torch into the bunkhouse. He decided he might as well burn down the barn, too. So he checked the barn for animals, freed the horses from their stalls, and fired the place.

Back in the saddle, he surveyed all that he had done and sat his saddle for a moment, chuckling. There was going to be a lot of very irritated hired guns in about half an hour. And Fat was going to be as mad as a man could get.

Smoke decided he’d ride into the Golden Plum and have him a drink and something to eat.

He’d worked up quite an appetite, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

Stopping just outside of town, Smoke washed up in a creek and brushed the last bits of flour and sugar and so forth from his shirt and jeans. He rode slowly up the twisty street and made sure Sheriff Bowers saw all the gunbelts hanging from his saddle. Bowers’ eyes bugged out at the sight. He didn’t need a professor to tell him that the men who had worn them would no longer be needing them. “Morning, Sheriff,” Smoke called cheerfully.

“It was,” Club said sourly.

Smoke laughed and rode on. He stabled Buck and walked to the Golden Plum. He took a table at the rear of the place, his back to a wall. “A beer and something to eat, Jeff,” he told the bartender. “Right, Boss. Comin’ up.”

“How’s business been?”

“Not good. Major Cosgrove ordered his men not to come in here.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You send your swamper to fetch Cosgrove. Tell him Smoke Jensen says for him to haul his big butt over here. Right now. If he doesn’t, I’ll come personally and drag it through the mud in the street?’ Jeff grinned. “Right away, Boss. This I gotta see.” The swamper left at a trot, just as Club Bowers was walking up. He went to the bar and ordered a beer.

“You’d better not do that, Club,” Smoke called. ‘Your master has forbidden all his slaves not to patronize this place.”

Bowers turned around slowly. “Nobody tells me where I go, Jensen.”

“Oh, well. If that’s the case, by all means drink up and enjoy yourself. I just didn’t want you to get into trouble with your lord and master.”

‘You’re pushin’, Jensen. Where’d you get all those guns hanging around your saddle?”

“I found them on the road. If their owners show up here, send them out to the ranch to claim them.” 

"You found them on the road, huh?”

“That’s right. Just piled up there. Maybe they’re broken. I haven’t tried to fire any of them.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Personally, Club, I don’t much give a damn what you believe.”

Club did not take exception to that. Smoke Jensen was a study to him. He knew Smoke’s history and knew that Jensen was not a trouble-hunter—or had not been, up to this point. You had to push him and then he pushed back. But this time the man had ridden into Red Light pushing from the git-go. This kept up, Jensen would be taking scalps before it was all said and done. Club had heard that the man had done it before. He suppressed a shudder at the thought.

Club turned his back to Smoke and sipped at his beer.

Heavy bootsteps pounded on the boardwalk and the batwings were suddenly slammed open. Major Cosgrove’s bulk filled the space. Club turned to look at the man. Major was madder than the sheriff had ever seen him. Jeff stood behind the bar, smiling Major pointed a finger at Jensen. He was so angry his finger was shaking.

“You, Jensen,” Cosgrove’s words were almost a yell, “you do not give me orders. You do not send bums over to my office giving me ultimatums.”

“You came, didn’t you?” Smoke spoke softly.

Cosgrove cussed Smoke, calling the man every filthy word he could think of. Smoke smiled. He had finally succeeded in making the man blow his top.

Club watched Smoke. The smile baffled him. Jensen wanted a fight with Cosgrove. Not a gunfight, but a fistfight. Club was sure of that. But if Jensen thought Major would be easy, he’d best think again. Major Cosgrove was a skilled boxer, not a stupid mass of muscle like Mule Jackson. Jensen could probably whip Major, but both men would be a bloody mess when it was over.

“Major,” Smoke said, after taking a sip of coffee. “You tell your workers they can patronize any business in this town they choose to. This is America, not some dictatorship. And you are not king in this town. Nor am I. But I’ll tell you what I am. I’m a man who despises those who would make war against a young girl. Physically or financially. I’m going to stay in town until after the first shift ends at the mine. This place better fill up, Major. Because if it doesn’t, I’m coming after you. And if I have to do that, one of us will be the guest of honor at a burying. Do you understand that?” Major Cosgrove stood rock still for a moment. He was so angry he could not speak. He opened and closed his mouth half a dozen times, but no words came out. With an effort that was visible to all in attendance, he began calming himself. It was showdown time, and he knew it. And he could not afford to go into it so angry it overrode logic.

“Major . . .” Club started to protest, as he realized what the man was about to do. He cut his eyes at a movement on the second-floor landing. Moses stood there, a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun in his hands. At the other end of the landing, Clementine Feathers and several of her girls had gathered, all with rifles. Behind him and to his right, Jeff the bartender stood with a ten gauge sawed-off Creener.

Smoke still sat at his table, a strange smile on his lips. Outside, the sounds of hard-ridden horse thundered up the street and the rider jumped off in front of the mayor’s office.

“Mister Fosburn!” the shout was heard. “That damn Smoke Jensen done ruined your ranch and killed George and Boots. He wounded two, three more and burned down the barn and the bunkhouse and ail the outhouses. He tore down the corral and scattered the horses all to hell and gone.”

Major’s face tightened and he clenched his big hands into big fists. Running boots were heard on the boardwalk and the batwings slammed open. Fat Fosburn stood there, his face red with anger. He spied Smoke.

‘You! You . . . God damn you, Jensen. Club, I want that man arrested immediately.”

Club got all tight and cold inside as Smoke cut his eyes to him. Now it was down to the nut-cuttin’. “Did you hear me, Club?” Fat hollered.

“I heard you.” Club was thinking hard. “Who saw Jensen do this?”

“Why . . .” That brought Fat up short. “Hell, I don’t know. Somebody must have.”

“Naw,” the rider who brought the news said, standing just outside the batwings. “All the men was gone up on the ridges after Smoke. And the cook packed his kit and took off to Lord knows where.”