Blood of the Mountain Man (19 page)

But there was no need for that. Wolf and Barrie and Jenny had each tossed a charge and the back alley was a thick cloud of smoke and dust and hired guns lying unconscious on the ground.

The only building left intact in the center of the east side of the second block was Chung Lee’s laundry. And Chung Lee was now, for the very first time, giving serious thought to returning to China. He was sure that feeling would pass . . . but not if this kept up.

Smoke and his party did not have to worry about blowing the pass. No one even heard them leave, much less pursued them as they rode and rattled down the back alleys and out of town. They came to the pass and Smoke signaled them on, staying behind for a moment or two. He sat his saddle and looked down at the town. The entire town was enveloped in a cloud of dust and smoke from a dozen small fires started by overturned lanterns and cook-stoves.

Chuckling at the chaos that must now be reigning in the center of Red Light, he turned his horse and headed after the wagons.

Jack Biggers had been blown out of one boot. He was staggering and limping around, and looked down, certain he had been crippled forever by the loss of a foot.

Fosburn’s pants had caught on fire and he just managed to put out the flames before they reached a critical part of his body. He was now standing outside the ruin of what had been his office, clad in very short pants and a shirt with no sleeves, wearing a very dazed look on his face.

Major Cosgrove crawled out of the rubble, his clothes sooty rags. He sat on the edge of what remained of the boardwalk in front of one of his several offices. He looked around him at all the carnage. He had never seen anything like it. There were men with broken arms and broken legs and busted heads and hands, and men lying dead in grotesquely twisted positions.

He felt like crying.

Then he saw Biggers limping around with a worried look on his face, and Fosburn standing in the middle of the street in short pants.

“Fosburn,” he called. “Will you, for Christ’s sake, put on some damn pants?”

Lonesome Ted Lightfoot staggered out of the dress shop, holding his aching head, the knot on his noggin compliments of Miss Alice and her flatiron. He pulled up short at the smoke and dust and fire and devastation before him. He thought for a moment he was dead and had gone to Hell.

Patmos sat down on the busted boardwalk beside Major. “Nineteen dead and twelve wounded,” he told the man.

“How many of the wounded expected to live?” Cosgrove asked.

“Not very many.”

“Make that twenty dead,” Kit Silver said, walking up and sitting down. He took out the makings and started building a cigarette.

“What other wonderful news do you have to tell me?” Cosgrove asked bitterly.

“Five men pulled out during the lull in the fightin’. They were top guns, too.”

“Why did they pull out?”

“A personal opinion?” Kit said, thumbing a match into flame and lighting up.

“Go ahead.”

“I can send out the word and have you a hundred men in here in a week’s time . . .”

“Do it!” Cosgrove said savagely.

“. . . But no more than ten or twelve of them will be top-notch men,” Kit went on as if the man had not spoken. “Fightin’ Smoke Jensen has become known as a losin’ proposition. And if you’re half as smart as you think you are, you know why after this.”

“He’s just a man, goddamnit! He’s just a flesh-and-blood man. That’s all!”

“Sure,” Kit said sarcastically. “Sure. Just a man who can crawl up into a wolves’ den and go to sleep cuddled up against a big ol’ mama wolf. A man who had pumas for pets as a kid. A man who can call eagles to him. A man who when he lays down to rest has wild hawks guardin’ him . . .”

“That’s nonsense!” Cosgrove snapped.

“Some of it is, some of it isn’t, believe me. I’ve been west of the Missouri all my life. I ain’t never seen no human man like Smoke Jensen. And to tell the truth, neither has nobody else, either. I’ll get your men in here for you, Cosgrove. But if you think this last bunch was scabby and no-’count, just wait until you see what’ll come in now. Hiders and bounty hunters and wore-out buffalo hunters, all of them stinkin’ and with fleas jumpin’ on them.”

“I don’t care what they look like, just as long as they can do the job.”

“Has anybody seen my pants?” Fosburn asked.

And in the valley, Smoke pushed open the door and smiled at Sally. “I told you I’d be back in time for supper.”

“We have to move fast,” Major Cosgrove said, one day after the fight on Main Street. “Several families have moved out of Red Light. They’re sure to talk about this situation, and that will attract the attention of the territorial governor. He’ll send people in here. We can’t have that.”

“We’ve already confirmed that Jensen is a real U.S. Marshal,” Fosburn said. “He could legally arrest all of us for attempted murder, extortion, and God only knows what else. Why hasn’t he done so?”

Biggers smiled grimly, a cruel twisting of the lips. “Jensen doesn’t want to do this the legal way, that’s why. Jensen doesn’t pay much attention to written law. He wants us dead. All of us.” He mumbled an obscenity.

“Kit says he can have gunhands in here,” Cosgrove said. “I told him to go ahead. He left yesterday, right after the fight. By now he’s sent the wires out and men are on the way. My God!” The man stood up from behind his new desk in his new office. “We’re losing a fight against nine men, one woman, and two teenagers. To date our combined losses are about twenty-five dead and just about twenty wounded. Tough, top gunslingers are pulling out of this fight. Most didn’t even wait around to get paid.”

“I say we hit the ranch,” Biggers said.

Club Bowers looked at the man, but offered no comment. Hitting the ranch would be suicide, in his opinion. One of his deputies had ridden out that way and reported back that the ranch looked more like a heavily fortified Army post than a working ranch complex. The land around the complex had been cleared and burned for hundreds of yards. Peter Hankins had finally checked back in after several days in the field and said there was no way he could get a shot at anyone on the ranch. Time was on the side of Smoke Jensen and family, and Club knew it.

Maybe it was time to pull out . . . he’d been giving that some serious thought.

“You have an opinion on any of this, Club?” Cosgrove asked.

‘Yeah,” the sheriff said. “Give it up and live and let live.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Biggers almost shouted the words. “We can’t give it up. We’ve got too much money invested in this fight. The gold in those mountains is worth a fortune!”

Club stood up and walked to the door. He put his hat on his head and turned to look at the men. “Is it worth your lives?” He stepped outside and walked to his office. There, he sat on the bench on the boardwalk and looked at the work crews clearing out the wreckage from the dynamite. Cosgrove had sent men from the mines to clear the mess and they were almost through. Now all that was left of very nearly a block was a great empty space in the center of town.

The man and woman who owned the general store had flady told Cosgrove that either he paid for repairing the store and replacing the damaged goods or they would sue him and make certain every newspaper west of the Mississippi knew about it. At the prompt advice of Lawyer Dunham, Cosgrove told his men to go to work and told the store owner to order replacement goods and send the bill to him.

Club knew that Cosgrove had lost the upper hand in Red Light. The merchants had banded together and told Club they would no longer pay protection money to him. They all went armed now, and his deputies were very nervous. On this very morning, Club had told his men to enforce the law and that was it. They took orders from him, not from Major Cosgrove, Jack Biggers, or Fat Fosburn. The Big Three didn’t much like that, but Club Bowers really didn’t much care.

Deputy Modoc sat down behind him on the bench. “It’s over, ain’t it, Club?”

Club nodded his head. “Yeah, it is, Doc. The money men over yonder don’t know it yet, but it’s over. They’ll be a lot more shootin’, and a lot of killin’, but it’s over. It’s like I told you boys this mornin’. From now on we enforce the law. We arrest whoever breaks it.”

“Even them over yonder in the office?”

“Even them. I’m ridin’ out to Miss Jenny’s ranch and makin’ peace with them folks and tellin’ them how it’s gonna be from now on. I’ll see you later.”

“Rider comin’, Mister Smoke!” Jimmy yelled from his lookout position in the barn loft. “I think it’s Club Bowers. He’s alone.”

Smoke stepped out of the house, buckling his gun-belt around him. He stood in the yard and waited. Club held up a hand. “I’m peaceful, Smoke. Can I step down?”

“Sure. Come on in the house and have some pie and coffee.”

With coffee poured and thick wedges of pie cut, Club said, “From this day on, Smoke, me and my deputies enforce the law as it is written. You break the law, I’ll arrest you, or go down try in’. The same thing goes for Cosgrove, Biggers, Fosburn, or any of these no-’counts they’re bringin’ in. My office no longer takes protection money from any merchant. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I’m an old dog, and I think I can change. At least, I’m going to give it one hell of a try. Excuse my language, Miss Sally, Miss Jenny.”

Smoke held out a hand and Club shook it. “Welcome to the right side of the fence, Sheriff.”

Club smiled. “I think I like it over here, Smoke.” “How are things in town, Sheriff Bowers?” Jenny asked innocently.

Club chuckled. “Settlin’ down, Miss Jenny. Been an awful lot of funerals, though. Boot Hill’s rapidly fillin’ up.”

“How did Cosgrove take your decision?” Sally asked.

“I think he seen it comin’, Miss Sally. Didn’t none of them kick about it too much. I been uneasy about the situation in town ever since Miss Janey passed on.”

“Did any of the Big Three have anything to do with my sister’s death?” Smoke asked.

Club shook his head. “No. She died of the fever ... or complications brought on by the fever. I know that. Van Horn held on to the ranch until Miss Jenny could get out here. That old man is randy to the core, let me tell you. You know there’s gold up in the mountains?”

“I guessed as much,” Smoke said.

“Worth a fortune, so Cosgrove says. I’ll tell you what I think. I think Biggers wants Fosburn’s spread, Fosburn wants Biggers’ spread, and Cosgrove wants it all. These guns that’s comin’ in . . . well, I think they’ll follow the orders of the man who offers them the most money, no matter which one of the Big

Three they might be workin’ for at the time. That’s what I think.”

“How about the townspeople?” Sally asked.

“They want things to settle down. They’re tired of Cosgrove and all the trouble. And they’ve told him so. Still tellin’ him so when I left. Chung Lee told him that if any more trouble happens, he was gonna starch his longhandles so stiff they’d look like a suit of armor standin’ in the corner. Then he called him some things in Chinese that I’m pretty sure wasn’t very complimentary.”

“What’s his next move, Club?”

“I wish I knew. All I know is that Kit Silver is wirin’ for more gunhands to come in. And even Kit admits they’ll be the scum of the earth. There is no law, yet, about two men settlin’ their differences in the street. I can’t interfere in that. But I am going to keep the peace in Red Light, Smoke. I mean that.” “Good. I won’t push inside the town limits, Club. But I won’t be pushed, either.”

“That’s fair enough. You know that damn back-shootin’ Hankins has been snoopin’ around here, don’t you?”

“I suspected it. And some of the boys cut his sign yesterday.”

Club ate the last of his pie, drained his coffee cup, and walked to the door. Just before he plopped his hat on his head and stepped outside, he smiled and said, “But on the other hand, it would be a real shame if somebody called that damn Hankins out into the street, now, wouldn’t it?”

The fire in his belly had been so strong that Barrie had taken his blankets outside the bunkhouse and slept under the stars so the other men would not hear the occasional muffled moan of pain that passed his lips. He finished a bottle of laudanum and the pain eased, then went away. Breathing easier for the first time in hours, the town-tamer looked up and stared long at the stars in God’s heavens and suddenly thought: this is my last time to see them. It has to be. I’m not goin’ out layin’ in some damn bed screamin’ in pain, unable to control myself. That ain’t no way for a man to go out. A man ought to have the right to pick and choose his time and place of dyin’. And I’m gonna do just that.

It had been a week since that fine time in town with Smoke and Bad Dog and Wolf and the girl. What a little gal Jenny was. Barrie smiled under the canopy of stars. He liked to think that his daughter would have been just like her. Couldn’t ask for no finer.

And Barrie knew that Smoke had gotten word from Clemmie Feathers that the town was overflowing with two-bit gunhands on the payroll of the Big Three.

Barrie made up his mind. At four that morning, he was bathing in the creek and shaving as carefully as possible in what light there was. He’d had his black suit done up nice by Chung Lee and his handmade boots, which he seldom wore, polished to a high sheen. He put on a sparkling-clean white shirt and black string tie. He saddled up silently and strapped on his matched .45s, sticking two more .45s behind his gunbelt. He had made out his will during the first week he was at Jenny’s spread and given it to Van Horn.

Van Horn, meanwhile, was sitting in his private quarters at the south end of the bunkhouse, drinking coffee and watching his old friend get ready to ride into Red Light and die. He longed to go with him, but knew that Barrie would resent it. Knew that the town-tamer wanted it this way. But there was something he could do. He smiled thinking about it.

Barrie had no sooner left the yard than Van Horn slipped out of the bunkhouse, saddled up, and took a shortcut to town. He could make damn sure that Club Bowers and his deputies didn’t interfere.

Smoke lay beside Sally and heard both men leave. He knew what Barrie was going to do, and had a strong suspicion what Van Horn was going to do.