Code of the Mountain Man (14 page)

“Longmont,” Willis said. “I ain't never liked you. You got a smart damn mouth hooked to your face. I've always heard how bad you was, but I'm from Missouri, and I gotta be showed. So why don't you just show me?”

Louis lowered the shotgun and leaned it against a water rough. He swept back his coat and said, “Anytime you're ready, Willis.”

Johnny, Earl, and Cotton backed off, still holding the express guns up and pointed at the gunnies.

“You can take him, Willis,” Frankie said. “He's all showboat; that's all he is.”

“A hundred dollars says he can't,” Louis smiled the words.

“You got a bet, gambler!”

Willis made his play. Louis shot him just as the man cleared leather, the slug knocking him back on the steps leading up to the boardwalk. Willis lifted his gun and Louis plugged him again. Bright crimson dotted his dirty white shirt.

“You dirty son!” Willis gasped, still trying to jack back the hammer of his .45.

His friends desperately wanted to get into the fray, but the muzzles of those sawed-offs were just too formidable to breech.

“I can still do it!” Willis said, his blood staining his lips. He cocked his .45 and lifted it.

Louis shot him a third time, this time placing his shot with care. A blue/black hole appeared in the center of Willis' head. He died with his mouth and his eyes wide open.

“You owe me a hundred dollars,” Louis said, looking at Frankie.

“I'll pay you,” Frankie spoke through tight lips.

A young gunny who had ridden in with the hardcases and had not been recognized by any of the lawmen asked, “Is Jensen faster than you?”

“Oh, yes,” Louis told him. “Smoke Jensen is the fastest man alive.”

The young gunny took off his gunbelt and looped it on the saddle horn. “If it's all right with you boys, I'll just have me one drink to cut the dust, a bite to eat at that cafe over yonder, and then I'll ride out of town. Not in the direction of the Seven Slash.”

“You yellow pup!” Mason Wright told him. “I knowed you didn't have no good sand bottom to you.”

“Shut up, Mason,” Earl said. “The boy is showing uncommonly good sense.” He looked at the young man. “Go have your drink and something to eat.”

“Thank you kindly, sir.” The rider walked up the steps and entered the barroom, the batwings slapping the air behind him.

Louis walked to Frankie. “A hundred dollars, Frankie. Greenbacks or gold.”

Frankie paid him. “Your day's comin', Louis. You just remember that.”

“If it comes from the likes of you, Frankie, it'll come from the back.” Frankie flushed deeply. “Because you don't have the courage to face me eye to eye, with knife or gun or even fists, for that matter.” Louis was a highly skilled boxer, and Frankie knew it.

“We'll see, Louis. We'll see.”

“How about now, Frankie?” the gambler laid down the challenge. “You want to bet your life?”

“Let's go, Frankie,” Mason urged him. “We can deal with this bunch later.”

Incredible! Larry thought. The man is a millionaire and is risking his life in a dirty street of a backwater town. I do not understand these men and their loyalty to someone of Smoke Jensen's dubious character.

The gunhands rode out of town, leaving Willis' body still sprawled on the steps of the saloon. Muckelmort and the undertaker came running over, squabbling at each other.

“Get a good night's rest, Smoke,” Johnny North muttered, looking at the darkening shapes of the mountains all around the little town. “There's gonna be hell to pay in the morning, I'm thinkin'.”

The body of Willis was toted off—Muckelmort and the undertaker would go through his pockets to determine the elaborateness of the funeral—and the town began once more coming back to life as darkness settled in. The saloon was doing more business than it could handle, and the owner actually wished the other saloons would hurry up and get their board floors down and the canvas sides and roof up to take some of the pressure off his place.

Louis volunteered to take the first shift, and the others went to bed early—they each would do a four hour shift.

In the mountains, the outlaws slept fitfully, not knowing when or even if Smoke Jensen or that old warhorse Charlie Starr would strike.

Charlie and Smoke, camped miles apart, slept well and awakened refreshed. They rolled their ground sheets and bedding, boiled their coffee and fried their bacon, then checked their guns, and made ready for another day.

The members of Lee Slater's gang, their size now cut by three more, were quiet as they fixed their breakfast and drank their coffee. Taylor and Bud had ridden in during the early evening, and Taylor's condition had both depressed and angered the outlaws. His legs were swollen badly, and the man had slipped into a coma as blood poisoning was rapidly taking his life.

“That there's the most horriblest-lookin' thing I ever did see,” Woody commented, looking at Taylor. “Smoke Jensen don't fight fair a-tall.”

“My ass hurts!” Bud squalled.

“Pour some more horse liniment on it,” Lee told a man.

Bud really took to squalling when the horse medicine hit the raw wounds. Everyone was glad when he passed out from the pain and the hollering stopped.

The men mounted up and pulled out, a silent and sullen group of no-goods.

“How long do we intend to remain here?” Albert asked Mills, over breakfast.

“Until we come up with a plan to capture Smoke Jensen,” the senior U.S. Marshal said. “Anybody got one?”

No one did.

“Pass the beans,” Mills said.

* * *

Back in Washington, D.C., the chief of the U.S. Marshal's Service looked across his desk at a group of senators. The senators were very unhappy.

“Smoke Jensen is a national hero,” one senator said. “He's had books and plays written about him. School children worship him, and women around the nation love him for the family man he is. The telegrams I'm receiving from people tell me they don't believe these murder warrants are valid. I want your opinion on this matter, and I want it right now.”

Without hesitation, the man said, “I don't believe the charges would stick for a minute in a court of law. But a federal judge signed them, and we have to serve them.” He smiled. “But the information I'm receiving indicates that our people out West are not at all eager to arrest Smoke Jensen.” He lifted a wire from Mills Walsdorf. “They have, shall we say, dropped out of sight for a time.”

“Then the Marshal's Service is out of the picture?” another senator questioned.

“For all intents and purposes, yes.”

The senator lifted a local newspaper. “What about these hundreds of bounty hunters chasing Jensen?”

The marshal shook his head. “You know how that rag tends to blow things all out of proportion. The reporter they sent out there to cover this story wouldn't know a bounty hunter from a cigar store Indian. He's never been west of the Mississippi River in his entire life ... until now.”

Another senator lifted a New York City newspaper and started to speak. The marshal waved him silent. “That paper is even worse. Smoke Jensen is probably up against a hundred people ...”

“A hundred?” a Senator yelled. “But he's just one man.”

The marshal smiled. “You ever seen Smoke Jensen, sir?”

“No, I have not.”

“I have. One time about ten years ago when I was working out West. Three men jumped him in a bar in Colorado. When the dust settled, two of those men were dead and the third was dying. Smoke was leaning up against the bar, both hands filled with .44s. He holstered his guns, drank his beer, fixed him a sandwich, and went across the street to his hotel room for a night's sleep. I'm not saying he can pull this thing off and come out of it without taking some lead, but if anyone can do it, Smoke Jensen can. I can wish him well. But other than that, my hands are tied until some other federal judge overrides those warrants.”

“Judge Richards has left town on a vacation,” a senator said. “He'll be back in two weeks, so his office told me.”

“He'd better stay gone,” the marshal said. “ 'Cause when Smoke comes down from those mountains, I got me a hunch he's Washington bound with a killin' on his mind.”

“Well, now!” another senator puffed up. “We certainly can't allow that.”

The marshal smiled. “You gonna be the one to tell Jensen that, sir?”

The senator looked as though he wished the chair would swallow him up.

* * *

Smoke released his hold, and the thick springy branch struck its target with several hundred pounds of impacting force. The outlaw was knocked from the saddle, his nose flattened and his jaw busted. He hit the ground and did not move. Smoke led the horse into the timber, took the food packets from the saddle bags, and then stripped saddle and bridle from the animal and turned it loose.

Smoke faded back into the heavy timber at the sounds of approaching horses.

“Good God!” a man's voice drifted through the brush and timber. “Look at Dewey, would you.”

“What the hell hit him?” another asked. “His en-tar face is smashed in.”

“Where's his horse?” another asked. “We got to get him to a doctor.”

“Doctor?” yet another questioned. “Hell, there ain't a doctor within fifty miles of here. See if you can get him awake and find out what happened. Damn, his face is ruint!”

“I bet it was that damn Jensen,” an unshaven and smelly outlaw said. “We get our hands on him, let's see how long we can keep him alive.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “We'll skin him alive.”

Smoke shot the one who favored skinning slap out of the saddle, putting a .44-.40 slug into his chest and twisting him around. The man fell and the frightened horse took off, dragging the dying outlaw along the rocks in the game trail.

“Get into cover!” Horton yelled, just as Smoke fired again.

Horton was turning in the saddle, and the bullet missed him, striking a horse in the head and killing it instantly. The animal dropped, pinning its rider.

“My leg!” the rider screamed. “It's busted. Oh, God, somebody help me.”

Gooden ran to help his buddy, and Smoke drilled him, the slug smashing into the man's side and turning him around like a spinning top. Gooden fell on top of the dead horse, and Cates screamed as the added weight shot pain through his shattered leg.

Horton and Max put the spurs to their horses and got the hell out of there, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Smoke slipped back into the timber.

The screaming and calling out for help from Gooden and Cates were soon lost in the ravines and deep timber of the lonesome. Dewey lay on the trail, still unconscious.

Smoke seemed to vanish. But even as he made his way through the thick brush and timber, he knew he had been very lucky so far. He fully understood that there was no way he was going to fight a hundred of the enemy without taking lead at some point of the chase and hunt.

He just didn't know when.

* * *

Lee and his bunch muscled the dead horse off Cates and to a man grimaced at the sight of his broken and mangled leg.

“We got to set and splint it,” Curly said. “Anybody got any whiskey?”

A bottle was handed to him. Curly gave the bottle to Cates. “Get drunk, Cates. 'Cause this is gonna hurt.”

Cates screamed until he passed out from the pain.

Gooden was not hurt bad, just painfully, the slug passing through and exiting out the fleshy part of his side. Dewey's face was a torn, mangled mess. He was missing teeth, both eyes were swollen shut and blackened with bruises, and his nose and jaw were shattered.

“We got to get 'em, boss,” Boots said. “Both Jensen and that old coot, Charlie Starr. This is gettin' personal with me, now. Me and Neal go way back together.”

“What you got in mind? I'm damn shore open to suggestions.”

“I go in after him on foot. Hell, he can hear horses comin' in from a long ways off. My daddy was a trapper and a hunter up in Northwest Territories. I can Injun with the best of them.”

Lee shook his head. “I like the idea, but two would be better than one. You might get him in a crossfire.”

“I'll go with him,” Harry Jennings volunteered. “I'd like to skin that damn Jensen alive.”

Both Jennings and Boots were old hands in the timber, and they carried moccasins in their saddlebags. They left behind boots and spurs, took two day's provisions and struck out, following the very faint trail that almost anyone leaves in the brush: bent-down blades of grass, a broken twig or lower limb from a scrub tree, a heel print in damp earth.

“He ain't that far ahead of us,” Boots whispered, after having lost the trail at mid-morning and then picking it up a few minutes later. Boots was a thieving, murdering no-account through and through, but he was just about as good a trailsman as Smoke. “Grass hadn't started springin' back yet. No talkin' from now on—he's close. Real close. Come on.”

Smoke had watched his backtrail. He had felt in the back of his mind that sooner or later somebody would try him on foot. Leaving his pack on the ground in some brush, he climbed a tall tree and began scanning his backtrail with his field glasses. On his second sweep he caught the two men as they skirted a small meadow, staying near the timber.

Smoke backtracked and left a trail, not a too obvious one, for that would be a dead giveaway, but a trail a skilled woodsman would pick up. He had a hunch those two men behind him were very good in the woods, for he hadn't been leaving much of a trail for anyone to follow.

Back at a narrow point in the game trail, he quickly rigged a swing trap, using a young sapling about as big around as his wrist. The shadowy brush-covered bend in the trail should keep even the most skilled eyes from seeing the piece of dirt-rubbed rawhide he'd placed as the trip.

Smoke carefully backed off about twenty yards and bellied down against the cool earth under some foliage and took a sip of water from his canteen. Tell the truth, he was grateful for the time to rest.

“Pssttt!” he heard the call from one of the men.

He could not yet see them, but they were very near.

Stay on the trail, boys, he silently wished. Just stay on the trail. Do that, and I'll soon have just one to contend with.

Jennings eased forward, his smile savage as he saw the just crushed foliage on the trail. He touched it; it was very fresh. Smoke Jensen was only minutes ahead of them. Just minutes away from being dead meat, and Jennings and Boots would be thousands of dollars richer.

His left boot stepped over the trip; the right toe of his boot snagged it. Jennings experienced a savage blow in his belly, just below the V of the rib cage. Then the pain hit him. The most hideous pain he had ever experienced in his life. He forced his eyes to look down. He screamed at the sight.

A stake had been rawhided to the sapling. He had tripped a wire or something that had released the booby trap. The stake was now buried in his belly, his blood gushing out.

“Jesus God!” Boots whispered as he crept around the dark trail and saw what Smoke Jensen had done.

“Oh, my Lord!” Jennings wailed. “I cain't stand the pain. Shoot me, Boots. Shoot me!”

“Yeah,” Smoke's voice came out of the thick vegetation beside the trail. “Shoot him, Boots.”

“You son of a bitch!” Boots yelled, dropping to his knees on the old trail. “You ain't no decent human bein'. This ain't fightin' fair a-tall.”

Smoke laughed at the protestations of the outlaw/ murderer/rapist. His laughter was taunting.

Jennings' screaming was a frightful thing to hear. He stood in the center of the game trail, afraid to move, both hands clutching the bloody end of the stake.

Smoke tossed a stick to his right. As soon as the stick hit the ground, Boots's rifle barked three times, as fast as he could work the lever.

Smoke laughed at his efforts.

Boots cussed Smoke. Called him every ugly and profane and insulting name he could think of, anything to draw the man out where he could get a clear shot at him.

Nothing worked.

“You ain't got no right to do this!” Boots yelled. “This ain't the way it's supposed to be.”

“Jesus Christ, Boots,” Jennings moaned. “You got to help me. I cain't stand no more of this.”

Boots thought hard for a moment. He knew there was nothing he could do for Jennings. He was dying before his eyes. Not even a doctor right now could save him. Blood was dripping from Jennings' lips; that told Boots the stake had rammed right through the man's stomach. The point of the stake was sticking out the man's back.

Jennings died before Boots' eyes. The man's legs were spread wide, and both hands held onto the end of the stake. The thick sapling kept him in an upright position.

Boots didn't know what the hell to do. He knew that Smoke was over yonder, just ahead and to his right . . . at least the last time he'd laughed he was. But the way the man moved, hell, he might be anywhere by now.

Boots got down on his belly and started crawling away from the bloody scene. He was scared; he wasn't ashamed to admit it. A thrown stick landed just a few inches from his nose, and Boots almost crapped his longhandles.