Cunning of the Mountain Man (10 page)

“First off, there’s the Culverts and the Mendozas. About the richest ranchers around. Old Myron Culvert’s son is mayor.” He went on to list the power structure of Socorro, New Mexico. Then Jeff’s voice changed, took on a tightness. “Then there’s some who are sort of on the edge. There’s an Englishman, folks say he’s a lord or something. They call him Sir Geoffrey Benton-Howell. He owns a couple of large ranches, two saloons, a women’s millinery store, and a number of houses he rents out to the Mexican workers. He’s partnered up with Miguel Selleres. Selleres looks like one of those bullfighter fellers. Neat and trim, a handsome dog. But we’ve heard word he’s got a mean streak.”

“What about hard cases?”

“Comin’ to that, Smoke. Big frog in the pond over that way is Quint Stalker. Supposed to be a gunfighter from Nevada.”

“I’ve heard of him. He crossed my path one time. I should have killed him then.”

“He’s for sure bad news, then?”

“Bet on it, Jeff.”

“All right. He’s got a gang of maybe thirty fast guns. There’s talk he takes his pay from Benton-Howell. If that’s so, we could be in heavy trouble. The lord and Selleres have been buying up parcels of land in New Mexico and Arizona for some time now. Most of them are out in the middle of nowhere. With the money, land, and the guns to back them up, they could become a power to reckon with. Only, why pick such remote spots?”

Smoke recalled the article he had read about surveyors for the Southern Pacific. “Would those parcels be anywhere near the proposed right of way of the new Southern Pacific spur line?”

It was as though a lamp had been lit behind the eyes of Jeff York. “They sure would.”

“Water and coaling stops make great places for towns to be built,” Smoke pointed out. “The man or men who own one—or in this case,
all
of those—will get mighty rich.”

“Where did you come up with that?”

“I read about it in the Albuquerque newspaper,”

Smoke told him. “I wonder now, if the railroad intends to cross land owned by the late Mr. Tucker?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it any. I think you waiting out more developments here might be a mistake, Smoke.”

“I’m way ahead of you. I reckon we should all head back to Socorro and dig into the affairs of Sir Geoffrey Benton-Howell.”

“Maw, there’s someone movin’ around out there,” Jimmy Tucker informed his mother from the small, circular window in the loft.

“Can you make out who?” Martha Tucker asked her son, as she climbed from the bed in the room off the central part of the house.

“No, ma’am.” Jimmy had a cold chill down his spine, though, that told him the mysterious figures were up to no good. He had an itch, too, that made him want to snug the butt-plate of his little Stevens .30-30 up against his right shoulder.

Martha crossed the living-dining area of her home in darkness, every inch familiar to her. She took up the Greener and slung a leather bag of shot shells over one shoulder. She reached a window just as a yellow-orange brightness flared in the barnyard. Jimmy also saw it, and the mop of snowy hair fairly rose straight up on his head.

He propelled himself off the pallet that served as a bed and flew down the ladder, his bare feet flashing below the hem of his nightshirt. He, too, went unerringly to the gunrack on the near wall. Martha saw the movement and gasped. She almost blurted out a refusal, then drew her lips into a thin line.

“You be careful, son,” she urged him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jimmy took his rifle and a spare box of shells and went back to the loft. The window that overlooked the barnyard had been installed on a pivot, with latches to both sides. Jimmy undid them and turned the sash sideways. Slowly he eased the barrel of his Stevens out into the night. Then he remembered his father’s training. He stuck a small finger in the loading gate and felt the base of a cartridge. Satisfied he slowly worked the action, to keep as quiet as he could.

Three more torches burned now, and so far none of the nightriders had noticed anything happening in the house. At a muffled grunt of command the torchbearers started toward the barn. By the light of the firebrands, Martha and Jimmy saw that they wore hoods that covered their entire heads. When they reached a point fifty feet from the barn, the shotgun boomed with the bright crack of the Stevens right behind.

One arsonist yowled and pitched off his mount, one arm and shoulder peppered with No. 2 goose shot. Another grunted softly, swayed in his saddle a moment, then sank forward to lay along the neck of his horse. For some unexplainable reason, Jimmy Tucker found his breath awfully short and tears filled his eyes. He had to swallow hard to drive down the sour bile that rose in his throat.

He took one deep gulp of breath and levered another round into the .30-30. Good thing he did because a second later two of the hooded thugs turned toward the house and fired at the ground-floor windows. Jimmy shot one of them through the shoulder, and heard a thin wail answer his defense. From downstairs, he heard his Maw’s shotgun belch in anger.

“I’m hit! Oh, God, I’m hit, Smoke,” one of the outlaws sobbed.

The use of that name had been a clever contribution by Quint Stalker. He figured it would direct any suspicion away from him, and particularly his bosses. Unseen by the hard cases in the yard, it had the intended effect, as Martha Tucker’s face hardened and she swiftly reloaded the shotgun.

“Fire that barn, goddamnit! You boys, go after the corral. Turn out that livestock.”

“We’re bein’ shot at,” another thug complained.

“I’ll take care of that,” the leader responded.

He turned toward the house in time to catch the side edge of a column of shot in his left biceps and shoulder. Grunting, he fired his six-gun dry and wheeled away. Another man took his place and got blown out of the saddle for his determination.

Flames began to flicker in the barn.

Jimmy brushed more tears from his big, blue eyes and sighted in on another man with a torch. At the last moment, the outlaw darted forward and to his left, the .30-30 round shattered his hand. It sent the blazing torch flying from his grasp to land harmlessly on the ground. A dozen young heifers bellowed in terror from the corral, then made thunder with their hooves as others of the night-riders swung open the gate and ran them off.

“We’ve done enough for now. Let’s pull out,” came the command.

While they raced off into the darkness, mother and son discharged several rounds each to give wings to their flight. Several ranch hands, who had been held impotent at gunpoint, rushed out and began hurling buckets of water on the blazing barn. But Martha knew it would do no good. A fine, beautiful building, destroyed by that bastard Smoke Jensen.

Then a smile broke through her outrage. At least she’d gotten some pellets in him. He’d be bandaged up after this, and not so cocky anymore. Next time she saw him, she’d kill Smoke Jensen, she swore.

A hot, dry wind blew steadily across the mesa even at this early hour. A low pole frame sat well back from the rim, protected from the view of unwelcome eyes. It consisted of a lattice framework covered with the thick, green leaves of the agave, what the whites called the century plant. Already five of the lesser chiefs of the White Mountain Apaches had gathered. They waited in patient silence for the arrival of their principal chief, Cuchillo Negro—Black Knife.

Long before their composure had been well tested, ten of the best warriors among the Tinde approached soundlessly from as many directions. At last, when the sun rode high overhead, Cuchillo Negro appeared. With, him was Ho-tan, his most trusted advisor. He greeted the assembled council in the harsh gutturals of their language.

“Why do the white men come into our land?” Broken Horn asked of the chief.

Cuchillo Negro considered the question in silence a long time before he made answer. “It is true that many
Pend-dik-olyeh
come to our mountains. Words spoken on the winds say that they covet what little they left to us.”

“That could be true,” Ho-tan mused aloud. “It is the best of any of our agencies.”

“The whites, who are always greedy, must think it is too good for us,” Spirit Walker observed with tart humor. “They seek to send us back to San Carlos.”

Angry mutters rose over that. Black Knife silenced them with a stern look. The breeze fluttered the long, obsidian wings of his hair, held in place by a calico headband. He rose to his moccasins from where he squatted on a blanket.

“You are right to be angry, my brothers. But we must be cautious, while we go about finding out what is behind this.”

“No,” Bright Lance, one of the senior warriors growled. “I say we drive them off the agency. I say we follow those who survive and take the warpath to all whites.”

“Like Geronimo?” Cuchillo Negro asked sarcastically.

They all knew the fate of the famed and feared warrior chief. He was said to be rotting in a stinking, white man’s prison in a far-off land called Florida. Obsidian eyes cut from one face to another. Broken Horn rose to speak.

“I am of a mind with Bright Lance. For us to meekly let the whites push us out, to be returned to San Carlos, is to die. Sickness will waste away our women and children, and we will catch the mosquito fever and die slaving in bean fields. I hate bean fields.”

A loud murmur of agreement ran through the assembled council. Cuchillo Negro made a quick evaluation of the change in heart. “No. We cannot do that. I, too, hate bean fields, my old friend,” he admitted with warm humor in his voice. “We must not take the fight to the whites off the reservation. That will bring the pony soldiers as certainly as Father Sun follows the night.”

Clever man that he had to be to have achieved his paramount position, Cuchillo Negro shifted gears and spoke in laudatory tones of conciliation. “Yet, our good brother, Bright Lance, has some wisdom in what he says. If we hope to keep in our beloved mountains, we must not anger the soldiers. We must not leave the agency to fight.” A beaming smile lighted the face of Cuchillo Negro, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. “But Bright Lance speaks well when he says we must punish those who trespass on our land. For now, we must satisfy ourselves with that.”

To his surprise and satisfaction, he had no trouble achieving a consensus. The war societies of the White Mountain Apaches would soon ride to take retribution on the interlopers.

Smoke Jensen raised a hand to signal a halt. Ahead, a huge dust cloud rose beyond a swell in the red-brown desert country. Smoke and Jeff studied it a moment.

“Think it could be a posse?” Jeff asked.

“Too much dust for men on horseback. I’d say it’s a trail drive.”

Jeff cut his eyes to his friend. “Here? Headed this way?”

Smoke broke a grin. “I didn’t say it made sense. What say we slip over and get a look?”

Dismounted, Smoke Jensen and Jeff York advanced crouched low to avoid showing on the skyline. Both men bellied down near the crest of the rise and removed their hats. Jeff put a brass-tubed spyglass to one eye, and Smoke studied the distance with a pair of field glasses.

In the lead were three men, coiled lariats held loosely in their right hands. Behind, blurred by the reddish haze, they made out the horns of some fifty head of cattle. Smoke and Jeff exchanged a glance.

“Looks like you were right,” York acknowledged. “Only I can’t figure why they’re headed toward Arizona.”

“Better crossing places into Mexico, I’d reckon.” Smoke Jensen took another look at the slow-moving cattle. “The border is less settled in Arizona than New Mexico or Texas. Even I know that. If someone had cattle that didn’t belong to him, and wanted to dispose of them at a profit, that would be the way to go about it.”

Ranger York didn’t buy it entirely. “You think these cattle have been rustled?”

Smoke turned his attention to the men bearing down on them. “From the looks of those boys out there, they aren’t regular hands. Not by the way they’re dressed, or the way they wear their guns.”

Jeff York’s eyebrows rose. “If we’re fixin’ to do anything, we’d better know how many they have on flank and drag first.”

“My thinkin’ exactly,” Smoke agreed. “We’ll split up for a while. You take Reardon, I’ll take Hardy. Let’s ride around this gather and see what we can.”

They joined up half an hour later, behind the herd. Jeff York wore a scowl. “Those beeves are wearin’ the Tucker brand. I recognized it right off.”

“The same Tucker I’m supposed to have killed?”

“Right, Smoke. Only those drovers aren’t the sort Lawrence Tucker would have hired. Funny thing is, none of their horses are wearing the Tucker brand.”

“What say we swing in for a little talk?” Smoke’s suggestion met with ready agreement.

One man rode around the herd, which had been turned in on itself for the night. Five more squatted around a hat-sized fire topped by a coffeepot. A larger blaze had been started to cook on. All six looked up as strangers rode toward the camp.

“Hello, the fire,” Smoke hailed. “I thought I smelled coffee.”

“Yep,” came an answer from a thick-set man with small, piggish eyes. “But we didn’t brew up any extra.” Smoke pulled a face. “Now, that’s mighty inhospitable in these parts, Mister. Mind if we ride up a piece?”

The gunhawk’s eyes shot anger at Smoke Jensen, which didn’t match his words. “It’s a free country.” Once in by the fire, Smoke and his companions dismounted. They made no move to tie the horses off to the picket line, dropping the reins to the ground. Smoke nodded to the cattle.

“You’re a far piece from the Tucker spread,” he observed.

The proddy one’s eyes narrowed. “Who says we ride for that brand? Truth is, we bought these steers off him three days ago.”

“That would be kind of hard, wouldn’t it? Considering that he’s been dead better than a week.”

Smoke’s words were all it took. Without knowing who they might be facing off against, the edgy rustler dropped his hand to the gun at his side. At once, the other four did the same. Smoke, Jeff, and Walt beat them all out. For a moment, they had a standoff.

Then the herd guard, a long, lean character with frizzy yellow hair, pounded toward them, his hand clawing at the butt of a Colt on his left hip. Six against four apparently seemed mighty good odds to the argumentative one. He canted the muzzle of his six-gun downward slightly. Smoke Jensen shot him through the chest, before his hammer could fall. Startled into panic, the cattle exploded in every direction. Jeff York put a bullet through the side of another rustler.