Cunning of the Mountain Man (11 page)

He went down with a soft grunt, but kept hold of his revolver, which he aimed at Jeff York a moment before Walt Reardon plunked a round into the gunhawk’s forehead and ended his career. Ty Hardy had joined the dance. Hot lead from his .45 Colt snatched the hat off the head of another hard case, who had made a dash to his horse. Dazed by the close brush with a bullet, the rustler fell out of his saddle and rolled into some brush.

Half a dozen head of wall-eyed steers thundered over his body and trampled him into an unrecognizable mess. Smoke Jensen had not been standing still, both literally and figuratively. He had jumped to one side and went to a knee for his second round, which trashed the kneecap of another cow thief. Squalling, the man flopped to the ground, clawed at his waistband for a second six-gun, and hauled it clear.

Jeff York was busy with another gunny, and did not see the swing of the barrel to his midsection. Smoke Jensen did, and dumped the tough shooter into hell with a fast bullet that sliced through the left collarbone, lung, and the edge of his heart. A slug cracked past Smoke’s ear, and he moved again.

Snatching at the horn of one steer, Smoke used the animal as cover and transportation. He heard fat splats as bullets smacked into the slab-sided creature. It bellowed in pain and stumbled. It had served its purpose, though. Smoke Jensen let go, and lowered his feet to the ground in a shuffling run. The maneuver had put him behind the last gunhawk.

Surprise registered as the man turned to find himself facing Smoke Jensen. He eared back the hammer and let fly wildly. Smoke, always calm and cool in the heat of battle, had better aim. His bullet found a home in the right shoulder of the hard case. The six-gun he had been holding flew high and came down hard. It discharged the last round of the brief, fierce fight. Slowly, he raised his good left arm.

“Okay, okay. Ease up. I’m done. I ain’t never seed anyone so almighty fast. Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t want to know,” Smoke Jensen told him. “Sit down over there, and I’ll patch you up while the rest round up these cattle.”

Jeff, Walt, and Ty set off to gather in the stampeded beeves. It was a task that would take them the rest of daylight and part of the next day. From the moment Jeff York had revealed the identity of the owner of the cattle, Smoke Jensen had an idea start to grow. It would be, he decided by the time the shooting was over, a good gesture to return the cattle to the widow of Lawrence Tucker. It might even go some way toward convincing her that he had nothing to do with the death of her husband. A few answers from the survivor of the shoot-out might prove useful, he also decided. So, while he prodded the wound, cleaned it, and poured raw, stinging horse medicine in the hole, he probed for information as well.

“I don’t know why I should tell you anything,” came the surly answer. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m the man who let you live, instead of killing you like the rest.”

“You gonna give ’em proper Christian burial?”

“There isn’t a proper minister among us, but we’ll dig a shallow hole and put some rocks on top of them.” Smoke’s harsh plans for the dead outlaws seemed to upset the wounded gunman. “You’re gonna put my friends in the ground all together?”

“Unless you figure on digging separate graves. Now, where were you taking those cattle?”

“Far as I can tell, it’s none of your business.”

“They hang cattle rustlers.” Smoke’s voice had a heavy tone of doom.

Ty Hardy rode up then and waved his hat over his head. “Hey, Smoke, we got twenty-three head rounded up down by the creek.”

“Good. Jeff can hold them. You and Walt find the others.”

Icy fear touched the voice of the wounded outlaw. “He called you Smoke. What’s your other name?”

“Jensen.”

“
Oh Jesus!
Smoke Jensen. I heard you was fast, but that—that weren’t human. You gonna kill me, Jensen?” “If I had that in mind, you’d already be stretched out there with your friends. Let’s get back to the point. What about those cows?”

“W-we were takin’ them into Arizona, and then into Mexico. The boss had a buyer all lined up.”

“This boss have a name?”

“Uh—sure . . . only, I’d get myself killed for sure if I gave it to you.”

“Like I said, I could give you to Jeff York, he’s an Arizona Ranger, and see you hang.”

“Jeez, Mr. Jensen, I don’t want to hang!”

“Then give.”

His face a lined mask of conflicting terrors, he shook his head. “Quint Stalker. He ramrods the outfit.”

“And Stalker works for Benton-Howeil,” Smoke related later to Jeff York.

A week and a half had passed since the morning when the terrible news of her husband’s death had been brought to Martha Tucker. At the time, she believed that nothing could dampen the awful grief she felt. Then the pressure had begun to force her and the children off the land.

She could not believe Lawrence had actually sold the ranch. Adding strength to that conviction had been that none of those who came would reveal the name of the person to whom he supposedly sold. Then the veiled threats took on substance; shots in the night, the attempt to burn the barn, cattle rustled.

Oh, she had been frightened all right. Yet that only served to strengthen her determination. Now she didn’t know what to make of this latest development. Part of her wanted to believe. Another portion of her mind urged caution. It could be some sort of trick. The two young men, one slightly older than the other, who stood before her, could be seeking to gain her trust, catch her off guard, drive them from the ranch entirely. She cut her sky blue eyes to her eldest son.

“I believe them, Momma,” Jimmy responded, as though reading her thoughts.

The older man cleared his throat as though preparing to repeat his remarks. Martha spoke over them. “Tell me again how you came upon our cattle.”

“Well, ma’am, we were ridin’ this way from over in Arizona. We came upon these six men workin’ some fifty or so head of cattle. One of the men with us, an Arizona Ranger, recognized your brand. Also that none of the drovers was the sort your hus—er—late husband would have hired.”

“So we questioned them,” Ty Hardy took up for Walt Reardon. “They lied to us, said they’d bought the cattle offin your husband only three days before that.”

“How did you know that to be a lie?”

“We—ah—well, ma’am, we were over Socorro way when it happened, him gettin’ shot.” Ty Hardy looked uncomfortable with the situation.

“Are you men employed somewhere?” Martha asked, liking the cut of them, more than half-convinced they spoke the truth.

Walt Reardon took over. “Yes, ma’am. We are. Our boss was along with us. It was him said we should bring back your livestock.”

Thinking to thank whichever of her neighbors had been so considerate, Martha asked, “Who is it you work for?”

“Well—ah—it’s . . . Smoke Jensen,” Walt reluctantly told her.

Fury burned in those cobalt eyes. “I don’t believe it! Not that murdering, back-shooting bastard!” Face pinched with her outrage, she demanded further, “Were you with him last week when he tried to burn down our barn?”

“Ma’am, please listen to me. Mr. Smoke didn’t kill your husband. He’d never shoot a man in the back, nohow. And he wasn’t within thirty miles of this ranch any time last week. We was all up in the Cibola Range, dodging a posse,” Ty Hardy pressed urgently.

“Smoke Jensen is the finest man I know,” Walt Reardon added his endorsement. “He—he saved me from a life of crime and evil. I swear it, ma’am. I was a gun-fighter an’—and an outlaw. Smoke Jensen reformed me, an’ that’s God’s own truth.”

Doubting, but moved, Martha asked, “How’d he do that?”

A rueful grin spread Walt’s lips, and he flushed with embarrassed recollection. “First he beat the livin’ hell out of me. Only that wasn’t enough, so later on he shot me. Said he spared my life because he saw a glimmer of good in me. So, I’m askin’ you, not to think harsh of Smoke Jensen. He could never kill a man in cold blood, believe me.”

Flustered by this, Martha ran the back of one hand across her brow. “I’ll consider what you’ve both said. The return of our cattle, I must say, adds credence to your story. I’ll thank you for that again. And thank your Mr. Jensen for me, also. I’ll have to think over what I have learned. Good day, gentlemen.”

* * *

Sheriff Jake Reno wanted to hit the man more than he’d ever wanted to hit anyone. Mash those pursed, disapproving, aristocratic lips into bloody pulp. Who was this Fancy Dan to talk down to him. Hell, this limey-talkin’ pig probably didn’t even carry a gun. Fat lot he knew about facing down Smoke Jensen. The lawman turned his face away to hide the fury that burned there.

“You are to raise another posse and go back into those mountains and track down Smoke Jensen. Is that perfectly clear, Sheriff Reno?” Geoffrey Benton-Howell accentuated each word with a jab of an extended index finger.

“Who am I gonna get? Those that were with me have been talkin’ around town. Not a soul will volunteer. They got the idee that Smoke Jensen is ten foot tall, can shoot a mile with his six-guns, and disappear in a cloud.”

“Quint Stalker will provide you ample men, Sheriff.”

Reno glowered at the expensively dressed Englishman. “Then why the hell don’t he jist go out after Jensen his-self?”

“Because we want this done all legally and proper. You are a lawman. Stalker is . . . just my ranch foreman.”

“He’s a gunfighter and an outlaw, is more near the truth,” Reno snapped.

To the lawman’s surprise, Benton-Howell chuckled softly. “He is that all right.” Then the ice returned to his voice. “And the reason he is not out openly hunting for

Smoke Jensen is because everyone else knows it, too. So, use his men, Sheriff Reno, and bring me back the head of Smoke Jensen.”

At first, Giuseppi Boldoni could not believe his good fortune. Only a month after he, his wife, and three children had gotten off the boat from Napoli, he had become the proud owner of a truly magnificent tract of land in the Far West. Not even the richest vine grower of his native Calabria claimed so many hectares. The nice man who had sold him the land, Dalton Wade, had also made arrangements for two wagons and all of the equipment Giuseppi would need to build his home. He had picked it up in St. Louis. All paid for, part of the—what had
Signore
Wade called it?—the package, that was it.

What Giuseppi Boldoni learned when he arrived in the White Mountains gave his shrewd Italian mind much food for thought. Small wonder the land sale presentation had offered such generous terms. No one had told Giuseppi that his neighbors would all be red Indians. From the start, they had not gotten on all that well. Now, as he faced a dozen hard-faced Apaches, every one of them abristle with weapons, Giuseppi came to the conclusion that his neighbors were down right hostile.

“You will leave our land now,” the big one in the middle demanded in mangled English, which Giuseppi understood only poorly. “Take what you can put in your rolling wikiups and go.”

“Perche?”

“It is our land.” It sounded enough like porque, so the leader answered the “why” in Spanish, and Giuseppi could make out most of the words.

“But I bought it,” Giuseppi protested in Italian.

“It was not for sale,” came the Spanish answer. “Go now.” The eyes turned to chips of obsidian. “Or you die.”

Giuseppi went. His wife and daughter in tears, his sons blinking unspoken questions at him, they loaded the wagons and drove off with only some clothing, food, and the rifle Giuseppi had purchased in St. Louis.

The two salty prospectors danced wildly in the icy, rushing water of the stream on the White Mountain reservation. They had actually found color. And not flake gold, either. Nuggets the size of a man’s thumb! Some even bigger. The man who had hired them to search had promised them a share. But what counted was who’s name was on the claim form.

“We done it, Burk. We sure-nuff did. They’s plenty here to share,” one bearded sourdough went on. “But what says we got to divvy up with that feller with the double last name?”

“Yer right, Fred. There ain’t nothin’ writ on paper to say we had us a deal. We done the work, took the risk, we should get the reward.”

Neither Burk nor Fred got the prize they anticipated. What they got was their last reward. An Apache arrow cut deeply into Burk’s back, quickly followed by another.

He hadn’t even time for a scream, when the third fletched shaft was embedded in his left kidney. He sank to his knees in the stream, eyes glazing on the shocked expression of his partner.

Fred didn’t fare any better. A ball from a big, old .64 caliber trade musket punched through his chest and shattered his right shoulder blade. Two arrows festooned his belly and he wobbled obscenely as he gasped for his last breath.

Cuchillo Negro and three Apache warriors appeared before Fred’s dying eyes. “You steal the yellow rocks,” the war chief stated flatly. “It is said they make you feel good. Let us see if you can eat them.”

He motioned to two of his braves, who took Fred by the arms. Cuchillo Negro yanked on the small leather pouch around Fred’s neck. He opened it and extracted two of the large nuggets. One by one he shoved them down Fred’s throat. Three more followed, before the last caught and set the white prospector to choking.

“It is enough,” Cuchillo Negro said in his own tongue. “Let him die like that.”

Smoke Jensen and Jeff York were about to discover that Quint Stalker was nowhere to be found. To keep his face out of Socorro during this phase of the take-over, Benton-Howell had dispatched Stalker and three of the outlaw leader’s men to the White Mountain reservation. Under a morning sun, already made hot by the sere desert terrain, they busily occupied themselves pounding claiming stakes into the ground.

Stalker knew enough of the general plan to understand that this land would be taken from the Apaches and given over to white settlement. The first claims filed on it would be those of his bosses. A neat little scheme, he considered it, as he began to collect stones for a boundary marker.

“Sure’s hell’s lonely up here, Quint,” Randy Sturgis announced. “I thought there was supposed to be ’Paches around.”