Cunning of the Mountain Man (27 page)

The blast, muffled somewhat, blew out two walls of the kitchen. Plaster dust and powder smoke made a heavy fog that was all too easy for the hard-pressed gunhawks to hide in. Smoke knew that the noise they had made would soon attract the larger portion of the gunslick army from their outer defenses. He had taken that into consideration in his plans. Now, he decided would be the time to pull out. He worked the thin leather glove off his right hand and put thumb and forefinger between his lips.

He whistled shrilly and headed at once for the gap blown in the defenses. The Arizona Rangers and Tucker ranch hands streamed behind him. Only a few random shots followed them. That and the shrill, patently hysterical curses of Geoffrey Benton-Howell.

In the cold hard light of dawn, Geoffrey Benton-Howell and Miguel Selleres surveyed the damage. Every window in the house had been blown out again. Two walls of the kitchen had been scattered over the ranch yard and the second-floor extension sagged precariously over what remained. Food had to be prepared in the bunk-house and the outdoor rock-lined fire pits. Those of the hired guns who remained shivered in the chill, early morning air as they waited in line for coffee, beans, and fatback.

Half an hour later, as the partners accepted plates of food from the grizzled range cook, a patrol sent out at first light retamed.

“Then Rangers blew holes in the barricades in half a dozen places on their way out,” Charlie Bascomb, who had led them, reported. “Any time they want, they can pour through on us like water through a sieve.”

“Damn him to eternal hell!” Benton-Howell blurted. “It’s the doing of Smoke Jensen, you can be certain of that.”

“
¡
Oye, amigo! No te dejes poner los verdes.
He is only a man,” Miguel Selleres jokingly told his partner.

“I am not letting him pull the wool over my eyes,” Benton-Howell snapped angrily. “You know as well as I what that man has done to us. It’s not natural, not . . . human! We started this project off with him waiting a lynch mob in the Socorro jail. Now he has nearly destroyed my home.”

“What do you propose?” Selleres prompted. Benton-Howell considered that a while. “It’s obvious that the ranch is not secure enough. There are ample gunmen waiting in Socorro to assist us. If we move the Tuckers into town, Smoke Jensen will hear of it. We can draw him out and make him fight on ground of our choosing.”

Selleres played the devil’s advocate. “What if he’s waiting for us on the way?”

Benton-Howell shaped his plan aloud. “We’ll take everyone from here, form a screen of protection around us and our hostages. Once we reach town, we’ll be safe enough. You’ll see.”

He looked at the table, chagrined by the admission he had to make. “We were too outnumbered to make a push to get the Tuckers out.”

Walt shook his head. “I got this feelin’ somethin’ big is comin’ on. If nothin’ else, we need to find those missing Rangers.”

Smoke Jensen came to his boots, thumbs hooked in the front of his cartridge belt. “I agree. Cuchillo Negro’s warriors are needed to guard the ranch, so I suggest we take the Rangers we have on hand any hands who volunteer, and head for Socorro.”

Clear, sharp eyes, undimmed by long afternoons and nights of drinking and carousing in the saloons of Socorro, first spotted the large plume of dust that rose from the horses of the Rangers and ranch hands. It took little time to realize that trouble rode toward town. Even so, the alert gunhawk placed on lookout on the north edge of Socorro waited until he could count heads, make certain who and how much trouble was headed his way. Then he sent one of the hungover wannabes to report his findings.

“Go to the Exchange Hotel and tell Mr. Benton-Howell that twenty-three men are headed this way. Tell him Smoke Jensen and that Ranger are in the lead.”

The two-bit gunslick ambled away, while he held his head with one hand and licked dry lips, wishing for a little hair of the dog—no, wolf—that had bit him the night before. He found the lordly Englishman in the saloon of the Exchange, which gave him an excuse to get a drink.

First he had to report, which he did cringing a little from the expression of wrath that grew on Benton-How-ell’s’ face. When he delivered the message, he turned toward the bar. “No drinking. Not today,” Benton-Howell declared imperiously. “Every man must be sober for what is sure to come.” He turned to Quint Stalker, who sat at a table drinking coffee, which he had surreptitiously laced with rum in defiance of the orders of the big boss.

“Quinten, I want you to deliver a message to Smoke Jensen. Under a flag of truce, naturally.”

“Sure, Boss. What do you want to say?”

Benton-Howell told him and sent the gang leader on his way. On the slow ride to the edge of town, Quint Stalker tied a strip of white petticoat to the barrel of his Winchester. He had torn it from the undergarment of a soiled dove he had encountered on the street. He reached the city limits only a minute before Smoke and the posse thundered up to the wooden bridge that crossed the dry creek. Quint hoisted his white flag, and showed himself in the middle of the road.

“I got a message for Smoke Jensen,” he called out.

Smoke edged forward on his roan stallion. “Spit it out.”

“Mr. Benton-Howell done told me to tell you that he’s turned Miz Tucker an’ her brats over to Miguel Selleres.
Señor
Selleres has orders to kill them slowly, starting with the youngest kid if you don’t give yourself up within one hour.”

Anger flared in Smoke’s chest. He dare not risk the lives of the Tuckers further, yet he had no intention of providing target practice for a bunch of second-rate pistoleros. He had to buy some time.

“Do you know what happened in the Middle Ages when a messenger brought bad news?” he asked Stalker.

“No, what?”

“They killed him.”

Stalker blanched. “Now, look, I’m under a flag of truce. You got no call to kill me. It ain’t fair,” he ended with a nervous titter.

“Very little is in this life,” Smoke returned.

Stalker knew enough about the gunfighter business to know Jensen wanted something, a deal, a way out. “You got that right. What are you after, Jensen?”

A bleak smile answered him for a long moment, and Quint Stalker felt a chill as the icy gray eyes of Smoke Jensen bored into him. “Time. I didn’t expect to find the Tuckers here, need to rethink things.”

Sensing he had regained the upper hand, Stalker snapped “You’ve got an hour, that’s what The Man said.” “I need more than that. Make it two hours. Tell Benton-Howell that if I see the Tucker family, alive and well, after that, I’ll come in alone.”

“No tricks?”

“Your boss has all the aces, Stalker,” Smoke Jensen replied in a disarming tone.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Smirking, Stalker turned on one boot heel. Then he threw over his shoulder, “If you hear a gunshot an hour from now, you’ll know Mr. Benton-Howell has rejected your terms.”

“Damn! What do we do now?” Jeff York exploded. “It’s a rigged deck, the way I see it,” Smoke told him bluntly. “It’s too obvious to mention what will happen, if I go in there alone. If I don’t go in, the Tuckers will die. Benton-Howell is a desperate man.”

“I can believe that,” Jeff allowed. “He has to see that his scheme is falling apart. Even if he gets you, there’s no way he can bring it off.”

“My thoughts, too, Jeff. So, here’s what we’ll do,” Smoke offered. Without hesitation he laid out his plans.

Ten minutes went by before Tallpockets Granger walked his mount down the main street of Socorro, a white shirt tied to the muzzle of his rifle. He stopped outside the Exchange Hotel and called out for Quint Stalker. When Quint appeared Tallpockets waved the white flag over his head to make it clear that he was under truce. Then he leaned forward and spoke eye to eye with Stalker.

“Smoke Jensen wants to talk to you again. He says he wants to spell out the manner of his surrender.”

“I’ll be right with you.” Stalker returned to the hotel, to walk back out in less than half a minute. “The Boss says that’s all right with him.”

They rode together to the edge of town. There, Stalker threw a look of contempt at Smoke Jensen and spoke in a crisp tone of command. “Mr. Benton-Howell said you were in no position to set terms. But he agreed to listen this time. What is it you have in mind?”

“I’ve decided to turn myself in. Provided that the Tuckers are unharmed. And I want to see them riding away from town, alone, or no deal. They go free before I reach the center of town. And no back-shooting, or the rest of my friends here will take Socorro apart, regardless of what happens to me or the Tuckers. Benton-Howell and Selleres will hang, and there won’t be a one of those two-bit
pistoleros
left alive.”

Anger rose to choke Stalker, so that he spluttered when he snapped “That’s bluster, Jensen, and you know it. You must be gettin’ old. Old and yellow, deep down in your core, or you’d not be runnin’ yer mouth instead of your gun.”

Fire replaced the ice in the eyes of Smoke Jensen. “You want to try me now?”

Quint Stalker hesitated a moment, and Smoke Jensen thought,
gotcha!
“Another time. I’ll take what you said to the Boss, and we’ll see.” He turned his mount and rode away.

Fifteen minutes later, he returned. “Mr. Benton-Howell agrees,” Quint Stalker shouted across the dry creek. “I’m to accompany you to the jail to see there are no tricks . . . from either side.”

“How noble of you,” Smoke responded sarcastically. Stalker looked hurt. “I insisted on it. I admire you for this, Jensen, and I wanted to make sure there was no hanky-panky on either side.”

Quint Stalker’s words raised Jensen’s assessment of the outlaw leader. He shrugged and cut his eyes to Jeff, “You know what to do.” To Stalker, “Let’s get on with it.” Smoke eased his roan onto the bridge.

From that first step, Smoke felt his gut tighten with sour tension. At each step the horses took, a spot between his shoulder blades grew warmer and tingled with anticipation of a bullet to rend and tear his flesh and end his life. Not one to fear death, the mountain man still had a healthy regard for living. By the end of the first block, with not a hard case in sight, Smoke began to gauge each building as the possible spot from which the assassin’s bullet would come.

Beside him, Quint Stalker appeared to be equally apprehensive. His eyes cut from side to side, suspicion deeply planted on his face. Sweat popped out on his brow, and he licked his lips continuously. Smoke suspicioned that Stalker’s palms oozed moisture inside the black leather gloves.

“Don’t you trust your masters?” Smoke taunted partly to break his own chain of anxiety.

“Of course—come to think of it, not a hell of a lot. It’s me that’s the target out here, not them.”

“Good thinking, Stalker.”

Another block further along, Stalker nodded toward the balcony of the Exchange Hotel. “Over there.” Smoke cut his eyes to three tiny figures standing there. Jimmy, Rose, and Tommy Tucker huddled close together, the older boy’s arms protectively around the shoulders of his siblings. They had all been crying, and began again at the sight of Smoke Jensen riding in a prisoner.

“Don’t let ’em do it to you, Smoke,” Jimmy’s high, thin voice cut through the dust haze to Smoke’s ears.

Smoke gave the boy a short, friendly wave. Lace curtains at a second-floor front window fluttered and drew apart. A Mexican
pistolero
stood beside Martha Tucker, a wicked grin whitening his face under a thick, drooping moustache. Smoke reined in. He jabbed a finger at the hostages and spoke harshly.

“Bring them down here. Now.”

Quint Stalker sighed heavily and shrugged. “This is the part makes me uneasy. They don’t get loose, until you’re locked in jail. The Boss ordered it that way.” Smoke Jensen started a curse, broke if off, knowing it to be futile. If the shooting started now, the Tuckers would die for certain. “Never could abide two-faced bastards like your Benton-Howell,” he growled bitterly.

“Truth to tell, I ain’t too fond of him, myself,” Stalker muttered.

Smoke eyed him thoughtfully. “Ever think of changing sides?” From the light that glowed in Stalker’s eyes, Smoke knew that he had planted a seed in fertile soil. “Let’s get on with it.”

At the jail, without a shot fired Stalker dismounted tied off his horse, then drew his six-gun. He covered Smoke while Jensen climbed from the saddle and let himself be led into the office. With Ferdie Biggs no longer among the living, a new jailer had been selected. His smirking grin revealed a missing front tooth and the yellow stain of an inveterate tobacco chewer. Quint Stalker removed Smoke’s cartridge belt and twin .44s and tossed them on the desk. Then the jailer revealed his nature to be much like his predecessor.

He took two quick steps forward and solidly punched Smoke Jensen in the ribs. Pain shot through Smoke from the bullet scrapes on both sides, as he rocked with the blows. He caught another pair in the gut, and fought the urge to double over from the effect. Carefully he sucked in fresh air.

“Are you any relation to Ferdie Biggs?” Smoke asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.

“Naw, I ain’t no kin of his.”

“Funny, there’s such a resemblance,” Smoke taunted.

Smoke’s taunt had the desired effect. With a roar the lout lunged forward again without any caution. Smoke’s hard looping left caught him on the point of his protruding jaw; the gunfighter put all his body behind it. He had the satisfaction of hearing a loud snap and feel the loose wobble of bone before the jailer dropped like a stone.