Triumph of the Mountain Man (13 page)

Santan Tossa nodded toward the dwindling silhouette of the hawk. “The young of the red-tail will eat well today.”

“That is so,” Smoke allowed. “Tell me, Santan, how long have you been a policeman?”

Tossa smiled, his chin lifted somewhat in pride. “Four years now. Although I will admit that this is the first real crime I have had to investigate. Most of the time I deal with a few drunks, or a dispute over ownership of a horse. What about yourself?”

Smoke had no need to search memory. “I've worn a badge, off and on, for well over fifteen years. I've fought outlaws and cleaned the riffraff out of towns, protected people in the government, even looked into the murder of friends and a few strangers.”

Tossa looked expectant of Smoke's answer. “Do you like it?”

Smoke gave a snort of laughter. “A whole lot better than bein' on the other side of the law. I've not run into many Indian policemen. The Sioux and Cheyenne don't have them.”

Tossa shrugged. “They are still controlled by the soldiers and the Indian agents. We are on our own. We're. . . pacified.” The word sounded bitter to his mouth.

That decided Smoke to change the subject. “Do you have a woman? A family?”

“I am too young to raise children. At least that is the way we Tua believe. The padres of the
iglesia católica
want us to marry young and have many children.”

“But that is not the Tua way.”

A broad grin spread across Tossa's face. “No. And in that way, we mystify them. A Tua man usually takes a wife when he has twenty-six summers—er—years. He is through with war and breaking wild horses by then. Ready to settle down, hunt and plant and provide for a family. It is a good way.”

“I agree,” Smoke conceded.

They rode along making infrequent and idle conversation. They came down out of the Sangre de Cristo at Española and rode on a ways. The sun slanted far to the west and highlighted red plumes to their backs. Smoke Jensen had kept notice of them for some five miles when he reigned up.

“Someone is following us.”

Tossa nodded. “I noticed it, too.”

Smoke cut his level, gold-flecked gaze to Tossa. “What do you think we should do about it?”

The Tua shrugged. “Find out who they are.”

* * *

Cole Granger and the four men Paddy Quinn sent with him rode hard and fast out of Santa Fe, in an effort to reach the halfway point between the Satterlee hacienda and Taos before nightfall. As it happened, they arrived in Española only minutes before Smoke Jensen and Santan Tossa passed through. Granger, who had been the one to recognize Smoke in the first place, spotted the tall, broad-shouldered, firmly erect figure as Smoke walked his mount down the main street. In spite of three hundred years of settlement, roads remained sparse in this part of New Mexico. It did not require great genius for Cole Granger to figure out where Smoke Jensen might be headed.

“Him an' that Injun are on the way to Satterlee's.”

Pete Stringer eyed him dubiously. “How you know?”

“Where else would he be going? He's in a dust-up with us and right off, he heads south. He's goin' to call out the big boss.”

Stringer eagerly went for the obvious solution. “Then, let's take him out right here an' now.”

Granger shook his head. “Not likely. The marshal here's hell on killings in his town. Even if we let Jensen draw first—which would be a terrible mistake—we'd wind up in jail, most likely charged with murder. We're gonna follow along. Pick our spot, then jump the two of them.”

“What does the Injun have to do with it?” another of the hard cases asked.

With a squint-eyed stare, Granger spat on the ground. “Who cares? He'll be only another dead Injun.”

At Granger's suggestion, they gave Smoke and Tossa time enough to cover five miles, then rode out, retracing their hurried route to the small mountain town. The outlaws pulled into sight twenty minutes later. To their right, the sun floated over the western arm of the Sangre de Cristo range. Long shafts of orange and magenta light cast their features in unnatural colors. Dark, elongated shadows of horses and riders kept pace with them. Their quarry dipped below the horizon, where the road descended yet another three hundred feet to the more open desert land that stretched to Santa Fe.

When Granger and his henchmen reached the grade, the outlaw leader immediately discovered that the men they hunted had disappeared. The first cold, portentous inklings of extreme danger clutched the spine of Cole Granger.

13

Fat, dumb and inattentive, four of the five hard cases who followed Smoke Jensen rode into a nasty surprise. Only Cole Granger hung back, acutely conscious that the missing men represented a threat that could not be ignored. Yet, had he warned the others, taken some sort of defensive position, Smoke Jensen and the Indian could have simply ridden off some unexpected direction and disappeared for good. Jensen was slippery as a greased eel. Somehow, Granger knew, he had to allow them to spring any trap they had planned. That happened far sooner than he had expected.

His underlings had ridden on ahead, and only now became aware that their intended targets could no longer be seen. “Hey,” Pete Stringer called out. “Where ‘n hell did they go?”

“I'm right here.” The voice of Smoke Jensen came from beyond a jumble of rocks that masked the right side of the trail from the view of Granger and the others.

“And I am here,” Tossa answered from the opposite side.

Four astonished saddle trash cut their eyes from one side of the trail to the other. On their left they saw the squat figure of a Pueblo Indian, powerful shoulder muscles bunched as he drew the string of a thick, stubby bow back to his cheek, an arrow nocked and ready. In the other direction, a hard-faced white man held a six-gun on them in a competent, steady grip. All at once a terrible reality had caught up with them.

Given the alternatives, they decided to do what, to them, seemed the only thing to do. All four went for their guns. The arrow made a ripping cloth sound as it left its perch, propelled by a seventy-pound pull. It made an eerie moan through the air before it penetrated the chest wall of one thug and buried half its length in his lungs and other vital organs. He didn't even scream before he fell from the saddle.

From the other side, a .45 Colt Peacemaker barked with authority, and a hot slug smacked solidly into the gut of Pete Stringer. Pete's arm jerked, and his one shot went wild, to scream off the rocks. Another bullet brought an immense darkness to shroud him until a tiny, bright pinpoint of light began to swell and Pete Stringer rushed off to eternity. Pete didn't hear the next shot, which clipped Handy Manson in one shoulder and sent him in wild flight down the trail toward Santa Fe. The third, stiff-legged jounce threw Manson from the back of his horse. He hit the ground hard, folded into a ball to moan and writhe in misery.

On the opposite side of the trail, the close quarters left no time to string another arrow. Santan Tossa leaped from the back of his pony and dragged the remaining outlaw clear of his horse. They landed with a thud, the Tua Indian on top. Brigand ribs cracked like brittle sticks under the impact of Tossa's knees. Orange sunlight flashed on the keen edge of the knife Tossa whipped out and pressed to the throat of the winded thug.

So much for making a plan based on Jensen's expected attack, Cole Granger thought quickly. The only
plan
that made sense was to get the hell out of here. He reined his mount around and put spurs to its flanks. Smoke Jensen rode into sight then and threw a shot at the departing Granger with little hope of it hitting meat.

At the forefeet of Cougar, the youthful desperado had eyes only for the knife that threatened him. After a cautious, though nervous, shudder, he raised his gaze to the white man who calmly sat his horse, looking down with apparent dispassionate interest. That sight caused him to lose it entirely. He began to shriek and utter great sobs. Only gradually did Smoke manage to interpret what the sniveling thug tried to say.

“Please . . . puh-leeeze! Save me from this savage. Drag him off me. You're a white man. You can't let him kill me.”

Laughing nastily, Smoke Jensen bent down and spoke softly. “I'll let Tossa skin you alive if you don't cooperate. You and your friend down there.” He gestured toward the fallen Handy Manson.

“What do you want to know? What? What?”

“Who do you ride for?”

“I can't—-I can't tell you. He'll—-kill me if I do.”

Coldly, Smoke taunted him. “And you don't think Tossa there will kill you if you don't?”

Face ashen, he cut his eyes away from both of his captors. “Oh, Jesus.”

Iron tipped Smoke's words. “He can't help you. I might. If you tell me what I want to know. Who do you ride for?”

“Whi—Whitewater Paddy Quinn.”

Relentless, Smoke pressed on. “And who does he work for?”

Shaking with terror born of the impossibility of his situation, certain he would die no matter what he said, the craven rascal gulped himself into a fit of hiccoughs. His eyes squinted tightly shut, and great tears squeezed out. “C-C-Clif—Clifton Sa-Sa-Satterlee.”

Smoke Jensen cut his eyes to Santan Tossa and asked rhetorically, “Why am I not surprised?” He made a curt gesture, and Tossa released the captive. “Get the other one. We'll patch them up and take them along with us while we go have a talk with Satterlee. Then, on the way back, we can drop them off in Española. The law can lock them up for us there.”

* * *

Seth and Sammy Gittings intermittently wiped at the tears that streamed down their dirt-grimed faces with the backs of their hands as they saddled two small Morgan horses they had decided to take for their escape from the Sugarloaf. Horror and a terrible sensation of rejection burned in their minds. She had done it again. Their rumps still stung from the hard, swift swipes from the willow switch.

Seth sniffled loudly and smeared his upper lip with the mucous that ran from his nose. Then he spoke both their thoughts. “It ain't right. What did it matter if that dumb ol' pig got squashed. It was fun rollin' rocks downhill into the pigpen and watchin' the mud splash up.”

“Yeah, Seth. It wasn't our fault that baby pig was stuck in the muck and couldn't get away in time. Mother had no right to spank us. She's never ever done it before.”

Seth nodded energetically. “Poppa wouldn't let her. Now she's done it twice. It ain't fair,” he whined. “We'll show her. She'll be sorry when we're gone.”

Abruptly a rooster bugled his welcome to the pending dawn. Both boys jumped and looked at each other with the shock of fear reflected in their eyes. The cock crowed again, and a fit of giggles erupted from Seth and Sammy.

Through his sniggers, Sammy admitted, “That cock-a-doodle scared me. I about peed my pants.”

“What's new about that?”

“Liar! I ain't done it in a year now.”

“Shut up an' let's finish.”

Seth completed the fold-over tie-off of his cinch strap, grateful that his older brother's friendship with Bobby Jensen had allowed him to learn how to master the tricks of saddling a horse, and he had in turn taught them. He went to check on his little brother. Sammy, as usual, had made a mess of it. He began to undo the bulky knot.

“Not like that, stupid. Here, watch.”

Quickly Seth adjusted the cinch strap, slipped the leather end through the crosspiece and jerked it down. Next he hung a canteen over the saddle horn and added a cloth bag that contained some biscuits, split and smeared with apple butter, two pieces of cold, fried chicken and a hunk of cheese. An identical bundle already waited on his saddle. Through the barn window he saw a thin, gray line on the eastern horizon. It was time they left. Any more delay and they might get caught.

“Miz Jensen will be awake any time,” he observed to his brother. “So'll the hands. We gotta go now and fast.”

“Mother won't get up for hours,” Sammy remarked.

“So what? We've gotta be way gone from here by then.”

Both boys led their stolen horses from the barn and mounted up. Walking the animals to make the least amount of noise, they angled across the ranch yard and into the near pasture. Only then did Sammy notice the smooth, dark wood of a rifle stock in the scabbard on Seth's saddle.

“Gosh, what's that, Sethie?”

“Bobby's rifle.”

“Why'd you take that; you don't like guns, do you?”

Seth had a wild gleam in his eyes. “Really, I think they're keen. Besides, we might need it. Mother says it is dangerous and wild out there.” He put heels to the little Morgan and moved the beast into a trot.

Neither youngster had the slightest smidgen of horsemanship. Their thin legs bounced out from the sides of their mounts while their rumps banged up and down without even a hint about posting. By the time they had left the cleared fields of the Sugarloaf their thighs ached and their behinds knew more agony than any from the spanking. Tall fir, hemlock and pine closed around them, and the sky disappeared above a thick mat of branches. Stunted aspens reduced visibility to twenty feet on either side. Sammy grew round-eyed with apprehension. It did not decrease when they picked up a game trail.

Seth pointed it out. “Look, there's a trail. I bet it leads to that dismal little town, you know the one?”

“Big Rock?”

“That's it, Sammy. We'll follow it, okay?”

“Sure.”

Seth took the lead on the narrow trace, with Sammy close behind. They remained totally unaware that they were going in the exact opposite direction from Big Rock. Or that they grew more lost with each step their mounts took. They also continued into the vastness, ignorant of the cool, amber eyes that watched them.

Slowly the muscular, tawny body roused itself, lifted its blunt, white muzzle and sniffed the air. With a surge of new interest, the wily old cougar smelled a fresh meal.

* * *

Diamonds of moisture sparked on the leaves of Spanish bayonet and tufts of saw grass as Smoke Jensen and Santan Tossa reigned in behind a low, sandy knoll outside the hacienda of Clifton Satterlee. Smoke nodded to their captives.

“We'll put them down and tie them to those mesquite bushes. Gag 'em, too.”

Handy Manson had regained some of his former bravado. “You go in there after Clifton Satterlee an' you ain't comin' out alive.”

Smoke gave him an amused expression. “You had better hope we do. Because no one is going to know where you are. Dying of thirst and hunger is a bad way to go, I'm told. So, hold a good thought for us, eh?”

“You—you ain't gonna leave us some water? Something to eat?”

Smoke appeared downright jovial. “Nope. You won't be able to make use of it anyway, what with a gag in your mouth and hands tied behind a tree.”

After securing the prisoners, Smoke and Santan rode on into the warmth of mid-morning. Once out of hearing, Tossa asked of Smoke, “Do you think they will try to escape?”

“I imagine so.”

“You do not seem concerned, Smoke.”

“I'm not. The way I tied those knots, the harder they struggle, the tighter they'll become. Those two will still be there when we return.”

“Don't they know a man can live five or six days without food and nearly as long without water, even in this desert?”

“I doubt it. Even if they do, it will take them some time to remember it. By then we should be back. In a case like theirs, fear can kill more likely than the doin' without.”

* * *

Worry rode firm in the saddle on the back of Ian MacGreggor. A full day had passed since he had overheard the conversation between Cole Granger and Paddy Quinn. Four men had ridden out with Granger to “take care of Jensen,” as Satterlee had put it. What had happened to Smoke? Pushing his concern to the back of his mind, he went about his assigned task of scanning the distant horizon. Motion caught his attention. He stared at the spot, and the dark silhouettes disappeared. He blinked and rubbed his eyes.

There they were. Two figures, clearly on horseback, headed toward the hacienda at a fast trot. Ian MacGreggor soon got the knack of looking slightly to the side of what he wanted to see, instead of dead-bang on. It let him decide that they were definitely both men. As they drew nearer, he determined that they did not resemble any of the gang he knew. What would strangers be coming here for? Mac turned aside and called down from the rampart that spanned the inner side of the high outer wall.

“Riders coming. I don't recognize them yet.”

Another member of the gang repeated his announcement. Mac went back to a study of the approaching men. He could make out the color of their clothing now, and the style. Another dozen strides from the powerful shoulder muscles of their horses and Mac could make out their features. One of them appeared to be an Indian. And the other . . . the other rider Mac suddenly recognized as Smoke Jensen. It struck Mac like a fist in the stomach:
Smoke Jensen.
In a flash he recalled Smoke's admonition that if they saw each other, they would not give any sign of recognition. He shouted down to the cobblestone courtyard again.

“They're both strangers. One of them is an Injun. The other is a white man.”

“Will ye come on down now, lad, will ye?” Whitewater Paddy Quinn called to him.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Quinn.”

Hoofbeats rang loud in his ears as the horsemen grew nearer. Mac clattered down the rickety ladder that gave access to the parapet and joined a cluster of other outlaws who had formed up between the main gate and the house. Mac heard Smoke and his companion rein in. After a pause, the large iron ring that served as a knocker struck the portal with a hollow bang.

Old Jorge Banderes shuffled to the small, human-sized door in the thick wooden gates and opened the viewing port.
“¿Sí, señores?
”

“We're here to see Señor Satterlee.”

“Lo siento,
señores, Señor Satterlee is not receiving anyone at this hour,” the grizzled Mexican retainer replied.

“Tell him that Smoke Jensen is here. He'll see us, I'm sure.”