Code of the Mountain Man (13 page)

Smoke hiked what he figured was about three miles through wild and rugged country, then stopped and built a small, nearly smokeless fire for his coffee and bacon and beans. While his meal was cooking and the coffee boiling, he whittled on some short stakes, sharpening one end to a needle point. After eating, he cleaned plate and skillet and spoon and packed them away. Then he went to work making the campsite look semi-permanent and laying out some rather nasty pitfalls for the bounty hunters and outlaws.

That done, he tossed some logs on the fire and slipped back into the timber where he'd hidden his pack. He waited.

Curly Rogers and his pack of hyenas were the first to arrive.

Smoke was back in the timber with the .44-.40, waiting and watching.

The outlaws didn't come busting in. They laid back and looked the situation over for a time. They saw the lean-to Smoke had built, and what appeared to be a man sleeping under a blanket, protected by the overlaid boughs.

“It might not be Jensen,” Taylor said.

“So what?” Thumbs Morton said. “It wouldn't be the first time someone got shot by accident.”

“I don't like it,” Curly said. “It just looks too damn pat to suit me.”

“Maybe Slim got lead into him?” Bell suggested. “He may be hard hit and holed up.”

Curly thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. Yeah. That must be it. Lake, you think you can Injun up yonder for a closer look?”

“Shore. But why don't we just shoot him from here?”

“A shot'd bring everybody foggin'. Then we'd probably have to fight some of the others over Jensen's carcass. A knife don't make no noise.”

Lake grinned and pulled out a long-bladed knife. “I'll just slip this 'tween his ribs.”

As Lake stepped out with the knife in his hand, Smoke tugged on the rope he'd attached to the sticks under the blankets. What the outlaws thought to be a sleeping or wounded Smoke Jensen moved and Lake froze, then jumped back into the timber.

“This ain't a gonna work,” Curly said. “We got to shoot him, I reckon. One shot might not attract no attention. Bud, use your rifle and put one shot in him. This close, one round'll kill him sure.”

Bud lined up the form in the sights and squeezed the trigger. Smoke tugged on the rope, and the stickman rose off the ground a few inches, then fell back.

“We got him!” Bell yelled, jumping up. “We kilt Smoke Jensen. The money's our'n!”

The men raced toward the small clearing, guns drawn and yelling.

Taylor yelled as the ground seemed to open up under his boots. He fell about eighteen inches into a pit, two sharpened stakes tearing into the calves of his legs. He screamed in pain, unable to free himself from the sharpened stakes.

Bell tripped a piece of rawhide two inches off the ground and a tied-back, fresh and springy limb sprang forward. The limb whacked the man on the side of his head, tearing off one ear and knocking the man unconscious.

“What the hell!” Curly yelled.

Smoke fired from concealment, the .44-.40 slug taking Lake in the right side and exiting out his left side. He was dying as he hit the ground.

“It's a trap!” Curly screamed, and ran for the timber. He ran right over Bell in his haste to get the hell into cover.

Smoke lined up Bud and fired just as the man turned, the slug hitting the man in the ass, the lead punching into his left buttock and blowing out his right, taking a sizeable chunk of meat with it.

Bud fell screaming and rolled on the ground, throwing himself into cover.

Thumbs Morton jerked up Bell just as the man was crawling to his knees, blood pouring from where his ear had once been, and dragged him into cover just as Smoke fired again, the slug hitting a tree and blowing splinters in Thumbs' face, stinging and bringing blood.

“Let's get gone from here!” Curly yelled.

“What about Taylor?” Thumbs asked, pulling splinters and wiping blood from his face.

“Hell with him.”

With Curly supporting the ass-shot Bud, and Thumbs helping Bell, the outlaws made it back to their horses and took off at a gallop, Bud shrieking in pain as the saddle abused his shot-up butt.

Smoke lay in the timber and listened to the outlaws beat their retreat, then stepped out into his camp. He looked at Lake. The outlaw was dead. Smoke took his ammo belt and tossed his guns into the brush. He walked over to Taylor, who had passed out from the pain in his ruined legs. He took his ammunition, tossed his guns into the brush, and then jerked the stakes out of the man's legs. The man moaned in unconsciousness.

Smoke found the horses of the men, took the food from the saddlebags, and led one animal back to the campsite. He poured a canteen full of water on Taylor. The man moaned and opened his eyes.

“Ride,” Smoke told him. “If I ever see you again, I'll kill you.”

“I cain't get up on no horse,” Taylor sobbed. “My legs is ruint.”

Smoke jacked back the hammer on his .44. “Then I guess I'd better put you out of your misery.”

Taylor screamed in fear and crawled to his horse, pulling himself up by clinging to the stirrup and the fender of the saddle. He managed to get in the saddle after several tries. His face was white with pain. He looked down at Smoke.

“You ain't no decent human bein'. What you're doin' to me ain't right. I need a doctor. You a devil, Jensen!”

“Then you pass that word, pusbag. You make damn sure all your scummy buddies know I don't play by the rules. Now, ride, you bastard, before I change my mind and kill you!”

Taylor was gone in a gallop.

Smoke shoved Lake's body over the side of the small plateau and began throwing dirt over the fire, making certain it was out. Then he sat down, rolled a cigarette, and had a cup of coffee.

All in all, he concluded, it had been a very productive morning.

The townspeople all turned out for the funeral parade that morning. Bobby had had enough money on him to have a fine funeral, complete with some wailers the Reverend Muckelmort had hired. He'd found someone with a bass drum and a fellow who played the trumpet. It was a sight to see, what with the thumping of the bass drum and the tootin' on the trumpet.

Muckelmort was something of a windbag. By the time he'd finished with his lengthy graveside harangue, nobody was left but the wailers – they were paid to stay—everybody else had retired to the saloon.

Nobody knew the second punk's name, and he'd only had ten dollars on him, so he was wrapped in a blanket and stuck in an un-marked hole. Two dollars went to the gravedigger, two dollars for the blanket, two dollars for the preacher, and the remaining four bucks went to buy drinks after the service. Somebody recalled that four of them had ridden into town together. But the other two had split just after the shooting. One of them was heard to say that milkin' cows wasn't all that bad after all. He was headin' back to the farm.

The RCMP had ridden in and collected the last prisoner, and the jail was empty.

When the morning stage rolled in, it was filled with reporters, all from back East. “Be another stage in this afternoon,” the driver told Earl. “We're gonna be runnin' two a day while this lasts. We must have passed five hundred people on the road, all headin' this way.”

Sheriff Silva rode in, looked around, cussed, and then commented to Earl that he reckoned he'd better hire some more deputies. Fifteen minutes later, he swore in Louis, Johnny, and Cotton. Louis asked him if he'd received warrants for Smoke's arrest.

“I tossed 'em in the trash can,” the sheriff said. “There ain't no lawman out here gonna try to arrest Smoke Jensen. Not none that has a lick of sense. I know all about that shootin' in Idaho years ago. It was a fair fight, if you wanna call Smoke bein' outnumbered twenty to one fair. Those warrants are bogus.”

A miner riding into town loping his mule as hard as he could cut off the conversation. He pulled up short at the sight of all the activity. When he'd been here last month there hadn't been more than seventy-five people in the whole damn town. Now it looked to him like there was more than a thousand.

With a confused look on his face, he tried to kick the mule into movement. But the mule was smarter than the rider. When a mule is tired or is loaded too heavily, it just won't move and no amount of cussing or kicking or threatening will make it move. The miner slid out of the saddle and ran up to Sheriff Silva and the other deputies.

The mule sat down in the street.

“Big shootin' about ten miles out of town, Sheriff,” the miner said, pointing. “I don't know if they was outlaws or bounty hunters—one and the same if you ask me. But anyway, the man who stopped by my tent for bandages and sich had one ear tore slap off. He said another man dropped into a pit of some sort that had sharpened stakes in it; run through both his legs. Terrible sight to see, he said. Another feller was shot dead and another was shot plumb through his ass—both sides!”

“Stay out of the mountains,” the sheriff told the man. “And tell other miners to do the same. That's the Lee Slater gang—and some bounty hunters—chasing a man. It looks like some of them caught up with him.”

“All them fellers chasin' after just one man? Good Lord, who are they after?”

“Smoke Jensen.”

“Smoke Jensen!” the miner hollered. “Then they all must be nuts! I'd sooner run up on a pack of grizzly bears than tangle with him.”

“I think they're beginning to discover that,” Earl remarked. “But I'll wager they'll press on because they have no choice in the matter. They have to get Smoke out of the way.”

The miner wandered off, muttering about crazy people. He tried to get his mule up off his butt, but the mule just brayed at him, telling him in no uncertain terms to get lost. He was tired, he was going to rest, so beat it.

“Has Luttie and his crew been back into town?” Sheriff Silva asked.

“No. Not in days.”

The sheriff lit a cigar and said, “Main reason I rode down here was to tell you that Luttie's hirin' fightin' men. Payin' top wages. Whole passel of them rode through my town. Me and the boys sent them packin'. One-Eyed Jake and that Mexican gunslinger, Carbone, was among the bunch.”

“I know them both,” Johnny said. “They're top guns. Did you recognize any of the others?”

“Yeah. Nick Johnson, the twins, the Karl Brothers—Rod and Randy, and Rich Coleman.”

“That's a whole army right there,” Cotton said, hitching at his gunbelt. “Earl's told us something about this Luttie Charles. About his bein' the brother to Lee Slater. About how it's a good bet that he's tied up in all this. Ain't they enough evidence to move against him and shut him down?”

“Not . . . quite,” Silva said with a sigh. “I received a wire from the governor this morning. Early this morning. He's not happy with all the press we're getting. He's afraid this town is going to blow wide open, and personally I think there is a good chance of that happening. There's a federal judge in Denver working very hard to overturn those warrants against Smoke, but that's going to take time. The governor said Smoke was on his own in this. I wired him back and told him that Jensen was one of my deputies, and he damn sure was not alone in this. Whatever he was doing up in the mountains comes under the business of keeping the law and order. I expect by the time I get back, I'll have several replies on my desk.” Silva smiled. “They should make for interestin' readin'.”

“Reading between the lines, Sheriff,” Johnny said. “Smoke's on his own in the mountains, except for Charlie—and you want us to stay in Rio, right?”

“I'd appreciate it, boys. If the governor has to send the state militia in here, that's gonna make him very unhappy.”

“Then here we'll stay, Sheriff,” Louis assured the man. “Do you think Luttie has plans to attack the town, strip it bare, and leave this part of the country?”

“It's a possibility that I've considered. At first I think his plan was to hit the miners and the stages carrying gold and silver out. Maybe he might still do that. But I think now that Jensen has his brother's men out looking for him, he just might turn his back on Lee and use the men he has to wipe this town clean.”

“Brotherly love doesn't run very deep in that family, does it?” Earl said softly.

Silva shrugged. “That's just a guess on my part. Who the hell really knows what Lee and Luttie will do?”

The men fell silent in the noisy, busy town, their eyes on the mountains that loomed around them. All of them had one overriding thought: Could Smoke pull this off?

* * *

Charlie Starr watched with some amusement in his hard eyes as Curly's group tried to treat the wounded. He had left his horse and walked to within fifty yards of the outlaw band's camp, casually leaning up against a tree at the edge of the clearing.

Bud was lying on his stomach, his britches down around his boots, his bare butt shinin' in the sunlight, while Thumbs Morton poured alcohol on the bullet holes. That set Bud off, jerking and squalling.

One side of Thumb's face was swollen and red-looking.

Bell Harrison had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, and Taylor's legs, from the knees down, were wrapped in dirty, bloody bandages.

“I'm a-gonna kill that son of a bitch!” Bell said, considerable heat in his voice. “Torture him. Make it last. Burn him. I'll start with his feet in a fire and work up. I hate Smoke Jensen.”

Charlie grinned. Smoke had really done a job on this bunch of no-goods.

“My legs is real hot, boys,” Taylor said with a moan. “I'm burnin' up. I think Jensen put something on them stakepoints. Poison, maybe.”

Probably so, Charlie thought. He probably found him some bear shit and smeared the points with it. Or he might have used some poisonous plant leaves. Ol' Preacher taught him every mean and dirty trick in the book when it came to survival. You boys done grabbed hold of a grizzly bear's tail when you decided to take on Smoke Jensen.

“I can't do no more for you, Bud,” Thumbs said.

“I hate Smoke Jensen!” Bell said.

Charlie worked his way around the clearing until he had reached a spot about twenty yards from the bitching and moaning group of deadbeats. He pulled both .44s from leather and jacked the hammers back.

“What the hell was that?” Curly said, grabbing up a rifle and looking all around him.

“I didn't hear nothin',” Taylor said.

“I wonder if Jensen give Lake a decent buryin'?” Thumbs said.

“About the same as I'm gonna give you,” Charlie said, and stepped out and started shooting.

Curly recognized the man at once. Charlie Starr! He jumped away from the group and headed for the horses, none of whom had been unsaddled. Curly wanted no part of Charlie Starr. Smoke Jensen was bad enough, but combine him with Charlie, and that was just too much.

Curly left his fearless little group to fight it out by themselves.

Charlie's first slug knocked Bell sprawling, his right arm hanging broken and useless by his side. Thumbs Morton was hit in the right side, the bullet shattering a rib and angling off to tear through a kidney. He lifted his six-gun, a curse forming on his lips, and got off one round, which missed.

Charlie didn't miss. He didn't even flinch as the slug from Thumbs' gun tore bark from a nearby tree. He leveled his long-barreled .44 and shot Thumbs in the belly, knocking the man down, hard-hit and dying.

Bell struggled to his boots and lifted his left-hand gun. Charlie perforated the man's belly, and Bell would never again have to worry about indigestion or how to keep his hat on his head with only one ear. Now all he had to worry about was facing God.

Charlie stepped back into the timber and was gone, leaving Bud and Taylor alive in the middle of carnage. He'd seen Curly Rogers hightail it out. Charlie knew Curly from way back. Knew him for the coward and the bully he was. Let him go; they would meet up again.

Charlie walked swiftly back to his horse, reloading as he went. He swung into the saddle, and was gone, a warrior's smile on his lips.

“Oh, my God!” Taylor yelled, the pain in his legs fierce. “What are we gonna do, Bud?”

Bud couldn't even stand up. His britches and his galluses were all tangled up around his boots. “Oh, Lord, I don't know!” Bud wailed. “I wish I'd never heard of Smoke Jensen. I wish I'd never left the farm.”

“I think I'm gonna die, Bud. My legs is swellin' something awful.”

“Hell with your legs. My ass hurts,” Bud moaned.

* * *

Several of the groups had returned to base camp as night grew near. They all gathered around as Lee Slater listened to Curly's babblings, a disgusted look on his ugly face. He finally had enough and waved Curly silent. “Goddamnit, boys!” he yelled. “Smoke's jist one man. You're lettin' him buffalo you all.”

“What about Bud and Taylor?” Horton asked.

“What about them?” Lee demanded. “Hell, they know the way back to base. We've all been shot before and managed to stay on a horse. If they got so much baby in them they can't ride through a little pain, we don't need them.”

The young punks, Pecos, Miller, Hudson, Concho, Bull, and Jeff, all nodded their agreement and hitched at their gunbelts. None of them had ever been shot so they really didn't know what they were agreeing to. It just seemed like it was the manly thing to do.

“We put out guards this night,” Lee said. “They'll be no more of Jensen slippin' up on us.”

Miles away, Smoke had no intention of slipping up on anything that night, except sleep. Let the outlaws sweat it out and get tired and nervous. He would fix a good meal and rest.

Charlie had found him a nice comfortable little hidey-hole and was boiling his coffee and frying his bacon. He would get a good night's sleep and start out before dawn the next morning.

Back in Rio, a half dozen more rowdies had ridden in, on their way to the Seven Slash Ranch. They reined up in front of the saloon and swung down from the saddle, trail weary from a long day's ride. A whiskey would taste good.

“Keep movin', boys,” the voice from behind them said.

They turned, and what they saw chilled them right down to their dirty socks. Louis Longmont, Cotton Pickens, Johnny North, and Earl Sutcliffe stood in the now quieted street, all of them with sawed-off shotguns in their hands. To a man they kept their hands very still.

“We just wanted to buy a drink of whiskey, Earl,” John Seale said.

“You won't buy it here. None of you. Ride on to the Seven Slash if you want a drink.”

“How'd you know? . . .” Mason Wright cut that off in mid-sentence. But it was too late; he'd tipped his hand and he knew it.

The others gave him dirty looks.

“Pack it in, Louis,” Frankie Deevers said, looking at the millionaire gambler. “If you don't, you're gonna lose this pot. Believe me.”

Louis smiled. “And who says life is not a game of chance, eh, Frankie?”

“Put them Greeners down, and we'll take you all right here and right now,” a gunny snarled at Louis.

“Now, now, Willis,” Louis said. “You know how talking strains your brain.”

Larry chose that time to step out of the saloon/ hotel for a breath of fresh air. The beery, sweaty odor from those unwashed cretins in the bar had drifted up to his room and was making him nauseous. But Larry was wising up to the West and after giving the group in the street a quick look, he moved down the boardwalk, well out of the way.