Blood of the Mountain Man (14 page)

“Howie and Biff. I’m Howie. This is Biff.”

“That ... is reasonable,” Smoke said. “All right, what I’m about to suggest goes for you two, as well.” “What about me?” Jess whispered.

“Shut up, Jess,” Howie told him. “You’re supposed to be dyin’.”

“I want words spoke over me!” Jess said.

“Do I have to kick you in the head to shut you up?” Howie whispered. “Hush! You were sayin’, Mister Jensen?”

“It might seem strange for you men to suddenly stop wearing guns. So if you decide to stay around here, you may wear your guns. But everytime you see me, you throw your hands in the air. If you don’t, I’ll just have to assume that you’re unfriendly. And I’ll shoot you.”

“Throw . . . our hands in the air ever’time we see your*” Dick questioned.

“That’s right. Can you do that?”

“I can do that!” Howie said. “Can you do that, Biff?”

“I can do that!” Biff said quickly. “Yes, sir.” Highpockets raised his hands. Swiftly. “Like this, Mister Jensen?”

“Just like that.”

Dick threw his hands into the air. Biff and Howie did the same. They all looked kind of silly.

“We’re just cowboys, Mister Jensen,” Biff said. “That’s all. We ain’t gunfighters.”

“Fine. When this is all over, if— if— you men behave and do like I tell you, you can all go to work for Miss Jenny. She is going to be the new owner of the Triangle JB.”

“She is?” Highpockets asked.

“She is. Lower your    hands. You’d like working for my niece. She keeps a tubful of doughnuts around all the time. And she bakes pies one day and cakes the next. She’s a fine cook.”

“I’m hungry now,” Biff said.

“I’m dyin’!” Jess hollered. “Don’t nobody care about me?”

“You want to take him into town?” Smoke asked.

“He wouldn’t make it,” Dick said. “He’s about done for now.”

“Oh, Lord!” Jess cried.

“You’d actually hire us to work for your niece after we rode for Biggers?” Highpockets asked.

“Sure. Just as long as you boys stick to punching cows and not punching or shooting at me,” Smoke said with a grin.

“We’re out of it,” Howie said. “From now on. And that’s a promise, Mister Smoke.”

“Fine. See you boys.” Smoke rode away.

“That’s a nice feller there,” Howie said. “I sure had him pegged wrong.”

“He seemed right sure about Miss Jenny goin’ to own the Triangle JB,” Dick said.

“I damn sure believed him,” Howie replied. “I am a changed man, boys. Believe it.”

“What are we gonna do about Jess?” Highpockets asked.

Biff looked down at the would-be gunhand and shook his head. “Get a shovel.”

Smoke rode toward the eastern slopes of the mountains that ringed the valley. He felt the men he had left alive by the fence would keep their word. He was a pretty fair hand at judging people, and those men had the appearance of being nothing more than good, working cowboys who’d had the misfortune to sign on with the wrong outfit.

He put the ranch out of his mind. Van Horn and the others would protect it—and Sally and Jenny — with their lives. Smoke had no doubts about that.

For now, he had to concentrate on staying alive. He felt that those men by the fence were probably all the real working cowboys Jack Biggers had left on the payroll. All his other hands would be thugs, toughs, hired guns, or men who felt they were good with a gun. And there was a great deal of difference between the two.

Jess had found that out the hard way.

The terrain began to slope upward now, as the valley ended and Buck started the climb upward. The timber was thick here, and Smoke stayed in it. This was his type of country. It was here that he felt most at home and here that, if he had a choice, the fight would begin and end. Smoke was not called the last mountain man without good reason. He was hell on wheels in any type of fight, under any type of circumstances, in any terrain, but in the mountains, he was most effective. He understood the wilderness, the high country, and used it all to his advantage.

He swung down from the saddle, ground-reined Buck, and squatted for a time, building a cigarette and thinking, his eyes never stopping their searching for any sign of trouble.

He decided he’d given the Triangle JB people enough grief for the time being, climbed back in the saddle, and headed north, for Fosburn’s spread. He’d see what kind of trouble he could get into up there.

Jess had been a hothead and not much of a cowboy. Jack Biggers summed up Jess’s worth and then dismissed him. But it rankled him that Smoke had gunned down another of his men with the ease of stepping on a bug.

And Highpockets and Dick, Biff and Howie, were all behaving strangely since their return to the ranch. But Jack didn’t want to chastise them too much; those four were the only real cowboys he had left, and somebody had to do some work around the place. Not that there was that much to do, especially this time of the year. The mountains provided a natural corral for the herds, and the Triangle JB’s part of the valley was lush enough to sustain a herd three times the size.

But Jack wanted it ail. He even wanted Fat’s northern range, and he intended to get it. What he didn’t know was that Fat wanted Jack’s part of the valley and Major Cosgrove wanted all of it. Each of the partners had their own little schemes all worked out. Or so they thought.

Jack got a fresh mug of coffee and walked out to sit on the front porch. He spotted Highpockets and Dick, Biff and Howie, and watched them for a moment. He frowned at them. What the hell were they doing?

The four men would walk a few steps, then stop and throw their hands into the air.

“Waco!” he called for his new foreman. His old foreman was one of those who had died in the street in front of the general store when the half dozen or so JB hands had come after Smoke.

“Boss?” Waco said, appearing by the side of the porch.

“What in the hell are those men doing over there by the bunkhouse?”

Waco looked, blinked, took off his hat and scratched his head, and took another look. The four men sure were acting strange. Looked like some sort of a dance to him. He’d never seen cowboys act like that before.

“Well, Boss . . . I can’t say as I rightly know. Some of them saloons in town just got in a whole new batch of girls from St. Louis. Maybe that there’s some sort of new eastern dance step those boys are tryin’ out.”

“Well, have them stop it immediately. They look plumb foolish to me. Looks like a bunch of schoolgirls doin’ the do-si-do. Silliest thing I ever seen.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Waco waited until Jack had gone back into the house, then, after taking a slow, careful look all around him to be sure he was not observed, he took three steps, stopped, and threw up his hands. He was not aware that Whisperin’ Langley and Val Davis were watching him from a bunkhouse window. “I kinda like it,” Waco muttered.

“What the hell is that man doin’ over yonder?” Whisperin’ said.

“I don’t know,” Val replied. “But them four over there is doin’ it, too.”

“Didn’t Biff and Howie go into town last night?” ‘Yeah. To the saloon where them new gals from St. Louis is work in’. I heard ’em talkin’ about it.” “It’s a dance. That’s what it is. Them gals done brought a new dance out here with ’em. Let’s watch so’s we can do it, too.”

“I ain’t much on dancin’.”

“That looks easy to me.”

Two of the West’s most feared and formidable gunslingers looked around the bunkhouse. They were alone. Whisperin’ took three steps forward, stopped, and threw up his hands.

“Try it, Val. It’s easy.”

Val, spurs jingling, took three steps forward, stopped, and threw up his hands. ‘Yeah. It is, ain’t it?”

Kit Silver had started into the bunkhouse. He paused at the doorway, stared for a moment, and then carefully backed out. He waved for Patmos to join him.

“What’s up, Kit?”

“You better watch Whisperin’ and Val,” Kit warned. “I think they done fell in love. With each other!”

The man felt the rope settle around him and tighten, pinning his arms to his side. He didn’t even have time to yell before he was jerked out of the saddle. He landed on his butt, on the ground, the wind ripped from him. He felt himself jerked to his boots and slammed against a tree, and the rope wound around him. When his head stopped spinning, his vision cleared, and he could see and comprehend what was happening, he knew he was in serious trouble.

“You like to make war on young girls, huh?” Smoke asked him.

“Not exactly,” the rider gasped. “I just ride for the brand.”

“You think you’re going to continue doing that?” “Not if you give me a chance to get gone.”

“That might not be necessary” Smoke told him. “Huh?”

“Did you hire out your guns or your skills with cows and horses?”

“I ain’t no fast gun, Mister Jensen. Last time I tried that I damn near shot my foot off. I punch cows and mend fence and brand and . . .”

“I get the picture. How many working cowboys on Fat’s spread?”

“Me and two others. The rest is hired guns. My name’s Luddy. My buddies is Dud and Parker.” “Lud and Dud?” Smoke said with a smile.

The cowboy tried to hide a grin. “We been together since we was kids. Parker’s all right, too.” Smoke loosened the rope and let it fall. As he was looping it back, he asked, “Step away from the tree. Keep your hand away from your gun.”

“You can have it if you want it, Mister Jensen” “Keep it. Is Fat paying you fighting wages?”

“No, sir. Thirty-five dollars a month and found. I could make more in the mines, but I ain’t never liked caves and tunnels.”

“Name some of the guns Fat hired.”

“Tom Wilson, some guy named Chambers, Dan Segers, Russ Bailey. Then there’s Al Jones, Paul Hunt, and some feller named Pell.”

“Jim Pell?”

“Yes, sir. That’s the one.”

“First rate gun-handier. Anybody else?”

“About ten more. I don’t know their names and stay out of their way. Then there’s Bobby Jewel.” “He’s a bad one, all right. Luddy, you tell your buddies to stay out of my way. The same goes for you until this mess is over. And it will be over, and then you can go to work for my niece.”

“That’s right nice of you, but her place ain’t big enough to support no whole bunch of punchers.”

“It will be when I’m through.”

There was something in Jensen’s eyes that told Luddy this man planned to take the whole damn valley for his niece. Luddy figured he could do it, too.

Smoke rode straight onto Fat Fosburn’s range,

staying just out of the timber, but close enough to reach it in a hurry, should the need arise. He hadn’t ridden a mile before he heard a shout, and that was followed by a gunshot. He stopped and wheeled Buck around. The fools were shooting at him with pistols from about a quarter of a mile away. Six of them. Smoke waited for a moment, then turned Buck and rode into the thick timber. He found a game trail and stayed with it for a few minutes, until coming to a tangle of brush. He circled around it, found a place in the back where he could push through, and swung down from the saddle, taking his rifle and a bandolier of ammunition. He stripped the saddle and bridle from Buck and let him freely roam the small clearing. There was some graze and a few puddles of rainwater gathered. Plenty for as long as Smoke planned to be gone.

He took off his spurs and put them in his saddlebags, took a long drink of water, and slipped out of the tangle, squatting and listening.

Smoke knew immediately these were not manhunters. This bunch was blundering around the woods, making enough noise to raise the dead.

“Over here, Willie!” one shouted.

Smoke sighed. Amateurs.

“What’d you find, George?”

“His trail. Come on. We’ll get that bounty money and have us a high old time with the ladies.”

George and Willie came a-blundering through the timber. Smoke slung his rifle and picked up a good-sized club and hefted it. Then he stepped behind a tree and waited. He didn’t know whether it was George or Willie who came foggin’ through the brush. Whichever it was got yanked out of the saddle and the club laid up alongside his head. Then he sighed once and went to sleep.

Smoke trussed him up and tossed him in the brush, then caught up the spooked horse and quieted it down, leading it off the dim trail and loosely tying the reins to a branch.

The second half of the pair came up as fast as he could in the brush and timber and yelled, “Where are you, George? Sing out, man!”

Smoke stepped out just behind and to one side and laid the club across the would-be tough’s back. The blow knocked him clean out of the saddle and landed him on his face on the rocky ground. Smoke dragged him off the trail and trussed him up beside his careless friend.

“Jackie!” he heard the shout. “Here’s Willie’s horse. And I ain’t seen hide nor hair of George since he shouted out. Ride back to the ranch for more men. We’ll keep Jensen pinned down ’til you get back.”

“Sure you will,” Smoke muttered. “But only if I get careless and you get real lucky.”

“Mister Fosburn says no bringin’ him back alive,” another voice drifted to Smoke. “He’s to be cold dead. Then we hit the kid and them old wore-out bassards with her.”

That’s all I need to know, Smoke thought, then hauled out the two .45 s he’d taken from George and let them bang. For a few seconds, the timber trembled with the sounds of rapid-fire pistols. Smoke heard one man holler, but didn’t know if it was from a hit or a close slug.

Smoke quickly changed positions and unslung his rifle, earing back the hammer. He waited.

There had been six, maybe seven men who had spotted him. George and Willie were out of it. One had ridden back for reinforcements. Three or four hired guns left. He waited.

His cover was not the best, but Smoke stayed put. His clothing was earth-colored, blending in well with the surroundings. He moved only his eyes, knowing that any movement attracts more attention than small noises. His rifle was in a position where he could fire it one-handed, like a pistol, if need be.

His captive came to and began thrashing about and hollering. The guns of Smoke’s pursuers roared and the thrashing ceased.

“You kilt George!” the voice screamed out from where Smoke had left the pair trussed up. “Oh, my Lord, you blowed half his head off.”