Blood of the Mountain Man (18 page)

Smoke was crouched in the alley between the general store and an empty building. He carefully chose his targets and seldom missed. Wolf Parcell and Bad Dog had chosen good cover and were making each round count.

Most of the hired guns had elected to stay out of this pitched battle. It had started out bad for their side and was getting worse. The singing and the drumming and tooting stayed constant from the far end of town.

The second block of Red Light was littered with the dead and the dying. The gunfire gradually died down, and then silence filled the street.

Cosgrove, Biggers, and Fosburn crawled to their hands and knees and peered out the shattered window of the mayor’s office. They stared in disbelief at the body-littered street. A few of the less severely wounded were attempting to crawl to the boardwalk. Doc White was in the street, along with some volunteers, picking up the wounded and carrying them off.

Smoke had reloaded and was walking down the center of the street. He stopped in front of the mayor’s office. “Cosgrove! Biggers! Fosburn! Let’s settle it now. The three of you against me alone. In the street. Come on, you yellow-bellied mice. You’re eager to fight a seventeen-year-old girl. Try me. Here’s your chance.”

“Kill that son-of-a-bitch!” Cosgrove screamed from the office. “That’s what you men are getting paid for.”

Smoke jumped to one side and rolled into an alley as the street once more erupted in lead and gunsmoke.

Jenny took aim at the office and pulled the trigger, her slug sending wood splinters into Cosgrove’s face. He hollered in pain and hit the floor, Biggers and Fosburn right behind him.

“Here come my boys!” Biggers yelled, as pounding hooves began echoing along the narrow street.

Fosburn peeked over the bullet-shattered window sill. “And my crew, too!” he hollered. “By God, it’ll soon be over for Jensen now.”

I’ll believe it when I see it, Cosgrove thought. But he stayed on the floor. That damn girl over there in the general store was too good a shot.

Biggers had his hat blown off his head and he quickly joined Cosgrove on the glass-littered floor. Fosburn yelped in fright as one of his men was blown out of the saddle by a blast from a shotgun and the bloody body was flung onto the boardwalk. It rolled up to the bullet-shattered door, which was hanging by one hinge, and into the office. The blast had very nearly torn the man in two.

Across the street, Moses reloaded his Greener and let it bang. One of Biggers’ men was tossed out of the saddle as if hit with a giant fist.

“Somebody kill that goddamn nigger!” Lonesome Ted Lightfoot yelled. He stood on the stoop of a dress shop.

Moses turned and pulled the trigger just as Lonesome hit the boards. The charge went over his head and blew a hole the size of a water bucket in the wall. Lonesome jumped into the dress shop and ran into a fully gowned mannequin. Lonesome and the mannequin hit the floor, his spurs all tangled up in the gown. Miss Alice, owner of the shop, ran out of a back room just as Lonesome was getting to his feet. She hit him on the back of the head with a flatiron and Lonesome sighed and hit the floor. He was out of this fight.

Smoke and Bad Dog fired at the same time, the pistol slugs slamming a Triangle JB rider out of the saddle and to the ground. One of his own men rode a horse right over him.

Jenny screamed and Smoke dived through an open side window of the general store. Barrie was down, blood streaming from a cut on his head, and Jenny was grappling with Lucky Harry.

Lucky was grinning at her and holding both her hands in one of his, his other hand roaming over her body, touching her in places that made her face redden.

Lucky’s luck was rapidly leaving him.

Smoke closed the distance, jerked Lucky from the girl, and savagely broke the man’s right arm, popping it clean at the elbow. Lucky screamed from the pain and passed out. Smoke bodily picked him up and threw him through the one remaining store front window. The unconscious gunhand bounced off the boardwalk and fell into the path of a galloping horse.

Lucky’s luck had run out.

The band had stopped playing and the singers ceased their singing and everyone had sought better cover. The temperance parade was over for that day.

Barrie’s wound was not a serious one, and Smoke got him back on his feet while Jenny stopped the bleeding with a compress.

“Get in here!” Smoke called to Wolf and Bad Dog. “This thing is far from over.”

The men dashed for the cover of the solidly built store.

“They got us cold, Smoke,” Bad Dog said. “Must be fifty or sixty men still on their feet out there. They’re all around the place.”

The storekeeper and his wife had fled for the safety of another part of town.

“Are we trapped, Uncle Smoke?” Jenny asked. Smoke’s eyes had found several wooden crates stacked off to one side of the store. He smiled.

“They think we are,” he said.

“Out the back way, quickly!” Major said. “We can end this today if we seize the moment.”

The three men behind the drive to kill Jenny Jensen and lay claim to her ranch and the gold that was in the mountains gathered a few of their most trusted hired guns and laid out their plans.

Inside the general store, every available rifle, pistol, and shotgun in stock was loaded up full and placed close to hand. Clemmie Feathers had gathered up her Soiled Doves and barricaded them on the second floor of the Golden Plum. They were armed with the rifles and pistols Moses had picked up from the fallen gunhands. Moses and Clemmie remained on the first floor of the saloon, along with Jeff the bartender and a few citizens who had the nerve to come out against Cosgrove, Biggers, and Fosburn.

The Red Light, Montana, Temperance League had wisely decided to give up their plans for a parade that day. When the shooting stopped, they had left their rather precarious cover and taken refuge in the livery, just down the twisty street from all the action.

In the general store, the small band of defenders had erected barricades of barrels and sacks of feed and Smoke had told everyone to grab something to eat while they had time. He was sitting on the sack of feed, calmly eating from a can of peaches.

Wolf Parcell shifted his wad of chewing tobacco and said, “This reminds me of the time me and Frenchy Ladue and Lobo and Powder Pete and Preacher was trapped in a cabin with about two hundred angry Kiowas outside. It got right chancy there for a time, but we held ’em off to a standstill. We had plenty of powder and shot and vittles. But we did get on each other’s nerves there toward the end.”

“How long were you trapped in there?” Jenny asked.

“Five days, as I recall,” Wolf replied. “Them Kiowas finally just give up in disgust and rode off. We must have kilt a hundred of ’em.”

Smoke tossed his empty peach can into a garbage barrel and stood up. Barrie and Bad Dog were defending the rear of the store. Smoke, Jenny, and Wolf stood by at the front.

“I can’t believe they’ll try a charge,” Jenny said.

“They’ll try one,” Wolf said. “We ain’t dealin’ with the most intelligent folks in the world. Them’s hired guns out yonder. Too damn lazy to work and too stupid to realize that ridin’ the outlaw trail is harder work than near ’bouts anything else they might do. They’re cowards, most of ’em. Almost all bullies is. But what worries me is, ain’t none of us seen hide nor hair of that backshooter, Hankins. He could be out at the ranch right now, worryin’ the fool out of our people.”

“I have a hunch that’s exactly where he is,” Smoke said, earing back the hammer on his Winchester and pulling the stock to his shoulder. “But that house is a fort, and he can’t get much closer than five or six hundred yards. Besides, we’ll be out of this bind in a few hours and back at the ranch an hour later.” He sighted in and gently took up slack on the trigger. The Winchester barked and a man screamed a second after the slug shattered his ankle.

“You got a plan, Smoke?” Barrie carried, a bloody bandage around his head.

“Ten cases of dynamite over yonder in the corner,” Smoke replied. “Plenty of caps and fuses. The street is narrow, and that makes for an easy toss. We’ll liven up their day when the time is right and then make our break for it. One man with a rifle can hold off an army at the curve of the mountain road coming into town.” He smiled. “Then I’ll blow it closed and catch up with you before you reach the ranch.”

Bad Dog chuckled his approval. “It is a good plan. But no,” he contradicted. “I shall hold off the men and blow the pass. You need to be with Jenny and the wagons.”

“He’s right, Smoke,” Barrie called.

“Suits me.” Smoke listened for a moment. The street had grown very quiet.

“They’re gettin’ ready to make a charge,” Wolf said. “They’ll come all at once, front and back. Get set.”

Smoke looked at Jenny. The teenager had tossed her hat to one side and tied a bandanna around her forehead. Her face was sooty from the gunsmoke, but her hands were steady holding the short-barreled carbine. A bandolier of cartridges was slung across her chest and she had belted a second gun-belt around her slender waist.

Wolf caught Smoke’s eyes and grinned and nodded his shaggy head. Then he spat a stream of brown juice, stopping a scurrying roach cold on the floor, pulled his rifle to his shoulder, and said, “Here they come.”

The men charged with a roar, and with a roar ten times as deadly, those inside the store fired, working the levers on their Winchesters as fast as they could. Smoke dropped his empty rifle and filled his hands with deadly .44s. Twelve rounds sounded as one long booming. When the shooting stopped, a dozen men lay dead, dying, or badly wounded in the street.

Reloading, Jenny asked, “Uncle Smoke? What will happen to Moses and Miss Clemmie and the girls once we leave?”

“Nothin’, child,” Wolf said. “All they’ve- done so far is protect their interests. Right now, if news of them out yonder attackin’ you was to reach the outside, they’d be five hundred Montana cowboys in here ’fore the week was over, all with knotted hang-ropes in their hands, lookin’ for Biggers and Cosgrove and Fosburn. And not even the U.S. Army could stop ’em from stringin’ them men up. Western justice is harsh at times and unfair at times. But out here, you lay anything but a gentle hand and a kind word on a woman, you’re most likely dead.” “But they’re Soiled Doves,” Jenny said.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Smoke said. “You own the establishment, so that makes it a war against you. They’ll be all right.”

“Let us drag our wounded in to tend to them!” the shout came from across the street.

“Go ahead,” Smoke called out. “And while you’re at it, check the buildings close by and make sure no women or kids are in danger, and then clear the street of any stray horses.”

Several hired guns exchanged glances at that and silently came to the conclusion that that was a fair man over there in the general store. They holstered their guns and slipped away, heading for the livery. They wanted no more of this.

The others watched them go and thought them fools. But they kept their opinions to themselves.

While the street was being cleared of the wounded, Smoke and Wolf took that time to charge the sticks of dynamite.

“This is gonna come as a right nasty surprise to them ol’ boys acrost the street,” the old mountain man proclaimed, a wicked glint in his eyes.

“That’s what I’m counting on. How about the wagons and the supplies?”

“We got nearly all of it loaded,” Barrie called. “The horses are still hitched up and all right. They’re in the alley to my left.”

“You mean we’re actually going to take the wagons?” Bad Dog asked.

“Damn right,” Smoke told him. “We came into town for supplies, didn’t we?”

Wolf laughed in anticipation. “When we start tossing this giant powder, they’ll be so much dust and confusion and crashin’ of ruined buildin’s and hollerin’ and moanin’ and groanin’ it’ll take those varmits over yonder ten minutes to figure out what the hell happened. By that time, we’ll be clear of the pass and home free.”

“Bad Dog, you and me to the second floor with the dynamite. We can get a better angle from up there. Jenny, to the back.”

Bad Dog grabbed up a case of capped and fused dynamite and was gone up the stairs. Smoke turned to Wolf. “When I tap on the floor three times, you get the hell gone from the front of the store, Wolf. Just as soon as the dynamite blows, open up with rifle fire and get to the wagons. We’ll blow the rear on our way out.”

Wolf nodded and grinned.

Upstairs, Smoke went to work passing out the tied-together dynamite. Three sticks to a bundle.

“The street’s all clear, Jensen,” a man shouted. “No women or kids or animals close by.”

Smoke did not reply, not wanting to give away his new position overlooking the street. He tapped three times on the floor as he and Bad Dog were lighting the first bundles of dynamite.

“Clear,” Wolf called.

Smoke and Bad Dog hurled the sputtering lethal charges. Just seconds before the center part of town started blowing up, someone yelled, “Jesus God! That’s dynamite!”

In the rear of the store, four rifles started barking.

Then the mayor’s office, a keno joint, one empty building, and Major Cosgrove’s office erupted in a million pieces of mud, dust and dirt, splinters, bits of paper, busted spittoons, broken coffee pots, pieces of glass, the ragged remnants of four or five pairs of dirty long handles, shredded boots and shoes, and no small amount of various body parts.

Lester Laymon jumped up in the livery and flung out his hands. “It’s the mighty hand of God!” he cried. “Bringing retribution to this earthly Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Violet jabbed him in the butt with a pitchfork and Lester shrieked and jumped. “Sit down, you fool!” she admonished him. “That’s Smoke Jensen blowing the crap out of the place with dynamite.” One entire wall had collapsed on Biggers and Cosgrove and Fosburn. They weren’t badly hurt, just scared to the point of peeing in their underwear.

The dust was so thick it was like a foggy night on the Barbary Coast. The dust was swirling around like whirlwinds. Smoke and Bad Dog each hurled another bundle of explosives, then got gone from the second floor of the general store, each carrying a bundle of dynamite to give to those hired guns out back.