Blood of the Mountain Man (21 page)

“Second door to your left,” Shady said. “But they’re waitin’ on you, Barrie.”

Barrie smiled his bloody smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The town-tamer staggered to the door, kicked it in, and walked in shooting.

Smoke halted the wagon about a mile from town. Van Horn and three of Cosgrove’s men were heading his way, leading Barrie’s horse. Barrie, wrapped in a blanket, was tied across the saddle.

“These ol’ boys here,” Van Horn explained, “decided they didn’t like the idea of makin’ war against a young girl. Before he died, Barrie vouched for them. He said they might need a bath, but they was good boys.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Smoke said, swinging down from the saddle. “Welcome to the spread, boys. I can guarantee you the finest food you ever ate.”

“Miss Jenny and your Missus really make tubfuls of doughnuts?” Slim asked.

“Every day.”

“Lord! I’ve found a home.”

The men placed the bloodsoaked blanket containing Barrie into the hay-filled wagonbed. Cooper, holding the reins, looked back at the body. “I liked that man,” he said.

“We all did, boy,” Kit said. “Hadn’t a been for him, I’d a been ridin’ the outlaw trail. All three of us would. I ain’t say in’ we’re angels. But I ain’t robbed nobody or done harm to a woman. And I ain’t gonna start now.”

“You should have seen him work, Smoke,” Van Horn said. “He either outright killed or got mortal lead in twenty-six men this morning.”

“Twenty-six!” Smoke said, clearly startled.

“That about passes your record, don’t it, Smoke?” Slim asked.

“Certainly does.”

“And them figures is right on the mark,” Shady vouched for the number. “Barrie had nine slugs in him ’fore he finally give up the ghost. But he went out with a smile on his lips, knowin’ he done a good thing. Cosgrove and Fosburn was in shock, I think. The undertaker was so happy he was rubbin’ his hands and smilin’ to beat the band. Finally, ol’ Fat Fosburn, he got to makin’ threats about this and that and Shady, he went up to him and punched him in the mouth. Knocked him down in a big mud puddle. Cosgrove, he run off back to his office. There really ain’t much to them men. Biggers neither, I’m thinkin’.”

“Barrie went out gentle, talkin’ about Jenny,” Van Horn said. “I really think he started out likin’ the girl and in a short time grew to love her like she was his own. Jenny’s gonna take this hard.”

“She knows why he left,” Smoke said. “I told her, and Sally’s with her now. They’re all up on the east slope. Kit, would you boys mind staying at the ranch and looking after things while we have the funeral?”

“We’d be honored to, Smoke. And the ranch and everything on the place will be just like you left it. Or the three of us will be dead in the yard,” he added grimly.

The burial procession left Slim, Kit, and Shady at the ranch, each man with a basket filled with doughnuts and a rifle by his side.

“I’d be plumb filled with ire if someone was to disturb me while I’m eatin’ these,” Slim said. “I might get so put out I’d have to kill somebody.”

“If you do,” Van Horn said, “I hope it’s Hankins.”

Slim shuddered. “I don’t like that feller. He gives me the creeps. I can’t abide a sneak, and that’s what he is. I believe in meetin’ a man eye-to-eye.”

Wolf drove the wagon as far as it could go, and then Barrie was carried up the ridge overlooking the bubbling little spring. They’d dressed him up in clean clothes and wrapped his boots and spurs and guns in the blanket with him.

Pasco and Ladd had dug a deep hole and gathered rocks to shelter the mound once Barrie was covered.

Van Horn spoke a few words, Smoke read from the Bible, and then Jenny sang “O Valiant Hearts” and Sally sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” There was a lot of nose-blowing and eye-wiping. Even Ol’ Wolf Parcell kept wiping his eyes and complaining about the “damn dust a-blowin’ ever’ which a-way.”

If Hankins was around, he had missed the funeral procession from the ranch and no long-range shots were fired. Which was wise on Hankins’ part. Considering the mood of this gathering, had he tried a shot, the men would have tracked him into town and hanged him . . . along with Cosgrove, Fosburn, Biggers, and anybody else who might have gotten in their way.

The last words of the farewell prayer, offered by Sally, were just echoing away as the sun went down. Far in the distance, a big timber wolf howled.

“Look in on him from time to time, my brother Wolf,” Bad Dog said, lifting his head, his eyes searching the horizon. “He would like that.”

“Amen,” Wolf Parcell said, and the service was over in the last fading light of the day.

Cosgrove, Biggers, and Fosburn were clearly in a state of shock over the killing or wounding of twenty-six newly hired gunhands and the defection of three top guns.

“One man,” Biggers said, looking down into his coffee cup. “One sick and dying man breezes into town and we bury twenty-one men.”

“And four out of the five who survived are not going to make it,” Fosburn added.

Cosgrove was silent. He sat by the window of his office and stared out at the town that had once been his. Now he wielded no power. None. Once he could have snapped his fingers and the townspeople would have jumped. Now they just looked at him through eyes that held nothing but contempt. Mule Jackson had left Doc Blaine’s small clinic and boarded the stage for God knows where. The man had picked up his wages and left. Still in pain and still badly shaken by the horrible beating laid on him by Smoke Jensen, Mule was only a shell of his former self.

Mule Jackson would drop out of sight, not to be heard from for a long, long time.

The town was still filled to overflowing with hired guns, but even they walked light around the citizens and caused no problems. Not after one had lipped off to a citizen and tried to bully a young boy. The boy’s father, upon hearing the news, went home, got his shotgun, and shot the thug dead in the street. Club Bowers made no arrest. He had told Cosgrove, “Keep your pet hyenas on a short leash, Major. I can’t be responsible for what these citizens might take it in their minds to do.”

Cosgrove sat and listened with only half a mind to the talk around him. He knew what he ought to do: tend to his mining operations, fire all the gunhands, and live quietly and luxuriously with his considerable wealth.

He should do that, but he knew he wouldn’t.

Major Cosgrove had never been beaten, in business or in a fistfight. Now, since Smoke Jensen had arrived, he’d been publicly humiliated, stomped on, and thwarted at every turn, and he’d had the entire town turn against him. Nearly all of his really good gunhands had left him. Hankins had not been able to get a clear shot at Smoke Jensen. Cosgrove could not understand that, could not understand that Hankins, while he hated Jensen, was deathly afraid of the man. With Smoke Jensen, you only get one shot. Miss or wound the man, and Jensen would spend the rest of his life tracking you down and ultimately killing you.

One simply did not play deadly games with Smoke Jensen. Not ever.

Even Lawyer Dunham was keeping a very low profile, and gradually distancing himself from the Big Three.

“What are we goin’ to do, Major?” Jack Biggers asked, breaking into Cosgrove’s dark thoughts.

“Counting all hands, how many men can we muster?”

“Right at fifty,” the rancher replied. “But if you’re thinkin’ ’bout attacking Jenny’s ranch, forget it. That place is a fort. Since Smoke sold off most of the cattle, ’ceptin’ for some of the finest bulls and heifers I ever seen, the hands ain’t done nothin’ ’cept work around the complex. Smoke sent a hand down south and brought a damn wagontrain of supplies back. They got enough supplies out there to last a damn year. You can’t get within a mile of the ranch —day or night — without being spotted. They started out by clearing two or three hundred yards. Now it’s up to about three-quarters of a mile. Jenny’s got ten first-rate men out there, not countin’ Smoke and Sally. And you better not discount Sally Jensen.”

“Tell me about it,” Major muttered. The buckshot that Barrie had fired at the man had done little damage, but a few pellets —and rusty nails and so forth —had scarred his face, and Major Cosgrove was a vain man when it came to his personal appearance. All the more reason for hating the Jensens.

Cosgrove stood up from his windowseat and paced the office. He could no longer count on Sheriff Bowers or any of his men. Club was a changed man and the citizens were warming to him. He had pared down his deputies by firing Reed and Junior. If a general election were held this day, Bowers would be reelected by a landslide.

Everything, everything he had worked for was vanishing all around him. Most of his power was gone, and with it the prestige he had basked in.

Goddamn Smoke Jensen!

“Movement on the west side of the range,” Slim said, handing Smoke the field glasses he’d been using up in the barn loft. “I think it’s Hankins, and I think he’s camped up there somewhere.”

“Tonight I’ll take the game to Hankins,” Smoke said. “We’ve got to get rid of him. Once that’s done, we can all breathe a little easier.”

“You got a plan?”

“Yes,” Smoke said, standing up. “Kill him.”

Peter Hankins thought he had it all figured out. He had picked and then rejected two dozen different locations from which to shoot. Then he spotted one that was so obvious he had missed it from the outset. It was going to be a long shot, but he felt he could do it. He’d made shots from that distance before, but only during his many long hours of practice. He figured the distance at just under three-quarters of a mile. He could do it, he knew he could. And when he killed the legendary Smoke Jensen, from that moment on, Peter Hankins could name his own price, and men of a certain ilk would pay it.

Come night, he would work his way into position and wait.

Smoke dressed in dark clothing and slipped his feet into moccasins. He blackened his face with soot and tied a black bandanna around his forehead. He took a knife and his rifle only. He knew that this work would either be very close in, or long distance. There would be no in-between.

He did not underestimate the abilities of Peter Hankins. The man was a hunter and one of the best.

Smoke had napped through the hours of the afternoon, getting ready for the long night hours that lay ahead of him. Then he ate a good supper and slipped some jerky into his pocket. Jerky was swiftly going out of vogue in the early eighties but not with Smoke. He did not take a canteen. The area was dotted with springs, and he knew where they were.

He also thought he knew where Hankins had settled in for the night, patiently waiting for his morning shot.

Conversation at the supper table was sparse, with the men only picking at their food. None of them liked the idea of Smoke going out after Hankins alone.

“It oughta be me goin’ out yonder after Hankins,” Wolf Parcell grumbled. “I spent more years in the wilderness than you been alive, boy.”

“You boys look after Jenny,” Smoke had told them. He patted Sally’s hand and slipped out into the darkness. He would rub his skin and his clothing with various types of grass and then dirt on top of that to mask the human smell.

Bad Dog chuckled as the door closed.

“What’s so funny, amigo?” Pasco asked.

“Biggers, Cosgrove, and Fosburn have about fifty men on their combined payrolls at this time, right?”

“ ’Bout that. Why?” Kit asked.

“They will have somewhat less than that by this time tomorrow, I am thinking. That was not Smoke’s regular Bowie he was carrying for this night’s work.”

“What was it, then?” Slim asked.

Bad Dog met Sally’s amused eyes. Mrs. Jensen said, “A Cheyenne scalping knife.”

It took Smoke the better part of three hours to cover just over a mile. Twice coyotes trotted past him, unaware of his presence. Once a skunk came close to him and Smoke said a very sincere and silent prayer for the little animal to pad right on along and leave him alone.

Then the wind shifted and Smoke caught the unmistakable smell of hair oil. Oh, vanity, he thought. It’s going to get you killed, Hankins.

Ever so gently and soundlessly, Smoke eased around until he was pointing toward the smell of barbershop hair oil. With the wind blowing toward him, and the breeze freshening, there was no chance Hankins could smell him, and little chance of him hearing his approach.

Hankins stiffened at a slight unnatural noise and looked all around him, only the top of his head and his eyes poking out of the slight depression. He could see nothing out of the ordinary and he did not hear the noise again.

Hankins settled back into the natural hole, his rifle across his knees, and relaxed himself. It was silly of him to think that any cowboy was going to be able to slip unseen across a mile of burned-over ground without enough cover to hide a quail. He had seen those coyotes, hadn’t he? And a man was a whole lot larger than a coyote.

Hankins longed for a hot cup of coffee and a warm bed. But he warmed himself internally by thinking of seeing Smoke Jensen fall dead with a bullet in his chest or back. Chest would be better, Hankins concluded. What a shot this would be. He would be talked about over campfires for the rest of his life.

If Hankins had any idea how short the rest of his life was, he would have been praying instead of mentally building monuments to himself.

Hankins almost peed in his underwear when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He tried to twist around, jerk up his rifle, and jump up at the same time. All he succeeded in doing was falling down in the hole and losing the grip on his rifle. He came up with a pistol in his hand and felt a powerful hand clamp around his wrist and jerk.

Hankins went flying to land against the side of the earth depression, the wind knocked out of him.

The last thing he remembered seeing through his panic-filled eyes was the dark, menacing shape of Smoke Jensen, a knife in his hand.

Sheriff Club Bowers thought he heard a horse walking slowly up the street of the town. With halfclosed eyes, he could see the wall clock. Two o’clock in the morning. Must have been his imagination. He rolled over, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, and went back to sleep.