Blood of the Mountain Man (9 page)

“We’re bein’ watched,” Van Horn said, as the men leaned against the corral railing and smoked.

“Yes. I know. I plan on doing a little hunting tonight. Pull all the boys in and keep them close until ‘ — I get back.”

‘You goin’ alone?”

“All by myself.”

Just as it was getting dark, Smoke stepped out of the rear of the house after kissing Sally goodnight. He was dressed all in black, with moccasins on his feet and a dark bandanna tied around his head. He carried a length of rope wound across his chest, and precut lengths of rawhide tucked behind his belt.

He carried no rifle, just his six-guns and a knife.

“Don’t wait up for me, Sally,” he spoke from the darkness of the backyard.

“I won’t. But I’ll leave coffee on the stove for you.”

“And a piece of pie, too.”

“Maybe. You’re getting a little chubby around the middle.”

Smoke chuckled. There wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on him, but that was a standing joke between them. Smoke disappeared into the gloom of early night.

“Don’t you worry about him, Aunt Sally?” Jenny questioned.

“No. I’ll worry about him if he starts visiting that whorehouse in town.”

The teenager giggled. She knew there was no danger of her Uncle Smoke ever doing that. Sally and Smoke were in love, and it was evident to anyone with eyes.

“Times are slowly changing out here, Jenny,” Sally told the girl, as she cut slices of pie and placed them on the table for any hands who might want a late snack, and they all would. Then she covered a platter of doughnuts with a cloth. She placed both on a counter by the back door so the cowboys could find them without waking the whole house. “But for now, in many areas, the lawless rule. Men like Smoke are the only thing that stands between those who would obey the law, and those who would make a mockery of it and stamp on the rights of the just and the decent.”

“It’s changing back east.”

“That is one of the reasons why I left. It isn’t changing for the better. People will tell you it is, but it isn’t. Instead of the lawless being put in an early grave, many courts are now handing down very light sentences and the criminal element is back on the street within a year or two. And most of them are just as savage, or more so, than when they went behind bars. Prisons without adequate rehabilitation facilities are no more than a college for the lawless. And it will worsen, Jenny. Even my own family, who, even though they are bankers and monied people, are champions of the downtrodden, agree with that. I shudder to think what it will be like for our great-grandchildren.”

“What is Uncle Smoke going to do out there tonight, Aunt Sally?”

Sally smiled and put up the dish that Jenny had just dried and handed to her. “I suspect he’s going to make life miserable for those working against you, Jenny.”

“Kill them?”

Sally shook her head. “Not unless they get hostile with him. Those men in town approached him— us —with drawn guns in their hands. Their intentions were perfectly clear. Tonight is different.” Again, she smiled. “To Smoke, it will be fun. To those spying on us here at the ranch, it will not be fun.”

The gun-for-hire, who had hired on with Jack Biggers’ Triangle JB, felt himself suddenly jerked from the saddle and thrown hard to the ground. He landed on his belly and the air whooshed from him, rendering him, for a moment, unable to move. A gag was tied around his mouth and his hands were tightly bound behind him by what he assumed, correctly, was rawhide. Then someone possessing enormous strength picked him up and toted him off like a sack of grain. A few hundred yards later, he was dumped to the ground, on his butt, his back to a tree.

“Shake your head for no, nod your head for yes,” the big man said softly. “Do you understand?”

The gunhand nodded quickly.

“In a moment I’ll remove the gag and you can whisper. Do you know what I’ll do if you yell?”

The gunhand again nodded. He didn’t know for sure, but he had a pretty good idea.

Smoke asked him a few more simple questions and then removed the gag. The hand spat a time or two and then looked at the bulk of the man squatting before him in the darkness. No doubt in his mind who this was. Jesus, the guy was big.

“How much is Biggers paying you?”

“Seventy-five dollars a month,” the hand whispered.

“That’s a lot of money to wage war against a seventeen-year-old girl.”

“Seventeen?”

“Yes. My niece, Jenny. She’s seventeen. You must be real brave to want to kill a young girl.”

“I don’t want to kill any kid!” the hand protested. “Nobody said nothin’ to me about no kid.”

“Who did you think you were fighting?”

“You. If you’re Smoke Jensen.”

“I am. But why are you fighting me? What have I done to you?”

The question seemed to confuse the hand. “Well . . . I guess nothin’. Except you’re squattin’ on land that belongs to Jack Biggers.”

“He told you that?”

‘Yeah.”

“Now let me tell you the truth. My sister died. She owned this spread, all legal and proper. She left it all to her daughter, Jenny. I’m here to see that Jenny keeps it. That’s the top, bottom, and middle of it all. You ever heard of a man named Wolf Par-cell?”

“Who hasn’t? Mean old bastard. He’d as soon shoot a man as look at him.”

“That’s him. He works for me. You ever heard of a man named Barrie? B-A-R-R-I-E.”

“Hell, yes. Town-tamer from down in the southwest.”

“He works for me, too. There’s an old gunfighter called Van Horn. Ever heard of him?”

“He’s near abouts as famous as you.”

“Well, he’s foreman of my niece’s spread. How about a breed called Bad Dog?”

“Sure. Don’t tell me he’s workin’ for you, too?” “Yes, he is. Now, you’re not a real gunslick. You’re a cowboy drawing fighting wages. Have I got you pegged right?”

“You have. I ain’t no fast gun. I just ride for the brand.”

“How many more like you over on the JB?” “Maybe . . . four or five. The rest of them comin’ in are hired guns, some of them out-and-out killers. Back-shooters. They damn sure ain’t cowboys.” 

“Name them.”

“Patmos. Val Davis. Dusty Higgens. Bearden. Whisperin’ Langley. Ned Harden. Kit Silver. I damn shore ain’t in their class. I damn shore don’t
wanna
be.”

“You know a man name of Will Pennington, down in Wyoming?”

“Heard of him. Runs the Box WP.”

“That’s him. He’s hiring men. You and your buddies pull out and ride down there. Tell him I recommended you. Do that, or stay here and die.

What’s it going to be?”

“I’m gone first light. But I ain’t alone out here this night, Mister Smoke. There’s others that I don’t know their names. Just Jack and Paul and Red and Blackie and so forth. But they ain’t punchers, I can tell you that.”

“Known guns?”

“They think they are.”

Smoke untied the man and helped him to his feet. He gave him back his gun. The cowboy looked at it, then grinned and slipped it into his holster. “I never was worth a damn with it noways. As soon as the main house goes dark, me and the others will be gone to Wyoming, Smoke. Much obliged.”

“Take off and good trip.”

“They’re waitin’ on you, Smoke.”

“Good. I sure wouldn’t want to disappoint them.” Smoke waited for a full sixty count after the hand had gone. Then he began following the wide creek toward the south end of the spread. He felt sure the hand would leave as he said he would. Smoke wanted no innocent to be caught up in this battle, and a battle it was about to become. He also had him a hunch that when the cowboy he’d talked to laid it on the line to his friends, they would all soon be gone. Since it was near the first of the month, they had been paid, so there was nothing to keep them around.

He saw his second rider of the evening over on the other side of the wide creek. In some parts of the country, it would be called a river. Smoke picked up a rock and gave it a chunk, the stone hitting the horse on the rump and frightening it. The horse reared up suddenly and started bucking. The rider fought to stay in the saddle. While he was bucked and jumping and snorting, Smoke crossed the creek and knelt about thirty feet from the horse and rider. Then Smoke coughed like a puma and the horse had had quite enough of that area. He put his rider on the ground and took off.

“You hammer-headed no-’count!” the rider now on foot yelled. “I’ll take a club and a chain and beat you bloody when I catch up with you.”

That made things easier for Smoke. He had no use for a man who would abuse any animal.

Smoke slipped up behind the man and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man spun around, a hand dropping to the butt of his gun. Smoke smacked him in the mouth with a gloved fist and the man dropped like a rock, stunned but not out. Smoke reached down, hauled him up by the front of his shirt, and popped him again, this time on the side of the jaw. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he was out.

Smoke stripped him down to the buff and tossed his clothes and boots into the creek and left him lying on the dewy grass. The man’s drawers needed a good washing anyway.

He heard another rider before he could spot him. “Dewey?” the rider called in a hoarse whisper. “I got your horse, man. What’s the trouble?”

Smoke waited.

“It’s Frankie, Dewey. Answer me, boy.”

Smoke suddenly screamed like a panther, and Frankie’s horse went crazy. Frankie left the saddle and landed on his back in the grass. Smoke could almost hear the air leaving his lungs at the impact. Smoke was all over the man before he could even think of recovering. One savage blow to the jaw put Frankie in dreamland for a while. Then Smoke gave him the same treatment he gave Dewey, slinging the man’s gunbelt over one shoulder. He caught up Frankie’s horse and talked to the animal for a moment, calming it. He looped the gunbelts over the saddle horn and rode south, toward the Triangle JB. He hadn’t gone half a mile before he was hailed.

“Frankie! Over here. It’s Teddy. Let’s have a smoke.” He was going to have a Smoke, all right— but not the kind he was hoping for. “Have you seen Dewey?”

Smoke rode right up to him and hit him with the coiled-up rope he’d brought. Fifty feet of stiff rope is a formidable weapon, and the rider was knocked out of the saddle to the ground, his mouth and face bleeding. Smoke stepped down and popped him. Teddy sighed and went to sleep.

When Teddy woke up, he was buck-assed naked and a good eight miles from the ranch.

Jack Biggers was mad to the core and his face beet red as he stood in front of Club Bowers’ desk. “Now, damn it, Club. I ain’t gonna take no more of this. Three of my top guns come staggering up in the middle of the night, nekked as the day they was borned, feet all bleedin’ and cut, and you’re sittin’ there tellin’ me you ain’t gonna arrest Smoke Jensen?”

“Settle down, Jack,” Club told him. “If we pull a district judge in here, he’s gonna want to know how come your men, on a night with no moon, so black it was like a mine pit, could identify Smoke Jensen. Now, Jack, times are changin’. He’ll turn Jensen loose — providin’ I ever get him to jail in the first place —and put your hands in jail for perjury. Times ain’t like they used to be. Them days are over.”

“Now what?” the voice came from the front door.

Biggers turned around to face Major Cosgrove. The man was approximately the same size as Jensen, but carrying just a bit of fat around the jowls and belly. He was in his mid-forties. Behind him stood his mine foreman, Mule Jackson. A huge bear of a man, with arms and hands and shoulders even more heavily muscled than Smoke Jensen, and a cruel face.

Jack, slightly embarrassed, told Cosgrove what had happened.

Major (that was his real name, not a military title) shook his head in disgust and said, “Forget about bringing charges. Any judge, even a bought one, would have to throw it out. Were the men on Jenny’s property?”

“Well, yeah. Just like we agreed to do.”

“That land is posted. Forget it.” Major sat down. “Coffee, Mule.”

Mule lumbered across the floor and poured his boss a cup, carefully sugared it, and set the cup on the desk.

Major sipped the hot brew cautiously and said, “We have to proceed very carefully on this, gentlemen. Jensen is a rich man in his own right. Very few people know that he has a freak vein of gold on his ranch, the Sugarloaf. But it’s a deep vein. He could tap into that anytime he wished and hire an army. His wife, Sally, has more money than the King and Queen of England. Her family is the richest in all of New England.”

“So what do we do?” Biggers demanded. “Give up?”

Major shook his head. “No. We just wait. Only we four and Fat know those mountains on the west side of Jenny’s spread, which she owns —or rather, Smoke does, until she comes of age —contain the richest ore deposits of this strike. No, we do what we should have done from the outset. We act like civilized men and buy her spread. Not for the paltry sum we originally offered, but for what it’s worth plus the cattle on it. Whatever amount we offer, there is a hundred, a thousand times that in gold in those mountains. That much money will set the girl up back East and we’ll be rid of her. Sally Jensen is a businesswoman, very sharp, very astute. She will see the sense in our offer. Bet on it.”

* * *

“Riders comin,’ Mister Smoke!” Jimmy yelled from the yard. “Three riders and a buggy. It’s Major Cosgrove in the buggy.”

Smoke stepped outside, buckling his gunbelt around his waist. Sally stood by a window, her short-barreled carbine at the ready.

Major stepped down from the buggy and knocked the dust from his dark business suit. He smiled at Smoke. “Sir, I am Major Cosgrove, owner of the Cosgrove Mine Company. Might I talk some business with you?”

Smoke looked at the huge man on the huge mule. Mule Jackson and Smoke Jensen took an immediate dislike to each other.

Smoke knew the type well. A bully, a head-knocker, a man who liked to hurt people. A man who was stupid and didn’t know it.

“Certainly, Mister Cosgrove,” Smoke told him. “Come on in the house. We have fresh coffee.”

Seated in the living room, Cosgrove sipped his coffee and complimented Jenny and Sally on its flavor. The women smiled and said nothing.