Ordeal of the Mountain Man (11 page)

“That's good news. Now, what's the bad news?”

Smoke sobered at once. “You won't be up to fighting form for at least three more days.”

Jerry looked jolted. “Then you were right all along. I'm being a burden on all of you. I should have gone with Luke. A gimped-up man ain't no good in a fight.”

Smoke sighed explosively. “If I had thought you were seriously wounded, outside of the infection, I would have made you go. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and heal so you can carry your load in a fight.” The last of that he said with a gruffness from the affection he held for this courageous young ranch hand.

 

 

That night, the small party settled into what would be the first of many cold camps. The generous portion of leftover antelope ribs, served out by Pop Walker, along with the remaining corn bread, biscuits and a pot of cold beans, left everyone with full bellies. While they ate, Tommy hunkered right up close beside him, and Smoke became aware of something that for the moment perplexed him.

Throughout the afternoon, Tommy had ridden resolutely at Smoke's side. In camp, the boy had stuck close to him; wherever he went, Tommy came along. No matter what chore he was given, Tommy went about it cheerfully and with an eagerness that belied the usual surly mood of teenaged children. While he conducted his labors, the lad constantly cut his eyes to Smoke to see if his efforts were being noticed. When his gaze locked with Smoke's, Tommy flushed furiously and looked away, suddenly burdened with ten thumbs. So frequently separated from his own brood, it took Smoke some time to figure it out.

No doubt about it, he allowed in late evening when the boy trudged along beside Smoke for a final check of the horses on the picket line. Tommy had transferred his need for a father figure to Smoke.
Damn!
Smoke thought. That was going to get the boy's feelings bad hurt before this was over. Somehow, that didn't seem right. For his part, rather than do the popularly accepted thing of spurning the youngster's devotion, Smoke responded by roughly teasing the boy. To Smoke's surprise, it seemed to strengthen the bond the lad sought to forge between them.

“Hey, Tommy, are you sure that water wasn't too cold this morning?”

A puzzled frown formed on Tommy's forehead. The water had felt wonderful. “Why's that, Smoke?”

“Your voice is a full octave higher than before.”

Blushing, Tommy made feeble protest. “Awh, it is not. It's jist ... sometimes it breaks, goes back to bein' a little kid again.”

Smoke reached out and ruffled the youngster's tousled auburn hair. “Growing up is hell, ain't it?”

“Yessir, it purely is,” Tommy agreed from the depths of his adolescent misery.

 

 

Early the next morning, Smoke's party lost the trail of the herd on a wide stretch of hard shale outcroppings. The wagons pressed on while Smoke and Utah Jack fanned out to search. Shortly before noon, Utah Jack cut their sign. He swung back to the wagons and fired three shots to alert Smoke. When the last mountain man arrived, Grubbs gave him the good news.

“I found them. They're headed for Powder River Pass up yonder in the Bighorns. The tracks look a whole lot fresher. They must be havin' trouble with the remounts.”

Smoke considered that a moment. “That means they are straying away from our intended route. If that's the case, they have a place close by to hold the horses until a buyer can be found. That makes our job easy.

Utah Jack challenged this at once. “How do you figger that? There ain't but three of us fit to do any fightin'.”

“Jerry can hold his own in that wagon. And as I said before, Tommy's a fine shot.” Smoke looked up to find the boy at his side, eagerly soaking up every word.

“Yeah, but are you gonna take a little boy of fourteen into a fight with more'n twenty hard cases?”

He hadn't been any older when Preacher got him into a shoot-out with some angry Pawnee. Smoke almost spoke his thoughts aloud, though he refrained because he did not want to give Tommy any encouragement. Instead, he flavored his response with a frown. “I'm not going to get Tommy into any fight if I can avoid it.”

“Awh, Smoke,” Tommy protested. “You jist said I was a good shot. The sooner we get your horses back, the sooner you can get us on to Buffalo.”

Momentarily stymied, Smoke pushed back the brim of his Stetson. “The kid's got a point, you have to admit.'

 

 

Prine Gephart leaned over and tapped Garth Evans on one shoulder. With a grunt, Garth ended his mid-afternoon snooze and shoved his hat up off his face. “Huh? What is it.”

“Lookie over there. That's them comin'. You can bet on it, believe me.”

Garth Evans rubbed sleep from his eyes and focused on the distant ridge. Two wagons labored down the facing slope. Three riders, one of them looking to be no more than a boy, formed a wedge in front of them. Dust boiled up from the wheels.

“Hummm. You might be right, Prine. If so, what do we do now?”

Gephart snapped testily. “What we was put here for. We're supposed to be lookouts, right? What we had best do is that you light a shuck outta here and catch up to the gang. I'll keep ahead of them and guide the boys in when they come. Now, best make tracks.”

Garth Evans started to swing into his saddle. Prine Gephart roused himself to sit upright. “No, dummy. Walk your horse at least a mile before you mount up. You want them hearing you?”

“Uh! Never thought of that.”

In minutes he had walked out of sight of the pile of carelessly strewn boulders. Prine Gephart went next, also walking his horse until well ahead of the slow-moving caravan. Then he took to the saddle and ambled along the wide path left by the horses. His confidence soared. He had counted heads. This little annoyance would be easy to get rid of.

 

 

Another cold camp. From a close examination of the hoof prints, Smoke determined that they had quickly closed the gap. The width of the trail indicated that the rustlers were indeed having trouble with the herd. Obviously not experienced wranglers, they let the horses spread out too far, making control difficult. Their nearness continued to gnaw on Smoke.

There would be no chance to retake the herd with so few able-bodied men. The best he could hope for would be to continue to keep watch and wait for reinforcements. After a supper of antelope ham and cold biscuits, Smoke felt it necessary to reassure Della. He took her aside.

“I don't want you worrying about Tommy, or yourself and the girls. I have no intention of going after those horses without a lot more gun-hands than I have. We'll trail along, keep out of sight and wait.”

“I'm so relieved.” Della waved a hand in a half-circle gesture that encompassed the terrain and their condition as well. “All of this. It's . . . it's so bizarre. Outlaws stealing horses, raiding our ranch and burning it. Now chasing after these evil men. It was not like that back east. Not at all. We were—always so safe.”

“Yes, but didn't you notice how much freedom you had to give up to be that safe?”

Della considered that as though a novel idea. “I never thought of that. A policeman on every corner. He knew everyone by face and name.”

“He also knew everything everyone knew, said, or thought, right?”

Again a frown of concentration. “Yes. You're right. Any miscreant was soon hauled off the streets and questioned until he confessed.”

Gently, Smoke probed farther. “Do you have any idea how those confessions were acquired?”

“N-no. Now that you mention it.”

“Usually with boots, fists, and night sticks. Not that lawmen out here have found that method unworkable. It's effective; yet to me, it seems to take something fundamental out of the one beaten and the one doing the beating.”

With an uneasy trill of laughter, Della dismissed the grim images. “That did not apply to our life. Sven had a good position at a large steel mill in Pennsylvania. He was an accountant, before becoming a pioneer.”

“Your children were born there?”

“Tommy and Sarah-Jane. Gertrude came along after we moved west. First, it was Kansas. That's where Sven learned how little he knew about farming. Especially dry farming like they have to do there.” She cheered slightly. “But he found he had a knack with livestock. Cattle in particular. We nearly lost the farm. Sven had a lucky streak when he found a buyer. We bought seed stock and started west. We ended up here in the territory.”

Smoke listened sympathetically to her narration for the better part of an hour. When Della got to a recounting of her husband's death, she broke down and began to sob softly, hands clamped to her mouth. Solicitously, Smoke comforted her while she cried on his shoulder. The moon had set by the time she retired to the wagon, and smoke rolled up in his blankets to sleep.

Shortly before dawn, five members of the Yurian gang ghosted into camp and fired shots in the direction of the sleeping forms on the ground. A second later, Smoke Jensen replied in kind, and all hell broke loose.

Sadly lacking in frontier skills, the Yurian gang had been heard crashing through the brush by Smoke Jensen several minutes before their attack. It had given Smoke time to prepare a nasty surprise. As the gang poured into camp, and fired at the dark forms rolled into blankets, they only served to pinpoint their locations. Answering shots came immediately, and from outside camp.

“Them ain't people,” blurted Ainsley Burk.

Colin Fike added to their confusion. “They were layin' for us outside camp.”

Thirty feet away from him, Jerry Harkness triggered a round from his six-gun. The man beside Colin Fike grunted and went down. Then a voice heavy with authority broke through the confusion.

Hub Volker barked his brief orders. “Forget them. Get that woman and the brats and let's get out of here.”

At once the outlaws concentrated their attention on the wagon on the far side of the camp. Jerry Harkness dropped another thug, then gave covering fire to Smoke Jensen, who darted at an oblique angle toward the Olsen wagon. Three outlaws fired at his movement. Their slugs cut the air behind Smoke. Hub Volker and Smiling Dave Winters reached the wagon first. Hairy Joe tripped over a saddle, robbed of his night vision by muzzle bloom, and stumbled up next.

He reached the vehicle in time to take a round full in his face from the Winchester in the hands of Tommy Olsen. Reflex and impact flipped Hairy Joe backward, to land with his head in the softly glowing coals of the fire pit. The long, greasy strands of his black hair ignited instantly and formed a ghastly halo. Already dead, the now Hairless Joe did not feel a thing.

Smiling Dave lashed out and yanked the rifle from the grasp of the boy, who stared in disbelief at the destruction he had wrought. Sarah-Jane and Gertrude began to scream as the men climbed into the wagon box. Della fought with clawed fingers; her sturdy nails raked deep furrows along the cheeks of Garth Evans, who recoiled in astonishment. At once, Della snatched up the Colt Lightning Smoke had given her son and squeezed the trigger.

A .44 slug burned a hot, painful trail through the left shoulder of an incredulous Garth Evans, who howled and fell out of the wagon. Della looked around desperately to locate help. She saw Smoke's path blocked by two hard cases. Both had revolvers in their hands and raised them toward the last mountain man as she cried a warning.

Smoke's six-gun came up before either outlaw could fire a shot. The nearer one jolted backward and bent double as a .45 caliber bullet shattered the tip of his sternum. Without delay, Smoke triggered another cartridge. A thin, wavering cry came from the second thug as, gut-shot, he went to his knees. He dropped his weapon and began to try to stuff a bulge of intestine back inside his belly.

Behind him, Smoke Jensen heard a brief cry of pain as Jerry Harkness took another wound, this time a through-and-through hole where his neck met his shoulder. Smoke took a step forward only to see an obscure blur directly before his eyes. In the split second before the rifle butt crashed into his forehead, Smoke saw the grinning face of Smiling Dave Winters looming over him. Lights exploded in his head, and darkness swept over Smoke Jensen.

 

 

Something cold touched the throbbing core of the pain in Smoke Jensen's head. Light flickered against his closed eyelids. His dazed senses registered wetness next. Cautiously he tried opening one eye.

Tall grass and a muzzy blue sky swam above Smoke. With a soft groan, he opened the other eye. The spinning slowed, then ceased. A startled grunt came, and Smoke vaguely realized that he had made it. Suddenly a blurry face appeared to fill the entire span of Smoke's vision.

“Man, am I glad you're back. I was afraid we'd lose you, Smoke.” Jerry Harkness, his shoulder crudely bandaged, hovered over Smoke Jensen for a moment, then raised back to where he came into focus.

Smoke opened his mouth to a taste like an overused outhouse. His words came out in a croak. “Jerry ... is—are the—the Olsens all right?”

Jerry's grim expression forewarned Smoke. “They're gone, Smoke. Those bastids took them, their wagon, everything. We're afoot, no chuck wagon nor a horse in sight.”

Smarting at his failure to protect the vulnerable family, and shamed by his weakness, Smoke extended a shaky hand for Jerry's help in rising. “What about Pop Walker and Utah Jack?”

Sadness touched Jerry's features. “Pop's over there. They killed him, Smoke. I don't know about Utah. I can't find him anywhere. They may have taken him and killed him somewhere else.”

Tentatively, Smoke touched his face. He found blood still crusted in his eyebrows and along his jaw line. “I've got to clean up. Then we'll bury Pop Walker and figure out what we do next. Is there any doubt that they were from the gang who rustled the horses?”

“None. But, Smoke, what can we do?”

“We can take stock and decide that later, Jerry.”

With the help of his top hand, Smoke Jensen washed the blood away in a dented metal basin. Then he touched the bandage Jerry had put on his split forehead. A wave of nausea rose in Smoke's throat. He fought it back.

“We have to get something to eat.”

“I'll dig a hole for Pop, Smoke. Are you up to a walk to the creek? Maybe you can catch us some fish.”

Smoke nodded grimly. “Yeah. I follow that. We can't afford to waste ammunition on rabbits.”

“You've got the right of it. I took stock while you were still out. You have your Colts and a Winchester. I've got my six-gun. Together we have about a hundred fifty rounds. You've got forty for the rifle, sixty-three for your revolvers. I have the rest.”

“Sounds better than I expected.” Smoke headed to where his saddlebags lay, their contents scattered on the ground. A small square of folded buckskin produced a coil of braided-twine fishing line and four hooks. Reclosing the container, he pocketed it and sought out a thin branch from a cottonwood nearby. He used it as a staff to aid his progress toward the stream. Behind him, he heard the steady chunk-chunk as Jerry Harkness drove a shovel into the turf. It could be worse, Smoke thought to himself. Though somehow he could not picture exactly how.

 

 

By the time Smoke had devoured three pan-sized bullhead catfish, his head had stopped swimming. It only throbbed slightly. He availed himself of some red willow bark and scraped a small pile of powder, which he washed down with water from the creek. Then he turned to the matter that had absorbed him since recovering.

“Jerry, I have to keep after the herd.”

“Don't you mean we, Smoke?”

“No. You've been wounded twice so far. What I want you to do is set out down the trail and find help. Bring as many men as you can.”

Harkness had plenty of protest left. “You already sent someone east for help. I say we can do better if we stick together.”

“I don't think so. The riders I sent are going to be waiting for us north of Sheridan. The herd won't be moving too fast. And with the Olsens, it will slow the rustlers even more.

“What I can't figure, Smoke, is why they took them in the first place?”

“As insurance. Whoever is running that gang figures we will not try to take back the herd with a woman and children along. That's just their latest mistake.”

“What was their first one?”

Smoke's hickory eyes narrowed. “Taking my horses in the first place.”

While Smoke prepared to set out on foot, they talked of how he would leave sign if the herd changed directions. He would take his saddle and saddlebags along. Jerry would gather up anything useful when he returned with a posse. When everything had been decided, Harkness still had an objection.

“What if that head wound is worse than we think? I should stay with you in case you pass out again.”

“That makes sense, but there are only the two of us. I have to keep after the rustlers. Now, get goin'. And, good luck.”

 

 

Reno Jim Yurian found himself plagued by second thoughts. Burdened by the slow-moving horses, and the wagon with the hostages, the gang's progress had been slowed to a walk. Perhaps he should not have told Hub to grab the woman and her kids. Though they might make a good bargaining point. Another reflection gave him a sudden chill along his spine.

This Smoke Jensen had proven more stubborn than he had expected. Reno knew the name, of course. Jensen had himself quite the reputation. A gunfighter of the first order, who was supposed to have been raised by some mythical mountain man named Preacher, Jensen was reported to have killed his first man when barely fifteen. Or was it sixteen?

That detail didn't matter to Jim Yurian. Smoke Jensen was supposed to be so fast with a gun that only five men had ever cleared leather ahead of his draw.
That
worried Reno Jim more than he was willing to admit. If Smiling Dave had failed to bash in the man's skull, then as sure as the sun would rise tomorrow, Jensen would be coming after them. Reno didn't believe for a moment he would come alone.

Seeking distraction from such gloomy thoughts, Reno Jim turned his horse aside and waited while the lead gather of remounts walked past. The Olsen wagon came next, between the divided herd. As it rolled even, he touched the brim of his black hat with a gloved hand. A thin, teasing smile flickered.

“I trust you are comfortable, Miz Olsen?”

Della warred with herself over outrage at their capture and their apparent continued safety. She loathed this jaunty outlaw in his impeccable black suit and rakish tilt of hat. The pencil-line mustache on his upper lip seemed to mock her. Grudgingly she had to admit he was a superb horseman. He sat his mount well and flowed with its movements whether at a walk or a canter. The nickle-plated, pearl-handled revolvers he wore reminded her that although a dandy, he was a dangerous one. She did not want to answer him, but found that she must.

“So far we have not been treated too badly. Though I would like to give your underling, who slapped around my son, a lasting headache.”

To her surprise the outlaw leader laughed. “I can understand your feelings, madam. Although you must admit that your boy did kill one of my men, as did you, I do believe.”

He remained amused when Della started a hot retort. “I only wish—” Aghast at her temerity, she stopped.

“That it could have been more?” Reno Jim concluded for her, rightly gauging her intent. “Fortunately for you it was not. My men are fiercely loyal to one another. Had you been successful, they might have done . . . some violence to you all.”

Shrewdly, Della checked him. “You would not have allowed that, now would you?”

Reno Jim made a show of being resigned. “You have me, madam. Truly you are my hole card. But, be assured, I will play you however it appears to my best advantage.”

Della displayed her knowledge of card language. “You will forgive me if I say that I sincerely hope you lose the hand? Because, believe me, you are bucking four aces if you go against Smoke Jensen.”

There
was
that cursed name again!
Coming from this woman of considerable fortitude almost had him believing it. Perhaps if her faith became shaken, it would deflect from his own cold premonition. Maybe he should relax his prohibition somewhat and let the boys enjoy a trailside reward.

 

 

After plates of sow-belly and beans, flavored with hot peppers and vinegar, and skillet bread, several of the outlaws broke out bottles of whiskey.

When the liquor had made several rounds, one of the trail scum, fired by the raw rotgut, piped up to his companions. “What say we cut high card for who gets to do them gals tonight? First ace for the littlest, first king for the older one, and the first queen for the woman.”

“What? Jist one each tonight?” complained Prine Gephart. “I'll bet the ol' woman an' the older girl can each take on at least four of us ev'ry night.”

A snigger answered him. “Mighty likely they could, if we was all built like you, Prine.”

Gephart took immediate exception. “Hey, you bassard, that ain't funny.” The chorus of laughter that raised said otherwise. That set Prine off on a single-minded course. “That does it, you smart-asses. For that, I'm gonna go over there and plow all three of them fields, all by myself.”

His challenge met immediate response. Yancy Osburn came to his boots, hand closed around the butt-grip of his Smith American. “Like hell you are. It's gonna be fair share. Everyone gets a chance.”

Gephart put on a pouting expression. Only his eyes showed his combativeness. “You gonna pull that thing, Yance? Reno said we could ride those fillies an' the mare to our heart's content. I aim to do exactly that.”

“Draw for high card, dammit,” growled Colin Fike.

 

 

Not nearly far enough away, Della Olsen clearly heard their angry voices and knew only so well what it was they intended. Quickly she reached out and covered her younger daughter's ears. She noted to her satisfaction that Tommy did the same for Sarah-Jane. Then the boy spoke with heated sincerity.

“If any of them so much as touches one of you, I swear, Maw, I'll make the sons of bitches pay.”

Fear for her son's life blotted out her shock at his language and spurred her to dissuade him. “No, son. They—they'd kill you this time.”

Tommy Olsen slitted his eyes. “Not before I got a lot of them.”

 

 

Still determined to press for his equal right to pester the woman and her girls, Colin Fike pushed his insistence. “Cut the cards, Prine, we got a right.”

Enraged by this defiance of his authority, Prine Gephart snarled at his subordinate. “As long as you're a member of my crew, the only rights you have are those I give you. You'd best learn that well.” His anger crackled as he loosened the Merwin and Hulbert in its holster. To his eventual regret, Colin Fike pushed once more, and too hard, for his rights. “I'm not your slave, by damn. Haul out that iron.”