A thin smile and clever twinkle came to the attorney. “I should say so, since I am also the man who is prosecutor for this court.”
Dumb-struck for the moment, Smoke and Carbone cut amazed glances at one another. After a prolonged silence, Smoke Jensen cleared his throat and spoke with quiet control.
“Thank you for your time, Señor Abogado. We have decided that we will be quite capable of defending ourselves. Your services will not be needed.”
“The man who defends himself, as it is said, ha—”
“Has a fool for a client. We have that saying in our country as well,” Smoke told him. “We’ll see you in court, counselor.”
After his fussy departure, Carbone turned to Smoke. “Do you think we’ll have a chance?”
“Do you think we’d have had one with him on our side?” Smoke countered.
“I regret to say that neither way do you caballeros have a chance,” came the voice of Alfonso Lares. “But still you are lucky. For you it will only mean the mines. I have a more tragic fate awaiting.”
“What’s that?”
“I am to be executed for murdering my son.”
Smoke and Carbone quickly discovered the nature of their neighbor’s plight and heard for the first time of the slave labor in the mine. That, Lares assured them, would be where they were going. He was to be silenced for having wanted to invest in the mine.
“My greed cost me my son, and now my life. For we were both surely poisoned. What is there to do?”
“For a start,” Smoke Jensen suggested, “we could break out of jail.”
Thirteen
Several Sugarloaf hands stood around hee-hawing in great amusement. Little Bobby Harris rose from the puddle of mud and cow pies, his face crimson in humiliation. He balled his small fists and advanced on the youngest of his tormentors. Before the lad could defend himself, Bobby launched a wild looping right that smacked the tormentor in his chest.
“Ow! Hey, you hit me, snot-nose,” he complained.
Bobby hit him again for good measure. Suddenly he found himself lifted from the ground and turned upside down. When the world stabilized in this topsyturvy position, he saw the inverted face of Buck Crocker. The foreman shook his head sadly. “When are you ever going to learn to control that temper, Bobby?”
“Leggo me!” Bobby yelled. “I’m gonna kick his butt up twixt his shoulder blades.”
“No, you’re not. What you are going to do is clean up. Pull off them boots and get yer butt in that horse trough. Wash the mud outta behind your ears, while you’re at it.”
“You tryin’ to kill me?” Bobby complained, lower lip out in a big pink pout. “Nobody around here likes me.”
“Why, you little brat, if Miz Jensen heard you whining like that, she’d fix yer behind with a razor strop,” Hank Penny scorned him. “You some kind of sissy or what? Can’t take a little ribbin’ when you get throwed? Haw-haw!”
“Listen to me, Bobby,” Burt rumbled good-naturedly. “I generally believe in giving a youngster his head. This time, I’m going to insist you do as you are told. You’ll stink to high heaven of cow plop, an’ Miz Jensen would come down hard on me for it.”
Bobby eyed him suspiciously from his tail-up condition. “That’s dif’rent. But I ain’t takin’ no regular bath. Don’t nobody make me do that ev’ry day.”
Burt cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh? Suppose you fall in a cow pattie ev’ry day? You gonna go around stinkin’ like the hind end of a cow?” Suddenly Burt heard his voice. Damn, if he didn’t sound like an old maid, lecturin’ some unruly school kid. He gave Bobby a good shake. “Now, you get in that trough and outta them clothes, or I’ll drop your drawers and blister your butt.”
Right side up now, Bobby gave Burt a big-eyed stare. “You mean that?”
“Absolutely.”
Bobby ducked his head as best he could with Burt’s big fist under his chin. “Ooo-kay. Lemme down and I’ll slosh off.”
“Now that’s more like it. Then get yerself back in the saddle and back to work. You’re bumin’ daylight with all this foolishness.”
“Well—ah—well, I reckon it’s of yer makin’,” Bobby offered the last of his defiance.
“Fine,” Burt snapped. “Have it any way you want it. Only get yerself clean.”
Snickers came from the crew as they set about cutting out horses and ear-notching those destined for sale. Bobby summoned up as much dignity as he could and entered the cold water of the trough. Thank goodness he’d not have to go through this again this week, he thought to himself.
Darkness had come to Pueblo de la Paz. True to his usual custom, Triunfo Cienfuegos, the fat, easy-going jailer, loosened the belt and chest harness of his uniform and yawned gustily. He seated himself in an oversized chair and tilted it back against the wall. His thick lips had just begun to flutter in the first light layer of sleep when a plaintive voice came from far down the cell block.
“Socorro. ¡Por amor del dios, ayudamé!” Alfonso Lares moaned. “¡Ay, socorro! Estoy moribundo.”
“Who’s dying?” Cienfuegos asked himself as the last appeal from Lares jerked him out of slumber.
“Ayudamé—Help me!” Lares repeated plaintively.
“Hey, carcelero, this man’s sick.” To make matters worse, Cienfuegos grumbled, that big damned gringo had started yelling at him.
Roused from his usual nap, and pleased by it about as much as a bear disturbed in hibernation, Cienfuegos growled down the barred corridor. ¡Callerse! Go to sleep. Stop making noise.”
Shrieks of agony added to the pleas. Cienfuegos vaguely remembered something about poisoning being involved with Lares. Frowning, he dropped the chair to the floor and levered his way out of it. He took the ring of keys from a peg in the wall and started for the barred entrance to the cellblock.
“I’m coming. Be done with that noise. I’m on my way,” he rumbled as he entered the corridor and headed toward the cells.
Alfonso Lares lay on his bunk, doubled up in a ball of pain. His face was wet and shiny in the dim light of a single kerosene lamp that sat on a high shelf, halfway down the corridor. In the adjoining cell, Smoke Jensen and Esteban Carbone stood close to the dividing wall of bars. Their faces wore worried expressions.
“Get back. Get back,” Cienfuegos shouted at them. “Now, what’s the matter with you?” he impatiently snapped at Lares.
“I’ve—I’ve been poisoned. Th-that food we ate,” he groaned.
“Nonsense. You’re the one who uses poison,” Cienfuegos dismissed, his memory reawakened.
“Help me,” Lares bleated. He began to shake and slobber.
Maybe he had been poisoned. Cienfuegos shoved the key in the lockcase. “Stay where you are. I’m coming in.”
Cienfuegos entered the cell and knelt beside the bunk. Lares’ teeth chattered and drool ran from the corner of his mouth. Suddenly worried, the jailer reached out and took the prisoner by the shoulders. Gently he lifted Lares to a sitting position.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
Lares nodded. Cienfuegos helped him to his feet. Lares swayed and groaned. He tried to take a step and lurched violently against the turnkey. Cienfuegos slammed back against the open wall of bars with a startled gasp.
Instantly, large, powerful hands grabbed his head, hauled Cienfuegos backward until his shoulders slammed into the steel bars and his head protruded into the other cell. Muscles strained and gave off pain signals as his captor wrenched on his chin and back of his head. They twisted until his watering eyes focused on the rear wall of the cubicle.
Carbone reached for his bulging waist and plucked the pair of manacles from his belt. Swiftly he drew the arms of Cienfuegos backward and secured the cuffs on his side of the bars. The terrible pressure on Cienfuegos’ neck relaxed.
“Get the keys,” Smoke Jensen commanded Alfonso Lares.
Lares stood dumbly, mouth agape. “It worked,” he muttered in wonder.
“Of course it did. Now move,” Smoke de
manded.
Carbone tore the tail from the jailer’s shirt and stuffed it in his mouth. By then, Lares had their cell unlocked. Smoke directed both doors to be locked in place.
“Bring the keys along, we’ll be needing them,” Smoke added.
That accomplished, they headed for the office. There they located their belongings and quickly fastened cartridge belts in place. Carbone nodded to a rack of weapons.
“You had better arm yourself, friend cantinero.”
Lares looked startled. “Me? I am, as you say, only a cantinero.”
Obsidian glittered in Carbone’s dark eyes. “As of now, you are a liberator of your town. Do as I say.”
“Si, Patrón,” Alfonso Lares gulped. Then, “What do we do now?”
Smoke Jensen answered him. “We’re going to round up the rest of the police, the mayor and chief and lock them in here.”
“I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Lares stated wonderingly. Then he recalled what had brought about his near death and the murder of his son. “But, I am as guilty as the rest. I was greedy and wanted to share in the mine.”
“No one need know that, Señor Lares,” Carbone told him. “If you do your part in freeing this town from Luminoso Soto and Gaston Moro, you will be a hero to your people. Come along, now.”
They encountered the first of the night police patrol right outside the front door of the jailhouse.
Lorenzo Cruz, Felipe Zargoza, and Diego Santana had been in on the mine scheme from the first. They had been chosen to keep the citizens of Pueblo de la Paz in line after dark. Typical bullies, they swaggered and sneered and generally intimidated the timid folk of the town. All of the violent experiences of their useless lives had not prepared them for Smoke Jensen and Esteban Carbone.
They had been laughing over the hilarious way old Chuchu Bustamonte had wailed and run on his chubby legs when they caught him out after curfew. They stopped chortling when the door to the jail opened at such an unexpected hour. When three men stepped out onto the stoop, they advanced with hands on the butts of their .45 Mendozas.
“Stop right there!” Lorenzo Cruz demanded.
“Or you’ll what?” Smoke Jensen asked coldly.
“Por dios, estar el gringo,” Diego Santana blurted.
Realization dawned on Lorenzo Cruz. “Escape! Shoot them,” he screamed at his companions.
All three drew their weapons. None of them did so fast enough. Smoke Jensen moved with practiced ease; his large, supple fingers closed around the grip of his .44 Colt, and he hauled it free while Cruz, Santana and Zargoza had barely moved their six-guns upward in the holsters. Felipe Zargoza saw death coming his way and uttered a brief, silent prayer a moment before Smoke Jensen’s .44 roared to life.
A sledgehammer blow struck the center of Zargoza’s chest, and he rocked back on his bootheels. Numbly, he continued his draw. The muzzle of his .45 Mendoza came clear of leather an instant before a second slug burned a hole through his liver and his life ended in a flash of black.
Beside the dying man, Lorenzo Cruz growled an obscenity as he whipped up his weapon and eared back the hammer. His world exploded into a shower of sparks and blanket of darkness as Carbone shot him through the heart. Dead before his body knew it, he continued to stand, finger tightening on the trigger. Esteban Carbone put a safety shot between the corrupt policeman’s eyes, and Lorenzo Cruz went off to meet his Maker.
Smoke Jensen had turned his attention on the third of their opponents. Diego Santana had suddenly developed difficulty with his six-gun. He’d quick-fired it into the ground at the feet of Smoke Jensen and now fought against a backed out primer that hung up the cylinder against the recoil plate. Cursing hotly, he dropped the useless weapon and drew his second revolver.
He brought it into play, only to have it discharge high into the air as Smoke Jensen’s next round drilled through his right shoulder. Firing lefthanded badly affected Santana’s accuracy, the hot pain radiating from his shoulder increasing his disability. His next round split air between Smoke and Carbone and thudded into the door to the jail.
Schooled to calm, controlled shooting under the worst of circumstances, Smoke Jensen was hampered by none of this. He put his fourth bullet in under Diego Santana’s diaphragm. Hydrostatic shock drove the air from Diego’s lungs, jellied flesh, and reflex lifted him off his boots. Immediately the street became silent.
Only harsh breathing from Alfonso Lares disturbed the graveyard stillness. “I don’t believe it. I only blinked my eyes and when they opened, three men are dead,” the little cantinero babbled. “Wha—what do we do now?”
“Go find the rest and then pay a visit on the mayor and chief of police,” Smoke Jensen advised him.
A distant, alarming sound invaded the deep slumber of Mayor Luminoso Soto. Foggily, he pulled himself out of his repose and listened carefully. Had he dreamed it? Gunshots in the dead of night. If not a dream, what could it mean? He turned his head from side to side, seeking further enlightenment.
He heard nothing. He sighed heavily, yawned prodigiously, and broke wind. Those chores accomplished, he lowered his head to the pillow and returned to sleep. Beside him in the bed, his wife lay with open eyes.
Disgust at her slovenly husband kept her awake. She had heard the gunshots also and pondered their meaning. Why, she wondered, had God burdened her with this man for so many years? She sensed, knew, that he was involved in something not entirely legal. It pained her soul. Then a new fear electrified her.
Could the shooting mean that the people had risen in their anger against Luminoso? Could they already be on their way to the casa with torches and ropes? What would happen to her? Hesitantly, truly frightened now, she reached out to shake her husband.
Smoke Jensen, Esteban Carbone and Alfonso Lares rounded the corner out of the Plaza de Armas to find themselves confronted by some twenty men. Several bore torches that wavered in the night breeze. The three in front carried old, battered weapons. Two shotguns and a rifle, Smoke noted. The rest had machetes, scythes and other edged weapons. Their faces were taut with determination and anger.
“Who are you and where are you going?” the spokesman demanded.
“That depends on what you have in mind,” Smoke responded.
“We are looking for the policemen. We heard shots.”
“They are dead,” Carbone informed him. “They made the mistake of trying to stop us from leaving the jail.”
Some of the tension bled off in an audible mass sigh. The spokesman actually produced an embarrassed smile. “That is why we are here. We are friends of this man, Alfonso Lares. We know he would never harm his own son. The jefe and the alcalde are up to some mischief. Of that we are sure.”
“That they are,” Smoke allowed.
“We know about the prisoners marched off into the mountains,” the leader acknowledged. “Are they taken there to be killed?”
“No. Your mayor and chief of police have a silver mine. Strangers are convicted of crimes they did not commit and taken there as slave laborers.”
“Slavery is against the law in our country, Señor.” The spokesman paused and peered intently at Smoke Jensen. “Your accent, Señor. You are not from around here.”
“I am an American,” Smoke told him simply. To the angry mutters and few curses from the crowd, he went on to explain. “My friend here asked me to come to help fight against El Rey del Norte.”
“And who is your friend?” the leader asked suspiciously.
“I am called Esteban Carbone.”
Several gasps of surprise accompanied a sudden shift of mood. Men snatched the hats from their heads and clutched them before their chests. All eyes fixed on Carbone. The leader swallowed hard.
“We are at your service, Don Esteban. What do you wish us to do?”
“We need to hunt down the remaining policemen,” Carbone told him. “Root them out of their homes and take them to the jail. Once they are locked away, we will go visit the mayor.”
; Broad, white smiles broke out on the upturned brown faces. “At once, Don Esteban,” the leader vowed. “I am called Ernesto Rubio. These men will do what I tell them.”
“Fine. Arm them from the rack in the jail. Round up the police and do with them as I said. Then join us at the mayor’s house.”
A sound like a growing, heavy surf brushed at Mayor Soto’s consciousness. Groggy, he forced open gummy eyes and blinked. Orange light flickered on the walls of his bedroom. Disoriented, he looked around for his wife. She was nowhere to be seen. Sudden panic touched him when he heard a harsh voice call from the street in front of his high-walled casa.
“Come out, Mr. Mayor!”
“Luminoso Soto,” Ernesto Rubio demanded loudly, “come out here and surrender to us at once.”
Damn them! Damn peasants. We have been too lenient. They are drunk on tequila and beer. Out of their minds. Where are the police? Dithering over this strange turn of events, Luminoso Soto hastily donned trousers and a shirt. He slid his feet into Toledo style boots and clomped to the front door. On the way he saw nothing of his wife.
Soto tried to build a tone of command when he threw open the door and spoke to the gathered people. “Go home at once. You are out after curfew.”
Then his sleep-drugged eyes took in the size of the gathering. Torches guttered over the heads of fully twenty-five men. Four more stood in front. Blinking, he identified them.
That greedy payaso, Alfonso Lares, the strangers who were jailed, Ernesto Rubio. Lares might be a clown, but he knew all about the mine and knew he had never poisoned himself and his son. Suddenly a skeletal hand of ice clutched at Soto’s heart. He was a murderer. Or at least complicit in a murder. Bluster leaving him, he raised his hands, palm outward, and tried to placate the angry crowd.
“My friends. You all know me. I have brought prosperity to Pueblo de la Paz. I have improved the lot of every one of you. What is this talk of surrender? For what crimes am I to stand accused?”
“The murder of Carlos Lares, for one,” Ernesto Rubio declared.
“For the false imprisonment of myself and my friend,” Carbone told him.
Fury of the Mountain Man Page 13
