Willing hands quickly put out the fires in the carretas. Men and women went about repairing the walls of Pueblo Viejo. Teams of horses dragged away the charred remains of the battering ram. A new gate was under construction. Smoke Jensen took in all the activity and felt pleased. Yet, it kept nagging him that Gustavo Carvajal had managed to escape with at least some of his bandit army. Somehow, sitting behind these walls, waiting for another attack chafed at his spirit.
Carvajal would discover that his supplies and ammunition had been destroyed in the valley camp. He would push on to somewhere. To that end, Smoke sought advice from Carbone and Martine.
“Where will he go? I would say to that grand hacienda he took over in Durango,” Carbone opined. “La Fortuna. It is as much a fortress as we made of this town.”
“I agree,” Martine added. “It could be taken, but …” he added a huge shrug.
“I feel the need to get into motion. To carry the fight to Carvajal,” Smoke stated flatly.
“That’s easy to understand. So long as he is alive, he will be trouble,” Martine acknowledged. “You have done so much for us, Smoke. Perhaps it is time to leave the end to us, no?”
“I’ve gotten a lot of good men killed, women, too,” Smoke shot back. “And I’ve never left a fight before its end. No, we have to lay plans, and that takes some knowledge. I’ll ride out at dawn.”
Carbone put a friendly restraining hand on Smoke’s shoulder. “Not this time, amigo. You need rest, that wound on your shoulder is festering. Let our vaqueros handle this. We know for a fact that Carvajal hasn’t enough men to send any chasing after them. They can be our eyes and our ears.”
Fatigue and strain had become more than padded clubs for Smoke Jensen. They struck at him like mailed fists. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Besides,” Martine said brightly, “the people want us all here tonight. There’s to be a big fiesta to celebrate our victory. Feasting and plenty of drink. You should rest up now for that.”
“I don’t feel much like partying, and I don’t like crowds,” Smoke answered curtly. Visions of the hopeful, grateful faces of the people of Pueblo Viejo came to him. He sighed heavily. “I suppose we have to go through the motions.”
“That’s the spirit. At least it’s close. You’ll like the music.”
“I have a tin ear.”
“Come on, Smoke, try to get in the right mood,” Carbone urged.
A bright-eyed, attractive, teen-aged girl approached them. She held a covered basket that proved to contain a woven straw bowl of strawberries and a cut and trimmed pineapple. “It is to say thank you, Patrónes,” she shyly advised in a near-whisper.
“See? The people don’t see it as a defeat, Smoke,” Carbone urged on him.
“All right,” Smoke relented as he chose a strawberry. “I’ll give it a try. You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to strawberries ripening in the fall.” He took a bite of the large, sweet, juicy fruit.
When initial word came back that Gustavo Carvajal’s rag-tag remnants of his once fearsome army had marched through their old camp, found the damage, and hurried onward, the grateful people of Pueblo Viejo and both ranches continued the celebration.
Conditioned by centuries of mandatory religious feast days, the habit of parties and dances, masked and costumed parades, and copious eating was deeply ingrained. After the first two days, Smoke Jensen accepted it philosophically. They had been living under the strain of Carvajal’s presence for nearly six months. Work went on, at a slower pace, on the defenses. People of the other villages gave unstintingly of their food and labor, and feasted with the rest. The third day, some of these began to make departures for their own homes.
Promises of help were given by the residents of Pueblo Viejo. They would finish up and journey to aid the others. The holiday atmosphere persisted. Only one incident occurred to encourage Smoke that Carvajal would eventually be dealt with.
Young Raul came running to where the gate was being raised into place after several days of effort to make repairs. His straw sombrero flew from his head in his haste. Eyes wide, he sought out Smoke Jensen.
“Señor, strangers are coming. Gringos. They look big and mean.”
What, Smoke wondered, could that mean? He thanked the boy and strolled out beyond the partly filled-in trench. Raul padded along at his side. He gazed in the direction the boy pointed and saw the figures of seven mounted men on the near slope of the saddle notch.
They approached the town at a casual walk, though Smoke’s keen vision picked out the constant alertness to their surroundings that their posture and head motions betrayed. It suddenly came clear to him who they must be.
“Are they bad men, Señor?” Raul asked apprehensively.
“Oh, some might say so. I think they are looking for me.”
Boyish bravado filled Raul’s face. “We’ll not let them take you, Señor. You saved our village. We will fight.”
“I don’t think that will be needed,” Smoke said kindly.
“Hello, the town! Or should I say fortress?” a familiar voice called out from a hundred yards distance.
“Howdy yourself,” Smoke greeted.
“Smoke! Be damned. From the looks of all this damage, we figgered we might be too late. We’re ridin’ in.”
“Come ahead,” Smoke called back, suppressing a chuckle of delight.
At a brisker pace now, the seven men rode up to where Smoke stood. A grinning Jeff York bent forward and extended a hand for Smoke to take. “Good to see you, Smoke,” he said softly.
“And you, Jeff. It’s been a while.”
“Sorry I couldn’t bring more men,” Jeff apologized.
“That’s all right,” Smoke assured him. “Seven Arizona Rangers look magnificent enough to me.”
“I had a hell of a time convincing the captain to let us go,” Jeff went on, determined to get out his explanation. “There’s all hell to pay in the Territory right now. Rustlers, turncoats sellin’ liquor to the Apaches, gun runners, you name it.” York lightly touched the place on his vest where his ranger’s star usually hung. “As it is, we had to come all unofficial like.”
“I reckoned you would when I sent that telegram. You didn’t run into anyone else, did you? Louis Longmont? Big Bull Stebbins?”
“You sure put out a general call. Must be big,” York observed.
“It is, or was. You can see the mess around here. This feller, Carvajal, has a regular army of bandits. Uses military tactics in attacking any who won’t cow down to him.”
“Looks like you have a regular get-together,” York suggested, eyes taking in the signs of battle.
“That we did,” Smoke acknowledged. “Cut Carvajal down to size. Our best count has his strength at around sixty.”
Jeff York’s eyes widened. “What size was it to begin with?”
“Close to three hundred.”
York whistled through closed teeth. “That’s before you took a hand, eh, Smoke?”
“Yep. Me and Carbone and Martine, anyway.” Smoke glanced back at the village. “I’m forgetting my manners. Come on in, rest a spell and wash the dust from your throats.”
“Obliged. We’ll get the introductions taken care of then. C’mon, boys, there’s cold beer waitin’.”
Three gringos had been waiting for the return of Carvajal to Hacienda la Fortuna. Trent, Vickers and Yates had not enjoyed the opulent comforts of the hacienda. They had been locked in the small stone hovel that served as a sort of jail. Dirty, unshaven and starved, they were dragged out and thrown roughly to the flagstone floor in front of El Rey del Norte’s throne. Trent caught himself on his hands and was first to look up at the man to whom they had come to offer their services.
Oh Lordie, he thought, he’s plumb jaybird crazy.
Carvajal wore a fresh, new general’s uniform, this time that of the artillery branch. His thick lips curled in disdain at sight of the wretches. He peered at them through a pair of opera glasses, held by a ornate silver
handle. With a flip of a scented handkerchief to his nose, he spoke with no less disdain.
“What are these?”
“They say they are notorious Yanqui gunfighters. They’ve come to offer you their services, Excellency,” his major-domo replied.
“They are gringos,” Carvajal dismissed.
Humberto Regales edged close to his master. “So is Smoke Jensen, Excellency.”
A flash of fury colored Carvajal’s face, then faded. “So he is. Tell me, gringos, do any of you know Smoke Jensen?”
“I hate Smoke Jensen,” Trent declared acidly.
“So do I,” Vickers growled.
“I especial hate Smoke Jensen,” Yates added.
“I didn’t ask how you felt about him; I asked if any of you knew him,” Carvajal rejoindered in a whip-crack tone.
Trent considered how to answer that, deciding upon the truth. “Nope. Never laid eyes on him.”
“Nor me. We just know he’s bad medicine. We come to kill him,” Vickers offered enlightenment.
“I’ve done had some of them stories about him read to me. They’re all bullshit,” Yates opined. “ ’Sides, he done kilt some good friends of ours. We want him dead.”
“No more than I, hombres,” Carvajal offered them wholeheartedly. “Tell me honestly, would you take orders unquestioningly?”
“Who from?” Trent asked resentfully and ungrammatically.
“From me,” Carvajal replied.
“Who’er you?” Vickers rasped.
“I—I am the Emperor Montezuma of the Aztecs.” Carvajal actually preened himself.
Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he’s a screamin’ loony-tick, Trent thought in utter desperation. His reason suddenly warned him that they’d better play this one right, or they would all wind up dead. He tried desperately to catch the attention of his companions. Not entirely certain he had their thoughts meshed with his own, he winked furiously at them before he spoke.
“We’d be deeply honored to take your orders, ah, Excellency.”
“Humph! That’s more like it. To use good manners is a mark of respect for your betters. You show some promise, young man.”
“Thank you, Excellency. Is there anything more you wish to know?” Trent offered.
“For the time being, that is enough. Humberto, here, will find you a place to stay with the other of my warriors. Do you wish to belong to the Eagle Warriors or the Jaguar Warriors?”
“Uh—ah—wherever you need us the most, Excellency.”
“Oh, my, I do like your attitude. How are you called?”
“I am Trent. This is Vickers and Yates.”
Carvajal tried to mouth the unfamiliar Anglo names. “Unusual. I shall call you Lazarus One, Two and Three.”
“May I inquire as to why we will all have the same name? Why Lazarus?” Trent hazarded.
Carvajal produced a quizzical expression as though to imply that everyone should know the answer to that. “Why, isn’t it true that it was Lazarus whom Quetzelcoatl, in his guise as el Cristo Rey, raised from the dead? And, most assuredly, since you chose to show the proper humility and respect, you have certainly been raised from the dead. Take them away, Humberto, and settle them in with the men.”
Jeff York paced the large comedor of the inn like a caged panther. He held a rolled tortilla filled with carnitas in one hand and munched while he spoke.
“Now we know that this Carvajal is in Hacienda la Fortuna. When are we going after him?”
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Smoke Jensen told his old friend and co-godfather to the twins Louis Arthur and Denice Nicole.
“We takin’ this whole scratch-together army?” York asked, uncertain of the quality of the Mexican peons.
“No. Only you seven Rangers, Carbone, Martine and I.”
“Son of a bi----!” York blurted and broke off. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Not a bit. Of course, we’ll have along twenty of Martine’s best vaqueros. They can ride and shoot.”
“Man, that last vaquero who came in said their numbers had grown to near a hundred-twenty.”
“Um-hum. We can live with those odds, I’d say,” Smoke told him, eyes twinkling.
Twenty-seven
“Hacienda la Fortuna,” Martine identified the large, high-walled quadrangle that rested on a rise in the sheltered valley.
“Looks tough to just waltz in an’ take,” Jeff York observed.
“Carvajal did it with only fifty men,” Carbone informed the Arizona Ranger.
York whistled softly. A moment later, his facial muscles tightened at a slight rustle of fallen leaves. Smoke Jensen came into view beyond the low, heavy boughs of a thick-trunked pine. York gave him a wave and relaxed. Smoke reined in and dismounted.
“Carvajal’s there, all right,” he informed the others.
A thick stand of first and second growth timber blanketed the gradual slope of a minor peak that marked the mouth of the valley. The trees were so dark green as to be almost blue-black. They adequately concealed the score of vaqueros who had accompanied Smoke, Carbone, Martine, and the Arizona Rangers.
“There’s thirty of us,” Jeff York remarked. “But we have Smoke Jensen,” friendly laughter danced in his words.
“I’ve been thinking about putting all this talent to work,” Smoke advised the others.
“Your vaqueros were right,” Smoke told Martine. “Carvajal is growing stronger every day. I think we should pay him a visit tonight.”
“What I can’t understand is how he manages to attract men to his army,” York put his thoughts to words.
“It has to do with the nature of our people,” Carbone explained. “No, don’t take me wrong, Señor York. Your Spanish is excellent, better than Smoke’s, although it’s border dialect. I’m sure you’ve grown up around Mexican people. The thing is, you don’t feel like a Mexican.”
Jeff York cocked a sandy eyebrow. Carbone chuckled and enlightened him. “Not long ago, I told Smoke that his skin was that of a gringo, but in his heart he was Mexican.” He went on to relate the play on names Smoke had employed, comparing Carvajal’s mad obsession of being Montezuma and the dead Aztec emperor’s nemesis, Cortez. “You think and feel like an American, my friend,” he added for York’s benefit. “You see, we are all good Christians, proud of our European heritage, but in the breast of every Mexican beats the heart of an Indian savage. The flair, the romance of wild adventuring with a bandit warlord appeals to many of our men. Especially the young ones.”
“Sorta like rutting young javalinas,” York suggested, calling to mind the wild boars of Arizona Territory.
Martine laughed heartily. “Just so. Smoke has convinced a number of them to abandon their high life with Carvajal and return to normal pursuits. I have a feeling he’s about to try the same thing tonight.”
“We are going to do some convincing, my friends,” Smoke amended. His expression grew serious. “Any of those who don’t see the light will have to be disposed of. That’s hard, cold, I know. But we can’t afford to have them at our backs when we go over the walls.”
“¡Dios! You’re serious about paying Carvajal a visit,” Martine exclaimed.
“Of course,” Smoke answered mildly.
Sentries started disappearing shortly after darkness fell across the valley. Smoke Jensen had a definite plan in mind. Risky, although entirely necessary from how he saw the on-going problem with Gustavo Carvajal. In truth, the bandit king remained entirely too strong for a heads-on confrontation. Doctors had not yet come up with their ideas about men and the role their subconscious minds played in their lives. Even so, Smoke Jensen had acquired a sound understanding of what moved men who seemed to be on a fixed point.
It wasn’t what one could see that frightened most; it was the unseen. To put it simply, Smoke Jensen wanted to scare the living hell out of Gustavo Carvajal. To accomplish that, he decided to combine the attrition of guards with an appearance in the dead of night. Silently, he wished for a conquistador�
�s crested helmet, breast plate and scarlet cloak.
He would have to make do with what he had. And that included a personal talk with the would-be Emperor of the Aztecs. Smoke set about his preparations. He used dead coals from a small fire to blacken his face. He removed his boots, in favor of a soft pair of Cheyenne moccasins. He, like all of the small force, would rely on silent weapons. In Smoke’s case, that would be his Bowie and a tomahawk.
He had not used the deadly handaxe in some while. Its results could be quite unsettling. Smoke counted on that. He had taken it out of his saddlebag earlier and honed its edge to a keeness. Now he slipped it under his cartridge belt and set off silently toward the distant walls of Hacienda la Fortuna. While he covered ground, he wondered how Jeff York and his Rangers were doing.
Seated at ease in his saddle, Jeff York had made a half-circle of the valley and came at the hacienda from the north. When a darker mass in the star-lit night resolved into the figure of a man, he hissed a soft greeting.
“Hola, hombre.”
“¿Quien es?”
“Beltran,” Jeff invented a name of convenience. He had to get the man in closer.
“You are new.”
“I just came down from Nogales, Sonora,” Jeff spun. A little closer now.
“That explains why you talk funny,” a rat-faced bandit with a scraggly mustache responded.
Closer still. “I talk funny? It’s you who talk funny,” Jeff kept the conversation going. Close enough.
Jeff’s knife slid between two ribs and pierced the bandido’s heart. He sighed gustily and went slack in the saddle. Jeff eased him off onto the ground. “One less,” the Ranger muttered to himself.
Five minutes later, Lathrop, one of the Rangers, appeared out of the night. “We’ve got three of them in a bunch, up ahead,” he informed Jeff.
“We’d best not keep them waiting,” Jeff suggested.
Together they closed in on the sociable outlaws. Lathrop got right up close to one, whose back was to him. He plunged his wide-bladed Bowie into a kidney, then the other in the same instant that York dropped a loop over the other pair and yanked them off their horses. They landed solidly enough to drive the air from their lungs.
Fury of the Mountain Man Page 26
