“Why, he’s insane if he thinks he can razz an entire town,” Peterson said.
“That’s not as far-fetched as you might think,” Smoke said. “Remember what Quantrill did with Lawrence.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Mayor Cravens said. “Mr. Pollard, how many men will Atwood have with him?”
“He’ll have Willis an’ his deputies, that’s four, plus at least ten others from the ranch, and maybe a few more.”
“I know he has a bunch of gun hands,” Cletus said. “I didn’t know he had that many.”
“Some of the cowboys may ride with him,” Slim said. “Not many, but a few.”
“Why would they do that?” Mayor Cravens asked.
“Some will because cowboys just naturally have a loyalty to the brand they ride for, and some will because if you want to be a cowboy in this part of the county, now, Eagle Shire is the only job there is.”
“What will we do, Mayor?” Doodle asked.
“I don’t know,” the mayor replied. “If there are that many of them coming into town, I don’t see how we can possibly stand up to them. When it comes down to it, they will just about have us outnumbered. . . at least as far as young, fighting age men are concerned. And most of them know how to use guns. I’d be willing to say that there aren’t more than nine or ten in all of Etholen who have ever used a gun before, let alone in battle.”
“Smoke, we aren’t just going to give in to them, are we?” Kate asked.
“Not by a long shot are we going to give in to them,” Smoke replied. “Actually, it’s good that this is all going to come to a head now. I said I wasn’t going to leave until this business with Atwood was settled, and I meant it. I figure that, before nightfall, it will be settled.”
“Do you really think we can hold him off?” Doodle asked.
“I’m not interested in just holding them off. We need to finish this business with Atwood, once and for all.”
“But how are we going to do this? He’s probably got us outnumbered, and all of his men are experienced fighting men.”
Smoke glanced toward the courthouse and smiled.
“That may be. But we’ve got something he doesn’t have.”
* * *
Cletus Murphy, Roy Beck, Lonnie Bivins, Allen Blanton, Rusty Abernathy, Arnold Carter, Andrew Dawson, Barney Easter, Ken Freeman, Ron Gelbman, Bert Graham, Cole Gunter, Doodle Higgins, Michael Holloway, Ed James, Robert Jamison, and Gerald Kelly dug the trench and rampart, and felled a couple of trees to add a revetment. The result was a defense position that was in place between the town and Eagle Shire.
“What do you think, Smoke?” Allen Blanton asked. “Looks to me like you could hold off an army.” Blanton had been in charge of digging the fortification.
“I think you and the others did a great job,” Smoke said.
“As long as they don’t decide to circle around town and come in from the other side,” Blanton suggested.
“Damn! If he does that we are in a peck of trouble,” Cal said.
Blanton chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, I know Atwood. He’s not really all that smart, certainly not smart enough to think about going around the town.”
“I hope you’re right,” Smoke said. “Cletus, Doodle, you two stay here with Pearlie, Cal, and me. The rest of you men can go on back into town now. I thank you very much for all the work you did in building this fort so quickly. You did a great job.”
“I am the mayor of this town,” Joe Cravens said. “I intend to stay as well. It wouldn’t be right for me to desert my post now.”
“All right, you can stay.”
“And me,” Rusty said.
“Rusty, if something happened to you, I’d never be able to face my sister again,” Pearlie said.
“How is that any different from the last twenty years, Uncle Pearlie?” Rusty challenged.
Pearlie stared at Rusty for a long moment, then nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “You can stay.”
“I don’t have a gun,” Rusty said.
Smoke pointed to the three cloth bags that Sally and Kate had sewn for them. “Yeah, you do,” he said with a smile.
* * *
Fourteen men left Eagle Shire with Atwood. Calling upon his experience when he was a lieutenant in the Windsor Regiment during the war, Atwood rode at their head and had his men follow him, in a column of twos. When he was no more than a mile from town, he halted his men.
“Willis. Ride ahead and take a look around.”
“You mean go by myself?”
“Of course go by yourself. You’re the marshal of the town, you aren’t going to attract any attention, especially if you are by yourself.”
“All right,” Willis agreed, though somewhat hesitantly.
Disengaging from the others, Willis rode ahead at a trot. He had just come around the last curve in the road, when he stopped. Ahead of him, and just to the side of the road, there appeared to be a couple of tree trunks, and he could see the head and shoulders of three men sticking up just above the improvised fortifications.
“Ha!” Willis said, a wide smile spreading across his face. Turning his horse around, he urged it into a rapid, ground-eating trot, until he got back to Atwood and the others.
“There’s only three of ’em!” Willis said when he returned.
“Ha! Yes, that would be Jensen, Kate’s brother, and the other man who came with them. I thought that might be the case,” Atwood said, slapping his closed fist into his hand. “They’ve been so successful in dealing with my men before that they’ve grown arrogant and overconfident. Well, we are about to teach them a lesson. Unfortunately the lesson won’t do them any good because they’re going to die learning it.”
* * *
“Smoke!” Cal called down from the tree he had climbed. He was holding a tin can in his hand, and a long string stretched from it to Smoke’s position in the entrenchment. Smoke put the can to his ear.
“They are about a half mile away,” Cal’s tinny, but easily understood voice said.
Smoke put the can to his mouth. “Start giving me a countdown, by yards, when they are about fifty yards from the marked tree.”
Smoke looked over toward Rusty. The first of the three cloth bags of powder had been pushed down into the breach of the gun, and a hollow cannon ball that had been filled with powder had been loaded. The cannon ball fuse protruded through the touchhole, and Rusty was holding a burning wick. The cannon was laid in on three selected targets, the marked tree being the first one.
“One hundred yards,” Cal said, and he began counting down in ten-yard increments. When he got to twenty yards, Smoke called out to Rusty.
“Ready!”
Rusty moved the wick closer.
“Ten yards,” Cal said.
“Fire!”
The cannon roared and belched fire. Quickly the barrel was sponged out, and a new sack of powder and a new cannon ball put in place.
* * *
“What the?” Atwood shouted when he heard the sound of the cannon being fired. He had heard such sounds before, but it had been more than twenty years in his past.
The preliminary explosion was followed by another explosion, this one loud and ear-splitting, coming from the road behind him.
“Arghhhh!”
Men screamed in fear and pain.
“Forward at a gallop!” Atwood shouted, remembering enough of his battle experience to know that the best defense was to gallop out of the kill zone.
* * *
“Fifty yards from the double rock!” Cal said into the tin can, marking the second firing point.
“Fire!” Smoke shouted when Cal indicated that they were ten yards from the double rock.
* * *
This time the cannon ball exploded in the road far enough behind Atwood and the men who were advancing with him that no one was wounded.
“Yes! Faster, we can outrun them!” Atwood shouted.
* * *
Back at the entrenchment, Smok
e had the gun moved up onto the rampart and the barrel depressed. This time, instead of being loaded with an explosive cannon ball, the barrel was filled with cut pieces of horseshoes that had been prepared by the blacksmith. Cal had come down from his position in the tree and he, Pearlie, Smoke, Cletus, and Doodle were in the trench, with rifles at the ready.
“Hold your fire until after the cannon has fired,” Smoke told the others.
They could hear the sound of thundering hooves, then the riders came around the last bend in the road. Here, they spread out in a long front. Smoke had no idea how many they had started with, but he counted twelve. The twelve attackers started shooting, and Smoke and the others could hear the bullets whistling over their heads.
“Fire the cannon, Rusty!” Smoke shouted, and again, the cannon roared.
Smoke could see the bits of iron, hurtling toward Atwood and his men in a cloud of death. Four men went down under the fusillade.
“Now!” Smoke shouted, and he and the other four men began firing as rapidly as they could jack new rounds into the chambers. Within seconds, there wasn’t one man left in the saddle.
EPILOGUE
Etholen, the following June
Smoke, Sally, Pearlie, and Cal were met at the depot by Allen Blanton, the newspaper publisher.
“I hope you don’t mind being met by me instead of your sister or your nephew,” Blanton said. “But, as I’m sure you can imagine, they’re quite busy right now.”
“Yes, I imagine they would be,” Sally said.
“I know they’re thrilled that you folks could come,” Blanton said. “Actually, the entire town is. You folks are heroes around here, you know.”
Smoke shook his head. “No more so than anyone else who took part that day . . . and that goes for the people who voted, and for people like you, Cletus, Doodle, and others who helped to turn out the vote.”
“I’ve got something I want you to see before you go to the hotel,” Blanton said.
A short while later, with their luggage loaded onto a small wagon that was being pulled behind a phaeton carriage, Blanton drove them to the Milner Hotel. But, before reaching the hotel, they stopped at the flagpole in front of the courthouse. The cannon was still there, but the sign beside it was much larger, and the name of the cannon had been changed.
THE CANNON
“SMOKE”
MANNED IN BATTLE
by Joe Cravens and Rusty Abernathy
under the COMMAND of
SMOKE JENSEN
and with the HEROIC SERVICE of
Wes “Pearlie” Fontaine, Cal Wood,
Cletus Murphy, and Doodle Higgins
Brought FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE
to Etholen, Texas
“Well, I’m very honored, Mr. Blanton. And I know that Pearlie and Cal are as well.”
“Yes, sir, we sure are,” Pearlie said.
“So, Cletus is the new city marshal now?”
“Cletus is the new marshal, Doodle is his deputy, Mr. Peterson is our new mayor, Joe Cravens the judge, and Rusty, Bull Blackwell, Fred Matthews, Dave Vance, and I make up the new city council.”
“My,” Sally said. “It looks like the town has been reborn.”
“Yes, ma’am, but not just the town,” Blanton said. “The whole county. Atwood’s ranch has been broken up. Some of it has been given back to the people he stole it from, and some of it was sold at auction. Slim Pollard and Miner Cobb bought some of it, with a bank loan, and they’re doing just fine.”
“Well, here we are,” Blanton said a few minutes later when they stopped in front of the hotel. “I’ll see you at the wedding tonight. I don’t know who is the most excited, Miss Kate or Miss Dolly.”
* * *
The wedding was held at the Pretty Girl and Happy Cowboy Saloon, which was well decorated for the event. All the tables had been taken out, and the chairs arranged so that there was an aisle down the center.
The priest, Mr. Peterson, the groomsman, and Joe Cravens, the groom, were standing at the front, where an altar had been constructed. Rusty was sitting at the piano.
After the bride’s maids processed up the aisle and took their position, Rusty began playing Mendelsohn’s Bridal March.
Smoke, Sally, and Cal turned to watch the bride, Kate, being escorted up the aisle by her brother, Pearlie. When they reached the altar, Kate moved over to stand next to Cravens, while Pearlie hurried back down the aisle where he met Dolly and escorted her up the aisle as well, all the while Rusty continued to play the Bridal March.
Then, when Dolly reached the altar, Rusty got up from the piano and hurried over to join her.
“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God and these witnesses to join this man Joseph Cravens to this woman, Katherine Abernathy, and this man Rusty Abernathy, with this woman Delores Weathers in holy matrimony.”
The next day
Smoke, Sally, Pearlie, and Cal were sitting at a table in the dining car on the train, on the way back to Colorado. They had ordered their food, but it hadn’t yet been delivered.
“I thought the wedding was just beautiful,” Sally said. “And, Pearlie, you looked so cute, escorting your sister and Dolly down the aisle.”
Cal laughed. “Yeah, you were cute,” he teased.
“And I’m so glad you have a family now,” she added.
Pearlie reached across the table to take Sally’s hand, then he took Cal’s hand. At a nod from Pearlie, Cal reached across the table to take Smoke’s hand, and he took Sally’s other hand in his.
“Heck, Miz Sally,” Pearlie said. “I’ve had a family all along.”
“Yes, you have,” Sally said, raising Pearlie’s hand to kiss it.
“Lord, Smoke, you’re not goin’ to kiss my hand now, are you?” Cal asked.
Their laughter drowned out the train’s whistle.
Keep reading for a special excerpt . . .
NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHORS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
The First Mountain Man
PREACHER’S HELLSTORM
For the sake of the son he never knew,
Preacher goes on the warpath.
Long ago, the legendary trapper known as
Preacher took shelter with the Absaroka and
fell in love with a girl called Bird in the Tree.
Twenty years later, he rescues a woman and
her son from an ambush by the hated Blackfoot.
The woman is Birdie, and the valiant young warrior
is Hawk That Soars—Preacher’s son. Now the
greatest fighter on the frontier is about to go to war
to protect a family he never knew he had.
Led by the vicious war chief Tall Bull,
the Blackfoot are trying to wipe out the Absaroka.
Hopelessly outnumbered by vicious warriors,
Preacher and his son launch a war that will stain
the Rocky Mountain snow with Blackfoot blood.
Coming soon from Pinnacle Books!
CHAPTER ONE
Moving slowly and carefully, Preacher reached out and closed his hand around the butt of a flintlock pistol.
The night was black as pitch around him, but Preacher didn’t need to be able to see to know where the gun was. He had committed all his surroundings to memory before he rolled in his blankets and dozed off.
Another pistol lay next to the one Preacher grasped, and a flintlock rifle and a tomahawk were there as well. The pistols were both double-shotted and heavily charged with powder.
Let the attackers come. Preacher was ready to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, as his friend Audie might say. The little fella had been a professor once and was fond of quoting old Bill Shakespeare.
On Preacher’s other side, the big wolf-like cur he called Dog growled softly. Preacher sat up and put his other hand out, resting it on the back of Dog’s neck where the fur stood up slightly.
Dog knew enemies were out th
ere in the night. He was eager to tear into them, but he wouldn’t attack unless Preacher gave him the go-ahead.
Preacher waited and listened.
He didn’t know what had roused him and Dog from slumber, but the rangy gray stallion known as Horse stood not far away, head up, ears pricked forward, so he’d sensed whatever it was, too.
Preacher’s almost supernaturally keen eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough for him to see the stallion and also the pack mule he had brought from St. Louis. The mule’s head was down as it dozed.
A breeze drifted through the trees and carried voices to Preacher’s ears. He couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was familiar.
The voices were Indian, but they weren’t on the warpath. If they had been stalking an enemy, they would have done so in grim silence. In this case, they sounded amused.
Preacher was on the edge of Blackfoot country, which meant he didn’t see anything funny about the situation. For more than twenty years, he had been coming to the Rocky Mountains every year to harvest pelts from beaver and other fur-bearing animals, and nearly every one of those years, he’d had trouble with various Blackfoot bands.
In fact, it was the Blackfeet who were responsible for the name he carried to this day.
Early on in his frontier sojourn, he had been captured by the Blackfeet and tied to a stake. Come morning, he would be tortured and eventually burned to death.
However, something had possessed him to start talking, much like a street preacher he had seen back in St. Louis, and when the sun rose he was still going at it, spewing out words in a seemingly never-ending torrent.
Crazy people both intrigued and frightened the Indians, and they figured anybody who started talking like that and wouldn’t stop had to be loco. Killing somebody who wasn’t right in the head was a sure way of bringing down bad medicine on the tribe, so they had scrapped their plans to roast the young man known at that point as Art. They let him go, instead.
Brutal Night of the Mountain Man Page 27
