Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns)
Page 7
Through his pain-dulled mind, Tyrone Sayers finally made the connection between names. “Jesus Christ! Smoke Jensen!”
“Nope. It’s just Ike Rucker…and Smoke Jensen,” the liveryman said through a chuckle.
All of the strength went out of the legs of Tyrone and he sagged to the floor. He barely caught himself on the edge of the bar. “I didn’t know. For the love of God, I didn’t know! Please, Mr. Jensen, don’t kill me.”
Smoke eased off a little. “I think you’ve learned some manners. Get a hand on your partner there and clear the hell out of here.”
Tyrone Sayers could not take his eyes off the six-gun burrowed into his nose. “Yes, sir, anything you say. Yes, sir, right away.”
With a grunt he came to his boots, grabbed the unconscious lout beside him by the shirt collar and dragged him to the bat wings. When they disappeared through the batwings, Sean Doolin slapped a big palm on the bar.
“By all the saints, that was a sight to behold. Another round on me.”
By the time Smoke Jensen had consumed a substantial meal to rid his head of the buzz brought on by the Irish whiskey and ridden out of Baggs, Tyrone Sayers had cleaned up and his friend had regained consciousness. Tyrone was full of plans, which he quickly shared with Norvil Yates.
“Norvie, dough dit Billy Beterson nund br’ng hip here.” Tyrone talked funny because he had twin fat lips, and two rolls of cotton batting stuffed in his nose with a heavy layer of tape to hold them in place.
“What do you want Peterson for?”
Tyrone explained in his mushy voice. “There’s a bounty out on Jensen. Big money, we’re gonna collect it.”
Right then, it seemed to Norvil Yates that his friend would not fare well in the prophet business.
6
Back at the Sugarloaf, a worried Monte Carson dropped in on Sally Jensen. He stood on the porch, hat in hand, and related what he had learned the previous day in Big Rock. His expression revealed the level of his discomfort.
“I have some more news about those escaped convicts.”
Sally nodded. “Not good from the looks of you.”
Monte tugged at one side of his walrus mustache. “That’s a fact. They have cut a bloody path across Arizona, following the Colorado River. It is suspected that they are in Utah now.”
Sally had seen outlaws come and go, had faced terrible odds herself. For some reason she could not bring herself to be overly concerned about these men. “Just how much havoc can three men create, Monte?”
“It’s not three anymore, Sally. They have a regular gang. There’s more than twenty of them. And it appears they are heading northeast. Could be to here. I’d feel better if you came into town, where I could keep an eye on you.”
“Honestly, Monte, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Smoke would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
Sally forced a light laugh she did not quite feel. “And I would never live it down if I picked now to turn delicate and vaporish.”
Caught on the horns of the proverbial dilemma, Monte fingered his hat nervously and brought up a lame excuse. “Well, if you hear from Smoke, pass along what I told you.” He took his leave and cantered off down the lane.
After Monte had ridden out of sight, Sally remained standing on the porch, looking after him. She ran over in her mind what he had said and his offer to provide protection. Then she looked through the curtained window into the living room. A golden oak shelf clock ticked steadily, its brass pendulum hypnotic in the stillness. The hands would be in soon, she mused. She would take Bobby aside and tell him to be cautious. She might even tell him why, Sally decided.
Twenty minutes later a loud clatter arose in the barnyard. Hungry hands tied off their mounts to a corral rail and made for the row of washbasins along one side of the bunkhouse. Sally made herself keep her peace until all had eaten and some sat back with quirleys sending ribbons of blue-white tobacco smoke into the noon sky. Then she went out and gathered in Bobby Harris.
They walked a distance from the hands before Sally spoke what was on her mind. “Something has come up that makes me feel I should caution you to be very careful when you are away from here. In fact, I think I will rescind my rule about wearing a gun. Take your Colt Lightning when you go out this afternoon.”
“Why? What’s happened?” the boy asked eagerly. “It’s Smoke, isn’t it?”
“No,” she hastened to assure him, then read the disbelief in his clear, youthful face. “Well, yes, somewhat.” She had allowed herself to be mousetrapped and it angered her. Reluctantly she related all that Monte Carson had told her. Fire blazed in Bobby’s eyes when she finished.
“I should have gone with him,” Bobby said stubbornly.
“No, Bobby. Smoke is not hurt. We don’t even know if he is in danger.” Unwilling to hurt the boy, she unwittingly did just that. “Believe me, there’s nothing you could do to help him more than staying here, being armed and keeping a sharp eye.”
Bobby’s face turned red. “Yes, there is!” He turned away from her and started for the house. “I’m takin’ my stuff back to the bunkhouse.”
Suddenly apprehensive, Sally called after him in a rush. “You don’t understand, Bobby. I’m asking you to keep a watch out for me as well as yourself.”
Bobby turned his head to throw back a hot retort. “I can do that well enough from across the ways. Right now, the hands are better company than you are.”
Gus Jaeger crawled back down the slope of the ridge to where the gang waited. The long, thin wisp of hairs that descended from his lower lip moved in agitation when he spoke. “There can’t be more than three families living there. They’ve got ’em a palisade around the houses and barns. Brats runnin’ around in the yard. Didn’t see sign of but two grown men.”
Victor Spectre showed his appreciation of such skill with a big smile. “You did a good job. How far are we from the Great Salt Lake?”
“It’s about fifty miles north and a bit west,” Gus answered.
Spectre nodded. “This must be one of those outposts—what do the Mormons call them? Desseret Towers?—that are strung across Utah. That means they will have quite a lot of valuables. No handy bank to go to after closing shop for the day. Get the men ready, Augustus, we’ll take them, like we did those Utes.”
Twenty minutes later the outlaw band stormed down on the Mormon encampment. Too late, they discovered the place to be a regular fort. Their rude awakening came in the form of a screeching in the air, followed by an explosion some thirty yards in front of the lead element of the gang. The heavy roar of an artillery piece followed.
“B’God, they’ve got a six pounder in there.” Gus Jaeger accurately named the weapon.
Spectre reined in when the outlaw foreman did. He frowned, perplexed. “Does that mean trouble?”
“If they have any grapeshot or canister, it sure as hell does,” Gus opined.
So far the residents of the small community had not bothered to close the gate in the stockade that surrounded their dwellings. Another shell burst close by and the cannon roared again. A staggered line of smoke clouds rippled along the parapet and rifle balls cracked through the air around the hard cases. Some looked around nervously.
In their trade of banditry, they were not accustomed to organized resistance. These Mormons had quickly proven that they were nothing to be trifled with. Victor Spectre studied the next volley of fire from the wall.
“How many grown men did you say?” he asked Jaeger.
“Two’s all I saw. There could have been more inside buildings.”
“Looks to me like everyone over the age of ten has a rifle and knows how to use it. We had best come up with something better than a frontal assault.”
Gus Jaeger considered that a moment. “They can only point that cannon one direction at a time. And if they’re puttin’ all their guns on the side opposite us, it could be we should ride around the place like Injuns and look for a weak spot.”
Jaeger liked that. “Now you’re talkin’, Mr. Spectre.”
He had it set up in two minutes. While Spectre and his two partners and the marksmen provided covering fire, Gus started off with the remaining twenty-three gunmen. Again the cannon opened up. This time, tiny plumes of dust spurted upward from the hard ground in the midst of the riders who fired at the walls as they angled across the defended portion of the wall. Grapeshot.
Three horses went down shrieking, their riders and two other men wounded by the one inch balls. One of the outlaws sat slumped in his saddle and tried to put his mangled intestines back inside his body while he groaned horribly. While the attackers recovered from this new turn of events, the gate swung closed. Shouts came from inside and the crack of a whip. Slowly the black muzzle of the cannon appeared as it rolled up an incline and leveled on a rammed earth platform, the barrel protruding over the spiked tops of the barricade.
In frustration, two of the sharpshooters fired on it. Their bullets rang on the cast barrel and flattened, to moan off harmlessly skyward. With only poor targets to choose from, the snipers had little effect. Victor Spectre watched the gang disappear out of sight around a corner of the stockade.
At once a fusillade erupted as more rifles joined the defense. “Who are they?” Spectre asked rhetorically.
Again the cannon spoke. The grapeshot crashed into the earth less than ten yards from where they had positioned themselves. It made Spectre’s skin crawl. He made a quick, disappointing estimate of their chances. He rose in his stirrups and called to the marksmen.
“This will never do. We’re too far outnumbered. Ride clear of that place and then join the others. We’re breaking this off.” The cannon barked again to give his words emphasis.
When the withdrawal began, the gate opened and armed, mounted men swarmed out. Considering himself fortunate to have escaped with such light casualties, Victor Spectre increased the gait to a gallop and streamed after his gang. The Mormons obliged him by doing the same.
It became a horse race, rather than an assault. One that they barely managed to win. Victor Spectre was pleased to discover that Gus Jaeger had correctly anticipated him and led the gang away to the north. He and his partners streamed along in their wake. The crack shots along with them turned to fire at the angry Mormons.
Gradually the distance closed between the leaders and the outlaws. When Spectre got within hailing distance, he shouted gustily, “Keep going. Take that notch ahead. I don’t think they will follow us beyond that point.”
“You had better be right,” Gus Jaeger said through gritted teeth, softly enough not to be heard.
A vast sea of tall, lush grass extended to the north, east, and west for as far as the eye could see from the last ridge that overlooked the Great Divide Basin. Smoke Jensen made camp in a small clearing in the midst of a large stand of lodgepole pine. To his northwest lay the small town of Wamsutter, Wyoming Territory. After hobbling Thunder and Debbie, he set about gathering windfall for a cook fire.
Rabbits bounded away at his footsteps and a quail called his mate. A rookery of crows turned a gnarled old oak black with their bodies and the air blue with their grating complaints. The air smelled sweet and clean. To his satisfaction, Smoke did not detect a hint of wood smoke. No one else shared this empty place with him. He could do with it that way for quite a while.
Smoke Jensen had always been a loner. At fourteen or so, Smoke Jensen had, in mountain man parlance, been to the mountain and seen the elephant.
His early life had been hard. A hardscrabble farm that grew more rocks than crops, always being hungry, and never enough clothing to keep warm in winter had been his lot. But then, everyone else had lived the same during the Civil War, especially in Missouri. Young Kirby had never eaten a juicy steak or a grapefruit. Didn’t even know what the latter was until years later when he had seen one in the breakfast room of a fancy San Francisco hotel.
No, his past life had not prepared him for elegance. It did teach him to survive. So he took up a notch in his belt and began to trudge along the trail with Preacher…
That had been a day to remember. When Kirby first saw Preacher, the man looked to him like one of the horrors out of a story by the Brothers Grimm. Preacher hadn’t shaved in several days and a thick, dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin. He was dressed all in skins, with Indian beadwork on the shirt, which he wore loose, outside his trousers, kept in place by a wide, thick leather belt. From that latter hung a tomahawk, the biggest knife the boy had ever seen, and a brace of revolvers in soft pouch holsters. A possibles bag hung over one shoulder by a rawhide strap, and a bullet mold dangled below that.
There was a brass compass tied to it by a thong, and a powder horn. Preacher wore buckskin leggings over trousers of the same material, with high-top, lace moccasins. The uppers of those had been done in ornate quill and bead work.
Preacher wore his hair long, and lockets of other human hair had been braided into the fringe of his shirt. A skunk-skin cap covered the crown of his head. His mustache was months overdue for a visit with a pair of scissors, and covered his mouth in a shaggy droop. Had young Kirby Jensen been four or five years younger, such an apparition would have made him pee his pants. Then he saw the twinkle in those flinty eyes and the mouth opened in a white smile.
Preacher took him under his wing and saw to his upbringing, and his education. Before a year had passed, Kirby had read from Shakespeare and from the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. He had improved his ciphering to the point he could deal with fractions in his head. He also learned to trap beaver, mink, otter, and raccoons. He proved to have a natural eye and became an expert marks-man within two years. He could ride a horse nearly as well as a Cheyenne boy born to it. All in all, he concluded as he arranged tinder and kindling in a ring of rocks, he had a well-rounded education….
For which he would be eternally grateful, he vowed as he lighted the fire with a lucifer. When the twigs blazed merrily, he fed thicker chunks of wood until he had enough, then left the small fire to find himself some fresh meat for his supper. It didn’t take long. In a land rich in animal life, Smoke soon found a covey of plump quail.
With a cunning learned from Preacher, he called them in close enough to swiftly grab up three and wring their necks. He took them back to camp, plucked them, gutted the carcasses and threaded them on a green sapling to roast over the coals. Then he made biscuits. He had some dry hominy, which he had put to soaking when he first reached his chosen site. All that he wanted for was some gravy. To achieve that, he put the tiny giblets of the birds to boil with some wild onions and some crumbled sage leaves. Coffee came next.
Smoke’s stomach began to growl as he smelled the savory odor that rose when the sparse fat on the birds began to drip into the orange glow beneath them. He poured coffee the minute it had boiled enough. Sighing, he sat back against his saddle and sipped with lowered eyelids.
Tyrone Sayers peered through a thick screen of gorse and blackberry brambles at the man who lay in the clearing in such confident repose, his saddle for a pillow. Tyrone knew they would find him. A wide smile spread on his face, which made him wince as the cuts in his mangled lips split open again. You’re gonna git yers, Smoke Jensen, he thought in triumph as he slid back to where the others waited.
Despite the distance and the obvious fact that their target was catching a quick nap, Tyrone mush-mouthed his announcement in a whisper. “Fellers, we’ve found us Smoke Jensen.”
Billy Peterson’s brow furrowed. “Yeah? Where?”
Billy’s patch was shy a few punkins, Tyrone reflected, but he did what he was told and didn’t give any back-talk. That moderated the erstwhile leader’s outlook toward the awkward lout.
“Jist beyond that little ridge, Billy. He’s camped in this little clearing in a stand of pine. Right now, he’s takin’ a snooze. So, what we’re
gonna do is split up, take our time at it, an’ work our way through those pine trees until we’re right on top of him. Then we’re gonna make ourselves rich men.”
Billy could not suppress a giggle. “You sure talk funny, Tyrone.”
“Go suck an egg, you little shit!” Tyrone fought to gain control over his mangled mouth and succeeded in part. “Listen to me. We got a chance at this.”
Not understanding, Billy continued to press for details. “How we gonna capture him? I hear he’s mighty fast and a whole lot mean.”
Tyrone looked at the younger boy with disgust. “We ain’t gonna capture him, dummy. When we git in place, we open up and fill him full of holes.”
Wonder filled Billy’s eyes. “We gonna call him out?”
“No, peabrain. We git him while he lays there.”
“Tyrone, that ain’t right,” Billy protested.
Anger succeeded where willpower had failed before and Tyrone spoke almost clearly. “Look at me. He did that to me. Do you think I’m gonna let him get away with it?” Then he quickly outlined where he wanted them to take up position. Then he concluded, “I’m gonna kill Smoke Jensen if it’s the last thing I do.”
Pleasant smells from the cooking quail gave Smoke Jensen another stomach rumble that pierced his light sleep. He came to his boots and carried the soaking hominy off a ways to drain it. Then he set about finishing his meal.
Lard from a paper tube melted in a cast iron skillet. It would serve to make the biscuits and fry the hominy. It would provide for gravy, also. Smoke worked with an economy of effort and movement that marked his mountain man upbringing. He soon had dough mixed and the hominy sizzling in the pan. He put the biscuits in a Dutch oven, popped on the lid, and hung it low over the coals on a trestle arm. Then he poured more coffee. For a short while, he forgot about what had brought him so far from home. Everything seemed to have been put here just for his enjoyment.