Smoke Jensen had a definite location in mind. It had been some time since he had visited Jackson’s Hole. He reckoned that the high peaks around this spectacular basin would be ideal for him to work his way around whoever came along with Spectre, Tinsdale, and Buckner. He could clearly visualize a nice little cove in the Snake River where the sand washed almost snow white and the grass grew lush and thick. It smelled of sweet pine and wild daisies and the breeze blew softly with only a few days’ exception. He would settle in there and then scout out the country around the basin.
Surrounded as it was by 13-and 14,000-foot peaks, the small “hole” served as the southern gateway to the Yellowstone country, the “Land of Smokes,” as the Blackfeet, Crow, and Cheyenne called it. Beyond it, “civilization” had begun to encroach. Three towns now existed on land that had only a few years ago been covered red-black with the backs of millions of bison. Of all of these settlements, the only one Smoke considered deserving of existence was Dubois.
A quite, peaceful town, Dubois had an honest lawman, a church, and a school long before any such had existed anywhere else in Wyoming. They welcomed any among the law-abiding, with zero tolerance for beggars, criminals or trash. The reason? Smoke Jensen had helped make it that way. When Smoke’s time came at last to leave, the townspeople threw a three-day fandango. Colorful bunting and Chinese lanterns decorated the main intersection. There was feasting—trestle tables groaned under the weight of food, kegs of beer, and bottles of whiskey—dancing long into the night, and games for the children. Narry a feminine eye, from eight to eighty, was dry when Smoke finally rode out.
Maybe he would visit Dubois on this trip and let the word get out from there that he had come back to Jackson’s Hole. Then he would return to the Hole and begin to construct some unpleasant surprises for Spectre and the gang he would bring with him. It would be necessary, he knew, because the three of them would not come alone. Even together, they did not have the courage it would take to face him. Now, halfway across the Great Divide Basin, he called an early halt for the day.
He spent two hours of the remaining daylight to check his back-trail. Smoke found it reassuringly empty. Next he turned his attention to making camp. While he worked, his mind turned back to how he first encountered and dealt with Victor Spectre, Ralph Tinsdale, and Olin Buckner….
Olin Buckner had dreams of building an empire in central Montana. He and two like-minded associates had worked over a few years to acquire ownership of Twin Pines, a small settlement in a lush valley that contained only four ranches. Two of them belonged to the consortium of Buckner and his friends. One of these had actually been obtained through legal means. Not so the business establishments of Twin Pines. The three saloons, two eating establishments, the hotel, and the feed and grain outlet had been acquired by the simple means of brute force. Only one business, the general store, held out. It was there that Smoke Jensen learned of the methods employed by Buckner’s hired guns. Smoke had come in for supplies and had nearly completed his transaction when four of Buckner’s bully-boys swaggered into the mercantile.
“Yer not sellin’ anything to him,” the self-appointed leader brayed, a stubby finger pointed at Smoke. “He’s workin’ for that Luscomb woman.” He knew that much, but he didn’t know who Smoke was.
The proprietor bristled. “I’ll sell to whomever I please.”
“Not anymore.” The reply crackled in the suddenly tense atmosphere of the room. “Y’see, that’s what I came to tell you. Mr. Buckner has decided this has gone on long enough. He’s buying you out as of today. I brung over the papers, all legal and such. All you gotta do is sign.” Grinning, he shoved forward the papers.
Reflexively the store keeper took them and began to read aloud. “‘For the sum of one dollar, and other valuable considerations, I, Howard Leach, do agree to sell and convey all interest and claim to the property, building and contents thereof…’ One dollar! I wouldn’t sell for ten thousand times that sum. And I would never sell to Olin Buckner and those scum he associates with. Now, get out of here, Tyson.”
Swiftly, the grin on the face of Zeke Tyson turned to a thunderous scowl. “I even brought you your dollar. You’ll take it, if you know what’s smart.”
No question remained in the mind of Smoke Jensen as to how he would side in this matter. He eased away from the counter and faced off with the thug. “The man said he didn’t want to sell.”
Snarling, the hard case reached out and began to tap the chest of Smoke Jensen with one stubby finger. He made a big mistake. “Keep yourself shut of this, saddle trash. Best you get out of here and hit the road.”
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please get out. And please hit the road.”
Pushed beyond the extremely low threshold of his temper, the dull-witted Tyson exploded with rage. “You five-and-dime tinhorn.” He looked Smoke up and down with utter disdain, noting the low-slung righthand rig, with the .44 Colt Model ’60, and the other one, worn slant-wise, at belt level on the left hip, butt outward. “You fancy yourself a gunfighter, eh? You’re just about to find out what that word means.”
“Please, Tyson, take it outside,” Howard Leach appealed.
Frothing at the mouth, the thug whirled on the merchant. “All right, Howie, we’ll do just that. Then, when I’m done, I’m gonna come back in here and get your signature on that paper or spread it with your brains.”
Tyson led the way out into the street. Two of his henchmen followed. They spread out, with one hard case leaning on a rain barrel across the main drag, the other some twenty feet east of Zeke Tyson. Smoke Jensen came next, with the last thug behind him. Smoke made note that the lout remained at his back. It troubled him somewhat, though not a great deal. Tyson spread thick, trunklike legs, and stood flat-footed in the center of the avenue.
His words came in a jeering bray. “Any time yer ready, tinhorn.”
Smoke raised a hand in a halting gesture and took a quick sidestep to his left. “You’re the one who wanted this, not I. If you want to make a play, go ahead. But get this scumsucker out from behind me first.”
“Tally likes it right where he is. Don’t ya, Tally?”
“Sure enough, Zeke,” came the mocking reply from behind Smoke Jensen.
“Well, then, in that case, if you haven’t anything more to puke out of that overworked mouth of yours, I suppose it is up to me to open this dance.”
So saying, Smoke spun and dropped to one knee. His righthand Colt appeared in his hand in a blur and he shot Tally dead-center in the chest. Tally thrust himself backward and slammed into the front wall of the mercantile. Pain blurred his vision and he waggled the Merwin and Hulbert .44 in his left hand uncertainly, in search of a target.
Only Smoke Jensen had moved the moment his six-gun recoiled in his grip. He did a shoulder roll that put him ten feet from where he had started and well out of the line of fire from either Tally or Tyson. Unfortunately for Tally, the move had been made too swiftly. Zeke Tyson had fisted his own six-gun and let roar. The slug cut through air where Smoke Jensen had been and slammed into the bulging stomach of Buck Tally.
“Oh, God, Zeke, you done kilt me,” Tally panted out. Gut-shot, his words came out coated in crimson. He slid to a sitting position with a mighty groan. His boot heels drummed on the planks of the boardwalk and he stiffened suddenly. A great gout of blood vomited explosively from his distorted lips and he fell over dead.
“Jesus, nobody can shoot that fast,” one of the remaining toughs with Zeke Tyson babbled as he stared at the fallen gunman.
“Get him, goddamnit!” Tyson shouted. “What are you two good for?”
From his place in the center of the street, one quickly showed that he was good for dying. He tracked his already-drawn six-gun toward Smoke Jensen, who ducked below the rim of a horse trough and hugged the ground a moment. When slugs punched through the spongy wood of the opposite side and began to spill water onto the ground, Smoke popped up, sighted quickly,
and blasted a lead messenger of death into the heart of the hapless hard case.
Staggered, he discharged his weapon in the general direction of Smoke Jensen and dropped to both knees. Smoke felt the heat of the bullet as it cracked past his right ear. His fourth round struck solid bone in the skull of the wounded gunman and put him into the next world. Smoke moved the instant after he fired.
Desperately, Zeke Tyson made his try for Smoke Jensen. In all his short life, Zeke had never seen anyone so fast and so accurate as this saddle tramp. His own slug cut through emptiness where the dauntless gunfighter had been a moment before. Then it was his turn to look down the muzzle of a leveled .44. He immediately did what any red-blooded, first-rate gunfighter would do. He ran like hell for the safety of a nearby alleyway.
Smoke Jensen turned his attention to the remaining henchman. Thoroughly cowed by the speed and deadliness of their intended victim, he had ducked behind the flimsy cover of the rain barrel. To his regret, it had not rained in twenty-seven days and the level in the barrel had dropped to only a couple of inches. He shot around its bulging middle and drew greatly unwanted return fire.
With the ease of a bar of lead dropped in a mud hole, Smoke’s slugs cut through the oak staves of the intervening cylinder and out the other side to lodge in the chest of the crouching gunhand. Without a sound, he spread out on his back on the boardwalk. Smoke Jensen waited a moment, then approached cautiously.
Only a dwindling light remained in the eyes of the dying man. Pink foam bubbled from the holes in his chest and a spreading pool of red surrounded his shoulders. Concentrating his energy, he formed breathy words.
“Who…who are…you…mister?”
“They call me Smoke Jensen.”
Understanding bloomed in those dead man’s eyes. “I…I should…have…known. I’m…I’m dead, ain’t I?”
No reason to hide the truth, Smoke reasoned. “You soon will be.”
“Gawd, it…don’t hurt any less.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Gettin’…done in…by the—the…best.” Then he gave a mighty convulsive heave and died.
That’s the moment Zeke Tyson chose to fire a shot from ambush. The bullet whipped by close enough to cut the hat from the head of Smoke Jensen. Smoke turned and drew his second Colt from its high holster. The muzzle tracked right and he fired into the puffball of powder smoke that lingered at the corner of the alley. It struck nothing and Smoke heard the thud of retreating boots. Prudence cautioned him that it would be foolish to go in and dig out the man. Instead, he crossed the street.
In the doorway, the merchant stood with an expression of awe on his face. “Lawsie, you did for them right sudden like. Mister Jensen, your custom is welcome in my establishment any time.”
Smoke gazed on him with a hard eye. “Will it still be when I come after Olin Buckner?”
“Yes, sir. You can count on it.”
When Smoke Jensen returned to town at the head of a large band of gunfighter friends and a number of oldtimer mountain man acquaintances from his days with Preacher, the store keeper stood true to his word. Although by that time, he wore one arm in a sling, the result of a savage beating he had taken from Buckner’s henchmen.
Smoke had personally cleaned the plows of those responsible and they presently inhabited the hilltop cemetery west of town. In retaliation, Buckner had hired an army of gunfighters, put a bounty on the head of Smoke Jensen, and sat back to enjoy the results. That consequence soon bankrupted Olin Buckner and cleared the way for the final showdown.
After some judicious whittling away of the odds, Smoke and his rugged band closed in on the Crystal Cage Saloon, Buckner’s headquarters. The fighting grew fierce and, at one point, it looked as though Smoke Jensen and his allies might go down in defeat. Two men had gained the roof of the bank across the street from the general store positioning themselves to shoot Smoke Jensen in the back. That was when the steadfast merchant took a hand in the game. He burst through the doors to his business, his trusty shotgun in hand and shouted to Smoke.
“Smoke! Look out! On top the bank.”
Smoke had started to whirl around when the shotgun boomed and the store keeper blew one of the hard cases off his feet. Smoke settled with the other a second later. Smoke waved his six-gun at the man and quickly set to reloading.
“Thanks, I owe you one,” the famous gunfighter told the merchant.
“Way I figure it, I still owe you a couple, Mr. Jensen,” he responded, beaming.
Balance quickly shifted in the fighting. When he finally closed with Buckner, Smoke Jensen administered a thorough thrashing with iron hard fists. Bleeding and broken, Buckner lay slumped in defeat in a corner of a room above the saloon. But only for a moment. From an inside coat pocket, Buckner produced a two-shot, .50 caliber derringer. Racking back the hammer of the short-barreled, under-powered weapon, Buckner fought to get enough air to rail at his enemy.
“Goddamn you, Smoke Jensen. You’ll pay for ruining me.”
His first shot slammed into the thick, wide leather cartridge belt at the small of Smoke’s back. It failed to penetrate, though it staggered the gunfighter. Yet, Smoke managed to turn and face his assailant. Buckner’s second bullet cut a hole, front to rear, through the fleshy part of Smoke’s right side. Its impact coincided with the discharge of the Colt in the hand of Smoke Jensen.
Put well off course, the slug went low and smashed the right hip joint of Olin Buckner. Dizzied by earlier wounds, Smoke Jensen stumbled across the room and kicked the now-useless pistol from the hand of its owner. Then he sat heavily in a chair, blood streaming from his side, and waited for someone to come.
10
It was the same when he faced Ralph Tinsdale…. Smoke Jensen had been a friend of Harrison Tate for over twenty years when he received a telegram at the Sugarloaf from Harrison’s wife, Martha. Had Smoke dwelled in one of the glittery cities of the East, or even in Denver, his message would have come with a black border. Harrison had died three days earlier, ridden down by a runaway carriage. The driver had not been caught. Saddened by the loss of a good friend, Smoke and Sally Jensen made ready at once to take the train from Big Rock to Denver to attend the funeral.
When they arrived, Smoke found the circumstances relating to the death of Harry Tate a bit like over-ripe fish. He also became embroiled in a minor scuffle after the funeral, at the grave-side service. A scruffy-looking individual approached Martha, demanding to speak with her immediately. He was, he claimed, an attorney, representing a client who absolutely insisted that Martha sell some property to him.
Rude to the point of disgust, the lawyer kept a bland expression as he pushed his cause. Boorishly, he shoved the papers into the face of the grieving widow. Only the heavy veil that covered her face prevented him from actually striking her. Sally Jensen put one arm protectively around the shoulders of Martha Tate.
“You do not understand, madam. Women cannot inherit property in their own right. You have no children, so you may retain possession of your husband’s property for so long as it takes to dispose of it. The sooner, the better.”
His untimely and unseemly intrusion sent flashes of memory through Smoke Jensen. In an instant he recalled the pressure brought against the merchant in Montana. This sounded too much like that to ignore. Smoke moved forward as the cad shoved the papers forward again.
Smoke planted a big, hard hand on the nearest shoulder of the shyster and bore down with hard fingers. “Back off, buster,” the lawyer said from the side of his mouth.
Smoke swung him with such force his hat spun away and his longish hair swung in the breeze. Smoke planted his other fist solidly against the still-flapping lips, painfully stilling them, and depositing the lout on his butt in the rain-wet grass. Smoke spoke softly, yet each word bore the weight of menace. “Now that I have your attention, listen good. The lady has just buried her husband. Kindly have the decency to allow a proper period of mourning. And, while we’re at it, kindly haul your despicabl
e carcass out of here this instant.”
Shaken, the attorney cut his eyes from Smoke to the widow, then back again. “I don’t know who you think you are….” he began to bluster.
“Oh, I know quite well who I am. My name is Smoke Jensen.”
Instantly the lawyer turned the ashen color of the already dead, a greenish tinge ringed his fat, greedy, now-trembling lips. Everyone had heard of Smoke Jensen. Shakily, he scrambled to the soles of his patent leather button shoes and made a hasty retreat, frequently pausing to glance nervously behind him. A fresh shower slanted through the limbless trees and cold fall rain made a damp ruin of the papers clutched in one of his hands. Later he was to find out that his client Ralph Tinsdale had not heard of Smoke Jensen, and didn’t care to be advised about the subject. They both lived to regret that.
Over the next five days, Ralph Tinsdale resorted to other, more vicious means of enforcing his will on the Widow Tate. Tinsdale absolutely had to gain title to a choice, highly valuable square block in the center of downtown Denver. He desperately needed it to complete a land development scheme which would make him unbelievably wealthy, with more money than he could spend in three lifetimes. Two nights later, the carriage house behind the Tate mansion on Nob Hill caught afire. Two horses died, and a third was so badly burned that it had to be put down. The next day, Martha Tate found her beloved pet cat poisoned on the back porch. Crushed anew by this added grief, Martha retreated to her sitting room, to be consoled by Sally, while Smoke attended to affairs.
At the local police precinct, Smoke quickly found that the captain and most of his men resided solidly in the hip pocket of the as-yet unnamed speculator. The reception Smoke received when he went to file a complaint on Martha’s behalf was cool enough to form frost.
“Accidents do happen, Mr. Jensen,” the captain said airily. Then his obvious envy turned his coolness to arctic ice. “Even to the filthy rich.”
Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) Page 11
