Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns)

by Johnstone, William W.

  A cold, bleak look filled Smoke’s yellow-brown eyes. “Could be I’m the danger.”

  Smoke Jensen left the eastern grade to Togwatee Pass shortly after the moon rose. Its pale, silver light washed the land with enough brightness to see. He would be close to Dubois before mid-morning, Smoke estimated. Thunder trotted along the well-used trail, which ran five miles north of the camp where Monte Carson and Ike Mitchell slept through the night, eager to reach Smoke’s camp in Jackson’s Hole the next day. Neither the ex-mountain man nor the posse knew of the others’ presence.

  And Smoke could have used them, had he but known.

  Over the past three days, fourteen more gunfighters and bounty hunters had drifted into Dubois, which brought the total to well above fifty-five. They dozed late into the mornings, and lounged in the saloons through the afternoons and each night. With the town in the hands of the man who had hired them, most had not known such peace and security since childhood.

  Much to the disgust of Tim O’Roarke, most of the outlaw horde made the Watering Hole a sort of headquarters. Fully three dozen lounged in the saloon on a lazy, warm afternoon. Half a dozen more had gone upstairs with some of the soiled doves. Most of them would be down before long, Tim knew. For all their bragging about what bad actors they were, and what gifts they were to womanhood, they were actually more like little boys with short fuses. How different they were from Smoke Jensen.

  That thought gave O’Roarke pause. He wondered where Smoke was right then, what he was doing.

  Nestled down into a depression outside Dubois, a pair of field glasses to his eyes. Smoke Jensen slowly swept the lenses along the buildings nearest to him. For two blocks they were residences. All of them had two things in common, Smoke observed. No one worked in the flower beds, the gardens, or went to and from the stables at the rear of the lots. Only two had lank washing, which fluttered listlessly in an indifferent breeze, on lines in backyards. Yet each house had a scruffy-looking hard case propped back in a chair on the porch. He went back over them again, then a third time.

  The people who live there are prisoners in their own homes, Smoke realized as he looked on. Then he changed his point of focus to the first of the commercial buildings. He at once noted a greater density of outlaws among the people on the street he viewed now. They swaggered through the vanquished residents, who scurried away with furtive backward glances. Smoke spotted several faces he recognized from earlier encounters with Spectre’s minions. He would have to move to sweep the main street.

  Fortunately a shallow ravine ran parallel with the face of the town where Smoke observed. After he satisfied his curiosity enough, Smoke shifted into the fissure and worked north along it until he reached a culvert where the main roadway crossed it. There he removed his hat and raised up enough to scan the main street with ease. What he saw deeply troubled him. In the same heartbeat it relieved him of an earlier anxiety. At least now he knew where Spectre held Sally.

  Heavily armed outlaws, in roving patrols of two and three, alertly prowled around the hotel. More sat in chairs on the balcony and under its canopy on the boardwalk. The saloons received good play also, he perceived. Small wonder. A collection of this sort, used to some space between themselves and others, needed an outlet for the tension their closeness would surely create. Easing down, Smoke took out a sheet of paper and began to sketch in the location of each nest of hard cases with a stub of pencil. With that accomplished, he moved again.

  Throughout the remainder of the day, Smoke timed the movements of the outlaws, entered the positions of lookout posts and the length of the watch duty. No doubt Spectre thought their presence would keep him from getting rough when he made his move to save Sally.

  “How little he knows,” Smoke said wryly to himself.

  When he withdrew, well into the night, he had an idea of where every lookout had been placed, where Spectre himself spent the night, and how many men could be expected in the saloons. With however many guns he had at his disposal, Smoke decided he would go in after Sally at the time specified. That would provide time for the warriors to get here. Once he had her clear of town, Spectre and his gang would be swept out of town in a way that would give nightmares for the rest of their lives to any who survived, Smoke vowed silently to himself.

  Without warning, the door to the room where Sally Jensen sat staring at her lamp-lit reflection in the window-panes made mirrors by the blackness outside. She tensed slightly, back unconsciously arching in preparation for a spring to flee or to attack. She was convinced that these rabble could sink to the lowest, vilest of crimes, given only the slightest provocation. Slowly, she turned her head to see who her faithful guard, Sam, had let enter.

  It turned out to be Victor Spectre. In one hand he held a tray with covered dishes. “I thought I would bring you your dinner. I brought a plate for myself, as well.” He started for a small, sturdy, drop-leaf oak table.

  “Thank you, but I am not hungry,” Sally replied absently.

  Brushing aside her rejection, Spectre began laying out the plates. “You must eat to keep up your strength, my dear. It’s roast loin of pork, with potatoes and gravy, some garden greens, and even a slice of cherry pie. The cherries are locally grown and put up by my temporary host, the mayor’s cook. I’ve brought an appropriate bottle of wine, and there will be coffee after.”

  Sally put ice into her voice. “I said I am not hungry.” A sharp pang in her stomach put the lie to that. Reluctantly, she had to admit the accuracy of his words. “Although I suppose you are right. I must maintain my strength in order to fight you vermin.”

  She went to the chair he held out for her. After seating her, Victor Spectre fussed about the table like a prissy waiter in a French restaurant. At last, he took his place and raised knife and fork. Then he hesitated.

  “Ah—perhaps you would prefer to give a blessing first?”

  Sally Jensen pulled a wry face. “Considering the circumstances, I hardly think I can be thankful for this food.”

  “Uh—yes, I follow you. Well and good, then. You might as well commence, we do not want it getting cold.”

  Hesitantly, Sally began to eat. Throughout the meal, she noticed that Spectre seemed oddly fascinated with her. He eyed her askance for the most part, yet occasionally Sally would look up from cutting a piece of meat to find him staring. She held her peace through most of the meal, determined not to make this a pleasant occasion for her captor. His continued behavior finally broke her silence.

  “Tell me, Mr. Spectre—”

  “Victor. Please, call me Victor.”

  “Very well, Victor. Tell me, has it been a while since you shared the company of a lady?”

  Spectre’s school-boy fascination faded into a scowl. “Your husband saw to that. I have been forced into the close company of only men for the past five and a half years.”

  “Didn’t your wife visit?”

  Sadness replaced the bitterness. “My wife—my wife passed on the year our son was nine.” Suddenly the anger flared again, and Spectre let it all spill out. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I am doing this. Smoke Jensen murdered Trenton. He killed my son.”

  Sally could not hide her expression of shocked disbelief. “Surely that can’t be so. There has to be something you are not telling me, perhaps something you don’t even remember about the—incident?”

  “No, nothing. I was there. I witnessed it. The boy was already wounded, could not offer further resistance. Then your husband turned on me. His shot went high….” Unconsciously, Victor Spectre raised fingers to the white streak in his hair. “I was knocked unconscious. When I awakened, days later, Trenton had already been buried.”

  Sally touched her napkin to her lips, mind searching for something with which to mitigate the indictment against Smoke. “Couldn’t the shock of being shot, and knocked unconscious, have distorted your recollection of how events transpired?”

  Oddly impacted by this unconventional suggestion, the turmoil it created could be c
learly read on the face of Victor Spectre. He considered it a moment, then hardened his features again. “Not at all. I know what I saw. That is why I have shown such fascination with you. You are so refined, such a lady, that I wonder how you can live with so notorious a murderer as Smoke Jensen?”

  Sally’s compassion for this tormented man vanished. Icily, she responded to him. “Smoke Jensen is not a murderer, and I do love and live with him quite nicely, thank you.”

  “Sorry, you don’t understand. What I want to know is what Smoke Jensen is like as a husband?”

  “Don’t be impertinent,” Sally snapped.

  Spectre forced a grin. “It is not idle curiosity, and I did not intend it to intrude on a husband and wife’s conjugal privicy. Yet, the fact remains,” he went on to add sneeringly, “you will be a widow soon, and all you will have is memories of Smoke Jensen. When that is the case, you will find that you have certain needs that—yes—that I will be more than able to fulfill.”

  Sally Jensen sprang to her feet and snatched up the tray and its unfinished meal, which she hurled at Victor Spectre. Then she slapped his face with a resounding smack.

  21

  Well satisfied with his survey of Dubois, Smoke Jensen returned to his temporary camp in a hidden canyon five miles from the town. To his surprise, he found fifteen Shoshoni warriors waiting there. Running Snake, their war leader, turned out to be a grandson to Chief Tom Brokenhorn and spoke English well.

  “We have been watching the bad men who camp in the white village. When that happen, I send message to my grandfather to have warriors come if you need.”

  Smoke found it hard to see Brokenhorn as a grandfather, yet he was already one as well. “I will probably need, right enough. When did you send for warriors?”

  “On the day we see White Wolf sneak into town,” Running Snake said with a grin.

  That meant Zeke and Ezra would run upon them on the trail, Smoke reasoned. The Shoshoni’s next words surprised him and brought to mind a question he had for a long while.

  “I also have word that some worthless dogs of the Arapaho are a hand’s span of sun behind us. They will be here in the morning.”

  Given that the two tribes had been traditional enemies for centuries, Smoke could never figure out why the government, in its infinite wisdom, had put them together on the same reservation. Maybe the land-greedy politicians hoped they would wipe out one another? He gave off worrying it to make his guests coffee, with lots of sugar, then put meat on the cookfire.

  “We will have coffee and talk,” he told Running Snake in Shoshoni. “Then we eat.”

  “It is good. When you last visited our camp, I was not yet born. There are many things I would like to know.”

  Smoke Jensen cut his sharp gaze to Running Snake. “Like what got these fellers riled up at me enough to tear into that village?”

  Running Snake nodded. “Yes, there is that…and other things.”

  Morning brought the aroma of brewing coffee and frying bacon. It also brought twenty-eight Arapaho warriors, Zeke and Ezra along with them. That surprised Smoke, who made quick to ask about it. A grinning Zeke explained.

  “We ran into these fellers just south of the pass. They tole us that they had been following a large party of Shoshoni and white men for two days. So Ez an’ me figgered ever’-body what was up for this tussel were already accounted for. We rode along.”

  Ezra took up the tale. “Then, when we got to the pass, we cut sign of Injuns an’ whites ridin’ together. We left a stone cairn tellin’ them where to come. Should be here some time today.”

  That gave him a larger force than Smoke had hoped for. Even so, he frowned. “I don’t have any more days to spare. Today’s the deadline. I have to show myself in Dubois or Sally will be killed tomorrow.”

  Zeke questioned that. “You don’t really think that feller would make good on his threat, do you? Why, he’d lose his advantage.”

  “You and I know that, and so does he. But, I’m afraid the one in charge is unable to think clearly right now. He might consider it just desserts for me, even though he would die in the process.”

  Ezra spoke encouragingly. “I make it a good sixteen white men, and about thirty Shoshonis.”

  Smoke sounded grim. “He’ll die then, no matter what happens to Sally.”

  What jolted Smoke even more came when the mixed band arrived shortly after noon. Smoke almost blew the head off his foreman when Ike Mitchell and the Sugarloaf hands sprinted ahead of the approaching Shoshoni warriors into the box canyon. He received yet another surprise when he saw Monte Carson and Hank Evans along. He vigorously shook his old friend’s hand and led him to the cookfire.

  “I have to leave soon, Monte, but there’s time for a cup of coffee.”

  “Leave? For where?”

  “Dubois. Victor Spectre has given me two days to turn myself in to save Sally’s life. This is the second day.”

  Monte had heard about Sally’s kidnapping from Ike. He had cursed and kicked rocks and slammed a fist into a pine trunk at the time. Now he let go a low, rumbling swear word and fire lighted his eyes. “You’re not going alone?”

  “That’s what he expects, but I don’t think so. This many people on hand calls for a change of plan.”

  Monte and Ike looked wary. Ike was first to take up the burden. “There’s one person along you may want to cook up some special plans for, Smoke.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Bobby.”

  Smoke exploded upward to land hard on his boot soles. “What the bloody blue hell did you let him come along for?”

  Ike gritted his teeth, knowing the ire of his boss to be justified. “I—ah—didn’t exactly ‘let’ him come along. He insisted. The kidnapping of Sally was sort of the last straw for him.”

  Before Smoke could hunt down the boy and unload on him, Ike took him aside and told him of his conversation with Bobby. It cooled the anger Smoke had built. Carefully he thought over what he would say while he sought out the lad, who had wisely decided to avoid Smoke’s notice. Smoke found Bobby at the picket line, industriously brushing out his horse.

  “Bobby, I am not happy with this. You can be sure of that. Although I think I understand why you came along.”

  “Yes, sir. You’re going to send me back.”

  Smoke softened his expression with a fleeting smile. “No. You may stay. But you’ll have to stay behind in this camp until the fighting’s over. Having Sally’s life in danger is enough, too much in fact. The risk of putting you in harm’s way is more than I could bear. I—well, at first I thought of you as a nuisance. Since then, I—I’ve come to love you every bit as much as my own natural sons.” There, I’ve said it, Smoke’s expression declared.

  Bobby’s eyes went wide and round. “You do? You really do? I thought—I thought you looked at me as nothing but a little boy, someone to take fishing and teach about ranching.”

  Impulsively, they found themselves in a tight embrace. Smoke seemed reluctant to end it, pride in Bobby’s indomitable spirit filling him. At last he let the boy go. “I have to do some planning with Monte, Ike, and the war chiefs.”

  “Then what, Smoke?”

  “I’m going to Dubois to get Sally.”

  With Zeke’s admonition that Spectre would not be crazy enough to eliminate his one insurance policy by killing Sally the next day fresh in his mind, and in light of the large number of men on hand, Smoke made drastic changes in his plans. If he did not show up by the deadline, it would put them further off balance, he reasoned. Smoke figured that a little havoc in Dubois might also have a beneficial effect. Shortly before dusk, he and Zeke rode out of the canyon mouth and started for Dubois. Already confused by Smoke’s failure to appear in town, Spectre and his underlings would not be in good shape for a dawn attack after a sleepless night. They reached a spot from which they could observe everything going on along the main street. Patiently they waited out the long hours until alertness slackened.

  Then they mad
e their move. Smoke had earlier pointed out to Zeke several sentries who dozed off. Silently, moccasins replacing boots, Smoke and Zeke ghosted in on a pair of these. Solid blows, with the flat of tomahawk blades, quickly rendered the thugs unconscious. Smoke and Zeke each dragged their man off into the grass, to bind and gag them. Then they set off after another group of laggards.

  “Over there,” Smoke whispered in Zeke’s ear. “There’s two of them.”

  At a creeping pace, Smoke and Zeke closed in. When they came within ten yards, they could hear muffled conversation.

  “By dang, I’m gettin’ sick and tired of this. Who’er we watchin’ out for?”

  “Smoke Jensen, of course.”

  “Would you know him to see him? I don’t blame him for not comin’ in today. A man’d have to be a fool to ride into a town bristlin’ with guns like this one.” He laughed softly. “I’d kinda like to come face-to-face with him. Shake his hand and tell him how smart I think he is for keepin’ outta Spectre’s clutches.”

  A voice answered him from out of the darkness. “You kin, if you want to, Yonker. He’s standin’ right in front of you.” Zeke chuckled softly a moment before he clonked the other outlaw over the head with his tomahawk.

  Galvanized by this disclosure the first gunhawk came to his boots. “You are? Smoke Jensen? Where are you?”

  “Right here,” Smoke told him as he slapped the lout alongside the head with his ’hawk. Abruptly rubber-legged, the gunman went down in a heap.

  Again, they dragged the senseless burdens out into the tall grass and tied them securely. Zeke edged over to Smoke. “I reckon that’s enough, don’t you?”

  Smoke’s breathy chortle lightened his words. “Yeah. On this side. We need to take a few more.”

  By two o’clock in the morning, they had taken out seven more lookouts. Then Smoke and Zeke split up and moved to positions on opposite sides of the town. Late hangers-on in the saloons soon found themselves listening to a timber wolf chorus. The eerie wails echoed off buildings and floated in the streets in such a way that no one could pinpoint their place of origin.