Preacher and Smoke were on their feet. Preacher stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco. Both men had slipped the thongs from the hammers of their Colts. Preacher wore two Colts, .44s. One in a holster, the other stuck behind his belt. Mountain man and young gunfighter stood six feet apart on the boardwalk.
The sheriff closed his office door and walked into the empty cell area. He sat down and began a game of checkers with his deputy.
Ackerman and his men wheeled their horses to face the men on the boardwalk. “I hear tell you boys is lookin’ for me. If so, here I am.”
“News to me,” Smoke said. “What’s your name?”
“You know who I am, kid. Ackerman.”
“Oh, yeah!” Smoke grinned. “You’re the man who helped kill my brother by shooting him in the back. Then you stole the gold he was guarding.”
Inside the hotel, pressed against the wall, the desk clerk listened intently, his mouth open in anticipation of gunfire.
“You’re a liar. I didn’t shoot your brother; that was Potter and his bunch.”
“You stood and watched it. Then you stole the gold.”
“It was war, kid.”
“But you were on the same side,” Smoke said. “So that not only makes you a killer, it makes you a traitor and a coward.”
“I’ll kill you for sayin’ that!”
“You’ll burn in Hell a long time before I’m dead,” Smoke told him.
Ackerman grabbed for his pistol. The street exploded in gunfire and black powder fumes. Horses screamed and bucked in fear. One rider was thrown to the dust by his lunging mustang. Smoke took the men on the left, Preacher the men on the right side. The battle lasted no more than ten to twelve seconds. When the noise and the gunsmoke cleared, five men lay in the street, two of them dead. Two more would die from their wounds. One was shot in the side—he would live. Ackerman had been shot three times: once in the belly, once in the chest, and one ball had taken him in the side of the face as the muzzle of the .36 had lifted with each blast. Still, Ackerman sat in his saddle, dead. The big man finally leaned to one side and toppled from his horse, one boot hung in the stirrup. The horse shied, then began walking down the dusty street, dragging Ackerman, leaving a bloody trail.
Preacher spat into the street. “Damn near swallowed my chaw.”
“I never seen a draw that fast,” a man said from his storefront. “It was a blur.”
The editor of the paper walked up to stand by the sheriff. He watched the old man and the young gunfighter walk down the street. He truly had seen it all. The old man had killed one man, wounded another. The young man had killed four men, as calmly as picking his teeth.
“What’s that young man’s name?” the editor asked the sheriff, taking out a pad of paper and a pencil to record the day’s events for his newspaper.
“Smoke Jensen. But he’s a devil . . .”5
* * *
“What’d you fellers do next?” asked Muskrat.
“Well, we both had some minor wounds, and there was a price on my head, so we took off to the mountains to lay up for a while and lick our wounds and let the heat die down.”
Smoke took a last puff on his cigarette and stubbed it out on the sole of his boot. “Except it didn’t work out exactly that way. We chanced upon the remains of a wagon train that’d been burned out by Indians, and rescued a young woman. Nicole was her name. She was the lone survivor of the attack. There wasn’t nothing else we could do, so we took her up into the mountains with us where we planned to winter.”
“And whatever happened to that girl?” Muskrat asked, his eyes sparkling with interest.
“And,” Smoke said, glancing at the almost-empty whiskey bottle, “that’s a story for another night and another bottle of whiskey.”
12
Mary Carson was showing Juanita Sanchez how to make biscuits in the small cabin where she was being held prisoner.
“I pretty good with tortillas and tamales,” Juanita said as she watched Mary roll dough into a flat sheet and then cut out circular pieces and place them on a sheet greased with lard, “but I never made biscuits.”
Mary smiled as she reached up to wipe flour off her nose. “It really isn’t all that difficult, Juanita. The main thing you have to remember is not to cook them too long, or they become as hard as rocks.” She glanced sideways at the Mexican. “Perhaps that’s why some cowboys call them sinkers.”
Juanita giggled, just as Jim Slaughter and Whitey and Swede walked into the cabin.
“Well,” Slaughter said with a frown, “I see you women are gettin’ along all right.”
Juanita blushed and stepped back away from Mary, as if she were afraid of seeming too friendly to the gringa.
Mary placed the metal sheet with the biscuit dough on it into the stove and closed the metal door. She turned and stared at the three men without a trace of fear on her face. “I was just showing Juanita how to make biscuits. I figured you men might like a change of pace from the Mexican food you seem to eat for every meal.”
“I no do nothing wrong, Señor Slaughter,” Juanita said, fear making her voice quaver.
Slaughter waved a dismissive hand. “I know you didn’t, Juanita. Now, why don’t you leave us so we can have a little talk with Mrs. Carson?”
“Sí, Señor.”
After the woman left, Slaughter stepped to the stove, took a steaming coffeepot off the burner, and poured coffee for himself and his men.
They sat at the table, and he motioned for Mary to take a seat with them.
After she sat down, Slaughter wasted no time in preliminary conversation, but got right to the point of his visit.
“I hear from my men that a man named Smoke Jensen has joined your husband and they’re on their way here.”
He watched Mary’s expression closely to see what effect his announcement would have on her.
She smiled and nodded. “I figured he would,” she said.
“You knew this was gonna happen?” Swede asked, leaning forward and staring at her through narrowed eyes.
“Of course,” she replied, looking from one to another of the men. “Big Rock is a small community, and we all tend to help one another out when needs be.”
“Just what do you know about this Smoke Jensen?” Slaughter asked.
“He’s the only man I know who’s faster on the draw and more dangerous than my husband, Mr. Slaughter.”
Slaughter’s face showed his puzzlement. “But why would a man go so far as to travel several hundred miles and risk his life just to help a neighbor out in something that’s none of his business?” he asked.
“Perhaps it’s because you kidnapped me, Mr. Slaughter. You see, in the West, men value their womenfolk above all else. I’ve heard of men being hanged just for showing disrespect for a lady, and to go so far as to steal a man’s wife to try and collect a debt . . . Well, it just isn’t done where I come from.”
“That don’t exactly answer my question, Mrs. Carson. This Smoke Jensen has quite a reputation as a gun hawk and a killer. He ain’t no gentleman who’s likely to go around avenging women who are disrespected, as you put it.”
Mary leaned back in her chair and got a strange look on her face. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Smoke Jensen, Mr. Slaughter. It may well be that this situation has a . . . particular significance to Smoke.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to tell you men a story about Smoke that my husband once told me. It may explain why Smoke will never let you get away with what you’ve done.”
Slaughter pulled a cigar out of his pocket, struck a lucifer on his boot, and lit it. As thick clouds of pungent, blue smoke trailed from his nostrils, he said, “Go ahead.”
“When Smoke was just a young man, in his first years living in the mountains, he took a young woman as his wife. They lived up in the high lonesome for a couple of years. They had a baby, a son that Smoke loved very much.” Mary’s eyes misted as she recalled the details of the story.
“At the time, there was a price on Smoke’s head and a band of bounty hunters tracked him up into the mountains. As luck would have it, when the men arrived at the small log cabin in the woods where Smoke and Nicole lived, Smoke wasn’t there. One of their cows had wandered off and Nicole told him they needed milk for their son to drink, so Smoke went looking for the cow. While he was gone, the bounty hunters burst into the cabin, guns drawn. They were furious when they found Smoke wasn’t there, and as men will, they began to do horrible things to his wife and son, trying to find out where Smoke had gone to . . .”
* * *
Some primitive sense of warning caused Smoke to pull up short of his home. He made a wide circle, staying in the timber back of the creek, and slipped up to the cabin.
By then Nicole was dead. The acts of the men had grown perverted and in their haste, her throat had been crushed.
Felter sat by the lean-to and watched the valley in front of him. He wondered where Smoke had hidden the gold.
Inside, Canning drew his skinning knife and scalped Nicole, tying her bloody hair to his belt. He then skinned a part of her, thinking he would tan the hide and make himself a nice tobacco pouch.
Kid Austin got sick to his stomach watching Canning’s callousness, and went out the back door to puke on the ground. That moment of sickness saved his life—for the time being.
Grissom walked out the front door of the cabin. Smoke’s tracks had indicated he had ridden off south, so he would probably return from that direction. But Grissom felt something was wrong. He sensed something, his years on the owl-hoot back trails surfacing.
“Felter?” he called.
“Yeah?” Felter stepped from the lean-to.
“Something’s wrong.”
“I feel it. But what?”
“I don’t know.” Grissom spun as he sensed movement behind him. His right hand dipped for his pistol. Felter had stepped back into the lean-to. Grissom’s palm touched the smooth wooden butt of his gun as his eyes saw the tall young man standing by the corner of the cabin, a Colt .36 in each hand. Lead from the .36s hit him in the center of the chest with numbing force. Just before his heart exploded, the outlaw said, “Smoke!” Then he fell to the ground.
Smoke jerked the gun belt and pistols from the dead man. Remington Army .44s.
A bounty hunter ran from the cabin, firing at the corner of the building. But Smoke was gone.
“Behind the house!” Felter yelled, running from the lean-to, his fists full of Colts. He slid to a halt and raced back to the water trough, diving behind its protection.
A bounty hunter who had been dumping his bowels in the outhouse struggled to pull up his pants, at the same time pushing open the door with his shoulder. Smoke shot him twice in the belly and left him to scream on the outhouse floor.
Kid Austin, caught in the open behind the cabin, ran for the banks of the creek, panic driving his legs. He leaped for the protection of a sandy embankment, twisting in the air, just as Smoke took aim and fired. The ball hit Austin’s right buttock and traveled through the left cheek of his butt, tearing out a sizable hunk of flesh. Kid Austin, the would-be gun hand, screamed and fainted from the pain in his ass.
Smoke ran for the protection of the woodpile and crouched there, recharging his Colts and checking the. 44s. He listened to the sounds of men in panic, firing in all directions and hitting nothing.
Moments ticked past, the sound of silence finally overpowering the gunfire. Smoke flicked away sweat from his face. He waited.
Something came sailing out the back door to bounce on the grass. Smoke felt hot bile build in his stomach. Someone had thrown his dead son outside. The boy had been dead for some time. Smoke fought back sickness.
“You wanna see what’s left of your woman?” a taunting voice called from near the back door. “I got her hair on my belt and a piece of her hide to tan. We all took a time or two with her. I think she liked it.”
Smoke felt rage charge through him, but he remained still, crouched behind the thick pile of wood until his anger cooled to controlled venom-filled fury. He unslung the big Sharps buffalo rifle Preacher had carried for years. The rifle could drop a two-thousand-pound buffalo at six hundred yards. It could also punch through a small log.
The voice from the cabin continued to mock and taunt Smoke. But Preacher’s training kept him cautious. To his rear lay a meadow, void of cover. To his left was a shed, but he knew that it was empty, for it was still barred from the outside. The man he’d plugged in the butt was to his right, but several fallen logs would protect Smoke from that direction. The man in the outhouse was either dead or passed out; his screaming had ceased.
Through a chink in the logs, Smoke shoved the muzzle of the Sharps and lined up where he thought he had seen a man move, just to the left of the rear window, to where Smoke had framed it out with rough pine planking. He gently squeezed the trigger, taking up slack. The weapon boomed, the planking shattered, and a man began screaming in pain.
Canning ran out the front of the cabin, to the lean-to, sliding down hard beside Felter behind the water trough. “This ain’t workin’ out,” he panted. “Grissom, Austin, Poker, and now Evans is either dead or dying. The slug from that buffalo gun blowed his arm off. Let’s get the hell outta here!”
Felter had been thinking the same thing. “What about Clark and Sam?”
“They growed men. They can join us or they can go to hell.”
“Let’s ride. They’s always another day. We’ll hide up in them mountains, see which way he rides out, then bushwhack him. Let’s go.” They raced for their horses, hidden in a bend of the creek, behind the bank. They kept the cabin between themselves and Smoke as much as possible, then bellied down in the meadow the rest of the way.
In the creek, in water red from the wounds in his butt, Kid Austin crawled upstream, crying in pain and humiliation. His Colts were forgotten—useless anyway; the powder was wet—all he wanted was to get away.
The bounty hunters left in the house, Clark and Sam, looked at each other. “I’m gettin’ out!” Sam said. “That ain’t no pilgrim out there.”
“The hell with that,” Clark said. “I humped his woman, I’ll kill him and take the ten thousand.”
“Your option.” Sam slipped out the front and caught up with the others.
Kid Austin reached his horse first. Yelping as he hit the saddle, he galloped off toward the timber in the foothills.
“You wife don’t look so good now,” Clark called out to Smoke. “Not since she got a haircut and one titty skinned.”
Deep silence had replaced the gunfire. The air stank of black powder, blood, and relaxed bladders and bowels, death-induced. Smoke had seen the men ride off into the foothills. He wondered how many were left in the cabin.
Smoke remained still, his eyes burning with fury. Smoke’s eyes touched the stiffening form of his son. If Clark could have read the man’s thoughts, he would have stuck the muzzle of his .44 into his mouth and pulled the trigger, insuring himself a quick death, instead of what waited for him later on.
“Yes, sir,” Clark taunted him. He went into profane detail about the rape of Nicole and the perverted acts that followed.
Smoke eased slowly backward, keeping the woodpile in front of him. He slipped down the side of the knoll and ran around to one wall of the cabin. He grinned. The bounty hunter was still talking to the woodpile, to the muzzle of the Sharps stuck through the logs.
Smoke eased around to the front of the cabin and looked in. He saw Nicole, saw the torture marks on her, saw the hideousness of the scalping and the skinning knife. He lifted his eyes to the back door, where Clark was crouching just to the right of the closed door.
Smoke raised his .36 and shot the pistol out of Clark’s hand. The outlaw howled and grabbed his numbed and bloodied hand.
Smoke stepped over Grissom’s body, then glanced at the body of the armless bounty hunter who had bled to death.
Clark looked up at the tall young man wi
th the burning eyes. Cold slimy fear put a bony hand on his shoulder. For the first time in his evil life, Clark knew what death looked like.
“You gonna make it quick, ain’t you?”
“Not likely,” Smoke said, then kicked him on the side of the head, dropping Clark unconscious to the floor.
When Clark came to his senses, he began screaming. He was naked, staked out a mile from the cabin, on the plain. Rawhide held his wrists and ankles to thick stakes driven into the ground. A huge ant mound was just inches from him. And Smoke poured honey all over him.
“I’m a white man,” Clark screamed. “You can’t do this to me.” Slobber sprayed from his mouth. “What are you, half Apache?”
Smoke looked at him, contempt in his eyes. “You will not die well, I believe.”
He didn’t.6
* * *
“Jesus,” Swede whispered, sweat appearing on his forehead.
Slaughter shook his head to clear it of the images Mary had implanted in his mind. “What happened to the rest of the men who rode off?” Whitey asked, though he thought he knew the answer.
Mary shook her head. “You don’t want to know. Suffice it to say, they all died in horrible ways at Smoke’s hand.”
Slaughter stared at her through narrowed eyes. “So, you think our taking you has made this a personal matter with Jensen, huh?”
A small, sad smile tugged at the corners of Mary’s mouth. “Yes, I do. And if I know my neighbors, Smoke Jensen won’t be the only man to ride with Monte. I’m very afraid you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, Mr. Slaughter,” she added with a slight nod of her head.
“This is all bullshit, Boss,” Whitey growled as he stood up and drank the rest of his coffee. “Ain’t no man gonna ride over three hundred miles just’cause some old bounty hunters once kilt his wife and son.”
Slaughter turned to look at the albino, a resigned look on his face. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Whitey. I would, and evidently so would this gunfighter named Smoke Jensen.”
Heart of the Mountain Man Page 9
