Warpath of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “That’s just it, Blue Owl. There’s nothin’ up here to make them suspect we’d head this way, so they’re not likely to look for us up here.”

  “But they’ll know we’re here soon’s we hit some ranches or mines,” Blue Owl protested.

  “Who’s gonna tell anybody?” Berlin asked, looking sideways at the Indian. “I don’t plan to leave nobody alive to tell anybody what we done.”

  “But we gotta have someplace to hide out,” Blue Owl said, glancing at the sky as snow began to fall again. “The men are getting kind’a tired of camping out in this weather, and it figures to be a mite colder the higher we go up into the mountains.”

  “Look on the map, where I made an X,” Berlin said.

  Blue Owl held the map closer to his eyes. “I see the X, but I don’t see nothing near it ’cept the words ‘Hot Springs.’”

  “When we were in Lode, I asked the assayer if there were any caves up here. He said there were some old Indian caves near the hot springs area. I figure we can hole up there and make our raids from that place. It’ll get us outta the weather, an’ there’ll be hot water to use if we need it.”

  Blue Owl looked at him. “Hot water? You think any of these men are planning on taking a bath?”

  “You never know, Blue Owl. A few weeks stuck in a cave together may make them want to get some of the stink of the trail off.”

  Blue Owl laughed. “That’ll be the day.”

  “One good thing,” Berlin said.

  “What’s that?”

  Berlin held out his hand, and it was quickly covered with snow. “This snow’s gonna make trackin’ us almost impossible.”

  “Yeah, but if it keeps falling like this, it’s also gonna make it rough going for our mounts.”

  Berlin shrugged. “From the looks of the map, we don’t have that much farther to go anyhow.”

  * * *

  Smoke, along with Cal and Pearlie, followed the tracks left by Berlin’s gang. As the snow continued to fall and the wind picked up out of the north, the tracks were becoming increasingly more difficult to see.

  “Smoke,” Pearlie said, pulling his hat down tight on his head and tying a bandanna around his face, “if this keeps up, we ain’t gonna be able to track squat by afternoon.”

  Smoke, who had the collar of his buckskin coat pulled up over his ears, nodded. “I know.”

  He reined in, fished a compass out of his pocket, and held it out, glancing from it to the tracks for several minutes.

  “What’re you doin’?” Cal asked from Smoke’s other side. He was hunched over with his hands in the pockets of his coat, steering his horse with his knees.

  “Since we aren’t going to be able to see the tracks much longer, I’m trying to get a fix on the direction they’re taking right now. Once the tracks are covered up, we’ll just keep going in that direction until we catch up with them.”

  “What if’n they change course?” Pearlie asked.

  “Then we’re out of luck,” Smoke said, “and we’ll just have to wait until we hear some news of where they hit next. One thing’s for sure. They’re not going to stay under cover for long without causing some trouble somewhere.”

  “What’s that compass tell you?” Cal asked, shaking snow off the brim of his hat.

  Smoke’s eyes grew thoughtful. “Looks like they’re making a wide circle back to the northwest.”

  “The northwest?” Pearlie said. “But that’s back toward Big Rock, ain’t it?”

  “Yes,” Smoke replied shortly. “It looks to me like they’re headed up into the mountains north of town.”

  “But, there ain’t nothin’ up there but some mines an’ ranches,” Cal said.

  “Yeah,” Smoke replied, “mines and ranches run by friends of ours.”

  Two hours later, with all evidence of the outlaws’ tracks completely covered, and the snow falling so thick they couldn’t see the trail in front of them, Smoke decided to make camp.

  “We’ve got to get these mounts under cover, before we get stranded out in the open,” he said, almost having to yell to be heard over the howling of the wind.

  “I don’t see no cover handy,” Pearlie yelled back.

  “Let’s head straight up the mountain,” Smoke replied.

  Within twenty minutes, they came to a thick grove of pine trees nestled up against a cliff.

  “Perfect,” Smoke said, getting down off his horse. “You and Cal get some branches and tree limbs for a lean-to. I’ll hobble the horses and get them some grain out of the packs.”

  “How about getting a fire started first?” Cal asked.

  Smoke shook his head. “Nope. You’re forgetting what I taught you, Cal. The horses get taken care of first, ’cause without them, we’re as good as dead.”

  Within half an hour, the lean-to shelter was keeping the worst of the wind and snow off the men and horses, and Smoke had a roaring fire going up against the side of the cliff.

  “Why’d you build the fire next to the cliff?” Pearlie asked. “Looks like it’d be better out in the open so’s we could get around it on all sides.”

  “No, it’s just the opposite,” Smoke said. “Building it up against the stone cliff keeps the flames out of the wind and heats up the rock. Once we go to sleep and the fire dies down, the rock wall will continue to put off heat for several hours. That way, no one has to stay awake to tend the fire and the wind won’t scatter our coals all over the place.”

  Pearlie reached down, picked up the pot of coffee, and poured mugs for everyone. “It’s shore nice campin’ with an old mountain man,” he said, grinning. “You learn all sorts of things.”

  Smoke stared at him through narrowed eyes. “The first thing you gotta learn, Pearlie, is not to call the mountain man who’s teaching you things old.”

  “Yeah,” said Cal from the other side of the fire. “If you make Smoke mad, Pearlie, he’s liable not to let you have seconds on the grub.”

  “Old? Did I say old?” Pearlie asked, smiling over his mug of steaming coffee. “I meant to say experienced mountain man.”

  Smoke laughed. “That’s better, Pearlie. Now, why don’t you take that skillet of bacon and eggs off the fire before all we have to eat is charcoal.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Smoke awoke to find two feet of snow covering the ground as far as they could see. Though snow was still falling, the wind had died down and the temperatures had moderated to tolerable levels.

  Smoke climbed out of his sleeping blankets, stirred the coals into life, and added some wood from the pile they’d gathered the night before. While coffee and biscuits were heating, he stepped out of the lean-to and surveyed the mountain range around them.

  Soon, Cal and Pearlie stirred and squatted next to the fire, holding their hands out to the flames to warm them as they drank coffee and munched on warm biscuits with pieces of jerked beef in them.

  “What’s the plan, Smoke?” Pearlie asked.

  “Well, it’s obvious we’re not going to be able to track the outlaws through this layer of snow,” Smoke said, holding his mug with both hands and sipping the steaming brew.

  He built himself a cigarette and lit it off a twig from the fire. “I think it’s time to head for home.”

  “You mean the Sugarloaf?” Cal asked, a hopeful look in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Smoke replied. “We need to let the horses get some rest, and if we’re going to go up into the mountains and take this gang on by ourselves, I want to get some extra provisions and equipment.”

  “You plannin’ on gettin’ some of the hands to go up there with us an’ help us out?” Pearlie asked.

  “No. Tracking these men in the high lonesome is a job for as few men as possible. We’re going to need to travel light and fast, and be able to hit and run.” He shook his head. “Can’t do that with a whole passel of flatlanders along to slow us down.”

  “That why you got Jed and Bob to head back to Pueblo?” Cal asked.

  Smoke nodded. �
��Yes, in part. They’re both good men, but neither are experienced in high-mountain tracking. I’d hate to see them get killed because they didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Speakin’ of knowin’ the high-mountain country, Smoke,” Cal said, “you think we’ll run into any of your mountain-man friends up there?”

  Smoke nodded. “I hope so,” he said, glancing up the mountainside as if he could see them in his mind’s eye. “The mountain men know just about everything that’s going on in their neighborhoods. If the outlaws are hiding out up there, some of the old beavers will know where.”

  “You think we’ll see Bear Tooth, or Long John Dupree, or Bull Durham?” Cal asked.

  Smoke smiled. “I take it you remember ol’ Bear Tooth, huh?”

  Both Cal and Pearlie nodded, smiling. They’d met Bear Tooth a couple of years back when Monte Carson’s wife, Mary, had been kidnapped by Big Jim Slaughter and they had gone with Smoke to help rescue her.2

  “Well, if he’s still alive and kicking, which I suspect he is, we’ll certainly try to find him. Nobody in the high lonesome knows more about what’s going on up there than Bear Tooth. He’s a natural-born gossip and likes to keep track of who’s coming and going in his neck of the woods.”

  “He’d be a big help if we go up against them outlaws too,” Pearlie said. “He’s right handy with that Sharps Big Fifty he carries.”

  Smoke grinned. “There is that to consider too. The way I figure it, there’s way too many of them for us to try and attack them head-on.”

  “That mean we’re gonna do like them ninjas you an’ Sally are always tellin’ us about?”

  Smoke laughed. “Yeah, sort’a like we did up in Jackson Hole against Big Jim Slaughter with Muskrat.”

  Cal laughed. The old mountain man named Muskrat Calhoon, because he smelled like a muskrat, had been an instant friend of both Cal and Pearlie.

  “You mean, hit and run, terrorize them so they don’t know who or what is after ’em, and keep doggin’ ’em till they go crazy with fear?” Pearlie asked.

  “That’s about the size of it,” Smoke replied.

  “Ol’ Bear Tooth would love that,” Cal said. “I think he was kind’a miffed to miss out on the excitement we had up in Jackson Hole.”

  “If we manage to find him, and he agrees to help us,” Smoke said, “I have a feeling he’ll get his fill of excitement this go-around.”

  26

  After some roaming back and forth, and checking the map again and again, Ozark Jack Berlin finally managed to find the area marked as hot springs in the mountains.

  He crested a small rise in the trail and looked down into a shallow valley to find a seven-foot-wide stream winding through it with steam rising from the pool in the middle of the valley like ground fog on a humid morning. In the walls of the cliffs surrounding the valley could be seen dark openings of caves scattered around the periphery of the area. Out in the middle of the valley floor, near the steaming pools of hot mineral water, there were three clapboard and log cabins that looked to be in moderately good repair.

  “Well, men,” Berlin said, sitting back against the cantle of his saddle, “here’s our new home for the next few months.”

  “I didn’t know there was cabins here,” Blue Owl said. “I thought you said we’d be living in caves.”

  Berlin shrugged. “The assayer I talked to didn’t mention nothin’ ’bout no cabins. Guess they been built since he was up here.”

  He glanced at Blue Owl. “’Course, if you want, you can stay in the caves instead.”

  Blue Owl shook his head. “No. I had my fill of caves back in California.”

  Berlin raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know the Modoc lived in caves.”

  Blue Owl gave a sly smile. “We didn’t, usually. But once, after the Battle of Lost River, the Army chased us across some lava fields near Thule Lake. We hid in some caves and they decided not to try and get us out.”

  He showed his teeth. “It was a smart decision on their part. They would’ve lost a lot of men trying.”

  Berlin looked thoughtful. “You know, Blue Owl, you make a good point. Those caves would be a whole lot easier to defend if by chance somebody comes callin’ on us here.”

  “Yeah. Those cabins are kind’a out in the open. It’d be too easy to surround them if we came under attack.”

  “Well, I guess what we’ll do is fix up the caves with supplies an’ provisions an’ ammunition in case that happens. We can stay in the cabins, with guards posted on all sides to warn of any upcomin’ attack, an’ at the first sign of it, we’ll get on into those caves, where we can stand off an army if we need to.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Blue Owl agreed. He pointed. “See the way the caves are backed right up against the cliffs overhanging them? If we put men in caves on both sides of the valley, there ain’t no way anybody could get at us without getting in a cross fire between the two sides. It’s a natural fort that’d be hard to attack.”

  “That’s what we’ll do then,” Berlin said, spurring his horse down the trail to the valley below.

  * * *

  By the end of the day, his men had the caves on either side of the valley fitted out with enough supplies and ammunition to last them several weeks in the event of a siege by the Army or anyone else. The men then spread out with minimal belongings in the cabins, which were easier to heat and keep warm, where they would stay unless they were attacked.

  While several men began to cook supper and heat coffee, the other men used the time to wash out stinking, soiled clothing in the hot water of the springs. A few of the more fastidious even waded out and applied soap to bathe, to the hoots and hollers of those less concerned with personal hygiene.

  Berlin and Blue Owl strolled around the camp, checking out the preparations the men had made in the caves.

  “You notice the temperature down here near the water?” Berlin asked.

  Blue Owl nodded. “Yeah. It’s about twenty degrees warmer than up on the ridge.”

  Berlin grinned. “So, if we do get attacked, we’ll be warm down here while our attackers will be freezin’ their asses off up on the ridge.”

  Blue Owl walked into one of the caves, lighting a torch he’d made by twisting a pine bough around a stick of wood. As he got toward the back of the cave, the ground began to rise and the ceiling got lower. Soon, he was crawling on hands and knees.

  “What the hell are you doin’?” Berlin asked, following the Indian.

  “See how the smoke from the torch blows toward the entrance to the cave?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “That means there’s an opening back here somewhere. I want to see if it’s big enough for a man to get out of.”

  “Why would you want’a do that?” Berlin asked.

  Blue Owl stopped his crawling and turned around. “Just suppose we get trapped down here in this valley, Boss. Wouldn’t you like a back door to use to escape, just in case?”

  Berlin pursed his lips, then grinned. “You got a point, Blue Owl. Lead on.”

  After another fifty yards, and having to get almost down on their stomachs, they came to a hole in the roof wide enough for a man to squeeze through, if he sucked in his gut.

  They exited the hole to find themselves in a small area between two tall cliff walls, no more than fifteen feet across and narrowed at both ends by bushes and small trees so that it was invisible from more than fifty yards away.

  “This is perfect,” Blue Owl said, looking around.

  Berlin nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. The only problem is, once we get out of the cave, we’d be on foot up here in this godforsaken wilderness. I’d almost rather be shot than escape only to starve to death on foot.”

  Blue Owl thought for a minute, then snapped his fingers. “I’ll tell you what, Boss. Later on, when nobody’s looking, I’ll take a couple of the extra horses and bring them here, with enough grain and water to keep them happy. Ever so often, I’ll bring more so’s they don’t starve to death. Th
at way, if push comes to shove, you and I’ll have a way out if need be.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Berlin said. “Why don’t you pack enough grub for a couple of days and leave it here too?”

  Blue Owl nodded. “It never hurts to have a backup plan, does it?”

  Berlin smiled. “And enough men to keep our enemies busy while we make our getaway.”

  * * *

  It took Smoke and Cal and Pearlie a day and a half to get back down to the Sugarloaf from where they’d left the outlaws’ tracks.

  By the time they arrived, having ridden all through the last night, they were cold, hungry, and almost asleep in their saddles.

  As they approached the cabin, Smoke called out, “Yo, the cabin!” to let Sally know they were coming so as not to surprise her.

  She burst out of the cabin door and ran to his horse, taking him in her arms as soon as he stepped out of the saddle.

  “Oh, Smoke! I’m so happy to see you.”

  “Me too, darling,” he replied, stifling a huge yawn with the back of his hand.

  She leaned back, looking from him to Cal and Pearlie. “You men look exhausted,” she said.

  “Cold, tired, an’ most of all, hungry!” Pearlie said.

  “Come on in the house,” Sally said. “The fire’s going and I’ve got a roast I can heat up and some leftover biscuits from breakfast that are probably hard as a rock.”

  “I could eat a rock,” Pearlie said, starting toward the house.

  * * *

  While the men thawed out by the fire and ate roast, boiled carrots, and biscuits, Smoke told Sally of their exploits on the trail of the bandits.

  After he finished, he asked her what had happened to her.

  “Once we got the women seen by the doctor and taken care of, I got on the next train headed for Big Rock. By then, the tracks had been repaired and it was an uneventful trip.”

  “How’d you get out to the Sugarloaf?” Smoke asked.

  “Louis Longmont loaned me a wagon,” she answered. “He offered to ride with me, but since it was the middle of the day, I told him I’d be all right. Before I left, I wired Pueblo and told the man there to let me know of any news about the men hunting the outlaws. I knew you’d wire me if you got to a town with a telegraph, but I wanted to make sure I heard anything as soon as it happened.”