“Soldiers?”
“No.”
“Then who?” one of the other Indians asked.
“I think I know who,” Quinntanna said.
“Who?” Teykano asked.
“Those who burned the stagecoach house. I believe also they are the ones who attack the white man’s ranch.”
“Then they are the ones who brought trouble to us,” Teykano said.
“Yes. They are the reason our families are no more,” another said.
“Let us make war on them, Quinntanna,” Teykano said. “Let us make war on them. Then our revenge will be complete.”
Quinntanna looked at the little band of people he was leading. He did not want to leave them unprotected. But neither did he want the opportunity for revenge against those who brought so much sorrow to his village to pass him by. He looked into the eager faces of the warriors around him.
“Very well,” he said. “We will make war.”
Quickly, Quinntanna moved his people into shelter. The shelter played the dual role of keeping them out of the elements as well as safe from discovery. Once they were safely in place, Quinntanna moved up the trail a few yards, then examined the area thoroughly. Not until he was satisfied that the encampment was totally secure did he give orders to the others.
“We go now,” he said.
One of the Indians let out a war whoop, but he was quickly shushed by the others, who realized the importance of silence for this particular war party.
* * *
One mile up the trail from where the Comanche were making their encampment, Smoke, Pearlie, and Tom were waiting. It had been several minutes since Pigiron and Wheeler were killed, and Smoke was certain that only one man remained. That one man was Jack Tatum, but so far, Tatum had stayed under cover.
“Smoke,” Pearlie called. “Smoke, you think he’s still there?”
“He’s there.”
“How come he don’t say nothin’?”
“Tatum!” Smoke called. “Tatum, you’re all alone now.”
There was no answer, but Smoke didn’t really expect one.
“Tatum?”
Still no answer.
“Hey, Smoke, maybe we got ’em all,” Pearlie suggested.
“I don’t think so. At least, he’s not one of the bodies I can see.”
“He could’ve been hit and just died up there where he was,” Pearlie said.
“No, I think it’s more likely that he’s just hiding up there,” Smoke said. “Tom!” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Come on up here, then you and Pearlie keep your eyes open. I’m going the rest of the way up to see if I can root him out.”
“All right,” Tom called back.
Smoke waited until Tom worked his way up the trail to a place that was even with Smoke and Pearlie. Then, getting in position to provide cover, Tom nodded at Smoke.
“Anytime you’re ready,” Tom said.
Smoke nodded back, then started toward the area where Tatum had set up his defense. He passed by Jim’s body first. The black shooter was already stiffening in the cold, his rifle lying on the snow beside him.
Damn nice rifle, Smoke thought.
A few more feet farther up, he saw the two Mexicans, then the two Indians. Finally, he passed by the bodies of Pigiron and Wheeler.
But he still saw no sign of Tatum.
Suddenly, he heard a sound behind him and turning, saw Tatum leaping at him, knife in hand. Tatum made a slash with his knife, and the blade sliced into Smoke’s gun hand, causing him to drop his pistol into the snow. Smoke made a quick grab for the pistol, but another slicing motion of Tatum’s knife forced Smoke away. Smoke started backing away from Tatum.
“Where you goin’, you son of a bitch?” Tatum asked. He shook his head. “Ain’t nowhere you can go now that’ll get you away from old Jack Tatum.”
Tatum continued to advance toward him, an evil smile on his face. He was holding his knife in front of him, the point facing Smoke, weaving back and forth slightly, like the head of a coiled snake.
“I’m goin’ to cut you good,” Tatum said with a snarl. “I’m goin’ to open up your belly and let your guts spill out onto the snow.”
All the time Smoke was backing away from Tatum, he was reaching for his own knife. Because he was wearing a heavy coat, his knife wasn’t that easy to get to, but finally he found it. His fingers wrapped around the knife handle. Then he pulled it from its scabbard and brought it around to the front.
When Tatum saw that Smoke also had a knife, the smile, as well as some of the smug confidence, left his face. He stared at the knife clutched in Smoke’s bloody hand.
“You didn’t expect this, did you?” Smoke said.
Trying to regenerate his own sense of self-confidence, Tatum turned his left hand, palm up, and began making a curling motion with his fingers, as if beckoning Smoke to him.
“Come on,” Tatum said. “Come on and get some of this.”
“Now then, you were saying something about opening up my stomach, I believe?” Smoke challenged.
Tatum’s attempt at bravado fell short, and he began licking his lips nervously. For a moment it looked as if he might take flight. Then, from somewhere deep inside, he summoned up one last bit of courage. With a defiant yell he leaped forward, making a wide, slashing motion with his knife.
Had Smoke not been wearing his sheepskin jacket, had this been a fight in the summertime, Tatum’s attack would have been devastatingly effective. As it was, Tatum succeeded only in cutting a long, deep slash in Smoke’s jacket. Uninjured, Smoke then made a counterthrust under Tatum’s extended arm. Smoke drove his knife, point-first, into Tatum’s abdomen. Smoke’s knife was turned flat, allowing it to penetrate between the third and fourth ribs. The point of the knife punched into Tatum’s heart, and dark, red blood spilled out around the wound.
Smoke withdrew his blade, then stepped back. Tatum put both hands over the wound, then looked down, as if surprised to see the blood spilling through his fingers. He staggered a few steps away from Smoke, then fell on his back in the snow. His arms flopped out to either side of him as his eyes, still open, stared into the sky. The white snow around his body turned crimson from his flowing blood.
By then both Pearlie and Tom had joined Smoke, and the three men stood there, looking down at Tatum’s body. At Tatum’s throat, something flashed in the sunlight. It was a shining gold chain from which was suspended a brilliant diamond pendant.
“Isn’t that what you gave Jo Ellen for her anniversary?” Pearlie asked.
“Yes,” Tom replied in a choked voice. Then, he shouted at Tatum’s body. “You son of a bitch!” Tom raised his boot and kicked Tatum so hard in the head that some of his teeth popped out. “Bastard! I wish you were still alive so you could feel this!” Tom kicked him several more times, until Tatum’s face was all but unrecognizable. Then he dropped to his knees and removed the chain. When he stood up again, there were tears in his eyes.
Smoke put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
“Yeah,” Tom replied. He sighed, then wiped his eyes. “Well, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing for sure that we got the right ones. Now, I won’t have to go through the rest of my life wondering who did it.”
“Let’s go home,” Smoke said.
“What about them?” Pearlie asked, pointing to the bodies that were lying around.
“What about them?” Tom replied.
“Shouldn’t we bury them or something?”
“To hell with them,” Tom said.
“To tell the truth, I don’t think the bastards deserve to be buried either,” Smoke said. “But if we just leave them here, it’s going to be awfully ripe-smelling around these parts come next spring’s thaw.”
“All right, but one hole for all of them,” Tom said.
Smoke chuckled. “Oh, I agree. I didn’t say I was in favor of giving them a funeral.”
The first t
hing they did was to go through everyone’s pockets. They were surprised to find twenty-five hundred dollars in cash on Tatum. Then they looked around for a place to bury the outlaws, and finding a narrow ravine, pushed them into it. After that, they collapsed the ravine’s sides down onto the bodies, then piled several rocks on top. The result was a grave that would be secure against predators, as well as keep the bodies from deteriorating on the open trail.
“Good enough,” Smoke said. He handed the packet of money to Tom. “By rights, this should be yours.”
“Mine? Why?”
“He took more from you than he did anyone else,” Smoke said. “I know this can’t compensate you for your family, but it might help build your barn and granary back.”
“Thanks,” Tom said, taking the money.
“And if nobody has any objections, I’m going to take this rifle,” Smoke said, picking up the rifle Jim had used against them. “It looks to me like it’s a pretty good weapon.”
“It is a good rifle,” Tom agreed, looking at it.
“What are you going to use it for?” Pearlie asked, laughing. “There’s no buffalo to hunt anymore.”
“Well, you never know when a good rifle like this might come in handy,” Smoke replied.
At that very moment a bullet whizzed by so close they could all hear its angry buzz. Then, looking ahead, they saw several Indians coming up the hill toward them.
“Like now, for instance!” Smoke shouted. “Get down!”
And once more, the three men found themselves scrambling to get behind cover as they were being attacked, this time by a band of wild, screaming Indians.
25
Smoke got behind a rock, then raised up to look at the Indians who were working their way up the snowy trail. He shoved a heavy round into the buffalo gun he had picked up from beside Jim’s body, took aim, and fired. As it so happened, Tom had picked out his own target and fired at the same time.
Two of the attacking Indians went down, one with a bullet in the heart, the other with a bullet in the head. The Indians had thought themselves well out of range at this distance, and when they saw two of their number go down, they stopped their advance and looked around in surprise. They stopped, but they failed to seek cover. As a result, two more shots dropped two more of the Indians.
* * *
“They are devils with guns!” one of the Indians said. He and the remaining Indians scattered, running to both sides of the trail to find places of cover and concealment.
Quinntanna looked back toward the four Indians who were lying in the snow. Three were dead, the fourth was wounded. The wounded Indian was Teykano.
“Teykano!” Quinntanna called. “Teykano, are you still alive?”
“Yes,” Teykano answered, his voice strained with pain.
“I will come get you,” Quinntanna said.
“No. If you come, the devils with guns will shoot you too.”
“I will come get you,” Quinntanna said again. Laying aside his rifle, Quinntanna got down on his stomach and started moving through the snow, slithering on his belly.
* * *
Smoke saw the Indian slithering across the snow. To his left, he saw Tom raising the rifle to his shoulder.
“No!” Smoke called to Tom. “Don’t kill him.”
Nodding, Tom lowered his rifle. Smoke raised his rifle, and fired, not aiming directly at the crawling Indian, but aiming at the snow in front of him. His bullet hit just in front of the Indian, sent up a spray of snow, then whined on down the mountainside.
The Indian quit crawling, but only for a moment. Then he started crawling again.
“That fella’s not going to give up,” Smoke said, shooting a second time, again just in front of the Indian.
The Indian stopped a second time, waited a moment, then resumed his crawling. This time, just before he resumed crawling, however, he glanced up the hill toward Smoke’s position . . . almost as if challenging him to shoot again. That was when Smoke got a good look at him.
“Damn!” Smoke said. “That’s Quinntanna!”
“Quinntanna? I thought you and Quinntanna was old friends,” Tom replied. “Sharing that elk and all, like you done.”
Smoke cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Quinntanna!” he called.
Surprised to hear himself addressed by name, Quinntanna looked up the hill again.
“Quinntanna, it’s me, Smoke Jensen? Let’s parley!” Smoke tied a white handkerchief to the end of his rifle, then held it above the rock and waved it back and forth. Quinntanna raised to his knees, then turned toward Smoke. In so doing he was making himself an obvious target, a way of showing his own trust.
“What now?” Pearlie asked.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Smoke said. “I want to know why he started shooting at us.”
Smoke stepped out from behind the rock, held the rifle up, then tossed it to one side. It was a symbolic disarmament only, for he still had his pistol strapped around his waist, though it was covered by the heavy coat he was wearing. Holding his arms out to his side in a nonthreatening manner, he started down the sloping path toward Quinntanna.
For his part, Quinntanna stood up and started up the path toward Smoke. The two men walked toward each other for a moment, meeting approximately halfway between their respective starting points. At this position, both Quinntanna and Smoke made easy targets for those who had stayed back.
“Smoke Jensen,” Quinntanna said. “It is good to see you.”
Smoke chuckled. “Good to see me? You tried to kill us.”
“I didn’t know who you were,” Quinntanna said. “I thought you were here to kill us.”
“Why would we want to kill you?”
“Because the whites think Comanche people burned the white man’s ranch, and burned the buildings where people-wagon stops.”
“People-wagon? You mean the stagecoach? Are you talking about Miller’s Switch?”
“Yes,” Quinntanna said. “We saw that place. It was burned, and there was much death there.”
Smoke shook his head. “We know you didn’t do that,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“The driver wasn’t killed. He told us who did it. It was Comancheros.”
“It does not matter. They think we burned the ranch and. . . .”
Smoke held out his hand to stop Quinntanna in mid-sentence. “No,” he said. “We know you didn’t do that either. The Comancheros who burned the stage depot also burned Tom Burke’s ranch, killed his wife, children, and all his hands.”
“If this is known, why have the soldiers attacked us?”
“Nobody knew until now,” Smoke said. “But when we get back, we will tell what we have learned.”
“And the soldiers will go after the Comancheros?”
Smoke shook his head. “It’s too late for that,” he said. “My friends and I have already killed them all.”
Quinntanna was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed and nodded his head. “Then there can be peace between us,” he said. “I will let you go. But I think there can be no peace between the Comanche and the whites. We have killed too many of their soldiers.”
“If the Indians will make no more war, I will see to it that the whites will make peace,” Smoke promised.
Quinntanna looked back down the hill and saw that Teykano was now sitting up, holding his hand to his shoulder. His fingers were red from the blood that had flowed from his wound.
“You are a mighty warrior, Smoke Jensen. I believe you when you say there will be peace. From this day, I will fight no more war forever.”
Smoke and Quinntanna put their hands on each other’s shoulders as a sign of friendship. Then each turned and started back toward their own. After a few steps, Smoke turned back toward Quinntanna. “One of the men with me, Tom Burke, is pretty good at doctoring people,” he said. “If you would like, he can take a look at your friend.”
“Yes,” Quinntanna said. “White man shoot, w
hite man make well. That would be good.”
* * *
Tom Burke didn’t go all the way back to Big Rock with Smoke and Pearlie, but left them when they reached the road that turned off to his ranch. Pearlie headed on to Sugarloaf to tell Sally that they were back and in one piece.
In town, Smoke went straight to the sheriff’s office.
“Well, look what the winter winds have blown in,” Monte said, getting up from his desk and crossing over to extend his hand in greeting.
“That coffee sure smells good,” Smoke said, nodding toward the pot that simmered on top of the stove.
“Have a cup, sit down, tell me what’s been going on,” Monte invited.
Smoke poured his own coffee, then sat in a chair across the desk from Monte. He took a swallow of his coffee, slurping it between extended lips to cool it. Then he looked up at Monte and smiled.
“We got them, Monte,” he said.
“Got them? Got who?”
“We got the people who raided Tom’s ranch.”
“Indians?”
Smoke shook his head. “Comancheros. Mixed pack of outlaws—whites, Indians, Mexicans, and a black man. Tatum was the leader.”
“I’ll be damned,” Monte said. “You’re sure they are the ones who did it?”
“There’s no doubt. You remember that diamond on a chain that Tom bought for Jo Ellen? Well, he pulled it off Tatum’s neck after we killed him.”
“So the son of a bitch is dead then?”
“Yes. All of them are.”
“Probably just as good. Save us a trial.”
“Colonel Covington won’t like it. Won’t get a chance to show off in the courtroom anymore.”
“Oh, he isn’t a colonel anymore,” Monte said.
“He’s not? What happened?”
Monte told about going to see the governor to get martial law lifted, and Covington’s commission revoked.
“Bet he didn’t take that too well.”
“No, he’s been pouting around here for a few days now. Ever since he got back from his last expedition against the Indians. He got about forty of his men killed in that little fracas.”
“If you ask me, just getting his commission taken away isn’t enough,” Smoke said. “I’d put the son of a bitch in jail, if not for murder for killing a lot of innocent Indians, then for manslaughter for getting his own people killed.”
Warpath of the Mountain Man Page 41
