Pike stopped and frowned in thought. After a moment he said, “Matt Jensen was with the schoolteacher when he was captured last night, wasn’t he?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Find her,” Pike ordered. “The wives and children of the men who were locked up in the jail, too. Gather them and bring them here.”
“Women and children, Major?”
Pike’s head snapped around. “Sometimes in war you’re forced to use weapons you’d prefer not to, but you do whatever is necessary to win.”
Chapter 59
With his gun still drawn, Smoke hurried along the dark passage. Preacher and Loo had decided to stay on guard in the alley in case any more outlaws tried to get behind them.
As Smoke reached the street, he saw his adopted brother still stretched out behind the water trough. One bound landed Smoke behind the rain barrel Preacher had been using for cover.
“Matt!” Smoke called.
Matt twisted his head to look around. In the moonlight, Smoke saw the grin on the younger man’s face.
“Smoke!” Matt exclaimed. “I’m mighty glad to see you! Not really surprised, though.” An angry edge came into his voice. “Those outlaws keep talking about how Sally’s their prisoner.”
“They’re lying or else they just don’t know any better.” Smoke had explained the same thing to Preacher. “She’s safe. She’s hidden out where they’ll never find her.”
“That’s mighty good to hear,” Matt said in obvious relief. “Now we can concentrate on handling things here without worrying about her.”
“That’s the idea.” Smoke aimed over the top of the barrel and fired at a spot just above one of the muzzle flashes from across the street.
During the next half-hour, the battle settled into something of a standoff, with the outlaws on one side of the street and the former prisoners on the other. Smoke and his allies were still greatly outnumbered, but they had decent cover and were making a good fight of it. The ones who had retreated back into the jail had plenty of ammunition, but the same wasn’t true for those who had taken cover elsewhere along the street. They would run out of bullets after a while.
Suddenly, something happened to tip the balance further than it already was. Shouted commands to hold fire went along the far side of the street. Gradually the outlaw guns fell silent. Smoke didn’t know what was going on, but he was pretty sure it couldn’t be anything good.
He was right. Men carrying torches came into view around a corner up the street. They formed two lines, and between them, clearly visible in the garish light as they were pushed along at gunpoint by men behind them, were a number of women and children. The hostages huddled together in fear as they stumbled along.
One of the townsmen hidden behind a parked wagon let out a strident cry. “Margaret!”
A woman in the group sobbed, “Ben!”
The man straightened from his crouch and started to leap out from behind the wagon, but another man with him grabbed his collar and hauled him back.
“Stay down, you fool!”
Watching the drama from up the street, Smoke recognized Monte Carson’s voice and was relieved that his old friend was still alive.
Carson continued. “They’ll gun you down if you go out in the open.”
From behind the terrified hostages, a man shouted in a loud, commanding tone, “Everyone cease fire!”
All the guns were silent. The only sounds in the street were sobs from the hostages and angry, frightened curses from the defenders.
“Matt Jensen!” the powerful voice went on. “Matt Jensen, do you hear me? This is Major Albert Pike!”
Matt looked over at Smoke and said quietly, “Trask’s second in command.”
Smoke nodded to show that he understood.
Matt raised his voice. “I hear you, Major. You should let those people go! Threatening them isn’t going to get you anything but more trouble!”
“You’re wrong, Jensen,” Pike replied confidently. Limping around the group of hostages, he held a gun in his right hand and his left was clamped around the arm of a nice-looking young woman with long brown hair. He stopped and put the gun to the woman’s head. “You and your friends have ten seconds to throw your guns into the street and step out with your hands up, or I’m going to kill Miss Morton! That will be the signal for my men to open fire. We’ll slaughter every one of these prisoners of war!”
“You’re damn crazy!” Matt cried. “Those aren’t prisoners of war! Those are women and children!”
“There are no innocents in war,” Pike intoned.
“This isn’t a war!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jensen.” Pike pushed the gun harder against the young woman’s head, hard enough to make her cry out in pain. “All of life is war, and those who don’t realize that have already lost.”
Smoke didn’t know who the woman was, but Matt obviously did, which came as no surprise. If there was a good-looking female within a hundred miles, she and Matt usually wound up bumping into each other.
Smoke’s brain continued to race as a couple tense seconds ticked by. He realized that they had a trump card to play. He raised his voice and called, “Pike! You’ve been looking for me!”
“Who—”
Smoke stood up from behind the rain barrel and stepped out into plain sight. “My name is Smoke Jensen!” He knew he was taking a chance. Probably several dozen guns were aimed right at him.
But he knew that Dr. Jonas Trask wanted him alive, for whatever reason the doctor had in mind. It was why Trask had gone to so much trouble, had wreaked so much havoc, caused so much death and destruction. A dead Smoke Jensen wouldn’t do Trask or his men any good.
Pike looked surprised. “Smoke Jensen. At last.”
“That’s right. I’ll surrender to you and let you take me to your boss . . . but first you’ve got to let those women and children go.”
“Smoke, no!” Matt exclaimed. “They’re all loco—”
“Maybe, but they know what they want,” Smoke cut in. “And I’m it.”
Out in the street, Pike said, “You ask me to give up an advantage, Jensen, with no guarantee that I’ll get anything in return.”
As he noticed something, Smoke stepped out farther. “You want a guarantee, Major? I’ll give you a guarantee. You don’t agree to this bargain and I’m going to kill you five seconds from now. No matter what happens to anybody else in this street, you’ll be dead.”
Pike laughed. “You think you can do that?”
“I know I can.”
For the first time, Pike looked a little less sure of himself in the firelight. “Throw your gun down.”
“Let the hostages go first.”
Pike hesitated. Smoke didn’t know if he was going to accept the deal or not. A lot of lives hung in the balance.
Abruptly, Pike shoved the young woman away from him and let her go. She fell to her knees for a second but scrambled up and ran toward the buildings. He nodded to his men, and the other women and children broke loose, streaming for safety. The husbands and fathers who had been fighting for Big Rock hurried to meet them, drawing them in and leading them to cover.
“All right, Jensen. I did as you asked. No one else has to die. Throw your gun down.”
“Smoke, no!” Matt shouted.
“I gave you my word,” Smoke said to the major. He tossed the Colt to the dirt at his feet.
From behind the outlaws assembled in the street came a shrill, unholy yell, like the war cry of a Blackfoot going into battle, followed by a familiar voice shouting, “Powder River and let ’er buck!”
A wave of gunfire slammed into the outlaws, and in the blink of an eye, bloody chaos erupted in the street.
Chapter 60
Smoke had been waiting for that to happen. When he had first started negotiating with Pike, he had been prepared to surrender to the major in order to save the lives of the hostages.
Then he had seen movement in the shadows farther along
the street, back where no one except him was watching. He had seen moonlight wink on gun barrels and knew somebody was sneaking up on Pike and the other killers.
Preacher. Had to be. And the old mountain man wasn’t alone. Somehow he had rallied a force to join the fight.
Smoke had concentrated on doing whatever it took to get the women and children clear, knowing that as soon as they were, all hell would break loose.
And it was exactly what was happening.
Pike howled a curse and jerked his gun up. In the torchlight, Smoke saw the major’s face contort with insane hatred. He knew that being tricked had infuriated Pike so much the major wasn’t going to hold back, no matter how much Trask wanted his quarry alive.
Smoke dived to the street as Pike fired. The bullet whipped through the air just above him. His hand closed around the butt of the Colt he had dropped a few moments earlier. He rolled and came up on one knee as Pike triggered a second shot. The slug burned through the air next to Smoke’s left ear.
Smoke fired once, putting the bullet right in the middle of Pike’s chest. The major rocked back under the impact. His gun sagged. He struggled to lift it again, but it slipped out of his fingers and thudded to the ground. Pike fell to his knees and toppled slowly to the side like a tree falling.
In the time it took for Pike to die, Smoke had shifted his aim and killed two more outlaws.
Men had scattered so much that he could see the attackers who had come up behind Pike’s men. It was an oddly mixed group with Preacher leading them. Smoke saw Pearlie and Cal on either side of the old mountain man. Loo Chung How was with them, too, along with Glenn the bartender and Chet the swamper from Longmont’s Saloon, Wendell Barnes from the livery stable, and several other townies. Wendell didn’t have a gun, but he wielded a pitchfork with deadly effect, plunging the sharp tines into a gunman’s body, ripping them loose, and striking again before the men he attacked knew what was happening.
That element of surprise turned the tide. Big Rock’s defenders were still outnumbered, but they tore into the enemy with such speed and fury that the balance began to tip back almost right away. Smoke and Matt, fighting side by side, led the attack from the other direction, swarming against the outlaws holed up on the other side of the street. It was a bloody, vicious battle, filling the air with gun smoke and the cries of wounded and dying men, and seemed to last for a long time even though it was over in a matter of minutes.
When the shooting finally died away, the street was littered with corpses. Some good men had died, but the outlaws’ grip on Big Rock was broken. The settlement was free again. Pike and most of his men had met the same fate that sooner or later claims all tyrants.
Preacher strode up to Smoke and gripped his arm. “You all right, boy?”
“I am now,” Smoke replied.
Preacher slapped Matt on the back “Looks like you come through fine, too.”
“Yeah, thanks to you, old-timer,” Matt said with a grin.
“Smoke! Smoke!” Cal said as he came running up.
“Good to see you, Cal.” Smoke nodded to his foreman and added, “You, too, Pearlie.”
“We were on our way to find you,” Pearlie drawled, “when we ran into Preacher. He sorta whipped the whole thing into shape.”
“You saw us sneakin’ up back yonder, didn’t you, Smoke?” Preacher asked. “That’s why you was astringin’ that feller along.”
Smoke nodded. “That was the idea. We were lucky that it worked out.” His voice took on a grim edge as he added, “But we’ll need some more luck, because this isn’t over yet.”
They held a council of war in the sheriff’s office—Smoke, Matt, Preacher, Monte Carson, Pearlie, and Cal. Everyone had been brought up to date on what had happened over the past day and a half, and they were discussing what to do next.
“We can’t be sure none of Trask’s men got away,” Smoke cautioned.
Carson said, “Considering the number who were killed in the fight and the ones we’ve got locked up, not many of them could have made it out of town.”
“How many doesn’t really matter,” Smoke stated. “If even one man escaped, there’s a good chance he lit a shuck for Sugarloaf to warn Trask about what happened here.”
“If Trask finds out that Pike is dead and the town isn’t under his control anymore, he’s liable to get all the men he has left and head this way,” Matt commented.
Smoke nodded. “That’s right, so until we know for sure, the town’s got to be ready for trouble. That’ll be your job, Monte.”
“They won’t take us by surprise again, Smoke,” Carson vowed. “You can bet a hat on that.”
“I know. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to find out just where things stand.”
Pearlie asked, “We’re headed for Sugarloaf?”
“That’s right.”
“Good,” the foreman said. “We got some scores to settle with that varmint Trask.”
Carson shook his head. “Even with Trask’s force cut in half, the five of you can’t take on the ones who are left. You’d be outnumbered almost ten to one.”
“We’re not going to just charge in there blindly,” Smoke assured the lawman. “If we see that Trask is on his way to Big Rock with his gun-wolves, we’ll turn around and rattle our hocks back here to help you defend the town. But if he doesn’t know what happened here and is still dug in at the ranch, we’ll send word to you. Bring everybody you can round up who’s willing to come along and help clean up that bunch.”
“I like the sound of that,” Carson growled. “My head still hurts a little from that wallop Trask gave it.”
Smoke looked around at the others. “Everybody understand what we’re doing?”
They all nodded.
Pearlie said, “Cal and me will fetch the horses we left outside of town.”
“No telling where my horse is by now,” Matt said. “But I reckon I can find a good one among all those outlaw mounts.”
“And that stallion o’ mine is waitin’ down at the stable,” Preacher put in. “He’ll be glad to get out and stretch his legs.”
Smoke smiled at the old mountain man. “When this is all over, you’ll have to tell us how you wound up pretending to be a peddler.”
“And a tinker. Don’t forget that. I never did get to fix nothin’, though.”
“That’s all right, Preacher,” Matt told him. “You’re handier with a six-gun than with any other tool.”
Preacher nodded. “Damn right.”
Chapter 61
The hour was getting close to midnight by the time the five men approached Sugarloaf headquarters on horseback. They hadn’t run into any patrols, and they certainly hadn’t seen or heard any sign of a large force heading for Big Rock. It appeared that none of Trask’s men had escaped during or after the battle for the settlement.
Smoke wanted to be sure of that before he made up his mind on a course of action and led the way to the top of a ridge from which they could see the valley where the ranch house and the other headquarters buildings were located. A few lights were visible in the main house, but the rest of the place was dark.
Preacher said, “Looks like most ever’body done turned in.”
Matt said, “It doesn’t look like they’re getting ready to ride to war, that’s for sure.”
Before leaving Big Rock, he had stolen a few minutes to check on Lorena Morton and apologize for the danger in which she had found herself a short time earlier. She had told him not to be ridiculous, that none of what had happened was his fault—which was true enough.
The blame for everything could be laid at the feet of Dr. Jonas Trask.
With luck, he would be answering for it soon.
Smoke leaned forward in his saddle, resting his hands on the horn as he studied the ranch headquarters and frowned in thought. An idea had come to him, prompted by what he had done back in Big Rock. It would be a huge gamble, but if it was successful, it could give them an advantage in the fight to come.
He straightened, took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his thick ash blond hair. As he tugged the hat on again, he said, “I’m going to give myself up to Trask.”
Startled exclamations came from the other four men. Smoke lifted a hand to silence them.
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Preacher asked. “After all we’ve gone through to keep that there loco weed from gettin’ his hands on you, you aim to just ride in and say ‘Here I am, boss’?”
“Something like that,” Smoke replied with a smile at the old-timer’s outrage. “But there’s a little more to it.”
Preacher snorted. “There dang well better be.”
Matt said, “No matter what you’ve got in mind, Smoke, giving yourself up doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.”
“Look,” Smoke said, attempting to explain his reasoning, “Trask has got to have a mighty important reason for wanting to get his hands on me, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. Hiring all those gunhands had to cost him a fortune. I want to find out what he’s got on his mind, and the easiest way to do that is to let him tell me.”
Pearlie rubbed his chin and said slowly, “I dunno, Smoke. Sounds awful risky to me.”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “What if he shoots you as soon as you ride in?”
“If all Trask wanted was to see me dead, he could have sent those hundred men after me to kill me, instead of taking over Big Rock and Sugarloaf.”
“Unless he wants to be the one to kill you himself,” Matt pointed out.
Smoke couldn’t argue with the younger man’s logic. He shrugged. “I suppose that’s possible. But my gut tells me there’s something else at the bottom of this. Something more than a thirst for vengeance on me is driving Trask.”
“Mebbe you’re right,” Preacher said, “but what good does it do for you to surrender?”
“It’ll make Trask think that he’s won. He’ll let his guard down, and maybe his men will, too. Then, when Cal gets back from Big Rock with Monte Carson and the rest of the men who’ll be siding him, I’ll be right there to strike a blow at the heart of the enemy while the rest of you attack.”
Brotherhood of Evil Page 25
