War of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  At eight-forty-five, Jim came fogging into town from his post. Smoke heard him yell, “Here they come, folks. And there’s plenty to go around.” He rode into the livery stable and disappeared.

  Smoke eared back the hammers on the sawed-off and knelt by the window. Moments later, he could feel the vibration through the floor, the faint thunder of hundreds of hooves striking the ground.

  As the pack of outlaws drew closer, Smoke stared in amazement. Robert was leading the bunch. He wore a pith helmet, the leather strap tied under his chin, and was waving a sword. God knows where he had found either article in Hell’s Creek.

  The raiders, more than a hundred strong, thundered into town. Smoke let Robert and a few behind him gallop past, then he gave both barrels of the sawed-off to the outlaws.

  The hand-loaded charge of nails and buckshot cleared a bloody path in the middle of the outlaw horde. Smoke dropped the shotgun and jerked out his Colts, cocking and firing as fast as he could; deadly rolling thunder erupted from the small collapsing building on the edge of town. Horses began milling around, confused and frightened and riderless. Bodies lay in the street.

  A wounded outlaw, his hands filled with guns, staggered up on the porch. He spotted Smoke and leveled his guns. Smoke gave him two .44 slugs in the chest and the man’s days of lawlessness were over.

  Smoke quickly reloaded his Colts, shoved fresh shells into the express gun, and ran out the back door, turning to his right.

  “Red and his bunch are attacking from the south!” he heard the faint shout over the roar of battle.

  Smoke ducked into the space between a home and a business and ran to the street. A hatless and bearded man stepped off the path and turned to face Smoke. Smoke pulled the trigger of the sawed-off, and the force of the charge lifted the outlaw off his boots and knocked him out into the street. Smoke ran to the edge of the street and gave the other barrel to a cursing raider. Blood smeared his saddle and the man hit the street, dead.

  Smoke filled both hands with Colts and began emptying saddles. From the sounds of shotgun fire coming from the bank building, and the number of bodies littering the street in front of the bank, the Easterners were having a duck shoot and doing a damn fine job of holding their own.

  Smoke stepped back and reloaded the pistols and the shotgun.

  “Forward, men!” he heard Robert shout, the cry coming from behind him. “Slay the Philistines.”

  Smoke turned around. Robert was charging him on horseback, waving his sword. Smoke ducked the slashing sword that could have taken his head off and swung up behind Robert as the frightened horse reared up, dumping both men on the ground. Robert lost his sword and Smoke gave him a one-two combination that dropped the man to the ground, out cold. Smoke tore the pith helmet off and used the leather chin strap to bind Robert’s hands behind his back. He used the man’s belt to securely bind his ankles, then rolled the doctor under a building. Smoke picked up his shotgun and stepped back into the fray.

  Two raiders, apparently having lost their appetite for any further battle, came racing up the street, heading north. Smoke stepped out and gave them both barrels of the sawed-off. Two more saddles cleared.

  Smoke stepped up on the boardwalk and ran toward the center of town, reloading the shotgun as he went. He turned down an alleyway and entered the hotel through the back door, muttering curses because the rear of the building was not guarded.

  Just above him, on the second floor, Warner Frigo had kicked open the door to the presidential suite and was looking down at Lisa, huddled on the floor, holding her puppy close.

  “Well, now,” the outlaw said with a sneer. “Won’t you just be a juicy little thing to have.”

  He holstered his guns and reached down for her, lust in his eyes.

  “You’ll hurt no more children and kill not another child’s pet,” Warner heard the woman say.

  He looked up. Sally stood in the foyer, holding a sawed-off in her hands, both hammers eared back.

  Warner’s lips peeled back in an ugly smile. “I’ll have you after I taste little-bit here.”

  “I doubt it,” Sally said, then pulled both triggers. The force of the blast knocked Warner off both boots and sent him flying into the hall. He hit the hall wall and slid down to the carpeted floor. The wall behind him was a gory mess.

  Smoke looked up as the shotgun went off. If anyone had tried to mess with Sally, they picked the wrong woman. He went up the stairs to check it out.

  He saw Warner’s body and stuck his head into the foyer. “Everybody all right in there?” he called.

  “Just dandy,” Sally said. “Would you please remove that garbage from the hall, darling?”

  “Sure.” Smoke dragged Warner’s body down the hall and threw him out the second-story window. The downward hurtling body hit Sid Yorke and knocked him out of the saddle. The outlaw stared in horror at what was left of Warner Frigo.

  He looked up at Smoke, standing behind the shattered window, grinning down at him. Sid lifted his pistol, and Judge Garrison, standing in his office, fired both Remington .44’s, the slugs knocking the man to his knees. The outlaw died in that position, his hands by his side. His hat fell from his head. The wind picked it up and sailed it down the street.

  Sal stepped out from his position just as John Steele was rounding a corner.

  “Hey, John!” Sal called.

  The foreman of the Lightning whirled in a crouch, both hands by his holstered guns.

  “You always bragged how good you was,” the newly elected sheriff said, his voice carrying over the din of battle and the whinnying of frightened horses. “You wanna find out now?”

  John dragged iron. He was far too slow. Sal put two slugs in his belly before Steele could clear leather.

  “I guess now you know,” Sal told him.

  “You sorry . . .” John gasped the words. He never got to finish it. The foreman fell off the boardwalk and landed in a horse trough.

  “Have to remember to clean that out,” Sal muttered.

  Judge Garrison went out the back door of his office and came face to face with Paul Cartwright. The judge smiled at the man. “You used to love to lord it over me, Paul. You have guns in your hands. Use them!”

  The deposed sheriffs guns came up. Judge Garrison lifted his Remington Army Model .44’s, and the muzzles blossomed in fire and smoke. Paul Cartwright fell backward, dead.

  The judge reloaded and walked up the back of the buildings, conviction and courage in his eyes.

  “Gimme all your goddamn money, you heifer!” Frank Norton yelled at Mrs. Marbly.

  Mrs. Marbly lifted her shotgun and blew the outlaw out the back door.

  “Nice going, mother,” her husband said.

  Larry Gayle knew it was a losing cause. He had been thrown from his rearing, bucking horse and was now cautiously making his way out of town . . . on foot. He’d find a horse. To hell with Barlow, Max Huggins, and the whole mess. There had to be easier pickings somewheres else was his philosophy.

  “Going somewhere, Larry?” the voice spun him around.

  Pete Akins stood facing him.

  Larry lifted his Smith & Wesson Schofield .45 and got off the first shot. It grazed Pete’s shoulder. Pete was much more careful with his shooting. He shot Larry between the eyes. He walked to the prostrate and very dead outlaw and looked down at him. He shook his head.

  “Whoo, boy. You was ugly alive. Dead, you’ll probably come back to haunt graveyards.”

  Ted Mercer stood facing Smoke Jensen. The outlaw felt a coldness take hold of him. His Colt was in his hand, but he was holding it by his side. Could Jensen beat him? He didn’t know. He really didn’t want to find out.

  “You can drop that iron and walk,” Smoke told him. “Change your life. It’s up to you.”

  “You’re only sayin’ that ’cause you know you can’t beat this.”

  “You’re wrong, Ted.”

  “Your guns are in leather!”

  “Drop it and walk, man. Don�
�t be a fool.”

  “I think I’ll just kill you, Jensen. ”Ted’s hand jerked up. He felt a dull shock hit him in the belly, another hammerlike blow beat at his chest. Impossible! he thought. No man is that fast. No man is ...

  Smoke walked up and looked down at the dead outlaw. “I gave you a chance,” he said.

  Fires had been started by the raiders, but they had been quickly put out by the ladies of the bucket brigades. The plans of the outlaws were put out as quickly as the flames. Lew Brooks jumped his horse over the body of a friend and went charging between buildings. Judge Garrison stepped out and gave the outlaw a good dose of frontier justice, not from a law book but from a .44. Lew hit the ground, rolled over, and came up with a .45 in his hand. Judge Garrison imposed the death sentence on the man, then calmly reloaded and walked up the alleyway.

  Jake Stringer knew that John Steele was down and dead, along with several other Lightning men. He didn’t know where Red Malone was. He tried-to calm a badly spooked horse and climb into the saddle. But the horse was having none of that. The animal jumped away and left Jake on foot.

  “Damn that hammerhead!” Jake swore. “I ought to shoot it. ”

  “Why not try me?” Jim Dagonne said.

  Jake turned. Jim’s guns were in leather, as were his own. A smile creased his lips. “I enjoyed whuppin’ you with my fists, Jim. Now I’m gonna enjoy killin’ you.”

  Jim was no fast gunhand, but he was a dead shot. Jake cleared leather first and his shot went into the dirt at Jim’s boots. Jim plugged the man just above the belt buckle. Jake sat down on the ground and started hollering.

  Jim walked to him. He could see where the slug had exited out the man’s back, right through the kidney. “You ain’t gonna make it, Jake. You got anyone you want me to write?”

  “I didn’t even know you could write,” Jake said, then fell over on his face and closed his eyes.

  Ella Mae, Tom Johnson’s wife, was struggling with a man who had less than honorable intentions on his mind. He ripped her bodice open and stared hungrily at her flesh. Momentarily free, Ella Mae ran to the kitchen, jerked up the coffeepot from the stove, and threw the boiling contents into the man’s face.

  The outlaw screamed and went lurching and staggering through the living room, finding his way out the front door, his face seared from the boiling coffee. He stumbled out into the street and was run down by another wounded outlaw, trying to get out of the death trap named Barlow. The burned outlaw fell under the hooves and lay still.

  Clark Hall made the bank and hurled himself through the door. He came up on his boots just in time to face several men with shotguns. He had time to say one word: “No!”

  Three sawed-off shotguns roared, and Clark Hall was literally torn out of his boots and thrown out into the street.

  The shooting stopped. An eerie silence fell over the town. Smoke stepped out into the street, the Remington Frontier .44’s in his hands. The moaning of the wounded drifted to him.

  Judge Garrison took charge. “Gather up the wounded, and we’ll patch them up as best we can and then try them. We were forced to use frontier justice to stop this, but there’ll be. no unauthorized hangings. From now on we go by the book.”

  Ralph from the saloon was dead. Shot through the head. Toby at the hotel had taken a slug through his shoulder. Several other citizens were wounded, but Ralph was the only fatality. The streets and alleys of the town were littered with dead and wounded. Guns lay everywhere one looked and riderless horses milled around, not knowing what to do or where to go.

  Henry Draper came out of his office at the newspaper, wearing two huge Dragoons belted around his waist. That would account for some of the booming sounds Smoke had heard and also some of the hideous wounds he’d seen. Draper set up his camera and began preparing for shots of the carnage. This was great stuff. The newspapers back east would eat it up.

  Tom Johnson had wandered the main street, counting the dead and wounded. “Red Malone’s not here,” he said, walking up to Smoke and a group of others.

  “How about his men?” Sal asked.

  “Most of them are dead. I saw two of them riding out north early on. Looked like they were clearing the country.”

  “You have enough to do here for three men, Sal,” Smoke said. “Besides, this is personal between me and Red. I’ll get him. And I’ll bring him in alive if I can.”

  “You better find him before Joe Walsh does,” Jim said. “Joe told him years ago that if he ever caught him without his private army with him, he’d kill him.”

  “There is that much bad blood between them?” Smoke asked. “I knew they didn’t like each other....”

  “Man, yeah!” Jim said. “He helped found this town—Joe, I mean. Him and Red don’t like each other at all.”

  “Well, I’ll be!” came the shout. “Here’s that so-called preacher from up at Hell’s Creek. He had him a torch and was right in the middle of it all.”

  “Dead?” Pete called.

  “I’ll say. Plugged through and through.”

  Smoke walked the littered street, looking at the dead and wounded. But Alex Bell, Ben Webster, Nelson Barrett, Al Martin, Dave Poe, and Val Singer were not among them. That left a lot of very bad men still on the loose, but Smoke doubted that they would ever return to Barlow.

  He walked to the hotel, kissed Sally and petted Lisa’s puppy Patches, then told his wife, “I’ll be back. I’m going after Red Malone.”

  “I’ll go down and help with the wounded.”

  “See you when I return.”

  As Smoke was riding out, Jim said to Pete, “I wonder if he’ll bring Red in alive.”

  Pete spat on the ground. “Not if Red tries to draw on him.”

  26

  Smoke rode easy, knowing there was no hurry. Red Malone was not about to run. But he wondered about Max. What would the big man do—that is, if he were still alive? Or had his renegades returned to Hell’s Creek after their failure in Barlow and killed him? And that was highly likely.

  Smoke rode on, keeping Star in an easy canter, sometimes walking him. But the big horse loved to run and they ate up the distance. He was soon on Lightning range and, within minutes, facing three Lightning cowboys. One of them was wearing a bloody shirt, due to a bullet graze on his arm.

  “The people of Barlow are signing warrants right now, boys. Best thing you can do is just ride and keep on riding. If you think Sal and his deputies won’t come out here to get you, you’re flat wrong.”

  The cowboys looked at each other, then back at Smoke. One said, “You’ll let us ride?”

  Smoke jerked a thumb. “Ride on.”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” another said. “Red is alone. Except for that no-account daughter of his. But you won’t take him alive.”

  “Thanks. But I’d hate to kill a man in front of his daughter.”

  One of the cowboys laughed. “Smoke, that girl is as low and mean-spirited as her pa. She don’t give a popcorn poot for him. All she wants is the ranch. I believe she’d kill him herself if she got the chance.”

  “Thanks. I hope I don’t see you boys again.”

  They grinned. “You won’t!”

  They rode out, taking trails that would skirt the town of Barlow.

  When Smoke rode into the yard, Tessie was sitting on the porch. A shotgun lay on the porch floor. At the sight of him, she started bawling and squalling. As he drew closer, he could see that her dress was torn. She stopped crying long enough to expose more skin. Then she resumed her blubbering.

  Smoke sat his saddle for a moment, staring at the young woman. “Where’s your father?” he asked when there was a break in the hollering.

  “He’s dead!” she squalled. “In the house. He tried to attack me. He went crazy. I had to defend my honor!” She began a new round of wailing.

  Smoke swung down from the saddle and walked up onto the porch. He really didn’t know what to expect; maybe a trap. He just didn’t know.

  He opened the
screen door and the smell of blood hit him hard. He walked through the house until he found Red, dead, sprawled in front of a safe in his study. The door was open, and greenbacks and small sacks of gold lay on the floor and in the safe.

  Smoke grunted. Red Malone had been shot in the back at close range.

  “Ohhh!” Tessie hollered from the front porch. “I’m shamed forever. My own father tried to as-sault me. Oh, the dishonor and disgrace of it all.” She started blubbering.

  Smoke looked down at Red. “I hate to say it, Red, but even you probably deserved better kids than you had.”

  He walked outside. Tessie honked her nose into a bandana and said, “What am I gonna do with this big ol’ ranch? Why, I’m just a woman; I can’t handle men’s work.”

  “I certainly don’t envy you, ma’am. Don’t you have anybody else left on the ranch?”

  “Just the cook. She’s gone visitin’ friends for the day. I suppose I could get her to help me bury Pa. You think he’ll keep ’til late this afternoon?”

  “I expect so, ma’am.” Smoke stepped into the saddle.

  “Are you just gonna leave me here all alone with my poor dead father? I could sure use some comforting.” She batted her eyes at him. It was the most grotesque thing Smoke had ever seen—and he had seen some sights in his time.

  “I’ll explain to the sheriff what happened,” Smoke said as he backed Star up. Damned if he was going to turn his back to this woman. “I’ll sure do that.”

  When he had backed Star to the point where he was reasonably sure she could not hit him with the sawed-off, Smoke gave the big black his head. Star took off like the wind. The horse wasn’t real thrilled with Tessie, either.

  When Smoke arrived back in town, he told Judge Garrison and Sal what he’d seen out at the Lightning spread. Neither man seemed very surprised.