Rage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “This ranch is on Mr. Lathrop’s list of those to be raided. Looks like Smoke Jensen runned off the boys that was supposed to do it. That was him, over on the far side.”

  Tanner’s eyes narrowed. “I’m gonna fix his wagon this time for sure. Rucker, I want you to come with me. The rest of you boys, wait here until we come back. Then we’ll take care of this place, too.”

  In order to avoid detection, Tanner and Rucker skirted around the ranch, screened by the trees. Back on the trail, they rode hard to make up for lost time. Even so, they blundered upon Smoke quite unexpectedly.

  Late evening put Smoke Jensen in a solitary camp under a large rock overhang that provided shelter from the elements. Clouds had gathered during the afternoon and a light rain began to fall around 4:30. The storm backed up against the higher peaks of the Rockies and stalled out. Drizzle plagued Smoke as he continued on his rounds. At last, soaked to the skin, he had spied the cavelike rock formation and rode off the trace to inspect it.

  He found it had been used for a shelter before. A stack of small, dry limbs rested against the back wall of the granite lean-to, and near it, a fire pit. Smoke removed the saddle and wiped down Dandy, then started a fire. When it blazed to his satisfaction, he stripped bare and arranged his sodden clothing to dry. Smoke stood on the back side of the fire, buck naked, to dry his body.

  He had only begun to dress in clean, dry clothes when he heard the clop of approaching hooves and the low grumbling of two voices. Tense and suspicious, Smoke left off putting on a shirt and instead strapped on his cartridge belt. His use-worn weapons settled comfortably into place. Quickly he shielded the low blaze with a ground cloth. But his action had not come quickly enough.

  “Wade! Up there!” a voice called out down the trail.

  “Wha—?”

  Silence followed. Slowly, Smoke Jensen regained his night vision. Although sundown remained a good hour off, heavy clouds had blackened the sky, making it seem like midnight. Smoke strained his hearing to detect the least sound from the darkness beyond his shelter. When it came, it bore with it almost fatal results for Smoke Jensen.

  A darker shape on the trail directly below the overhang resolved itself into the form of a man. The figure had arms upraised as though holding a rifle. The moment he saw the yellow-orange muzzle bloom. Smoke dropped to the pine needle-strewn floor of the shelter. A slug cracked through the space formerly occupied by his chest and'shattered into a hundred fragments against the back wall.

  Smoke Jensen immediately rolled to his right and unshucked his righthand .45 Colt. He sighted in on the unseen killer and waited. When another muzzle blast illuminated the shoulders and head of the assassin, Smoke triggered a round. A pain-filled wail choked off abruptly after the bullet had ripped through the side of the assailant’s throat. Sudden light flooded the platform on which he lay.

  Already rolling away from his own muzzle bloom. Smoke Jensen continued to spin on the ground, eyes closed, until he reached the outer darkness. The dying man’s slug had cut the rope on one side of the shielding ground cloth and let free the brightness of Smoke’s fire. Stupid to have built it, he thought now, although he had been convinced he was alone on this mountainside.

  “Smoke Jensen,” came a voice out of the down-trail darkness. “You ain’t goin’ anywhere from here, Jensen. You done kilt my partner. That was sneaky. But . . . you ain’t got a chance of gettin’ away. So why don’t you come out of there and face me like a man?”

  Smoke reckoned he might be a little thick about some things, but he sure wasn’t stupid. Go out there? Without knowing how many waited for him? He wisely kept silent and cautiously eased himself downward, over the rain-wet pine needles. Again the voice taunted him.

  “C’mon, Jensen. Be a man. I got it. I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll come up into the edge of that firelight. I know enough about you to know you’ll not shoot me if I don’t have an iron in my hands. So that’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll leave my rifle behind, an’ come forward with my sixgun in leather. No tricks, I promise.”

  Smoke held his silence while the seconds ticked off. Then,

  slowly, he made out the figure of a big man, wearing a tall-crowned Montana Peak Stetson. When the stranger entered the reflected glow of Smoke’s fire, the seasoned gun-fighter saw his features more clearly.

  An angular face with a large nose, rabbity teeth, and slicked-back black hair seemed to ripple from the effect of flickering flames. It made him look like a rodent. Thin whisps of mustache twitched in a ratlike manner. Dark eyes that could be ebony in color cut from side to side, measuring his surroundings.

  “What say, Jensen? Ain’t you man enough to face me?” Tanner turned one way, then the next. “You tryin’ to sneak away in the dark? This storm’s gettin’ over with. I reckon I’ll have th’ best part of an hour to track you down if you rabbit on me.”

  Cursing himself for a fool for allowing this bigmouth to goad him into showing himself, yet unwilling to gun down a man with empty hands, Smoke Jensen inched the last few feet down onto the trail, then came to his boots. When he walked into the light, it startled Wade Tanner, who jerked as though he had touched a hot stove.,

  What Tanner saw was enough to shake any man. Scars. From the round, puckered pink spots of gunshot wounds to the thin white lines of knife slashes, stab wounds, and tomahawk gouges, Smoke Jensen’s bare torso was a terrain map of aged damage. Wade Tanner swallowed hard and lost the initiative of speaking first.

  “What’s your name?” Smoke asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I sometimes like to know the names of the men I kill.”

  That didn’t set well at all. “I—I’m Wade Tanner. And, I’m about to become the man who gunned down Smoke Jensen.”

  “There’s a lot of others who have said the same thing. Only you can’t hear it from them anymore.”

  Tanner raised his left hand, pointed to Smoke’s bare chest. “You’ve got pine needles on yer chest.”

  Far too wise to fall for that stunt and glance down,

  Smoke kept his eyes fixed on Tanner’s gunhand. “You want to open the dance?”

  “Goddamn, I do!” Tanner’s voice cracked with tension and fear.

  For all of the outlaw gang leader’s prowess, his squinty eyes widened in alarm and terrible comprehension when he saw the blur of movement made by Smoke Jensen. His righthand Smith American .44 had barely begun to move up and out of his holster when Smoke’s .45 Peacemaker slid clear of leather and leveled on Tanner’s middle. Tanner’s mouth formed an “oh” of surprise as fire and smoke spat from the nearly half-inch muzzle pointed at his gut.

  An invisible fist smacked hotly into Wade Tanner’s middle. It doubled him over as he discharged his first round, still in the pocket, which ripped down his thigh and calf, a quarter-inch under the skin. Suddenly nerveless fingers released the heavy Smith & Wesson, which thudded to the ground.

  Immobilized, Tanner sank to his knees. Blood poured from the leg wound. Desperately, he tried to focus on Smoke Jensen. His vision blurred as he studied on the muzzle that seemed to take forever to rise for another shot. Then Wade Tanner remembered he had a second .44 Smith American and drew it.

  Smoke Jensen shot him again, a fist-depth below the sternum. Knocked backward, Wade Tanner shot high. The bullet cracked past Smoke’s right ear and popped a hole through the brim of his hat. With a dying man’s desperation, Wade Tanner fired again. Better aimed, this bullet gouged a trough through Smoke Jensen’s shoulder point.

  It felt like liquid fire. Although he had been shot and stabbed, and even been on the receiving end of a tomahawk many times before, Smoke Jensen had never exactly got used to being wounded. He certainly didn’t take it for granted and pass it off as nothing important. A bullet gouge hurt like hell. More than a through-and-through wound, Smoke believed. Accordingly, he made sure his next round shattered the gunhand of Wade Tanner.

  Tanner’s last shred of loyalty washed away by the pain, his only t
houghts were of buying his life. He raised his blood-dripping hand toward Smoke Jensen and spoke imploringly. “Wh—what do I gotta do for you not to kill me?”

  “Stop trying to kill me, you damned fool,” Smoke advised him.

  “All right, all right. I ain’t much good for that now, anyway.”

  “And answer some questions.”

  Wade Tanner blinked at this. “What do you want to know, Jensen?”

  “Where can I find Phineas Lathrop?”

  Tanner nodded knowingly. It figured. “You’re goin’ after Lathrop, huh?”

  “I reckon to put a stop to his harebrained scheme,” Smoke allowed.

  Pain narrowed Tanner’s eyes. “He’s got near sixty men to go through first.”

  A fleeting smile curved the corners of Smoke Jensen’s mouth. “Not anymore.”

  New waves of agony sapped Tanner’s confidence along with the last of his strength. “He—Lathrop—was holed up in some rat den hotel in Denver along with this fancy New Yorker, Victor Middleton. Lathrop rode with us for a few days. Then, when you an’ your hands made those eastern dudes turn tail an’ run, Lathrop went back to Denver. He’s lickin’ his wounds in some fancy mansion Middleton found for them somewhere in Denver.”

  By that time, Wade Tanner had worked his left hand behind his back to where he could wrap his long, spatulate fingers around the small bird-head grip of a Henderson & Richards .38 tilt-top that he carried for a back-up. He waited for an incautious moment when Smoke Jensen would look away. When it came, he whipped the small five-shot revolver around and fired at point-blank range.

  Tanner’s triggerwork came a fraction of a second too late. Always the fastest, Smoke Jensen sensed the furtive actions in time to spring to one side and squeeze off his .45 Colt.

  Tanner’s slug cracked past Smoke’s head a fraction of a second after Smoke’s bullet gave Tanner a third eye and ended his life of corruption and evil.

  “Never could abide a sneak,” Smoke told the cooling corpse at his feet.

  He also saw that chasing after Lathrop’s underlings would not get the job done. So, Smoke Jensen headed back to the rendezvous point where he would gather his hands, send them to the Sugarloaf, and then go on himself to Denver to hunt down Phineas Lathrop and his partners. He wondered how, if possible, he could keep Oliver Johnson from accompanying him.

  Once again, that problem did not resolve itself to the liking of Smoke Jensen. When he and his hands returned to the Sugarloaf, and fresh men sent out to keep the pressure on Lathrop’s outlaw legion, Smoke announced his intention to go after the would-be empire builder.

  “I’m coming with you,” Oliver Johnson announced simply.

  “No. I think it would be better if you stayed here.”

  “Remember when I told you that you are my story? Nothing’s changed that.”

  Reluctantly, Smoke Jensen admitted to himself that he stood little chance of stopping the reporter. Together, the two men packed what they would need and set off to take the train from Big Rock. What Smoke regretted most was missing out on two or three nights of tender reacquaintance with his beloved Sally.

  When he and Ollie got to Denver, all thoughts of blissful romance had disappeared. Not willing to waste time in a fruitless search of every “mansion” in Denver, Smoke Jensen prevailed on his friendship with Silas Greene at the Denver Livestock Exchange. If that failed to produce results, he knew he could rely on Captain Pat Patterson of the Denver Police.

  Silas Greene responded to the question of a Victor Middleton making a recent purchase of a mansion with a long silence. His full lips pursed and relaxed as he ran through his copious knowledge of the aristocracy of Denver. At last he made a wet smacking sound and sighed heavily.

  “I’m not sure he’s your man, mind, but the only recent purchase of a comfortable house was made by a man calling himself Virgil Medford. The names are similar, but it’s not the one you’re looking for.”

  “Perhaps too similar,” Smoke opined. “Same initials. Could it be Victor Middleton has a monogrammed glad-stone, or some such item he can’t part with, and needed to keep that V.M. in his new name? It’s worth a try if nothing else develops. Where’s the place this Medford took over?”

  “It’s the old Hampstead house, up on Gold Hill.”

  “Thank you, Silas. I owe you one.”

  Chuckling, Silas Greene rose to see his visitors out. “You owe me more than one, Smoke Jensen.”

  Smoke’s visit to Pat Patterson proved to be even more fruitful. When Smoke stated his purpose, Patterson hardly hesitated before he announced, “Virgil Medford, alias Victor Middleton, bought the Hampstead mansion on Gold Hill only last week. I think he’s the one you want, isn’t he, Smoke?”

  Smoke gave him a nod. “From what I heard elsewhere, yes. But I did want to make sure before I went barging in there.”

  “Now, wait a minute. If he’s wanted for something, it’s up to the law to bring him in.” Patterson’s portly frame fairly jiggled with agitation and the anticipation of some action involving gunsmoke.

  “I don’t think there’s anything the law can prove Middleton has done illegally. Besides, there’s someone else I’m after. Name of Phineas Lathrop. He’s supposed to be hiding out with Middleton.”

  “Well, then, we’ve got harboring a criminal,” Patterson offered.

  “Again, there’s so far only my word against Lathrop’s. If I can flush him out, though, I think I can get him to talk.”

  Pat Patterson considered that. “Yes, Smoke, you do have your ways . . . Injun ways. Sounds dangerous enough. I’d like to send along a couple of my best—to sorta plug any escape holes. I’ll come along, too.”

  Twenty-three

  Three rough-edged characters lounged around the small stone gatehouse that commanded the large, wrought-iron barriers which denied access to the average person to a wide, graveled drive at the Hampstead house. They aroused themselves with alacrity at the approach of four men in a light carriage, followed by a dark blue Denver PD paddywagon.

  “You folks have an appointment?” one of them growled, when the buggy turned in and stopped at the closed gate.

  “We don’t need an appointment,” Captain Patterson answered. “Captain Patterson, Denver Police, and U. S. Marshal Jensen.”

  “Jee—zus, Smoke Jensen,” one of the other thugs spoke in awed tones.

  “Are you going to open that gate?” Patterson made it a demand.

  “Not without the say-so from Mr. Mid—er—Mr. Medford, we ain’t.”

  “Oh, I think you are,” Smoke declared, rising.

  His .45 Colt appeared in his hand as though by magic. Before its presence had registered on the four gunhands, it belched smoke and flame, and a loud spang sounded as the slug smashed into the lockcase at the center of the doublehung portals. Another quick round finished the work and the wrought-iron barrier swung slightly inward.

  “Drive on,” Smoke told the policeman who sat to his right in the driver’s seat.

  Another officer had stepped down from the paddywagon and come forward now to widen the gap. Smoke Jensen kept his eyes and the muzzle of his .45 Peacemaker on the stunned guards. The black bristle crests on the headstalls of a pair of matched dapple gray’s bobbed up and down as the carriage gained speed. The paddywagon rumbled behind and the dismounted policeman did a grab-iron mount like a railroad switchman as the rear lurched past where he stood.

  “Now the thing to do is reach the house ahead of the news of our arrival,” Ollie Johnson remarked.

  “I think the element of surprise has already been lost,” Pat Patterson observed dryly.

  “There’ll be more of the sort we left at the gate around the house,” Smoke cautioned.

  Ollie Johnson’s pigeon breast swelled as he reached into his coat for the Smith .38 he carried. “I don’t think we’ll get past them by just shooting up a gate.”

  Smoke Jensen had not reholstered his Colt. “I reckon not, Ollie.”

  “There’s two of t
hem now,” Captain Patterson pointed out.

  Two hard cases rushed toward the approaching vehicles. One reached for the holstered Merwin and Hulbert .44 at his hip while the other shook an extended index finger at the buggy. “This is private property. Get out at once.”

  “Denver Police. Put your hands in the air and stay out of our way.”

  “Damn lawmen!” the man with the Merwin and Hulbert snarled, as he hauled his sixgun from leather.

  Smoke Jensen shot him in the shoulder. His companion immediately skidded to a stop and raised his hands. The buggy rolled on by. The officers in the patrol wagon would tend to both of the guards. Another thug appeared in the opening made by tall double doors at the front of the mansion. He quickly popped back inside and slammed the thick oak portals closed. When the two police vehicles came to a stop under a portico, lawmen jumped out of the rear of the van and ran to encircle the main building.

  Shooting started almost at once. Smoke Jensen, Ollie Johnson, and Captain Pat Patterson headed directly for the door, which Smoke assumed to be locked and probably barred. Smoke’s suspicion proved true. The thick panels failed to yield to the turn of the brass handle. Smoke stepped back a pace and fired three rounds into the shiny plate of the lock. Still the door failed to yield.

  “Let me,” Pat Patterson offered as he snatched the ten-gauge Purdy from the hands of Ollie Johnson.

  The stoutly built lawman gave it both barrels. Then he and Smoke hit the opposing doors with their shoulders. The impact hurt like hell, Smoke had to admit, especially on his slightly wounded side. It had the desired effect, though. A crack and groan preceded the inward movement of the big portals.

  Smoke Jensen let his .45 Colt lead the way inside. Two Lathrop gunmen made the mistake of trying to block their way. Smoke and Patterson fired as one. Both thugs went down moaning over their wounds. Smoke holstered his nearly empty sixgun and drew the other .45 Colt from the left side.

  “People are just like rats,” Pat Patterson suggested. “They sense danger and they tend to go up.” He nodded toward an elegant, curving staircase that led to the balcony that surrounded the grand entrance hall, and beyond to the second floor.