Revenge of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’d like to visit your ranch someday.”

  “You’ll be welcome anytime, sir.”

  John leaned forward. “You’re leaving soon?”

  “Probably day after tomorrow. Louis says he thinks he can have the car here then. About noon.”

  “And this Rex Davidson and Dagget; the others who got away?”

  “We’ll meet them down the road, I’m sure. But me and Sally, we’re used to watching our backtrail. Used to keeping a gun handy. Don’t worry, John, Abigal. If they try to take us on the Sugarloaf, that’s where we’ll bury them.”

  “I say,” Jordan piped up. “Do you think your town could support another attorney? I’ve been thinking about it, and I think the West is in need of more good attorneys, don’t you, Father?”

  His father probably saved his son’s life when he said, “Jordan, I need you here.”

  “Oh! Very well, Father. Perhaps someday.”

  “When pigs fly,” John muttered.

  “Beg pardon, sir?” Jordan asked.

  “Nothing, Son. Nothing at all.”

  * * *

  They pulled out right on schedule, but to Smoke’s surprise, the town’s band turned up at the depot and were blaring away as the train pulled out.

  Louis had not arranged for one private car but for two, so the ladies could have some privacy and the babies could be tended to properly and have some quiet moments to sleep.

  “Really, Louis,” Sally told him. “I am perfectly capable of paying for these amenities myself.”

  “Nonsense. I won’t hear of it.” He looked around to make sure that Smoke and York were not watching or listening, then reached down and tickled his namesake under his chin.

  “Goochy, goochy!” the gambler said.

  Louis Arthur promptly grabbed hold of the gambler’s finger and refused to let go.

  * * *

  They changed engines and crews many times before reaching St. Louis. There, all were tired and Louis insisted upon treating them to the finest hotel in town. A proper nanny was hired to take care of the twins, and Louis contacted the local Pinkerton agency and got several hard-looking and very capable-appearing men to guard the babies and their nanny.

  Then they all went out on the town.

  They spent two days in the city, the ladies shopping and the men tagging along, appearing to be quite bored with it all. It got very un-boring when York accidentally got lost in the largest and most expensive department store in town and wound up in one of the ladies’ dressing rooms . . . with a rather matronly lady dressed only in her drawers.

  Smoke and Louis thought the Indians were attacking from all the screaming that reverberated throughout the many-storied building.

  After order was restored, York commented. “Gawd-damndest sight I ever did see. I thought I was in a room with a buffalo!”

  * * *

  The train chugged and rumbled across Missouri and into and onto the flat plains of Kansas. It had turned much colder, and snow was common now.

  “I worry about taking the babies up into the high country, Smoke,” Sally expressed her concern as the train rolled on into Colorado.

  “Not to worry,” Louis calmed her. “I can arrange for a special coach with a charcoal stove. Everything is going to be all right.”

  But Louis knew, as did Smoke and York, that the final leg of their journey was when they would be the most vulnerable.

  But their worry was needless. Smoke had wired home, telling his friends when they would arrive in Denver. When they stepped out of the private cars, he knew that not even such a hate-filled man as Rex Davidson would dare attack them now.

  Monte Carson and two of his men were there, as were Johnny North and Pearlie and a half dozen others from the High Lonesome; all of them men who at one time or another in their lives had been known as gunslingers.

  York was going to head south to Arizona and officially turn in his badge and draw his time, then come spring he’d drift back up toward the Sugarloaf. And toward Martha.

  This was the end of the line for Louis. He had many business appointments and decisions to make, and then he would head out, probably to France.

  “Oh, I’ll be back,” he assured them all. “I have to check on my namesake every now and then, you know.”

  Smoke stuck out his hand and the gambler/gunfighter shook it. “Thanks, Louis.”

  “Anytime, Smoke. Just anytime at all. It isn’t over, friend. So watch your back and look after Sally and the kids.”

  “I figure they’ll come after me come spring, Louis.”

  “So do I. See you, Smoke.”

  And as he had done before, Louis Longmont turned without another word and walked out of their lives.

  * * *

  Christmas in the high country and it was shut-down-tight time, with snow piled up to the eaves. For the next several months, taking care of the cattle would be back-breakingly hard work for every man able to sit a saddle.

  Water holes would have to be chopped out daily so the cattle could drink. Hay would have to be hauled to them so they would not starve. Line cabins would have to be checked and restocked with food so the hands could stay alive. Firewood had to be stacked high, with a lot of it stacked close to the house, for the temperature could drop to thirty below in a matter of a few hours.

  This was not a country for the fainthearted or for those who did not thrive on hard brutal work. It was a hard land, and it took hard men to mold it and make it liveable.

  It was a brutal time for the men and women in the high country, but it was also a peaceful time for them. It was a time when, after a day’s back-breaking and exhausting work, a man could come home to a warm fire and a table laden with hot food. And after supper, a man and woman could sit snug in their home while the wind howled and sang outside, talking of spring while their kids did homework, read or, as in Smoke and Sally’s case, laid on the floor, on a bearskin rug in front of the fire, playing with toys their father had carved and shaped and fitted and pegged together with his own strong hands. They could play with dolls their mother had patiently sewn during the long, cold, seemingly endless days of winter.

  But as is foretold in the Bible, there is a time for everything, and along about the middle of March, the icy fingers of winter began to loosen their chilly grip on the high country of Colorado.

  Smoke and Sally awakened to the steady drip-drop of water.

  Martha, who had spent the winter with them and had been a godsend in helping take care of the babies, stuck her head inside their bedroom, her eyes round with wonder.

  “Raining?” she asked.

  Smoke grinned at her. He and Sally had both tossed off the heavy comforter some time during the night, when the temperature began its steady climb upward.

  “Chinooks, Martha,” he told her. “Sometimes it means spring is just around the corner. But as often as not, it’s a false spring.”

  “I’ll start breakfast,” she said.

  Smoke pulled on his clothes and belted his guns around him. He stepped outside and smiled at the warm winds. Oh, it was still mighty cool, the temperature in the forties, but it beat the devil out of temperatures forty below.

  “Tell Sally I’ll milk the cows, Martha. Breakfast ought to be ready when I’m—”

  His eyes found the horse standing with head down near the barn. And he knew that horse. It belonged to York.

  And York was lying in the muddy snow beside the animal.

  Smoke jerked out his .44 and triggered two fast shots into the air. The bunkhouse emptied in fifteen seconds, with cowboys in various stages of undress, mostly in their longhandles, boots, and hats—with guns in their hands.

  Sally jerked the front door open. “It’s York, and I think he’s hard hit . . .”

  “Shot in the chest, boss!” a cowboy yelled. “He’s bad, too!”

  “You, Johnny!” Smoke yelled to a hand. “Get dressed and get Dr. Spalding out here. We can’t risk moving York over these bumpy roads.” The cowboy darted b
ack inside the bunkhouse. Smoke turned to Sally. “Get some water on to boil and gather up some clean white cloths for bandages.” He ran over to where York was sprawled.

  Pearlie had placed a jacket under York’s head. He met Smoke’s eyes. “It don’t look good. The only chance he’s got is if it missed the lung.”

  “Get him into the house, boys.”

  As they moved him as gently as possible, York opened his eyes and looked at Smoke. “Dagget and Davidson and ’bout a dozen others, Smoke. They’re here. Ambushed me ’bout fifteen miles down the way. Down near where them beaver got that big dam.”

  Then he passed out.

  Johnny was just swinging into the saddle. “Johnny! Tell the sheriff to get a posse together. Meet me at Little Crick.”

  The cowboy left, foggy headed.

  York was moved into the house, into the new room that had been added while Smoke and Sally were gone east.

  Smoke turned to Pearlie. “This weather will probably hold for several days at least. The cattle can make it now. Leave the hands at the lineshacks. You’ll come with me. Everybody else stays here, close to the house. And I mean nothing pulls them away. Pass the word.”

  Smoke walked back into the house and looked in on York. Sally and Martha had pulled off his boots, loosened his belt, and stripped his bloody shirt from him. They had cut off the upper part of his longhandles, exposing the ugly savage wound in his chest.

  Sally met her husband’s eyes. “It’s bad, Smoke, but not as bad as I first thought. The bullet went all the way through. There is no evidence of a lung being nicked; no pink froth. And his breathing is strong and so is his heart.”

  Smoke nodded, grabbing up a piece of bread and wrapping it around several thick slices of salt meat he picked from the skillet. “I’ll get in gear and then Pearlie and me will pull out; join the posse at Little Crick. All the hands have been ordered to stay right here. It would take an army to bust through them.”

  Sally rose and kissed his lips. “I’ll fix you a packet of food.”

  Smoke roped and saddled a tough mountain horse, a bigger-than-usual Appaloosa, sired by his old Appaloosa, Seven. He lashed down his bedroll behind the saddle and stuffed his saddlebags full of ammo and food and a couple of pairs of clean socks. He swung into the saddle just as Pearlie was swinging into his saddle. Smoke rode over to the front door of the house, where Sally was waiting.

  Her eyes were dark with fury. “Finish it, Smoke,” she said.

  He nodded and swung his horse’s head—the horse was named Horse. He waited for Pearlie and the two of them rode slowly down the valley, out of the high country and down toward Little Crick.

  By eight o’clock that morning, Smoke and Pearlie had both shucked off their heavy coats and tied them behind their saddles, riding with only light jackets to protect them from the still-cool winds.

  They had met Dr. Spalding on the road and told him what they knew about York’s wound. The doctor had nodded his head and driven on.

  An hour later they were at the beaver dam on Little Crick. Sheriff Monte Carson was waiting with the posse. Smoke swung down from the saddle and walked to where the sheriff was pointing.

  “Easy trackin’, Smoke. Two men have already gone on ahead. I told them not to get more’un a couple miles ahead of us.”

  “That’s good advice, Monte. These are bad ones. How many you figure?”

  “Ground’s pretty chewed up, but I’d figure at least a dozen; maybe fifteen of them.”

  Smoke looked at the men of the posse. He knew them all and was friends with them all. There was Johnny North, at one time one of the most feared and respected of all gunslingers. There was the minister, a man of God but a crack shot with a rifle. Better hit the ground if he ever pulled out a six-shooter, for he couldn’t hit the side of a mountain with a short gun. The editor of the paper was there, along with the town’s lawyer, both of them heavily armed. There were ranchers and farmers and shopkeepers, and while not all were born men of the West, they had blended in and were solid western men.

  Which meant that if you messed with them, they would shoot your butt off.

  Smoke shared a few words with all of the men of the posse, making sure they all had ample food and bedrolls and plenty of ammo. It was a needless effort, for all had arrived fully prepared.

  Then Smoke briefed them all about the nature of the men they were going to track.

  When he had finished, all the men wore looks of pure disgust on their faces. Beaconfield and Garrett, both big ranchers in the area, had quietly noosed ropes while Smoke was talking.

  Monte noticed, of course, but said nothing. This was the rough-edged west, where horse thieves were still hanged on the spot, and there was a reason for that: Leave a man without a horse in this country, and that might mean the thief had condemned that man to death.

  Tit for tat.

  “Judge Proctor out of town?” Smoke asked.

  “Gone to a big conference down in Denver,” Monte told him.

  Beaconfield and Garrett finished noosing the ropes and secured them behind their saddles. They were not uncaring men. No one had ever been turned away from their doors hungry or without proper clothing. Many times, these same men had given a riderless puncher a horse, telling him to pay whenever he could; if he couldn’t, that was all right, too.

  But western men simply could not abide men like Davidson or Dagget or them that chose to ride with them. The men of the posse lived in a hard land that demanded practicality, short conversations, and swift justice, oftentimes as not, at the point of a gun.

  It would change as the years rolled on. But a lot of people would wonder if the change had been for the better.

  A lot of people would be wondering the same thing a hundred hears later.

  Smoke swung into the saddle. “Let’s go stomp on some snakes.”

  26

  The posse caught up with the men who had ranged out front, tracking the outlaws.

  “I can’t figure them, Sheriff,” one of the scouts said. “It’s like they don’t know they’re headin’ into a box canyon.”

  “Maybe they don’t,” Pearlie suggested.

  One of the outriders shook his head. “If they keep on the way they’re goin’, we’re gonna have ’em hemmed in proper in about an hour.”

  Garrett walked his horse on ahead. “Let’s do it, boys. It’s a right nice day for a hangin’.”

  The posse cautiously made their way. In half an hour, they knew that King Rex and Dagget were trapped inside Puma Canyon. They was just absolutely no other way out.

  “Two men on foot,” Monte ordered. “Rifles. And take it slow and easy up the canyon. Don’t move until you’ve checked all around you and above you. We might have them trapped, but this is one hell of a good place for an ambush. You—”

  “Hellooo, the posse!” the call came echoing down the long, narrow canyon. It was clearly audible, so Davidson and his men were not that far away.

  Monte waved the two men back and shouted, “We hear you. Give yourselves up. You haven’t got a chance.”

  “Oh, I think not, Sheriff. I think it’s going to be a very interesting confrontation.”

  “Rex Davidson,” Smoke said. “I will never forget that voice.”

  Monte turned to one of his deputies. “Harry, you and Bob ride down yonder about half a mile. There’s a way up to the skyline. You’ll be able to shoot right down on top of them. Take off.”

  “This is tricky country,” Beaconfield said. “Man can get hisself into a box here ’fore he knows. Took me several years to learn this country and damned if I still don’t end up in a blind canyon ever now and then.”

  They all knew what he meant, for they all had, at one time or the other, done the same them.

  “Hellooo, the posse!” the call came again.

  “We hear you! What do you want?” Monte yelled, his voice bouncing around the steep canyon walls.

  “We seem to have boxed ourselves in. Perhaps we could behave as gentlemen and
negotiate some sort of settlement. What do you say about that?”

  “Bastard’s crazy!” Monte said.

  “You noticed,” Smoke replied.

  Raising his voice, Monte called, “Toss your guns to the ground and ride on out. One hand on the reins, the other hand in the air.”

  “That offer is totally unacceptable!”

  “Then you’re going to get lead or a rope. Take your choice!”

  “Come on and get us then!” Dagget yelled, laying down the challenge.

  “We got three choices,” Garrett said, a grimness to his voice. “We can starve them out; but that’d take days. We could try to set this place on fire and burn them out; but I don’t want no harm to come to their horses. Or we can go in and dig them out.”

  Smoke dismounted and led Horse back to a safe pocket at the mouth of the canyon. He stuffed his pockets with .44s and pulled his rifle from the boot.

  The others followed suit, taking their horses out of the line of fire and any possible ricocheting bullet. Monte waved the men to his side.

  “The only way any of us is gonna take lead this day is if we’re stupid or downright unlucky. What we’re gonna do is wait until Bob and Harry get into position and start layin’ down some lead. Then we can start movin’ in. So lets have us a smoke and a drink of water and relax. Relaxin’ is something them ol’ boys in that box canyon ain’t liable to be doin’.”

  The men squatted down and rolled and licked and shaped and lit. Beaconfield brought out a coffee pot, and Smoke made a small circle of rocks and started a hat-sized fire. The men waited for the coffee to boil.

  With a smile on his lips, Smoke walked to the curve of the canyon and shouted, “We’re gonna have us some coffee and food, Davidson. We’ll be thinking about you boys all hunkered up there in the rocks doing without.”

  A rifle slug whined wickedly off the rock wall, tearing through the air to thud against the ground.

  “This is the Jester, King Rex, Your Majesty!” Smoke shouted. “How about just you and me, your royal pain in the ass?”

  “Swine!” Davidson screamed. “You traitor! You turned your back to me after all I’d done for you. I made you welcome in my town and you turned on me like a rattlesnake.”