Cunning of the Mountain Man

by Unknown Author

  It spanged off the cast-iron side of a black, pot-bellied stove, ricocheted through the ceiling, and left a crack behind. Because Smoke Jensen was no longer where he had been. He moved the instant he fired. Now he swung the hot muzzle of his .44 toward the offensive gunhawk.

  Smoke’s six-gun spoke, and a yelp of surprise and pain came as shards of wood from the window’s inner framework showered the gunhawk’s face. It was not enough to incapacitate him, Smoke soon learned. Two more rounds barked from the outlaw’s .45, as the remaining pair of gunslicks charged through the open doorway.

  Another hasty round clipped the thug in the shoulder, a moment before the last mountain man ducked behind a floor island to escape a murderous hail of lead from the newcomers. A soft grunt told him he had scored a hit. Bullets ripped and shredded a rack of black, weatherproofed dusters, searching blindly for Smoke. He easily kept ahead of their advance, then hunkered down and duck-walked back along the section the slugs had chewed through. At the end of the island, the wounded hard case in the window spotted him and blinked in surprise.

  “Nobody could live through that,” he declared in astonishment a second before he died, a bullet from Smoke Jensen turning his long, sharp nose into an inverted exclamation point.

  Smoke immediately reholstered his expended six-gun and cross-drew his backup. A snigger came from Charlie Bascomb. “That’s five, iffin’ I count right, Jensen. We’re cornin’ after you.”

  Could this one they called Charlie be so stupid as to not have seen his second six-gun? Or did he forget about it? Smoke let go of the questions as quickly as he had formed them. He ducked low and spotted the boots of his taunter. The big iron barked, and Charlie shrieked as he went to the floor. He found himself staring into the steely gray gaze of Smoke Jensen.

  Without visible pause, Charlie began to roll toward the door. He blubbered and sobbed as he called entreaties to his remaining sidekicks. “Go after him, boys. He’s right back o’ them coats.”

  Only Smoke was not there any more. One outlaw ankled around the far end of the island to discover that fact. He stared disbelievingly, while his partner emptied another six-gun into the linen dusters and his companion. The thug died without Smoke firing a shot.

  The man from the Sugarloaf made up for that quickly enough, though. The last of a trio of fast shots found meat. A grunt and curse preceded a stumbling bootwalk across the plank floor toward the back counter. Smoke had only a single round left. He edged along a wall of shelves loaded with boots and shoes, until he could see the counters at the rear of the store.

  From his vantage point, the gunhawk saw Smoke first.

  He tripped his trigger on a final round, and immediately abandoned it for a large knife. When the target jinked to Smoke’s right, it threw his shot off. Smoke’s last slug punched through the outer wall of the store. Only then did Smoke see that the knife was not the usual hog-sticker carried by frontier hard cases. In fact, it looked more like a ground-down sword with a two-foot blade.

  While that registered on Smoke, his adversary gave a roar and leaped at him. The blade swished through the air with a vicious sound. Smoke jumped back and to the side, away from the swing. He instantly stumbled tripped and fell into a double row of light farm implements. Their clutter muffled his muttered curse. A second later, the knife-wielder charged Smoke again.

  His own coffin-handle Bowie, formidable under any other conditions, would be of little use against this onslaught. Smoke Jensen knew that in an instant. He bought himself some time by a quick, prone scramble down the aisle. Not quite far enough, as the two-foot blade whirred through the air and clipped a heel from Smoke’s boot. While his opponent remained off balance, Smoke thrust upright. He backed away further, both hands groping among the tools.

  A snarl of triumph illuminated the contorted face of Buck Ropon. He rushed after Smoke Jensen with his altered sword raised high. He had just begun the downswing—aimed to split Smoke’s head from crown to chin—when Smoke’s hands closed on the familiar perpendicular handle of a scythe. He tightened his grip and jumped backward.

  Swiftly, Smoke swung the keen-edged blade like the Grim Reaper. The long handle easily outdistanced the reach of Buck Ropon. The big, curved blade hissed through a short arc. Shock jolted up the handle to Smoke’s arms when the edge made contact. With Smoke Jensen’s enormous strength, it cut clean through. Buck Ropon had just been decapitated by a scythe.

  His headless body did a grotesque quick-time dance, while twin streams of crimson fountained to the ceiling. The head, lips still skinned back in a snarl, hit and rolled on the floor. When the blood geysers diminished, the deflated corpse fell full-length. Smoke Jensen immediately recovered himself.

  He set the scythe aside and started to reload both six-guns. Stunned into mindless shock, the merchant stumbled around his business, alternately sobbing and cursing. Bitterness colored his words when he was capable of comprehensible speech.

  “Mein Gott! Mein Gott! Look at this. I’m ruined! Who will pay? Who will pay for all this damage?”

  By then, Smoke Jensen had finished punching fresh cartridges into both weapons, loading six rounds in each. Seeming to ignore the distressed shopkeeper, he went from corpse to corpse, examining the contents of their pockets. He accumulated a considerable amount of paper currency and coins. Then, with the merchant looking on in horror, he stripped the boots from them and recovered even more.

  It totaled about two hundred dollars and change. He handed it to the horrified man. “This should help. And that scythe is like brand new. All you need do is clean it up, and sell it to someone.”

  “Never! No one would want it. I’ll never be able to sell it.”

  Smoke delved into one of his own pockets and brought out a three-dollar gold piece. “Then I’ll buy it.”

  “That’s it, Mench? You are going to hand me money and walk out of here like nothing happened?”

  “You saw it all. You can tell the law what happened. They attacked me, right? I only protected myself.” “Wh-who ... are you?”

  “Smoke Jensen.”

  A sudden greenness crept into the existing pallor of the merchant’s face. “Ach du lieber Gott!” he wailed as he tottered toward the cash drawer with the money clutched in one hand.

  Smoke Jensen retrieved his supplies and assessed his own damage. He found the worst that had happened was that his horehound candy sticks had been broken. He left San Antonio without a backward glance.

  Smoke camped a hundred yards off the only road he figured Jeff and his hands would use coming to San Antonio through this sparsely settled country. Sure enough, early the next evening, while coffee brewed and he tended a hat-sized fire over which biscuits baked in a covered skillet, he heard the thunder of the hooves; he made it out to be three horses in a brisk canter. Smoke kept a careful eye to the north, as the sound grew louder. He had the polished metal shaving mirror from his personal kit cupped in one hand, and when the riders came close enough to recognize, he signaled them by a series of flashes.

  “You could have took that damn thing out of my eyes a little sooner,” Jeff York complained as he rode up to where Smoke bent over to add more fatback to a second skillet.

  “Wanted to make sure you knew it was me. Might have been you Arizona boys don’t know that trick,” Smoke teased.

  “Hell, the Apaches have been usin’ mirrors to signal with since the Spanish brought them way back. That smells good.”

  “Step down and pour coffee. You two as well. What’s the news?”

  “We can’t find anything of Sheriff Reno or Quint Stalker, nor any of Stalker’s hard cases,” Jeff declared.

  “Everything is set up with the widder for two nights from now,” Walt added his good news.

  Smoke nodded. “Small wonder you didn’t see any of Stalker’s men. I had a run-in with five of them yesterday in San Antonio. That’s why I’m out here waiting for you.” Jeff snorted and ran a hand through his sandy blond locks. “Did you stick around to explain to the loca
l law?” Smoke gave him a blank look of innocence. “I didn’t know there was any. Didn’t overstay my welcome by finding out. Not when one of them got away. My guess, our friend Sheriff Reno is in charge around here anyway.”

  “Losing five of his prize possemen will sure enough make his day for him,” Walt said drolly. “Uh . . . one thing we did find out, the sheriff is usin’ Stalker’s outlaws on the posse. There’s some folk around Socorro don’t take too fondly to that. Includin’ the Widow Tucker.”

  “Then I am even more inclined to meet with the good woman.” Smoke’s eyes twinkled with suppressed merriment, as he continued “I seem to recall you mentioned she was some looker, Walt. There any chance of you making a place for yourself?”

  “You hurt me to the core, Smoke. You know I ride for the Sugarloaf an’ no one else.”

  “Sometimes the heart has a way of changing the mind. Whatever,” Smoke summed up, “eat hearty and sleep with a packed outfit. Tomorrow we ride to the Tucker ranch.”

  Twelve

  Smoke Jensen stared down into the black pool in his coffee cup. It struck him powerfully to realize how long it had been since he had last drank strong, dark brew from a delicate china cup like this. Of course, it had been back home, on the Sugarloaf. For all her ability to rough it like a man, Sally Jensen insisted on her finery in the large, log building that housed the headquarters of Smoke’s horse-breeding ranch. Only there, he noted, the tension didn’t grow so thick it could be felt and tasted.

  After Jeff York had made the introductions, Martha Tucker sat across from Smoke Jensen, at the core of that tension. From her viewpoint, Smoke allowed she had ample cause to radiate so much distrust and suspicion. Might as well get on with it and see how much of that he could boil away. Sighing, Smoke cut his eyes to the woman across the table. His eyes locked with her sky blue ones. In a soft, steady voice, pitched low, Smoke described what he knew of events surrounding the death of Lawrence Tucker.

  She listened hands in her lap, palms up, like opening flowers. Her face remained impassive, until he recounted the discovery of their cattle on the trail outside of Datil. Suddenly strained muscles tightened her face into deep, shadowed lines. She drew a sharp breath, recalling when and how the livestock had been driven off the ranch.

  “Those cattle were stolen more than a week ago,” she stated in a hollow voice. “The men who did it called their leader Smoke.”

  Smoke Jensen looked sharply at her. “Someone was being cute. My guess, based on what the survivor of that encounter told us, is that Quint Stalker thought that one up.” He sighed and paused. “It couldn’t have been Stalker. He’s not been seen around Socorro for a good two weeks.”

  “Where might he be?” Martha asked.

  “We . . . don’t know,” Jeff York inserted.

  “Wherever he is, he’ll be up to no good you can be sure of that.”

  Smoke first picked up on this change in Martha’s attitude. “Pardon me, Mrs. Tucker, but could you tell us more about what has happened here, to you and your children? Jeff has filled me in on part of it, though surely not everything.”

  Smoke’s prompting opened the flood gates. “First, a man came from town, Elert Cousins it was, to tell me tha—that Lawrence had been killed. He said the sheriff had caught the man who had done it. That it was . . Her voice faltered lowered “Smoke Jensen.”

  “And now, maybe you’re not so sure?” Smoke urged. “You can count on what Smoke told you,” Jeff York jumped in. “Like I said before, Smoke is on the right side of the law, a straight shooter.” A sudden pained expression of embarrassment twisted the Arizona Ranger’s handsome features. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”

  “I understand,” Martha said softly. Then she continued to recount the efforts to force her and the children to abandon the ranch. When she had ended her account, she added, “At first they claimed that you had taken the money and bill of sale when you killed Larry. After that, when I insisted on seeing the transfer of title and sale bill, they stopped even mentioning that.

  “Lately, I’ve been giving it some thought,” Martha continued. “Especially after talking with your hands, who were quite gentlemanly, though with a few rough edges. Then, Ranger York, who spoke on your behalf. I got to wondering how it could be that you were found unconscious, beside my hus—beside his body, and they didn’t find the money and bill of sale on your person?”

  Smoke Jensen studied her calm demeanor. Certainly a powerfully attractive woman. Her heart-shaped face revealed a firm, though not stem mouth, wide-set, clear, blue eyes, and a high brow. Her hands, worn by years at the washboard and cookstove, still retained a semblance of youthful elegance. Carried herself well, too. Even the hostility she had directed toward him at the outset had been muted by an inner disposition toward true justice, rather than revenge. Her children, quiet and polite, showed good upbringing. They had been clean and wore neat clothing. They had gone off to their loft beds shortly after Smoke and Jeff arrived.

  Most of all, as he had just discovered, her mind worked rather well. No one else had come up with that particular question, let alone an explanation.

  “Score one for the lady,” Smoke announced to break his contemplation. “I asked the sheriff that very question when he came into my cell to—ah—arrange a confession. He didn’t have an answer.”

  “Neither do I,” Martha allowed. “That’s what perplexes me.”

  Much as she disliked the direction of her thoughts, Martha Tucker had to admit that this trim-waisted, broad-shouldered man was far more handsome than either of his hands. His hair, cut a bit longish for current fashion, had a natural curl in the ends, that turned inward to brush at his earlobes. His eyes had turned a soft, comforting gray. Martha had no way of knowing that they could take on the color of glacial ice when angered. To her dismay, Martha Tucker found herself comparing him with her husband with Smoke Jensen coming out ahead in most attributes. She chastised herself for the strong, though unwanted attraction she felt toward the rugged mountain man-gunfighter.

  Although, to give herself credit, she also felt repelled by his reputation. There! She had said it all. Yet, he seemed sincere in what he said. What with Ranger York to vouch for him, what reason did she have to distrust Smoke Jensen? She suddenly realized that she had been asked a question, when Smoke repeated it.

  “How do you mean, Miz Tucker?”

  “Why, simply that there have been rumors about our Sheriff Reno. It’s said that he’s lazy, which I can vouch for. Also that to make work easy, he’s sent more than one innocent man to the gallows.”

  “That’s not true, ma’am,” Jeff York interjected. “The law don’t have anything to do with convictions and sentencing. That’s up to the judge and jury.”

  Martha’s eyes held a heretofore unseen twinkle. “Don’t their decisions rely a great deal on a lawman’s evidence and testimony?”

  Jeff knew when he had been bested. A light pink flush colored his fair cheeks. “You got me there, ma’am.”

  “I see that I haven’t been entirely clear. What I was getting at, is that Sheriff Reno is supposed to have created evidence out of whole cloth several times before, also withheld evidence or suppressed testimony that would have favored the accused person.”

  “Fits with the way he handled this case,” Smoke Jensen provided. “Last thing I remember, I was wearing my own guns. Then they showed up in Reno’s desk drawer. And I was supposed to be packin’ some hand-me-down, castoff, conversion Remington. And if I had the money I was supposed to have taken, he would have bragged that up to me, too.”

  Martha, who had cast a nervous glance up at the loft, cut her eyes back to Smoke. “Of course, it would be argued that the sheriff, or that sticky-fingered jailer of his, could have relieved you of it while you were unconscious. For my part, I think there never was any money. Because I know that Larry had no intention of ever selling this ranch.”

  “So then, that’s what led you to believe me?” Smoke prodded.

  Martha too
k a deep breath, sighed it out. “Yes. At least enough to ask you, what do you intend to do about it?”

  “I intend to find the one who did it and why. That’ll clear my name.”

  “Then the next question has to be, what can I do to help?” It had taken Martha considerable effort to frame those words, yet the strain did not show on her lovely face.

  Smoke and Jeff exchanged smiles. “Well, Miz Tucker,

  I need a place to operate out of. Somewhere the sheriff and Quint Stalker’s men would never believe me to be.” “I can let you and your two hands and Ranger York move onto the ranch. They’ve tried so hard to make me believe you are guilty, no one would ever suspect you to be here.”

  Smoke beamed at her. “We’ll be settled in by morning. Then I’ll come let you know where we set up.”

  “Why, in the bunkhouse, of course. I read somewhere that if one wanted to hide something important, the best place would be in plain sight.”

  “Poe, I think,” Smoke offered. “The Purloined Letter.”

  More of her heavy mood sloughed off, and Martha clapped her hands together in delight. “I am impressed Mr. Jensen. I never expected—”

  “A gunfighter to be well read? I had a good teacher.” “Who was that, Mr. Jensen?”

  “A man they called Preacher. He raised me up from about the age of your oldest. Taught me things that would astound a body. Some of ’em I never believed until I’d gotten around a bit. Walt and Ty are close at hand. We should be moved into the bunkhouse before midnight.” “Fine.” Martha rose, extended a hand in courteous fashion. “Then I’ll see you for breakfast at first light. We can start laying plans on how to expose the truth.”

  Geoffrey Benton-Howell set aside the sheet of thick, creamy, off-white linen stationery. He could not restrain the smile of triumph that lighted his face, all except his malevolent, deep-set, blue eyes. He rose to his highly polished boots from behind the cherry wood secretary desk, and crossed the room to the tall, drape-framed window that overlooked the main street of Socorro. Backlighted by the searing sun, he struck a familiar pose, proud of his lean, hard body for all his fifty-one years.