They smoked and sipped the harsh alcohol in amiable silence, enjoying the sight of the sun easing down behind mountain peaks to the west.
“You know, Pearlie?” Cal drawled, sprawled back against his saddle, snuggled in his blanket. “I wish I could draw pitchers like I seen in Mr. Smoke’s cabin. That sunset sure produces some pretty colors in the clouds when it’s settin’.”
Pearlie leaned back, hands behind his head, and stared at the orange and yellow snow-clouds playing around the peaks. “Yeah, that’d make a right pretty picture all right. I seen some drawin’s once in a magazine from back East. Drawn by a feller name of Remington, if I recollect correctly. Showed some punchers ridin’ hard, bein’ chased by Injuns, firing their Colts over they shoulders, dodgin’ arrows.”
He grinned, his teeth glittering in the flickering firelight. “I swear, he made it look almost like fun, the way they was ridin’, mounts sweatin’, guns shootin’, and the Injuns yellin’ and waving they hands in the air.”
Cal frowned. “Bein’ chased by Injuns don’t sound like fun to me, Pearlie.”
Pearlie nodded. “It ain’t, boy, it ain’t and that’s a fact.”
Cal flipped his cigarette butt into the fire. “How ’bout you tellin’ me more ’bout Smoke’s ’ventures when he was first come out West?”
Pearlie expertly rolled another cigarette and lit it off the butt of his first. He lay back, watching his smoke trail toward the stars and thought about how to begin.
“After Smoke shot and killed Pike, his friend, and Haywood, and wounded Pike’s brother, Thompson, he and Preacher went after the other men who kilt Smoke’s brother and stole the Confederates’ gold. They rode on over to La Plaza de los Leones, the plaza of the lions. T’was there that they trapped a man named Casey in a line shack with some of his compadres. Smoke and Preacher burnt ’em out and captured Casey. Smoke took him to the outskirts of the town and hung him.”
Cal’s eyebrows shot up. “Just hung ’em? No trial nor nuthin’?”
Pearlie flicked ash off his cigarette without taking it out of his mouth. “Yep, that’s the way it was done in those days, boy. That town would never have hanged one of their own on the word of Smoke Jensen.” He snorted, “Like as not they’d of hanged Smoke and Preacher instead. Anyway, after that, the sheriff of that town put out a flyer on Smoke, accusin’ him of murder. Had a ten-thousand-dollar reward on it, too.”
“Did Smoke and Preacher go into hidin’?”
“Nope. Seems Preacher advised it, but Smoke said he had one more call to make. They rode on over to Oreodel-phia, lookin’ fer a man named Ackerman. They didn’t go after him right at first. Smoke and Preacher sat around doin’ a whole lot o’ nothin’ fer two or three days. Smoke wanted Ackerman to git plenty nervous. He did, and finally came gunnin’ fer Smoke with a bunch of men who rode fer his brand . . .”
* * *
At the edge of town, Ackerman, a bull of a man, with small, mean eyes and a cruel slit for a mouth, slowed his horse to a walk. Ackerman and his hands rode down the street, six abreast.
Preacher and Smoke were on their feet. Preacher stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco. Both men had slipped the thongs from the hammers of their Colts, Preacher wore two Colts, .44’s. One in a holster, the other stuck behind his belt. Mountain man and young gunfighter stood six feet apart on the boardwalk.
The sheriff closed his office door and walked into the empty cell area. He sat down and began a game of checkers with his deputy.
Ackerman and his men wheeled their horses to face the men on the boardwalk. “I hear tell you boys is lookin’ for me. If so, here I am.”
“News to me,” Smoke said. “What’s your name?”
“You know who I am, kid. Ackerman.”
“Oh yeah!” Smoke grinned. “You’re the man who helped kill my brother by shooting him in the back. Then you stole the gold he was guarding.”
Inside the hotel, pressed against the wall, the desk clerk listened intently, his mouth open in anticipation of gunfire.
“You’re a liar. I didn’t shoot our brother; that was Potter and his bunch.”
“You stood and watched it. Then you stole the gold.”
“It was war, kid.”
“But you were on the same side,” Smoke said. “So that not only makes you a killer, it makes you a traitor and a coward.”
“I’ll kill you for sayin’ that!”
“You’ll burn in hell a long time before I’m dead,” Smoke told him.
Ackerman grabbed for his pistol. The street exploded in gunfire and black powder fumes. Horses screamed and bucked in fear. One rider was thrown to the dust by his lunging mustang. Smoke took the men on the left, Preacher the men on the right. The battle lasted no more than ten to twelve seconds. When the noise and the gunsmoke cleared, five men lay in the street, two of them dead. Two more would die from their wounds. One was shot in the side—he would live. Ackerman had been shot three times: once in the belly, once in the chest, and one ball had taken him in the side of the face as the muzzle of the .36 had lifted with each blast. Still Ackerman sat in his saddle, dead. The big man finally leaned to one side and toppled from his horse, one boot hung in the stirrup. The horse shied, then began walking down the dusty street, dragging Ackerman, leaving a bloody trail.
Preacher spit into the street. “Damn near swallowed my chaw.”
“I never seen a draw that fast,” a man spoke from his storefront. “It was a blur.”
The editor of the paper walked up to stand by the sheriff. He watched the old man and the young gunfighter walk down the street. He truly had seen it all. The old man had killed one man, wounded another. The young man had killed four men, as calmly as picking his teeth.
“What’s that young man’s name?”
“Smoke Jensen. But he’s a devil.”
* * *
Cal whistled through his teeth. “Wow! That was somethin’! What did they do next, Pearlie?”
“Well, they both had some minor wounds, and there was a price on Smoke’s head, so they took off to the mountains to lay up fer a while and lick their wounds and let the heat die down.”
Pearlie cut his eyes over at Cal. “’Cept it didn’t work out exactly that way. They chanced upon the remains of a wagon train that’d been burned out by Injuns, and rescued a young woman. Nicole was her name. She was the lone survivor of the attack. There wasn’t nothin’ else they could do, so they took her up into the mountains with them where they planned to winter.”
Cal’s eyes were big. “You mean Smoke and Preacher took a woman with ’em up into the mountains?”
Pearlie frowned. “What’d ya expect ’em to do, leave her out there fer the Injuns to come back and take? Course they took her with them.”
“Where’d they live?”
“Way I heared it, Smoke built ’em a cabin outta ’dobe and logs, and they spent two winters and a summer in that place, up in the high lonesome. After the first year, Smoke and Nicole had a kinda unofficial marrying, and by the second winter she had Smoke a son.”
“I didn’t know Smoke had no son.”
Pearlie sighed. “That there’s the sad part of the story. When the boy was about a year old, Smoke had to go lookin’ fer their milk cow that wandered off. When he came back, he found some bounty hunters had tracked him to the cabin and were in there with Nicole and the baby.”
“Jiminy! What’d he do?”
“Same thing any man’d do . . .”
* * *
Some primitive sense of warning caused Smoke to pull up short of his home. He made a wide circle, staying in the timber back of the creek, and slipped up to the cabin.
Nicole was dead. The acts of the men had grown perverted and in their haste, her throat had been crushed.
Felter sat by the lean-to and watched the valley in front of him. He wondered where Smoke had hidden the gold.
Inside, Canning drew his skinning knife and scalped Nicole, tying her bloody hair to his belt. He then skin
ned a part of her, thinking he would tan the hide and make himself a nice tobacco pouch.
Kid Austin got sick at his stomach watching Canning’s callousness, and went out the back door to puke on the ground. That moment of sickness saved his life—for the time being.
Grissom walked out the front door of the cabin. Smoke’s tracks had indicated he had ridden off south, so he would probably return from that direction. But Grissom felt something was wrong. He sensed something, his years on the owlhoot back trails surfacing.
“Felter?” he called.
“Yeah?” He stepped from the lean-to.
“Something’s wrong.”
“I feel it. But what?”
“I don’t know.” Grissom spun as he sensed movement behind him. His right hand dipped for his pistol. Felter had stepped back into the lean-to. Grissom’s palm touched the smooth wooden butt of his gun as his eyes saw the tall young man standing by the corner of the cabin, a Colt .36 in each hand. Lead from the .36s hit in the center of the chest with numbing force. Just before his heart exploded, the outlaw said, “Smoke!” Then he fell to the ground.
Smoke jerked the gun belt and pistols from the dead man. Remington Army .44’s.
A bounty hunter ran from the cabin, firing at the corner of the building. But Smoke was gone.
“Behind the house!” Felter yelled, running from the lean-to, his fists full of Colts. He slid to a halt and raced back to the water trough, diving behind it for protection.
A bounty hunter who had been dumping his bowels in the outhouse struggled to pull up his pants, at the same time pushing open the door with his shoulder. Smoke shot him twice in the belly and left him to scream on the outhouse floor.
Kid Austin, caught in the open behind the cabin, ran for the banks of the creek, panic driving his legs. He leaped for the protection of a sandy embankment, twisting in the air, just as Smoke took aim and fired. The ball hit Austin’s right buttock and traveled through the left cheek of his butt, tearing out a sizable hunk of flesh. Kid Austin, the dreaming gun hand, screamed and fainted from the pain in his ass.
Smoke ran for the protection of the woodpile and crouched there, recharging his Colts and checking the. 44’s. He listened to the sounds of men in panic, firing in all directions and hitting nothing.
Moments ticked past, the sound of silence finally overpowering gunfire. Smoke flicked away sweat from his face. He waited.
Something came sailing out the back door to bounce on the grass. Smoke felt hot bile build in his stomach. Someone had thrown his dead son outside. The boy had been dead for some time. Smoke fought back sickness.
“You wanna see what’s left of your woman?” a taunting voice called from near the back door. “I got her hair on my belt and a piece of her hide to tan. We all took a time or two with her. I think she liked it.”
Smoke felt rage charge through him, but he remained still, crouched behind the thick pile of wood until his anger cooled to controlled, venom-filled fury. He unslung the big Sharps buffalo rifle Preacher had carried for years. The rifle could drop a two-thousand-pound buffalo at six hundred yards. It could also punch through a small log.
The voice from the cabin continued to mock and taunt Smoke. But Preacher’s training kept him cautious. To his rear lay a meadow, void of cover. To his left was a shed, but he knew that was empty, for it was still barred from the outside. The man he’d plugged in the butt was to his right, but several fallen logs would protect him from that direction. The man in the outhouse was either dead or passed out; his screaming had ceased.
Through a chink in the logs, Smoke shoved the muzzle of the Sharps and lined up where he thought he had seen a man move, just to the left of the rear window. He gently squeezed the trigger, taking up slack. The weapon boomed, the planking shattered, and a man began screaming in pain.
Canning ran out the front of the cabin to the lean-to, sliding down hard beside Felter behind the water trough. “This ain’t workin’ out,” he panted. “Grissom, Austin, Poker, and now Evans is either dead or dying. The slug from that buffalo gun blowed his arm off. Let’s get the hell outta here!”
Felter had been thinking the same thing. “What about Clark and Sam?”
“They’re growed men. They can join us or they can go to hell.”
“Let’s ride. There’s always another day. We’ll hide up in them mountains, see which way he rides out, then bushwhack him. Let’s go.” They raced for their horses, hidden in a bend of the creek, behind the bank. They kept the cabin between themselves and Smoke as much as possible, then bellied down in the meadow the rest of the way.
In the creek, in water red from the wounds in his butt, Kid Austin crawled upstream, crying in pain and humiliation. His Colts were forgotten—useless anyway; the powder was wet. All he wanted was to get away.
The bounty hunters left in the house, Clark and Sam, looked at each other. “I’m gettin’ out!” Sam said. “That ain’t no pilgrim out there.”
“To hell with that,” Clark said. “I humped his woman, I’ll kill him and take the ten thousand.”
“Your option.” Sam slipped out the front and caught up with the others.
Kid Austin reached his horse first. Yelping as he hit the saddle, he galloped off toward the timber in the foothills.
“Your wife don’t look so good now,” Clark called out to Smoke. “Not since she got a haircut and one titty skinned.”
Deep silence had replaced the gunfire. The air stank of black powder, blood, and relaxed bladders and bowels. Smoke had seen the men ride off into the foothills. He wondered how many were left in the cabin.
Smoke remained still, his eyes burning with fury. Smoke’s eyes touched the stiffening form of his son. If Clark could have read the man’s thoughts, he would have stuck the muzzle of his .44 into his mouth and pulled the trigger, ensuring himself a quick death, instead of what waited for him later on.
“Yes, sir,” Clark taunted him. He went into profane detail of the rape of Nicole and the perverted acts that followed.
Smoke eased slowly backward, keeping the woodpile in front of him. He slipped down the side of the knoll and ran around to one wall of the cabin. He grinned. The bounty hunter was still talking to the woodpile, to the muzzle of the Sharps stuck through the logs.
Smoke eased around to the front of the cabin and looked in. He saw Nicole, saw the torture marks on her, saw the hideousness of the scalping and the skinning knife. He lifted his eyes to the back door, where Clark was crouching just to the right of the closed door.
Smoke raised his .36 and shot the pistol out of Clark’s hand. The outlaw howled and grabbed his numbed and bloodied hand.
Smoke stepped over Grissom’s body, then glanced at the body of the armless bounty hunter who had bled to death.
Clark looked up at the tall young man with the burning eyes. Cold, slimy fear put a bony hand on his shoulder. For the first time in his evil life, Clark knew what death looked like.
“You gonna make it quick, ain’t you?”
“Not likely,” Smoke said, then kicked him on the side of the head, dropping Clark unconscious to the floor.
When Clark came to his senses, he began screaming. He was naked, staked out a mile from the cabin, on the plain. Rawhide held his wrists and ankles to thick stakes driven into the ground. A huge ant mound was just inches from him. And Smoke had poured honey all over him.
“I’m a white man,” Clark screamed. “You can’t do this to me.” Slobber sprayed from his mouth. “What are you, half Apache?”
Smoke looked at him, contempt in his eyes. “You will not die well, I believe.”
He didn’t.6
* * *
Cal’s face glowed red in the light of the campfire. “That’s a tough way to die, but those bastards deserved it for what they did to Nicole and his son.”
Pearlie raised his eyebrows. “Cal, deserve don’t hardly have nothin’ to do with how you die out here in the wild country. Those men died that way ’cause they crossed Smoke Jense
n, and he was twice as mean and tough as they was. That’s the long and the short of it. Don’t never bite off more’n you can chew, and you’ll never choke on it.”
He rolled over, his back to the fire. “Now it’s time to sleep. We got to catch up with Smoke tomorrow sometime.”
Cal slid down against his saddle and pulled his hat over his eyes. “Night, Pearlie.”
“Night, Cal.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Monte Carson was in his usual position in front of the jail, leaning back in a chair with his hat down over his eyes and his feet crossed on the hitchrail. A barefoot boy of nine or ten ran up to him and tugged on his shirtsleeve. “Mr. Carson, Bob over at the post office said fer me to give you this.” He stuck a wrinkled envelope in Monte’s hand.
Monte pushed his hat back and scowled at the boy in mock anger for a moment. “Didn’t your momma ever teach you not to wake a man when he’s sleepin’?”
The kid frowned, then his eyes started to tear. “But, Mr. Bob said to give it to you right away, an’ not to go messin’ ’round ’til I done it.”
Monte grinned and winked, “I’m just funnin’ with you, Jeremy. Here, this is for doin’ such a good job of deliverin’ messages.” He reached in his pocket and handed Jeremy a coin.
The boy’s face lit up with happiness. “Wow! A whole dime! That’ll git me ten peppermint sticks over at the store.”
Monte waggled his finger in Jeremy’s face. “Now, don’t you go eating all of’em at one time and gittin’ a bellyache. Your momma will have my hide if you do.”
“Yessir, Mr. Carson, I mean, no sir!” He said it over his shoulder as he hightailed it toward a group of boys playing in a mud hole down the street.
Monte sighed, trying to remember when he had been that young and life had been simple. He slit the envelope with a thumbnail and pulled the letter out. As he read it, his face wrinkled in a frown over its contents. After a moment he rested the piece of paper in his lap and sat there, eyes unfocused, thinking about what he should do.
Finally, he got up and stretched, groaning like an old dog forced to move from in front of a fireplace. “I’ll be over at Longmont’s if you need me,” he called through the door to Jim, his deputy.
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 12
