Law of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke left before dawn the following morning. He rode straight south out of town and did not turn east until he came to a canyon very close to the Utah line. He built a hat-sized fire and cooked his supper, then mounted up and rode until dusk before finding a place to bed down for the night. The bounty hunters might find him, but Smoke was going to make it as difficult as possible for them.

  He was back in the saddle again before dawn, and did not stop to boil coffee until the sun had bubbled its way up into the sky and he’d found a place that was easily defended.

  He crossed the Wasatch Range and pointed Dagger’s nose north, keeping on the west side of Bear Lake. He was on home range by late afternoon.

  “Any trouble?” Cheyenne asked in the barn.

  “None. But I did run into four bounty hunters.”

  “More than that drifted in the last couple of days. And Jud Vale is hirin’ moreguns. I think the no-count is gonna hit the herd and to hell with whether the boys gits hurt.”

  Smoke smiled. At the wire office he had sent and received more than one telegraph. He handed a copy to Cheyenne. The man read it and his leathery face crinkled in a smile.

  Received your wire stop Would be delighted to accompany the boys on a cattle drive stop Expect me at the ranch in three days stop.

  It was signed by the editor of the Montpelier paper.

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll ride over to the trading post and tack this to the wall.” Smoke said. “Jud will have it in his hands within hours. Then we’ll see how he reacts to this news.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jud shouted. Then he tore the wire to small bits, flinging the paper to the floor and kicking at the shreds. “Damn that Smoke Jensen to Hell!”

  “This shore changes the plans,” Jason said.

  With a long sigh, Jud nodded his head. “Tell the boys to relax. We can’t hit the herd with a damn newspaper man along. Public opinion would crucify me. The territorial governor would have this place swarming with U.S. Marshals if just one of those damn kids got hurt and it was reported.”

  “But they might not have a ranch to come back to,” Jason said with a wicked smile.

  “Yeah,” Jud said softly. “You damn right!”

  “You boys take ’er easy,” Walt told the gathering in dawn’s first light. “Ten miles a day is fine with me.”

  The editor of the newspaper had brought three men with him, a cub reporter from back East and two tough-looking men from his church. The men were heavily armed and ready for trouble.

  Smoke knew there would be no trouble against the herd on this run. Jud was arrogant and perhaps crazy in the head, but he wasn’t stupid. Smoke expected the drive to make it through with only the normal mishaps that took place on any cattle drive.

  But he was equally certain the ranch would be attacked.

  They stood and watched as the men and boys began moving the cattle out, the cattle setting their own pace.

  After the dust had settled, Smoke began his preparations for the attack he was sure was forthcoming.

  Cheyenne would stay in and defend the bunkhouse. The old mountain man and gunfighter had loaded up several rifles and half a dozen pistols. He had plenty of food prepared by the ladies and a couple of barrels of water to use against fire should it come to that.

  Before the drive began, Smoke had fortified the horses’ stalls with extra boards. The stalls were as safe from bullets as they could make them.

  Both Alice and Doreen could handle a rifle or pistol as well, or better, than the average man. They would stay in the house with Walt and Micky.

  Smoke would station himself in the loft of the barn. He had placed loaded rifles and shotguns at both ends of the building, and he had plenty of food and water to last out any siege.

  Now all they had to do was wait, and sometimes that was harder than the actual battle.

  The next move was up to Jud Vale and his men.

  Probably forty or more men to wage war against an old rancher, his wife, a young woman, her eight-year-old son, three old men, a group of boys whose average age was twelve, and one gunfighter.

  Smoke had to laugh and question the bravery of those who rode with Jud Vale.

  Just before dark, Smoke did a once-around of the buildings, looking in first on those in the house.

  “We’re set, Smoke,” the rancher told him. “We’ve got Micky in the basement, guardin’ the potatoes and the canned goods.”

  Smoke grinned and nodded. “No bullet can reach him down there, for sure.” He noticed that both Alice and Doreen had changed into men’s britches, so they could get around faster. Doreen did things to those jeans that the manufacturer never dreamed of.

  She noticed the direction his eyes were taking and smiled at him.

  “I got to go,” Smoke muttered, and left the house.

  In the bunkhouse, Cheyenne waved him toward the coffeepot. “I went over to the house about an hour ago,” the old mountain man said. “Both them wimmin was prancin’ around in men’s britches. I never seen the like. This goes on, wimmin’ll be votin’ ’fore long and that’ll be the ruination of the country.” He was reflective for a moment. "Not that I ever voted that much myself. Quit altogether about a year after I cast my vote for Millard Fillmore. But, hell, anybody can make a mistake. I was gonna vote for that Abe Lincoln. But by the time I made up my mind and got to where I could vote, somebody had done up and shot him. Plumb disheartenin’. Damn shore mined Abe’s night out, too. You much on votin’. Smoke?”

  “I wasn’t until I married Sally. Kind of hard to find a ballot box at Brown’s Hole.”

  “For a fact. Fort Misery, we used to call it. But I ߣspect Preacher told you that.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “OI Warhoss is still kickin’. He’s got to be eighty-five if he’s a day. But them Injuns is takin’ right good care of him. And I understand they’s some old gunslingers and mountain men got together and in the process of building a retirement home for us old coots.”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “Won’t that be grand! I’ll have to go check that out—if I ever live to be old, that is.”

  Smoke laughed at him and walked back to the barn.

  It was full dark when he crawled into the loft and made himself comfortable at the east end of the barn. He figured that was the direction from which the attack would most likely come.

  Before taking his position, he watched the lamps go out in both the house and the bunkhouse as the defenders made ready for war.

  Smoke settled down and waited.

  6

  Arrogant! Smoke thought, as he heard the sounds of hooves drumming on the road. Jud is so sure of himself that he just rides right- up the road to the gate.

  He heard the gates being torn down and then the wild screams of the hired guns as they galloped up the road toward the house.

  Smoke quickly shifted positions and sighted a man under the hunter’s moon that illuminated the night sky. He took up slack on the trigger and the butt-plate slammed his shoulder. A saddle emptied just as gunfire from the house and bunkhouse roared, shattering the night and emptying half a dozen more saddles.

  He heard Jud’s voice, hollering for his men to fall back to the ridges.

  Smoke fired again, and saw a man jerk in the saddle. He managed to stay on his horse, but one arm was hanging useless and flopping by his side.

  The attackers had been able to fire no more than half a dozen shots before they were beaten back.

  One man struggled to his boots in the road and began staggering and lurching toward the gates. The defenders held their fire and let him go. Just before he reached the gates, he collapsed face down in the hard-packed dirt and did not move.

  That sight must have done it for the riders. Someone shouted, “Hell with this! The luck ain’t with us this night.”

  The attackers rode off, heading back for the friendlier range of the Bar V. They left their dead and wounded behind them.

  Smoke and the others waited
a reasonable length of time, to see if it was a trick, and then slowly and cautiously gathered in the yard.

  Smoke and Cheyenne roamed about, checking on the men sprawled on the ground.

  They found several alive. “What do we do with those still alive?” Cheyenne questioned.

  “Patch them up and get word to Jud to come and get them,” Smoke told him. “Maybe pile them in a wagon and send them back to Jud. We’ll see.” He was kneeling down beside a man who was alive, but not for long. He had been shot in the center of the chest.

  “He’ll never quit, Jensen,” the dying man gasped. “Vale’s a crazy man.”

  “Why is he doing it?”

  The man ignored that. “As long as he’s got a dime in his jeans he’ll hire fighting men.” “Why?” Smoke persisted.

  “King. To be king. Wants to control everything from the state line to Preston. Everything and everybody.”

  “Shut up, Slim!” another wounded man growled, mercenary and loyal to the gun right to the end.

  “You go to hell, Lassiter!” Slim told him. He cut his eyes to Smoke. The light was slowly fading from them. “Vale’s got gunhands comin’ in on the train. This is shapin’ up to be the biggest range war in ... the state. He’ll overpower you just by ... numbers, Jensen. And he’s just about reached... the point where he don’t give a damn if the kids git hurt.”

  Slim groaned and closed his eyes. He did not open them again.

  Smoke rose to his boots and took the blanket that Doreen handed him, spreading it over the dead gun-fighter. Cheyenne had taken all the guns and ammo from the dead and wounded men. They would be added to the arsenal of the Box T. Smoke felt sure they would be needed before all this was over.

  He knelt down beside Lassiter. The man had a bullet-burn on the side of his head and a slight shoulder wound. Painful but not serious. “I ought to call the U.S. Marshals in here and file charges against all of you, Lassiter...”

  The gunfighter sneered at him.

  “... But that would take weeks and we’d have to keep you prisoner and look at your ugly face every day. It just isn’t worth it.”

  “You better kill me, Jensen,” Lassiter warned. "Davidson was a friend of mine."

  “You should choose your friends more carefully, Lassiter. No, I’m not going to kill you. Not like this, anyway. Not at this time.”

  “Then you’re a damn fool, Jensen!”

  “Maybe. But I can sleep at night, and I don’t make war against kids and women and old people.”

  “Who gives a damn what happens to a bunch of snot-nose brats!”

  Smoke was a hard man in a harsh time and environment, and he had killed many, many men. But he had to shake his head at the cold-blooded callousness of Lassiter.

  “Back away and let me finish him,” Cheyenne said, walking up. “We got it to do sooner or later.”

  Doreen stood looking at it all through wide and scared eyes.

  Smoke had no doubts about the old mountain man’s ability to do just what he suggested. And he knew the old man was right: they would have it to do sooner or later. But he just couldn’t kill the wounded man that way.

  He shook his head. “Get him patched up, Doreen. We’ll put him in a wagon.”

  He walked over to where a young man lay, gut shot. The young gunfighter, no more than a couple of years out of boyhood, lay with both hands clutching his belly. The blood seeped darkly through his fingers, glistening wetly under the light of the hunter’s moon.

  “You got a mamma you want me to write, boy?”

  He shook his head, wincing with the painful movement. "They throwed me out of the house a long time ago. I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life ... sloppin’ hogs and milkin’ cows.”

  “Beats what you got now,” Smoke coldy and bluntly informed him.

  The young man cussed him. Smoke watched as his right hand slipped toward his large belt buckle. Smoke reached down and pulled a derringer from behind the buckle before the gunhand could reach it. The young gunfighter cursed him even more.

  “How much was Jud Vale paying you, boy?”

  “A hundred a month and found!” He moaned the words as the pain reached higher levels in his bullet-shattered belly.

  “Maybe you can buy something in Hell.”

  “They’ll kill you, Jensen! This is one fight you ain’t gonna win. Your reputation ... ain’t gonna hep you none this time around. Jud Vale’s better than you. His real name is ... is ...”

  “Shet your mouth, you bastard3” Lassiter shouted at the young man.

  But the admonition fell on dead ears. The young gunny’s eyes rolled back in his head as his soul went winging to a fiery, smoky eternity. His boot heels and spurs drummed and jangled against the ground and then he was still.

  Smoke walked over to Walt. “How long has Jud been in this area, Walt?”

  “’Bout twenty-five years. He just appeared one day with that damn Jason fellow.”

  “He doesn’t look that old to me.”

  “He’s older than he looks. But he’s one hell of a man still. Don’t sell him short none. I’d peg him in his late forties. He might be fifty even. Hard to tell with a man like that.”

  “No idea where he came from?” Smoke got the strong impression that Walt was lying. But why? “Not a clue.”

  Cheyenne walked up, hearing the last of the conversation. “He come up here by way of Texas,” the old mountain man told them “But I doubt he was Texas born. I ’member when he got here. Like all them hands of his, I think he’s runnin’ from the law somewheres.”

  “And you would guess ...?”

  Cheyenne shrugged. “Back East. But that’s just a guess. It’d be hard to read his backtrail after all these years.”

  “What’s the count on those still alive, Cheyenne?”

  “Four dead and three wounded. None of them hurt too bad.”

  “Can one of them drive a wagon?” “Oh, yeah.”

  “Let’s hitch up a team and get them on their way. We’ll pile the dead in with them.”

  “Beats the hell outta diggin’ a hole,” Cheyenne said with a wicked grin.

  Walt, Smoke, and Cheyenne took turns standing guard that night, but as it turned out, they could have all slept soundly, for Jud Vale and his so-called fighting men had had quite enough of the Box T for this go-around. “Four dead,” Walt said, holding a cup of coffee in his hands, warming them against the early morning chill.

  “They’ll be more,” Smoke told him. “This battle is just getting started. Now I’m afraid that some of the kids are going to be hurt.”

  “I don’t think that even Jud Vale would do that. Not deliberately. One of those kids gets hurt, the whole area would turn agin him, and he knows it. But they might catch a bullet that was meant for one of us.”

  “The kids desperately need the money for their families,” Smoke concluded. “I think what I’ll do is ride around the area and speak to the mothers and fathers about it. Lay it on the line. Whatever they say, that’s it.”

  Walt spoke around the stem of his pipe, “With most of the herd gone, we could do without the younger ones. Whatever the parents say, Smoke.”

  Smoke began seeking out and questioning the parents early the next morning, riding first to Little Chuckie’s house; if that’s what the shack could be called. It wasn’t that his parents were rawhiders, they were just having a tough time getting the farm operation going—with Jud Vale and his men no small part of that struggle.

  “It would really be a blow to Chuckie’s pride iffen you was to send him home, Mr. Smoke,” the father said. His wife nodded her head in agreement. “The boy is right proud of being able to bring in some money this summer. We’ll leave it up to him.”

  Smoke rode over to the parents of Matthew, the frail little boy with the thick glasses. He got the same message as before. The parents were not unconcerned about their children; it was simply that this was still the raw frontier, and one grew up and pulled his or her weight from the git-go. It was ca
lled survival.

  Smoke spent that day and most of another day talking with the parents of the boys. The message he got, albeit worded differently came out to mean the same thing: it was up to the boys whether to stay or leave.

  Smoke drifted on over to the railhead, arriving there about the same time as the herd. He watched through hard, chilly eyes, as the passenger car spewed forth a dozen or more booted, spurred, and two-gunned men. Smoke did not need a telegraph wire to tell him that these were the men the kid had told him about before he died in the front yard of the Box T spread.

  Jud Vale was going for the brass ring this time, for Smoke recognized many of the newly arrived hired guns.

  He watched as Gimpy Bonner limped off the train and made his way back to the horse cars. Gimpy was deadly quick and had no backup on him. He had a horse shot out from under him years back and the horse rolled on his leg, breaking it in several places, leaving him with a permanent limp.

  Shorty DePaul, all five feet five inches of him followed Gimpy. Short he may be, but those guns of his, and his ability to use them made him as tall as the next man.

  The editor of the Montpelier newspaper had walked over to stand by Smoke’s side and watch the gunfighters leave the train. “Who is that one?” he asked.

  “Scott Johnson. From down Arizona way. That stocky fellow with him is called Yates. Right behind them is De Grazia and Jake Hube. They work as a team; they’ll shoot you front or back. Doesn’t make any difference to them.”

  “Looks like Jud Vale is pulling out all the stops, doesn’t it?”

  “For a fact,” Smoke said, as he watched two gunfighters named Becket and Pike step out of the car.

  Jaeger, the German immigrant turned gunfighter, stepped down right behind them. Molino was right behind him.

  Smoke ticked the names off to the editor.

  Chato Di Peso, the much feared and very dangerous New Mexico bounty hunter stepped down, hitching at his gun belt as he walked.

  There were several young punks, with fancy guns and silver adorned gun belts tagging with the better known gunnies. Smoke counted them out as two-bit never-would-be’s with no sand in them.