Law of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  As he rode toward the cabin, Smoke made his plans as he bent over the horse’s neck, keeping a very low target. The cabin was built into a hill. The sod roof had long since become a living thing as the grass from the hill caught life and flourished.

  Smoke dismounted at a run and threw open the door, leading the horse inside. He knelt in the open doorway and leveled his Winchester, clearing one saddle of a hired gun. The horse trotted on toward the cabin as the other gun hands veered off, left and right, seeking some sort of cover. They all knew how deadly Smoke was with any type of weapon.

  Smoke grabbed the reins of the spooked pony, pulled the rifle from its boot, tore loose the canteen—that would give him three full canteens—and jerked off the saddle bags. He slapped the pony on the rump, sending it on its way.

  Smoke slammed the door and dropped the old bar across it just as rifle shots began slugging into the logs of the cabin. He led the horse into the rear part of the house, as far out of harm’s way as possible, gave it a hatful of water, and returned to the front of the cabin. If worse came to worst, he could pull grass from off the roof and feed the animal.

  He smiled when he saw the kitchen. Luck was with him. Some of the Bar V hands had used the cabin as a line shack, and used it recently. Staying low, Smoke closed the still sturdy inside shutters—put there long ago against Indian attack—and tried the pump in the kitchen. Cold clear water gushed forth. He opened the cabinet. Cans of beans and peaches looked back at him. He selected a can of peaches and opened it with his knife, then ate the peaches and drank the juice.

  “All the comforts of home,” he muttered, then checked the Winchester he’d jerked from the boot of the riderless horse. It was full up.

  He looked into the saddlebags of the hired gun who now rested face down on the ground. Several biscuits with salt meal, three boxes of 44’s and a spare pistol and holster under one flap. Dirty underwear under the other flap. He kept the biscuits, the pistol, and the 44’s.

  Smoke moved to a gun port and looked out. He could see a man slowly working his way toward the house, but still too far off for a shot. Smoke let him come on.

  He moved to the other side of the house just in time to see a man run from tree to tree. This one was well within range. Smoke earred the hammer back on his Winchester and waited. The gun hand broke cover and made a run for the corral. Smoke stopped him at midpoint, the .44 slug turning him around as it hit his side. Smoke didn’t finish the man, choosing instead to let him lie on the ground and scream in pain. That would work on his buddies much more than a death shot.

  Smoke sat down on the floor, his back to an overturned table as the lead really began to fly in his direction. He ate one of the salt meat biscuits and sipped water from his canteen and let the attackers expel all the ammunition they wanted to.

  After a time, the hostile fire slacked off and then died. Smoke smiled a grim curving of the lips and moved to the window. He let out a long groan. He waited, and then groaned again.

  “We got him!” a man shouted. “We really got the bassard this time!”

  “Oh, yeah?” came the sarcasm-filled question. "And who wants to be the one to walk up and look inside the cabin to be sure?"

  No one replied.

  “That’s what I figured,” the man said.

  Smoke removed the bar from the door and moved back to the overturned table laying his rifle on the floor, pulling his Colts and easing back the hammers. He waited. When they opened that door—and he figured they would come all bunched up for moral support—more than a few of them were going to be in for a very nasty surprise.

  Once more, the outside air was filled with lead. Smoke waited.

  “Hell, he’s had it,” a man called. “I’m goin’ in.”

  “I’ll go with you,” another called, and several more added their agreement to that.

  Smoke waited.

  He heard the jingle of spurs as the hired guns and bounty hunters approached the cabin. Smoke had removed his boots and arranged them behind the table, placing them so it appeared he was lying dead, his body concealed behind the table. He slipped on moccasins and then stepped back into the shadows of another room.

  The front door was pushed open with the barrel of a rifle.

  “See anything?” a man asked.

  “Hell, are you crazy? I ain’t stickin’ my head in yonder!”

  “I see his boots,” another said, looking through a gun slit. “He’s all sprawled out and stone cold dead behind a table.”

  The room crowded with men.

  Smoke opened fire, the Colts belching sparks and flame and death. He pulled the pistol he’d taken from the saddlebags and ended the lopsided gunfight. One lone gun hand tried to rise up and shoot him. Smoke shot him between the eyes. “Your mamma should have told you there’d be days like this,” Smoke said.

  He then counted the bodies. Six. He figured maybe three were left on the outside still alive, and that included the badly wounded man by the corral.

  He reloaded and moved toward the open door, staying close to the log wall. “Come on, boys!” he shouted. “Come join the party.”

  “Hell with you, Jensen!” a man shouted. "They’s always another day. We’re gone!”

  “Then ride, scumbag!”

  The man cursed him. A moment later, the sounds of horses galloping away reached Smoke.

  Smoke gathered up all the weapons and tied the rifles together. He found a bounty hunter’s horse and stuffed the saddlebags full of pistols and gun belts, looping some over the saddle horn. He secured the rifles to the saddle and led the horse to the cabin. Shoving the dead out of the doorway, Smoke led his own horse outside and mounted up. He walked his horse over to the corral and looked down at the man lying on the ground. The man was dead. He left him there and rode out into the plain. The first man he’d shot put of the saddle was lying on the ground, on his back, his eyes open and staring at Smoke. His shirt front was covered with blood.

  “You’re a devil” the man gasped.

  “I’ve been called worse,” Smoke acknowledged from the saddle.

  “I ain’t gonna make it, am I?”

  “Not likely.”

  The man cussed him but made no attempt to reach for the pistol still in leather.

  Smoke waited until the man stopped cussing and tried to catch his breath. "Anything you want me to do for you?"

  “Fall out of the saddle dead!”

  Jud Vale had hired hardcases, for sure. No give in them. “Would you really have shot one of those little boys over at the Box T?”

  “Just as fast as I’d shoot you, Jensen.”

  “Then I don’t think I’ll turn my back to you.”

  “It wouldn’t be a smart thing to do, for a fact.”

  Smoke sat his saddle for a few minutes. The gunny began to cough up blood. Twice he tried to pull his pistol. But the thong covered the hammer and he could not clear leather. The gunny died with a curse on his lips.

  Smoke turned his horse and slowly rode toward Box T range.

  17

  Jud Vale pulled in his horns, so to speak. Even with his monumental ego and glaring arrogance, he was shocked to the bone at the havoc and carnage that Smoke Jensen had wreaked upon his possessions and hired guns. He had not believed it possible that one man could do so much.

  A half dozen of his older and wiser hardcases drew their time and drifted out of Southeastern Idaho, wanting no more of Smoke Jensen. Had most of those who left known Jensen was involved in this matter, they would not have signed on in the first place.

  Jud spent a lot of time on his front porch—while his back porch was being rebuilt, again—drinking coffee and wallowing in his festering anger. He had sent out the word that he was still hiring men at fighting wages, and men were drifting in. But even Jud Vale could see that most of them were trash and scum. That made no difference; he hired them anyway.

  And then the gunfighter Barry Almond and his four brothers came riding up to the mansion. They were dressed in lon
g dusters and were unshaven, with cruel eyes their hat brims could not conceal.

  Jud sat on the porch staring at the men while Barry sat his saddle and met the man’s eyes.

  “I’m Barry Almond,” the gun slick finally broke the silence.

  “I know who you are.”

  “That ten thousand dollars still on Smoke Jensen’s head?”

  “It’s still there.”

  “Me and my brothers come to claim it.” “I’ve heard that from fifty other men over the weeks,” Jud snorted.

  “This is the first time you’ve heard it from me, though.”

  Jud nodded his head in agreement with that. “All right, you’re all on the payroll.”

  “I ain’t punchin’ no gawddamn cows,” Barry bluntly told him.

  The rancher laughed, but the short bark was void of humor. “Nobody else is either,” Jud replied, the bitterness thick on his tongue. Ranch was going to hell in a bucket. “So what else is new?”

  “We'll just drift around some.”

  “You do that.” Jud poured another cup of coffee and watched the gunfighter brothers head for the long new bunkhouse which Jud had been forced to build because of the overflow of hired guns and because Jensen had destroyed one end of the other bunkhouse.

  Jud silently cursed Smoke Jensen. It made him feel better. But not much.

  On the day that Smoke accompanied the supply wagon to the trading post, Blackjack Morgan, Lassiter, and four bounty hunters headed for the post for a drink of whiskey. The men were in a bad mood and ready for a killing. Especially if it was Smoke Jensen or some of those snot-nosed brats on the Box T payroll. . . .

  Clint Perkins lay on his ground sheet in his hidden camp and tried with all his might to fight the madness that once more began to slowly muddle his brain. He lost the battle. Clint stood up, pulled on his boots and buckled his gun belt around his waist. With a strange smile on his lips and an odd look in his eyes, he saddled up and went looking for trouble. . . .

  Matthew and Cheyenne were moving some strays toward the huge box canyon that was the home for what was left of Walt’s herds. The old gunfighter and the young boy had become good friends in a short time. . ..

  Doreen slipped out the back door of the ranch house to go walking toward a meadow about a mile back of the house. She had seen some lovely wildflowers there and felt that a bunch of them would look very nice on the kitchen table. She didn’t think Jud would be foolish enough to try anything in the daylight. . . .

  Jud Vale and Jason and Jud’s bodyguards chose that time to make a daylight foray into Box T country. They were heavily armed and one of Jud’s men had a gunnysack filled with dynamite and caps and fuses. If they could get close enough to Walt’s place, they intended to return in kind what Smoke had given them. Twice. And if some of those snot-nosed nester brats got killed .. . ? Big deal. It would serve them right and send a message to the rest of the nesters in what Jud considered to be his territory. . . .

  Don Draper and Davy Street and half a dozen other Bar V hired guns had left the bunkhouse to see if they could cause some trouble for the nester brats working the Box T herd. They headed straight for the area where Matthew and Cheyenne were working. . . .

  Rusty was about a mile from the box canyon, working alone. . . .

  It was ten o’clock in the morning when all the ingredients that were needed to bring to a full boil what would turn out to be the bloodiest range war in all of Idaho Territory’s history were dropped into the cauldron.

  Smoke stepped down from the saddle in front of the trading post/barroom, and slipped the leather thongs from the hammers of his guns. Walt went into the store to give the shopkeeper his order for supplies.

  Doreen sat amid a wild profusion of flowers and began carefully picking out the most lovely and putting them into her basket.

  Susie stepped out of the ranch house at Alice’s request to go looking for Doreen. She waved Alan over and asked him if he’d seen her. The boy pointed to the meadow rising in wild and beautiful colors above the ranch, a good mile and a half away, he figured.

  “She hadn’t oughta get that far from the ranch alone,” he added. “You want me to go fetch her, Miss Susie?”

  “We’ll both go, Alan.” She looked at the gun belted around the boy’s waist. “You really know how to use that thing?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I sure do.”

  Susie hesitated for a moment. “Get a rifle, Alan. Just in case.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  Susie looked toward the meadow. She suddenly had a very bad feeling about this lovely day.

  “Riders comin’,” Cheyenne said, twisting in the saddle.

  Matt turned and spotted the riders. He slipped the leather from the hammer of his six gun.

  The movement did not escape the eyes of Cheyenne. “You just stay out of this, boy.”

  Rusty had seen Cheyenne and the boy working the strays. Then he saw a bunch of strays moving toward a coulee and went after them. Cheyenne and Matt were quickly lost from his sight as he followed the strays down into the deep coolness of the ravine.

  “Boss!” one of Jud’s bodyguards said, pulling up and pointing to the tiny figure sitting amid the wildflowers in the meadow.

  Jud squinted his eyes and an evil smile turned his mouth. His lips were suddenly dry and he licked them as all sorts of wild, lustful and immoral thoughts, all involving Doreen and himself, raced feverishly around in his brain.

  “Get her!” Jud ordered. “I’ll have that woman. She’ll come around. She’ll learn to love me. I’ll make her my queen!”

  The bodyguards spurred their horses.

  Doreen looked up at the sounds of pounding hooves, fear in her eyes. She jumped to her feet, her heart racing. She dropped the basket of wildflowers and began running just as Susie and Alan were beginning the long walk to the meadow.

  Alan took stock of the situation quickly. He jerked Susie to the ground, knowing that he could not shoot—the distance was far too great. And there was no point in them being spotted and taken prisoner—or worse. At least for Susie.

  All they could do was lie amid the flowers and watch.

  Doreen ran for her life, screaming as she ran. Strong and hard hands jerked her off the ground and swung her across a saddle. She felt the horse turn and gallop back across the meadow. The horse slowed, then stopped, and she was dumped to the ground. She looked up into the hard eyes of Jud Vale.

  “My queen,” the rancher said. “You’ll be my queen; you’ll reign by my side. Together we’ll rule this whole country.”

  “You’re crazy!” Doreen hissed at him. “You’re plumb loco!”

  Jud laughed at her as his eyes roamed over her young body. “Hoist her up here, boys. I want me a handful of that woman.”

  Doreen began screaming.

  Cheyenne had wheeled his horse to face the Bar V gun hands. The old gunfighter’s face was hard, his eyes narrowed to obsidian slits. He looked straight at Don Draper. “What the hell are you and this bag of crap ridin’ with you doin’ on Box T range, Draper?”

  “For a skinny old man, Cheyenne, you got a big fat mouth, you know that?”

  “And for a punk, Draper, you’re ’way over your head and outclassed facin’ me, you know that?”

  Draper flushed. “Anytime you’re ready, Cheyenne. Then me and the boys will take that kid and have some fun with him.”

  “You’ll visit the privy ever’ day if you eat regular,” Cheyenne popped back. “And you ought to, ’cause you shore full of it.”

  Draper’s face darkened further at that remark. But still he hesitated, as did Davy Street. Cheyenne was known throughout the West as an old He-Coon who had never backed down from anybody or anything at anytime. If the truth be known. Cheyenne had killed as many men, or more, as Smoke Jensen or John Wesley or Rowdy Joe or Tom Horn—and maybe as many as all of them combined.

  Old he might be, but Cheyenne was still a man not to be taken lightly.

&
nbsp; It was an old man and a young lad that faced the eight Bar V gun hands that hot morning, but the smell of fear was coming from the so-called gun slicks, not from Cheyenne or Matthew.

  “You’re a fool, Cheyenne!” Draper spoke, stalling for time.

  “Naw,” the old gunfighter said, amused at the man’s reluctance to drag iron, bu t at the same time worried about Matthew. “I’m just an old man who’s lived a long, long time, that’s all. Now I’m ready to see the varmint and rest for a time.”

  “We gonna kill you and this snot-nosed brat!” a gun hand sneered at him, cutting his shifty eyes to the bespectacled Matthew.

  The boy waited, his right hand close to his six gun.

  “You might,” Cheyenne admitted. “But they’s gonna be a fearful toll taken on you boys whilst doin’ it.”

  “You say!” the gun slick said.

  “I say,” Cheyenne replied calmly. He had faced this a hundred or more times, and he knew the time was now. This was the entire world. No one else existed. This little pocket was all there was. Time had stopped. Eternity was looking them all in the eyes.

  “Now!” Davy yelled, grabbing for his gun.

  Cheyenne drew, cocked, and fired, all in one smooth and practiced motion, blowing Davy out of the saddle, the slug taking the man in the center of the chest and knocking him backward.

  Don jerked iron and fired, the slug striking Cheyenne in the side. Cheyenne leveled his long-barreled pistol and fired just as Matthew’s Peacemaker barked. One slug struck Don in the belly, the other one took him in the chest, the bullet nicking his heart. He stayed in the saddle, one dead hand still holding onto the reins.

  A Bar V gun blasted the smoky air, the bullet passing through Cheyenne’s lungs. Cheyenne grinned a bloody smile and put a slug between the man’s eyes as he was sliding from the saddle. The old gunfighter fell to the ground, on his knees just as Matthew put hot lead into the Bar V hand’s stomach.

  Cheyenne managed to lift his six gun and drill another hired gun before that pale rider came galloping up to touch him on the shoulder.

  The old mountain man and gunfighter died on his knees, still wearing his hat and boots and holding onto his six gun.