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 back 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.”
He is insane, Smoke thought. But crazy like that much-talked-about fox.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Davidson. How about it? You and me in a face-off?”
“You trust that crud, Smoke?” Johnny North asked, edging close to Smoke.
“No, I just want to see what he’ll do.”
They all got that answer quickly. All the hemmed-in outlaws began pumping lead in Smoke’s direction. But all they managed to do was waste a lot of lead and powder and hit a lot of air.
“So much for that,” Smoke said, after the hard gunfire had ceased.
He had no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth when Harry and Bob opened up from the west side of the canyon wall. Several screams and howls of pain told the posse members the marksmanship of the men on the rim was true.
“That got their attention,” Monte said with a grim smile.
They heard the clatter of a falling rifle and knew that at least one of the outlaws had been hard hit and probably killed.
“You have no honor, Jester!” Davidson screamed. “You’re a foul person. You’re trash, Jester.”
“And you’re a coward, Davidson!” Smoke called.
“How dare you call me a coward!”
“You hide behind the guns of a child rapist. You’re afraid to fight your own battles.”
“You talkin’ about Dagget?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah.”
Johnny grimaced and spat on the ground, as if trying to clear his mouth of a bad taste. “Them kind of people is pure filth. I want him, Smoke.”
“He’s all mine, Johnny. Personal reasons.”
“You got him.”
“Dagget!” Smoke yelled. “Do you have any bigger bolas than your cowardly boss?”
There was a long moment of silence. Dagget c
alled out, “Name your poison, Jensen!”
“Face me, Dagget. One on one. I don’t think you’ve got the guts to do it.”
Another moment of silence. “How do we work it out, Jensen?”
“You call it, Dagget.”
Another period of silence. Longer than the others. Smoke felt that Dagget was talking with Davidson and he soon found that his guess was correct.
“I reckon you boys got ropes already noosed and knotted for us, right, Jensen?” another voice called.
“I reckon.”
“Who’s that?” Monte asked.
“I think it’s Paul Rycroft.”
“I ain’t lookin’ to get hung!” Rycroft yelled.
Smoke said nothing.
“Jensen? Slim Bothwell here. Your snipers got us pegged out and pinned down. Cain’t none of us move more’un two/three inches either way without gettin’ drilled. It ain’t no fittin’ way for a man to go out. I got me an idea. You interested?”
“Keep talking, Slim.”
“I step out down to the canyon floor. One of your men steps out. One of us, one of you. We do that until we’re all facin’ each other. Anybody tries anything funny, your men on the ridge can drop them already out. And since I’ll be the first one out…well, you get the pitcher, don’t you?”
Smoke looked back at the posse members. “They’re asking for a showdown. But a lot of you men aren’t gunslicks. I can’t ask you to put your life on the line.”
“A lot of them ol’ boys in there ain’t gunslicks, neither,” Beaconfield said. “They’re just trash. Let’s go for it.”
Every member of the posse concurred without hesitation. The minister, Ralph Morrow, was the second to agree.
“All right, Bothwell. You and Rycroft step out with me and Pearlie.”
“That’s a deal. Let’s do ’er.”
Each taking a deep breath, Smoke and Pearlie stepped out to face the two outlaws. Several hundred feet separated the men. The others on both sides quickly followed, the outlaws fully aware that if just one of them screwed up, the riflemen on the skyline of the canyon would take a terrible toll.
Davidson and Dagget were the last two down from the rocks. Davidson was giggling as he minced down to the canyon floor.
Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man) Page 46
