* * *
“We got ’em trapped, boys!” Mick Taggart yelled gleefully.
“How’s that, Mick?” one of his underlings asked.
“That Chinee church ain’t got no back door, that’s how,” Taggart told him angrily. He had lost too many men, too many good men at that.
Not all had died, though enough had to make him fume inside. He had heard of Louis Longmont; he was supposed to be a hotshot gunfighter from New Orleans. Well, he sure as hell proved that to be true. The other one really bothered him. Smoke Jensen. How many times had he read of that one’s exploits? It was unnerving to see the fabled Smoke Jensen in action.
There had been a time when Mick Taggart had fancied himself good enough to go up against any gunhand west of the Mississippi—and where else were they?—then he had come across an account of Smoke Jensen. Overwhelming pride and self-confidence are necessities for a gunfighter, and Taggart had his full share. Yet he recognized that if even half of what had been written about Smoke Jensen and his fight against the Montana ranching trust was true, he didn’t stand a chance. Too late to worry about that secret knowledge.
Now he faced the only man he considered his better. Think fast, he admonished himself. “Pass the word to the rest,” he told Opie Engles. “We’ll rush that place in a bunch. No way they can get away from us.”
“When do we do it, Mick?”
“When you get back, you and me will open up. That’ll be the signal.”
It worked exactly as Mick Taggart had planned it. Opie returned to tell him the boys were ready. Then Taggart and Engles opened fire on the entrance to the pagoda. The entire force of railroad detectives and police charged as one toward the besieged building. To Taggart and his crew of hard cases and thugs, the shrine held no religious significance. What did it matter if they brought violence and death to its interior? They stormed through the gateway with a shout.
In no time they swarmed into the sanctuary and spread out. They ran and fired as they went. Then Mick Taggart skidded to a stop in the middle of the lacquered floor. A quick glance around verified his suspicion.
Only a smiling-faced Buddha witnessed their assault. Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont had completely disappeared.
* * *
Jason Rucker looked up disbelievingly at his visitor to the cell in the Big Rock jail. Dressed in the height of fashion, Sally Jensen cut quite a figure in the dingy corridor of the cellblock. She wore a high-necked, full-skirted dress of deep maroon, edged with black ostrich feathers. A matching hat, small and with only a hint of veil, sat perkily on her head, cocked forward in the latest style.
“Monte told me you were convicted. I—had no reason to stay for the rest of the trial.”
“Yep. They’re goin’ to hang me,” Jason said, without even a hint of self-pity.
“That’s too bad. You know, this whole thing has broken a small boy’s heart?”
Jase brightened, then his lips curled down in genuine sadness. “Bobby? He’s a kid with a lot of spunk. He’s got sand, that he does. How’s it broke his heart?”
Sally hesitated, then forged ahead. “He hasn’t spoken to me since he learned about the shooting. He won’t even look at me, except with a sulky pout and eyes narrowed with hate.”
“That’s too bad,” Jason said through a sigh. “We weren’t neither of us worth that.”
Sally’s misery wedded the pent-up anger in her heart. “Why did you have to take him into your lives?”
Jason made a helpless gesture. “I ain’t sure. It was Buck that shined up to the boy. Said it reminded him of himself at that age.”
“Good Lord!” Sally expelled in a rush. “And he wanted to remake Bobby in his likeness?”
“I couldn’t say . . . though I suspect you’ve got the right of it.” Suddenly he wanted to change the subject. “You know, your husband is a good man, Miz Jensen. But, he ought to be more careful who he takes on as help. It could get him bad-hurt sometime.”
“I think not. Do you know who he is, Jason?” Sally responded.
“Just Mr. Jensen, I suppose.”
Sadly, Sally shook her head. Maybe if Smoke did not cherish his privacy so much and had told the two of them his first name, none of what had followed would have happened. “His first name is Kirby, but everyone calls him Smoke.”
“Oh, my God!” Jase paled and swallowed hard. “That’s how come you shoot so good. Honest truth, Miz Jensen, I reckon it’s a mercy I’ll face the hangman, instead of your—Smoke Jensen.”
Sally thought on it a long, silent minute. Slowly, she fixed her features into a mask of genuine concern. “You really regret what was done, don’t you, Jason?”
Head hanging, he nodded in agreement. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Well, then, there’s something I must do. Your concern over Bobby and your show of remorse have convinced me that you deserve a second chance. Mind, I’m not promising anything. Nor am I given to feeling sorry for criminals. But you’re young, with apparently a will of your own, although it has been long in the shadow of Buck Jarvis, I wager. I’ll have a talk with Monte Carson and the judge. Perhaps we can get your sentence commuted to prison time only. Don’t get your hopes up, but I will try. Goodbye, Jason.”
Jason choked out a farewell through the flood of relieved tears that streamed down his suddenly gaunt cheeks.
* * *
“Come this way,” a small, old monk in a saffron robe summoned Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont when they dashed into the center of a large square area with wood floor, red lacquered walls picked out with gold leaf, and a blue domed ceiling.
They cut their eyes to the frail figure, his hands hidden within the voluminous sleeves of a plain yellow silk robe. Twin, wispy hanks of white hair sprouted from his chin to mid-chest, matched by a ghost of mustache the same color and thinness. When they hesitated, he withdrew one skeletal hand, parchmented with age, from the folds of his sleeve and beckoned.
“Come this way,” he repeated.
Smoke and Louis shifted their gaze to the seemingly solid wall behind the old man. What good would it do to be against that wall, as opposed to any other? Impatiently the old monk gestured again.
“Hurry, there is little time.”
“I’m willing,” Smoke Jensen told him. “But I sure hanker to know what good it will do.”
“I will take you out of the shrine to safety.”
That was good enough for Smoke. He and Louis crossed the expanse of floor, their boot heels clicking on the high-gloss floorboards. When they neared the monk, he stepped away in the direction of a fat statue of a smiling Buddha. There, he pressed a spot on the wall that looked like any other.
A hidden panel swung open in the side wall of the pagoda. The priest-monk waited until they reached the opening and nodded to indicate they should enter. Smoke remembered the .45 Colt in his hand and thought well of keeping it there. With a small gasp of impatience at their hesitation, their host preceded them into a dark passageway.
There he used a lucifer to light a torch and return it to its wall sconce. Smoke and Louis stepped through into what they soon saw to be a tunnel. Behind them, the secret panel clicked back into place. Smoke tightened his grip on the plowhandle butt grip of his Peacemaker. The monk advanced down the tunnel, igniting more torches. When he had three burning brightly, he waited for his unexpected guests.
“I am Tai Chiu. I am the abbot of this temple. We have taken notice of your activities in the past few days. It became obvious that you are fighting the evil ones. When they outnumbered you, you took sanctuary in our humble shrine. It is our duty to protect you.” He motioned with the same thin, frail hand he had used to summon them to the hidden passage. “Follow in my steps. I will take you to a hidden place and heal your wounds.”
Smoke Jensen again became aware of the gouge along his ribs. The bleeding had slowed, but it still oozed his life’s fluid. A quick glance apprised him that his wound did not show.
“How did you know we had been shot?�
��
“I . . . felt your agony. Please to come this way. Those who seek you will be befuddled.”
* * *
Cyrus Murchison pushed back the picked-clean carcass of the half duck he had enjoyed for his noon meal. Silver bowls held the remains of orange sauce, fluffy mashed potatoes, thick, dark gravy, and wilted salad greens. Beyond this gastronomic phalanx sat a silver platter filled with melting ice and a pile of oyster shells, all that remained of a dozen tasty mollusks on the half-shell. Murchison hid a polite belch behind the back of his hand and dabbed at his thick lips with a white napkin.
“Well, then Judge Batey, did you enjoy your canard à l’orange?”
A similar array of plates and utensils covered the tablecloth in front of the judge. He patted a protruding belly and nodded approvingly. “Most excellent, my dear Cyrus. I always look forward to dining with you. Do you eat this well at night?”
Murchison produced a fleeting frown. “Alas, I have been constrained by my stomach, as well as my doctor, to curtail my epicurean adventures in the evening. A chop, a boiled potato, and some fruit and cheese is my limit of late. But I sorely miss the pig’s knuckles, sauerkraut, and beer, or roasted venison with pommes frites, and strawberries in cream that I used to indulge in.”
Judge Batey chuckled softly. “I know whereof you speak. Though I fear we digress.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“You are not known to wine and dine persons of influence without some ulterior motive. What is it I can help you with this time?”
“Right to the point, eh? Your courtroom reputation has preceded you. That is why I dismissed the servants. We’ll not be imposed upon.” He paused, steepled his thick fingers, and belched again before launching into his proposition. “There are going to be some transfer deeds coming before your court in the near future. Some of them will no doubt be contested. I trust that you can recognize the genuineness of these instruments merely by examining them?”
Judge Batey nodded solemnly. “Is that all? Surely those excellent ducks will have gone begging for so small a favor.”
Murchison wheezed stout laughter. “You’re the fox, right enough, Judge. You’ll be hearing a criminal matter soon—two men charged with murder of railroad police and some of Hector Grange’s detectives. The culprits are named Louis Longmont and Smoke Jensen. To be quite up front with you, Judge, I want to see them hanged.”
Batey hesitated only a fraction of a second. “That will depend a lot upon the evidence.”
A frown flickered on the broad forehead of Cyrus Murchison. “It need not. In order to provide binding evidence, some things might come out that would prove deleterious to the California Central. We like to keep a—uh—low profile. You understand?”
“Quite so.” Judge Batey pursed his lips. “That is asking quite a lot, Cyrus.” He raised a hand to stave off a protest. “Not that it is impossible. I shall have to examine the circumstances and evidence and perhaps find a way to accommodate you. Whatever the case, I will do my best.”
“Fine, fine. Now, help yourself to some of that chocolate cream cake.”
9
Tai Chiu led Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont down a long incline that Smoke soon judged put them well below street level. The Chinese priest remained silent, husbanding his thoughts. As he progressed, he paused at regular intervals to light another torch. The flambeaus flickered and wavered, as though in a breeze. Yet the air still smelled dank and musty. Their steps set off echoes as they advanced over the cobblestone flooring of the shaft. When they reached a level space, they had only hard-packed earth beneath them. Their course took them through a twisting, turning labyrinth of intersecting tunnels. Even with his superb sense of direction, Smoke Jensen had to admit that he had not a hint of where the old monk was taking them.
“Where do you think he is taking us, mon ami?” Louis voiced Smoke’s thoughts in a low whisper.
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“He could be taking us directly to Murchison,” came the source of Louis’s worry.
“I doubt that. He could have left us for those railroad thugs.”
“Umm. You have a point.”
They walked on in silence for a while, ignorant of their destination, or even of where they had been. Then Louis put voice to his concern again.
“He could be taking us to Xiang Lee,” he proposed.
Smoke produced a wide, white grin. “Then all the better for us. We can gun down Xiang Lee and end of problem.”
Louis got a startled expression. “You do not really mean that, my friend.”
Smoke sobered and left only a hint of smile on his full lips. “Only halfway, old pard. I would never kill an unarmed man. But I could gladly tom-turkey-tromp the crap out of him.”
Louis looked relieved and pleased. “Now, that’s the Smoke Jensen I have always known. Only, I would feel better if I knew where we were going.”
“As I said, we will have to wait and see.”
They walked along in silence for several lengthy minutes. Suddenly Smoke received a hint of their destination. The sharp tang of salt air reached his nostrils. He cut his eyes to Louis, who nodded his understanding. They made another turn and it came to Smoke’s attention that someone had come along behind them to snuff out the torches. Even if they tried, they could not find their way back through the mystifying maze of tunnels.
Ahead of them, Tai Chiu stopped abruptly before what appeared to be the inner side of the wall of a building. When Smoke and Louis came up to him, he lifted a thick iron ring and gave it a twist. A rusty bolt screeched in its latch. Then a section of the “wall” swung inward. Bright sunlight and the stinging tang of sea air, mingled with the fishy smell of the bay, poured in.
“This way, please,” Tai urged.
They followed him out of the building onto a street that paralleled a section of San Francisco Bay. Tai Chiu directed them to a tall, wide wire gate in a high fence at the street end of a long pier. Tai used a key to open the fat padlock and ushered them inside. At the far end of the wharf Smoke saw an odd-shaped ship. Its sails had been furled and the masts were stepped at a steep backward angle. The stern rose in the likeness of a turret from a castle in the Middle Ages, even more so than the caravels of fifteenth-century Spain. On a large plank, mounted below the aft weather rail, picked out in Chinese ideograms and English letters, was the name of the ship, the Whang Fai.
The bow also jutted high and square, with murlons to accommodate archers. A likeness of a human eye had been painted a couple of feet above the plimsol line. Louis Longmont soon apprised Smoke of its origin and type.
“It is a Chinese junk. The largest one I have ever seen.”
“How astute, Mr. Longmont,” Tai Chiu complimented him. “It is an oceangoing junk. You will find it curious to see that it appears even bigger from inside. Our Chinese builders have a talent that way.”
Tai led them to a rickety gangway that gave access to the deck of the junk. There, he directed them below decks to an aft cabin decorated in an opulent Oriental style. Statuary in the form of dragons and lions, several of them covered in gold leaf, ranged around the bulkheads, which had been hung with heavy silk brocade tapestries. These depicted various subjects, among them, lovely young ladies of the court, solemn mandarins, fierce warriors astride snorting stallions, bows drawn until the wicked barbs of the arrowheads touched the arms of the bow, and a lordly emperor. Incense burned in tall brass braziers. Cushions abounded, though there was nary a chair. Low tables held porcelain bottles and small, footed cups. It truly did look as if it were too large to fit into the junk’s aft quarter.
Smoke took it in and found it a bit too fancy for his liking. Fringe-lined lanterns hung from the overhead in bright colors of red, yellow, and green. They swayed slightly with the movement of the water beyond the bulkheads. The junk creaked and groaned like any wooden sailing ship. From beyond the bulkhead that divided the cabin from the rest of the belowdecks area came the twitter of distinctly femin
ine voices. Tai Chiu clapped his hands in a signal and the owners of those voices appeared.
One bore a tray with a large, steaming pot, and small, handleless cups. The other had a plate of savory smelling tidbits of foods. “Dim sum, little bites,” Tai explained. “There are Chinese dumplings, steamed wonton, oysters in peanut sauce—oh, and many more things. Refresh yourselves while I summon our doctor.”
Lacking any chairs, Smoke and Louis made themselves comfortable on cushions around the low table on which the young women placed their tea and snacks. Louis made an attempt with chopsticks; Smoke settled for his fingers. He lifted a plump prawn from a scarlet sauce and bit off half of it. At once his tastebuds gave off the alarm. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his eyes began to water as he chose to chew rapidly as the best means of eliminating the fiery morsel. He did not want to spit it out; that, he knew, would be bad manners.
“Szechuan,” one of the lovelies provided helpfully.
“I don’t know what that is, but it sure is hot,” Smoke responded.
They turned their heads away and covered their mouths and broke into a fit of giggles. Smoke noticed in detail how comely they appeared. More than twenty years of fidelity to Sally protected him from their blandishments, a fact for which he gave great gratitude. Louis, however, showed signs of becoming enthralled. He answered Smoke’s unasked question in a distant voice.
“She said ‘Szechuan.’ It’s the name of a province in China, and also a style of cooking that uses a lot of garlic and chili peppers.”
“More than the Mexicans, I’ll grant you,” Smoke gasped out.
“Don’t use tea to douse the fire,” Louis cautioned; “that would only make it hotter. Try some of that rice wine in the ceramic bottle.”
Power of the Mountain Man Page 34
