Power of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  It had stunned her when he replied with a huge armload of long-stemmed roses and an attached note. “My world will remain in dreariness until blessed Friday. Eleven will be delightful, my dear Miss Agatha. I shall bring a hamper.” It was signed, “CM.”

  He called for her in a spanking surrey. A dappled gray pranced in glittering harness. With consummate gallantry, Cyrus handed her into the carriage, mounted and took up the reins. They rode off with Agatha in a rosy glow of anticipation.

  Now his angry voice brought Agatha out of the pink warmth of reflection.

  “What the hell do you mean, they took on the Tongs?” The answer came in a low, indistinguishable murmur. “Did the Triad Society kill Jensen and Longmont?”

  This time she heard everything clearly. “No, sir. It was the other way around. By now most of them are either dead, wounded, or runned off.”

  “What about your men? What did Grange do?”

  “We tried. We really did. Only the cops turned on us. Some mealy-mouthed lawyer feller showed up when we had ’em trapped in some Chinee church. He had papers from the court ordering us and the police to lay off this Jensen and Longmont.”

  Murchison exploded. “What the hell! What judge would have the grit to defy my wishes?”

  “I reckon you’d have to take that up with Chief Grange, sir.”

  A low growl came from Cyrus. “You get back there and tell Grange I want to see him now. Not tomorrow morning, right now.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir. An-anything else, sir?”

  Agatha could hear her husband’s teeth grind. “Just don’t let Jensen and Longmont get away.”

  Cyrus Murchison returned to the breakfast room with a thunderstorm in his visage. Agatha Murchison sighed and poured more coffee.

  * * *

  An uneasy silence had fallen over Chinatown. Without a word, old men with wheelbarrows went about collecting the dead and wounded Tong men. The Occidentals of Murchison’s railroad police waited to the last. These the elderly carted to the main entrance to Chinatown and deposited on the curb across the street. While they went about it, Smoke Jensen, Louis Longmont, and Tai Chiu discussed their situation.

  “Is it to be back to the Wang Fai?” Louis asked.

  “I’ll tell you, pard, this street fighting isn’t to my liking. I’m out of my element,” Smoke allowed.

  Tai Chiu stared at this big warrior in astonishment. Less than thirty-five Tong members, roughly divided among all three Tongs, remained in Chinatown. Yet this fighter with his gun—aha! gunfighter—said he was out of his element. What more could he do there?

  Louis Longmont appeared to have read the old monk’s mind. Through a low chuckle, he spoke to Smoke Jensen. “You wanted to finish them all, is that it, mon ami?

  “At least break their backs. Have you ever seen a rattler with a broken back?”

  “I do not believe I have,” Tai Chiu responded hesitantly.

  Louis shook his head in the negative. “There are not so many rattlesnakes in New Orleans. Now, water moccasins I know about. And other such vipers.”

  Smoke smiled. “Then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. A rattler with a broken back gets so worked up about his body not doing what his brain tells it to that it begins to bite itself. Of course, rattlers are immune to their own venom.”

  Louis joined in with a chuckle. “It is the same with other venomous snakes, eh? What they do is use up all their poison striking at themselves. Then they can be safely picked up.”

  Smoke nodded. “I’ve been acquainted with those other deadly critters. To me, there’s none of them worth picking up. Except for the rattler. His meat is mighty tasty, and a feller can always sell his skin and rattles to tenderfeet. Other than that, what use are they to anyone but themselves?”

  Tai Chiu nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Snake meat is quite a delicacy to my people. But this is not solving our immediate problem. What do you suggest we do now, Mr. Smoke Jensen?”

  Smoke considered it a moment. “Going back to the ship—er—junk seems to me to be like giving up. Can your students and the other volunteers keep at it a while?” At Tai’s nod in the affirmative, he went on, “Then I suggest you put them to cleaning up the last of the Tongs. It might be wise to send some of them through that tunnel of yours and hit the Tong hatchetmen by surprise. It can only serve to discompose them.”

  Tai Chiu smiled fleetingly. “And what will you be doing while we accomplish this?”

  Smoke nodded to Louis and Brian. “The three of us have to go to the heart of this thing. We’re going after Murchison and his co-conspirators.”

  13

  Pearlescent light filtered through the fog of a pale dawn when Smoke Jensen, Louis Longmont, and Brian Pullen left Chinatown. Behind them, the house-to-house and shop-to-shop search for the remaining Tong members had already borne fruit. Kicking and screaming, several youths, still in the black trouser and white shirt uniforms of the Tongs, had been dragged from their homes. Frightened and helpless, parents stood uselessly to the side, looking on with shocked eyes.

  Pitiful cries and pleas for mercy rose from frightened throats as these callow youths had their bottoms bared and slatted bamboo rods appeared in the hands of stern, muscular Chinese disciplinarians. Stroke after stroke fell on the exposed backsides of the former Tong terrorists. Smoke made a backward glance to take in all this. He stifled a smile and gave a satisfied nod.

  Humiliation alone, from this ignominious form of punishment, would drive the Tong trash from the city, he reasoned. A loud rumble in his belly reminded the last mountain man that he had not eaten since early the previous morning. Not that he had not gone longer without food; many were the times he had been compelled to fast for three or more days. Like that time when wet powder and a horse with a broken leg had compelled him to evade a party of blood-lusting Snake warriors . . .

  . . . Smoke Jensen had ridden into what had appeared to be a friendly village of the Snake tribe, along the middle fork of the Salmon River. He had been welcomed, given meat and salt, and a generous portion of roasted cammus bulbs. Years before, he had learned the traditional lore of Indian customs.

  “Iffin’ they feed ya’. Especially if they share their precious salt with ye,” Preacher had solemnly told him. “ Then ye can be certain they’ll never lift yer hair while ye stay in they’s camp.”

  “Sort of . . . safe passage?” the sixteen-year-old Kirby Jensen had offered.

  “Well, naw. Once you leave their lodges an’ clear the ground they count as their campsite, you jist might be fair game again.”

  “Ain’t that sort of—ah—treacherous?”

  “Nope, Kirb. It’s all in how they sees things. Once you’ve been tooken in, they’s honor bound to treat you fair and square. Once you’ve left the bosom of their hearth, you become jist another white man an’ an enemy.”

  And so it had proved to be for Smoke Jensen when he’d set out alone from the Snake village. Within half an hour he became aware of pursuit. He pulled off the trail, circled back, and watched. Sure enough, here came better than a dozen Snakes, war clubs, lances, and bows clutched in hands; the men’s faces were painted for war.

  Once they had passed him, Smoke crossed the trail, then returned to wipe out his sign. He led his stout horse, Sunfish, deep into the thick tangle of fir and bracken north of the trail he had ridden out on. He continued northward for a day.

  Often he doubled back, wiped out his sign, then moved along on a parallel track. Twice he laid dead-falls. It was late in his second day when the thunderstorm formed over the mountains and sent down torrents of water. Sunfish slipped on a clay bank and went down. A squirrel gun pop sounded when the stallion’s cannon bone broke. A shrill whinny told Smoke the disaster was beyond repair. Flash-flooding threatened to take the stream he traveled along out of its banks. Yet in this unending downpour, he could not cap and fire his big Hall .70 pistol.

  He considered any other means of ending the suffering of Sunfish to be unacceptable
cruelty to an animal that had so unstintingly served him. The suffering of the horse tore at his heart. The tempest thrashed and whipped at the man and horse for long minutes, then swept on to the east, leaving a light drizzle behind. Quickly, Smoke wiped the nipple of his pistol, capped it, and fired a .70 caliber into the brain of his faithful companion. He dared not stay here, and he could not make any time with the saddle over his back.

  Regretfully, Smoke stripped the saddlebags, which contained his scant possessions, and his bedroll from the saddle and left his valiant mount behind. Even with the storm, sharp ears would have heard the report of his mercy round. It still rained too hard for Smoke to reload, so he would have to rely on his other two pistols and the Hawken rifle he had yanked from the saddle scabbard.

  No matter. He had been alone, and afoot, with less. He trudged off along the edge of the roiling mountain stream, far enough into the torrent to wash out his footprints. The storm had hardly abated three hours later. That’s when the Snakes caught up to him.

  With triumphant whoops and yips, mud-smeared warriors materialized out of the mist of rain to one side and from behind. Their bowstrings softened to uselessness by the deluge, they relied on lances and warhawks. Smoke dropped one with a .70 Hall, then a second. The Hawken rifle at his shoulder, he aimed for the most elaborately festooned Snake, the man he remembered had been most outgoing in his welcome to the village. One who had been introduced as the greatest fighter of all the Snakes.

  He needed to down this war leader to buy even a small bit of time. The Hawken fired and the ball sped toward its target. A pipebone chest plate exploded into fragments when the .54 caliber projectile slammed into it. It smashed through his chest wall and flattened somewhat before it ripped a jagged hole in his heart. He dropped like a fallen pine. Hoots of victory changed into howls of outrage and superstitious fear.

  Grabbing up their dead leader, the Snake warriors flitted off through the trees. Quickly, Smoke sheltered the muzzle of the rifle and reloaded. His three pistols quickly followed. Rather than set off in a panicked run, he held his ground. Nightfall swept over the canyon and the Snakes had not returned. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t, Smoke reminded himself. The rain had ceased to fall an hour before, yet Smoke could not risk a small fire, even if he could find dry wood.

  Back against a tree, the last mountain man settled in for a long, miserable night. From his saddlebags, he withdrew a strip of venison jerky and a ball of fry bread left from the Snake village. His munched thoughtfully while his eyes adjusted to the gathering darkness. He was not even aware of when he slipped into an uneasy slumber.

  Morning brought back the Snakes. They slithered through a ground mist so thick that it obscured the cattails along the stream. Smoke saw them at the last moment and wished wistfully for at least one cup of coffee before they hit his camp. He snapped a cap on the Hawkin and downed a bold warrior who leaped at him from a huge granite boulder. Two more burst out of the brush, warhawks raised to strike. Smoke set aside his rifle and filled both hands with the butts of pistols.

  First one, then the second Hall bucked and spat flame. Big, whistling .70 caliber balls cut through the air. The first cut a swath through the gut of a howling Snake. He dropped to his knees, a hand over the seeping entry wound, eyes wide. Smoke’s other round found meat in the shoulder of a thick-waisted warrior of middle age. He made a grimace and gave testimony to the canine nature of Smoke’s ancestry. Smoke Jensen hastily drew his remaining pistol.

  He cocked the weapon and triggered it. The hammer fell on the cap, which made its characteristic flat crack. Nothing else happened, except the Snake kept coming. Quickly Smoke drew his ’hawk and hefted it. He ran his hand through the trailing thong, so it could not be wrenched from his grasp. Then he went after the wounded warrior. Four more of them, all that remained, gathered around, anticipating a quick end for this white dog . . .

  . . . It had been one hell of a fight, Smoke recalled. The wet powder in his last pistol had put him in terrible danger. The wounded man had been no problem. He quickly dispatched the Snake with a feint and an overhand blow that split the warrior’s skull. That still left four more. Awed by his obvious fighting ferocity, they held back. Smoke had not been granted that luxury. With a wolf-howl, he had waded in. The nearest of the four went down with a slashed belly.

  His intestines spilled on the ground as Smoke whipped past him and whirled the warhawk in a circular motion that denied his enemy an opening. He spun and lashed out with a foot. His boot sole smacked solidly into the chest of a younger warrior, hardly more than a boy, who flew backward to splash noisily in the stream. He howled in frustration as the current, still high from the recent rains, rapidly whirled him out of sight. That left him with two.

  Had Smoke been a seriously religious man, he might have prayed for strength, or for victory. Instead, he offered himself up to the Great Spirit. “It’s a good day to die!” he had yelled into the startled face of the Snake facing him.

  And, as Smoke now recalled, it had been the Snake who had done the dying. The last one had turned tail and run. That left Smoke Jensen alone to find his way on foot out of the Yellowjacket Mountains. He had made it, or he would not be in San Francisco, on the edge of Chinatown, walking down a street toward the offices of his present enemy. Another rumble of hunger reminded him again.

  “What say we take on some grub before we face down Murchison?” he suggested.

  “Suits,” Brian Pullen readily agreed.

  Louis Longmont looked around in trepidation. “Is there anyplace . . . suitable?”

  Smoke made a sour face. “Louis, you disappoint me. I’m sure we can find something. Although I doubt they’ll have escargots.”

  * * *

  Smoke Jensen finished a last cup of coffee and pushed back his chair. The ham had been fresh, juicy, and thick. Three eggs and a mound of fried potatoes, liberally laced with onions, rounded out their repast. The walk to Murchison’s office on Market Street took little time.

  Early employees strolled toward the Murchison offices when the four grim-faced men rounded the corner and approached the building. Quo Chung Wu had caught up to the other three at the cafe. His sincerity could not be doubted, and he had been welcomed to the party determined to crush Murchison’s dark scheme. Smoke Jensen signaled a halt and they stepped back against shop fronts on the opposite side of the street.

  To make their presence less conspicuous, Brian Pullen purchased a copy of the morning Chronicle from a newsboy with a stack under one arm. He frowned at the dime Brian gave him and turned a button nose up to the well-dressed lawyer. “Don’t got any change. That’s the first I sold.”

  “Keep the change,” Brian informed him.

  Brightening, the kid scuffed the toe of one clodhopper over the other. “Really? Thanks, Mister.” A small, newsprint-blackened hand shoved the ten-cent piece into a pocket and he set off to hawk his papers. “Read all about it! Big battle in Chinatown!”

  Brian cut his eyes to Smoke Jensen. “Looks like we made the papers.”

  “Not by name, I hope,” Smoke returned.

  Quickly, Brian scanned the front-page story. While he read, a fancy carriage arrived and a portly, well-dressed gentleman stepped down and entered the building. “Who is that?” Smoke asked.

  Brian looked up. “Cyrus Murchison.” He went back to his perusal of the article. A flicker of relieved smile lifted Brian’s lips. “Not by name, anyway. It says here that it looks like a band of dockworkers invaded Chinatown for some unknown reason and laid waste to a number of residents and store owners. Promises more details to follow.”

  Smoke’s observation came out dry and sour. “No doubt what those ‘details’ will be like. Unless we can make an end of this right now.”

  Brian grew serious “We’ll have to catch them red-handed ’fore anyone will believe us.”

  “Murchison has that much influence?”

  “Oh, hell, Smoke, they all three do,” Brian advised him.

  “Then
we’d best be gettin’ in there and find proof of what they have in mind,” the last mountain man suggested.

  The determined quartet crossed the street diagonally and brushed aside several California Central employees. They ignored the startled yelps of complaint, quickly silenced when the offended parties got a look at the grim faces of the four men. Smoke Jensen shoved ahead of a prissy-looking clerk type and the others followed. They entered the lobby of the California Central building and came face-to-face with a trio of burly rock-faced railroad detectives, in their brown suits and matching derbies.

  Murchison’s minions took in the grim, powder-grimed faces, the belligerent postures, the number of weapons, and the scarred black leather gloves on the hands of Smoke Jensen. Without any need to consult one another, they began to sidle around the edge of the room, never taking their eyes off the four intruders. Their actions did nothing to deter Smoke and his companions. They walked purposefully toward the gate behind a railing that separated the lobby from the business portion of the first floor. Behind them, the three railroad detectives bolted out the door.

  A dandified secretary looked up from his desk at their approach. His eyes went wide and he knew in the depth of his heart that these men certainly had no legitimate business here. He raised a soft, well-manicured hand in a halting gesture.

  “I say, there, gentlemen—you cannot go in there.” He gasped in exasperation when he saw they had no intention of obeying. “Please, fellows, let’s not be hasty.”

  Brian turned to the sissified secretary. “We’re here to serve a warrant on Cyrus Murchison.”

  Already wide eyes rolled in pique. “I will accept service on his behalf.”

  “Sorry,” Brian pressed. “It has to be served in person.”

  “Mr. Murchison is not in at the present,” the defender of the gate lied smoothly.

  Smoke Jensen took a menacing step forward, the fingers of his gloved right hand flexing suggestively. “Sonny, we just saw him come in. Are you going to show us the way, or do I squeeze your Adam’s apple until it pops outten your mouth like a skun grape?”