Power of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sounds good,” a thick-shouldered feed store owner judged.

  “Then let’s get to it,” Smoke urged.

  Smoke and Louis went forward and climbed down. Two volunteers went down the nearer ladder. Smoke used the coupler release bar to tightly jam the latch to the parlor car. To his disappointment, they could find nothing to do the same to the rear entrance to the smoking coach. Accepting the setback, they returned to the top. Seconds later, bullets punched through the roof to send showers of splinters and shards of the stamped tin ceiling down onto the unsuspecting gunhawks. Already demoralized by the exploding torpedoes, they made as one for the doors at each end. Slugs continued to snap and crack past them. More bullets smashed through the ceiling.

  One man cried out in pain, shot through the top of his shoulder. His ragged breath and the pink froth on his lips told his companions the round had gone through his right lung from top to bottom. He wasn’t long for this world. Another hard case uttered a groan and fell heavily to the floor. From ahead a shout of rage rang through the car when Murchison’s gunsels found the latch somehow secured against them.

  Shots sounded from within the car and shards of glass tinkled out onto the vestibule platform. Eager hands reached through to wrestle with the obstructing bar. After ample curses and some furious struggle, it came free. Men sprang instantly across to the smoking car. Smoke Jensen had no choice but to make the best of a failed plan. He prepared to lead the volunteers forward when a sudden jolt nearly knocked them all off their feet and over the side.

  * * *

  “Cut it loose! Cut it loose!” the familiar voice of Cyrus Murchison shouted from the open doorway to the smoking lounge.

  Metal grated against metal, and with a lurch, the couplers opened and the front part of the train sped away from the rear portion, which began to lose forward momentum. Smoke cut his eyes behind them and saw the chase locomotive swelling rapidly in size.

  “Get down and hold on!” he shouted.

  Beyond Smoke, the second train plowed into the rear of the first. The force of the impact telescoped along the line of cars. The momentum drove the open couplers together, momentarily reattaching the last three cars. The men clinging to the catwalk bounced and whipped about like rag dolls in the hands of an angry child. With an explosive roar, steam exploded from the ruptured boiler of the trailing locomotive. The good and bad alike sprawled in the aisles. Men in the baggage car of the rear train slammed forward, tumbled over sorting tables and crashed into the front wall of the car. Worse was yet to come.

  First, the private car of Cyrus Murchison left the rails, crumpling in on itself as it drove forward. The coach ahead teetered and began to lean to the left. It fell ponderously. Domino-like, the next chair car began to cant to one side. Only the remaining forward motion of the reconnected cars prevented total disaster. When the car under them began to waver, Smoke Jensen shouted to the men with him, “Get off of here. Jump to the right.”

  Unmindful of possible broken bones, the eight clinging men threw themselves away from the reeling car. The unsecured coupler twisted at the joint and separated. It let the car pitch over onto one side, to skid a distance before it came to rest at an acute angle. The eight wheels on the trucks spun as it lay in a cloud of dust. Beyond them, the train with Murchison aboard rolled serenely away. A man next to Smoke Jensen groaned.

  “I think I broke my leg,” he stated, his mind dulled by the sudden crisis.

  “Hang on. I’ll get you some help.” Smoke looked beyond the billows of dirt and steam to see the occupants of the wounded locomotive leap clear to escape the explosion that would surely follow. With banshee screams, the 140 tons of iron and steel ground to a stop.

  Smoke came to his boots to take stock of the disaster. He saw that the Baldwin had derailed on only one side, the lead truck of the tender dangling in empty space above the rails. Miraculously, the stock car had not jumped the track. Even more astonishing, the boiler did not explode. It hissed and belched steam, and remained intact. Gloved fists on hips, Smoke watched while Brian Pullen and the rest of the volunteers climbed shakily from the baggage car.

  “What the hell happened?” Pullen asked, his tone of voice clearly conveying his disturbed condition.

  Smoke’s reply cut through the fog in Brian’s mind. “Murchison cut the rear of the train loose. You ran into it.”

  Brian shook his head, as though to clear it of fog. “Well, hell’s-fire, if that just don’t beat all.” Then he remembered the chase. “What happened to Murchison?”

  “They went on. Let’s get those horses out and head after them,” Smoke urged. “Chances are we’ve lost them for now, but we can try.”

  Pullen took stock of the destruction all around them. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  * * *

  Cyrus Murchison, acting as conductor, signaled the engineer to slow the train when he observed the marker indicating a curve and a siding. A switchman dropped off the side and ran forward as the big 2-4-4-0 American Locomotive Works mainliner slowed even more. He threw the switch and the bobtailed train rolled smoothly through the switch onto the siding.

  “What are you doing?” Titus Hobson demanded.

  “We do not know if the other locomotive derailed. In light of that, we cannot take the chance of remaining on this train.” He turned to Heck Grange. “Off-load mounts for everyone remaining, with a spare, if possible. We’ll go to Carson City by horseback.”

  Titus Hobson winced as he recalled how long it had been since he had sat astride a horse. The remaining—how many?—miles to Carson City would be sheer torture. His tightly squinched features reflected his thoughts. To his outrage, Cyrus Murchison read his opinion and laughed at him.

  “ Think of it as a pleasant outing in the bracing mountain air, Titus. Come, we’ll sleep in tents, under the stars, feast on venison and bear, clear our lungs of the city’s miasma, and commune with nature.”

  Hobson chose primness for his reply. “I hardly think this is a time for levity, Cyrus.”

  “Why not?” Murchison’s face darkened with suspicion. “If you cannot laugh at adversity, you’re doomed. Don’t you know that?”

  Hobson reacted from his fear-driven anger. “My God, you’re priggish when you get philosophical, Cyrus.”

  Heck Grange’s return took away a need for Cyrus Murchison to make a reply. “The horses are coming off now. We can leave in ten minutes.”

  “Good,” Murchison snapped testily. “We may not have that much time.”

  “We’re ten miles from where we cut loose those cars. With luck, them and their rolling stock are all busted up.”

  “You’re right, Heck. Only we cannot rely on that.”

  Unaffected by the mindset of his boss, Heck came right back. “So? Even if they got out of that mess, it will take the better part of two hours to get here from there.”

  Murchison relented. “You’re right, of course. See to everything, Heck. Be sure to off-load those chests from the baggage car.”

  Grange left to see to the task. Murchison set to work poking into the drawers and shelves of the smoking car. He retrieved two boxes of excellent hand-rolled cigars made in Havana, five bottles of brandy, tinned sardines, cheeses, and other delicacies. He stuffed all of it into a hinged-top box. The brandy he wrapped in bar towels. He looked up into the startled expression of Titus Hobson.

  “No reason to deprive ourselves, is there, Titus? The amenities of life are what make us appreciate it.”

  “It will slow us down.”

  “No more than the tents and other supplies I had the forethought to put aboard. One more pannier on the back of a packhorse will not hinder our progress.”

  Titus Hobson looked at his partner with new eyes. “You anticipated this happening?”

  Murchison made a deprecating gesture. “Nothing quite so drastic, old boy. But I did have grounds to suspect that all would not go smoothly. Come, we can make this small setback into a lark. How long has it been since you�
�ve been away from your wife’s sharp tongue, and those cloying children?”

  A wistful expression came onto Hobson’s face. A man who had married late in life, he found his brood of five children, all under the age of thirteen, to be a burden he would prefer not to have to bear. And his wife had become more acid-tongued with the birth of each offspring—as though it was his fault she kept cropping a new brat. A tiny light began to glow in his mind. Perhaps this enforced separation would prove to be a boon.

  “All right, Cyrus. I’ll give you your due. This could turn out to be . . . interesting.”

  “Yes. But, only if we hurry. Jensen and Longmont are still back there.”

  * * *

  Shaken, though essentially unharmed, the volunteers who had joined Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont went quickly about saddling horses. They prowled through the kitchen of Cyrus Murchison’s ruined private car and provisioned themselves with a wide variety of expensive and exotic food. Smoke gathered them when everything had been gotten into readiness.

  “This is going to be rough. Those who have been injured or wounded should head back. There’s no telling how long we will be on the trail.”

  “How far do you intend to go, Mr. Jensen?” a grizzled older farmer asked.

  “All the way to Carson City, if necessary.”

  The oldster shrugged. “Then I’d best go back with the rest. My rhumatiz won’t let me abide with damp ground and cold nights for that long.”

  “Go ahead,” Smoke prompted. “And no shame be on you. The rest of us will start off along the tracks, see if we can catch up to that train.”

  * * *

  “We’ll leave a few men behind, to delay them if they do come,” Murchison directed.

  Heck Grange disagreed. “It will only waste lives needlessly. Jensen’s not dumb. He’ll be lookin’ for that. I reckon the place to lay an ambush is up around Piney Creek, just ahead of the upgrade into the Sierras.”

  Murchison considered that. He accepted that Heck Grange, with his war experiences with the Union Army had a better grasp of tactics than himself. Yet he was loath to appear to not be entirely in charge. Now was not the time for vanity, Cyrus reminded himself

  “All right, let’s do it that way.”

  They rode for two hours. Bluejays and woodpeckers flitted from tree to tree, scolding the interlopers with shrill squawks. Squirrels took up the protest in wild chatter. A bad moment developed when a fat, old, near-sighted skunk waddled out onto the trail and set the nearest horses into a panic. For men accustomed to walking or riding everywhere in wheeled vehicles, it took some doing to bring the beasts under control. At last, Heck Grange was compelled to shoot the skunk.

  That caused more trouble as its scent glands voided. An almost visible miasma fogged over the trail, contaminating the clothing of one and sundry among the collection of thugs, riffraff, and hard cases. Curses turned the air blue and fifteen minutes were lost trying to gain the upper hand over wall-eyed horses and red-faced, tear-streaked men. A halt resulted to allow everyone to wash off the strident effluvium from Mr. Skunk.

  Back in the saddle, Murchison’s henchmen grumbled among themselves. The majority were city-bred and -raised. The skunk unsettled them. What more, and worse, might be out there? The grade steepened and even this complaining died out. At three o’clock the big party reached the banks of Piney Creek.

  Cyrus Murchison had Heck Grange toll off nine men to set up an ambush in the rocks and cluster of willows that lined the stream bed. None of the hard cases liked being left behind, yet the possibility of ending their ongoing problem appealed to most. They dug in, arranging stones and making dirt parapets in front of scooped-out hollows in the creek bank. When all met the approval of Heck Grange, he reported to Murchison.

  “We’re ready. Might as well head out.”

  “You’ve done a fine job, Heck. This should rid us of Jensen and Longmont. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that.”

  The rumble of departing hoofbeats had barely faded out when the first uncertainties arose over the idea of the ambush. “I hear there are bears around here, Harvey,” one slightly built, long-necked thug remarked to a companion who had also been left behind at the ambush site.

  “Don’t think so, Caleb,” the other railroad cop said around a stalk of rye grass. Unlike the skinny one, who worked as a clerk in the California Central police office, he had a barrel chest, thick, corded muscles in arms and legs, and a flat belly ridged with more brawn. “They keep to the high country up in the Snowy Mountains,” he added, using a rough English translation of the Spanish, “Sierra Nevada.”

  When the Spanish first came to California, the mountain peaks to the east had worn a constant mantle of snow, hence the name “Sierra Nevada.” In the three centuries since they had first sighted those awesome ramparts, the climate had altered enough that only the highest remained white all year. It had not done the Donner Party much good, because the snows in even the lower passes began early. The big railroad bull’s assurance about bears did ease the worries of his friend. Perhaps it should not have.

  * * *

  Smoke Jensen kept pushing the volunteers. At his own insistence, Louis Longmont rode the drag to make certain they hadn’t any stragglers. The afternoon seemed to have too few hours in it. Long red shafts of sunlight slanted through the broken overcast to warn of approaching evening. Smoke wanted to get as far along the trail as possible.

  He had not had any difficulty finding signs of what direction the fleeing men had taken. Heavy-laden packhorses had left deep gouges in the soft soil of the gentle slopes, and it seemed the inexperienced riders could not keep their mounts in a single file. Within ten minutes of reaching the abandoned train, Smoke had an accurate count of the numbers they faced. It was more than he would have liked, yet far less than had started out. Now he gave consideration to the twenty-five riders and the possibility someone in charge might consider an ambush.

  “We’ll stop here for a while,” Smoke announced, his decision made. “ That map I found shows Piney Creek not far from here. The stream runs through the easiest pass leading to the high country.” Smoke’s eyes twinkled with suspicion. “The creek would also make a good place for an ambush.”

  “You are going to scout it out, I assume,” Louis offered.

  “That I am, my friend. You are welcome to come along.”

  Louis did not hesitate. “Perhaps next time.”

  Smoke chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”

  “I’ll see to making camp. No fires, I assume?”

  “No, Louis. They are running from us. I doubt they’ll turn back and attack. A cold camp won’t make our friends very happy. It’ll give them a chance to cook some of those fancy victuals they took from Murchison’s private larder.”

  Five minutes later, he rode out in a circuitous route that would take him up on the blind side of Piney Creek.

  * * *

  Caleb Varner cut his eyes away from the distant glow of campfires to gaze pointedly at Harvey Moran. “They ain’t comin’, Harvey.”

  Harvey let his gaze wander away from the face of his companion, to stare at where the burble of water over stones located Piney Creek. “At least, not tonight, I’d wager.”

  Caleb looked ghastly in the sickly light of the high-altitude twilight. “That means we have to spend the night here?”

  “Sure does.”

  “But there’s bears, Harvey.”

  “Dang it now, Caleb, I’ve done told you there are no bears anywhere around here.”

  Caleb considered that and found a new horror. “What about timber rattlers? I hear they like to crawl right inside a feller’s bedroll with him to keep warm.”

  Harvey did not feel like playing this game. “String a rope around your sleepin’ place. Snake won’t cross a rope. Thinks it’s a brother.”

  “Really? I don’t know.”

  “Shut up, you two,” another ambusher called harshly. “Can’t a man grab a snooze in peace? What with the two of you flapp
in’ yer jaws, ain’t nobody gonna get any rest tonight.”

  “Don’t you have first watch?” Harvey challenged. “Got no business sleepin’ if you do.” That should hold him, Harvey thought.

  Unseen by any of the neophyte woodsmen, Smoke Jensen slipped away from the camp set up by those manning the ambush. He moved soundlessly through the underbrush with a big smirk on his face. He knew what he could do now. When he reached the ancient Sequoia where he had ground anchored his horse, he reached into one saddlebag. He rummaged around for a moment and came out with what he wanted.

  Simple in construction, the first item had come from a friendly Cheyenne youngster he had often taken fishing. The boy had made it himself and proudly gave it to Smoke. It consisted of a gourd on a thin oak stick. Inside were polished pebbles. When shaken just right, it sounded like the grandfather of all rattlesnakes. The second object came from Smoke’s past.

  Preacher had helped him make it, on a lark, one deep, frigid winter night when they had had nothing else to do. It was a boxlike affair, with a hollowed reed for a mouthpiece. Inside Preacher had fastened an assortment of gut and sinew strings of varying length and thickness. By changes of intensity in breath and a hand waved over the open end, it could be made to produce a remarkably realistic sound. With nothing to do for several hours, Smoke waited calmly beside his ‘Palouse stallion.

  At near on midnight, Smoke Jensen roused himself. He dusted off his trousers and set out for the camp. When he settled on a position upstream from the enemy site, he eased back against a large granite boulder and gave his thoughts to being a giant timber rattler.

  “B’zzzziiiiit! B’zzzzzzziiiiiit! B’zzzzziit!”

  Smoke went still while the voices came to him from the darkness. “M’God, Harvey, you hear that?”