Cunning of the Mountain Man (2 page)

“I heard something about that,” Mort offered, a bit more coolly than usual. “D’you really believe a gunfighter as famous as Smoke Jensen would do something so dumb as let himself get knocked out right beside a man he’d just killed?”

Jake Reno’s face pinched and his eyes narrowed. “Who told you that, Mort?”

“Hal Eckers was in for his usual morning bracer a while ago. Said he was locked up acrost from Smoke Jensen most of the night. Ferdie Biggs was shootin’ his mouth off about the killin’.”

An angry scowl replaced the closed expression on the face of Sheriff Reno. “Damn that Ferdie. Don’t he know that even a drunk like Eckers remembers what he hears. Especial, about someone as famous as Smoke Jensen. Might be some smart-ass lawyer”—he pronounced it
liar
—“got ahold of that and could twist it to get Jensen off.”

Reno downed his shot and sucked the top third off his schooner of beer. What he had just said set him to thinking. To aid the process, he signaled for another shot of rye. With that one safely cozied down with the other to warm his belly, he saw the problem with clarity. It might be he could use some insurance to see that he collected that other five hundred dollars. Slurping up the last of his beer, Jake Reno signaled Mort Plummer for refills and sauntered down the mahogany to where Payne Finney stood doing serious damage to a bottle of Waterfill-Frazier.

“Is Quint Stalker in town?”

Payne Finney gave the sheriff a cold, gimlet stare. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I find that odd, considerin’ you’re his—ah—foreman, so’s to speak.”

“I’ve got me a terrible mem’ry, when it comes to talkin’ with lawdogs.”

Sheriff Reno gave a friendly pat to Finney’s shoulder. “Come now, Finney, we’re workin’ on the same side, as of. . . uh . . .” He consulted the big, white face with the black Roman numerals in the hexagonal, wooden case of the Regulator pendulum clock over the bar. “Ten minutes ago.”

Finney’s cool gaze turned to fishy disbelief. “That so, huh? Name me some names.”

Jake Reno bent close to Payne Finney’s ear and lowered his voice. The names came out in the softest of whispers. Finney heard them well enough and nodded.

“I guess you wouldn’t know them, if you weren’t mixed up in it. What is it you want?”

Sheriff Reno spoke in a hearty fashion after gulping his whiskey. “Thing is, of late, I’ve come to not trust the justice system to always function in the desired way”

“That a fact, Sheriff?” Finney shot back, toying with the lawman. “And you such a fine, upstanding pillar of the law. Now, what is it you don’t trust about the way justice is done in the Territory?”

“Well, there’s more of these smooth-talking lawyers comin’ out here from back East. They got silver tongues that all too often win freedom for men who should damn-well hang.”

“You may have a point,” Finney allowed cautiously.

“Of course, I do. An’ it’s time something was done about it.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, you take that jasper I’ve got locked up right now. Think how it would distress that poor Widow Tucker if some oily haired, silver-tongued devil twisted the facts an’ got him off scot-free? It’d vex her mightily, you can be sure.”

“What are you suggesting?” Finney pressed, certain he would enjoy the answer.

“Depends on whether you think you’re the man to be up to it. For my part, I’d sleep a lot better knowin’ some alternative means had been thought up to see that Smoke Jensen gets the rope he deserves.”

Ranch hands, local idlers, and a scattering of strangers crowded into the two saloons closest to the Socorro jail by midafternoon. Talk centered on only one topic—the killer the sheriff had locked up in the hoosegow.

“That back-shooter’s needin’ some frontier justice, you ask me,” a florid-faced, paunchy man in a brocaded red vest and striped pants declared hotly from the front of the bar in the Hang Dog Saloon.

“Damn right, Hub,” the man on his left agreed.

Several angry, whiskey-tinged voices rose in furtherance of this outcome. Payne Finney kept the fires stoked as he flitted from group to group in the barroom. “This Smoke Jensen is a crazy man. He’s killed more’n three hunnard men, shot most in the back, like poor Lawrence Tucker.”

Finney added to his lies as he joined a trio of wranglers at the back end of the bar. “Remember when it was in the papers how he killed Rebel Tyree?” He put an elbow to the ribs of one cowhand and winked. “In the back. Not like the paper said, but in the back.”

“Hell, I didn’t even know you could read, Payne.”

“Shut up, Tom. You never got past the fourth grade, nohow. I tell you, this Jensen is as bloodthirsty as Billy Bonney.”

“Bite yer tongue, Finney,” Tom snapped. “Billy Bonney is much favored in these parts. He done right by avengin’ Mr. Tunstill.”

Payne Finney gave Tom Granger a fish eye. “And who’s gonna avenge Mr. Lawrence Tucker?”

“Why, the law’ll see to that.”

“An’ pigs fly, Tom. You can take my word for it, somethin’ ought to be done.”

“You talkin’ lynch law, Payne?” The question came from a big, quiet man standing at a table in the middle of the room.

Turning to him, Payne Finney blinked. Maybe, he considered, he’d pushed it a bit too far. Gotta give them the idea they thunked it up on their own. That’s what Quint Stalker had taught him. Payne silently wished that Stalker was there with him now. He had no desire to get on the wrong side of Clay Unger, this big, soft-spoken man who had a reputation with a gun that even Quint Stalker respected. He raised both hands, open, palms up, in a deprecating gesture.

“Now, Clay, I was just sayin’ what if . . . ? You know a lot more about how the law works than I do—no offense,” Payne hastened to add. “But from what little I do know, it seems any man with a bit of money can get off scot-free.”

“And you were only speculating out loud as to, what if it happened to Smoke Jensen?”

“Yeah . . . that’s about it.”

Clay Unger raised a huge hand and pointed his trigger finger at Payne Finney. It aimed right between his eyes.

“Don’t you think the time to worry about that is
after
it’s happened?”

“Ummm. Ah—I suppose you’re right, there, Clay.” Finney made his way hastily to the doors and raised puffs of dust from his bootheels as he ankled down the street to Donahue’s. There he set to embellishing his tales of Smoke Jensen’s bloody career. His words fell on curious ears and fertile minds. He bought a round of drinks and, when he left an hour later, he felt confident the seeds of his plan would germinate.

After Clay Unger and his friends had left the Hang Dog, two hard-faced, squint-eyed wranglers at the bar took up Payne Finney’s theme. They quickly found ready agreement among the other occupants.

“What would it take to get that feller out of the jail and swing him from a rope, Ralph?”

Through a snicker, Ralph answered, “If you mean co—oper—ation, not a whole lot. Ol’ Ferdie over there surely enjoys a good hangin’. Especially one where the boy’s neck don’t break like it oughtta. Ferdie likes to see ’em twitch and gag. Might be, he’d even hand that Jensen over to us.”

“ ‘Us,’ Ralph?” a more sober imbiber asked pointedly. Ralph’s mouth worked, trying to come up with words his limited intellect denied him. “I was just talkin’— ah—sorta hy-hypo—awh, talkin’ like let’s pretend.” “You mean hypothetically?” Ralph’s detractor prodded.

“Yeah . . . that’s it. Heard the word onest, about a thang like this.”

Right then the batwings, inset from the tall, glass-paneled front doors swung inward, and Payne Finney strode in. “What’s that yer talkin’ about, Ralph?”

Puppy-dog eagerness lighted Ralph’s face. “Good to see you, Payne. I was jist saying that it should be easy to get that Jensen outta the jail and string him up.” Finney crossed to the bar and gave Ralph a firm clap on one shoulder. “Words to my likin’, Ralph. Tell me more.”

Seated in a far corner, at a round table, three men did not share the bloodthirsty excitement. They cast worried gazes around the saloon, marked the men who seemed most enthused by the prospect of a lynching. Ripley Banning ran short, thick fingers, creased and cracked by hard work and callus, through his carroty hair. His light complexion flushed pink as he leaned forward and spoke quietly to his companions.

“I don’t like the sound of this one bit.” He cut sea-green eyes to Tyrell Hardy on his right.

Ty Hardy flashed a nervous grin, and stretched his lean, lanky body in the confines of the captain’s chair. “Nor me, Rip. Ain’t a hell of a lot three of us can do about it, though.”

From his right, Walt Reardon added a soft question. “How’s that, Ty? Seems a determined show of force could defuse this right fast.”

Tyrell Hardy cut his pale blue eyes to Walt Reardon. He knew the older man to be a reformed gunfighter. Walt’s fulsome mane of curly black hair, and heavy, bushy brows, gave his face a mean look to those who did not know him. And, truth to tell, Ty admitted, the potential for violence remained not too far under the surface. He flashed a fleeting smile and shook his head, which set his longish, nearly white hair to swaying.

“You’ve got a good point, Walt. But, given the odds, I’d allow as how one of us might get killed, if we mixed in.”

“There’s someone sure’s hell gonna get killed, if this gets ugly,” Rip Banning riposted. “What’er you sayin’, Walt?”

Walt’s dark brown eyes glowed with inner fire, and his tanned, leather face worked in a way that set his brush of mustache to waggling. “Might be that we should keep ourselves aware of what’s going on. If this gets out of hand, a sudden surprise could go a long way to puttin’ an end to it.”

Martha Tucker went about her daily tasks mechanically. All of the spirit, the verve of life, had fled from her. She cooked for her children and herself, but hardly touched the food, didn’t taste what she did -consume. She had sat in stricken immobility for more than two hours, after word had been brought of Lawrence’s death. Now, anger began to boil up to replace the grief.

It allowed her to set herself to doing something her late husband had often done to burn off anger he dare not let explode. Her hair awry, her face shiny in the afternoon light, an axe in both hands, Martha set about splitting firewood for the kitchen stove. With each solid smack, a small grunt escaped her lips, carrying with it a fleck of her outrage.

She cared not that at least a full week’s supply already had been stacked under the lean-to that abutted the house,

beside the kitchen door. Neither did Martha have the words or knowledge to call her strenuous activity therapy; neither she, nor anyone in her world, knew the word catharsis. She merely accepted that with each yielding of a billet of pinon, she felt a scrap of the burden lift, if only for a moment.

“Mother,” Jimmy Tucker called from the corner of the house.

He had to call twice more, before his voice cut into Martha’s consciousness.

“What is it, son?”

Jimmy’s bare feet set up puffs of dust as he scampered to his mother’s side. “There’s a man coming, Maw.”

Cold fear stabbed at Martha’s breast. “Who . . . is it?”

“I dunno. He don’t . . . look mean.”

“Go in the house, Jimmy, and get me the rifle. Then round up your sister and brother and go to the root cellar.”

“Think it’s Apaches?”

“Not around here, son. I don’t know what to think.”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “I had better stay with you, Maw.”

“No, Jimmy. It’s best you are safe . . . just in case.”

“If it’s that Smoke Jensen, I’ll shoot his eyes out,” Jimmy said tightly.

A new fear washed over Martha. “You hush that kind of talk, you hear? If I had time, I’d wash your mouth with soap.”

Almost a whine, Jimmy’s voice came out painfully. “I didn’t cuss, Maw.”

In spite of the potential danger of the moment, Martha could not suppress a flicker of smile. Since the first time, at age four, that Jimmy had used the S-word, a bar of lye soap had been the answer, rather than his father’s razor strap. Oh, how Jimmy hated it.

“Go along, son, do as I say,” Martha relented with a pat on the top of Jimmy’s head, something else he had come to find uncomfortable of late.

In less than a minute, Jimmy returned with the big old Spencer rifle that had belonged to his father. One pocket of his corduroy trousers, cut off and frayed below the knees, bulged with bright brass cartridges. Martha took the weapon from her son and loaded a round. She held it, muzzle pointed to the ground, when the stranger rode around into the barnyard two minutes later.

“Howdy there,” he sang out. “I’m friendly. Come to give you the news from town.”

“And what might that be?” Martha challenged.

“Well, ma’am, it looks like it’s makin’ up for a hangin’ for that Smoke Jensen feller. Folks is mighty riled about what happened to your husband.”

Unaccountably, the words burst out before she had time to consider them. “Is it certain that he is the guilty party?”

The young rangier did a double take. “Pardon, ma’am? I figgered you’d consider that good news.”

Committed already, her second question boiled out over the first. “They’ve held a trial so soon?”

A sheepish expression remolded the cowboy’s face. “In a way. Sort of, I mean, ma’am. In the—in the saloons. The boys ain’t happy, an’ they’re fixin’ to string that feller up.”

“Good lord, that’s—barbaric.”

Self-confidence recovered, the ranch hand responded laconically. “There’s some who might consider what he done to your husband to be that, too, ma’am.”

“You’re not a part of this?”

“No, ma’am. I just rode out to bring you the word.” “Then—then ride fast, find the sheriff, and have him bring an end to it. I don’t want another monstrous crime to happen on top of the first.”

“You don’t mind my sayin’ it, that’s a mighty odd attitude, ma’am.”

“No, it’s not. Now you get back to town fast and get the sheriff.”

“I say now’s the time, boys!” Payne Finney shouted over the buzz of angry conversation in the Hang Dog. “Somebody go out and get a rope. Do it quick, while we still got the chance.”

“Damn right!”

“I’ll go over to Rutherford’s, they got some good halfinch manila.”