Cunning of the Mountain Man (25 page)

“Maybe so, maybe not,” the gunslick opined. “Anyway, what’er we gonna do?”

“For starters, we’re not going to leave,” Banning told him firmly.

By late afternoon, some of the least confident among the gunmen began to drift out of town. A few more joined them the next morning. Many hung around though, to see how this hand would be played. Some soon learned, when the Rangers—and some local residents who had been deputized—began to make sweeps of the streets.

“You ride for one of the ranches around here?” Tallpockets Granger asked a pair of wannabe gunhawks lounging outside the barbershop.

“Nope.”

“Then fork them scruffy mounts of yours and blow on out of here.”

“What if we don’t want to?”

Tallpockets’ eyes turned to ice. “Then you’ll be in jail faster than you can whistle the first two bars of ‘Dixie.’ ”

From down the block, a voice of authority made a hard demand. “Move along. You don’t have business in this town anymore. I’d make it fast, if I was you.”

Three Arizona Rangers filled an intersection off the main street and began to walk along the dirt track. Every time they looked at a man, the subject of their scrutiny shied his eyes away and silently mounted up to ride out.

Slowly, the crowd of low-grade gunfighters began to thin noticeably. Most of them knew who was hiring and how much would be paid, Smoke Jensen believed, and many even knew how to find the B-Bar-H. No doubt they’d be heading that way.

He had to admit to Jeff and Walt that there was little they could do about it. They had spoken on the matter only a minute before one of Granger’s men approached. “There’s some hard cases over at Fanny Mae’s parlor house say they’re comin’ out shootin’. One of them with a big mouth told us that they’d take on all comers at that windmill in the center of town.”

Jeff and Walt cut their eyes to Smoke. The legendary gunfighter quirked his lips in a hint of a smile, and hitched up his cartridge belt. “Then I guess we’d better get down to the
Plaza de Armas
. This might get interesting after all.”

Seven self-styled
pistoleros
stood spread out in the central plaza of Socorro. A wooden windmill squeaked and groaned above them, the blades turning listlessly. The pump below musically sloshed water into a cuplike, leather harness over its spout. From there it ran through a pipe to a large, square, wooden tank that provided water for any horses so inclined, the local stray dogs, cats, and birds. Water lily pads dotted the surface. From its pedestal opposite, a statue of an armored Spaniard, bearing a long, lancelike cross, wrapped in the
Chi-Rho
flag of the Church of Rome, looked down on it all. When Smoke Jensen, Jeff York, and Walt Reardon rounded the corner of the adobe block building that housed the Mercado Central, the one in the middle took two long strides ahead of his henchmen.

“Hold it right there,” he demanded. “I hear you badge-pushers done run some friends of mine out of town. I’m here to tell you that you ain’t runnin’ me out.”

“Carry you out, more likely,” Smoke replied in a tired voice.

“You ain’t man enough. Ain’t got the guts. Uh—who might you be?”

“Capt. Jeff York, Arizona Rangers,” Jeff introduced himself.

That didn’t seem to faze Banning, but he paled slightly when Walt said, “Walt Reardon. No doubt you’ve heard of me.”

“Y-yeah. Can’t believe you’ve turned lawdog. How about you,” he directed at Smoke.

“Smoke Jensen.”

Right then Orin Banning did a right peculiar thing, considering he faced three of the best gunfighters on the frontier. He gave his sidemen the signal and went for his gun. Most of them didn’t clear leather before Smoke, Jeff, and Walt fired their first rounds.

One of the outlaws went down gagging, a hand clutching his belly. Another spun sideways, then turned back to the action with a vengeance. He put a bullet through Walt’s left arm a moment before he died of .44 caliber poisoning from the pistol in the hand of Smoke Jensen.

Bullets zipped through the small garden of the Plaza de Armas as Smoke sought another target. He soon found one. A hard case from the short-lived Banning gang crouched behind the edge of the pedestal of the unknown Spanish don. He rested the barrel of a Winchester on the smoothed surface of granite. Smoke put stone chips in the man’s eyes with a quick round. The shooter fell back screaming. A hearty boom came from the barrel of the short-barreled L. C. Smith double ten that Walt Reardon had swung up from behind his back, after he emptied his six-gun.

The shot column of 00 Buck lifted a short, squat gun-slick off his boots and planted him in the water tank. He went under without so much as a second splash. Walt cut his eyes to Smoke, then Jeff, to make sure of their whereabouts, then swung the shotgun toward a new target. The wound in his arm bled profusely. Smoke Jensen headed his way, when he saw Walt Reardon’s knees start to buckle.

“Hang on, old friend” Smoke encouraged. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

“In the middle of a shoot-out?” Walt asked wonderingly.

“Damn betcha,” said Smoke as he forced a grin.

Bullets cracked overhead and to both sides, as Smoke quickly bound Walt’s arm. He helped Walt to the edge of the artificial pond created by the water tank, and eased the younger man to the ground.

“You can cover us from here.” To Jeff, “Time to clean out the rest of this vermin.”

“I’m with you,” Jeff agreed.

They faced only three living enemies. Orin Banning would have been fortunate to have died first. That way he wouldn’t have to see the destruction of his gang. Smoke gave that passing thought as he darted between the neatly trimmed clumps of hedge that defined walkways through the plaza. He saw a flicker of movement to his left and spun on one heel.

Gunfire had attracted more of the ne’er-do-wells, like vultures to carrion. The newcomer had only a brief instant to see the badge on the chest of Smoke Jensen before the famous gunfighter busted a cap and sent the gunhawk off to join Orin Banning’s men in Hell.

“Awh, damn,” Smoke grumbled as two more took the dying one’s place.

* * *

Wildcat Wally Holt could not remember a time when he didn’t have a gun in the waistband of his trousers or on his hip. He’d killed his first man at the age of eleven; shot him in the back. He had killed a dozen more since. At nineteen, Wildcat Wally saw himself as one of the best gunfighters in New Mexico Territory Why, he had even been so bold as to compare himself with Billy Bonny. In less than thirty seconds, he was about to learn that he had nowhere near the speed, accuracy, or determination of Billy the Kid let alone the man he suddenly found himself facing.

“You gonna use that thing, or sit on it?” Smoke Jensen asked of him as the youthful tough skidded into the center of the gunfight on the plaza.

“Yeeeaaaaah!” Wildcat Wally roared as he drew his Colt.

Or at least he tried to draw it. Suddenly his right arm would not obey him. Immense pain radiated from his shoulder through his chest and neck. Wildcat Wally jolted backward a few wobbly steps, and again tried to raise his six-gun. Nothing happened. Swiftly he made a grab for the Peacemaker on his left hip. He had it clear of leather when some unseen force punched him solidly in the center of his body, right below his ribs. A splash of crimson droplets rose before his eyes, as they started dimming.

Wildcat Wally next discovered that he could not breathe. He willed himself to draw deeply, yet his chest never moved. Slowly he dropped to his knees, an unbelieving expression on his face.

He worked his mouth. “Wh—who are you, Marshal?”

“Smoke Jensen.”

“Go—good. At least it took the best to do me in.” So saying, Wildcat Wally Holt lost all his wildness and slipped into the long slumber of death.

“Smoke, behind you!” Walt Reardon shouted from the water tank.

A Winchester gave its familiar .44-40 bark and Smoke Jensen felt a tug and fiery burning sensation along the right side of his ribs. He had dodged and started to tarn at Walt’s shout, which had saved his life. Now he faced the back-shooter and watched fear drain the smirk of triumph off the coward’s face. Blood ran freely down Smoke’s right side as he raised his gun and put a .44 period right between the would-be killer’s running lights. The back of his head left with the gunman’s hat, and he did a high kick backward into oblivion.

“Thanks, Walt.”

“Any time, Smoke.”

Three more hard cases, lured by the sound of action, dashed onto the plaza, weapons at the ready Walt cut the legs out from under one of them with a load of buckshot. The other two turned in his direction to see the double zeroes of the L. C. Smith pointed their way. They also saw Smoke Jensen off to the right. The wounded man managed to fish his six-gun out from under him, and died instantly from a gunshot wound delivered by Jeff York, whom they had not seen off to their left.

Made desperate by the sudden confrontation, the remaining pair swung weapons toward Smoke and Walt. The scattergun ripped one’s chest apart. Smoke pumped a round into the last man, who draped himself over the back of a wooden bench. A dozen others, wishing to have no part of these deadly gunfighters, gave up a bad cause.

It was then that Orin Banning reared up from behind a low hedge and screaming defiance, emptied his six-gun in wild stray rounds that hit no one. He jammed the smoking weapon in his waistband and hauled another six-gun from his left-hand holster.

“Smoke Jensen, you baaastard!” he yelled as he opened fire.

Smoke dodged the first bullet, then returned fire. Banning grunted and staggered to one side. He got off another round which plowed the ground between Smoke’s legs. Then Smoke’s second slug caught Banning full in the chest. That dropped him at last, amid the useless dregs of human garbage that had formed his gang. All at once the shooting stopped.

“Lay down your weapons and put hands in the air,” Smoke Jensen demanded.

“What are you goin’ to do to us?” one bleated.

“You’re going to jail. When we have time to sort you all out, we’ll send you home,” Jeff York added.

A straggly parade of glum, disgruntled would-be gun-hawks wound along the way to the jail. Inside, Ferdie Biggs had been talking with Sheriff Reno. When the prisoners trooped in, led by Jeff York, Ferdie cut his eyes to the disgraced sheriff. He received a slight nod in response.

“Lock ’em up yourself,” he grumbled to Jeff York.

Jeff took the keys from Ferdie as the latter pushed past him. A moment later, Ferdie Biggs reached the office section. Smoke Jensen bent over a seated Walt Reardon. He changed the makeshift bandage and again insisted that Walt see a doctor. With Smoke’s back turned, Ferdie had all the encouragement he needed. His six-gun had already cleared leather with a soft, wicked whisper.

Before Ferdie Biggs could ear back the hammer, Smoke Jensen turned in an eye blink, his right fist filled with a big .45 Colt. Transfixed by surprise, Ferdie stupidly tried to continue. Smoke shot him twice before Ferdie could squeeze his trigger.

Ferdie’s legs reflexed violently and catapulted him over the former sheriff’s desk. He sprawled on the floor behind twitched and shuddered then sighed out his life.

“Damn, how’d you know?” Walt Reardon gulped out.

“I saw your eyes narrow,” Smoke answered.

“I was going to call a warning to you.”

“Ferdie didn’t give you enough time, Walt. But that squint did enough to tip me off.”

“What now?”

“We drag that garbage out of here, and get on with it,” Smoke answered with a glance at the corpse.

With their assorted wounds properly tended to, Smoke Jensen, Jeff York, and half of the Rangers with Tallpock-ets rode directly toward the B-Bar-H. Walt Reardon stayed behind to hold the jail. Even as they rode past the town limits, more fast-gun types drifted into Socorro.

“We’re mighty short on numbers,” Jeff observed tight-lipped.

“I thought about that before we left.” Smoke flashed a white-toothed grin. “So I brought along enough dynamite to lower the odds a little.”

Jeff let out a low whistle. “Reckon this is the last go-round.”

“It had better be.”

They rode on in silence for a while. By late afternoon they reached the boundary of Benton-Howell's ranch. Smoke noticed it first. The split-rail fences had been filled in with rocks and dirt, to form parapets; behind them stood some twenty rifle-toting gunhawks, lured by the high money paid and a chance to test themselves against Smoke Jensen. Smoke and his men reined in just out of range.

“We aren’t going through there, even with dynamite,” Jeff opined.

“Don’t go off too sudden, Jeff. What we need to do is look around a little more. We’ll ride around the whole spread and see how much is done up like this.”

They made it only halfway around the ten sections controlled by Benton-Howell by nightfall. So far it appeared that only a half-section, some three-hundred-twenty acres, had been sealed off. Not all the approaches were covered by so many men. Smoke had led them out of sight of those guarding the road and gate, w'hen they had been able to cross over onto the ranch property. Well-accustomed to the rigors of man hunting, the rangers made a cold camp.

Smoke sat, chewing on a strip of jerky, and took council from the stars. After a while, he rose to his boots and walked over to where Jeff York had already bedded down for the night. He squatted beside his friend and spoke softly.

“I’ve made up my mind. Come first light, we’ll ride back to the Tucker place and send for the rest of Tallpock-ets’s men. Then I’m going to fix up something that will get us through all those defenses.”

“What do you have in mind Smoke?”

“The dynamite got me to thinking on it. That and the wide gaps along this side that aren’t being watched. You’ll see what I’m doing when we get to working on it.”

Smoke Jensen had added to the mystery by instructing the young Ranger headed for Socorro, “Bring the wainwright from town out here, when you come back.” Now, two days later, with night on the sawtooth ridges to the east, the curious among the Arizona Rangers stood around watching while the wagon builder rigged an unusual attachment to a buckboard which Smoke Jensen had purchased from Martha Tucker. One of the older—which meant a man in his late twenties—Rangers scratched at a growing bald spot in his sandy hair, and worked his lips up for a good spit.