Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) (12 page)

Smoke Jensen arrived in Dry Gulch Canyon two hours before sundown. It took him less than half an hour to track the horse he had followed onto the soft bottom soil of the gorge. It led straight to a small, narrow side canyon. Smoke reined in and dismounted. He took a ground anchor from his saddlebag and screwed it into the turf. He tied off the reins of his horse and patted the animal on the neck.

“Stay here, Thunder. I’ll be back shortly.” Drawing his Winchester from the saddle boot, he started off to scout the ground ahead.

Well-trained by Preacher, his skills honed over years of practice, Smoke Jensen drifted through the trees on the inner gorge walls as invisible as the air itself. He quickly located the hiding places of two men. A ways farther into the canyon, he found another. He came upon two more near the dead end of the box canyon.

Carefully, with all the stealth he could muster, he worked his way back to the first man. His target lay prone, eyes fixed on a campsite where it appeared four men lay rolled up in their blankets, sound asleep. Smoke Jensen stepped out from behind a big, resinous pine and tapped the sole of the man’s boot with his own.

“Waitin’ for someone?” he asked quietly.

The hard case jerked with surprise and tried to whirl rapidly. Smoke drove the butt of his Winchester downward and smashed it into the outlaw’s exposed head. The steel butt-plate made a mushy sound when it made contact. The thug twitched spastically and went still. Smoke disarmed him, tied him up, and moved on.

His second target sat with his back to a boulder. He chewed methodically on a slab of fatback in a biscuit and watched the opening of the gorge indifferently. Smoke slid the tomahawk from his belt and reached around the huge chuck of granite. With a swift, powerful blow he rapped the lout on the side of the head with the flat of the blade. On to the next.

Smoke found him like he had left him, squatted behind a bush, his knees up under his chin. A rifle lay at his side. When Smoke started his quick final approach, a hidden twig betrayed him. Its crackle sounded like a collapsing building to Smoke’s hypersensitive ears. The hard case heard it too, only much less intense, so he reacted slowly. Smoke fell on him, rapidly bent him forward and rammed his face into the ground.

Mouth filled with dirt, the outlaw’s shout of alarm came out a muffled grunt. Desperately, the gunhawk clawed at the butt of a six-gun in his right-hand holster. Smoke lifted him and slammed his head to the ground again. And again. The six-gun came clear. Swiftly, Smoke reached for his knife and buried its blade to the hilt in the right kidney of the thug.

Wheezing, the rascal sucked air and dirt into his lungs. His body spasmed and he forgot about his revolver. Smoke reversed the Greenriver knife and drove the pommel into the base of his target’s skull. The lights went out, he stiffened into a rigid parody of a scarecrow and dropped from Smoke’s grasp. He would probably bleed to death internally before he regained consciousness, Smoke considered, but at least he would not feel the pain. Stealthily, he moved on to the next.

Wally Quade lay near to where Ralph Tinsdale had hidden himself in a depression in the slope of the rear canyon wall. Smoke Jensen studied his location carefully for three long minutes. At last he had to concede that no way existed for him to approach unseen. He could get close, but in the last critical seconds, he would be exposed. Nothing else for it, so he began to glide through the trees.

When Smoke reached the tree line, Quade stiffened. He couldn’t believe what he had seen. How could he be here so soon? Why hadn’t the others seen him and given a warning? The answer came to him with sudden, painful certainty.
They couldn’t give a warning!
Quickly he filled his lungs and opened his mouth to bellow.

“Hey, Mr. Tinsdale, he’s here! He’s right in front—”

A hot slug from Smoke’s Winchester cut his shout off in mid-sentence. The report echoed off the sheer walls. Wally Quade flipped over backward. Squalling, he clawed at his holster. The Smith American came free and he fired wildly in the general direction of Smoke Jensen. Smoke took his time and ended the babble with a well-placed round between the eyes of the murderer Quade. Then he started for where he had last seen Ralph Tinsdale.

Paralyzed with fear, Ralph Tinsdale squeezed back into the loose rubble where he lay in ambush. Impossible. No man could move so swiftly, so quietly to take out all his hired guns without giving himself away. Could he? He saw movement down the slope and fired off a hasty round.

He saw dust kick up ten yards behind the man who now bore down on him. His failure spurred him to action. Rising, he started to sprint uphill. The talus slithered and broke free under his panicked shoes. He stumbled and fell forward. Fiery pain erupted in one soft palm when it collided forcefully with the rough stone. The backs of the fingers of his right hand bled freely also, though he did not lose his grip on his six-gun. Ever so slowly, the lip of the gorge grew closer. From behind he heard the rattle and clatter of more shale as the relentless lawman pursued him. What was the name Quade had given him? Jensen?

Tinsdale’s heart thudded with increased terror. Oh, God, could it be
Smoke
Jensen? Another upward glance showed him blue sky ahead. He could make it after all. But then what? He would be afoot, without supplies or help. He would lay for Jensen, shoot him when he came over the top. His breath burned raw and too short in his heaving chest. His legs began to quiver. They felt like lead. The sounds of pursuit came from closer behind. At last he saw grass and a horizon beyond.

With a cry of relief, Ralph Tinsdale hurled himself over the edge of the canyon wall and onto the plateau beyond. Without a pause he scrambled around on the ground and faced the lip. He cocked his revolver and held it as steady as possible under the circumstances. Then he waited. It wouldn’t be long. Jensen was right behind him. Time sped by. Smoke Jensen did not come. Tinsdale waited longer. Still no Smoke Jensen.

“Give it up, Tinsdale. You’re out of the real estate business.”

Incredibly the voice came from behind him. Tinsdale whirled and raised the Colt in his hand. Hot, stupefying pain slammed into his belly. Then again. Reflexively his legs churned on the ground and launched him out over the edge of the canyon. He disappeared from sight before Smoke Jensen could fire again.

And Victor Spectre…Victor Spectre had lived for years off the proceeds of crime. Always a shadowy figure, his name was not known to many lawmen. Those in the St. Louis area who did know it kept his secret and quietly enjoyed the show he made. Those who did not looked upon him as a philanthropist, a benefactor of social projects that had a civilizing effect on the citizens of the area. He lived in luxury, in the splendorous penthouse of a fancy St. Louis hotel. Stunted trees grew in the rooftop garden along with a rainbow of vibrant flowers, rich shrubs, and leafy ferns.

It was from here that he directed the actions of an immense gang that preyed upon the banks, railroads, smelters, and industries of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. A widower, Victor Spectre lived openly and notoriously with his mistress. A flamboyant redhead with an angelic face, superb body, and long, long legs that she took special pride in displaying frequently, albeit to the consternation of the society matrons of St. Louis, she had been Victor’s consort for the past five years. His household also consisted of his son, Trenton, a boy of eighteen, who had eagerly and willingly followed his father’s footsteps into the criminal life. Father and son adored each other, the lad consumed with hero worship, the parent full-blown with pride. Trenton had his mother’s features and coloring, though carved in a handsome, masculine style. From his father he had inherited his jet black hair and brows, and the icy green eyes.

Trenton Spectre had been educated by private tutors and did not look forward with enthusiasm to leaving his father’s burgeoning criminal enterprises to attend the senior Spectre’s
alma mater,
Yale. “Nonsense,” his father had objected in jest. “Many great criminal minds have been influenced and honed in the hallowed halls of Yale.” Spectre had the usual bevy of a butler, manservants for himself and Trenton, a cook, maids who came by day to “do for the house,” and a driver and footman for his carriage. Such were the idyllic conditions in the Spectre household when Victor encountered Smoke Jensen.

Peace had fled the High Lonesome and three good men had died defending their herds of cattle from a gang of rustlers as large as the average Army patrol. The cattle, brought up to the lush, green mountain pastures, had disappeared. The outlaws swaggered about as though immune to arrest. Indeed, in some counties of Colorado they
were
immune. The local law in those places had been in the hip pocket of Victor Spectre for a long while. They seemed unstoppable. Only, the rustlers had made one big mistake. The dead men were all fellow ranchers and friends of Smoke Jensen.

Although three separate herds had been involved, Smoke suspected a common cause, and a common destination. All anyone had to do was read the sign and follow the miscreants to the delivery point. After a long, arduous journey, fraught with hail storms, a prairie fire, and a tornado, the trail Smoke Jensen followed led to the stock pens of the Santa Fe Railroad in Dodge City, Kansas. Two of the Chicago stockyard buyers gave matching descriptions of those who sold the beefs. Smoke set out to find them in the three block long “Combat Zone” of the Gomorrah of the Plains.

Even though Dodge City was a Dead Line town, the No-Guns ordinance enacted by the city council and enforced by the city marshal, William Barclay “Bat” Masterson, Smoke knew his Deputy U.S. Marshal’s badge exempted him. He found the first three rustlers in the Long Branch.

“I’m looking for Cole Tyree,” he declared as he entered through the ornate, stained glass-paneled double doors. Immediate silence followed his announcement.

Every eye cut to the double rig of six-guns worn by the rangy, broad-shouldered man in the doorway. From behind the bar, the apron raised an admonitory hand. “There’s a Dead Line in this town, Mister. You gotta give up them guns.”

Smoke reached with his left hand to flip aside the lapel of his fringed, buckskin jacket to reveal the badge pinned on his shirt. “United States Marshal out of Colorado. I want Cole Tyree.”

Like all good, obedient outlaws, Cole Tyree and his two henchmen had secreted several weapons upon their persons, including at least one hide-out gun. They made an effort to put them into play the moment the words left the mouth of Smoke Jensen. And that’s where they made their final mistake.

Ace Longbaugh had only the cylinder of his shortened-barrel Colt free of the waistband at the small of his back when Smoke Jensen unlimbered his .44 Colt Frontier and plunked a hot slug into the belly of the rustler. Ace grunted and blinked his eyes, fighting to retain control over his badly damaged body. Meanwhile, Smoke saw movement to his left and pivoted.

This time the fight for control ended before it began. Bruno Butler took the round in his heart. Dead before he could complete his draw, he went rubber-legged and fell across a green baize table, scattering a stack of coins and a few bills. The latter fluttered to the floor while three bar girls shrieked and hugged one another. With Bruno out of it, Smoke turned toward the main threat, the as yet unharmed Cole Tyree.

By then, Cole had his six-gun out and the hammer back. He had just seen two of his men cut down without even clearing their irons. Part of him rebelled at carrying this any further, yet he knew he must. Eyes blazing, sweat oiling his face, he drove the words out in a shout.

“Who the hell are you?”

“They call me Smoke Jensen,” Smoke replied and then shot Tyree in the chest.

Slammed back against the bar, the outlaw leader discharged his weapon into the sawdust and floorboards six feet in front of him. Smoke saw movement from the first man he had shot and turned for a moment in that direction.

With terrible effort, Ace Longbaugh brought his six-gun to bear. His finger closed on the trigger a moment after Smoke Jensen again fired on him. Hit off-center in the left side of his chest, Longbaugh shot a hole in the ceiling of the Long Branch before he slammed back against the piano. It gave off a discordant jangle of notes and held fast. Ace Longbaugh did not.

He slithered down the side of the upright and sat in a pool of his own blood. Slowly, he gasped out the last of his life.

Two city policemen appeared suddenly behind Smoke Jensen.

“Hold it there, mister. You’ve just violated our no-guns ordinance.” He looked beyond Smoke. “And killed three men. Hand that Colt over and come with us.”

“Deputy U.S. Marshal out of Colorado,” Smoke told the aggressive cop tightly. “These men were wanted for rustling cattle in Colorado and crossing the state line to sell them. There’s about thirteen more in town, I’d wager. You’d best be looking for them.”

It had been a long speech for Smoke Jensen, but served to dispel some of the doubt in the policeman. “Let me see a badge.”

“On my shirt front,” Smoke told him.

The lawman took a quick peek around Smoke’s shoulder and nodded a curt acknowledgment. “Okay, marshal. Who are these men?”

Smoke named those he had names for and described several. Working with the local law now, Smoke Jensen quickly rounded up the remaining outlaws. Only five of them were foolish enough to resist. Smoke killed three of those. The shotgun accounted for the other pair. When questioned, the ranking member of the gang let slip a single name, one Smoke Jensen would come to hear often over the next few months: Victor Spectre.

Beginning that year in May, a series of bold bank robberies swept through the Rocky Mountains, culminating in Big Rock. Sheriff Monte Carson formed a large posse, split it into two, one half to be commanded by Smoke Jensen. Smoke readily agreed. He and Sally had a large portion of the assets of the Sugarloaf tied up in that bank. Not to recover so vast a sum could spell their ruin. Like many another deputation, the volunteer lawmen soon concluded they chased a whirlwind. Not so Smoke Jensen or Monte Carson. They drove the men under them, riding from first light to half an hour before sundown.

Night came swiftly in the High Lonesome. There was little time for an afterglow. The sun went behind the peaks to the west and the world turned black. Only those majestic pinnacles, mantled year round in snow, formed glowing silhouettes that projected streamers of orange, magenta, and gold. Smoke Jensen appreciated one such display far more than others of late. During the afternoon, he had come upon hoof prints of six horses. Two of them had distinctive marks he had also seen outside the bank in Big Rock. Their freshness indicated that by the next day, the posse would be in sight of at least some of the twelve-man gang who had robbed them of their investment money and life savings.

That set well with Smoke Jensen. The strength of these marauding bands, the rustlers numbering twenty-four, and now a dozen bank heisters, put a niggling suspicion in the back of Smoke’s mind that the same man, Victor Spectre, was behind it all. He went to sleep under a blanket of diamond points ruminating on that.

Around mid-morning the next day, one of the two men Smoke had sent to scout ahead rode back to the posse on a lathered, blown horse. His face radiated excitement. “They’re up there. Not three miles ahead. Walkin’ their horses. Lucky for us we spotted them from inside the tree line, or we could have ran right down on them. There’s six of them all right.”

Smoke considered a moment. Given the direction they were headed, southeast out of the mountains toward the high plain that ran from eastern Colorado into Nebraska, the other six must be close at hand. He had eighteen men with him. Three-to-one odds on the six they had located. Better than two-to-one if all twelve joined up somewhere before they could catch them.

“Oh, and another thing,” the scout reported. “The one I’d judge is leadin’ them is dressed right odd. He’s got on a ol’, high, black, stovepipe hat, with a long feather stickin’ out to the back. An he’s wearin’ a blue soldier coat, brass buttons an’ all.”

“A shell jacket?” Smoke asked.

“Naw. One like an officer wears.”

That settled it for Smoke. They would hit these six fast and find out, if they could, where and when the other outlaws were to meet them. Then, with himself disguised in that outlandish outfit, at least six of the posse could get right in close, while the rest would fall on the robbers’ flanks from ambush.

“Here’s what we’ll do.” Smoke spoke suddenly, then outlined his rudimentary plan. Twenty minutes later, they put the first phase in operation.

Smoke found himself well pleased with the way the posse spread out when he gave the signal. They came to a gallop and charged down on the unsuspecting hard cases. When the outlaws discovered their peril, they greeted the lawmen with a hail of wild firing that hit nothing. At a range of fifty yards, Smoke Jensen signaled for a halt.

Eighteen horses set their hind quarters and skidded to a stop. Eighteen rifles came to shoulders and fired a ragged volley. Four of the six scum died at once in a blizzard of hot lead. The other two, one wounded, threw up their hands in surrender. Smoke Jensen rode forward, his Colt Frontier keeping them covered.

Smoke put his cold gaze hard on the man in the blue coat, whom he had instructed be left unharmed. “Where and when are you to meet up with the rest of the gang?”

Equally icy, the leader tried to bluff it out. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, mister. All I know is that you are murderers. You cut these men down in cold blood.”

“Only after we were fired on,” Smoke countered. “And I reckon you’ve been around enough to know your blood’s not so cold at a time like that.”

“Maybe so, but I got nothin’ to say to you.”

Smoke cut his eyes to two of the posse. “Get him off that horse.”

Roughly they dragged the man from his mount. At Smoke’s direction they threw him on the ground and spread-eagled him, with the help of two more. Smoke dismounted and, as he did so, took a tomahawk from one saddlebag. He approached the man, testing the edge of the axelike weapon with one thumb. He hunkered down so his face was poised only inches from that of the other man. Smoke smelled the sour odor of fear, unwashed body and stale whiskey.

“Let me tell you something. I spent a lot of time around the Cheyenne while I was growing up. I learned me some right clever ways of makin’ a feller hurt. The Cheyenne said I took to it right natural like. Thing is, I haven’t lost my touch over the years.”

“You’re bluffin’. Yer a lawman. You can’t do things like that.”

Smoke cocked his head as though to say “Oh, really?” He spoke to the posse. “You fellers see anything going on here?” A couple of them guffawed, the rest shook their heads in the negative. “Well, now that
that’s
settled, might as well get to work.” He hefted the tomahawk. “How about I take off an ear? It’ll be smooth, you won’t even have a headache. ’Course if I slip, you’ll never have a headache again.”

Fear rapidly escalated to panic. His voice increasing by octaves, he pleaded for his life. “Goddamnit, you can’t do this to me!”

Grinning, Smoke reached out and plucked the top hat from the ground beyond the man’s head and put it on his own. “You won’t be needing this. Oh. And boys, skin him out of that coat. It would be a shame to have it messed up with a lot of blood.” Smoke raised the tomahawk.

Screaming in a banshee wail, the thug lost consciousness. Smoke turned his attention to the wounded hard case. One look at his unconscious comrade loosened his tongue readily.

“Look, I don’t know everything. Not where we’re gonna meet. Only that it is to be tomorrow. Clyde an’ the others have the money. We’re to take it to a bank in North Platte.”

“What happens to it there?”

The thug looked at Smoke Jensen with growing terror. “I don’t know. If—if Joe’s still alive, you’ll have to ask him.” He nodded toward the supine hard case.

“He’s alive.” Smoke rose and went to where Thunder stood, munching grass. He took his canteen and stepped over the insensible man. He unscrewed the cap and poured a stream down into the slack face.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Joe coughed, spluttered and jerked back into the real world. His first conscious act was to reach up frantically and feel both ears. Without giving the man pause to enjoy his relief, Smoke Jensen came at him again.