Trail of the Mountain Man (20 page)

At the far end of town, Bull Flager was holding his own and then some, the old gunfighter Crooked John Simmons by his side, both gnarled hands full of Colts. Bull's shotgun roared and Crooked John's pistols belched death with each cocking and firing.

“Let's go!” Smoke shouted, and began falling back. He stepped into Ed's store just as one of the drunken TF riders reared up, a pistol in his hand.

Smoke shot him in the chest with the sawed-off and the gunnie died amid the corsets and the bloomers.

Running out the back, Smoke got his horse and swung into the saddle. He cut into an alley and came out just on the far edge of Fontana. With the reins in his teeth, both hands full of guns, Smoke galloped straight up the last few blocks of the boom town now going bust. Johnny North was right behind him and Louis Longmont just behind Johnny. Bull and Crooked John were waiting at the end of town, rifles in their hands, and their aim was deadly.

The five gunfighters took a fearful toll on Tilden Franklin's gunhands those last few blocks.

Most of the gunnies were busy with a bucket-line, trying to keep the raging fires contained at one end of town. Smoke, Johnny, and Louis rode right through the bucket-brigade, guns sparking the fiery night, adding death and confusion to the already chaotic scene.

Louis, Johnny, and Smoke sent the gunhands-turned-firemen running and diving and sprawling for their lives. Most made it; a few did not.

Louis knocked a leg from under a TF gunnie and the man fell backward, into the raging inferno. His screams were hideous in the fiery, smoky, gunshot-filled night.

Tilden Franklin stood in the best suite of the hotel and watched it all, his hate-filled eyes as hot as the flames that threatened to consume the town. He turned to the small woman who had been the sole property of Big Mamma and, in his rage, broke the woman's neck with his powerful hands.

He screamed his hate and rage and picked up the naked, ravaged woman and threw her body out the second floor window.

The young woman lay dead on the street.

Then, with slobber wetting his lips and chin, Tilden Franklin emptied his guns into the battered body.

“I'll kill you, Jensen!” the man howled. “I'm gonna burn your goddamned town to the ground and have your woman ... right in front of your eyes!”

The old gunfighters who had ridden to the TF ranch house lay on the ridges that surrounded the huge home and made life miserable for those TF gunhawks who had survived the initial attack.

The moon was full and golden in the starry night skies, the illumination highlighting the bodies of those gunnies who now lay sprawled in death on the grounds surrounding the bunkhouse and the main ranch house.

Those trapped in the bunkhouse and in the main house were not at all happy about their situation. Several had thought the night would cover them as they tried to escape. Those with that thought now lay dead.

“What are we gonna do?” a TF gunslick, who felt more sick than slick, asked.

“Hold out ‘til the boss gets back,” was the reply. “There ain't that many of 'em up there on the ridges.”

“Yeah, but I got me a peek at who they is;” another paid gunhand said. ”That's them old gunfighters. And I think I seen The Apache Kid 'mong 'em.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. Nobody had to. They were all thinking the same thing. Toot Tooner and Red Shingletown had already been spotted, briefly. Now the Apache Kid. They all knew what that meant: these hard ol' boys didn't take prisoners. Never had. They expected no quarter, and they gave none.

“I ain't goin' out there, boys,” a gunman said. “No way.”

“I wish to hell someone had told me this Jensen feller was raised up by Preacher. I'd have kept my butt up in Montana.”

“He ain't so good,” another said.

Nobody paid any attention to him. The man was speaking without any knowledge of the subject. He was too young to have any real awareness of the legendary Mountain Man known as Preacher. If he had, he'd have kept his mouth shut.

“So we wait, is that it?” The question was thrown out of the darkened room.

“You got any better ideas?”

Silence, and more silence.

Even with only the sounds of their breathing to be heard, none of the TF gunhands could hear the moccasined feet of The Apache Kid as he slipped through the kitchen and into the large dining area. Sutter Cordova was right behind him. There had been a guard at the back door. He now lay on the porch, his throat cut, his blood staining the ground.

Both men had their hands full of pistols, the hammers jacked back.

“Something is wrong!” a TF gunslick suddenly said, his voice sharp in the darkened house.

“What?”

“I don't know. But there ain't a shot fired in more 'un fifteen, twenty minutes.

“Maybe they pulled out?”

“Sure they did, and a hog is gonna fly any day now.”

Apache and Sutter stepped into the room and started letting the lead fly. They were grateful to Smoke Jensen for giving them this opportunity to go out as gunfighters should. They had all outlived their time, and they all knew it. They had no one to live for, and no one to grieve for them when they died.

They were a part of the West's rapidly vanishing past. So they would go out as they lived.

The room filled with gray smoke, the booming of Colts and Remingtons deafening.

The Apache Kid died with his back to a wall, his hands full of guns. But the old man had taken a dreadful toll while he had lived this night.

Sutter Cordova went into that long sleep with a faint smile on his lips. His guns empty, the gunfighter buried his knife into the chest of a TF gunhawk and rode him down to the floor.

When the booming of the gunfire had faded away into the night, the other aging gunfighters walked slowly down to the big house. They checked out the bunkhouse and found no life there.

Carefully, they went into the house and lighted a lamp. They found one TF rider alive, but not for long.

“You old ... bastards played ... hell!” he managed to gasp.

“You got a name, boy?” Dan Greentree asked, squatting down beside the young man.

“It ... don't matter.” He closed his eyes and died.

“Funny goddamn name,” Red Shingletown said.

 

 

“We'll bury them in the morning,” Smoke said. “I'll come back into town and bring the minister with me.”

“What'd y'all do with the dead TF gunnies?” Luke asked.

“Left 'em where they lay,” Red replied. “Let somebody else worry with them.”

“ 'Pache and Sutter both tole me they was a-goin' out this run,” Luke Nations said. “ 'Pache had a bad ticker and Sutter was havin' a hard time passin' his water. It's good they went out this way. I'm right happy for 'em.”

“You're happy your friends died?” Hunt asked, his robe pulled tightly around him against the night chill.

“Shore. That's the way they wanted it.”

The lawyer walked away, back to his cabin. He was thinking that he would never understand the Western way of doing things.

“Peg Jackson?” Louis asked.

“Physically, not hurt too badly,” Belle Colby said. “But like my Velvet, she's not good in the head. She said they did terrible things to her.”

Belle walked back into the store where they had set up a hospital.

“Monte?” Bull asked.

“He's in rough shape, but the Doc says he thinks he's gonna pull through.”

“How about Ed?” somebody finally asked, although few if any among them really gave a damn how Ed was.

“He's all right,” Haywood said, joining the group. “He's bitching about losing his store. It's just his way, gentlemen. And he'll never change. He's already talking of pulling out.”

“He don't belong here,” Charlie Starr said, lighting a tightly rolled cigarette. “This country's still got some rough and woolly years ahead of it. And it's gonna take some tough-minded men and women to see it through.”

“What's the plan, Smoke?” Louis asked. “I know you've got one. You've been thinking hard for about an hour now.”

“I'm gonna get a few hours sleep and then get the preacher. After the services, I'm riding into Fontana and get this matter settled, one way or the other. Anybody who wants to come along is welcome to ride.”

 

 

They left the graveyard at nine o'clock the next morning. They had said their goodbyes to The Apache Kid and Sutter Cordova, and then those that had family to worry about them said their goodbyes to womenfolk and kids and swung into the saddle.

They left behind them some heavily armed hands who worked for Beaconfield and Mike Garrett, but who were hands, not gunhands, and half a dozen teenagers who were excellent shots with a rifle. In addition, Hunt, Colton, and Haywood were armed with rifles and shotguns. All the Western women could shoot rifles and shotguns as well as, and sometimes better than, the men. Mike, the big bouncer, was there, and well as Wilbur Mason, Dad Weaver, and Billy. The general store had been turned into a fort in case of attack.

Twenty-eight men rode toward the town of Fontana. They had guns in leather, guns tucked behind gunbelts, guns stashed in their saddlebags, and rifles and shotguns in saddleboots.

Smoke had warned them all that even though the previous night's raid into Fontana had taken some TF riders out, they were probably facing four or five to one odds, and anyone who wanted out had damn well better speak up now.

His words had been met with a stony silence.

Smoke had nodded his head and pulled his hat brim down low, securing the chin strap. “Let's ride.”

There had been no stopping Ralph Morrow. He had stuck out his chin, picked up his Henry rifle, and stuffed his pockets full of cartridges. “I'm going,” he had said. “And that's final.”

The men trotted their horses for a time, and then walked them, alternating back and forth, eating up the miles.

Then they looked down on the town of Fontana ... and stared at the long line of wagons that were pulling out.

Smoke looked at Silver Jim. “Find out about that, will you, Jim
^?
”

Silver Jim rode down to the lead wagon, talked for a moment, then rode back to where Smoke sat his horse with the others.

“Big Mamma's dead,” Silver Jim said. “She stormed into a saloon last night, after she learned that Tilden Franklin had raped and killed her ... wife. Tilden ordered her hanged. They hung her slow. That feller I talked to said it took a long time for her to die. One of Big Mamma's girls tried to run away last night. Tilden's gunslicks caught her and ... well, done some per-verted things to her, then they dragged her and set her on far. Tilden personal kilt Beeker at the store. Then his boys had they way with his wife. She set up such a squall, they shot her.”

“Dear Jesus Christ!” Ralph muttered.

“Them people down there,” Silver Jim said, pointing to the line of wagons, “is near-bouts all that's left of any decent folks, and some of them would steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes. That's how bad it's got down in town.”

“So Tilden and his men are waiting for us?” Smoke asked.

“Dug in tight.”

“Proctor didn't come back, did he?”

“They didn't say and I didn't think to ask.”

Smoke stepped down from the saddle and said, “Let's talk about this some.”

Dismounted, the men sipped water from canteens and ate a few biscuits and some beef packed for them before they pulled out.

“If we go in there,” Smoke said, “we're going to have to take the place building by building, and like Silver Jim said, they're dug in and waiting. The cost, for us, will be too high.”

“What choice do we have?” Luke said.

“Well, let's talk about that,” Mike Garrett said. “We could wait them out while someone rides for the Army.”

“No!” Ralph said, considerable heat in his voice.

“You want to explain that, Ralph?” Johnny said.

“Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a minister,” the man said. “There is violence and hate in my heart. Anyway, it is my belief that people like Tilden Franklin should not be allowed to live. Back East — and I know, that's where I'm from — lawyers are already using the insanity pleas to get killers off scot free. And it's going to get worse. Let's not start a precedent out here.”

“A what?” Johnny asked.

“Let's not let Tilden Franklin go free,” Ralph said.

All present loudly and profanely agreed with that.

“There is another way,” Smoke said.

“And that is?” Louis asked, knowing full well what was coming.

“I challenge Tilden Franklin. Best man with a gun wins.”

“No,” Louis said. “No. Tilden Franklin is a man totally without honor. Basically, he is a coward, a backshooter. He'd set you up, Smoke. No to your plan.”

And all agreed with Louis on that.

“Well,” Moody said. “We could burn the bastards out.”

“How many days since we've had rain?” Smoke asked. “Too long. That's why Tilden ordered his men to put out the fire last night instead of concentrating on us. We can't risk a grass fire. Feel this hot wind? It would spread faster than anyone could contain it.”

Charlie Starr grinned. “Besides, ol' tight-fisted Ed Jackson would probably sue us all for destroying his goods.”

All the men enjoyed a tension-relieving laugh at that.

“Well, boys,” Pistol Le Roux said, “that don't leave us with too gawddamned many options, do it?”

The men turned to tightening saddle cinches. They knew the discussion was over.

Hardrock swung into the saddle and looked at his friends. “You know what my momma wanted me to be?” he asked.

They stared at him.

“An apothecary, that's what.”

Toot Tooner climbed into the saddle. “Shit, I wouldn't let you fix up nuttin' for me. You'd probably mix up something so's I couldn't get a boner up.”

Sunset laughed. “Hell, you ain't had one in so long it'd probably scare you to death!”

The men swung their horses toward Fontana, lying hot under the sun and wind.