Cunning of the Mountain Man (18 page)

“How do you mean?” Benton-Howell demanded. “When the shooting stopped, all but two of your working hands rolled their blankets and departed. They don’t like being shot at.”

Benton-Howell blanched. “Damn them! Cowards, the lot. Oh, well, they were only fit for nursing cows anyway.”

“One does not run a ranch without someone to nurse the cows, £como no?” Selleres softened his chiding tone to add, “I can lend you some men, until you can hire more. Or clear up this difficulty with Smoke Jensen.” “Thank you, my friend.” Benton-Howell clapped Selleres on his uninjured shoulder. “Now, I want the—ah—other hands to assemble outside the bunkhouse. Tell those hired guns of Quint Stalker’s to hunt down Smoke Jensen and kill him, or don’t come back for their pay!”

Much to his discomfort, Forrest Gore had to deliver orders to the hard cases hired on to do Benton-Howell’s dirty work. With the boss gone, leadership devolved on Payne Finney, who had sent him out to take over the boys in the field. Finney was making slow progress in his recovery from the pellet wounds given him by Smoke Jensen. If he could speak honestly, Finney would prefer to have nothing further to do with Smoke Jensen. Absolute candor would reveal that he feared the man terribly.

With good cause, too, Payne Finney told himself as he sat in the study of the B-Bar-H, covering ground already talked out with Geoffrey Benton-Howell. He had never seen a man so skillful that he could divide a shot column between two targets. Benton-Howell’s next words jolted him.

“I don’t care if you have to use a buggy. I want you out there looking for Smoke Jensen.” Half of the influential men he had gathered at the ranch had failed to return after the shooting ended. It put a damper on the conviviality of those who remained. He hadn’t even been able to broach the subject of cutting away a portion of the White Mountain Apache reservation.

“I take my orders from Quint, the same as all the others,” Payne began to protest. “I’m still weak from being shot. I doubt the men would do what I told them.” Benton-Howell's fist hit the tabletop like a rifle shot. “They had damned well better! Stalker isn’t here now. You give the orders; I’ll see they are obeyed.”

Payne Finney winced at the pain that shot from the knitting holes in his lower belly as he came to his boots. He accepted the finality of it with bitterness. “I’ll do my best.”

Half an hour later, Payne Finney rode out of the B-Bar-H on the seat of a buckboard. His face burned with the humiliation of being reduced to such a means of transportation, and for being talked down to like some lackey on the mighty lord’s tenant farm. His saddle rested in the back, along with supplies he carried for the men searching for Smoke Jensen. His favorite horse trailed behind, reins tied to the tailgate. With effort, he banished his resentment and thought of other things.

If Finney had his way, Smoke Jensen would be run to ground in no more than two days. After all, the man was flesh and blood, not a ghost. He had to eat and sleep and eliminate like any other man. And Payne Finney had brought along the means of ensuring that Smoke Jensen would be found.

Seated right behind him, tongue lolling, was a big, dark brindle bloodhound. All they would have to do is find a single place Smoke Jensen had made camp, and put the beast on his trail. That’s why Finney gave the ambitious estimate of two days. He raised himself slightly off the seat, and his right hand caressed the grip of his .44 Smith and Wesson American.

“Goodbye, Smoke Jensen, your butt is mine,” he said aloud to the twitching ears of the horses drawing the wagon.

Forrest Gore had his own ideas about finding Smoke Jensen. “It’s goddamned impossible,” he declared to the five men gathered around a small pond in the Cibola Range.

“Smoke Jensen camped here last night. We all know that,” Gore lectured to his men. “Then he rode out to the west early this morning.”

He was wrong, but he didn’t know it yet. Ty Hardy had spent the night there, and ridden back to the Tucker Ranch shortly before first light. Two of the hard cases, suspecting that they chased the wrong will-o’-the-wisp, muttered behind gloved hands. A minute later, Smoke Jensen proved them right.

With startling effect, a bullet cracked over their heads and sent down a shower of leaves. Forrest Gore jumped upright and hugged the bole of a tree, putting its bulk between him and the direction from which the slug came. Then the sound of the shot rippled over the mountain slopes.

“We been set up,” another gunhawk announced unnecessarily. “That’s Smoke Jensen out there, and he’s got us cold.”

“I’m gettin’ out of here,” the fourth man announced.

“No! Wait,” Forrest Gore urged. “Keep a sharp eye. When he fires again, we can spot where he is, split up, and close in on him.”

Vern Draper snorted in derision. “By the time we get there, he’ll be gone.”

“Yeah, an’ firin’ at us from some other place,” Pearly Cousins added.

Forrest Gore gave their words careful consideration. They had been hunting Smoke Jensen for the better part of two weeks now. With always the same results. The bastard was never seen, and they got shot at. Maybe it wasn’t Smoke Jensen at all? With a troubled frown, Gore worked his idea over out loud.

“What if that’s not Jensen at all? What if it’s one of those hands of his, who broke up the lynch mob? It ain’t possible that he was down in San Antonio and leadin’ you fellers around by the nose up here in the Cibolas at the same time.”

“I don’t think it was him down there,” Cousins opined.

“Who else could do in four of our guys, and send Charlie Bascomb runnin’ with his tail ’twixt his legs?” Gore challenged. “I say we’re lookin’ in the wrong place. I say we leave whoever it is up here to hisself, and head south.”

“You better clear that with Quint,” Vern Draper suggested pointedly.

“Quint’s busy elsewhere. Payne sent me out here to help you find Smoke Jensen. I think he’s clean out of the area. So, we go where he is.”

Another round from the Express rifle of Smoke Jensen convinced the others to follow the rather indistinct orders of Forrest Gore.

Later that day, Smoke Jensen met with Jeff York and the hands from the Sugarloaf. They sat around a table in the bunkhouse at the Tucker ranch, cleaning their weapons and drinking coffee. Smoke made an announcement that caught their immediate attention.

“Looks like the searchers are being pulled out of the mountains. I think it’s time to pay another visit to the B-Bar-H.”

Jeff produced a broad grin. “I sorta hoped you’d do that. I want to pay my respects to Sir Mucky-muck.”

They rode out half an hour later. Ty and Walt went deeper into the Cibolas, to track and harass the hard cases with Gore. Also to determine where they might be headed. Smoke and Jeff covered ground at a steady pace.

An hour before nightfall, they reached the tall, stone columns with the proud sign above that declared this to be the B-Bar-H. Smoke studied the fancy letters a moment. Then he cut his eyes to Jeff.

“I think this is a good place to start,” Smoke declared.

He loosed a rope from his saddle, and Jeff did the same. It took them only a minute to climb the stone pillars and affix their lariats to the edges of the sign. Back in the saddle, they made solid dallies around the horns, and walked away from the gateway. When the ropes went taut, the metal frame began to creak and groan. Smoke Jensen touched blunt spurs to the flanks of his roan stallion, and the animal set its haunches and strained forward.

Jeff York did the same, with immediate results. A loud crash signaled the fall of the wrought-iron letters. Badly bent and twisted, the B-Bar-H banner lay in a cloud of dust, blocking the entrance road. Smoke and Jeff retrieved their lassos and chuckled at their mischief, as they cantered off over the lush pasture grass. The rest of Smoke Jensen’s plans contained nothing so lighthearted.

* * *

Geoffrey Benton-Howell had learned one thing from the attack on his headquarters. Smoke Jensen located the first night guard while a magenta band still lay on the mountains to the west. He signaled Jeff to ride on to their chosen spot, and put a gloved index finger to one eye to sign to keep a lookout for more sentries. Then he walked his roan right up to the guard.

“Who are you?” the surly hard case asked, a moment before Smoke Jensen drew with blinding speed and smacked the hapless man in the side of his head.

Well, perhaps they weren’t all that much smarter than those he had encountered before. At least this one recognized a stranger when he saw one. Smoke dragged the unconscious outlaw from the saddle and trussed him up. He pulled the man’s boots off and stuffed a smelly sock in a sagging mouth. Then, with the empty boots fastened in the stirrups, he smacked the rump of the gunhawk’s mount and sent it off away from the house.

A short distance further, he found another one, similarly done up by Jeff York. Smoke smiled grimly and rode on. A roving patrol of two came into sight next. Smoke Jensen eased himself out of the saddle and slid through the tall grass. When the horsemen drew nearer, Smoke rose to the side of one silent as a wraith. Sudden movement showed him Jeff York likewise engaged.

One startled yelp came from an unhorsed hard case before Jeff had him on the ground and thoroughly throttled. Smoke’s man made not a sound. Smoke came to his boots after tying the sentry, and waggled a finger at Jeff.

“Sloppy. He made a noise.”

“Sorry, teacher,” Jeff jibed back. “I’ll do better next time.”

“Might not be a next time before we’re in position. I’d like to put them all down, before we start shooting.”

“That’ll take some time,” Jeff observed.

“That’s why we came early.”

Smoke drifted off to recover his horse. Jeff York swore to himself that he had not even seen his friend start away. For a moment he had a flash of pity for the men they would encounter this night. Then he said softly to himself, “Nawh.”

A quarter hour went by before Smoke found another night guard. The man sat with his back to a tree, eyes fixed on the higher ground away from the ranch house. Somewhat brighter than the others, Smoke reasoned. He had no reason to suspect someone coming from behind him. Too bad.

Easing up to the tree, Smoke bent around its rough bark and popped the unaware sentry on the head with a revolver barrel. It took only seconds to secure tight bonds. Then Smoke Jensen slipped on through the night. There would be a moon tonight. Smoke had taken that into consideration.

He and Jeff would fire and move, fire and move, until each had exhausted a full magazine load. Then time to leave, before the silver light of the late-rising half-moon made them too easy to see. All in all, he anticipated making life even more miserable for Geoffrey Benton-Howell.

* * *

Windows had been reglazed in most of the downstairs portion of the two-story frame house. Yellow lamplight spilled from one, as Smoke Jensen eased into a prone firing position on the slope above. He sighted in carefully, with the bright blue-white line of the burning wick resting on the top of his front sight. Slowly he drew a deep breath, let out half, and squeezed the trigger.

With a strong jolt, the steel butt-plate shoved his shoulder as the Winchester Express went off. While Smoke came to his boots, he listened for the tinkle of glass. It came seconds later, followed at once by sudden darkness within the house as the lamp exploded into fragments. An outraged voice wailed after it.

“Goddamnit! Jensen’s back,” Geoffrey Benton-Howell raged in the darkness.

While Smoke moved to his second location, Jeff let off a round from the opposite side of the house. Yells of consternation came from the bunkhouse, as the thin wall gave little resistance to a .44-40 slug. Grinning in the starlit night, Smoke dropped into a kneeling stance.

“Get in here, somebody! Damnit, this place is on fire,” came a yelp from a now frightened Benton-Howell.

“
Tien paciencia, amigo
,” Miguel Selleres called out.

“Have patience, hell! I’ll bum up in here.”

An eerie new light glowed in the ruined window. It flickered and grew in intensity as Smoke Jensen sighted in once more, this time on the door across the room. He put a round about chest-high through the oak partition. A muffled scream came from the hall beyond. It served to notify Benton-Howell that he had a fat chance of getting out that way.

Smoke Jensen was already at a steady lope through the trees, when the remaining glass in the sash tinkled and Geoffrey Benton-Howell dived through to escape the flames. Smoke stopped abruptly and fired a round into the pool of darkness directly below the window. A howl that blended into a string of curses told him he had come close, but not close enough. Jeff York shot twice this time, and dumped a man in the doorway of the bunkhouse with a bullet in one leg.

“Don’t get overconfident, Jeff,” Smoke whispered to himself.

From the position he had selected earlier, Smoke put a .45-70-500 round through a second floor window. At once, he heard the alarmed bellow of a man, nearly drowned out by the terrified shriek of a woman. His shoulder had begun to tingle. He knew from experience that it didn’t take too many cartridges run through the big Winchester, to change that sensation to one of numbness. Three rounds left in the magazine tube.

Smoke wanted to make them count, so he swiftly changed positions. On an off chance, he put the next bullet through the outhouse at about what he estimated would be an inch or two above head high on an average man. He was rewarded with a howl of sheer terror as a man burst out the front of the chicksale, his trousers at half-mast. Legs churning, the Levis tripped the hard case and sent him sprawling. Two cartridges to go, then Smoke would meet Jeff where they had left their horses.

Unexpectedly a target presented itself in Smoke’s field of fire. A huge man, barrel-chested, thick-shouldered, arms like most men’s thighs, hands like hams, barreled around the corner of the house and snapped a Winchester to his shoulder. He fired blindly, the slug nowhere near Smoke Jensen or Jeff York. Cursing, he worked the lever rapidly and expended all eleven .44-40 rounds.

Sprayed across the hillside, the next to the last found meat in horseflesh. Jeff York’s mount squealed in pain and fright, reared, and fell over dead on its side. Anger clouded Smoke Jensen’s face.