Cunning of the Mountain Man (23 page)

“We’ll give them half an hour, then ride in,” Smoke informed the others.

Two second-rate hard cases sat their horses at a point where wood rail fences and a cattle guard kept livestock from wandering the streets of Socorro. One of them jolted out of a doze at the sound of approaching riders. He tipped up the brim of his hat and peered into the wavery heat shimmer of midday.

“More guns on the way,” he remarked to his companion. “You’d think we were going after an army.”

“Hell, Mike, for twenty dollars a day I’d take on ol’ Gen’ral Sherman hisself.”

“No denyin’ the money’s good.” Suddenly Mike’s spine stiffened him upright, and his hand went to his gun.

“Damn! That one in front’s Smoke Jensen!”

“Yer seein’ things,” his partner contradicted. He just knew Smoke Jensen would never be within ten miles of Socorro.

Mike whipped his six-gun clear of leather. In the time it took for him to reach the hammer, his intended target had spoken and drawn his gun.

“Your friend’s right, you know.”

“Awh, hell.”

The last thing Mike saw was the beginning of a spurt of smoke from the barrel of the .44 aimed at him. He died so quickly, he didn’t fall off his horse. Smoke Jensen’s second bullet hit the other would-be gunfighter somewhat lower. It ruined his liver and spine on the way out. He pitched to one side and landed with a heavy
plop
.

“So much for taking anyone by surprise,” Smoke complained as he and the Rangers rode past the dead men.

Halfway down the block, a trio of lean, gaunt-faced men stepped into the street to block the way. “That something personal between you an’ Mike?” the one in the middle asked. Then he saw the silver badge on the vest of Jeff York. “Awh, damnitall,” he bemoaned his fate as he drew against the Arizona Ranger.

Jeff shot him with the Winchester in his right hand. The other two scattered. They threw wild rounds behind them, as they made for the nearest saloon. Jeff grunted and put his free hand to his left shoulder. It came away bloody-fingered. Jeff brought the rifle to his right shoulder then, and took careful aim. His bullet shattered the offender’s ankle and put him on the ground.

Smoke’s second slug shattered a kerosene lamp beside the door through which the last gunman dodged. The Rangers spread out, weapons at the ready. Smoke and Jeff continued toward the barroom. Jeff York stuffed a neckerchief under his shirt front, to sop up the blood from the deep gouge cut in the meat of his shoulder point. Glass crunched under their boot soles, when they dismounted and stepped up on the boardwalk. Smoke and Jeff entered through the batwings together. They found themselves facing nine outlaw guns.

Five of those roared at once. Showers of splinters erupted from the door frame and lintel. One bullet went by so close to the ear of Smoke Jensen, that it made more of a hum than a crack. Smoke already had one of the shooters on the floor, doubled over the hole in his belly. Jeff York had a second gunhand down, crying really sincere tears over his ruined left hip. Then the remaining four six-guns exploded into life.

Smoke Jensen had dived to one side and flattened a felt-covered poker table, scattering chips, cards, and players in all directions. He did a forward roll before the table came to rest, then bounced to one knee, flame spitting from the muzzle of his six-gun. At short range, a .44 slug does truly awful damage to human flesh. Smoke’s round hit a thick, hard-muscled belly, with a
splat
like a baseball bat striking a whole ham.

His target gave a hard grunt and looked down stupidly at the hole where his fifth shirt button used to be. “Jeez, Mister, who is it killed me?” he asked weakly.

“Smoke Jensen,” the owner of the name told him.

Then Smoke was on the move again. He jumped over a man who had only then come off the sawdust from his upset chair. The move saved his life. The hard case they had chased into the saloon leveled a round at where Smoke had knelt. All it killed was a fly on the faded, pale green wall. The gunhawk gaped at his act of minor mayhem, and paid for it with his life as Jeff York shot him down.

One of his comrades in murder reeled backward into the bar, blood gushing from a neck wound he had received courtesy of Smoke Jensen. The bodies continued to pile up at an incredible rate, the bartender, Diego Sanchez, noted. He sat on the floor behind two full beer barrels, and watched the slaughter in reverse through the mirror. It was a technique barkeeps learned early on in their profession, or they didn’t have long careers.

A stray slug shattered a decanter and sent shards of thick crystal shrapnel flying. They in turn broke half a dozen cheaper bottles, and inundated the bartender’s apron with bourbon, rye, and tequila. Taking a bath in booze came with the territory also, Diego Sanchez knew from experience. 
¡
Por Dios!
His Conchita would make him sleep in the hammock between the palo verdes again.

Suddenly it got eerily silent in the saloon. Not a boot sole scraped the floor. No one could be heard breathing. No glass shards tinkled. Even the echoes of gunshots had died out. Slowly, Diego Sanchez sucked in air. He raised himself slowly until his eyeballs came above the top of the bar. Four men faced one another from opposite ends of the mahogany. Two he knew; Logan and Sloane, gun-fighter trash that had drifted into town three days ago.

The other pair wore badges, a U.S. Marshal and an Arizona Ranger.

“It’s your choice,” the Marshal said tightly.

Jesus, Maria y Jose
, he was a big one. Diego moved back from the bar, until he pressed against the shelf behind.

“You ran that thing dry,” Logan drawled nastily. “Now I’m gonna ventilate that tin star of yours.”

“You know, I think you’re right,” Smoke Jensen told him, as he threw the .44 in the air and instantly snatched the second one from its left-hand holster. The hammer dropped on the primer before Logan could react and yank his trigger. Smoke caught the flying six-gun left-handed, at the same moment his bullet punched a hole through Logan’s chest. The gun in the Ranger’s hand blasted a second later and downed his man.

“Jesus, Smoke, I didn’t think anyone could do that,” Jeff York said in awed tones.

Smoke?
Smoke Jensen? Diego Sanchez sucked in air and crossed himself. Then he slowly lowered his head below the bar. As though spoken from far away, his words reached the ears of Smoke Jensen.

“
Vereso nada
,
Señor
Jensen
.”

“He said ‘I saw nothing,’ ” Jeff translated.

“Yeah. I caught that. I think we’re through here, Jeff.” Then, with a chuckle, “
Adios
,
Señor
cantinero.”

“
Conosco nada, nad
a,” came a weak reply.

Diego Sanchez might have been willing to see and know nothing, but that didn’t go for the swarm of hard cases and two-bit gunslingers who thronged the streets of town. They damn well wanted to know what was going on in the
Cantina La Merced.
They didn’t like what they found when the batwings swung outward. Smoke Jensen and Jeff York had reloaded and met the gathered gun-slicks with six-guns roaring.

“This town is out of bounds for your kind from this minute on,” Jeff York bellowed over the sound of gunmen panicking. Half a dozen of them were foolhardy enough to resist. Two of them died instantly. One of them shot the hat off Smoke Jensen’s head and bought an early grave for his efforts.

“On the balcony over there, Smoke,” Jeff shouted.

Smoke pivoted to his left and sent another wannabe gunfighter off to hell. The gunman staggered forward and tripped over the railing. He did a perfect roll in the air on the way down. The other lawmen had spread out along the main street, and began herding surprised hard cases off benches and out of saloons, prodding them toward the jail. By that time, Jeff had drilled a second resister in the shoulder.

“Jeff, drop!” Smoke shouted the warning as a gunhand popped up from behind a rail barrel and aimed at Jeff York’s back.

Jeff went down, and the bullet fanned air where he had been standing. A fraction of a second later, a .44 slug from Smoke Jensen’s iron flattened the back-shooter against the wall of the Mercy Cantina. The corpse left a long, red smear down the whitewashed stucco, as he slumped beside a cactus in a large terracotta pot.

Hot lead cracked through the air around Smoke then. He moved swiftly across the street, charging the shooter instead of fleeing. The mountain man’s six-gun bucked one. The gunslinger stiffened, then his knees buckled. Smoke had already turned away.

None of the original, six foolish gunslingers remained on their feet. Smoke cut his eyes to Jeff and nodded down the block to where the volume of fire had increased noticeably. “I think Tallpockets and the boys could use some help,” Smoke suggested.

“Then, let’s go see,” Jeff agreed, shoving fresh cartridges into his still-hot Colt.

Some twenty gunfighters and assorted saddle trash had banded together and taken over a bank building. Its thick fieldstone walls made it into a fortress. The structure stood alone, an island at an intersection, which allowed the Rangers to completely surround it. When Smoke Jensen and Jeff York arrived, the occupants hotly exchanged shots with those outside.

“I reckon they have the Tuckers in there,” Smoke allowed.

“Won’t they be in danger?” Jeff asked.

“Most likely they’ll be somewhere safe. Probably in the cellar, if there is one. Dead hostages don’t make good bargaining chips.”

On the roof, the head and shoulders of a hard case appeared. He apparently wore all black, and had a full-flowing walrus mustache in matching color. He put a Ranger down with a bullet in the side. While he ducked down behind the stone verge and cycled the action of his rifle, Smoke Jensen didn’t even break stride. His hand dropped smoothly to the .44 at his side, which came free of leather with a soft whisper. When his left boot sole next struck the street, the weapon barked in Smoke’s hand.

Above, behind the low stone parapet, the gunman’s hat took sudden flight, along with a gout of blood and brains. Jeff York stared at his friend in open amazement. Smoke pointed with the smoking barrel of his Peacemaker.

“There’s a narrow crack right . . . there. I just waited until his black hat blotted out the light.”

“That was one steady-handed shot,” Jeff complimented. Smoke merely shrugged and sought another target. When the volume of fire increased even more, Jeff looked toward the north end of town. “Any time now,” he observed.

“Them damn Rangers ain’t even supposed to be over here,” one lanky gunfighter from Arizona declared, as he fired an unaimed shot into the street. “They ain’t got no juri—jures—they ain’t the law in New Mexico!”

“You see that slowin’ down the lead they’re punching at us?” growled an exceptionally short, bushy-headed gunslick with thick, gold-rimmed glasses.

“Shut up, Bob,” the Arizonan snapped.

Glass tinkled like chimes as more windows took fire from the Rangers. Gradually, over the roar of gunfire from both sides, the men inside the bank heard the rumble of hooves and thin, high-pitched yelps. Bob cut his eyes upward at the slender Arizonan.

“What the hell’s that?”

“Sounds . . .” The gunfighter cocked his head and concentrated. “Sounds like Injuns.”

“What Injuns would that be?” Bob challenged.

“By god, it sounds like Apaches. I’ve heard enough of them to last a lifetime.”

“What are they doing over here?” Bob gulped. “Are they attacking the town?”

Arizona Slim edged to a window on the north side of the bank lobby and peered out. “No. Oh, hell no! I can’t believe this. They—they’ve joined the damned Rangers. They’re comin’ after us!”

Outside, the Rangers checked their fire as the Apaches swarmed through their cordon and flung themselves directly at the shot-out windows of the bank. The Arizona lawmen began reloading, while the men led by Cuchillo Negro raced closer, firing bent low over the necks of their mounts. Three dived through shattered sashes with stone-headed war clubs held high.

Muffled gunshots came from inside, and the screams of dying men. A second wave hit the stone building, and a lance hurtled through an opening to pin Bob to a desktop; bloody froth accompanied his screech of agony. With the Apaches rampaging inside, the Arizona Rangers charged the building.

Once the lawmen got in close and mixed it up with the gunhawks, all resistance ended quickly. When the survivors had been rounded up and secured in manacles, Smoke Jensen and Jeff York made a thorough search of the cellar. They came up with no sign of the Tucker family. But Smoke did find Payne Finney, hiding in a coal bunker.

“The Tuckers? Where are they?” he demanded of the thoroughly demoralized Finney.

“They aren’t here. Never have been. I don’t know where Stalker told Gore to take them,” Finney lied smoothly.

Smoke clasped Finney by one shoulder, his thumb boring into the entry wound from a .44-40 round. Finney squirmed and grunted. “You wouldn’t figure to try to run a lie past me now, would you?” he asked Finney in a calm, level tone.

“No—no. I’m serious. I don’t know where they took them. I’ve been here all the time.”

“He’s right,” a surly member of the Stalker gang supported Finney. “He’s been in town like the rest of us. We never heard anything about the Tuckers.”

Smoke cut his eyes from Payne Finney to Jeff York. “Case of the right hand not lettin’ the left know?” he asked.

“Could be. Where do we start from here?”

“Back at the ranch.” Jeff groaned as Smoke went on. “The trackers I set out should have something by now. It’s not your fault, Jeff. I figured, too, that they’d want to take ’em to some neutral ground to arrange terms.” Jeff brightened. “There’s only one place makes sense. We can save a lot of time, if we ride direct for the B-Bar-H.”

“That fits. But I want to hear what the trackers say first. And we do have these prisoners to take care of. After that, we’ll ride.”

Half a dozen hard cases had ridden out of Socorro as the Rangers thundered into town. From a safe distance they had watched the roundup develop, heard the gunfire raise to a crescendo, and then watched in horror as a horde of Apaches swarmed into town. Then they lit out for the B-Bar-H.