Cunning of the Mountain Man (7 page)

They tore at their shirts and trousers in an effort to escape their torment, unmindful of the danger. Most of the others had already bellied down in the dirt.

“Over there!” came a frightened cry as another blossom of gray rose from the hillside.

This time, one of Quint Stalker’s gunnies went down with a bullet through his right thigh. He flopped and cursed and moaned in the dust, while his companions skittered off to find better cover. One outlaw hanger-on with better foresight had brought a long-range Express rifle. He unlimbered it from its scabbard adjusted the sight, and took aim. After levering three rounds through the Winchester, he had to acknowledge that only a fool would have stuck around after the second shot. He’d wasted the ammunition.

When the sniper fire did not resume after five minutes, the possemen picked up the remains of their breakfast and fell into their routine. A crack-whisper of sound above their heads turned faces upward, to receive a shower of shredded leaves. Right on the tail of the high round, another snapped into camp and split the cross-tree of a pack saddle.

Once more, everyone dove for cover. One pudgy townsman didn’t take as much care as his comrades, and paid for it with the heel of one boot. The howl he put up might have convinced someone his foot had been shot off.

“Goddamn you, Smoke Jensen!” Sheriff Jake Reno roared, shaking a fist above the boulder behind which he sheltered. A .45-70-500 Express bullet whipped past his knuckles, close enough to feel its heat. He gave a little yelp and hunkered down.

This time no one moved for fifteen minutes. Two of Stalker’s hard cases came out in the open first. “We’d best go look for a trail,” one opined.

“What for? It’d only lead to an ambush,” the other outlaw complained.

“Damn you, men, you’re my deputies now, and you’ll do as I say,” Reno raved. “Get on your horses and go out there and hunt down Smoke Jensen.”

“
Temp-orary
deputies, Sheriff,” the reluctant one reminded Reno. “And right about now, I’m figgerin’ that short time has runned out.”

“You’re not leaving,” an unbelieving Sheriff Reno gasped.

“Reckon to. I sure ain’t gonna stand around and git shot at by a man who don’t miss lest he wants to.”

“You’re cowards, that’s what you are.”

Eyes narrowed with sudden anger, the hard case faced off with the sheriff. “Now, I don’t ’zactly take kindly to that, Sheriff. Y’all want to back up them bad-mouthin’ words with gunplay?”

Ooops!
Sheriff Reno suddenly realized he had gone too far. “Ah—ummm, no, not at all. I spoke out of hand, gentlemen. Go if you want. Besides, I need someone to take a message to our mutual friend.”

“You mean Quint?”

Sheriff Reno winced. “Uh . . . tell him what’s going on, and have him send some more men.”

“Don’t reckon he’ll be able to do that. We’ve got other irons in the fire.”

“Damnit, man, nothin’s more important than stopping Smoke Jensen. Just carry the message, and I’ll be satisfied.”

“Sure ’nuff, Sheriff,” the grinning hard case responded as he headed for his horse.

He made it three-quarters of the way there, before a bullet from Smoke Jensen took him in the mean point of his left shoulder. Little pig squeals came from skinned-back lips, along with bloody froth from a punctured lung as he went to the ground.

“Oh. Sweet . . . Jesus!” Sheriff Reno shouted to the sky. And to those around him it sounded like a prayer.

Smile lines crinkled around Smoke Jensen’s gray eyes, and the corners of his mouth twitched. After this, those townies would be afraid to drink anywhere in the mountains. Of course, it would be hard on anyone who happened on the stream before it washed clear.

He’d left the carcasses out to bloat and ripen in the sun for two days. They had become so potent, that Smoke needed to cover his face with a wet kerchief to cut down the stench. Even then, it near to gagged him when he rigged the rope that held them in the water. He made sure it was easy to see.

A final look around the clearing by the stream, and he got ready to leave. Carefully, Smoke wiped out any sign of his presence as he departed. Within a minute, only the muted echo of a soft guffaw remained of the last mountain man.

“What’s that awful smell?” a townsman asked of Sheriff Reno.

“Smells like skunk. Mighty ripe skunk,” the lawman replied.

“It’s coming from the crick,” one of Quint Stalker’s outlaws advised.

“Skunks don’t take baths,” another contradicted.

“Hey, there’s a rope hangin’ down over the water,” another shop clerk deputy declared. “Somethin’s on the end of it.”

Three of Stalker’s men rode over to investigate. One dismounted and bent over the bank. He turned back quickly enough, his face a study in queasiness.

“ ’Fore God, I hate that Smoke Jensen. He’s put three rotten skunks in the water.”

“Three skunks?” the sheriff echoed.

“Three
rotten
skunks. Flesh all but washed off of ’em, guts all strung out.”

Gagging, retching sounds came from a trio of townies. Faces sickly green, they wobbled off into the meadow to void their stomachs. One finished before the others and turned back to the sheriff, who sat his horse with a puzzled expression.

“We—we drank from that crick not half a mile back. Filled our canteens, too.”

A couple of Stalker’s hard cases began to puke up their guts. Those affected wasted no time in remounting. They put heels to the flanks of their animals and fogged off down the trail in the direction of Socorro. Sheriff Jake Reno remained gape-mouthed for a moment, the slight wound on his hindside stinging from the sweat that ran down his back, then bellowed in rage. “Goddamn you, Smoke Jensen! I’m gonna kill you, you hear me? I’m gonna kill you dead, dead dead, Smoke Jensen!”

* * *

While Smoke Jensen frazzled the nerves of the posse, five hard-faced men paid a visit to the Widow Tucker and her three small children. Their leader, Forrest Gore, had been barely able to stay in the saddle on the long ride out from Socorro. Jimmy Tucker saw them first, and the smooth, hard-callused soles of his bare feet raised clouds as he darted from the barn to the rear of the house.

“Some more bad guys comin’, Maw,” he shouted as he banged through the back door.

Martha Tucker looked up from the pie crust she had been rolling out, and wiped a stray lock of hair from her damp forehead with the back of one hand. The effort left a white streak. “You know what to do, Jimmy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy replied.

He stepped to the kitchen door, put his little fingers between full lips, and blew out a shrill whistle. Rose and Tommy Tucker came scampering from where they had been playing under a huge alamogordo. A stray breeze rattled the heart-shaped, pale green leaves of the old cottonwood as they deserted it.

“Into the loft,” their mother instructed.

Without a protest or question, the smaller children climbed the ladder to where all three youngsters slept. Rose covered her head with a goose-down quilt. Big-eyed, Tommy watched what went on downstairs.

“Hello the house,” Forrest Gore called in a bored tone. “We mean you no harm. They’s five of us. May we come up and take water for our horses?”

“You can go to the barn for that,” Martha said from the protection of a shuttered window.

“Thank ye, kindly. Though it’s scant hospitable of ye.”

“Hospitality is somewhat short around here of late. If yer of a mind to be friendly, when you come back, I’ll have my son set out a jug of spring water for your own thirst, and a pan of spoon bread.”

“Now, that’s a whole lot nicer. We’re beholden.” When the five returned, Jimmy had placed the offered refreshments on the small front porch and withdrawn behind the door. The hard-faced men ate hungrily of the slightly sweet bread, and drank down the water to the last drop. When the last crumb of spoon bread had been disposed of, Forrest Gore glanced up to the window; he knew he was being watched.

“Mighty tasty. Say, be you Miz Tucker?”

“I am.” Curt answers had become stock in trade for Martha Tucker.

“Then I have a message for you. You’ve forty-eight hours to pack up and get off the place.”

“I thought I’d made it plain enough before. We are not leaving.”

“Oh, but you got to now, Miz Tucker. Ya see, yer late husband rest his soul, sold the ranch the day he was murdered by that back-shootin’ scum, Smoke Jensen. No doubt he was killed for the money he carried.”

“I don’t believe you.” Martha Tucker had opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

“ ’Fraid you’re gonna have to, Miz Tucker,” Forrest Gore replied with a polite tip of his hat in acknowledgement.

“Not without proof. Lawrence didn’t take the title deed with him to town. He couldn’t have sold, and he didn’t have any intention of doing so. Now please leave.”

“Sorry you see it that way, Miz Tucker. But we got our orders. Forty-eight hours, not a second more. Pack what you can, and get out. The new owner will be movin’ in direc’ly.”

“We won’t budge until I see the bill of sale and a transfer of title.”

Gore’s face stiffened woodenly and his eyes slitted. “That’s mighty uppity lawyer talk, comin’ from a woman. A woman’s place is to do as she’s told. Might be your health would remain a whole lot better, if you’d do just that.”

“Meaning what?” Frost edged her words.

“Your husband’s done already got hisself killed over this place. Could be it might happen to you next.”

“Jimmy.” Tension crackled in the single word, as Martha reached back through the open door.

Her son handed her a Greener shotgun, which she leveled on the center of Forrest Gore’s chest. Deftly, she eared back both hammers. “Get the hell off our land. And tell whoever sent you that next time, I’ll shoot first and ask questions after. My oldest son’s a crack shot, too. So there’ll be plenty of empty saddles.”

Gore blanched white in mingled fear and rage. “You’ll wish you’d done what’s right . . . while you still had the chance.” He mounted with his gaze fixed on the barrels of the scattergun. Nothing worser than a woman with a gun, he reminded himself in a sudden sweat. Astride his horse he cut his eyes to his men. “Let’s ride.”

Smoke Jensen knew a man could not drive a bear. Not even a big old brown, if one could be found in these desert mountains. But antelope and deer could be herded, if a fellow took his time about it. Through all the days of his travels in the Cibola Range, Smoke had often cut sign of deer. Now he set out seriously to locate a suitable gathering.

His search took only three hours in the early morning. He counted some thirty adult animals, a dozen yearlings, and a scattering of fawns. They would do well for what he had in mind. Slowly he closed on the herd got them ambling the way he wanted.

It took all the skill Smoke Jensen possessed not to spook the deer and set them off in a wild stampede. A little nudge here, another there, then ease off for a while. So long as they only felt a bit uncomfortable grazing where they stood, they would remain tractable. By noon he had them out of the small gorge where he had found them.

“Easy goes,” he reminded his mount and himself.

By putting more pressure on the herd leader, he got them lined out up a sloping game trail toward the crest. That, Smoke knew, overlooked the main trail. And that’s where he wanted them any time now. The wary animals heard the approach of other humans before Smoke did. He nudged the creatures out into a line near the top of the ridge, then left the rest in the hands of Lady Luck.

With a whoop, Smoke set the deer into a panicked run. They boiled over the rim and thundered down the reverse slope. Alerted by the pound of many small hooves, the posse halted and looked upward. Dust boiled up through the pinon boughs, and a forest of antlers jinked one way, then the other.

Before they could recover their wits, the outlaws and townsmen who made up Sheriff Reno’s posse became inundated by the frightened animals. The stricken beasts bowled several men off their horses, set other mounts into terrorized flight. Four townies wailed in helpless alarm, and abandoned the search for Smoke Jensen right there and now.

“Aaaawh . . . shiiiii-it!” Sheriff Reno howled in frustration, as a huge stag fixed his antlers on the lawman’s cavorting pony and made a spraddle-legged advance.

Sheriff Jake Reno’s eyes bulged, unable to cut away from that magnificent twelve-point rack. Somehow, he knew Smoke Jensen had been behind the appearance of the deer. The grand stag pawed the ground again and snorted, hindquarters flexed for a lunge. Sensing the menace, Sheriff Reno’s mount reared, forehooves lashing in defensive fury. It spilled the lawman out of the saddle.

He landed heavily on the sorest part of his posterior, and howled like a banshee. Alarmed, the stag lurched to one side and joined its harem in wild flight. An echo of mocking laughter bounded down from above. Sheriff Reno looked around to find that fully half of the remaining posse had deserted him. That left him with little choice.

He pulled in his horns.

Only eleven men remained with the posse when the corrupt lawman gave up his search for Smoke Jensen and turned back toward Socorro. Smoke watched them go. Faint signs of amusement lightened Smoke’s face as he gazed down a long slope at the retreating backs. One leg cocked over the pommel of his saddle, he reached into a shirt pocket for a slender, rock-hard cigar, and struck a lucifer on the silver chasing of his saddlehorn.

A thin, blue-white stream of aromatic smoke wreathed the head of Smoke Jensen as he puffed contentedly. Walt Reardon had thoughtfully provided the cigars among the other supplies the hands had obtained when they planned to get Smoke out of the Socorro jail. These were of Italian origin and strong enough to stagger a bull buffalo.

Not exactly Smoke’s brand of choice, it would have to do, he reckoned. And he would have to make tracks soon. South and west would best suit. That would put him closer to Arizona, when Ty Hardy and Walt Reardon brought word from Jeff York.

Smoke Jensen had met Jeff York a number of years ago. The young Arizona Ranger had been working undercover against the gang and outlaw stronghold of Rex Davidson, same as Smoke. When each learned the identity of the other, they joined their lots to bring down the walls of every building in Davidson’s outlaw town of Dead River, and exterminate the vermin that lived there. As he rode down out of the northern reaches of the Cibola Range, Smoke Jensen recalled that day, long past . . .