Heart of the Mountain Man (15 page)

19

Big Jim Slaughter stood in the center of the valley at the hole-in-the-wall with his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage.

Several men were rolling bodies into a large, common grave and shoveling dirt and rocks over them. Another group of men, the outlaws who planned to stay in the hole-in-the-wall through the winter, were cutting logs and sawing limbs, working feverishly to repair the cabins destroyed in the fight.

Slaughter shook his head. “Damn! I'd give a hundred dollars to find out who Carson found up here to help him do this,” he said.

Whitey, standing next to him, scowled. “My money's still on that gunny Johnny West.”

Slaughter cut his eyes to his second in command. “I don't know, Whitey. It'd take a man with powerful
cojones
to come up here, kill half my men, and then stay in town when he'd have to know we'd come lookin' for whoever did this.”

“Man'd have to be a damn fool to hang around after that,” Swede said, “an' West don't look like no fool to me.”

“Sheriff Pike didn't have no ideas?” Whitey asked.

Slaughter snorted through his nose. “Sheriff Pike ain't exactly on our side in this matter, boys. While he don't bother us none as long as we stay out of his hair, that don't mean he's all that anxious to help us. He did tell me Carson and his wife got on the first train out of Jackson Hole the morning after the attack, headed east. I'm sure they're headed back to that jerkwater town where he's sheriff.”

Swede glanced at the group of men standing near a fire in the center of the compound, drinking coffee and warming their hands on the flames. The weather was turning steadily colder and snow flurries were becoming more and more common as the days passed. “You figure these extra men you hired are gonna do us any good?” Swede asked.

Slaughter followed his gaze. “Some of 'em are all right; some of the others are just gonna be cannon fodder.”

“How many men we got total now?” Whitey asked.

“Close to thirty, thirty-five,” Slaughter answered. “A few will probably drop out along the way to Colorado. It figures to be a hard trip, what with the weather turning so fast.”

Swede nodded. “Yeah. It won't be so bad on the flatlands, but gettin' through the passes might be tough if we get a blizzard or two.”

“How about supplies?” Slaughter asked Whitey. “You manage to get what we need in town?”

Whitey nodded. “Yes, sir. Every man has a rifle and at least one pistol. We got two wagons of foodstuffs and extra ammunition, along with some dynamite and gunpowder in case we need to blast our way into that town Monte Carson lives in.”

Swede's brow furrowed. “You really think we're gonna have to tree Big Rock, Boss? Far as I know, ain't no western town ever been taken from the outside before.”

Slaughter's face got a stubborn look on it. “We'll do whatever it takes to get Carson and get our money, Swede. If it means burning Big Rock to the ground, then we'll put fire to the town an' flush the bastard out.”

“You think it'll come to that, Jim?” Whitey asked.

The outlaw shook his head. “No, I doubt it. I don't figure any town's gonna let itself get burned to the ground to protect an ex-outlaw an' his money. Once we let 'em know what's gonna happen if they don't give him up, they'll give us Monte faster'n you can spit.”

Swede nodded. “I sure hope so. I don't hanker to kill a bunch of innocent women and children just to get Carson's hide hung on a barn door.”

Slaughter turned hard eyes on Swede. “I really don't give a damn what you ‘hanker' to do, Swede. When the time comes, you'll do what I tell you to do, is that clear?”

“Sure, Boss,” Swede said, his eyes dropping. “I didn't mean nothin' by what I said.”

Slaughter shook his head and walked away, toward the men by the fire. “Come on, boys, let's go start gettin' the men ready to ride. We got a long way to go and we need to stay ahead of the weather.”

* * *

On the ridge overlooking the hole-in-the-wall, Pearlie lay on his stomach behind a large blueberry bush and peered at the activity through binoculars. Cal lay next to him, watching over his shoulder.

“What're they doin', Pearlie?” Cal asked.

“Just standin' there jawin', it looks like.”

“I see a couple'a wagons over to the side.”

Pearlie shifted his binoculars to take a look. “Uh-huh. It appears they're full of guns an' food an' stuff like that.”

“So they are gettin' ready to head to Colorado, just like Smoke said.”

“Yeah, looks like Smoke had Slaughter figgered right. He's plannin' on goin' after Monte an' his money, all right.”

“You reckon we should head back to Jackson Hole, or stay out here and see what they do?”

Pearlie paused a moment, thinking. “It don't look to me like they gonna be goin' back to Jackson at all. They already got all their supplies, so I guess we ought'a plan on campin' up here in the woods so's we'll know when they take off.”

Cal stepped back from the ledge to where he couldn't be seen from below and glanced at the sky. “Looks like snow in them clouds. It's gonna get mighty chilly up here come nightfall, Pearlie.”

Pearlie nodded. “Yeah, an' we won't be able to make no fire neither, or else they'll see it.”

Cal gave a halfhearted smile. “I guess that means you're gonna miss a meal, Pearlie. You think yer stomach can take goin' twenty-four hours without being stuffed plumb full?”

Pearlie glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “What makes you say that? 'Fore we left Jackson Hole, I had Aunt Bea fix us up a mess of fried chicken, some sinkers, an' I bought a couple'a cans of sliced peaches. We may freeze our butts off, Cal, boy, but we shore as hell ain't gonna go hungry.”

Cal grinned. “I should'a know'd you had some food stashed somewheres or else you'd never've left Jackson Hole.”

“Like Smoke always says, Cal, you gotta learn to plan ahead or else you'll git caught with your pants down.”

A loud snapping sound from the forest nearby brought both men to their feet.

“What was that?” Cal asked.

Pearlie put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Sounds like we got company comin'.”

Just as he finished talking, four men walked out of the brush, axes and saws over their shoulders. Evidently they were part of the crew of men cutting timber to repair the cabins down below.

“What the hell?” the man in the lead said, pulling up short with a surprised look on his face.

The man following him bumped into him, stumbling and dropping his ax.

The six men stared at each other for a moment, all of them too surprised to move at first.

“Take it easy, boys,” Pearlie said. “We're just a couple of miners up here looking for gold.”

“Bullshit!” the first man said, his hand dropping toward his pistol. “You're the men who shot us up the other night.”

Pearlie crouched and filled his hands with iron, while Cal took one step to the side to give the men less of a target to shoot at and drew his Colt Navy .36-caliber pistol.

Pearlie and Cal got off the first shots, taking two of the men in the chest and blowing them backward into the other two, knocking them all to the ground.

Pearlie thumbed off another shot, hitting one of the men on the ground in the forehead, exploding his head in a red mist of brains and blood and bone.

Cal's second shot took the fourth man in the shoulder just as he fired. The force of the blow threw the outlaw's aim off and his bullet tore into Cal's left thigh with a loud smack, spinning the young man around and throwing him to the ground.

As the man eared back his hammer for another shot, Pearlie put lead between his eyes, putting his lights out forever.

Pearlie rushed to Cal's side and leaned over him. “Cal, you all right, boy?”

Cal rolled over and sat up, his face covered with sweat from the shock of being shot. He pulled his leg up and looked at where the bullet had torn a hole in his pants and burned a shallow groove along the outside of his thigh.

His face paled and he looked as if he was about to faint. “Yeah, I guess so. He just winged me.”

Pearlie shook his head. “I should'a know'd it. It's been over a month since you got shot the last time. You were past due, boy,” he said, grinning with relief and teasing Cal about the number of times he'd been wounded in the past.

Cal's eyes fluttered and he took deep breaths to keep from passing out. “It was just a lucky shot,” he moaned.

Pearlie stepped behind him and put his hands under his arms, lifting him to his feet. “Nevertheless, we got to git goin'. Them gunshots is gonna bring Slaughter an' his men up here like bees buzzin' round a nest with a stick poked in it.”

Cal gingerly put his weight on his injured leg, grimacing with pain as he took off his bandanna and tied it in a knot to slow the bleeding. “You go get our horses an' I'll be there in a minute.”

When Pearlie brought their mounts, Cal walked around and got on from the right side, his left leg unable to pull him into the saddle.

“Come on, Cal,” Pearlie said. “We got to make tracks around the mountain to the other side where we can find some cover. They gonna be searchin' for us 'fore long.”

Cal nodded, leaning over his saddle horn and holding on for dear life, trying his best to stay in the saddle. He knew if he passed out he was as good as dead.

* * *

In the valley below, Slaughter jerked around at the sound of gunshots on the ridge above them, his hand automatically going for his pistol.

When he realized they were not under attack again, he began to shout orders. “Whitey! Get some horses saddled and get some men up on that ridge and find out what the hell's goin' on!”

“Yes, sir!” Whitey shouted back, motioning to several men by the fire to follow him as he ran toward the corral.

“Goddamn!” Slaughter growled, putting his pistol back in its holster. “It's probably the same men who were here the other night.”

“Maybe we should'a kept the sentries doubled up, Boss, 'stead of cuttin' 'em back to one man at each station,” Swede said, his eyes scanning the mountainside, looking for any movement.

Slaughter glared at him, knowing Swede was right but resenting the implication that he himself had made a mistake. “You know we were short of men after the attack, Swede,” he snarled.

Swede, realizing his mistake in questioning his boss's orders, nodded quickly. “That's right, Boss, an' who would'a figgered they'd hit again so soon?”

Mollified a bit by Swede's statement, Slaughter turned and watched as Whitey and five men rode up the narrow trail leading to the ridge where the shots were heard.

In less than thirty minutes, Whitey came back down the trail alone.

He rode over to Slaughter and got down off his horse.

“What happened up there?” Slaughter asked.

“Four of the men cutting timber for the cabins were shot and killed,” Whitey said. “From the tracks, it looks like two men were lying up there watching us and were surprised by the other four.”

“Four to two and all four of our men were killed?” Slaughter asked, his face doubtful.

“Yes, sir. But it looks like they managed to put lead in one of 'em, 'cause there's blood on the ground where their tracks were.”

“Blood but no body?”

Whitey nodded. “I've got the boys tryin' to track 'em down now. With any luck, they'll find 'em and kill 'em.”

Slaughter snorted. “Huh, if I had any luck they'd already be dead.” He pointed his finger in Whitey's face. “I don't want those men back in camp until they find and kill these bastards. It's probably part of the same bunch who attacked us the other night.”

Whitey looked upward at the ridge. “Yeah, it's the same place they fired from before.” He looked back at Slaughter. “What I'm wonderin' is, how'd they get up there without our sentries knowing about it?”

Slaughter's eyes narrowed. “There must be a back way up there that don't go by our sentry posts. That's the only way I can figure it.”

“What are we gonna do about it?” Whitey asked.

Slaughter shrugged. “Nothing. It won't matter after tomorrow, 'cause we'll be on our way to Colorado.”

20

Halfway down the back side of the mountain, on the opposite side from the hole-in-the-wall, Pearlie found a cave hidden among a group of granite boulders.

He dismounted and pulled his pistol, warily walking into the cave entrance. “Phew,” he called to Cal, “smells like a bear crawled in here and died.”

From his saddle, Cal said, “Be careful, Pearlie. Now's the time of year fer bears an' such to hibernate. Liable to be a big ol' grizzly in there just settlin' down fer winter.”

“If'n there is,” Pearlie replied, “it's gonna git awful crowded in here, 'cause we got to find a hole to crawl in 'fore those
bandidos
come after us.”

When he disappeared into the black hole of the entrance, Cal shucked his Winchester rifle from its saddle boot and cradled it in his arms, ready to fire if Pearlie came running out of the cave with a bear on his trail.

After a few moments, Pearlie reemerged, taking a deep breath of fresh air. “Nothin' in there but some old bones. Looks like a bear had his dinner in there an' decided it weren't time for the long sleep just yet.”

Cal rebooted his rifle and climbed painfully down from his saddle. His leg felt like it was on fire, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

“Come on,” Pearlie said as he grabbed the reins to the horses. “Let's see if we can get these mounts to go in there.”

When they smelled the acrid bear-scent, both horses reared back and fought their reins, wanting no part of a dark place that smelled of a carnivore as large as a grizzly.

After some coaching and lots of heavy pulling, the boys finally managed to get the horses into the cave and back to where it opened up at the rear. There was a hat-sized opening in the rocks above that let a little sunlight and some welcome fresh air into the cavern, so the horses calmed down a little, helped some by handfuls of grain handed out by Cal.

“You try to get the broncs settled down and I'll go sweep our tracks and put some deadfall around the entrance,” Pearlie said. “With any luck, the outlaws won't find us.”

“And if our luck don't hold an' they do?” Cal asked.

“Then we'll blast hell out of 'em an' take as many with us as we can.”

While Cal was trying to get the horses completely calmed down, Pearlie took a pine limb and used it like a broom to sweep away all tracks leading to their hiding place. After he was finished, he moved piles of fallen branches and limbs to the front of the cave, hiding the entrance from sight.

In less than an hour, the two men could hear sounds of horses and men outside the cave. Cal stayed in the rear, his hands on the noses of their mounts to try and keep them from whinnying or making any other sounds, while Pearlie took his rifle and lay on his belly just inside the entrance, peering through branches at the outside.

Five outlaws rode down the narrow trail through the piney woods, rifles and shotguns cradled in their arms. Pearlie could hear them joking about what they were going to do to the men who'd killed their friends.

“I jest hope we can catch 'em alive, so's we can string 'em up over a fire and roast their asses off,” one of the men growled.

“I don't care if'n we git 'em alive, just so's we git 'em. Slaughter'll have our butts if'n we come back without them bastards,” another replied.

“Well,” yet another added, “I ain't seen no sign of tracks nor nothin' fer the last hour, an' it shore looks like we gonna git a blizzard 'fore long.” He shook his head, glancing at the sky, which was overhung with dark, roiling clouds blocking the sun and causing the temperature to drop rapidly.

“I vote we head on back 'fore we git trapped up here an' freeze our balls off.”

The first man nodded. “Yeah. If those men are up here, they gonna die in the blizzard without no cover to git to. We can tell Slaughter there just ain't no way they could survive out here when the snows come.”

There was a general mumbling of agreement, and the group of searchers jerked their mounts' heads around and headed back the way they'd come.

Only when they were out of sight and Pearlie couldn't hear them any longer did he let himself breathe a sigh of relief.

He walked back to the rear of the cave, and heard Cal talking in a low voice to Cold and Silver. Pearlie smiled. The boy did have a way with horses, he thought.

“Good work keepin' them animals quiet, Cal,” he said. “I think they've given up on findin' us.”

“Then we can get out of here an' head on back to town?” Cal asked, a hopeful gleam in his eye.

Pearlie shook his head. “Nope. Looks like there's a helluva storm brewin' out there. It wouldn't do fer us to get caught in it halfway to town, an' we still got to keep an eye on these bastards till they leave so's we can warn Smoke.”

Cal wrinkled his nose. “I don't know if'n I can stand to spend the night in here, Pearlie. I cain't hardly breathe with the bear-stink so strong.”

Pearlie shrugged as he walked to his saddlebags and took out a bag of fried chicken and biscuits and canned peaches. “Suit yoreself, Cal, but if'n you go out there tonight, I'm gonna have to build a big fire in the mornin' to thaw yore frozen butt out. It's gettin' mighty cold an' it ain't even dark yet.”

Pearlie opened the bag of chicken and pitched a leg to Cal. “Here. I know you likes the legs the best.”

Cal took a bite and as he chewed, he asked, “You got enough sinkers fer both of us?”

Pearlie pursed his lips. “I dunno. There might be one or two I can spare.”

* * *

Slaughter was furious when the search party returned and reported they'd caught no sight of whoever killed the four men on the ridge.

“Goddammit!” he screamed, fire in his eyes. “There ain't no place to hide up there on the mountain. How could you not find any sign of them?”

Billy Bob Justice, the man in charge of the search, hung his head, not wanting to look at Slaughter. “I don't know, Boss. They just seemed to disappear. One minute they's tracks as plain as day leading around the mountain, an' the next they was gone with no trace.”

“And you say it looked like there was only two of 'em?”

“We only found tracks of two hosses.”

“What about the blood trail?” Slaughter asked.

“It went for about a hundred yards, then it petered out too,” Justice said. “We figgered they's gonna freeze to death if they stay up there on the mountain with this blizzard that's comin'.”

“Damn! I'm surrounded by fools,” Slaughter yelled as he turned and walked toward the fire. He stood there a moment, warming his hands and thinking.

After a moment, he looked up at the sky as large, wet snowflakes began to fall. “All right, I guess it can't be helped.” He turned to Whitey, who was standing next to him.

“Whitey, get the men ready and pack up our gear. I want to leave at first light, if this damned storm is over by then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We need to get movin' before those men have a chance to get back to Jackson Hole and get reinforcements to come attack us again.” He glanced around at the valley of the hole-in-the-wall. “Right now, we're easy targets down here since our sentries don't seem to be able to stop 'em.”

“Yes, sir, I'll get the men ready,” Whitey said.

“I just wish I knew who it is that's doggin' us,” Slaughter said.

“Once we get on the trail, I'll have men watching our back trail to make sure they don't follow us an' surprise us along the way,” Whitey said.

Slaughter nodded. “That's a good idea, Whitey. At least someone around here is thinking besides me.”

He turned to Swede. “It might even be a good idea to leave a few men behind to set up an ambush, catch those bastards with their pants down if they try to trail us.”

Swede nodded, his face grim.

“Swede, pick five men you think are pretty good with their guns. After we get five or six miles down the trail toward Colorado, you look for a likely spot for an ambush and get those men set up. We'll teach those sons of bitches not to mess with Big Jim Slaughter.”