Ordeal of the Mountain Man

“No!” the thug screamed. “I ain't gonna die!” Wildly, he threw a shot over his shoulder.

He turned to face his opponent, raised his revolver to put the man away. Then a bright, white light dazzled him, and immense pain assailed his gun hand. He stared in horror. No one could be that fast.

Then a rocklike fist slammed into his stomach. He started to double over, only to be straightened up by another enormous pain in his chest. He wound up on his back, staring up at Smoke Jensen holding a Peacemaker in a steady, level grasp.

The hard case used the last of his breath to ask his most pressing questions. “Wh—what are you, Jensen? Who are you?”

A tiny mocking smile lifted the corners of Smoke Jensen's mouth. “Some people have called me the gunfighters' gunfighter.”

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Dust rose like a brown shroud around the rumps of a long string of shiny coated horses as they trotted, tails high, away from the lush pastures of Sugarloaf, Smoke Jensen's ranch. Smoke and a dozen hands, including Utah Jack Grubbs, Jerry Harkness and Luke Britton, had set out to drive a herd of two hundred remounts north to Fort Custer on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. It would turn out to be a much longer and harder journey than Smoke would have believed, becoming a grueling ordeal for Jensen and every man with him.

At the lower pasture fence, Sally and young Bobby Jensen sat their mounts and waved at the departing backs. Sally thought uneasily of the many times Smoke had ridden away on far more dangerous missions. Over the nearly ten years they had been married, after Smoke's first wife and son were brutally murdered, Smoke had strapped on six-guns, and frequently a badge, and had gone off to right the wrongs done to himself, or more often to others, even strangers. Smoke didn't see himself as any sort of Robin Hood, though he had read the legends as a youth, learning from the old mountain man, Preacher, what he had abandoned when he strayed from his parents' wagon as a half-grown child. The family had been bound for the Northwest Territory when he got lost in the wilderness.

Sally had first seen Smoke Jensen as a ruffian, a barbarian a
gunfighter.
She was teaching school at the time. Smoke came to town and cleaned out a gang of gun trash and saddle tramps, leaving a wide wake of bodies along the way. At first, his blood-thirsty conduct disgusted and frightened her. She had soon learned better, when he rescued her from the clutches of the gang boss. After that, she knew him as a tall, handsome man with longish, reddish brown hair and a ready smile. Now, she brushed aside such reflections and thought about the three hands who rode with him.

Jerry Harkness had been with Smoke, ever since he changed from cattle ranching to raising blooded horses. Jerry knew more about horses and their ailments than most veterinarians. He had grown up on a Thoroughbred farm in Kentucky. Lean and tall, Jerry was in his mid-twenties, with the bowed legs of a jockey, his muscles bunched and corded. He was, as their cook, Zeke Thackery, put it, smack-bang loyal. Jerry rode for the brand and would die for it if need be.

Another cut from the same mold was Luke Britton. A year or two younger than Jerry, he was an easy-going, even-tempered young man with a high school education, which was an exception for the times. Barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, he was frequently mistaken for a bare-knuckle boxer. Which he wasn't, but he could hold his own, much to the regret of many a proddy drifter who challenged him. Luke was a man to ride the river with.

Jack Grubbs was a short, bow-legged, salty horse expert with a checkered past. When the Sugarloaf foreman had interviewed him only three months earlier, he had been troubled enough by what he learned to turn Jack over to Smoke to question. Later, after he had hired Grubbs, Smoke told Sally that Jack had been in prison. A streak of wildness in his youth, Utah Jack had explained, which he had outgrown. Recalling his own past, Smoke had said that all Jack needed was a chance to redeem himself. For some reason, that now came back to give her a cold shiver along her spine. She shook it off and turned to their adopted son.

“Come on, Bobby. We might as well ride back to the house. We won't see them for two months,” she added with a sigh. How she would miss her beloved Smoke, she thought as she brushed a lock of black hair back behind an ear.

Bobby wrinkled his freckled, pug nose and put words to her thoughts. “I'm gonna miss Smoke awfully.” His fourteen-year-old's voice croaked with the awkwardness of change. “I hope nothing happens to them.”

 

 

With Luke and Utah Jack on swing, Pop Walker on drag, Smoke Jensen rode at the front of the trail herd with Jerry Harkness. They headed for Wyoming in a lighthearted mood. Jerry cracked a constant string of Indian-and-Politician jokes.

“D'you hear the one about the politician who went out to explain to the Sioux chiefs about the new treaty? He got out here with an interpreter who translated his words. After each sentence had been put in Lakota, the chiefs would grunt and say, ‘
Unkce!
' He told them how they would be restricted to reservations from now on, and again they said, ‘
Unkce!
' ” Smoke was surprised that Jerry pronounced the word correctly:
OonK' CHAY.
“So this goes on until the end, when the chiefs all tapped their open palms with their eagle wing fans and shouted it three times.

“Then one chief got up and made a short speech. The interpreter told the politician that the chiefs thanked him for his good words and wanted to know if he wished to see some of Sioux life. The politician said that yes, he did. He had always wanted to see a buffalo hunt. It was arranged, and hunters rode out to find the bison while the chiefs and the politician started walking out on the prairie where the buffalo roamed. All of a sudden, the interpreter reached out and grabbed the politician's arm and stopped him from stepping in a big pile of buffalo bull plop, and said, ‘Be careful not to step in the
unkce.'
”

Smoke groaned and held his side; he had heard it before. “Jerry, don't you have anything better to amuse yourself?”

“Oh, sure. Did you hear about the Indian, the settler, and the politician who all died and wound up outside the Pearly Gates?”

“Spare me!” Smoke wailed in mock agony.

 

 

Four days later, six pair of eyes watched while the herd crossed the border from Colorado into the Wyoming Territory. One of the men in the small party, Yancy Osburn, turned to the others.

“That's them, all right. Burk, you ride north and let Hub Volker know they're on the way.”

Ainsley Burk nodded, then asked, “What are the rest of you gonna do?

Osburn pointed to the sleek remounts. We'll follow along, send back reports on their movement.

“Good enough. I'll tell Mr. Volker that.” Burk walked his horse away from his companions in order not to draw the attention of the drovers.

Once out of ear-shot, Yancy turned to the others with a nasty grin. “Well, boys, now that we've got Mr. Rule Book out of our hair, I've got me an idea how to pass our time while those nags move north.”

“What's that?” two chorused.

Yancy gave them a wide wink. “I know of a nice little stagecoach we can rob.”

 

 

Fifty miles northwest, Owen Curtis sat in his saddle, his left leg cocked up around the pommel, eyes fixed on the brown humps of his prize Herefords. He had paid a pretty penny for the first bull and three cows that formed the base of his herd. Over the years, he had added new blood, and his stock increased by nature's decree. Although the bevy was still small, Owen modestly counted himself as a rich man.

By the lights of many who struggled against the hostilities of Wyoming Territory, the severe winter weather, summer drought, and of course always the Indians, Curtis was indeed a wealthy, successful man. The rumble of distant hooves drew his attention to the head of the grazing beefs. Three of his hands kept them in a loose gather, allowing them to move slowly through the grassy meadow, eating their fill, while subtly leading them toward water. Seven riders appeared abruptly over the ridge of the basin, riding hard toward the cattle.

Owen Curtis looked on helplessly, stunned by the sight, as puffs of white smoke blossomed from the muzzles of the rifles the intruders held to their shoulders. Two of his men went down as Owen swung his leg into the stirrup and slid his Winchester from its scabbard. More gunshots crackled through the basin, and the cattle bolted and began to run wildly across the meadow. A half dozen more rustlers jolted down the side slopes of the bowllike pasture and began to turn the cattle back on their frightened fellows.

Curtis took aim and knocked one outlaw from his saddle with a bullet through the chest. He worked the lever action of the Model '73 and sought another target. The only problem was that he had attracted the attention of the thieves. Three cut their horses in his direction and bore down on the rancher. One of them raised a rifle and fired.

A bright, hot pain erupted in Owen Curtis' chest. Debilitating numbness swiftly followed. Owen groaned and tried to line up his sights on the man who had shot him. The other two fired then, and he dimly heard a bullet crack past his head. Sheer whiteness washed through his skull an instant later, and he sagged in the saddle, lost his grip with his knees and slid to the ground.

Immediately, Hubble Volker snapped an order. “Get these snuffies under control and take 'em out of here.”

“Where to, Mr. Volker?”

“Take 'em up to Bent Rock Canyon, Garth. There's plenty pines up there to build a holding corral.”

Garth Evans reacted, predictably, at once. “You mean
work?
Get blisters on our hands?”

Hubble Volker laughed. “Ain't what you had in mind when you joined the Reno Jim gang, is it? Well, when you're countin' your share of the take, you'll forget the broke blisters an' sore muscles.” He turned and shouted across the rumble of hooves to the others. “Get 'em under control. Head 'em up and slow 'em down.”

 

 

With an anticipatory twinkle in his eye, Yancy Osburn watched the steady approach of the stage to Laramie. The heads of the six-up team bobbed rhythmically, and their powerful shoulders churned to draw the heavily laden vehicle forward. It had taken Osburn and his cohorts a day's ride to get in position. Yancy figured the herd of remounts would stay to the main trail, there being plenty of Indians roaming out there if they did not. Now they were about to relieve the Wells Fargo company of a good deal of loot. Osburn made curt gestures, directing his men to position.

He and Smiling Dave Winters remained in the center of the road, a fleshy barricade. The coach disappeared into a dip, and each of the outlaws raised a bandanna to cover his face. Weapons at the ready, they waited for the stage to reappear a scant thirty yards from them.

Pounding hooves, a jingle of harness and the creak of leather springs announced the arrival of the Laramie stage. The heads of the lead pair surged above the draw and gained the level. Quickly the rest appeared, and Yancy made out the driver and shotgun guard. He raised his Winchester and killed the guard before the driver could react to their presence in the road.

With only his six-gun for defense, the grizzled teamster hauled on the reins and applied the brake. The coach swayed to a dusty stop. Immediately the masked outlaws moved in.

 

 

Ansel Wharton had driven stages for Wells Fargo for nine years. In that time he had been robbed eleven times. He knew exactly what to do when he saw the masked bandits strung out along the road and blocking it ahead. Especially when the shotgun guard jolted backward and toppled over the side of the driver's seat. Meekly, all the while fuming inside, he hauled on the reins and brought the coach to a stop. The masked ones, like these, rarely killed everyone, he consoled himself.

“Afternoon,” called the big one in the middle of the road. And Ansel could tell the sneer that had to be under the bandanna by the tone of voice. “We'll relieve you of the strongbox, if you please.”

“What if I told you we don't have one?” He had to do that, company orders.

The bullet-headed outlaw in charge shook his head. “Then your wife would be a widow.”

“Ain't got a wife. She died of the cholera back a ways. Now, let me see, was it in sixty-an'-four, or seventy-two?”

Anger rang in the snarled response. “Quit stallin' and hand it over.”

Facing defeat and knowing it, Ansel shrugged. “I'd be obliged if you let me step down an' you had a couple of your friends remove it. It's a heavy sucker this trip.”

Instantly the outlaw's mood changed. He laughed delightedly. “Mighty nice to hear. Good enough, old man, climb on down. Mind, keep yer hand clear of that hogleg yer packin'.”

“Oh, I been robbed before. An' I know what to do, otherwise I wouldn't be here.”

“There's some of you do learn, I do declare.”

The Jovial Bandit,
Ansel named him mentally. He'd remember the voice. The size, too. This one was a brute, a huge bruiser with broad shoulders, a hefty girth, thick arms and wrists. Looked like he could take on three men at once and not raise a sweat. He worked his way down the small, round, cast-iron mounting steps and walked to the headstall of the lead horse.

“Keep him from spookin', don't ya see?” he explained to the highwaymen.

Yancy Osburn raised a ham hand to the brim of his hat and pushed it back. “Now there's a smart man. Good idee. Keep 'em calm while we relieve you of everything else and ask the passengers for a contribution.”

Ansel hastened to give advise. “There ain't but one strongbox.” He carefully omitted the shipment of gold bars under the backward-facing bench seat inside.

“All right, everybody out of the coach. We forgot to bring any fancy steps, so you'll have to jump down.”

An angry voice of defiance came from an imprudent drummer inside the coach. “You're not going to get away with this.”

His sample case cost a fortune, and he had no intention of losing it. His pudgy hand darted inside his pinstripe suit coat and came out with a nickle-plated Baby Smith .38. Hastily he fired a shot that grazed the shoulder of one of the outlaws to the side of the coach.

A roar of gunfire immediately answered him. Riddled by five bullets, the salesman slumped back in the leather of the seat and bled all over the coach and other passengers. Two women began to shriek and hug one another. Unfazed by the disturbance, Yancy Osburn motioned to the door again with his rifle barrel.

“Everyone out.”

In short time, the passengers had been relieved of their valuables and herded back inside the vehicle. Osburn set two men to unharnessing the horses. Before they left, the outlaws scattered the team. Galloping off with their considerable loot—the gold undiscovered—they cast not a glance at the stranded occupants of the stage.