Rage of the Mountain Man (12 page)

One more step . . . two . . . three, four . . . the rapid current plucked at Smoke’s clothing with invisible fingers. Fifteen feet more and he would be there. Ahead of him, the man’s head disappeared under the rising flood. Smoke rushed a stride and nearly lost his footing.

While Smoke teetered precariously, Luke’s nearly bald pate reappeared. Luke spluttered furiously and choked up a gout of water. “Help me. For God’s sake, help!” he bellowed.

“Hang on. Be there in a second,” Smoke called back.

From beyond the diffuse cone of light, Smoke heard a loud crack as a large branch struck the trestle. A moment later, in midstride, he felt the whole structure shudder from the impact of something against the pilings that supported the bridge platform. Barney and Luke both howled in alarm. Only inches separated Smoke from the brakeman pinned to the 4x4 post by the rushing water. One more step.

Smoke reached out and wound the sodden shirtfront in thick, strong fingers. Fighting the current, Smoke hoisted Luke to his feet. “Hold on to the rail,” he instructed.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” the walleyed Luke spluttered. His knuckles whitened from his grip on the crossrail.

In less than a minute, Smoke fitted the rope around a thick waist and tied firm knots. “Can you walk?” he asked over the roar of the water.

“My legs are numb, but I can move them,” Luke told him.

“Good. I don’t think I can carry you against the current. Let’s go.”

“Ca—can’t you take Barney first?” Luke asked nervously.

“And fight my way back out here again?” Smoke snapped a rhetorical question.

Luke shrugged and made his first tentative step away from the false security of the safety rail. He swayed like a drunken man in the surge of brown water. Smoke steadied him and they made slow progress back toward the edge of the flood. A moment later, when the slack in the line was noticed, two stout crewmen began to haul on it steadily. Another pair began to tug on Luke's rope. It helped, Smoke noted at once.

He signaled for a pause when he reached Barney. “Hold tight, I'll be back when I have your partner on solid ground.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to come with you now,” Barney said with quiet urgency.

“Not enough men to haul on your line and ours, too,” Smoke rejected the idea. “You’d only get swept off your feet again.”

Smoke started off at once. The water had risen to his chest now, over a part of the track that should be in a shallower condition. No sign of a cresting, he thought with growing concern. A few more steps should see them off the trestle. Smoke sensed the fury of the flood draining his stamina. Would he be able to go back for the other brakeman? He’d see when he got this one to safety, he dismissed the worry.

Gravel gave under the sole of his boot. What should have been reassuring only concerned him more. The water level had not yet dropped. He felt less surge from the current, though, which helped. Beside him. Luke made more confident strides. Ten feet closer to the cowcatcher of the locomotive and the swirling surface dropped dramatically to mid-stomach, then to his waist, and then was knee-deep. Smoke breathed easily for the first time since he’d come forward to see the river racing over the trestle.

“One more to go,” Smoke told Drummond as he and Luke stumbled into the welcome of warm, dry blankets.

“You can’t go out there again,” Drummond protested. “We can pull him in from here.”

“And risk drowning him?” Smoke retorted. “Give me a minute to catch up, and I’ll head back.”

“A little nip of brandy to warm you?” Drummond suggested.

“That would help,” Smoke allowed. He took the offered flask and drank deeply. Then, without another word, he stood and strode off into the rampaging torrent.

Smoke returned in half the time. Barney had fared better than Luke in his tumble toward the oblivion of the trestle side. He struck out with as confident a stride as allowed by the current. Once free of the cloying danger of the flood, he sluffed off the rope around his waist and moved with alacrity toward the waiting comfort.

“Mr. Jensen, we’ve decided to wait until the water goes down below the trestle,” Casey O’Banyon, the engineer, informed Smoke as he walked up from the last rescue effort. “No way we can tell the conditions out there until we can see them.”

“Good idea,” Smoke agreed. His two perilous outings on the swaying bridge had changed his mind about hurrying on. “Might be wise to back up a little. That flood hasn’t crested as yet.”

O’Banyon’s eyes widened. “Then there’s more danger?” 

“A whole lot, the way I see it,” Smoke informed him grimly.

Sheriff Monte Carson looked up irritably from the wanted poster on his desk in the Big Rock sheriff’s office. “Now gawdamnit, Victor. It ain’t against the law for someone to make you an offer on yer spread. Thing is, you don’t have to sell if you don’t want to.”

“I suppose you told the others that, too,” Victor Mitchem complained.

Monte stroked both sides of his walrus mustache with a crooked finger. “Yep. The Smiths, the Evanses, Xavier Gomez, an’ Gil Norton. All of them who’ve come so far. Any idea who this Early is fronting for?”

Mitchem shook his head in a negative gesture. “None. He won’t tell us. But I ask you, Monte, is it legal to ask to buy a man’s land with half a dozen gunhawks glaring death-in-a-minute at you all the while?”

“Now, that puts a different light on it,” Monte said, after considering it a moment. “Did any of them make a direct threat?”

“No. Not in so many words. Early said I would be sore-pressed if I refused the offer.”

“What’d you tell him?” Monte probed.

“To go to hell, what do you think?” Victor snapped. “I tell you, you ought to look into this, Monte.”

“I will. I surely will. Damn, I wish Smoke weren’t gone clear th’ hell back East. You have any idea this Early paid a call on the Sugarloaf?”

“Said they’d already done a deal. That’s why Smoke’s gone, he told me.”

“That’s bullshit, Victor,” Monte snapped, his eyes narrowing. “You know Smoke’d never sell the Sugarloaf. Where can I find Early and his hard cases?”

“Don’t know. They come and go. Last I heard, they were off to Rabbit Ears Pass and Steamboat Springs way.” Victor’s face clouded with suppressed anger. “They’ll be back, you can be sure. Told me I could count on it.”

After Victor departed, Monte asked three other angry, obviously disturbed ranchers to hold up a while in his office. He had something to do that couldn’t wait. Alone on the street, not quite sure where he was headed, Monte Carson considered all he had learned in the past three days. Smoke should be made aware of this, that much was obvious. Only Monte didn’t know where to contact Smoke right then. All he had was a destination: Smoke’s father-in-law’s house. Well, it looked important enough; he’d better wire New Hampshire.

The same morning that brought Monte Carson his problems in Big Rock saw the flood waters of the Illinois River greatly receded. Once more, brakemen served as trackwalkers ahead of the big 0-4-0 American Locomotive Works funnel-stack loco. They took along sledgehammers and tested rails and fish plates with solid whacks. Halfway across the trestle, both men showed considerable agitation and shouted back to those watching from the west end of the bridge.

“Not so good,” Casey O’Banyon summed up for Smoke Jensen. “They’ve found a dozen cross-members broken and two pilings smashed out of place.”

“Will the trestle carry the load?” Smoke asked.

“It should, if there’s not a lot more damage,” O’Banyon opined, then he frowned. It wouldn’t go well for him if this important man, friend of the Denver and Rio Grande, were to plunge to his death in a still restless river. “Though I recommend against it.”

Smoke considered that a moment. “We’ve had enough delays as it is. I say so far as the track isn’t warped out of line, we should give it a try. If I may, I’d like to take the throttle until we cross over.”

O’Banyon didn’t like it, yet he saw a way out of dilemma. “I’m sure we can arrange that. In fact, I’m ready to get under way. A little weight on this end of the trestle should tell them what shape the rest is in. Climb aboard.”

Smoke Jensen swung up into the high cab of the huge locomotive and settled himself comfortably, spraddle-legged, on the corrugated steel plates of the floor in the position occupied by the engineer. O’Banyon pointed out controls with which Smoke was already familiar. Satisfied that his pupil knew the rudiments, he gave a curt nod.

“Sure an’ I’ll lose me job for this.” He sighed heavily. “But best be gettin’ underway.”

Smoke grabbed the wooden handle of the steam whistle and drew down on the chain connected to the valve. Raw steam gushed through the brass pipe and erupted out of the whistle, located between the steam dome and sandbox.

With the brake off and the throttle engaged, the drivers spun and then dug in. Slowly the big 4-6-0 edged forward. Gradually the speed increased. Smoke gave a glance to O’Banyon, who sat on the fold-down seat on the left side of the cab. The engineer gave a nod and Smoke pulled on the whistle chain again.

Immediately the trackwalkers cleared the trestle on the far side. That accomplished, Smoke smoothly increased toward full throttle. Creaks and groans came from the stressed timbers of the trestle as the big loco rolled its pilot trucks onto the western edge. The fireman set to work shoveling more coal into the firebox. Smoke Jensen leaned out the righthand window and gazed over the land. The view was terrific. For all the flatness of this land, the high banks of the Illinois River made a plains version of the spectacular gorges of Smoke’s beloved High Lonesome.

Flood waters had receded to a point midway down the sheer bluffs formed in ancient times when melt water from glaciers had caused the river to run brim full all the time. Smoke looked directly forward in time to see a nervous sway of the cowcatcher as the pilot truck delivered the first of six drivers onto the bridge. Two more crewmen used the grab-irons at the rear of the cowcatcher to swing aboard and moved slowly back to the cab on the catwalks above the spinning drivers of the locomotive. They increased their pace as the traction improved and the forward third of the American Locomotive Works 4-6-0 left solid ground for the tenuous security of the trestle.

“Didja feel her settle when the pilot truck rolled out on the bridge?” O’Banyon asked cheerfully.

Smoke nodded and spoke over the hellfire roar coming from the firebox. “I hadn’t expected something like that so soon.”

“Oh, she settles in even at the best of times. Folks ridin’ back there never feel it. First-timers in the cab tend to get set to jackrabbit out the door,” O’Banyon added with a chuckle.

With the entire weight of the locomotive and tender on the trestle, the creaking and groaning grew loud enough to be heard over the chuff of the pistons and constant noise of the boiler fire. The swaying increased also as the baggage and express car joined the power plant. Smoke had to admit to a certain undefined uneasiness.

Then he recognized it. He was risking not only his own life, but that of his beloved Sally. If the bridge collapsed with all the cars on it, none of them would survive. Visions of Sally perishing in the torrent that raced below them made Smoke regret pushing for the attempt to cross. More of the train eeled onto the trestle. At a nod from O’Banyon, Smoke gave the locomotive full throttle.

Near objects began to blur as the train gained speed. The bridge popped and groaned when the pilot truck rolled onto the weakened center span. They passed the midpoint with a frantic, nerve-straining sway when the last car, the one in which Sally must be fretting over the risk, rolled onto the bridge. O’Banyon broke off his distant stare to the front and produced a relieved smile.

“The hard part’s taken care of. Now all we need to do is reach the far side.”

Smoke Jensen forced the grim expression off his face. “You make it sound damned easy. I’ve faced six armed men in a gunfight with fewer butterflies in my gut.”

“B’God, yer that Jensen, right? Smoke Jensen?” O’Banyon blurted. “I thought there was something familiar about you.”

Smoke had to smile. He had long since become accustomed to his notoriety. People whom he’d never met kept coming up to him and speaking with the familiarity of old friends. After all the years he had put between him and his youthful exploits, he wanted to believe it had died down.

“I admit to it,” Smoke allowed.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Sure an’ it’s a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Smoke Jensen. My grandsons will never believe you rode in the cab with me.”

Smoke made no reply. He had his hands full with the speeding locomotive. Right then, the trestle began to shake like a palsied man. Smoke tried to urge more speed out of the laboring engine. He signaled the fireman to put on more coal. The frightened man shook his head and pointed to the steam pressure gauge. Smoke cut his eyes to the white dial. The needle hovered near to the red danger area.

“Do it anyway, damn it,” he shouted over the tumult of the speeding locomotive.

A quick glance at O’Banyon showed Smoke that the situation had worsened decidedly. The gamecock engineer occupied himself intently with fervent prayer. One by one the cars rattled over the endangered span. At last the signal telegraph over the boiler waggled to indicate the last car had passed the area of greatest risk. Paul Drummond knew his job and did it well, Smoke Jensen thought gratefully. Already Smoke sensed a slight incline as the locomotive raced toward the eastern bank of the rampaging Illinois River. They flashed past the abutments of the trestle. Only a little way to go now.

“Yer doin’ it, bucko, yer doin’ it!” O’Banyon shouted exuberantly.

Smoke Jensen leaned far out the window of the cab, ignoring the rush of air and puffs of steam past his head, and looked back. Only the private car of the D & R G remained on the last span of the bridge when the middle gave away with a mighty creak and a loud crash of collapsing pilings.

Cross-braces shot into the air in all directions. Smoke kept the throttle open until the entire train cleared the doomed trestle.