Rage of the Mountain Man (17 page)

The kid shrugged. “It must be important.”

“Believe me, it is,” Smoke confided. He looked up to find

Oliver Johnson from the
Herald
standing close by, notepad in hand, pencil skipping over the page.

“Just what’s in that note?” Johnson inquired around the unlighted stub of a cigar in one corner of his mouth.

It occurred to Smoke that he had not read beyond the first four words. He delayed his answer to Johnson, opened the scrap of paper, and read the entire contents. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he directed to the reporter. “It’s from someone calling themselves the Defenders of Erin. It says that she'll be released unharmed if I do what they say.”

“And what’s that?” Johnson pressed.

“I’m to go to a place called Pier Seven, alone. To walk down the center of the pier to the far end. There’s a building there, a warehouse. I’m to go inside.”

Johnson looked up, frowned. “That’s where O’Boyle and his anarchist union thugs hang out. Not a place you’d want to be going in the best of times. Certainly not at half past ten at night.”

Recollections of the encounter the previous night flooded over Smoke Jensen. Could this be connected somehow? “What do you suggest?”

“Truth to tell, I’d say don’t go. That’s not what you’re going to do, I can tell. I’ll go with you.”

Smoke started to refuse, then considered it to be wise to have someone along to scout the area who knew the lay of the land. “All right. If this is as dangerous as you suggest, it might be good if you knew how to use a gun.”

Johnson produced a broad, youthful smile. “As it happens, I know a little about shooting. Nothing to match your skill, but satisfactory for around here.”

After they left the lecture hall, Oliver Johnson hailed a passing hack. Once they had settled into the leather-upholstered seat of the use-worn surrey, Smoke spoke his thoughts aloud.

“Aren’t they making this a little bit too easy for me?” “That had occurred to me,” Johnson agreed. “Those hoodlums don’t often advertise their activities.”

‘‘Maybe we should approach the place from a different route.”

“That makes sense. For at least one of us.”

Johnson groped inside his suit coat and withdrew a small, compact revolver, a tilt-top Smith and Wesson .38. He made a quick glance at the blunt gray noses of the bullets in their chambers and dropped it into a side pocket. Then he nodded to Smoke Jensen.

“Do these wharf rats know what you look like?”

“We have to assume they do.”

“The reason I asked is that I think you should be the one to come in from a different way,” Johnson suggested. “We’re of close to the same size. If we swap hats and coats, I can show up on the pier and probably get close enough in the dark before they notice the difference. The note did say to come alone, right?”

“You've got me there." Smoke allowed. “All right, we’ll do it like that. Slipping around and surprisin’ folks is something I used to do a lot of.”

“I’ll have the driver let you off on Atlantic Avenue. There’s an alleyway that will lead to the blind side of that warehouse,” Johnson advised.

A wicked anticipatory smile lighted the face of Smoke Jensen. “I like your way of doin’ things. I only wish that I had changed out of these boots into moccasins. These leather boot heels are about as quiet as a cow in a briar patch. If it works and we catch them between us, I intend to make them the sorriest sons of bitches for miles around.”

James Finnegan saw him first. A surrey hack stopped under a streetlamp that had been deliberately turned low. A tall man in a formal black evening coat and top hat climbed out, handed the fare to the driver, and turned toward the high wooden-slat gates that closed off access to the pier. Finnegan watched him search out the smaller human-sized portal that had been conveniently left unlocked. The cab rattled away down Adams Lane as the latch rattled and the silhouetted figure of Smoke Jensen entered.

“He’s here,” the sharper-sighted Finnegan informed his friends.

“Sure it’s him?” Henny Duggan asked.

“Who the hell else would be comin’ here this time o’ night?” Finnegan shot back.

“Yeah. I see him,” Brian Galagher verified. “He’s alone like he’s supposed to be.”

“Unless there’s a flyin’ squad o’ Boston’s Finest waitin’ down the dock,” grumbled Liam O’Tolle.

“Shut yer face,” a fifth man grumbled. “He could hear you from there.”

“Why don’t we pop him right where he stands?” O’Tolle complained.

“Liam, ye couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from the inside with that pop-gun yer packin’,” Finnegan retorted. “There’s six of us to make sure the job’s done right. This here Jensen is a dangerous feller.”

“That’s why I say do it now,” O’Tolle defended himself.

“Wrong,” Finnegan responded in a harsh whisper. “We wait until he’s close enough for you boys with the cargo hooks to snag him in the shoulders. That way, we who’ve got shooters along can empty them into him without any risk. Now hush up.”

Smoke Jensen had scaled the secondary gate that barred entry to the pier on the back side of the warehouse. He stealthily approached the blind narrow end of the lofty, metal-clad wooden structure. There he found an iron ladder that led to the roof. He removed his boots and closed his mind to the discomfort climbing would bring to his feet.

Silently Smoke ascended and worked his way along a catwalk until he reached the far end. His gaze reached the black, oily water of the upper end of Boston Harbor, where it received the outpouring of the Charles River. He recalled from his reading of history that just across an inlet to the southeast was the spot where the Sons of Liberty had staged the Boston Tea Party. A fitting place for this night’s work, Smoke thought wryly. A sibilant rustle of voices wafted up from below.

Smoke listened in on the discussion of tactics and glanced toward the street end of the warehouse in time to spot the approach of Oliver Johnson. He knew at once he occupied a disadvantageous position. Starlight picked out a duplicate of the ladder at the other end. Smoke eased himself along the steep pitch of the roof until he reached it.

Why had they built it this way, and not directly below the catwalk that topped the roof crown? Probably to keep anyone from easily jumping ship or boarding unwanted visitors. he decided, as he lowered himself down the rungs.

With three treads to go. Smoke Jensen saw movement from the comer of one eye. Two men materialized out of the deep shadows between large bales of some sort and made a dash toward Oliver Johnson, who had walked beyond their hiding place and had his back to them. Light from a fat, yellowish rising moon glinted off wicked, curved hooks held high to strike. Smoke set a foot on the next lower rung and held on with one hand while he hauled out his .45 Peacemaker.

A second later, the big .45 roared in the night, a long yellow-white tongue of flame spearing from the muzzle. Firing in the dark and from above had him at a disadvantage. The hot slug tore a ragged, agonizing trench across the upper portion of the nearest assailant’s right shoulder. Howling, he let go of his longshoreman’s hook and looked around for the source of the shot.

“Up there. On the side of the building,” he yelled a second later, just as Smoke adjusted his aim and fired again.

This time the bullet smacked solidly into the chest of the other hook wielder. He let out a sharp, short cry and pitched face-first onto the rough, splintered planks of the dock. His boot toes drummed a sharp tattoo while Oliver Johnson hauled out his own sixgun. Smoke let go and dropped the rest of the way to the dock flooring. By that time, he saw Oliver Johnson had recovered from his shocked discovery of men lurking to kill him.

He had his revolver out of the coat pocket and aimed doubtfully toward a darkened doorway in the side of the warehouse. Three men came pouring out toward him, one with an even smaller revolver than Johnson’s on the way to line up with the reporter’s chest.

Johnson fired twice. One .38 slug caught an attacker in the thigh and spilled him onto the dock to squirm, crablike, away from the fray. Flickers of muzzle flame lit up the area before the door and Oliver Johnson spotted Smoke Jensen.

“Oh, shit, I think there’s more of them than we expected,” Johnson called to his resourceful partner.

Only when he realized his carefully worked out plan had failed did Seamas Quern hasten to summon five of the longshoremen assigned to guard Sally Jensen. That would leave the wife of Smoke Jensen in the custody of Connor O’Fallon and Sean O'Boyle.

Both men had been drinking heavily, celebrating the anticipated demise of Sally’s husband. That provided Sally with an opportunity to learn something of what lay behind these attacks on Smoke and her. Throughout her ordeal, Sally kept her wits about her. She had no longer resisted her captors after being trundled into the furniture van. Once at the warehouse, she’d remained silent and out of the way.

When the drinking started, Sally noted, her wardens tended toward ignoring her presence. They spoke freely about their role in the dock strike and in the plans of someone named Lathrop. By the time the ambush went awry'. O’Boyle and O’Fallon completely lacked the judgment to guard their tongues.

“Wha’ th’hell does Lathrop want this Smoke Jensen dead for, anyway?” O’Fallon asked, after a long pull on a bottle of Irish whiskey.

O'Boyle gave his an owlish stare and accepted the bottle. “It’s all part of a grand plan, it is. What got us into it is, a boyo workin’ for Mr. Lathrop didn't do his job right. Both th’ Jensens’ was to die in an avalanche, they was.”

O’Fallon paled. "Good Lord, any man who can walk away from tons of snow is more than I want to cross knuckles with.”

O’Boyle winked at him. “Don’t ye worry, lad. This ruckus’ll be over in a few minutes an’ the door will be wide open.”

O’Fallon belched whiskey fumes. “What door, damn it, Sean?”

Horrified by the revelation O’Boyle had made, Sally rallied her spirits and grew coldly determined to survive her captivity and see them all brought to justice. All she had to do was bide her time. Smoke would be here.

“Why, the door to the entire West, bucko,” O’Boyle stated grandly, after another swig from the bottle, the liquor adding to his own importance in the scheme and loosening his tongue even more. “Ye know yerself that the big-time fixers, and most of the boys on the dodge on the East Coast, have come to the same conclusion that Mr. Lathrop has, don’t ye? The police are gettin’ too much power. Now they’ve made it against the law for a man to carry a gun in near every city—not even honest folk are safe from their oppression, they’re not. Once Smoke Jensen is taken care of, our Irish gangs and others of the brotherhood will be ready to pull out of here and head west.”

“When’s all this to happen?”

“We’re supposed to go soon’s Jensen is taken care of, we are. Mr. Lathrop and two of his partners, Middleton and Asher, are to leave from New York City before the end of the week and join up with twenty men, hand-picked by me, in some place called Dodge City, they are. Think of it, bucko! We’ll all be rich as an English lord, we will.”

“A pox on those damned English lords,” O’Fallon growled. “They had me Pap strung up, they did.”

“Ah, did they now? ’Tis a cryin’ shame.”

“That’s true, it is. Only, what makes Smoke Jensen so important he has to be killed?”

O’Boyle winked roguishly. “Now, that’s something in itself, it is. Seems this Jensen is some sort of leader among the folks out there in Colorado. They look up to him, they do. Alone, they say, he’s a power to deal with, he is. If he led the locals against us, we’d be in a bad position. Lathrop figures they could run us clear the hell an’ gone outta there. There’s lots of land out there in those mountains, there is. More than a hunnerd an’ fifty miles on a side, Lathrop told me. He wants to make his headquarters at the ranch owned by Jensen, the Sugarloaf, he does. With Jensen gone, it’s all ours for the takin’.”

That’s when Seamas Quern burst in with the news that the ambush had failed. “B’God, he’s done for three of the boys in the twinklin’ of an eye.”

O’Boyle recovered enough of his senses to blink blearily and wave a hand at the others in the room. “You boys go along and give Seamas a hand.” After they left, he bent toward O’Fallon and spoke in a conspiratorial manner. “There’s another reason Lathrop wants Smoke Jensen to die.”

“Oh? An’ what would that be?” O’Fallon asked. Speaking in a hushed tone, O’Boyle replied, “Though I don’t have the whole of it, I gather there’s bad blood betwixt the two of them. Lathrop has this half-brother who ran afoul of Jensen some while back. He had sort of a little empire goin’, much like what Lathrop wants to do, only a lot smaller. He crossed Smoke Jensen and paid the price. Jensen killed him.”

O’Fallon considered that a moment. “It’s said Jensen’s killed a lot of men. Any idea which one it might’ve been?” “Oh, I’ve the name, right enough. Phineas Lathrop’s half-brother was named Rex Davidson.”

Mention of the name sent a chill through Sally’s heart.

Five more men came in a rush from the doorway behind Smoke Jensen. They had remained out of sight in the bowels of the warehouse during the initial attempt to ambush the mountain man gunfighter. Now they spread out and closed on Smoke and Oliver. Three held longshoremen’s hooks. Moonlight flashed off the keen edges of the long, slim knives in the hands of the other two. At Oliver Johnson’s exclamation, Smoke Jensen turned to face them.

Smoke’s first inclination was to holster his Colt and take them on a more even standing. Then Seamas Quern joined his last upright fighters and Smoke saw the revolver in his hand. That decided his course of action. Only ten feet separated Smoke from the reinforcements, with more like thirty between him and Quern. Smoke snapped a fast round at Quern as one of the stevedores lunged at him with a wicked hook.

Hot outrage ripped through Seamas Quern’s side and he cried out in pain. He dropped to the planking of the dock as Smoke Jensen backpeddled and brought his .45 Colt up to parry a swishing question mark of death in the hand of the nearest assailant. Metal screeched as the two objects met. Seamas felt a lightheaded dizziness sweep over him and he slowly edged himself away from the developing fight.