Rage of the Mountain Man (34 page)

Smoke Jensen turned aside, followed by L’Lupe Douchant, Monte Carson, and Ollie Johnson. Within minutes the sounds of a violent clash between the desperate eastern gunmen and the tough, gritty men of the posse rose in a growing din. Their goal, Smoke informed his companions, was a group of six mounted figures near the center of the steaming ground.

Their approach went unnoticed until too late to make an escape. Eruptions of three of the minor geysers helped mask their advance on Phineas Lathrop and his partners. The four corrupt financiers watched with interest while the accurate fire of the posse repulsed their underlings. Lathrop made an unheard comment to Middleton, which Smoke noted with interest. In a momentary flight of fancy, he wondered it they were laying bets on the outcome. A second later he dismissed such frivolity as it became apparent they had been observed.

“They know we’re here,” he observed laconically.

Surprised that Lathrop had kept only two bodyguards, the avengers spurred their mounts to a fast lope. Weapons at the ready since they had sighted the enemy, they held their fire and chose their targets well. Booming reports rolled by overhead and echoed off the thick ranks of pines to their right. The old-timers had opened up. Which meant that the outlaw charge had been broken.

Smoke Jensen spared no time to check it out. He focused on the figure of Phineas and veered Dandy to close on the man he wanted most. Lathrop seemed oblivious of this intense interest, choosing instead to look frantically about for some means of escape. To Smoke’s left, Ollie Johnson tripped a round from his shotgun.

A column of OO buckshot cleared one of the bodyguards from his saddle. Copying the style of the mountain men, whom Ollie admired greatly, he whooped and yipped gleefully over his victory. His celebration cut off abruptly when Victor Middleton coolly shot him through the heart. Smoke Jensen blinked in surprise. At first he could not believe it.

Not Ollie. Not the game young reporter who had dared and endured so much. Smoke’s shock put words in his mouth. “Why, that son of a bitch!”

Immediately he changed the focus of his charge. He veered to the right to face off with Middleton. The Winchester Express was too unwieldy to fire from horseback, and Smoke had tied it behind his saddle. The short-barreled Marlin carbine in his hands came to his shoulder and he triggered a round that tore through the crown of Middleton’s hat.

While he cycled the action, Smoke reined in to take better aim. Victor Middleton lost the moment of shocked paralysis as the sights of the .44 Marlin centered on his breastbone. His eyes went wide and his mouth formed a startled “oh” as the light weapon gave an angry bark and blinding pain erupted in his chest.

While Victor Middleton swayed in the saddle, Smoke Jensen worked the action of the Marlin again and sent another speedy messenger of death toward the New York financial wizard. The blunt-nosed slug did terrible things to Middleton’s liver. Sagging like a deflated hot-air balloon, Victor Middleton spilled from his saddle to fall under the nervous, prancing hooves of his horse.

Witnessing the sudden, violent death of his partner broke Phineas Lathrop. With rifle balls from the mountain men cracking through the air all around, he touched spurs to his broad-chested chestnut gelding and sprinted away from the battle that had become all too personal. Smoke Jensen instantly went after him.

Smoke didn’t want to end it for Lathrop with a rifle. He shoved the Marlin into its saddle scabbard and nudged Dandy into a fast lope in pursuit. From behind and below, he heard the shouts, curses, and agonized cries of a fierce fight. The posse held their ground well, he noted in a quick glance behind which revealed the outlaw flatlanders streaming away once more.

A rifle cracked much nearer. “Got one,” Monte Carson shouted, more in relief than in victory.

Gradually, Smoke gained on Lathrop. Wild-eyed with panic, Phineas Lathrop waved an empty .38 Colt Lightning at Smoke Jensen, then uselessly threw it at the gunfighter as Smoke closed to half a length. Smoke ducked it with ease and then found himself laughing at the terrified man who would be king. Sounds of yet another clash rose from the edge of the geyser field.

Short of an arm’s grasp, Smoke Jensen readied himself for the difficult maneuver he had worked out in the closing moments of the pursuit. Boots free of the stirrups, he levered himself upright on his saddlepad, like a Roman rider. Lathrop gawked at him in consternation as Smoke jumped outward, arms spread wide.

The shock of impact triggered the closing of those arms, like the jaws of a steel trap. Phineas Lathrop let out a pitiful wail as Smoke Jensen’s momentum carried them both off the sweat-lathered gelding. They hit with stunning impact. Sour breath whooshed from Lathrop’s lips and Smoke grunted as the body below him cushioned the shock of their landing.

For a long half minute the two men lay still. Then the long, powerful arms of Smoke Jensen flexed and levered him off Lathrop and the ground. It looked to Smoke to be an easy task now. Lathrop moaned softly. Smoke came to his boots. Lathrop's eyes blinked open suddenly and focused far faster than most men in his condition.

In the next instant, Lathrop aimed a vicious kick at Smoke's crotch. The blow of a pointy-toed boot nearly unmanned Smoke Jensen. Pain exploded in his groin and he found himself unable to take mental inventory of his treasured parts.

By the time he could move, and found the pain localized in the inside, upper part of his right thigh, Phineas Lathrop had come to his boots. A demented light glowed in his deep-set. oddly walnut-colored eyes. His right hand groped uselessly at the shoulder holster under his coat, until he realized he had hurled his revolver at the man he faced. Visions of defeat clouded his features for a moment until he recalled he had followed Wade Tanner’s advice.

He had a hideout gun concealed at the small of his back. Renewed hope brightened Lathrop’s visage as he darted his hand behind him. He grasped the bird-head grips tightly and yanked the little .32 Smith free. Even if he could not beat the notorious gunfighter, his whirling mind told him, he could at least die like a man. fighting for what he believed in.

In that brilliant moment of revelation, Smoke Jensen took a quick step forward and denied Phineas Lathrop that privilege. A hard right to the jaw stunned and staggered Lathrop.
Where the hell had that come from?
Before he could level his weapon, a sizzling left quickly followed, blurring Lathrop’s vision.

Lathrop felt his gunhand seized. “Oh, no, Lathrop. It isn’t going to be that easy.”

Gasping, Phineas found the strength to form words. “Wh—what is it you want?”

“I’m going to pound the living hell out of you, then I’m taking you back to be hanged.”

In renewed desperation and dawning horror, Lathrop swung an unaimed left that bounced off the point of Smoke’s right shoulder. Lathrop followed with an upraised knee that also missed the target. Grinning, Smoke Jensen stepped back a pace and measured his opponent. Chin tucked in to protect his throat, Smoke feinted with a right, popped Lathrop hard with a left jab, then followed up with a one-two-three to the midsection. Unaccustomed to the rigors of a hard life, Lathrop’s stomach muscles could not take the pounding. He crumpled like a wet newspaper.

Smoke Jensen felt no pity. He moved in again, raining lefts and rights on the sides of Lathrop’s head. Dizzied, his vision flickering in and out of focus, Phineas Lathrop fought his rising pandemonium in an effort to make the right decision that would get him out of this terrible punishment. He brought up his hands to protect his head. An image slowly formed and danced behind his eyes.

The blade! That stiletto the Italian kid had given him. “A Sicilian equalizer,” Nick diManfi had told him, snickering. He still had it, in a soft leather sheath suspended behind his back.

Phineas Lathrop found new strength and purpose. He forced himself backward, for the moment out of reach of the pounding fists of Smoke Jensen. The ground trembled under his feet. For a second, Lathrop thought Jensen had done some serious harm to his equilibrium. The moment passed. Lathrop reached behind his back.

Fingers probed beneath his coat and shirt collars. He drew on the leather thong to pull the hilt into reach. Suddenly the ground lurched again. Lathrop’s heart all but stopped. New energy burst inside him as his fingers closed on the scale of the stiletto. With a cry of triumph, he yanked the blade free as the earth rumbled ominously all around.

Small vents of steam gave preliminary warning of the event about to occur. Lathrop ignored them as he lunged forward, the wicked tip of the thin-bladed knife aimed at Smoke Jensen’s heart. To his utter surprise. Smoke Jensen did not shoot him.

Instead the thick, deep, long blade of a coffin-handled Bowie appeared in Smoke's hand. A ringing sound broke through the growing subterranean growl as steel met steel. Smoke parried the attack easily. Then, instead of letting his powerful arm absorb the energy of Lathrop’s charge, Smoke pivoted away and let Lathrop stumble past him.

A quick flick of his arm sent Smoke’s blade downward to split the cloth of Lathrop’s coat and shirt, and left a long, thin, pink line on his skin that quickly overflowed with bright red blood. Lathrop howled as a numbing flre-and-ice sensation spread through his body.

Certain he had been split open to his intestines, Phineas Lathrop sought only to exact as much punishment in return as he could. He spun on one heel and lashed out with the stiletto. Not designed for slashes, the weapon had little effect. Nick diManfi had not bothered to explain that the “old men” of the
Mano Niero
on Sicily usually drove the point into the throat of an unsuspecting victim. Ignorant of this, Phineas Lathrop fought for his life at a decided disadvantage. Smoke Jensen easily caught the blade on the false edge of his Bowie.

It skidded to the guard and Smoke gave a vicious twist that plucked the stiletto from Lathrop's hand. It flew in a high arc to land near a large black hole in the ground, which was surrounded by a cast-iron-pipe guard rail. With a desperate wail, Phineas Lathrop dashed after it.

Right then, the earth gave a final heave and a huge plume of snowy steam belched from the opening. Fast behind it came a thick column of boiling water. The gigantic gout rapidly towered over the adversaries, a bull roar issuing from its base. Seething and churning, it continued to grow. Slowly its upper portion lost momentum. Scalding rain descended on the heads of Smoke Jensen and Phineas Lathrop.

Shielded by his sturdy Stetson, Smoke felt it through his thick leather hunting shirt as only a mild discomfort. For Phineas Lathrop it was a different matter. Bareheaded, he began to howl and slap at his scalded flesh. More pain erupted at the superheated water soaked through his cloth suit. Smoke saw this intervention of nature as a means of Lathrop escaping his just punishment.

He sheathed the Bowie and rushed to the pain-racked Lathrop. Another powerful regurgitation sent steam and water upward again. A moment before Smoke reached him, Lathrop saw him coming. Biting back his agony, Lathrop bent hastily and snatched up the stiletto. He turned, snarling, on Smoke Jensen.

Smoke flexed his muscular thighs and launched himself at Lathrop, heedless of the danger of the knife. Arm extended, Smoke smacked the blade out of line. The impact of joined bodies knocked both men off their feet. They rolled over and over on the muddy ground, each grappling for the deadly blade. Lathrop found new purchase on the grip and flicked his wrist to bring the tip into contact with Smoke’s chest. The wind shifted as it often did in this valley of smoke.

The feathery top of the tree-trunk-thick shaft of water wavered and then followed the inexorable pressure of the breeze. Hundreds of pounds of water at near-boiling temperature thundered down on the struggling men. Smoke Jensen wrestled himself around so that Phineas Lathrop wound up on top. He took the brunt of the scalding cascade.

Howling in agony, his knife forgotten, Lathrop sought only to get away. With a final burst of energy he wrenched free of Smoke’s grasp. Fighting to keep upright on his boots, he slipped and slid over the untrustworthy ground. Foul minerals gave his mouth a sulphurous taste. Blinded by the waterfall effect of Old Faithful, he stumbled into the railing that had been erected to protect visitors.

He did a heels-over-head flip and landed with his lower legs directly in the boiling column of upthrust steam and water. Pain like none he had ever felt before roared up through Lathrop’s thighs and withered the last reserves of his body. His shrieks rose above the thunder of Old Faithful. It took the last reserves of Smoke Jensen’s strength to locate Phineas Lathrop and drag him to safety.

Hunter and hunted cleared the guard rail at the same time that Old Faithful ended its performance almost as abruptly as it had begun. In the shocking silence that followed, Smoke Jensen looked down at Phineas Lathrop and panted to gain the breath to form words.

“No—no, Lathrop. Even that’s too good for you. I’m taking you back to hang.”

"
Tout alors, mon ami!
” L’Lupe’s raucous voice struck at Smoke’s ears. “If you had told me you needed a bath, we could have found an easier way!”

“Hey, look, yourself,
cochon
. I’m parboiled and ready for the spit.” Then Smoke recovered himself and looked around. “The others? How’s the fight going?”

“She is over, my friend. And I see you have captured the prize pig—which I resent you calling me. Where to, now?” Defeated in this exchange of banter, Smoke Jensen looked at his old friend with a jaundiced eye. “Haven’t you had enough?” He considered the situation.

More than twenty good people killed, he enumerated. Among them, seven good friends. And there had been Ollie Johnson, so young and so wrapped up in his craft. He had come west for his story and died getting it.

Perhaps Sally could write the final episode for Ollie’s sake. Smoke discounted his own aches and pains. They were nothing compared to what others had endured. He sighed heavily, then made a sweeping gesture.

“Monte and his posse can take care of any prisoners. I suggest you and our other old friends accompany Mr. Lathrop here as far as Big Rock. Then, I’m heading for the Sugarloaf. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen Sally.”