War of the Mountain Man (23 page)

He's no boxer! Max thought gleefully. Not with a stupid stance like that. Now I have him. Now I have him.

What Max got was a left fake that he brushed aside and a powerful right that barreled through and busted him flush on the mouth. He felt his lips split and the blood gush. The left that he had brushed away caught him a smashing blow on the side that hurt the big man, backing him up.

Smoke pressed in, hitting the man with a flurry of blows to the arms and shoulders as Max could do nothing but cover up until he caught his wind. And the blows were bruising.

Smoke pounded the man's arms, hurting and bruising them, taking some of the power from them. Max finally had to lower his guard and shove Smoke from him. The move got Smoke off him for a moment, but it also earned Max a smashing blow to the head.

Max saw an opening and took it, handing Smoke a one-two combination to the head. The blows popped Smoke's head back and bloodied his mouth. The left had caught him above the eye and opened a cut.

Smoke backed up, shook his head, and then plowed right back in, pressing the attack. He drove a right fist in that caught Max on the nose, and the big man felt the already injured nose break. The blood poured. Smoke didn't let up. He smashed a left and right to Max's head that rocked the big man back on his heels. Max got in a hard right that shook Smoke down to his boots, staggering him.

Max jumped at Smoke, intending to boot the man to the ground. One boot did catch Smoke on the leg, bruising the flesh but not putting him down. Smoke countered with a kick of his own that caught Max on the shin and brought a yelp of pain from the man. Smoke jumped in and blasted another left and right. The left took Max on the side of the jaw and the right hit him flush in the mouth.

Max grimly spat out part of a broken tooth and came on, both fists held high.

Smoke hit the man in the belly and took a left hook to his head for that move. Max followed the hook with a heel-drop that sent Smoke to the ground. Max tried to kick him. Smoke rolled away and came up on his boots, a hard light in his eyes.

Max had expanded the fight, moving away from ring rules with that attempted kick. If that were the way the man wanted it, so be it.

Max swung a looping right. Smoke caught the forearm and wrist and threw the man to the ground, then stepped in and gave Max a vicious kick to the kidney that brought a howl of pain from him. Smoke brought his balled fist down hard on Max's neck just as the man was trying to get up. The blow knocked him flat on the ground. Smoke went to work with his boots, stomping and kicking. One boot caught Max flush in the mouth, and the force of the kick shattered the big man's front teeth, top and bottom.

With a scream of rage and pain, Max flung out his hand and caught Smoke's jeans leg, tumbling the smaller man to the ground. Smoke rolled and came up on his boots before Max could get to his feet and apply the boots to him.

For a full minute the men stood toe to toe and slugged it out, with each of them giving and receiving about the same amount of damage. But Smoke could tell the bigger man was losing some of his power. Max was fighting with his mouth open now, sucking in air in great gasping gulps. Smoke had known nothing but hard work all his life. Max had spent the last fifteen years either sitting behind a desk, planning his evil, or sitting at a poker table, cheating those who played the game of chance with him.

Smoke sent a crashing right fist through Max's guard, a punch that knocked the big man to the ground. Smoke stepped in and kicked the man in the butt just as he was trying to get to his feet. The butt-kick knocked Max sprawling, sliding facedown in the dirt and the grass.

“You know what I'm going to do, don't you, Max?” Smoke asked, standing over the man. Max tried to get to his feet and Smoke kicked him in the butt again, knocking the big man down to the ground.

“I'm going to rearrange your face, Max.” Smoke walked around to the front of the struggling giant of a man. “When I get tired of hitting you, I'm going to kick your face in.”

Max knew he was whipped, knew Smoke was going to stomp him into the ground. “I've had enough,” the big man said, blood dripping from his mouth.

“I imagine Aggie said something along those lines, didn't she, Max?”

“She was trash! Nester trash.”

Smoke kicked him in the belly with all the power he could get behind the boot. Max's body arched upward off the ground and he screamed in pain.

Smoke backed away and let the man struggle to his feet. Big Max stood before him, swaying slightly. “Fight, you sorry bastard,” Smoke told him.

Max lumbered forward and walked into a straight right that he felt all the way down to his toenails. Smoke followed that with a left that turned Max's head and loosened teeth. Smoke didn't let up. He began to work on Max's belly, driving hammer blows to the man's guts. Max backed up, unable to throw a punch that would stop Smoke Jensen. He landed several punches, but they had no power behind them.

Smoke shifted his area of punishment. He began working on Max's face. The face of Big Max now began to resemble a raw side of beef that someone had worked over with a sledgehammer. His nose was flattened, one ear was swollen and pulpy, his mouth was a ruined mess, and both eyes were closing. Still Smoke Jensen continued to punish the man.

Max searched frantically around him for a weapon—a club, a rock, anything! He found nothing. Smoke had carefully cleared the area. He tried to run and Smoke pursued him, leaping onto his back and riding the man around the area like some sort of beast of burden. It was the most humiliating thing that Big Max Huggins had ever been forced to endure.

Max finally collapsed onto the ground, his strength gone. Smoke stood over him. The smaller man had taken his licks. One eye was almost closed, and blood was leaking from his nose and mouth. But he was on his boots and ready to fight.

Max heard the words: “You got a choice, Big Man,” Smoke told him. “You either get up and fight, or as God is my witness, I'll kick you to death.”

Max struggled up. He turned and faced Jensen, lifting his fists. Max charged in a last-ditch effort to grab the smaller man and break his back.

Smoke stepped to one side and buried his fist into Max's belly, doubling the man over and bringing a painful retching sound from his mouth. Smoke's fist struck the man on his ear and Max experienced a roaring in his head. Another fist came up, seemingly from the ground, and slammed into his battered face. That was followed by a right fist that crashed into his nose. Smoke's fist hammered his lower back and smashed into his rib cage, sending waves of pain through the man as his kidneys took the brunt of the blows.

Max was beyond mere pain. This was an agony new to him. He had been moved into a sea of solid hurt. It was nothing like he had ever experienced before. His shirt had been torn from him sometime during the fight, and his upper torso was bruised and bloody.

Still Smoke Jensen would not back off. Big Max Huggins stood like a giant oak that was being battered by the elements, his huge arms hanging by his sides. He could not find the strength to lift them.

Smoke knocked him down and Max painfully climbed to his boots to face his tormentor. He turned in time to catch another huge right fist to his already ruined and swollen mouth.

Through eyes that were now nothing more than swollen slits, Max could see Jensen smiling at him. He had never seen a smile that savage on Smoke's face. Jensen's eyes were cold, killing cold. Max watched as Jensen measured him. He knew with a soaring feeling of relief the fight was soon to be over.

Smoke started his punch somewhere down around his ankles, and when the gloved fist exploded against his head, Max's world turned black.

The big man lay stretched out on the ground. Unconscious.

Smoke muscled Big Max across his saddle and tied him there. He looped Max's gunbelt on the saddle horn and slapped the horse on the rump, sending it on its way back to Hell's Creek.

Smoke packed up and headed for the high country, making camp not five miles from Hell's Creek. He had plans for that town. Smoke ached all over and his hands were swollen. He looked for and found the plants he sought, carefully picking them and boiling them in water, then soaking his hands. He stayed snug in the camp for two days, resting and eating and treating his hands until the swelling had gone down and he was ready to go.

Smoke had spent the time in the hidden camp not only resting and treating his hands and the cuts on his face, but also capping and fusing the dynamite, tying them into three-stick bombs. Star was rested and restless and eager to hit the trail.

At dawn of the third day after the fight on the flats, Smoke swung into the saddle and pointed Star's head toward Hell's Creek. He had it in his mind to destroy that town and as many people in it as possible.

The startled gun hands who watched as Big Max's horse walked slowly up the muddy and rutted main street of Hell's Creek could not believe their eyes. They were further astonished—and some a little frightened—when they untied Max and lowered him to the ground.

To a man, none of them had ever seen a person beaten so badly as was Max.

Robert Turner snapped out of his befuddlement of the moment and slipped back into his role as doctor. He ordered Max carried to bed and ran for his bag. Robert had taken one look at his brother's battered body and knew the big man was hurt—how seriously he would know only after a thorough examination.

“Not seriously,” he finally said with a sigh, leaning back in the chair by his brother's bed. “No ribs are broken that I can detect, but his face will never be as it was. Smoke Jensen did this deliberately. This is the most callous act I have ever witnessed. Jensen deliberately set out to destroy my brother's handsome looks.”

Robert looked around at the outlaws. “Well, my mind is made up. I have never believed in violence, but this”—he looked down at the sleeping Max, the sleep brought on by massive doses of laudanum—“has to be avenged.”

Val Singer seized the moment, guessing what this crazy galoot had in mind. “What do you plan to do about it, Robert?” he asked.

“Why . . . I plan to step into my brother's boots and lead the raid against Barlow, that's what. What do you think about that, Mr. Singer?”

The outlaw leaders had to fight to hide their smiles. Of course, they'd let sonny-boy here lead the raid. Of course, they'd go along with it. For with Max out of the picture, they could ravage the town, rob the bank, and would not have to share a damn thing with Big Max Huggins. And before they left the country, they would kill Robert Turner.

So much for honor among thieves.

“That's a damn good idea, Robert,” Dave Poe said. “I like it. I really do. When do you think we ought to hit the town?”

“Tomorrow morning, just as the bank opens.”

“I like it,” Alex Bell said.

Smoke had left his horse in timber on the edge of town, and he worked his way up a dry creek bed, coming out behind a privy. He ducked back down as two men walked to the outhouse, chatting as they walked.

“This time tomorrow, Larry,” ond of them said, “Barlow ain't gonna be nothing but a memory, and we'll have had our fill of women and be a damn sight richer.”

“Yeah, and we won't have to share none of it with Big Max. That's what makes it so rich to me.”

Smoke listened, wondering what was going on. Tomorrow! They were going to hit the town tomorrow?

“Goofy Robert said he'd give Max enough laudanum to keep him out for a day and a half. He'd give it to him just before we pull out.”

“Who's gonna kill that nut?”

“Hell, who cares? Sometime during the shootin' one of us will plug him. I've got me an itch for some of them women in that town.”

“Me, too.”

The men stepped into the two-holer and closed the door. Smoke made his way back up the wash, swung into the saddle, and headed for Barlow.

He stopped at Brown's house to rest his horse and to tell the farmer to warn the others about the raid the next day.

“You want us in town, Smoke?” Brown asked.

“No. I want you men to load up full and be prepared to defend yourselves in case they decide to attack you first, although I don't think they will.”

“We'll be ready.” He smiled, his eyes on Smoke's bruised face. “Who won the fight?”

“Big Max is still unconscious,” Smoke told him with a grin.

“Glad to hear it.”

Smoke mounted up and headed for Barlow. He hit the town at a gallop and yelled for people to gather around him. “It's tomorrow morning, people,” he shouted, so all could hear. “The men of Hell's Creek are going to hit the town at nine o'clock, to coincide with the bank opening. Start gathering up guns and ammo, and make certain the pumper is checked out and the fire barrels are full.”

He swung down from the saddle and handed the reins to the boy that helped out at the livery. “Rub him down good and give him all the corn he wants, boy.” Smoke handed the boy a coin and Star was led off for a well-deserved rest.

Smoke stepped up on the boardwalk in front of the sheriffs office, while others gathered up the rest of the townspeople. Smoke stayed in hurried whispered conference with Sal, Judge Garrison, and Tom Johnson for a few minutes, until the whole town was assembled in the street.

Judge Garrison, Sal, and the mayor agreed with his suggestions, and Smoke turned, facing the crowd. “All right, folks,” he said, raising his voice so all could hear. “Here it is. There is a good chance that a rider was sent out to Red Malone's spread before I slipped into Hell's Creek and overheard the outlaws' plans. Red will probably attack us from the south at the same time the raiders hit us from the north. We've got to be ready to hit them twice as hard as they hit us. Jim has already left to warn Joe Walsh and his people. I told Jim to tell Joe to stay put and guard his ranch. Red hates him as much as he hates us. So it's going to be up to us to defend this town and everything you people have worked for. That's all I have to say, except start getting ready for a war.”

The crowds broke up into small groups, each group leader, already appointed, waiting to see where they were supposed to be when the attack came.

“Tom,” Smoke said, “you and your group take the inside of the bank. Take lots of ammo and water.”

“Will do, Smoke,” the mayor said, and moved out to get ready.

“One group inside Marbly's store. Toby, you and your people will defend the hotel. Benson's group will take the livery. Ralph, you and your bunch will fight from the saloon. The rest of them know where to be and what to do. Let's start getting ready.”

Sal looked at Smoke's battered face and commented, “Need I have to ask who won the fight?”

“Big Max didn't,” Smoke said, then walked toward the hotel for a hot bath, a change into fresh clothes, and to rest beside Sally.

“I'd give a pretty penny to have seen that scrap,” Sal said.

“Yeah,” Pete Akins agreed. “He must have hurt him bad for Max not to be leadin' the raid come the morning.”

“How many men are we facing tomorrow?” the owner of the cafe asked.

“Nearabouts a hundred from Hell's Creek,” Pete told him. “Maybe more than that. And all of Red Malone's bunch. We'll have them outnumbered, but bear this in mind: Them we'll be facin' is killers. Ninety-nine percent of the townspeople ain't.” He looked hard at the cafe owner and at the other group leaders. “You pass the word, boys: Don't give no mercy, 'cause you shore as hell ain't gonna be gettin' none from them that attack us.”

 

 

Smoke took a long hot soak in their private bath in the suite, then napped for an hour. He dressed and began cleaning his guns, loading rifle, shotgun, and pistols up full. He took his spare pistols out of wraps and cleaned and oiled them, loading them up. They were old Remington Frontier .44's, and Smoke had had them for a long time. He liked the feel of them, and was comfortable and confident with them in his hands.

“Early in the morning,” Smoke told his wife, “you go get Victoria and Martha and the kids. Bring them back up to this suite. We'll be up long before then—the cafe and hotel dining room is going to open about four o'clock to feed those that don't eat at home—and we'll rearrange the furniture in this suite to stop any bullet. I'll have a boy start bringing up water to fight any fires that might start. Their plan is to destroy the town, so they'll be throwing torches.”

Sally sat at the table with her husband, oiling and cleaning her own guns. “Vicky doesn't know anything about pistols,” she said. “But Martha does. We'll have rifles and shotguns ready. How about Robert, Smoke?”

He shook his head. “I don't want to kill him, honey. I can't justify killing a crazy person unless there is just no other way out.”

“I've been reading that there is some new treatment for the mad. But insane asylums are just awful.”

“I know. I mean, I've heard they are. Chain them down like wild animals until they die.” He rose from the table and buckled his gunbelt around his lean waist, tying it down. “I'm going to roam the town.”

Everybody was pitching in to secure the town. The new bankers just arrived from the East were nervous about the upcoming fight but doing their share in carrying water, moving barricades in place, and anything else they were asked to do. And Smoke could also read excitement in their faces.

Sal caught up with him. “Where are you going to be come the mornin', Smoke?”

“I'll be lone-wolfing it, Sal. Moving around. Did you see to it that everybody had a red bandana?”

“Everybody that will be behind a friendly gun will have one tied around their right arm. They was a darn good idea of yours. That's gonna help keep us from shootin' our own people.”

“The dust and smoke are going to be bad when it starts. So I would suggest we water down the main street just before the bank opens. What do you think?”

“Another good idea. I'm gonna miss you and Sally when y'all pull out.”

“You'll handle it, Sal. And, Sal? . . .”

The sheriff turned to face him.

“Martha and Vicky and the kids will be with Sally in our suite come the morning. So you won't have to worry about Victoria.”

Sal blushed and headed across the street. Smoke smiled and continued his walking tour.

The saloon had been turned into a fort, as had the livery stable and barn. Marbly's store was barricaded, and anything that might be broken had been taken from the shelves and stored in wooden boxes. Smoke nodded his approval and walked back to the hotel. The waiting was going to be hard.

“Way I see it,” John Steele said to Red Malone, “we just ain't got much of a choice.”

“We have no choice,” the rancher said. “We both have warrants on us in other states. The town has to be destroyed, and everybody in it dead and buried in deep graves. We'll toss the bodies into the fires and burn them before we bury them. The authorities, if any show up, won't be able to prove a damn thing.”

“Some of our men rode out today, right after the rider from Hell's Creek left. Said they wasn't havin' no part of killin' women and kids.”

Red snorted his disgust. “We don't need them. We're better off without them.”

What neither of them knew was that the hands who had left in disgust over making war against women and kids were riding toward Barlow, to join the defenders of the little town.

“After Barlow is burned out,” Red said, “the outlaws will scatter to the wind. We'll ride and burn down Hell's Creek. We'll blame everything on Max's bunch. Hell, we can even say that we sided with the townspeople in trying to fight them outlaws off. We'll take some of our own men dead, for sure. We can point their graves out to the invesigators as proof.”

“That still leaves Joe Walsh and his crew,” the foreman pointed out.

“We'll deal with them. We've got them outnumbered three to one. Soon as Barlow is done and over, we'll ride for the Circle W and clean out Walsh and his crew.”

John smiled a death's-head grin. “Then we can wipe out all them damn hog-farmers and other nesters, and the valley will once again be ourn.”

“Yeah.” Red rubbed the stubble of beard on his jowls. “And some of them nester girls ain't that bad looking. We can have some fun with them.” He laughed. “Be just like old times.... Hey, John, remember them days?”

John Steele joined in the laughter. The men were in high spirits as they walked out of the house to sit on the porch.

“Just let me get Jensen in gunsights,” Red said. “All I need is one shot. Front or back, it don't make no difference to me.”

 

 

The town of Barlow rolled up the boardwalks early that evening. Far earlier than usual. Everyone wanted to get a good night's sleep before the storm struck the next morning.

Red's Lightning hands who had rebelled against fighting women and kids had ridden in, holding up a white handkerchief—well, it was almost white—and Smoke, along with Judge Garrison and Mayor Johnson, met them in the street.

“We done quit Red,” the spokesman for the group said. “We ain't havin' no part in killin' women and little kids. If you want our help, we're here.”

“How do we know you weren't sent in here by Red to start shooting us in the backs come the attack in the morning?” Tom asked.