Fury of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Release Señora Martine and the children,” Smoke demanded in a roar.

  Emboldened by what appeared to be a single man challenging them, the confused bandidos at the front of the column spurred their mounts forward. Smoke emptied his first six-gun and had the second in action as the bandits flashed past him. Then he heard the snap and whir of the first tripline.

  A shriek of agony came from one throat as the bandit took a whiplash of sappling which buried a spike in his chest. On his left, his companion stopped the other with his gut. It cleared him from the saddle, and he dangled there, a grotesque fruit on a red-splattered tree. Smoke saw the frightened face of Consuelo Martine in a swirl of surprised bandit visages.

  There, beside her, the two small boys and her daughter. Smoke spurred Sidewinder toward the captive woman. One hardcase saw his determined approach and grabbed the reins from Consuelo’s hands. Smoke shot him out of the saddle while more of the bandits and the women captured at the hacienda raced past. A loud swish sounded, and men screamed when impaled on sharpened stobs. Gunfire erupted from the rocks.

  Yelling in consternation, the bandits fought to escape the ambush. Another deadfall accounted for three more. A second bandit had grabbed the reins of Consuelo Martine’s horse and that of her daughter. He ripped his mount’s flanks bloody with huge, cruel rowels and spurred away from the milling confusion. Downtrail, the stopper had been applied.

  Gunshots echoed off the slopes as the rest of the ambush went into action. Pressed from all directions, most of the bandits sought to flee. Smoke downed one and worked closer to the two boys, seated on one horse. He reached them a moment before one of the desperate bandidos decided to take revenge on the youngsters.

  His hammer already on the way down when Smoke saw the bandit, it became a close call. Smoke put a .44 round between the snarling outlaw’s eyes. Reflexive action put off his aim a bit and the slug intended to kill one of the small boys merely grazed his rib cage. He cried out and clung hysterically to his older brother. More bandits streamed by, with the vaqueros of Rancho Pasaje hot after them.

  No time to make a try for Consuelo Martine and her daughter, Smoke silently cursed. Close as they were to the valley hideout, reinforcements would already be on the way. He sheltered the small lads with his body and pumped more rounds into the panicked outlaws until they rode out of sight. Even then, the final deadfall triggered, and two throats went raw with screaming.

  “Round up our people, and let’s get out of here,” Smoke said, his voice heavy with regret over being only partly successful. How could he look Martine in the eye and report failure?

  Twenty

  Another day had gone by with Martine close to losing hold of his reason over the thought of his wife and daughter in the hands of a madman like Carvajal. Back at their main base in Merced, he had been reunited with his sons. His eldest boy had bravely fought off tears while he told of their capture. When he got to the bandit riding off with his mother and sister, the water spilled down his face. His father wept also. Smoke Jensen turned away. No man appreciated witnesses at times like this.

  But they had come in the life of Smoke Jensen. When his first wife and infant son had been murdered. And again when he thought he had lost Sally to the bloody hands of demented men. He had never mourned for his parents, forgotten people from an obliterated past. Now he stared at the setting sun until he heard Martine clear his throat and send his son off to be with his brother.

  “What about this ultimatum?” Martine asked, recalling what the cooperative bandit had told them.

  “It sounded menacing even from the mouth of a man who was about to die,” Smoke told him calmly. “Demands on you, your people. Carvajal will not be satisfied until he possesses all of central Mexico. I suspect he believes himself able to take on the federal troops and win.”

  “His men are good. Look what he did to my hacienda. But they are not that good. Give us a month, two months with these men, and we can root him out of anywhere.”

  “Speaking of which,” Smoke changed the subject as he poured a cup of steaming coffee, “there’s no doubt that Carvajal took your wife and daughter back to the camp in the mountains. How long they’ll stay there is open for guesswork. So, I suggest we return to our original plan. Only we have more women to get out of there now.”

  “Yes, I can see the sense of that,” Carbone agreed.

  “And I,” Martine added. “Of course, I will be coming on the next raid as before.”

  Smoke cut his eyes to Martine’s ravaged visage. He regretted having to say what he planned next. “No. I don’t think that is wise.”

  “Why not?”

  “You would be subject to letting emotion cloud your skills when most needed, old friend.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Look at it carefully. Think it through. Who would you go for first?”

  “Why, my wife and child, of course,” Martine allowed.

  “And they might be the most difficult to get out of there,” Smoke revealed to his friend. “It could alert the whole camp. I don’t like this any more than you. It is reasonable, and it’s the way we’re going to do this. You can pick the men you want to go with you and head for your other village. Prepare the people there to defend themselves. Carbone and I will lead the rest to the valley and spoil some of Carvajal’s plans.”

  Smoke Jensen’s war party set out after dark. A quick scout of the area had revealed watchers in a ravine a quarter mile from Merced. Rather than eliminate them, Smoke opted for a ruse. The hoofs of their horses padded with gunnysacks, the detail heading for Carvajal’s camp walked their mounts out of town to the west.

  Smoke had insisted that everything that could rattle, scrape or jingle be secured. No one spoke, and most muffled their horses’ nostrils to prevent tell-tale whinnying. The ploy worked quite well. A mile away on the plain, the grim-faced troop removed the coverings from the hoofs, mounted up, and turned to the northeast. Although it was the dark of the moon, they made good time. These young men of the two ranches adapted quickly, Smoke thought with satisfaction. Now, if they only remember what he had taught about shooting, they might stand a chance of pulling this off.

  “It’s over the other side of that long ridge,” Smoke informed the riders that sat in a semi-circle around him. “Get the men out of sight and settled down. After my last visit, and that set-to on the trail, I’m sure our friend El Rey has tightened his security.”

  “You are the boss, amigo,” Carbone informed him. “You know more ways to be nasty in the woods than any of us.”

  “You’re no helpless infant, yourself, friend.”

  “Me? I have fought in the streets of a hundred villages, maybe two hundred. I have ridden the central valley, but mountains are not my natural surroundings. You grew up in them. I marveled at the traps you set for Carvajal. I only wish you would have squashed that chingaso with one of them.”

  “I might get lucky and land a stick of giant powder in his lap,” Smoke suggested. “I’m going to take a little scout around, check on our opposition. It’s a long while until nightfall. Cold rations for everyone and no smoking.”

  Two of the company, who understood English, cut angry eyes at Smoke Jensen as he and Sidewinder ghosted away toward the camp of Gustavo Carvajal. Who was this gringo to deny them the comfort of a little tobacco? Carbone read them with ease.

  “He means you, compeñeros, and so do I.”

  Bobby Harris sat in a thicket of wild blackberry and some stray aspens, some five miles from the Sugarloaf. He sipped at a canteen of tepid water and munched on a biscuit. It wasn’t fair, his self-pity spilled out.

  He worked hard, like any of the hands. They got paid regular wages, but he only made money when he topped off a horse. And—and everyone treated him like a baby. He was lonesome, too.

  At least down south, he had friends his age. Sam and Petey, Little Joe Butler. When he could get away from Rupe Connors, they’d gone swimming in the old Dutchman’s pond, fished, hunted rabbits
in the fall. Here he had no one to pal with. Now, school was going to start.

  He hated school. Funny, he loved books and spent more time reading here on the Sugarloaf than he had had time for at home. But school? Doin’ dumb drills in handwriting and arithmetic because some dried-up old woman said you had to? Awful. Why wouldn’t Miz Jensen listen to him? He crinkled up his button nose, and his lower lip slid out in a big pout. The effect was spoiled somewhat by biscuit crumbs clinging to it.

  He’d taken Dollar and run off in the night. Show them, he thought. It would drive them wild. Maybe he would head south, hunt for Smoke Jensen. Smoke let him drink coffee and talked to him like a growed man. Only how could he do that? It was a long ways off. He had five dollars, saved up from what Miz Jensen let him keep of his earnings. The rest she banked for his future.

  Some future. Forever messing with horses and cleaning up after them. And going to school. That five dollars wouldn’t buy many supplies. Nor a train ticket. He’d do it somehow; he’d show them all. Late afternoon sun touched his bowed shoulders and sent the warmth of Indian summer into his thin frame.

  Not so thin any more, he thought with a snatch of pride. He’d been filling out with Sally Jensen doing the cooking, and the work that strained and strengthened muscles in arms, chest and legs. Why, he already wore a bigger shirt than he had only weeks ago, when Smoke had bought some for him. A lump formed in Bobby’s throat, and he fought back tears.

  “Oh, Smoke, why did you send me away to this lonesome place?” Bobby lamented aloud.

  “Because he cares a lot about you and wanted you to have a good place to live.” Suddenly Sally Jensen appeared in the small clearing Bobby had cut for himself with a handaxe.

  How had she done that? He’d not heard a sound. Not a horse or a person. Bobby looked up, blinked cobalt eyes and flushed with shame and embarrassment. So much for his great plans to run away. He’d only gotten this far and already he’d been caught.

  “I gather you needed some time by yourself,” Sally offered when Bobby remained silent.

  “Yes, ma’am. Som’thin’ like that,” he responded in a subdued voice.

  Sally produced a bright smile. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

  “No, ma’am.” Instantly, Bobby’s stomach called him a liar. “Yes. I guess I am.”

  “You missed breakfast and dinner, no wonder. Everyone has a heavy burden on his mind once in a while. Have you come to grips with yours?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Tell me about it,” Sally urged.

  “I—It’s just that I’m so lonely up here. Got no friends, no one to do things with,” Bobby began to unload his misery.

  Sally pressed her lips together, eyes weighing the boy’s discomfort. “Well, if I told you that one reason you need to go to school is to meet other boys in the valley, would you believe me?”

  “Huh? I—I never thought of that.” Bobby brightened slightly. “Yeah, I guess I would. That might make it worth it, after all.”

  “There’s something else, isn’t there, Bobby?” Sally’s intuitive sense had brought her to the core of his problem.

  Bobby’s lower lip began to tremble, and his eyes filled with moisture. “I—I miss my maw. Miss her somethin’ awful. I never cried when we buried her. Rupe said he’d whup me if I did. Now … now . . oooh, Miz Jensen, I hurt so bad.”

  Suddenly the dam burst, and Bobby let go his deep grief over his mother. Sally knelt in front of him and took him in her arms. Bobby hugged her and sobbed wretchedly. His whole body shook, and Sally projected her growing love for the boy through her arms, so tightly holding him. She offered soft words of comfort and rocked him as she had her own brood when internal hurt from childhood tragedy had spilled over. At last, the spell passed.

  Bobby rocked back on his bootheels, dried his eyes with a grubby hand and wiped his nose. “I reckon I made a fool of myself,” he said tightly.

  “Yes, you did. But not here, now. You did that last night when you ran away. It was a spiteful act, wrong and unmanly. The Sugarloaf is your home. I’ve come to love you very much, Bobby. Smoke thinks the world of you and expects to find you here when he returns.

  “But, for running away there has to be some punishment,” Sally went on, then produced a big wink. “No pie for three days, how’s that?”

  Bobby hugged her again, this time with genuine affection. “Oh, Miz Jensen, I’d move a mountain for you. I surely would.”

  Half a day of observation has given Smoke Jensen the location of all of the captive women, including Martine’s wife and daughter. He carefully stored in memory each hut or lean-to where one of the prisoners could be found. He returned to the waiting avengers and changed clothes.

  Everyone now wore traditional Mexican clothing, in black or dark brown, with the big sombreros that Smoke had come to identify with the bandit army. Carbone had already picked out the brighter, more aggressive among the ranch hands, flock tenders, and shopkeepers. They gathered with Smoke Jensen at the crest of the ridge.

  “Down there, in that big tent. Señora Martine and her daughter are in there. It belongs to Carvajal, so we have to be sharp in what we do to get them out. Over there, two women in that lean-to,” Smoke instructed in the waning light. When he had completed pointing out the locations of the captives, they withdrew.

  “Everyone get something to eat. No fires, and still no smoking. We wait until three hours after dark, give them time to fill their bellies and get drunked up, then we simply walk in,” Smoke informed them. “You all know which captive you are going after. Be natural, relaxed. Talk and laugh with them and each other. Make it appear you belong. Be sure to get the women out the back of whatever they are held and into the dark as quickly as possible.

  “Once they are all clear, you men on the ridge will let go with our surprise for El Rey,” Smoke went on. “We’ll be upstream with the women, so don’t throw any sticks that way. Once the fun starts, we should be able to get away without being discovered.”

  “If we have good fortune,” Carbone suggested.

  “We make our own luck,” Smoke said gruffly, concerned about the state of mind of their volunteers. “Are there any questions?”

  “What if they find out we don’t belong there?” one of the group asked.

  “Then we have to shoot our way out of there,” Smoke told him.

  “What if some of the women are hurt, or sick?”

  “Carry them out,” Smoke told the young shepherd.

  “Why can’t we smoke? Some of the men I am to lead have complained about it,” Juan Murial asked.

  “Because tobacco smoke can be smelled for a good distance. And a burning match can be seen for a mile at night. I found one of their sentries that way the other night.”

  “What happened to him?” Murial inquired.

  “I strung him up by his heels in a tree.”

  “Ummm. I do not think our men would like that to happen to them.”

  Smoke responded to several more questions and then dismissed their sergeants. They had a long wait ahead.

  Several of Carvajal’s bandit army lounged around fires, drinking from glazed clay jugs of tequila. They talked in low voices, and some of them had eyelids that drooped toward a drunken stupor. With Carbone and Smoke in the lead, the avengers filtered into the camp. One fast thinker fumbled with the buttons of his fly, as though to give reason for his sudden appearance out of the dark.

  No one paid them any attention as they spread through the camp. No more than three came from any one direction, and they angled indirectly toward their objectives. Carbone did the talking, Smoke’s accent likely to give him away. Smoke nodded and smiled and said an occasional “sí.”

  He noted the tension among the infiltrators, though he doubted that any of the bandits would recognize it. Many of the huts lay in darkness, and the men assigned to them approached quietly and unobserved. Smoke Jensen’s keen hearing picked out several soft grunts as men in the shelters met death by a knife or were knocked
unconscious. Smoke, Carbone, and Juan headed for Carvajal’s large tent. On the blind side from the dying cookfires, they listened for any sound from inside. A soft whimper could be heard.

  “The girl,” Smoke mouthed silently. Carbone nodded. “We wait,” Smoke added.

  While they bided time, Smoke kept track of the women being spirited out of the camp. By his count, all but three, plus Martine’s wife and daughter, had been slipped away to safety when a sudden roar of surprised anger broke the silence of the night.

  A soft, rasping sound got through the tequila haze spiraling in the head of Montez. Groggy, he cracked one eye and saw the figure of the young woman from Merced standing over him. She was hastily dressing. Then he sensed the presence of someone else.

  By damn, no one was taking the woman away from him. He bolted upright, a wicked knife in one hand. “Get out of here, cabron, or I’ll cut your liver out,” he bellowed in anger.

  Another blade swished in the dark and cut through the veins and tendons of Montez’s knife hand. He howled in pain. Immediately, questions came, shouted from different parts of the camp. Spraying blood on the walls and floor of the hut, Montez dived for his cartridge belt. He came up with his .45 Mendoza and fired point blank into the chest of the unknown man who had cut him. But not before the soft-spoken saddlemaker from Merced buried his knife in Montez’s chest, spearing his heart.

  Confused and terrified, the woman barged from the shelter and bowled over one of the outlaws who responded to the alarm given by Montez. An arm came out of the darkness, and the hand grabbed her by the wrist. Yanked off her feet, she squealed in fright as the man who held her pulled her out of sight. Muzzle bloom from several six-guns brightened the night.

  Befuddled by tequila, the bandidos began firing at shadows and each other. More alert, several of their number heaped wood on the fires to provide light enough to find out what had happened. Growling like a baited bear, Gustavo Carvajal burst out the entrance to his tent.