Fury of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “There goes our perfect plan,” Smoke Jensen stated dryly when the first shout aroused the camp. When Carvajal bulled his way out of the tent, he drew his knife. At once he slashed the tent wall with his Bowie. “You’d better go in; she knows you,” he told Carbone.

  Carbone wasted no time. He climbed through the slit and gathered little Alicia in his arms. To Consuelo he said gruffly, “Get your clothes. We’ve come to get you out of here. Hurry.”

  Smoke Jensen assisted Consuelo Martine through the opening in the tent wall and started off at once for the rally point. Consuelo took one startled look at his mountainous size and spoke with conviction.

  “You are Smoke Jensen.”

  “I am, Señora. Now, please hurry. We go that way,” he directed with his free hand.

  Bullets flew freely inside the camp. Leaves and small branches showered down, and the startled outlaws made an uproar that only added to the confusion. Two bandits appeared in Smoke’s path, and he whipped out his .44 Colt in an eyeblink. Hot lead ripped into flesh and sent one of Carvajal’s men staggering into a lean-to. His companion made the mistake of trying to raise his revolver into firing position.

  Smoke shot him through the breastbone. A stupid expression came on the face of the hardcase, and he abruptly sat down hard. His Mendoza .45 grew too heavy to hold, and he let it slip from his fingers. Determinedly, Consuelo bent and retrieved it.

  “I can shoot,” she assured Smoke.

  “You may have to,” he advised her.

  Lances of flame came from the edge of the trees where the rescuers gave covering fire to those still caught inside the camp. Carbone joined up with Smoke, his arms filled with Martine’s daughter.

  “Juan Murial is wounded, but he’s coming behind,” Carbone informed the mountain man.

  “I’ll wait for him,” Smoke decided aloud. “You take these two on to safety.”

  “Going to make some of that luck you talked about, amigo?”

  “That I am, Carbone. Now get.”

  Twenty-one

  Smoke Jensen felt a tugging at the hair on the back of his head. A sudden wind had come up, to moan mournfully through the trees and whip up the flames of the fires. Showers of sparks rose, and smoke rolled along at ground level. It gave a nightmare quality to the frenzied scene, as bandits shot at each other and the unidentified targets beyond the lighted area. Indistinctly, Smoke saw Juan stumbling through the swirl of white. A bandit knelt in the doorway to a brush hut and aimed at the young man from Merced.

  Swinging his right arm to the side, Smoke took a quick sight and shot the bandit through the meaty part of his left shoulder. The rifle fell from nerveless hands, and the outlaw toppled over. Towering above most of the hardcases, Smoke made a sweeping gesture, directing Juan his way.

  “Got me in the side,” Juan panted as he drew near. “It is nothing.”

  A trio of bandits skidded to a halt, realizing the small youth and huge man to be strangers. They fired hastily. One bullet popped a hole through Smoke Jensen’s big sombrero brim. Another cut the heel from Juan’s boot. The third cracked harmlessly overhead. By then, the three gunslicks were in the process of dying.

  Smoke Jensen shot two of them before they realized they had been seen. Juan put away the third with a round through the throat. One of those attended to by Smoke remained on his feet. A wicked grin waggled the drooping mustache that framed his face as he took an unsteady step forward.

  “I am going to kill you, cabrón,” he told Smoke Jensen, his beady eyes glittering with pain and rage.

  “No. You’ll be dead before you get the chance,” Smoke informed him. Then he tripped the hammer of his .44 and sent a message of termination to the bandit.

  Staggered by the impact, eyes already glazing, the bandido rubber-ankled it another three steps toward Smoke, his Mendoza .45 belching flame. Rock chips flew from the ground, the disfigured slug moaning away into the trees. Dust plumbed between Smoke’s legs. When he reached arm’s length, the man stopped. A pink froth foamed on his lips. He panted with the exertion of his approach.

  Smoke extended his arm, shoved the muzzle of his .44 into the chest of the walking corpse and pushed him over on his back. Dust rose from the body’s impact. “Time to be going,” Smoke advised Juan.

  “¡Dios mio! How did you know he wouldn’t hurt you?”

  “It’s the eyes,” Smoke told him. “He had that look that said nobody was home.”

  “Tha’s cold, hombre, real cold.”

  “Only tellin’ it like it is.”

  They reached the edge of the tree line without any further interruptions. There Smoke produced a capped and fused stick of giant powder from inside his shirt. He struck a match and touched it to the frizzed end of the fuse. With an eye on Carvajal’s opulent tent, he held it for a three count, then hurled it with everything he had.

  It landed short, but touched off pandemonium. At once Smoke watched three more high arcs of sparks tumble into camp. One landed at the edge of a fire ring. The roar of the explosion echoed off canyon walls. The force of the blast sent firebrands into some brush shelters nearby. They burst into flames at once. Smoke lighted another fuse and hurled his second stick.

  It landed in the bed of a carreta and created instant wooden shrapnel when it went off. Blind hysteria erupted. One bandit staggered a few paces, a chunk of wheel embedded in his forehead, then fell face-first in the dirt. Another gripped the shaft of a forearm-sized sliver driven into his belly. Two more shrieked while blood ran from their blinded eyes. Men began to scream in total loss of reason. Some ran about aimlessly, in circles or zig-zag lines as more and more explosives landed among them.

  Carbone pitched one that blew a fat bandit high in the air. He landed in a soft, boneless splash. Then, from up on the ridge, more sticks of deadly powder rained down on the camp. Mind-numbing terror seized everyone. They howled in agony, bumped into each other, and sought some means of escape from the merciless bombardment. A few took to their horses. White-eyed with sheer horror, the animals fought their masters. All the while Smoke Jensen, and the wounded Juan Murial, led the rescued women to where horses had been staked out for their escape.

  Carbone clapped Smoke on the shoulder. “Well, my friend, Carvajal will not soon forget our visit tonight. I am only sorry that we couldn’t finish it.”

  “There are too many of them,” Smoke gave reason. “Another time. And soon, I figure. Carvajal will have to do something drastic, the way he sees things, and we need to be ready for him.”

  “Ah, yes. He will be coming for us. I can feel it in my bones,” Carbone predicted.

  Gustavo Carvajal had been shaken to the toes of his size seven feet. No one could create such destruction. How had it happened? He had guards out. Good men, trustworthy to keep watch. Had they been killed or run off like before? He suspected so. His camp was a shambles. Smoldering ruins reminded him of the villages he had raided. He did the burning, the looting, the stealing of women. That last thought struck him suddenly and sent him over the edge.

  “Eagle Warriors, to me! Come my brave Jaguar Warriors, rally around,” he shouted into the flame-ripped night.

  The final echoes of the blasting powder explosions died in the distance. When only familiar faces could be found, the men stopped shooting at each other. Silence from the woods and the rim above ended their futile shots into the dark. Gustavo Carvajal stood in a growing ring of bandits. He panted like a race horse, and his face shone with oily perspiration. It dripped from him, staining the front of his nightshirt. Only then did he realize his state of undress. The rocky ground hurt his tender feet.

  “Everyone gather here, right on this spot,” he demanded. “I will return in a while. We must plan to avenge this insult to the empire of the Aztecs.”

  He hopped gingerly from foot to foot on his way to his tent. One wall, facing the direction of the blasts, had been blown to shreds. They fluttered fitfully in the wind. Carvajal took in the state of his lodging and groaned aloud.


  Inside, he howled in fury and foully cursed Martine and Carbone, The back wall of the tent had been slashed and the woman and child gone. He hastily dressed while his mind ran over various means of exacting revenge. One of them centered around skinning alive and roasting over a low bed of coals.

  “They must … not … get away … with this,” he bleated in a strangled voice.

  Fully dressed in the feathered regalia of what he imagined the emperor Montezuma to have worn, Carvajal ordered his subordinates to line up the men in ranks. He paced before them, hand on the heavy gold pommel of the sword at his side. For nearly an hour he harangued his army. Throughout, he emphasized the need to take vengeance for what he called a cowardly attack. He named several trusted aids to leave at once to seek reinforcements.

  “Make deals. Victor Husango is in Zacatecas. Tell him we will pay him and his men well. Tell him we can conquer all of Mexico.” And later, “Go to Albedo-Portales in Nayarit. He can be trusted to bring in thirty men. Cutthroats, but good men. Say the time has come to repay old favors.”

  Carvajal stomped around the clearing, kicked over a burned-out shack. “We are going to make life miserable for Martine y Garcia. First we attack his second largest village. Then we take the last one. Then the hacienda. We are going to take everything away from him, even his life. As for this gringo, Smoke Jensen, five thousand gold pesos for his head!”

  Esteban Carbone stood off to one side while the Martine family lost themselves in the joy of their reunion. At one point, while he bounced his daughter on his knee, Martine cut his eyes to his old friend and sadness darkened his face. He sat the girl aside and rose to cross over to the cantina, where Carbone stood.

  “Run along, Alicia,” he called to the girl. “Go to your mother.” Pain shadowed his eyes when he took Carbone by one arm. “I am selfish, old friend. It is not right for me to be so happy at this reunion, when you can be reunited with Maria Elena only beyond the grave.”

  Carbone sighed. “It is no matter. I am glad for you. And I have almost lost the terrible empty ache Maria Elena’s passing has given me. What we must do is concentrate on what Carvajal will do next. We should be meeting with Smoke.”

  “There is time, amigo. The young-bloods want a fiesta to celebrate the victory.”

  “There’s little enough to celebrate,” Carbone observed. “We should join him. They can be quite persuasive.”

  Martine clapped Carbone on one shoulder. “Right as usual. He is at what’s left of the posada.”

  They found Smoke Jensen in the inner courtyard of the inn. A dozen young men from the ranches and Merced surrounded him. They clamored for his attention, talking excitedly about dancing, music, feasting, and a lot of drinking. Smoke didn’t notice his friends enter. After several seconds more of their enthusiastic chatter, he held up his arms for silence.

  “It is true,” he said in labored Spanish, “that we won a victory. We won the battle, but the war isn’t over yet. Carvajal will be sure to raise some particular hell now. What you need now is some rest. Go to where you are staying, clean your guns and go to sleep. Believe me, you are going to need both.”

  Disappointed, they departed in silence. Carbone and Martine approached. “What do you think we should be doing?” Carbone asked.

  “We agree that Carvajal is most vulnerable when he is exposed. We need to draw him out in the open. I suggest we fortify one of your villages, Martine.”

  “Pueblo Viejo,” Martine came back at once. “It is the smallest, but also the richest. He will want to come after that for sure.”

  “Good. We’ll take the whole company of volunteers over there. Fortify the place and force Carvajal to throw away men trying to get us out of there.”

  Carbone and Martine looked at Smoke. One after the other, they nodded in agreement. “You have been thinking about this,” Martine offered.

  “All the way back from the valley camp,” Smoke told him. “First, the men did well with the ambush. The traps they set were perfect. Then, we hurt him last night in the camp. How badly we don’t know. Chances are some of those who joined him recently will be having second thoughts about staying on. Getting caught in the open and being cut to pieces will nudge them along with their decisions. Most important is that we make sure every man will stand behind us. Go among them and make it clear how important this is.”

  Castigador sat on the brow of a low hill. Its name was the Spanish version of the Meztec Indian god of the underworld: the Punisher. Not since the conquistadores had any punishment been visited upon the residents. Not even the cruel French, under the command of Maximilian of Habsburg, had harshly dealt with the populace. It took one of their own, a fellow Mexican, Gustavo Carvajal, El Rey del Norte, to bring fire, the knife, and the gun to the people of Castigador.

  They came out of the rising sun, as the bandit army had done at the hacienda of Rancho Pasaje. Few citizens had crawled from their beds at that hour. The outlaw horde descended on the surprised folk with yells and the thunderous crash of gunfire. Quartero Ybarra dropped the lead rope to his burro and ran between two low adobe houses. Laden down with huge jars of oil pressed in the local olive groves, the animal stood stupidly while the bandits raced past the first houses on the eastern edge of town.

  Clay vessels shattered on both sides of the small beast of burden, and it went to its knees in a lake of olive oil, shot through the heart and both lungs. Quartero Ybarra impotently cursed the howling swarm and shrank further back in the passageway. Hinges creaked on a door in the side of one house, and an arm thrust a shotgun into Ybarra’s face.

  “Here,” a voice from inside growled. “If you won’t fight for yourself, fight for your sainted mother, who still lives in this village.”

  “Wha—What are you going to do, Bernardo?” Quartero asked of his childhood friend.

  “I have an old rifle in here. I will use it to kill any of these cabrones who enter my house. The Patrón warned us of this, you know,” Bernardo prompted.

  Ybarra felt shame flush his face. “I do know,” he admitted as he reluctantly took the shotgun. “Only, I don’t know how to shoot a gun.”

  “With that, all you need is to cock the hammer, point, and pull the trigger. Do it now,” Bernardo added as he pointed toward the street.

  Galvanized with sudden fear, Ybarra turned to see two of the bandits rushing at him. He fumblingly eared back both hammers and awkwardly pointed the scattergun at his enemies. He closed his eyes at the same moment his finger jerked both triggers.

  Recoil knocked Quartero from his feet. The jolt of his butt against the hard ground opened both eyes. He saw one bandit as a headless corpse, still on its feet, the other had an ugly red smear where his chest should have been. The door opened again, and a sisal-fiber mesh bag clunked at his side.

  “Reload, idiot,” Bernardo growled.

  Ybarra stared in awe at the dead men and fiddled nervously with the barrel latch. The shotgun popped open and extracted the spent brass shells. Ybarra crossed himself, and his lips moved in prayer as he inserted fresh casings. He had barely closed the breech when a hardcase on horseback pounded into the open space. The animal reared and threw off the man’s aim.

  Ybarra fired a single barrel this time. It took the horse in the chest, and it went down squealing. Its rider managed to roll free and came to his boots glaring hatred. Quartero Ybarra put his second load in the gunhawk’s chest. From inside he heard Bernardo’s rifle discharge. Strangely, he began to feel good about his ability. Then three more bandidos showed up and blasted Ybarra into eternity.

  Gustavo Carvajal had flecks of froth at the corners of his mouth. He waved his fisted .45 Mendoza over his head and shouted somewhat incoherently at the bandits gathered around him. “I’ll kill the men who broke those jars of olive oil. That’s hundreds of pesos wasted!” He whirled on Tomas Diaz. “Find out who it was. Bring them to me.” He looked down again at the pool of oil and dead burro, and some of his men would swear he was going to cry.

  A woman’s
terrified screams came from a house two doors down and drew Carvajal’s attention. “Amuse yourselves with the older ones. Save the young things for our friend in Mazatlán,” he instructed.

  Rapid shots crackled farther into town, near the central plaza. Carvajal remounted and started that way. So far the raid had gone well. These peons must have been warned. Someone had been keeping watch in the belltower and given the alarm. Seven men had been killed so far, with thirteen wounded. Twenty of the villagers had died. Humberto Regales had been right. Martine y Garcia had armed his retainers. And they had fought back. Not skillfully but with a will.

  No matter, he decided. They would all die anyway. Near the Plaza de Armas, he saw more white-clad bodies sprawled in the dirt. After the ignominious bombing of his camp his men would be ruthless, he felt certain. No man could tolerate such an insult. He reined in as the big glass window of the cantina came flying outward, accompanied by the fat bartender.

  “Hola, cantinero,” he called to the dazed apron. “Don’t tell me you are closed for the day? My men have a great thirst.”

  Dusting off his scraped hands, the barkeep came to his boots. He read pure malevolence in the slightly crossed obsidian eyes that bored into him a moment before Carvajal’s bullet. Jerked back on his heels, the barman staggered drunkenly and put a big, soft hand over the hole in his belly. He groaned weakly.

  “You have killed me, Señor. Why?” He didn’t live long enough to hear El Rey del Norte’s laughing answer.

  Some of Carvajal’s men busied themselves stacking some beautiful, well-made furniture in the street outside the shop next door. El Rey ambled his mount over and bent to appraise it.

  “This is of good quality. Is it made here?” he asked of Pedro Chacon.

  “It was, Excellency. The man who carved it is dead.”

  “Oh, well. See that it is loaded in carts and hauled to Hacienda la Fortuna. Those padded chairs look comfortable.”

  “It is fine leather, Excellency, with horsehair stuffing,” Diaz explained like a furniture salesman.