“Has Luttie and his crew been back into town?” Sheriff Silva asked.
“No. Not in days.”
The sheriff lit a cigar and said, “Main reason I rode down here was to tell you that Luttie’s hirin’ fightin’ men. Payin’ top wages. Whole passel of them rode through my town. Me and the boys sent them packin’. One-Eyed Jake and that Mexican gunslinger, Carbone, was among the bunch.”
“I know them both,” Johnny said. “They’re top guns. Did you recognize any of the others?”
“Yeah. Nick Johnson, the twins, the Karl Brothers—Rod and Randy, and Rich Coleman.”
“That’s a whole army right there,” Cotton said, hitching at his gunbelt. “Earl’s told us something about this Luttie Charles. About his bein’ the brother to Lee Slater. About how it’s a good bet that he’s tied up in all this. Ain’t they enough evidence to move against him and shut him down?”
“Not . . . quite,” Silva said with a sigh. “I received a wire from the governor this morning. Early this morning. He’s not happy with all the press we’re getting. He’s afraid this town is going to blow wide open, and personally I think there is a good chance of that happening. There’s a federal judge in Denver working very hard to overturn those warrants against Smoke, but that’s going to take time. The governor said Smoke was on his own in this. I wired him back and told him that Jensen was one of my deputies, and he damn sure was not alone in this. Whatever he was doing up in the mountains comes under the business of keeping the law and order. I expect by the time I get back, I’ll have several replies on my desk.” Silva smiled. “They should make for interestin’ readin’.”
“Reading between the lines, Sheriff,” Johnny said. “Smoke’s on his own in the mountains, except for Charlie—and you want us to stay in Rio, right?”
“I’d appreciate it, boys. If the governor has to send the state militia in here, that’s gonna make him very unhappy.”
“Then here we’ll stay, Sheriff,” Louis assured the man. “Do you think Luttie has plans to attack the town, strip it bare, and leave this part of the country?”
“It’s a possibility that I’ve considered. At first I think his plan was to hit the miners and the stages carrying gold and silver out. Maybe he might still do that. But I think now that Jensen has his brother’s men out looking for him, he just might turn his back on Lee and use the men he has to wipe this town clean.”
“Brotherly love doesn’t run very deep in that family, does it?” Earl said softly.
Silva shrugged. “That’s just a guess on my part. Who the hell really knows what Lee and Luttie will do?”
The men fell silent in the noisy, busy town, their eyes on the mountains that loomed around them. All of them had one overriding thought: Could Smoke pull this off?
* * *
Charlie Starr watched with some amusement in his hard eyes as Curly’s group tried to treat the wounded. He had left his horse and walked to within fifty yards of the outlaw band’s camp, casually leaning up against a tree at the edge of the clearing.
Bud was lying on his stomach, his britches down around his boots, his bare butt shinin’ in the sunlight, while Thumbs Morton poured alcohol on the bullet holes. That set Bud off, jerking and squalling.
One side of Thumb’s face was swollen and red-looking.
Bell Harrison had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, and Taylor’s legs, from the knees down, were wrapped in dirty, bloody bandages.
“I’m a-gonna kill that son of a bitch!” Bell said, considerable heat in his voice. “Torture him. Make it last. Burn him. I’ll start with his feet in a fire and work up. I hate Smoke Jensen.”
Charlie grinned. Smoke had really done a job on this bunch of no-goods.
“My legs is real hot, boys,” Taylor said with a moan. “I’m burnin’ up. I think Jensen put something on them stakepoints. Poison, maybe.”
Probably so, Charlie thought. He probably found him some bear shit and smeared the points with it. Or he might have used some poisonous plant leaves. Ol’ Preacher taught him every mean and dirty trick in the book when it came to survival. You boys done grabbed hold of a grizzly bear’s tail when you decided to take on Smoke Jensen.
“I can’t do no more for you, Bud,” Thumbs said.
“I hate Smoke Jensen!” Bell said.
Charlie worked his way around the clearing until he had reached a spot about twenty yards from the bitching and moaning group of deadbeats. He pulled both .44s from leather and jacked the hammers back.
“What the hell was that?” Curly said, grabbing up a rifle and looking all around him.
“I didn’t hear nothin’,” Taylor said.
“I wonder if Jensen give Lake a decent buryin’?” Thumbs said.
“About the same as I’m gonna give you,” Charlie said, and stepped out and started shooting.
Curly recognized the man at once. Charlie Starr! He jumped away from the group and headed for the horses, none of whom had been unsaddled. Curly wanted no part of Charlie Starr. Smoke Jensen was bad enough, but combine him with Charlie, and that was just too much.
Curly left his fearless little group to fight it out by themselves.
Charlie’s first slug knocked Bell sprawling, his right arm hanging broken and useless by his side. Thumbs Morton was hit in the right side, the bullet shattering a rib and angling off to tear through a kidney. He lifted his six-gun, a curse forming on his lips, and got off one round, which missed.
Charlie didn’t miss. He didn’t even flinch as the slug from Thumbs’ gun tore bark from a nearby tree. He leveled his long-barreled .44 and shot Thumbs in the belly, knocking the man down, hard-hit and dying.
Bell struggled to his boots and lifted his left-hand gun. Charlie perforated the man’s belly, and Bell would never again have to worry about indigestion or how to keep his hat on his head with only one ear. Now all he had to worry about was facing God.
Charlie stepped back into the timber and was gone, leaving Bud and Taylor alive in the middle of carnage. He’d seen Curly Rogers hightail it out. Charlie knew Curly from way back. Knew him for the coward and the bully he was. Let him go; they would meet up again.
Charlie walked swiftly back to his horse, reloading as he went. He swung into the saddle, and was gone, a warrior’s smile on his lips.
“Oh, my God!” Taylor yelled, the pain in his legs fierce. “What are we gonna do, Bud?”
Bud couldn’t even stand up. His britches and his galluses were all tangled up around his boots. “Oh, Lord, I don’t know!” Bud wailed. “I wish I’d never heard of Smoke Jensen. I wish I’d never left the farm.”
“I think I’m gonna die, Bud. My legs is swellin’ something awful.”
“Hell with your legs. My ass hurts,” Bud moaned.
* * *
Several of the groups had returned to base camp as night grew near. They all gathered around as Lee Slater listened to Curly’s babblings, a disgusted look on his ugly face. He finally had enough and waved Curly silent. “Goddamnit, boys!” he yelled. “Smoke’s jist one man. You’re lettin’ him buffalo you all.”
“What about Bud and Taylor?” Horton asked.
“What about them?” Lee demanded. “Hell, they know the way back to base. We’ve all been shot before and managed to stay on a horse. If they got so much baby in them they can’t ride through a little pain, we don’t need them.”
The young punks, Pecos, Miller, Hudson, Concho, Bull, and Jeff, all nodded their agreement and hitched at their gunbelts. None of them had ever been shot so they really didn’t know what they were agreeing to. It just seemed like it was the manly thing to do.
“We put out guards this night,” Lee said. “They’ll be no more of Jensen slippin’ up on us.”
Miles away, Smoke had no intention of slipping up on anything that night, except sleep. Let the outlaws sweat it out and get tired and nervous. He would fix a good meal and rest.
Charlie had found him a nice comfortable little hidey-hole and was boiling his
coffee and frying his bacon. He would get a good night’s sleep and start out before dawn the next morning.
Back in Rio, a half dozen more rowdies had ridden in, on their way to the Seven Slash Ranch. They reined up in front of the saloon and swung down from the saddle, trail weary from a long day’s ride. A whiskey would taste good.
“Keep movin’, boys,” the voice from behind them said.
They turned, and what they saw chilled them right down to their dirty socks. Louis Longmont, Cotton Pickens, Johnny North, and Earl Sutcliffe stood in the now quieted street, all of them with sawed-off shotguns in their hands. To a man they kept their hands very still.
“We just wanted to buy a drink of whiskey, Earl,” John Seale said.
“You won’t buy it here. None of you. Ride on to the Seven Slash if you want a drink.”
“How’d you know? . . .” Mason Wright cut that off in mid-sentence. But it was too late; he’d tipped his hand and he knew it.
The others gave him dirty looks.
“Pack it in, Louis,” Frankie Deevers said, looking at the millionaire gambler. “If you don’t, you’re gonna lose this pot. Believe me.”
Louis smiled. “And who says life is not a game of chance, eh, Frankie?”
“Put them Greeners down, and we’ll take you all right here and right now,” a gunny snarled at Louis.
“Now, now, Willis,” Louis said. “You know how talking strains your brain.”
Larry chose that time to step out of the saloon/ hotel for a breath of fresh air. The beery, sweaty odor from those unwashed cretins in the bar had drifted up to his room and was making him nauseous. But Larry was wising up to the West and after giving the group in the street a quick look, he moved down the boardwalk, well out of the way.
“Longmont,” Willis said. “I ain’t never liked you. You got a smart damn mouth hooked to your face. I’ve always heard how bad you was, but I’m from Missouri, and I gotta be showed. So why don’t you just show me?”
Louis lowered the shotgun and leaned it against a water rough. He swept back his coat and said, “Anytime you’re ready, Willis.”
Johnny, Earl, and Cotton backed off, still holding the express guns up and pointed at the gunnies.
“You can take him, Willis,” Frankie said. “He’s all showboat; that’s all he is.”
“A hundred dollars says he can’t,” Louis smiled the words.
“You got a bet, gambler!”
Willis made his play. Louis shot him just as the man cleared leather, the slug knocking him back on the steps leading up to the boardwalk. Willis lifted his gun and Louis plugged him again. Bright crimson dotted his dirty white shirt.
“You dirty son!” Willis gasped, still trying to jack back the hammer of his .45.
His friends desperately wanted to get into the fray, but the muzzles of those sawed-offs were just too formidable to breech.
“I can still do it!” Willis said, his blood staining his lips. He cocked his .45 and lifted it.
Louis shot him a third time, this time placing his shot with care. A blue/black hole appeared in the center of Willis’ head. He died with his mouth and his eyes wide open.
“You owe me a hundred dollars,” Louis said, looking at Frankie.
“I’ll pay you,” Frankie spoke through tight lips.
A young gunny who had ridden in with the hardcases and had not been recognized by any of the lawmen asked, “Is Jensen faster than you?”
“Oh, yes,” Louis told him. “Smoke Jensen is the fastest man alive.”
The young gunny took off his gunbelt and looped it on the saddle horn. “If it’s all right with you boys, I’ll just have me one drink to cut the dust, a bite to eat at that cafe over yonder, and then I’ll ride out of town. Not in the direction of the Seven Slash.”
“You yellow pup!” Mason Wright told him. “I knowed you didn’t have no good sand bottom to you.”
“Shut up, Mason,” Earl said. “The boy is showing uncommonly good sense.” He looked at the young man. “Go have your drink and something to eat.”
“Thank you kindly, sir.” The rider walked up the steps and entered the barroom, the batwings slapping the air behind him.
Louis walked to Frankie. “A hundred dollars, Frankie. Greenbacks or gold.”
Frankie paid him. “Your day’s comin’, Louis. You just remember that.”
“If it comes from the likes of you, Frankie, it’ll come from the back.” Frankie flushed deeply. “Because you don’t have the courage to face me eye to eye, with knife or gun or even fists, for that matter.” Louis was a highly skilled boxer, and Frankie knew it.
“We’ll see, Louis. We’ll see.”
“How about now, Frankie?” the gambler laid down the challenge. “You want to bet your life?”
“Let’s go, Frankie,” Mason urged him. “We can deal with this bunch later.”
Incredible! Larry thought. The man is a millionaire and is risking his life in a dirty street of a backwater town. I do not understand these men and their loyalty to someone of Smoke Jensen’s dubious character.
The gunhands rode out of town, leaving Willis’ body still sprawled on the steps of the saloon. Muckelmort and the undertaker came running over, squabbling at each other.
“Get a good night’s rest, Smoke,” Johnny North muttered, looking at the darkening shapes of the mountains all around the little town. “There’s gonna be hell to pay in the morning, I’m thinkin’.”
Chapter Fourteen
The body of Willis was toted off—Muckelmort and the undertaker would go through his pockets to determine the elaborateness of the funeral—and the town began once more coming back to life as darkness settled in. The saloon was doing more business than it could handle, and the owner actually wished the other saloons would hurry up and get their board floors down and the canvas sides and roof up to take some of the pressure off his place.
Louis volunteered to take the first shift, and the others went to bed early—they each would do a four hour shift.
In the mountains, the outlaws slept fitfully, not knowing when or even if Smoke Jensen or that old warhorse Charlie Starr would strike.
Charlie and Smoke, camped miles apart, slept well and awakened refreshed. They rolled their ground sheets and bedding, boiled their coffee and fried their bacon, then checked their guns, and made ready for another day.
The members of Lee Slater’s gang, their size now cut by three more, were quiet as they fixed their breakfast and drank their coffee. Taylor and Bud had ridden in during the early evening, and Taylor’s condition had both depressed and angered the outlaws. His legs were swollen badly, and the man had slipped into a coma as blood poisoning was rapidly taking his life.
“That there’s the most horriblest-lookin’ thing I ever did see,” Woody commented, looking at Taylor. “Smoke Jensen don’t fight fair a-tall.”
“My ass hurts!” Bud squalled.
“Pour some more horse liniment on it,” Lee told a man.
Bud really took to squalling when the horse medicine hit the raw wounds. Everyone was glad when he passed out from the pain and the hollering stopped.
The men mounted up and pulled out, a silent and sullen group of no-goods.
“How long do we intend to remain here?” Albert asked Mills, over breakfast.
“Until we come up with a plan to capture Smoke Jensen,” the senior U.S. Marshal said. “Anybody got one?”
No one did.
“Pass the beans,” Mills said.
* * *
Back in Washington, D.C., the chief of the U.S. Marshal’s Service looked across his desk at a group of senators. The senators were very unhappy.
“Smoke Jensen is a national hero,” one senator said. “He’s had books and plays written about him. School children worship him, and women around the nation love him for the family man he is. The telegrams I’m receiving from people tell me they don’t believe these murder warrants are valid. I want your opinion on this matter, and I want it right
now.”
Without hesitation, the man said, “I don’t believe the charges would stick for a minute in a court of law. But a federal judge signed them, and we have to serve them.” He smiled. “But the information I’m receiving indicates that our people out West are not at all eager to arrest Smoke Jensen.” He lifted a wire from Mills Walsdorf. “They have, shall we say, dropped out of sight for a time.”
“Then the Marshal’s Service is out of the picture?” another senator questioned.
“For all intents and purposes, yes.”
The senator lifted a local newspaper. “What about these hundreds of bounty hunters chasing Jensen?”
The marshal shook his head. “You know how that rag tends to blow things all out of proportion. The reporter they sent out there to cover this story wouldn’t know a bounty hunter from a cigar store Indian. He’s never been west of the Mississippi River in his entire life ... until now.”
Another senator lifted a New York City newspaper and started to speak. The marshal waved him silent. “That paper is even worse. Smoke Jensen is probably up against a hundred people ...”
“A hundred?” a Senator yelled. “But he’s just one man.”
The marshal smiled. “You ever seen Smoke Jensen, sir?”
“No, I have not.”
“I have. One time about ten years ago when I was working out West. Three men jumped him in a bar in Colorado. When the dust settled, two of those men were dead and the third was dying. Smoke was leaning up against the bar, both hands filled with .44s. He holstered his guns, drank his beer, fixed him a sandwich, and went across the street to his hotel room for a night’s sleep. I’m not saying he can pull this thing off and come out of it without taking some lead, but if anyone can do it, Smoke Jensen can. I can wish him well. But other than that, my hands are tied until some other federal judge overrides those warrants.”
“Judge Richards has left town on a vacation,” a senator said. “He’ll be back in two weeks, so his office told me.”
“He’d better stay gone,” the marshal said. “ ’Cause when Smoke comes down from those mountains, I got me a hunch he’s Washington bound with a killin’ on his mind.”
Code of the Mountain Man Page 14