Code of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “You may get me, boys,” he said to the sighing winds and the soaring eagles high above him. “But you’ll pay a fearful price before you do.”

  * * *

  “Scum,” Louis said to the two riders.

  “Huh?” one asked.

  “I said you’re scum,” Louis repeated.

  Stan and Glover had gotten separated from Noah’s group. They’d been wandering around in circles when they came upon the tall, well-built man dressed all in black. Kind of a dudey lookin’ fellow—except for those guns of his. They looked well-used. And his coat was brushed back to give him free access to the Colts. He was just standing in the middle of the trail, smiling sort of strange-like. Now he was insulting them.

  “Git out of the way, fancy-pants!” Glover told him.

  “I like it here.”

  “Well, you about a stupid feller, then. I might decide to just run you down with this here horse. What do you think about that?”

  Louis smiled. “I think your blow-hole is overloading your mouth, punk.”

  Glover and Stan exchanged glances. It just seemed like nothin’ had worked out right since they’d left the West coast and come to Colorado. All them hayseeds and hicks out in the rural areas of the coast states knowed who the Lee Slater gang was, and they kowtowed and done what they was told. But it seemed like that ever since they’d come to Colorado, all that was happenin’ was they was gettin’ the crap shot out of them. And nobody seemed to be afraid of them.

  “You a bounty hunter, mister?” Stan asked.

  “You might say that. I hunt punks. And it looks like I found me a couple.”

  “I’m gettin’ tarred of you in-sultin’ me!” Glover popped off.

  “Yeah,” Stan flapped his mouth. “We’re lookin’ for Smoke Jensen so’s we can collect the re-ward money.”

  “You dumb clucks,” Louis said with a chuckle. “You’re part of the Lee Slater gang. You’re all wanted men, with bounties on your own heads. How in the devil do you think you’re going to collect any reward money?”

  Stan and Glover exchanged another look. That hadn’t occurred to either of them.

  “Uhhh . . .” Glover said.

  “Well . . .” Stan said.

  “Get off your horses, throw your guns in the bushes, and start walking,” Louis told them.

  Stan told him what he could do with his orders. Sideways.

  Louis shot him. His draw was like a blur and totally unexpected. Stan pitched from the saddle, and Louis turned his gun toward Glover just as the outlaw was jerking iron. Louis waited; a slight smile on his lips as the man cursed and jacked back the hammer.

  That was as far as he got before Louis drilled him dead center in the chest, the slug knocking the outlaw out of the saddle, dead before he hit the ground. Quite unlike him, Louis twirled his six-shooter twice before dropping it back in leather.

  “Punks,” he said scornfully.

  He went through their saddlebags and took out bacon, potatoes, bread, onions, and coffee. Fortunately, he did have with him his own coffee pot and small frying pan. The one he took from Stan’s saddlebag was so coated with old grease and other odious and unidentifiable specks it was probably contagious just by touch. With a grimace of disgust, Louis tossed it into the bushes.

  He stripped both horses of saddle and bridle and turned them loose, then swung back into the saddle and headed out. He did not look back at the dead outlaws lying sprawled on the trail.

  * * *

  It was nearing dusk when Al Martine and his bunch spotted Smoke high up near the timber line in the big lonesome.

  “We got him, boys!” Al yelled, and put the spurs to his tired horse.

  A rifle bullet took Al’s hat off and sent it spinning away. The mountain winds caught it, and it was gone forever.

  “Goddamn!” Al yelled, just as another round kicked up dirt at his horse’s hooves, and the animal started bucking. It was all Al could do to stay in the saddle.

  A slug smacked Zack in the shoulder and nearly knocked him from the saddle. The second shot tore off the saddle horn and smashed into Zack’s upper thigh, bringing a scream of pain from the outlaw.

  “He’s got help!” Pedro yelled. “Let’s get gone from here.”

  The outlaws raced for cover, with Zack flopping around in the saddle.

  Smoke looked down the mountain. “Now who in the devil is that?” he muttered.

  Sally punched .44 rounds into her carbine and settled back into her well-hidden little camp in a narrow depression with the back and one side a solid rock wall.

  “Who you reckon that was a-shootin’ at us?” Tom Post yelled over the sounds of galloping horses.

  “I don’t know,” Crown returned the yell. “But he’s hell with a rifle, whoever he is.”

  Using field glasses, Sally watched them beat a hasty retreat, and then laid out cloth and cup, plate and tableware, and napkin for her early supper. Just because one was in the wilderness, surrounded by Godless heathens, was no reason to forego small amenities.

  She opened a can of beans, set aside a can of peaches for dessert, and spread butter on a thick slice of bread. Before eating, she said a prayer for the continuing safety of her man.

  * * *

  “Hello the far!” the voice came out of the timber.

  Louis edged back into the shadows and lifted his Colt. “If you’re friendly, come on in.”

  “I reckon we’re friendly,” came the call. Two men stepped into the small clearing. “We’re all in this together, a-huntin’ that damn Smoke Jensen. Share your coffee, friend?”

  “Why, certainly!” Louis called out cheerfully. “Step right on in, boys.”

  “Kind of you.” The men stepped closer. “I’m Nick Reeves, and this is my partner, Mike Beecham.”

  Louis knew them both. No-goods from down near the Four Corners.

  “What might your name be, mister?” Mike asked, squatting down by the small fire. “I think I know the voice, but I cain’t hardly see you in them shadows.”

  “Louis Longmont, you cretin!”

  Both men yelled, cussed, and grabbed for iron. Louis had both hands filled with .44s, and the campsite thundered with shots, the moist evening air filling with gray smoke.

  Louis reloaded then dragged the bodies away, heaving them over a small cliff. He went through their saddlebags and found more food, a goodly amount of .44 ammo, and some stinking socks and dirty longhandles. He kept the food and the ammo and turned their horses loose after relieving them of saddle and bridle. He returned to his fire and slowly ate his supper, scoured out his pan and plate, then broke camp and moved on about a mile, before bedding down for the night.

  * * *

  “Got more bounty hunters in the mountains than boys left in the gang,” Lee Slater said glumly. He sat staring into the flames of the campfire and sucking on a bottle of rye whiskey.

  His brother, Luttie, sat across the fire from him, equally morose. He took a drink from his bottle and wondered how all this was going to turn out. The shock of losing five of his men in a matter of seconds earlier that day still had not entirely left him. He wondered if his boys had managed to get enough lead in that damned ol’ Charlie Starr to kill him. He doubted it.

  “Twelve dead, last count,” Lee said. “Six wounded. And you lost five of your boys to Starr.”

  “You don’t have to keep reminding me,” Luttie said sourly. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had kept a tight rein on your boys. The dumbest damn thing you did was attackin’ Big Rock and shootin’ up the place. The second dumbest thing you done was shootin’ Smoke Jensen’s wife. And the third dumbest thing you done is torturin’ and rapin’ and killin’ that family up north of here.”

  “Aw, shut up!” Lee told him.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up! I told you to come straight here and stay out of trouble on the way. We could have had it all, Lee. We could have taken a million dollars worth of gold and silver from the miners and stages and banks and done been gone from
this damn place. But, oh, hell, no. You had to surround yourself with idiots and screw it all up.”

  “If he’s talkin’ about idiots, he must be talkin’ about you boys,” Lopez said to the Karl Brothers.

  Rod gave him a dirty look, and Randy gave him an obscene gesture.

  “We got Smoke to the north of us,” Curt said. “A damn good rifleman to the East of us, and it looks like Louis Longmont is to the south of us.”

  “And a bunch of U.S. Marshals camped at the edge of the mountains,” Dale pointed out.

  “Maybe it’s time to haul out of here,” Max suggested.

  “I’ll be damned!” Lee snarled at him. “Good God, people! Countin’ Luttie’s bunch, they’s nearly fifty of us left, all told, and we’re lettin’ two or three people whup us. What the hell’s the matter with you? No one or two people ain’t never whupped fifty people. We’re doin’ somethin’ wrong, is all. We got to study this out and find out what it is.”

  “Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont ain’t no average two people,” Al Martine pointed out. “And that rifleman that hit us this afternoon wasn’t no pilgrim, neither. Now you think about this—all of you: hittin’ Rio is out the winder. They’d shoot us to pieces in ten seconds. The miners has all shut down and gone into town; they ain’t diggin’ no gold, and they shore ain’t shippin’ none. The county seat is out of the pitcher; Sheriff Silva ain’t no man to fool with. So where the hell does that leave us?”

  “My ass hurts!” Bud complained.

  * * *

  “He’s up there,” Ace Reilly said, his eyes looking at the timber line. Good light of morning, the air almost cold this high up.

  Big Bob Masters shifted his chew from one side of his mouth to the other and spat. “Solid rock to his back,” he observed. “And two hundreds yards of open country ever’where else. It’d be suicide gettin’ up there.”

  Ace lifted his canteen to take a drink, and the canteen exploded in his hand, showering him with water, bits of metal, and numbing his hand. The second shot nicked Big Bob’s horse on the rump, and the animal went pitching and snorting and screaming down the slope, Big Bob yelling and hanging on and flopping in the saddle. The third shot took off part of Causey’s ear, and he left the saddle, crawling behind some rocks.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ace hollered, leaving the saddle and finding cover. “Where the hell is that comin’ from?”

  Big Bob’s horse had come to a very sudden and unexpected halt, and Big Bob went flying ass over elbows out of the saddle to land against a tree. He staggered to his feet, looking wildly around him, and took a .44 slug in the belly. He sank to his knees, both hands holding his punctured belly, bellering in pain.

  “He’s right on top of us,” Ace called to Nap. “Over there at the base of that rock face.”

  Smoke was hundreds of yards up the mountain, just at the timber line, looking and wondering who his new ally might be. He got his field glasses and began sweeping the area. A slow smile curved his lips.

  “I married a Valkyrie, for sure,” he muttered, as the long lenses made out Sally’s face.

  He saw riders coming hard, a lot of riders. Smoke grabbed up his .44-.40 and began running down the mountain, keeping to the timber. The firing had increased as the riders dismounted and sought cover. Smoke stayed a good hundred yards above them, and so far he had not been spotted.

  “Causey!” Woody yelled. “Over yonder!” he pointed. “Get on his right flank – that’s exposed.”

  Causey jumped up, and Smoke drilled him through and through. Causey died sprawled on the still damp rocks from the misty morning in the high lonesome.

  “He’s up above us!” Ray yelled.

  “Who the hell is that over yonder?” Noah hollered, just as Sally fired. The slug sent bits of rock into Noah’s face, and he screamed as he was momentarily blinded. He stood up, and Smoke nailed him through the neck. Smoke had been aiming for his chest, but shooting downhill is tricky, even for a marksman.

  Big Bob Masters was hollering and screaming, afraid to move, afraid his guts would fall out.

  Smoke began dusting the area where the outlaws and bounty hunters had left their horses. The whining slugs spooked them and off they ran, reins trailing, taking food, water, and extra ammo with them.

  “Goddamnit!” Woody yelled, running after them. He suddenly stopped, right out in the open, realizing what a stupid move that had been.

  Smoke and Sally fired at the same time. One slug struck Woody in the side, the .44-.40 hit him in the chest. Woody had no further use for a horse.

  Smoke plugged Yancey in the shoulder, knocking the man down and putting him out of the fight. Yancey began crawling downhill toward the horses, staying to cover. He had but two thoughts in mind: getting in the saddle and getting the hell gone from this place.

  “It’s no good!” Ace yelled. “They’ll pick us all off if we stay here. We got to get out of range. Start makin’ your way down the slope.”

  The outlaws and bounty hunters began crawling back, staying to cover. Smoke and Sally held their fire, neither of them having a clear target and not wanting to waste ammo. They took that time to take a drink of water, eat a biscuit, and wait.

  Haynes, Dale, and Yancey were the first to reach the horses, well out of range of the guns of Smoke and Sally.

  Haynes looked up, horror in his eyes. A man dressed all in black was standing by a tree, his hands filled with Colts.

  “Hello, punk!” Louis Longmont said, and opened fire.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The last memory Haynes had, and it would have to last him an eternity, was the guns of Louis Longmont belching fire and smoke. He died sitting on his butt, his back to a boulder. Yancey tried to lift his rifle, and Louis shot him twice in the belly. Dale turned to run, and Louis offered him no quarter. The first slug cut his spine, the second slug caught him falling and took off part of his head.

  Louis reloaded his Colts, then picked up his rifle and took cover.

  “We yield!” Nap Jacobs yelled.

  “Not in this game,” Louis called.

  “Somebody come hep me!” Big Bob Masters squalled. “I cain’t stand the pain!”

  The pinned-down gunmen looked at each other. There were four of them left. Nap Jacobs, Ace Reilly, and two of Slater’s boys, Kenny and Summers.

  All knew Big Bob Masters was not long for this world. His yelling was growing weaker.

  “I ain’t done you no hurt, Longmont!” Ace yelled. “You got no call to horn in on this play.”

  “But here I am,” Louis said. “Make your peace with God.”

  The silent dead littered the mountain battlefield. Below them, an outlaw’s horse pawed the ground, the steel hoof striking rock.

  “And I don’t know who you is over yonder in the rocks,” Nap yelled. “But I wish you’d bow out.”

  “I’m Mrs. Smoke Jensen!” Sally called.

  “Dear God in Heaven,” Ace said. “We been took down by a damn skirt!”

  “Disgustin’!” Nap said.

  Kenny looked wild-eyed all around him. He was mumbling under his breath. His eyes held a touch of madness, and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving. Drool leaked from his mouth. “I’m gone,” he said, and jumped up.

  Three rifles barked at once, all the slugs striking true. Kenny was slammed backward, two holes in his chest and one hole in the center of his forehead.

  Nap looked over at Ace. “This ain’t no cakewalk, Ace. We forgot about Smoke’s reputation once the battle starts.”

  “Yeah,” Ace said, his voice low. “Once folks come after him, he don’t leave nobody standin’.”

  “I got an idea. Listen.” Nap tied a dirty bandana around the barrel of his rifle and waved it. “I’m standin’ up, people!” he shouted, taking his guns from leather and dropping them on the ground. “I walk out of here, and I’m gone from this country, and I don’t come back.” He looked at Ace. “You with me?”

  “All the way—if they’ll let us leave.”


  “I ain’t playin’, Ace. If they let us go, I’m gone far and long.”

  “My word on it.”

  “How about it, Jensen?” Nap shouted.

  “It’s all right with me,” Smoke returned the shout. “But if I see you again, anyplace, anytime, and you’re wearing a gun, I’ll kill the both of you. That’s a promise.”

  “Let’s go,” Nap said. “I always did want to see what’s east of the Mississippi.”

  * * *

  The three of them shifted locations, leaving the dead bodies behind them. They knew all those shots would soon bring other troublehunters on the run.

  Louis reached out to stroke the blue steele’s head, and the stallion almost took some fingers off. Louis got his hand out of the way just in time.

  “Vicious brute!” he said.

  The stallion walled his eyes and showed Louis his big teeth.

  “Gentle as a baby,” Sally said, giving him a carrot.

  The stallion took the carrot as gently as a house pet.

  “We’ve got to get Sally out of here,” Smoke said.

  “I concur,” Louis said. “However ...”

  “You can both go straight to hell!” she cut off Louis’ words. “I didn’t travel two hundred and fifty miles from the Sugarloaf to sit in some hotel room. I came to stand by my man, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Smoke shrugged. “You were about to say, Louis? . . .”

  “That it might not be possible to get Sally out of the mountains. Bounty hunters and assorted other crud and punks were still pouring into town when I left. We cut the odds down some today, but I’ll wager that double that number came into the mountains.”

  Smoke had taken a big, tough-looking horse from the mounts that the dead would no longer need. They had all carried food in their saddlebags, so that problem, at least, was solved. They had plenty of coffee and ammo as well.

  “If we could just find a place to hole up until those warrants are lifted,” Smoke said wistfully. He was weary of the killing. Weary of the blood and pain and sweat and tension.