Honor of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke nodded. “And you notice how that other one kind of sits on the edge of his chair, like his butt’s not all there?”

  Pearlie said, “I recognize the one dressed all in black with the big silver belt buckle. I knew him a bit back when I was sellin’ my guns, that’s Ace Reilly.” He glanced at Smoke. “You said he went back east with Nap Jacobs.”

  “He did. Matter of fact, I told him if I ever saw him again, I was going to kill him.”

  Joey leaned back and waved to the barman for a whiskey. He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it with a lucifer. “That sounds like there’s a story behind you knowing these fellahs, Smoke. How ’bout tellin’ it?”

  Smoke shrugged, his eyes boring holes in Ace’s back. “It all started a while back, after a federal judge named Richards issued a phony warrant on me for killing his brother. I had holed up in the high lonesome and a passel of bounty hunters and outlaws came up after me. Man name of Slater put up thirty thousand dollars for anyone who could drill me....”

  * * *

  Smoke hiked what he figured was about three miles through wild and rugged country, then stopped and built a small, nearly smokeless fire for his coffee and bacon and beans. While his meal was cooking and the coffee boiling, he whittled on some short stakes, sharpening one end to a needle point. After eating, he cleaned the plate and skillet and spoon and packed them away. Then he went to work making the campsite look semipermanent and laying out some rather nasty pitfalls for the bounty hunters and outlaws.

  Curly Rogers and his pack of hyenas were first to arrive.

  Smoke was back in the timber with a .44-.40 long gun, waiting and watching.

  The outlaws didn’t come busting in. They laid back and looked the situation over for a time. They saw a lean-to Smoke had built, and what appeared to be a man sleeping under a blanket, protected by overlaid boughs.

  “It might not be Jensen,” Taylor said.

  “So what?” Thumbs Morton said. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone got shot by accident.”

  “I don’t like it,” Curly said. “It just looks too damn pat to suit me.”

  “Maybe Slim got lead into him?” Bell suggested. “He may be hard hit and holed up.”

  Curly thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. Yeah. That must be it. Lake, you think you can injun up yonder for a closer look?”

  “Shore. But why don’t we just shoot him from here?”

  “A shot’d bring everybody foggin’. Then we’d probably have to fight some of the others over Jensen’s carcass. A knife don’t make no noise.”

  Lake grinned and pulled out a long-bladed knife. “I’ll just slip this ’tween his ribs.”

  As Lake stepped out with the knife in his hand, Smoke tugged on a rope he’d attached to the sticks under the blankets. What the outlaws thought to be a sleeping or wounded Smoke Jensen moved, and Lake froze, then jumped back into the timber.

  “This ain’t gonna work,” Curly said. “We got to shoot him, I reckon. One shot might not attract no attention. Bud, use your rifle and put one shot in him. This close, one round’ll kill him sure.”

  Bud lined up the form in his sights and squeezed the trigger. Smoke tugged on the rope, and the stick man rose off the ground a few inches, then fell back.

  “We got him!” Bell yelled, jumping up. “We kilt Smoke Jensen. The money’s our’n!”

  The men raced toward the small clearing, guns drawn and hollering.

  Taylor yelled as the ground seemed to open up under his boots. He fell about eighteen inches into a pit, two sharpened stakes tearing into the calves of his legs. He screamed in pain, unable to free himself from the sharpened stakes.

  Bell tripped a piece of rawhide two inches off the ground and a tied-back, fresh, and springy limb sprang forward. The limb whacked the man on the side of his head, tearing off one ear and knocking him unconscious.

  “What the hell!” Curly yelled.

  Smoke fired from concealment, the .44-.40 slug taking Lake in the right side and exiting out his left side. He was dying as he hit the ground.

  “It’s a trap!” Curly screamed, and ran for the timber. He ran right over Bell in his haste to get the hell into cover.

  Smoke lined up Bud and fired just as the man turned, the slug hitting the man in the ass, the lead punching into his left buttock and blowing out his right, taking a sizeable chunk of meat with it.

  Bud fell screaming and rolled on the ground, throwing himself into cover.

  Thumbs Morton jerked up Bell just as the man was crawling to his knees, blood pouring from where his ear had once been, and dragged him into cover just as Smoke fired again, the slug hitting a tree and blowing splinters in Thumbs’s face, stinging and bringing blood.

  “Let’s get gone from here!” Curly yelled.

  “What about Taylor?” Thumbs asked, pulling splinters and wiping blood from his face.

  “Hell with him.”

  With Curly supporting the ass-shot Bud, and Thumbs helping Bell, the outlaws made it back to their horses and took off at a gallop, Bud shrieking in pain as the saddle abused his shot-up butt.

  Smoke lay in the timber and listened to the outlaws beat their retreat, then stepped out into his camp. He looked at Lake. The outlaw was dead. Smoke took his ammo belt and tossed his guns into the brush. He walked over to Taylor, who had passed out from the pain in his ruined legs. He took his ammunition, tossed his guns into the brush, and then jerked the stakes out of the man’s legs. The man moaned in unconsciousness.

  Smoke found the men’s horses, took the food from the saddlebags, and led one animal back to the campsite. He poured a canteen full of water on Taylor. The man moaned and opened his eyes.

  “Ride,” Smoke told him. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  “I cain’t get up on no horse,” Taylor sobbed. “My legs is ruint.”

  Smoke jacked back the hammer on his .44. “Then I guess I’d better put you out of your misery.”

  Taylor screamed in fear and crawled to his horse, pulling himself up by clinging to the stirrup and the fender of the saddle. He managed to get in the saddle after several tries. His face was white with pain. He looked down at Smoke.

  “You ain’t no decent human bein’. What you’re doin’ to me ain’t right. I need a doctor. You a devil, Jensen!” “

  “Then you pass that word, pusbag. You make damn sure all your scummy buddies know I don’t play by the rules. Now, ride, you bastard, before I change my mind and kill you!”

  Taylor was gone in a gallop.

  Later, another bunch tried to sneak up on Smoke. Smoke released his hold, and the thick springy branch struck its target with several hundred pounds of driving force. The outlaw was knocked from the saddle, his nose flattened, and his jaw busted. He hit the ground and did not move. Smoke led the horse into the timber, took the food packets from the saddlebags, and then stripped saddle and bridle from the animal and turned it loose.

  Smoke faded back into the heavy timber at the sounds of approaching horses.

  “Good God!” a man’s voice drifted through the brush and timber. “Look at Dewey, would you.”

  “What the hell hit him?” another asked. “His entire face is smashed in.”

  “Where’s his horse?” another asked. “We got to get him to a doctor.”

  “Doctor?” yet another questioned. “Hell, there ain’t a doctor within fifty miles of here. See if you can get him awake and find out what happened. Damn, his face is ruint!”

  “I bet it was that damn Jensen,” an unshaven and smelly outlaw said. “We get our hands on him, let’s see how long we can keep him alive.”

  “Yeah,” another agreed. “We’ll skin him alive.”

  Smoke shot the one who favored skinning slap out of his saddle, putting a .44-.40 slug into his chest, and twisting him around. The man fell and the frightened horse took off, dragging the dying outlaw along the rocks in the game trail.

  “Get into cover!” Horton yelled just as Smo
ke fired again.

  Horton was turning in the saddle, and the bullet missed him, striking a horse in the head and killing it instantly. The animal dropped, pinning its rider.

  “My leg!” the rider screamed. “It’s busted. Oh, God, somebody help me.”

  Gooden ran to help his buddy, and Smoke drilled him, the slug smashing into the man’s side and turning him around like a spinning top. Gooden fell on top of the dead horse, and Gates screamed as the added weight shot pain through his shattered leg.

  Horton and Max put the spurs to their horses and got the hell out of there, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Smoke slipped back into the timber.

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

  Big Bob Masters shifted his chew from one side of his mouth to the other and spit. “Solid rock to his back,” he observed. “And two hundred 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 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, bellowing 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 and pieces 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 plugged Yancey in the shoulder, knocking the man down and putting him out of the fight. Yancey began crawling downhill toward the horses, staying in 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 down the slope.”

  The outlaws crawled back downhill, staying in cover as much as they could. Haynes, Dale, and Yancey were the first to reach their horses, well out of range of Smoke’s and Sally’s guns.

  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.

  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.

  “We yield!” Nap Jacobs yelled.

  “Not in this game,” Louis called.

  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.

  “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 rock,” 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. “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 bandanna 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.”6

  * * *

  Joey nodded at the end of Smoke’s tale. “And which of them do we have here?”

  “Curly Rogers is the one in the brown vest, Taylor’s the one with the gimpy legs who can’t walk right, Bud’s the one sitting on the side of his chair ’cause I shot his butt off, and Dewey’s the one with the ruined face.”

  “And that leaves the one in black, Ace Reilly,” added Pearlie.

  Smoke got up out of his chair, saying, “Excuse me, men, I got some business to attend to.”

  Tolson put his hand on Smoke’s arm. “Smoke, what are you gonna do?”

  Smoke inclined his head toward the table across the room. “I told Taylor and Reilly if I ever saw them again, I was going to kill them. That’s what I intend to do.”

  Tolson frowned. “You can’t just walk over there and shoot down two men like they was animals.”

  Smoke grinned. “I gave my word, Ben. Besides, those two are animals, and they’re wanted in more states than you can count.”

  Joey cleared his throat. “Ben, stay out of it. Smoke is right, he warned ’em and they decided to try his hand, or they wouldn’t be here.”

  Ben reluctantly let go of Smoke’s arm, and the mountain man walked across the room toward the table, hands hanging loose.

  Chapter 13

  Curly Rogers looked up and saw Smoke Jensen walking toward their table. He nudged Taylor with his elbow, interrupting some story he was telling Bud about the good old days before law came to the West.

  “What?” Taylor said irrit
ably, turning to Rogers. He saw him staring and followed his gaze, blanching and turning pale when he saw Smoke standing in front of him, feet apart, hands hanging next to his Colts.

  As the men at the table became aware of Smoke, all talking and joking stopped and they turned in their chairs to face the mountain man.

  “Afternoon, gents,” Smoke said, his voice low and without welcome.

  Curly Rogers half stood in his chair. “You got no call to roust us, Jensen. We ain’t breakin’ no laws or nothin’.”

  Smoke’s eyes flicked around the table, pausing at each man for just a moment, causing each to lower their eyes. “Oh, I’m not rousting you, Rogers.” His eyes lit on Reilly and Taylor and his hand came up to point at them. “But I do have some unfinished business with these two.”

  “Whatta ya mean?” asked Taylor, sweat beginning to form on his forehead.

  “Remember the last time we met?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah,” answered Taylor, trying to put some bluster in his voice. “You put some wooden stakes through my legs and ruint ’em. I cain’t hardly even walk on ’em now,” he said, his voice turning from bluster to whine.

  “That’s not what I meant. Do you remember what I told you as I let you ride off that day?”

  “Uh ... no, I don’t believe I do.”

  Smoke glanced to Ace Reilly. “How about you, Ace? You remember?”

  The gunman tried a laugh that didn’t come off. “Yeah, you said you was gonna kill me if you ever saw me again.”

  He looked around at his friends. “But you cain’t do that. I’m just sittin’ here, peaceably drinkin’ with my partners, not causing nobody no trouble.”

  He glared defiantly at Smoke, then glanced over at the table where Tolson sat, his badge on his chest.

  “You, mister, are you the sheriff of this town?”

  Tolson nodded once, his lips tight.

  “Are you gonna sit there and let this . . . this gunfighter threaten honest citizens for no reason?”

  Tolson smirked. “I’ll tell ya what I’ll do, mister. I’ll stop this right here and now and we can mosey on over to my office and go through my wanted posters. If I don’t find any mention of you or your friend, I’ll let you ride on out of town.”