Honor of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Puma Buck, his eyes feral in reflected firelight, stepped up to stand practically on top of the young man. “If he’s not gonna talk, Smoke, let me skin ’im.” He cast cold, furious eyes down at the gunman. “I ain’t skinned nobody fer two, maybe three years now, but I’m damned if’n I’ve forgotten how to git the job done.”

  Moses’ eyes widened at the sight of the old mountain man holding his sharp blade before him. Moses twisted his head around to look up at Smoke. “You can’t let that old coot near me. I know my rights.”

  Joey squatted on his heels next to Moses’ head. “You gotta right ta die, boy, that’s all. The manner o’ yore death is all we gotta decide now.” He raised his eyes to stare at Puma’s big buffalo-skinning knife. “Personally, as the galoot ya was fixin’ ta back-shoot, I kinda like the idee of lettin’ old Puma have his way with ya, ’specially since ya don’t seem inclined ta tell us nothin’ anyhow.”

  Monte leaned over the wounded man, eyes squinted and mean. “Skinnin’s too good for him. Let’s just scalp him, cut off his ears and dick, and send him back to Murdock.” He grinned. “I’m sure they’ll welcome him back with open arms, since he failed in his mission.”

  “You can’t do that!” Moses hollered, twisting against his ropes. “Vasquez’ll chop me to bits if you send me back.” He looked from man to man, his eyes hopeful. “Just let me go and I’ll ride out of Colorado and you’ll never see me again.”

  Smoke chuckled low in his throat. “Cowboy, you’re a confessed killer and back-shooter. Why would we let you ride off to hire out your gun and murder somebody else?”

  “I swear, I’ll put my guns up and never ever shoot anybody again.”

  At this, everyone around the fire laughed. The man obviously would say anything to save his worthless hide. They had all seen Sunday-morning drunks hung over after getting alkalied on Saturday night swear off booze. This was no different.

  Puma placed his knife against Moses’ chest and cut his shirt buttons off with a gentle movement. “Hmmm, looks like my old blade is a mite rusty and dull. That’ll make skinnin’ him awful tough. I might even have to take a rest in the middle o’ the job ’fore I’m done and git back to it later.”

  “No, no, please . . .”

  Smoke leaned over, his hands on his knees, staring down at Moses. “Then tell us what you know about Murdock’s plans. How many men he has, when he plans to hit us, and who he’s got riding with him.”

  Moses licked blood-caked lips, his eyes flicking from Puma’s knife to Smoke and back again. “If I tell you what I know, will ya let me go?”

  Smoke pursed his lips, appearing to consider the offer. “If what you have to say helps us, then I’ll promise you we won’t kill you. But”—he pointed his finger at the man—“if I let you ride out of here in one piece and I ever see you wearing a gun again, I swear I’ll shoot you down without a second thought. Deal?”

  Moses nodded vigorously. “Murdock’s got at least forty or fifty men out at his ranch now, and more may be on the way.” He glanced at Joey and Smoke. “I guess the chance to make a name by killin’ you and Mr. Wells has attracted a whole bunch of hard men.”

  Joey smirked. “Havin’ a chance to do it don’t always git it done, son. Go on.”

  “Well, Murdock don’t let the hired hands in on his plans, but I figger from the way he’s talking, he is going to send his men out here to the ranch if he can’t get you any other way. He’s mighty pissed about you gunning down his brother.”

  Smoke nodded. “Any idea of when he plans to call the raid?”

  Moses shook his head. “Like I said, I’m way down on the totem pole, and he don’t confide in me. But he did mention he was afraid if he waited overly long, the U.S. marshals would be called in, and he sure don’t want that to happen.”

  Louis spoke up from the edge of the firelight. “You know any names of the gents riding with him?”

  “Lord, you want me to name ’em all?”

  “As many as you can remember,” Smoke answered, and nodded at Louis, who took a small tablet from his coat pocket and a silver-encased pencil to write the names down with.

  “Well, there’s a group of about eight or ten who said they owed you from when they went up in the mountains after you a couple o’ years ago. They kinda hang together, always talking about how badly you treated ’em. Couple of ’em have some awful scars on their faces where they said you beat the shit out of ’em.”

  Smoke nodded. “That’d be the men riding with Curly Rogers. Dewey and Boots are the ones wearing scars on their faces from the last time I ... had a talk with them. Horton, Max, Gates, Gooden, and Art South are the others I suspect have come to get their revenge after they failed to get the bounty on me during the Lee Slater mixup. Continue, Moses.”

  “There’s a handful of half-breeds, Jake Sixkiller, Sam Silverwolf, and Jed Beartooth. They hang with a couple of Mexes name of Felix Salazar and Juan Jimenez, who said you boys killed some kin of theirs at the hotel in town the other night.”

  “Uh-huh, go on.”

  “Then there’s some real bad hombres, those with a reputation already who aim to make their place in history, so they say. The Silverado Kid, Black Jack Morton, Bill Denver, One-Eye Jackson, and Slim Watkins.” He paused and licked his lips again. “I think even Murdock and Vasquez are afraid of those gunmen.”

  Monte raised his eyebrows and looked at Joey, who was frowning. They had all heard of these men, murderers, rapists, robbers, and killers every one. Men who enjoyed killing and maiming, whether for profit or just for the fun of it.

  Moses inclined his head toward Puma. “There’s even one like him, an old . . . an elderly man dressed all in buckskins and fur who looks older than dirt, with long, shaggy gray hair and beard. He says he’s a mountain man named Beaverpelt Solomon, and he wants a chance to kill some other man’s kid, man name of Preacher.”

  Smoke glanced at Puma, whose face was red with anger. “That old bastard!” he exclaimed. “He once stole some beaver pelts from Preacher. Preacher beat the shit out of him and hung that moniker on ’im to let everyone know he was a thieving son of a bitch.” He smiled savagely. “It worked, too, wouldn’t nobody have nothin’ to do with him after that.” He looked off toward the mountain peaks in the distance. “The high lonesome can git mighty lonesome if’n even yore so-called friends won’t palaver with ya once in a while, an’ Beaverpelt wasn’t welcome at anybody else’s camps after Preacher put the word out on ’im.”

  “Any others?” Smoke asked Moses.

  “Just Shotgun Sam Willowby and Gimpy Monroe. They’re kinda old too, but they still know how to draw and fire. To hear them tell it, they was killin’ people back in the gold rush days of forty-eight. The other day, a couple of the younger ones made the mistake of calling them old farts, and they blowed them to hell without even breaking a sweat.” Moses’ eyes were wide. “Then they put ropes on the bodies and dragged ’em out in the pasture for coyotes and wolves to eat!”

  Smoke shook his head at the number of guns Murdock had been able to hire and the speed with which they’d all come to Colorado. “That about it?”

  “Oh, there’s a passel more, but not any other big names, just a bunch of men like me, trying to make a living the only way they know, from hiring out their guns. A group of men who fought down in New Mexico and Arizona during the time of the Lincoln County war. Pretty hard old boys, I suspect, but they keep to themselves and aren’t much for bragging or fighting with the others.” He hesitated, then said, “Oh, there’s one other man. Wears an old Union Army uniform coat and carries a sword on his belt. Says his name’s Colonel Waters and he has a debt to pay to Joey Wells.”

  Joey smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “He was with the Redlegs who killed my men. He’s the only one I couldn’t track down. I was told he changed his name and moved back east to get away from me.” His grin faded and his eyes turned snake hard. “Guess he got tired of runnin’ and is ready to face his maker, and I intend to oblige him.
”

  Smoke said, “That all you can tell us, Moses?”

  “That’s all I know, Mr. Jensen, honest.”

  “Put him on his horse, boys, but keep his guns and ammunition.”

  As Cal untied Moses, Smoke put his hand on his shoulder and stared into his eyes. “Just making sure I remember your face, son, ’cause if I ever see it again, you’re a dead man. Now, get out of my sight.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jensen, thank you,” Moses said as he stepped into his saddle.

  Puma waved his knife at the man. “Smoke’s a generous man, Moses, don’t you ever forgit how close you came to tastin’ my steel.”

  After Moses rode off at full gallop in case they changed their minds, Smoke poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot Puma had sitting on the campfire embers. He took a drink and looked around at his men, his expression grim.

  “Boys, this doesn’t sound at all good.”

  Monte nodded. “Murdock’s sure got himself some prize shooters, that’s for sure.”

  Louis said, “I’ve heard of some of them, of course, the Silverado Kid and Black Jack Morton got run out of Tombstone a year or so ago. Evidently they were too mean for even that hellhole.”

  Monte added, “Yeah, it’s said they killed women and kids, anybody who angered ’em, and they was easy to anger, so I’ve heard.”

  Smoke lit a cigar and puffed as he talked, the smoke whisked away on a cold wind blowing from the mountains. “The bunch riding with Curly Rogers are mean and won’t hesitate to back-shoot a man, but they’re not overly endowed with either courage or intelligence. Bill Denver and Slim Watkins made their name in the mining country of northern Colorado and New Mexico. There’s paper out on them for robbing stages, trains, and miners. They killed without warning and without provocation, according to the newspaper accounts. They have ropes waiting for them in more than twenty towns I know of.”

  Monte said, “I ain’t heard of but two of the half-breeds, Sam Silverwolf and Jed Beartooth, and they’re both wanted in Arizona. Seems they like to rape women to death, mostly Indian women, or they wouldn’t be alive to give us grief. I never read nor heard anything of Jake Sixkiller.”

  Cal said, “I have. Ned Buntline wrote a piece about him a few months ago in one of my dime novels. Sixkiller likes to use a shotgun loaded with nails and rocks and stuff, and then, if anybody’s still alive, he scalps ’em.” He frowned. “Buntline said he stayed mostly in California, but I guess he came east to get away from his reputation out there.”

  “What about Beaverpelt, Puma? He anything special to worry about?” Smoke asked.

  “Not if you’re armed and facin’ him,” the mountain man said with a look of disgust and loathing on his face. “He’s a sneak and a coward. But he’s supposed to be pretty good with an old Sharps .52 he carries. He’s the only one we have to worry about doin’ us any damage from a distance.” He looked down at his knife and wiped it on his pants. “Let me take care of that ol’ buzzard. It’d be my pleasure to finish what Preacher started years ago.”

  Smoke drained the last of his coffee from his mug. “I got an idea.”

  Louis smiled. “About time, boss. What is on your mind?”

  Smoke glanced at Joey. “Joey, what is the last thing a commander with an overwhelming superiority in numbers and firepower expects the opposing army to do?”

  Joey grinned and nodded. “Attack.”

  “How about we even up our odds a little?”

  Monte’s brow furrowed. “You can’t mean we’re gonna ride against Murdock and fifty men? That’d be suicide! They’d cut us down like autumn wheat.”

  “A frontal assault’s not exactly what I had in mind. Sally brought some books back from her last trip out east to visit her parents. They were about some Japanese fighters called ninjas.”

  “What are ninjas?” Pearlie asked.

  Louis answered in a thoughtful tone, his eyes on Smoke. “Individuals who swore allegiance to the warlords of feudal Japan, the shgun. Ninja were called ’invisible killers’ because they dressed all in black, attacked at night, and killed without being seen or heard, using their hands and short swords called katana on their victims.”

  Smoke grinned. “Exactly. We’re about to become American ninjas.”

  Chapter 18

  Smoke said to his friends gathered around the campfire, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Joey, Puma, and me will infiltrate Murdock’s compound. Louis, you and Monte and Cal and Pearlie are going to stay back a couple of miles from Murdock’s ranch house to hold our horses and give us cover in case we have to make tracks out of there in a hurry. If they come chasing us, they’ll ride right into your bullets without expecting an ambush.”

  Louis frowned. “How come you and Joey and Puma get to have all the fun while the rest of us stay on the outskirts of the action?”

  “Because, you young pup,” Puma said, “Joey learned how to sneak around enemy camps in the war, and Smoke and I learned how to injun up on people from the best teachers they is, mountain men.”

  Smoke put his hand on Louis’s shoulder and said, “Puma’s right, Louis. I know you’re not afraid of the devil himself, and you’re a hell of a shootist in a gunfight. In fact, there isn’t a man I’d rather have on my right hand in a fracas than you. But this is different. One mistake, one inadvertent noise, one slipup, and you not only get yourself killed, but all of us. That’s why I’m leaving you the to the job you can do best, protecting our backs with your guns.”

  Louis held up his hands, smiling. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to shine me on. I agree I haven’t your experience in sneaking around at night and being quiet like a ninja, but at the first sound of gunfire, I’m not waiting to see if you come out of there, I’m coming in after you!”

  “Me too,” chimed in Monte.

  Smoke nodded. “Fair enough. That okay with the rest of you—Cal, Pearlie?”

  Pearlie nodded and Cal said, “Yes, sir, but I feel like Mr. Longmont. I’d rather be with you when you go in.”

  Pearlie jabbed him with an elbow, frowning.

  “Well, I would,” Cal said, rubbing his arm.

  “I know you would, Cal, but this doesn’t mean you’re going to miss out on the action. Believe me, after we stir up this hornet’s nest, there’ll be enough fighting for all of us.”

  When he finished talking, Smoke went into the cabin and came out with a can of bootblack. “Here, all of you smear this over any skin showing. Also, I want you to take off anything that sparkles or makes noise, don’t wear any spurs or metal that will clank or make a sound. Joey, I’ve got an extra pair of moccasins you can wear when we sneak into their camp.”

  “What about us?” Monte asked. “Why do we have to blacken our faces if we’re not gonna be near the ranch house?”

  Smoke said, “All of us need to do this. When there’s a potential for a night fight, it never hurts to be prepared. Remember, they can’t hit what they can’t see, and remember how sound carries over open ground.”

  He looked at Pearlie. “You have that burlap sack I asked you to get for me?”

  The young man nodded.

  “Did you do what I asked you to do?”

  “Yeah, I did it, but, boss, I gotta tell ya, I thought you was crazy.”

  Smoke grinned. “You see why, now?”

  “I think so, an’ I’m sure glad I’m on your side.” He went over to the barn and returned a moment later with a large burlap sack with a cord tying off its opening. The bag had a lump in the bottom that writhed and moved on its own.

  Joey’s eyes lit up. “That what I think it is?”

  “Yeah,” Smoke answered.

  “Whoo-eee, there’s gonna be dancin’ at Murdock’s place tonight.”

  As they mounted up, Smoke said, “Remember, the object tonight isn’t a high body count, the object is to spread fear. A scared man will frighten others, his fear spreading like a plague. A dead man is just dead.”

  Joey snorted. “ ’Course, a dead man cain’
t shoot ya neither.”

  On the way to Murdock’s, Smoke stopped his group at the edge of his property and alerted the three men serving as sentries that they might be riding hard when they returned and not to fire on them inadvertently.

  Smoke signaled his riders to a halt on a crest of a small rise, about two miles from Murdock’s ranch house. It was a measure of Murdock’s overconfidence in his superior numbers that he hadn’t bothered to post guards.

  Smoke put his field glasses to his eyes and swept the area for a moment. “I don’t see anything between us and the ranch house. There’s no sign of dogs or sentries.”

  Joey shook his head. “The man is dumb beyond belief.”

  “I guess he figures those desperadoes will protect him from harm,” Louis said.

  Smoke grinned in the darkness. “Well, we’ll see about that shortly.”

  Smoke, Joey, and Puma dismounted, handing their reins to Louis and Monte, while Cal and Pearlie found some low rocks on the hillock to get behind. Louis made the mistake of asking Puma if he was going to be okay to walk the distance to the house.

  Puma glared at him for a moment, then just smiled. “Yeah, an’ I kin do it with ya on my back if’n I need to, young’un.”

  The trio took off toward Murdock’s at a fast walk, estimating it would take them about twenty minutes to cover the two miles, being careful not to make any noise. Luckily, the fall skies were full of low-hanging storm clouds and the moon was already set for the night, so there was no light to give them away.

  Murdock had two large corrals on the far side of his house, and both were full of mounts. Joey whispered he estimated there to be least fifty horses, maybe more.

  The area around the house was quiet, and the bunkhouse was off on the other side of the corrals, almost two hundred yards from the ranch house. Smoke pointed to an area nearer the house, where there were several groups of widely spaced campfires burned down to glowing embers. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered, “The regular punchers are probably in the bunkhouse. I think the gun hawks are around the fires, sleeping outside.”