Pursuit Of The Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “I killed a deer this morning, Top. It’s strung up over there. Why don’t you boys cut you a steak and we’ll have an early supper.”

  “Music to my ears, Mister Jensen. Mighty pretty music.”

  “Just Smoke, Top Soldier. Just Smoke.”

  While the steaks were sizzling, being cooked in what skillets the six man patrol had and the rest on sticks held over a fire, MacBride asked, “How long has this crazy damn game been going on, Smoke?”

  “Too long, Top. As close as I can figure it—you know how you lose time out there—about two months.”

  “Two months!” a young soldier said. “How come you let it go on so long, Mister Jensen? I mean, with your reputation and all, why didn’t you? ...” He shut his mouth after a dirty look from Murphy.

  “I didn’t want to start the killing, and I didn’t want it to go on. But they just kept pressing me, harder and harder. I finally knew that I had no choice in the matter. So I did what I felt I had to do.”

  “Nobody at all is blamin’ you, Smoke,” Top Soldier said. “Them people you run into all talked real nice about you. And you also got some powerful friends in government that jumped on this situation like a monkey to a banana.”

  Smoke nodded his head. He just didn’t feel good with the situation. The six-man patrol could easily be shot to pieces by von Hausen and his men. Murphy was a grizzled old veteran of countless Indian wars—and probably the Civil War. But the rest were just kids. He put his worries into words.

  “You think they’d dare fire on the U.S. Army, Smoke?” the Top Soldier asked.

  “Without hesitation, Top. Von Hausen has promised these men all sorts of big money. They’re not going to let it go without a fight.”

  Murphy lowered his voice. “Johnny over there, the single-striper, he’s in his second hitch. He’s a good one with more than enough battle experience. The rest ...” He shrugged his shoulders. “They ain’t been tested under fire.”

  “Yet,” Smoke added.

  “Somehow I knew you were gonna say that,” Murphy said mournfully.

  Montana Jess was riding point with the tracker, Roy Drum, when they reined up about two hundred yards from the fast-moving creek. They’d both been smelling wood smoke for about a mile, and were moving very cautiously. They dismounted and slipped through the timber to the west bank of the creek.

  Montana Jess cussed under his breath. “Cavalry. And yonder’s Smoke’s horses. See ’em?”

  “Yeah,” Drum whispered. “I think we got us a problem, Montana. Let’s get back to von Hausen.”

  “It might be a problem,” the Baron admitted. The hunting party had stopped about two miles from the creek. “Does the U.S. Army have arrest powers?”

  “They might in here,” John T. said. “This bein’ a national park and all.”

  “How big a patrol is it?” Leo Grant asked. His left arm was healing and he had limited use of it; he no longer had to use the sling.

  “Six,” Drum replied.

  “What are you thinking, Leo?” von Hausen asked.

  The gunfighter shrugged his shoulders. “Take ‘em out,” he said simply. “It sure wouldn’t be no big deal. Injun up and blow ’em straight to hell.”

  “Now just wait a damned minute here!” Walt protested. “I ain’t havin’ no part of killin’ government troops.”

  “Nor me,” Angel said. “You boys better think about what you’re about to do.”

  “Aw, shut your traps,” Paul Melham said. “Who gives a damn about a bunch of soldier boys? I say we go for the money.”

  “I’m with you,” Lou Kennedy said. “I ain’t about to turn my back on more money than I could make in five years hasslin’ homesteaders and the like.”

  “I’ll stay,” Gil Webb said. “I got warrants on me in half a dozen states and territories. I ain’t about to ride in no army camp and let them arrest me.”

  The rest of the bounty hunters and gunslingers quickly fell in line. That left Walt and Angel looking down the muzzles of a dozen guns.

  “You shoot us,” Walt said, thinking very quickly, “you got no surprise left, ’cause them shots will carry to the soldier boys ... and Jensen.”

  “Tie them up and leave them here,” von Hausen ordered. “We’ll dispose of them once we’ve killed the soldiers and hanged Jensen.”

  “Yeah. I like that idea. Hang ’im slow,” Utah Red said. “I wanna see him die real slow and hard. We’ll put his feet in the fire first. Make him scream.”

  “They’ll be none of that!” von Hausen said sharply. “We’ll hang him properly after we try him for the murders of those men we buried along the trail.”

  Walt shook his head in disgust.

  “Now, I like that!” Tony Addison said. “Real legal-like. I wish somebody had brought some pitcher-takin’ machinery. I’d like to have me a pitcher of Smoke Jensen swingin’.”

  Marlene smiled. “Oh, but we do have photographic equipment. The newest and very best. And it’s packed very carefully.”

  The women had long miles back discarded their riding costumes and side-saddles. They were all dressed in riding breeches and rode astride, and all of them carried side-arms.

  “Tie them up,” von Hausen said, pointing to Walt and Angel. “Leave them here and picket the horses. We’ll move out on foot as soon as this camp is secured. Take your spurs off and anything else that might make a noise.”

  Walt and Angel were trussed up and dumped on the ground. Cat Brown stood over Walt and grinned at the old gunfighter. “I’m gonna personal kill you, Webster. I been tired of your mouth for weeks. I’m gonna gut-shoot you and listen to you squall.”

  “That’s about your speed, punk,” Walt told him, defiance in his eyes.

  Cat kicked the man in the belly and laughed at him.

  “Move out,” von Hausen ordered. “When we reach the creek, I’ll go up to the bank alone and give the patrol a shout. When they stand up, open fire. Knock a leg out from under Jensen. We want him alive. Remember that. Alive!”

  The hunting party was just out of sight when Angel said. “I am blessed with teeth that are ver’ strong, Walt. If my brain was as strong as my teeth I would not be in this situation, I am thinking. Let me scoot around and I will go to work on your bonds.”

  “I’m glad one of us still has his choppers,” Walt said. “I lost most of mine years back.”

  Smoke had led his horses to new graze, about two hundred and fifty yards from the camp, he picketed them behind a huge tangle of brush and thorns; it wasn’t done deliberately, that was where the best graze was. He was walking back to the camp when he heard the shout. He recognized the voice and knew instantly that something was very wrong. Von Hausen wouldn’t just walk up to an Army camp knowing by now that the word had spread about what he was doing.

  Smoke ran toward the camp to warn the men when the first volley of shots thundered in the mid-morning air. A stray bullet whanged off a rock and slammed into his leg, knocking him sprawling. He grabbed his leg at the wound to keep any blood from leaking to the ground and crawled into a thicket. Inside the tangle, he turned and with a leafy branch on the ground brushed out any sign of his entry and rearranged the brush at the opening. It might work, he thought. They would see his horses gone and just might assume that he’d never been in the camp, or had already departed.

  If they didn’t search too diligently, if they were anxious to get gone after the killing ambush of Army troops, if his horses didn’t whinny and give away their position...

  A lot of ifs.

  “Finish him,” von Hausen said, pointing to the top soldier, who was gut shot and glaring at him through bright, pain-filled eyes.

  Marlene coldly, and with a strange expression of excitement on her face, shot the sergeant major in the head.

  “Help me,” a young soldier pleaded.

  “Why, certainly,” von Hausen said. He lifted his pistol and shot him between the eyes.

  “Damnit!” Roy Drum said. “Jensen’s gone. Both of his hors
es is gone. He must have pulled out just after we seen them this morning.”

  “That’s right,” Montana Jess said. “Jensen’s hoss was saddled. I ’member now.”

  “We’ll pick up his trail,” von Hausen said. “He can’t have gone far. It’s been no more than two hours. Scatter the supplies. The Army lives on hardtack. Leave it. I have no taste for that horrible ration.”

  “What about the bodies?” John T. asked.

  “Leave them where they lie. The bears will have them eaten by this time tomorrow.”

  “Their horses?”

  “Leave them. We don’t want to be seen riding a horse wearing an Army brand. Let’s get back to camp and get on Jensen’s trail. Quickly, men. Move!”

  When the last man had splashed across the creek, Smoke rolled out of his hiding place and limped to the death camp. He quickly checked the bodies. They were all dead. Cussing under his breath, he tied a bandana around the wound on his leg and then grabbed as much of the scattered equipment as he dared take the time to do so. Then, gritting his teeth against the pain, he limped as quickly as he could to his horses. Ten minutes later he was in the saddle and gone, staying off the trail and weaving through the timber, heading for the high country. He would heat a knife point and dig the lead out later. Right now, he had to put some distance between himself and the death camp.

  “Goddamnit!” von Hausen yelled, looking at the ropes on the ground. “They’ve escaped. I thought you said the men were tied securely?”

  “They was!” John T. said. “I checked ’em personal. They was trussed up like pigs.”

  “Angel Cortez has teeth like a beaver,” Valdes said. “He used to win bets in bars by bending coins between his teeth. But they cannot have gone far.”

  “John T.,” von Hausen said. “Assign men to track down and kill Walt and Angel. Get in the saddle, men. We’ve got to get on Jensen’s trail.”

  Marlene smiled. She had seen through von Hausen’s plan. The men could not back off now. They had to kill Jensen if it meant dying to the last person. They would all—to a man—hang if caught for the killing of the troops. She trembled with excitement. There was no thrill on earth like that of killing a man. Nothing compared to it. Nothing.

  She wondered how it would feel to slip the noose around Smoke Jensen’s neck.

  16

  Smoke rode hard for several miles, then stopped to let his horses blow. He quickly built a small fire, ripped his jeans around the bullet wound, and took a look at it. The slug had lost some of its power when it struck the leg, but still had enough punch to tear a hole. He felt all around the wound and could feel the slug buried just beneath the skin. He took the hot sterilized blade and slipped the point under the skin, digging around and popping the slug out, his face dripping with sweat from the cauterization of the wound. That would have to do it. If the wound felt infected by morning, he’d cut it open, pour gunpowder in, and burn out the infection. He’d done it before, so he wasn’t looking forward to a repeat performance. It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked.

  He swung back into the saddle and headed out. He was going to the temporary headquarters of the park superintendent. Von Hausen and his people could not afford to let anyone live. For their plans to succeed, anyone who knew they were in the park had to die. And Smoke was sure that by now, the surveyors, the scientists, and the superintendent and his staff knew about von Hausen. They had to be warned.

  Smoke pointed his horse’s nose toward the temporary headquarters of the superintendent. He had a hell of a ride ahead of him.

  “You know where the home of the man who runs this place is located?” Angel asked.

  “North. Up near the Montana line. And von Hausen knows it, too.”

  “I heard them talking, too, my friend.”

  The men had stopped to rest their horses and to make plans. “We for sure got men comin’ after us, Angel,” Walt said. “He can’t afford to have us get free and bump our gums.”

  “We’ll ride on until we find just the right spot,” Angel said. “Then we will take some of the pressure off of Mister Smoke Jensen, si, amigo?”

  Walt grinned. “Right, my friend.”

  The men swung into their saddles and headed north.

  “We got to be careful with Ol’ Walt and Angel,” Mack Saxton said, when they had stopped to rest their horses. “That old man’s a pistolero from way back.”

  “He ain’t nothin‘,” Lou Kennedy said. “I used to think he was, ’til he started takin’ Jensen’s side in this. He’s just a wore out old man is all he is.”

  “An old rattler’ll kill you just as quick as a young one,” Mack said. “And Angel ain’t no one to fool with neither.”

  “He’s just a damn greaser is all,” Nat Reed said. “Full of beans and hot air. I’ll take him.”

  Mack walked away to relieve himself in the bushes, thinking: Get us all killed is what you’ll do. Angel Cortez is a bad man to fool with.

  Smoke pushed his horses hard. He had the entire Washburn Plateau to travel before he reached the superintendent’s quarters. And he knew he also had to deal with those behind him at some point along the way. He had to take some of the pressure off.

  Smoke made a cold camp that night, not wanting to risk a fire, and was stiff and sore when he rolled out of his blankets the next morning. It was dark as a bat’s cave so he couldn’t look at his leg. He’d do that later; but when he touched the area around the wound, the leg was not hot with infection. He saddled up and headed north.

  “He ain’t makin’ no effort to hide his tracks,” Roy Drum said. “And he’s headin’ straight north.”

  “To the park headquarters,” John T. said. “If he reaches there ...” He let that trail off.

  “It won’t make any difference,” von Hausen said. “We can leave no one behind. No one. Man, woman, or child who knows we were in the park.” He looked at the men. “It has to be that way. We’ll all hang if word gets out about the soldiers. Do it my way, and you’ll all be rich men. I promise you that.” He looked up at the leaden sky. “What is wrong with this wretched place? It’s supposed to be summer, but the temperature seems to be falling and those clouds look like snow clouds.”

  “They probably are,” Drum told him. “This is Yellowstone, Baron. Hell, it’s liable to snow in July.”

  “But the vegetation is out and blooming,” Hans said.

  “It ain’t gonna freeze hard enough to kill this stuff,” Drum told him. “It’s liable to be seventy-five degrees tomorrow. Let’s go find Jensen today and finish this.” He stepped into the saddle.

  The temperature continued to drop during the day. Winter was not yet ready to completely lift its hand from the Yellowstone. It began to spit snow and the women began to complain (the men would have started it first but that was not the manly thing to do).

  Von Hausen decided to stop for the night, although it was only mid-afternoon.

  Smoke kept going, not pushing his horses as hard as the days behind him, but at a steady, mile-eating pace. He smelled the woodsmoke before he could see it through the snowfall. He dismounted and slipped through the foliage, strange now in green and white. He pulled up short with a smile on his lips. Then he went back to get his horses.

  “Hello, the camp,” he called.

  “Mister Jensen!” Charles Knudson called. “My word, didn’t the Army find you?”

  “No. I found them.” He dismounted and stripped his horses of their burden and rubbed them down before he thought to see to himself. Warming his hands by the fire, he explained what had happened.

  “All ... dead?” Gilbert the scientist asked. “The patrol has been murdered?”

  “Yes.” Smoke poured a cup of coffee and drank it down. It was the first he’d had in several days. It was still too damn weak. “Where is the superintendent?”

  “Gone to Washington for a few weeks. My God!” Harold said, noticing the bloody bandana tied around Smoke’s leg. “You’ve hurt yourself.”

  “They shot me. It
’s all right. I dug the bullet out and cauterized the wound. I just keep the bandana on to hold the bandage in place.”

  Paula stood up. “Please go over to the lean-to and sit down, Mister Jensen. Among other things, I am a trained nurse. Gilbert, get the first aid kit. And take off your pants, Mister Jensen.”

  Smoke stopped at that. “I got some extra jeans, ma’am. I’ll just open the tear in this and let you ...”

  “Take off your damn pants!” she yelled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Smoke said, and shucked out of his moccasins and jeans behind the blanket someone had rigged for privacy.

  “I can see no sign of infection,” Carol said, after applying some sort of medicine on the healing wound and rebandaging it. “But that knife must have been awfully hot. There are burn scars all around the entry point.”

  “Very hot, ma’am. But it still beat fillin’ it up with gunpowder and burning out the infection.”

  She sighed. “I wish people would stop that practice. Gunpowder is not the most sanitary substance around.”

  “But it works,” Smoke said.

  Smoke gathered the group around him in the rapidly diminishing snowfall. It had dusted the land but would be gone shortly after sunup. “We’ve got problems, people. Big problems. Alone, I could shake those behind me and get out and tell the law about what happened to the Army patrol. But if I do that, you people will die. Von Hausen and his scummy bunch have to kill anybody that knows they were in the park. And that’s all of you...”

  “But the superintendent knows,” Perry said.

  “His word against twenty-five. Actually,” Smoke continued, “von Hausen is playing a fool’s game. I’m the only one who any defense lawyer would probably allow on the stand. You people have never seen him in here. But von Hausen and those with him are scared; they’re not thinking rationally. So that means you’re all in danger. Now I don’t know whether von Hausen is still coming at me through this snow, or not. I’d guess not. But they will be at first light. Bet on it. And they’re only about six or seven hours behind. We’ve got to come up with a plan for staying alive. And we don’t have much time to do it.”