Guns of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  The black man’s teeth gleamed in a wide smile. “It’s called a Greener, boy,” Smoke answered, and let the hammers down.

  The gun kicked back, turning him half around as a two-foot-long tongue of flame leapt out of the barrels toward the rednecks. Six ounces of molten lead spread out in a tight pattern, opening the men’s chests and exploding their hearts into tiny pieces.

  Before the echoes of the explosion of the shotgun had faded Smoke lit a cigar, touched it to a fuse sticking out of the can of gunpowder on the floor next to him, and calmly walked out of the room.

  Willie Bodine, the last of the rebels with Cain, came running down the stairs from where he’d been keeping watch out of a second floor window.

  “Donny, Riley, what the hell’s goin’ on down here?” he asked just as he noticed the burning fuse in the corner of the room next to the bodies of his friends.

  “God!” he managed to get out as the gunpowder exploded, blowing his right arm and leg off and tearing his stomach open to expose his guts as he was thrown out the front window. What was left of Willie Bodine landed in the middle of the street, his blood pooling around his dead body in the dirt.

  South of Fontana, Louis Carbone leaned over and lit the cigar sticking out of Al Martine’s mouth when he heard the shotgun blast followed closely by the explosion of the gunpowder.

  “Well, amigo, it is time to ride.”

  Al nodded. “Time to ride and kill, compadre.”

  They leaned over the necks of their mounts and put spurs to their flanks, heading into hell.

  In the north, Louis Longmont stuck out his hand to Monte Carson. “You ready, partner?” he asked.

  Monte took his hand and nodded. “It’ll be a pleasure to do battle with you, Mr. Longmont.”

  The two gunfighters rode toward the town at an easy canter, their hands filled with iron and their eyes flicking back and forth, looking for targets.

  On the east side of town Johnny North looked at George Hampton as they moved their horses toward town. “Johnny, don’t you go gettin’ yourself killed tonight. My daughter’d never forgive me if I let that happen.”

  Johnny shook his head, smiling grimly. “George, neither would I, neither would I.”

  * * *

  Lazarus Cain jerked his head to the side when he heard the shotgun blast and the explosion of the gunpowder. “Damn! It’s begun,” he said to Blackie Jackson, who sat next to him in the saloon.

  Blackie nodded and reached over to turn off the lantern hanging on the wall next to them, plunging the room into darkness.

  The rest of Cain’s personal team were scattered around the saloon and on the second floor and roof of the building, waiting for the attack.

  * * *

  As Al and Louis rode into town, Pedro Gonzalez and Jaime Sanchez rose up on the roof of a boardinghouse and began to fire down at them. Pedro’s second shot hit Al’s horse in the neck and he somersaulted, throwing Al to the ground.

  Louis put the fuse on a bundle of dynamite to his cigar, and when it ignited he threw it onto the roof behind the shooters.

  It exploded, sending the two gunmen catapulting off the roof as if they’d been shot out of a cannon. Jaime Sanchez landed on his head not five feet from where Al lay, snapping his neck and breaking his back in three places.

  Al glanced back over his shoulder at Louis. “Careful, amigo, you almost landed him on top of me.”

  Pedro Gonzalez’s headless body slammed into the ground twenty yards away, and still moved, writhing in the dirt, as if it were alive for several seconds.

  Al scrambled on hands and knees, grabbed his sack of dynamite off his saddle horn, and then ran toward the nearest building, trying to get off the street.

  Two black men stepped out of the building, guns in their hands.

  “Hold it, mister,” Bartholomew Winter said, in his soft Southern accent. “Drop that bag and raise your hands.”

  “Sure . . . sure . . . only, don’t shoot me,” Al begged as he complied with the man’s orders.

  When he saw their eyes follow the bag as he dropped it, his hands flashed to his pistols, drawing and firing before the two men saw him move.

  His left-hand gun shot Bartholomew Winter in the throat, blowing out his spine and almost decapitating him. His right-hand gun shot Jedediah Jones in the middle of his chest, shattering his sternum and piercing his heart, killing him before his finger could tighten on the trigger.

  Cherokee Bill, notorious outlaw, watched this happen from the building where he and Bartholomew and Jedediah had been stationed. He shook his head. This ain’t my fight, he thought. He quietly slipped out the back door of the room and got on his horse. He spurred the animal into a gallop and headed south out of town as fast as he could ride back toward the Indian Nations in Oklahoma Territory. He didn’t know it, but he was riding toward a date with a hangman’s noose, in less than a year.

  * * *

  On the east side of town, Coronado Vallentine and Perro Gutierrez were holed up in a barn next to the livery stable with Dick Wheeler and Billy Baugh. They watched silently as buildings began to explode and burn all over town.

  “Damn!” Dick Wheeler muttered, watching through his window as the flames leapt toward the sky.

  “Hey, here comes two men ridin’ down the street,” said Billy Baugh, pointing his rifle out his window.

  Wheeler was just about to tell the other men to hold their fire until they got closer when Perro Gutierrez snapped off a shot with his pistol.

  The bullet took George Hampton in the right chest, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground.

  Johnny North, fearing the worst, spurred his horse directly toward the barn as fast as he could ride. He rode into the building through the doors, both hands full of iron.

  Perro Gutierrez whirled around, firing blindly.

  Johnny shot him in the face, exploding his head and throwing him backward over a bale of hay.

  Thumbing his hammers back and firing as fast as he could from the back of his rearing, screaming horse, Johnny was deadly accurate.

  Dick Wheeler didn’t get off a shot before he was hit in the neck and chest. Billy Baugh managed to fire twice, one of his bullets notching Johnny’s left ear, before Johnny shot him in the gut, doubling him over and knocking him to his knees, where he knelt as if in some sort of grotesque prayer.

  Coronado Vallentine aimed his shotgun at Johnny’s back, earing back the hammers and grinning over the sights. Just before he pulled the trigger a shot rang out from behind him, and he felt a blow between his shoulder blades.

  He whirled around in time to see George Hampton standing there, blood all over his shirtfront, looking at him over the barrel of a Colt .45 that was still smoking.

  Vallentine coughed, spitting blood, and found he didn’t have the strength to pull the triggers on his shotgun. He grinned, and died, falling facedown on the straw-covered floor.

  Johnny jumped down off his horse and ran to grab George just as he began to fall.

  “Thanks, George, you saved my life,” Johnny said.

  * * *

  Three-fingers Sammy Torres was holed up in the hotel building with the ex-Dalton gang members, Jimmy, Jake, Sonny, and Clyde. They were on the second floor, stationed at windows in various rooms where they had a good view of the street.

  When Three-fingers Sammy saw two black-clad figures running across the street toward the saloon, he opened fire, pocking dirt around the running men but missing with all his shots.

  Luckily, Monte and Louis Longmont saw the muzzle flash from his rifle and reined up their horses before they got to the hotel. Jumping to the ground, they pulled pistols and eased down an alley and around the corner and into the back door of the building.

  Finding no one on the first floor, they began to climb the stairs, eyes staring upward for any sign of a hostile body.

  They just reached the second floor landing when Jake stepped out of a doorway, checking his pistol to see if it was fully loaded. He looked
up to find four barrels pointed at him.

  He snapped his loading gate shut and started to raise his pistol. Two bullets, one each from Louis and Monte, took him in the chest, blowing him back into the room he’d just come out of so hard that he backpedaled and hit the window, shattering it, and fell out onto the street below.

  When Sonny and Clyde burst out of their doors, Monte and Louis crouched and began to fire away. Monte blew Clyde to hell, but not before one of Clyde’s slugs pierced his abdomen, exiting out his flank after burrowing through six inches of fat and muscle. Monte doubled over, pressing his elbow to the wound to slow the bleeding, but keeping his eyes open for more enemies.

  Louis shot Sonny in the face, shattering his buckteeth and blowing them out the back of his head.

  Jimmy peered around the edge of a doorway, trying to see through the smoke and haze before he ventured out. Monte snapped off a shot, grazing the boy’s head and making him duck back out of sight behind the door. Monte put two more bullets through the door, and Jimmy slowly fell out into the hall, his eyes showing surprise at the events of the evening.

  Three-fingers Sammy Torres walked out of his room, his hands held high.

  “I give up. I surrender,” he said, grinning cockily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Louis shook his head. “Uh uh, mister. It is not going to be that easy. You dealt yourself into this hand, so ante up, or die where you stand.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot a man who surrendered, would you?” Torres asked.

  Monte, from down the hall, grunted, “If he won’t, I sure as hell will. Fill your hand, outlaw, or I’ll shoot you down like a dog.”

  Torres scowled and grabbed for his pistol. He managed to get it half raised and fire a shot before Louis shot him between the eyes, snapping his head back and flinging him spread-eagled onto his back on the floor.

  “I must be getting too old for this,” Louis mumbled, looking down at his thigh, where a spreading pool of crimson was appearing.

  “Yeah,” Monte agreed, “me too,” and he sat down with his back to a wall.

  * * *

  Cain peered out a front window of the saloon, watching as the town was destroyed around him. Al Martine and Louis Carbone were walking down the street, calmly throwing dynamite onto roofs and into windows, blowing men and pieces of men to hell and gone.

  Johnny North, after dressing George Hampton’s wound and making him lie down in the barn, was walking down the street from the other direction, using a rifle to fire into the tins of gunpowder Joey and Smoke had secreted along the boardwalk. Buildings on both sides of the street were exploding in flames, which were spreading, fueled by fall winds blowing in from the mountains.

  Monte Carson and Louis Longmont, leaning on each other for support, managed to make it out onto the street before Al Martine shot into the gunpowder in the lobby, collapsing the building and throwing more dead men from the roof.

  Floyd Devers, Walter Blackwell, Tad Younger, and Johnny Samson, all ex-members of Bloody Bill Anderson’s gang, were hiding in one of the boardinghouses.

  “Men, it don’t look good out there. Half the damn town’s burning already,” Devers said.

  “Yeah,” answered Tad Younger. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “You got my vote,” agreed Samson.

  The four men ran out the back door and jumped on their horses and rode down a back road, out of town.

  * * *

  Joey and Smoke made their way toward the saloon, figuring that was where Cain and his cadre of picked men would hole up.

  King Johannson and Pig Iron Carlton leaned over the parapet of the saloon roof, searching for someone to shoot.

  Johannson leveled his rifle at Carbone, taking aim. A bullet plowed into the board he was resting his elbow on, sending a shower of splinters several inches long into his face.

  He screamed and stood up, clawing at his right eye, which had a long piece of wood protruding from it. Joey levered another shell into his rifle and fired again, taking Johannson just under the hairline, the bullet blowing the top of his skull off and knocking him back out of sight.

  Carlton leaned over and fired twice at Joey, his second slug gouging a chunk of meat from Joey’s left shoulder before Smoke leveled his Greener and fired both barrels.

  The buckshot took half the roof off as it tore through Carlton, shredding his left arm to bloody pulp and flinging him out off the roof. He landed on his back on a water trough, his spine snapping with an audible crack.

  In the saloon, Blackie Jackson leaned over and whispered to Lazarus, “It don’t look good, boss. Let’s hightail it out of town and live to fight another day.”

  “Have you got the horses tied out back like I told you?”

  Jackson nodded.

  Lazarus jumped to his feet and hurried toward the door. “Then let’s make tracks.”

  * * *

  Curly Joe Ventrillo, Tom “Behind the Deuces” Cartwright, and Jeremy Brett were left to face Smoke and Joey alone in the saloon.

  Smoke and Joey slipped through the batwings and stepped to the side, each with their backs against the wall, letting their eyes adjust to the gloom in the room.

  Ventrillo, Brett, and Cartwright walked out onto the second floor landing, looking down at Smoke and Joey over the railing.

  “I don’t suppose you chaps would allow us to ride out of here, would you?” Brett asked, a sardonic smile on his face.

  “Not likely,” Joey growled, his hands hanging next to his pistol.

  Ventrillo spread his hands wide. “But, we have you outnumbered. You don’t have a chance of killing all three of us before one of us gets you.”

  “You fellows called this dance, now someone’s got to pay the band. Jerk that sixkiller and go to work.”

  The five men drew, Smoke and Joey’s hands moving so fast it was almost a blur.

  Four shots rang out before any of the outlaws on the landing cleared leather.

  Smoke put one in Brett’s chest and another in Carlton’s neck. Joey put a slug in Ventrillo’s face and another in Carlton’s stomach.

  As smoke billowed and the men fell to the floor, Smoke heard hoofbeats from the back of the saloon.

  “Cain’s getting away,” he said.

  Smoke and Joey ran toward the livery to get horses to follow the outlaw leader.

  32

  Pearlie and Cal were watching the sky over Fontana turn orange and red in the reflected glow of burning buildings.

  “Dammit, Pearlie,” Cal said, “we oughta be there to help Smoke out.”

  “Yeah, I know, Cal, but I aim to do what Smoke said, as hard as it is to miss the action.”

  “Sh-h-h,” Cal whispered. “I hear horses comin’.”

  The two men got down off the buckboard where they’d been sitting and slipped the hammer thongs off their pistols.

  Four riders came galloping up, reining in when they saw the road blocked by the wagon, and the two men standing in front of it.

  Walter Blackwell called out, “Get your wagon outta our way!”

  Cal gave a low laugh. “You know who that galoot is, Pearlie?”

  “No,” Pearlie shook his head.

  “It’s the man who shot his friend, Bloody Bill Anderson, in the back, to save his own skin.”

  Pearlie nodded. “Looks like he’s turning tail and runnin’ from another fight, don’t it, Cal?”

  “Sure does,” Cal answered.

  Sweat began to form on Blackwell’s forehead. “You men get out of our way or we’ll be forced to gun you down!” he yelled.

  Both Cal and Pearlie grinned. “Let’s dance!” Pearlie said.

  Six men went for their guns simultaneously.

  Cal was a shade faster than Pearlie and got off the first shot, hitting Blackwell in the chest before he cleared leather.

  Pearlie shot a fraction of a second later, his slug taking Johnny Samson in the left eye, blowing out the side of his skull and breaking his neck.

  Floy
d Devers fired once, just as Cal’s second shot hit him in the stomach, doubling him over his saddle horn with a grunt of pain. Cal fired again, into his right ear, knocking him out of the saddle and onto the ground.

  Tad Younger and Pearlie fired at the same time, Younger taking one in the neck and Pearlie taking one in the left shoulder.

  As cordite and gunsmoke swirled in a thick cloud and echoes of gunfire reverberated off distant mountains, Pearlie and Cal looked at each other.

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” Pearlie muttered, glancing down at his shoulder. “Looks like some of your natural attraction for lead has rubbed off onto me.”

  Cal removed his hat and stuck his finger through the hole Devers’s bullet had left in it. “Yeah, thank goodness.” He sighed.

  * * *

  Blackie Jackson and Lazarus Cain slowed their horses to a walk, letting them blow after their long ride from Fontana.

  “You think any of the boys got out alive?” Jackson asked.

  Lazarus shook his head. “Doubtful. Not if Jensen’s as good as they say he is.”

  A voice came from the darkness behind them. “He is, and they didn’t,” Joey Wells said.

  Jackson and Cain whirled around to find Smoke Jensen and Joey Wells sitting on horses just behind them.

  “Well, well,” Lazarus said. “So it comes down to this, huh?”

  “That’s right,” Smoke said. “You came after me, and now you’ve found me. Let’s settle this.”

  Blackie Jackson, thinking Smoke’s attention was fixed on Lazarus, went for his pistol. Two shots rang out almost as one, both hitting Jackson in the chest an inch apart, right over his heart. When he hit the dirt his gun was still in its holster, untouched.

  Lazarus eyed the tall figure dressed in buckskins as they faced each other across the mountain meadow. His hands tensed above the walnut grips of his holstered revolvers, pistols that had killed dozens of times before.

  “You’re no match for me, Jensen. I’ll kill you before you can clear leather.”

  “That hasn’t been decided yet,” a stony voice replied, a cold stare fixed on Lazarus. “You reach for them guns, an’ one of us is gonna die.”