Destiny Of The Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yeah,” Pettis said. “We lost some more men there too.”

  “Indeed we did, and I let both things happen because I did not take Smoke Jensen, or his military skills, into consideration when I planned the attack.”

  “Hell, Major, we don’t none of us blame you none,” Preston said.

  “We are going to conduct some more military operations against Captain King’s ranch, and against the army this man Smoke Jensen has created,” Brandt said. He turned to the map of Duval County that was on the wall behind the mayor’s desk. “Only this time, I intend to plan more carefully,” he said as he pointed to the map.

  “I intend to divide Captain King’s ranch into three sections. Each of you will be responsible for one section.”

  He drew a huge Y across the map, then assigned each of the new “corporals” a wedge. “I will hold you personally responsible for everything that happens within your area of responsibility. Also, I will expect you to begin a campaign of harassment and interdiction.”

  “Harassment and what?” Waco asked.

  “Harassment and interdiction,” Brandt repeated. “You will find cowboys working in your area, and you will kill them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Pettis, Waco, and Preston began Brandt’s operation of harassment and interdiction that very night. Sending their men out alone, or in pairs, they rode the range, looking for isolated cowboys.

  Waco was the first one to strike. Lying in wait behind a clump of bushes, he watched a lone rider coming toward him. When the cowboy was even with him, he stood up, startling the rider with his sudden and unexpected appearance.

  “Madre de Dios. Quién es usted?” the rider asked. “Who are you?”

  “I am an Angel del diablo,” Waco said with an evil chuckle as he pulled the trigger.

  Three of Captain King’s men were killed on the first day of the harassment and interdiction operation, and two more over the next three days and nights.

  Each day Brandt would send his companies out to ride the range, looking for targets of opportunity.

  “Do this enough times, and King won’t have anyone left working for him,” Brandt said.

  “King must have two hundred men working for him,” Pettis said. “Maybe more. We ain’t goin’ to be able to kill two hundred men one at a time.”

  “We don’t have to kill two hundred,” Brandt said. “That’s the beauty of it, don’t you see? If we kill enough, it will get to the point that for every one man we kill, ten will leave. We are conducting a fear and terror campaign. Remember, all we have to do is strike terror into the hearts of his cowboys, and they will be too frightened to work for him.”

  “Terror riders,” Waco said. “Yeah, I like that.”

  Emilio worked in the kitchen on the Santa Gertrudis Ranch. He was returning from Corpus Christi with a load of groceries, a trip that he made at least twice a month. The trip took two days, but he didn’t mind it at all. In fact, he rather enjoyed the solitude, and driving the wagon wasn’t as hard as the work the cook gave him to do when he was back on the ranch. He had actually approached the cook with the idea of letting him make immediate turnaround trips, rather than waiting until supplies were needed.

  “I can’t spare you as a full-time grocery boy,” the cook replied. “There are too many times when I need you here.”

  Emilio was fairly certain that would be the answer, but he figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try.

  The wagon was old and the wood sun-dried, which made it give off a rather pungent smell. He didn’t mind the smell; it was so much a part of his life and routine that he found the aroma comfortable, like the smell of flour on his mother’s apron when he was a boy.

  Emilio drove the wagon along the rutted road, Captain King’s private road now, because he was actually on ranch property and had been for most of the day. As the wagon rolled along, negotiating the ruts and holes, Emilio began singing. He had been thinking about buying a mouth organ. He had never played one, but he was pretty sure that he could play it if he had one.

  When the sun set that night, Emilio unhitched and hobbled his team, then had his supper of beans, tortillas, and coffee. Afterward, with a piece of canvas and a blanket, he made his bed under the wagon. That done, he stretched out under the wagon and went to sleep.

  Preston had seen the wagon just before sundown and, trailing it, stayed just out of sight until the wagon stopped. He watched the driver disconnect his team, eat his supper, then make a bedroll under the wagon. All this time, the driver was well within rifle range, and Preston could have shot him quite easily. But if his job really was to spread terror, he knew that there were more frightening ways to die. He waited until the driver was asleep.

  Ramon was having a second cup of coffee when the cook came over to talk to him.

  “Ramon, I am concerned about Emilio. He should have returned with the groceries yesterday. He has been late before, but he has never been this late.”

  “Would you like me to look for him?” Ramon asked.

  “Yes. I’m afraid that the old wagon he was driving may have broken down. And if that is so, then Emilio is just conscientious enough to stay with it until someone comes rather than leave the groceries unguarded.”

  “I’ll have a look,” Ramon promised.

  It was late afternoon when Ramon saw a sight that sent chills through him. Buzzards were circling around something on the ground and, whatever it was, it was big enough to have attracted several dozen of the scavengers.

  Ramon quickened his pace and closed the distance between him and the buzzards quickly. That’s when he saw what was drawing their attention.

  Even from there, he could tell that Emilio was dead. He was sitting on the ground alongside the wagon, his right arm stretched out toward and tied to the front wheel, his left arm stretched out toward and tied to the back wheel. He was naked, and his stomach had been cut open so that his entrails were spilled onto the ground.

  The wagon was empty, having been looted by Emilio’s killers. The team of horses was still hobbled, unaffected by the gruesome sight, and because they were within easy range of both food and water, they had made no effort to wander off.

  Ramon wrapped Emilio’s body in canvas, and put him in the wagon. Then, with his own horse tied onto the wagon, Ramon drove the rig back to the main house.

  Emilio was the third to die in as many days, and the cumulative effect of seeing their friends and coworkers being killed so indiscriminately was having its effect on the other workers at the ranch. As Brandt had predicted, several of the employees at Santa Gertrudis quit.

  Ramon could always tell when one of them was coming to him to tender his resignation. He would appear in front of Ramon, holding his hat in his hands, looking down at the ground, while behind him his wife and children would stand waiting.

  “You are a good man, Roberto,” Ramon told one of them. “I hate to see you leave.”

  “I would not leave, Señor Ramon, if it weren’t for my wife. She is afraid that something bad will happen to me.”

  “What bad can happen to you, Roberto? You are a carpenter. You have nothing to do with the cattle.”

  “Neither did Emilio. He was but a helper in the kitchen, but he was killed,” Roberto pointed out.

  “Señor King, I am sorry to say that many of our people are leaving,” Ramon told King a couple of days later.

  “Why?” King asked.

  “I think it was bad enough when some of the riders were killed,” Ramon said. “But Emilio worked in the kitchen. He was but a cook’s helper. Why was he killed? I think many are disturbed by this.”

  “Of course they are upset,” King said. “They have every right to be upset. I am upset by this as well. But don’t you see? This is exactly what Brandt wants. He wants to spread terror among our people. He wants you to quit. And if you do that, you are letting him dictate what you do with your own lives. Do that, and he wins.”

  “I have told the people this,” Ramon said.
/>   “And what do they say?”

  “I am sorry, Señor King. But it has not changed their minds. Many are still leaving. And it is getting very difficult to find someone who will ride nighthawk. They are afraid they will be killed like Emilio, like the others.”

  King stroked his jaw for a moment, then he nodded. “All right, I can’t blame them,” he finally said. “Tell those who will continue to work for me, and agree to ride nighthawk, that I will double their salary. Tell those who leave that I wish them the very best.”

  “I will tell them, Señor,” Ramon said. “Señor King . . . ? he began, then stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Yes?”

  “I believe that if I had something else to tell them, if I could tell them that we are fighting back and that we will win, perhaps more would stay.”

  “We will fight back. We are fighting back,” King said.

  “But how, Señor? How do you fight against such evil?” Ramon asked. “When someone wishes to spread terror, there is nothing you can do to stop them.”

  “Sure there is,” Smoke said. “We can give terror right back to them.”

  “I don’t know what you have in mind, Smoke,” King said. “But whatever it is, you’ve got my support.”

  “We will fight back by using their own tactics against them,” Smoke said. “They are killing our people, we will kill theirs.”

  “But how? All of our cowboys are armed now,” King said. “And yet, still they get killed.”

  “We just have to be a little better at it, that’s all,” Smoke said.

  Smoke went on his own personal hunting trip, not for game, but for men. He did this by using himself for bait, riding nighthawk, pretending to be so involved with his duty that he was paying no attention to what was going on around him. He had been out on the range for four days and nights now, but had not yet drawn any attention. On the fifth night out, tired of jerky, he killed a rabbit and spitted it over an open flame to cook for his supper.

  It was during supper that he struck pay dirt, for he realized that he was being watched. Slowly, and showing no sign that he even knew that anyone was out there, he extinguished the fire and spread out his bedroll as if he were about to go to bed. He was careful to place his boots at the foot of the bedroll, and his hat at the top. After that he crawled down into the blanket, lay there for a moment, then, in the darkness, silently rolled away and slid down into a small gully that ran nearby. Pulling his pistol, he cocked it as quietly as he could and inched back up to the top of the gully to stare through the darkness toward the bedroll.

  From there, with his boots and hat in position, it looked exactly as if someone were in the blankets, sound asleep. Smoke smiled in grim approval. If his campsite looked that way to him, it would look that way to whoever was watching him.

  He waited.

  Out on the prairie a coyote howled.

  An owl hooted.

  A falling star flashed across the dark soft sky. An evening breeze moaned through the mesquite.

  And still he waited.

  Almost a full hour after Smoke had “gone to bed,” the night was lit up by the great flame pattern produced by the discharge of a shotgun. The roar of the shotgun boomed loudly, and Smoke saw dust and bits of cloth fly up from his bedroll where a charge of buckshot tore into it. Had he been there, the shot’s impact debris would have been bone and flesh rather than dust and cloth, and he would be a dead man.

  Instantly thereafter, Smoke snapped a shot off toward the muzzle flash, though he was just guessing that that was where his adversary was, as he had no real target.

  “Oh, you sonofabitch! You’re a smart one, you are,” a voice shouted almost jovially. The voice was not near the muzzle flash, and Smoke knew that his would-be assailant must have fired and moved. Whoever this was, he was no amateur. Even as Smoke thought this, he realized that the assailant could use the flame pattern from his own pistol as a target, so he threw himself to the right, just as the shotgun roared a second time. Though none of the pellets hit him, they dug into the earth where he had been but an instant earlier and sent a spray of stinging sand into his face. Smoke fired again, again aiming at the muzzle blast, though by now he knew there would be no one there. A moment later he heard the sound of retreating hoofbeats and he knew that his attacker was riding away.

  As Wiley Stone rode away, he realized that his target had not been an ordinary cowboy. Whoever it was, was smart enough to fool him into thinking he was still in his bedroll. That might be a cautious cowboy’s way of protecting himself, but Stone was startled by the suddenness with which his fire was returned.

  Damn! Stone suddenly realized that the cowboy wasn’t just protecting himself. He had set himself up as bait! He wanted to be shot at!

  Stone hurried back to Concepcion to give his report to Brandt.

  “Are you sure it was Smoke Jensen?” Brandt asked.

  “Well, no, there was no way of tellin’, it bein’ night ’n all,” Stone said. “But whoever it was, was some smart son of a bitch, I’ll say that.”

  Pearlie and Cal followed Smoke’s lead, going out at night and offering themselves for bait. Cal killed one his first night out. Pearlie got started late, but he got two over the next three nights. Smoke also got two so that among them, they killed five of Brandt’s men.

  “This ain’t workin’, Major,” Stone said as they began appraising their losses. “They’re killin’ more of us now than we’re killin’ of them.”

  “Yes,” Brandt said, stroking his chin. “The battle of attrition does seem to be running against us. It is obvious we are going to have to try another tactic.”

  “Yeah, well, what sort of other tactic do you have in mind?”

  “Superior numbers,” Brandt said. “From now on, we will not engage the enemy until we know that he have more people than he does.”

  Even as Brandt and his men were lamenting their losses, the Santa Gertrudis riders were celebrating their victories.

  “I don’t mind tellin’ you boys, I was planning on hightailing it out of here,” Barrett said. “But the way ole Smoke and the other two boys has been cuttin’ down the rustlers, I don’t figure there’s enough of ’em left to give us any more trouble. And that’s good, because we’ve got us a lot more cows to bring in before the drive starts.”

  “I think I will talk to everyone again,” Ramon said. “I think now they will stay.” He smiled at Barrett. “How many will you need to bring up the half-meadow herd?”

  “I won’t need no more’n five, I don’t reckon,” Barrett said.

  “I will get five men for you.”

  “I will be one of the five,” Cal offered. He looked at Pearlie. “What about you?”

  “Sure, I’ll go,” Pearlie said. “Say, Smoke, do you think we could talk Miss Sally into cookin’ us up a bunch of bear claws to take along?”

  “Why don’t you ask me?” Sally asked, coming up at that moment.

  “Oh, uh, I didn’t see you,” Pearlie said. “But how about it? Would you make us up a batch?”

  Sally smiled. “I think that could be arranged.”

  “Maybe a double batch,” Pearlie said.

  “A double batch?”

  “Well, we are goin’ to be out there for quite a while,” Pearlie said. “And a man can get awful hungry out on the range.”

  Sally chuckled. “All right, I’ll fix you a double batch,” she said.

  “And maybe some fried apple pies?” Pearlie suggested.

  “You are impossible, Pearlie,” Sally said. “Talk about the camel getting his nose under the tent. My advice to you is, don’t force it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pearlie said quickly, realizing that he had come close to overstepping himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Pearlie was bent low over his mount’s neck. The horse’s mane and tail were streaming out behind, and its nostrils flared wide as it worked the powerful muscles in its shoulders and haunches. Cal was riding just behind Pearlie, urging his animal
to keep pace, and Barrett was riding beside him. Behind Pearlie, Cal, and Barrett rode three more cowboys.

  The six men hit a shallow creek in full stride, and sand and silver bubbles flew up in a sheet of spray, sustained by the churning action of the horses’ hooves until huge drops began falling back like rain. Pearlie led the men toward an island in the middle of the stream.

  “We’ll hold here!” Pearlie shouted.

  Dismounting, the six men took up positions where they could use shrubbery and the slight elevation of land to provide both concealment and cover. They had been peacefully pushing a small herd of cows back to join the roundup, when they were put to flight by the sudden appearance of forty riders.

  Because there had been so few rustlers seen on the Santa Gertrudis Ranch over the last few days, the men had grown complacent, thinking that the worst was over. The unexpected appearance of so many men, all firing weapons as they came swooping down over a little rise of land, caused Pearlie and the others to make a desperate dash back to a small island in the middle of the stream.

  “How many are there?” Barrett asked. “Did anyone get a count?”

  “Too many to fight off!” Cal answered.

  “Yeah, well, too many or not, we’re going to have to fight them off, so we’d better get ready,” Pearlie said. “We’ll be making our stand here.”

  “We can’t stay here! We got to skedaddle!” one of the cowboys said.