“What a lot of crap,” Smoke snorted, as he laid down the paper. His full lips curled with contempt. “Typical yellow journalism.”
“Hey!” Oliver Johnson erupted. “I thought it was a well-written article. By far it’s the best of the lot.”
“Present company excepted, Ollie,” Smoke advised with a shrug. He reflected once more on how much he had come to like this brash young reporter. “You’ve proved your worth more than once.”
Oliver Johnson tilted his head to one side, a forkful of ham and fried potatoes halfway to his mouth. “You’re too kind, Smoke.” He continued by explaining, “I don’t mean that to sound sarcastic. I’m serious. You’ve opened some doors for me. So, what I’m wondering is, what do we do now?”
“I haven’t any choice but to wait for Sally. I don’t see there’s much for you to do.”
“Of course there is. I could use some help looking into the background on Middleton, Asher, and company. Then, I suppose I should pick up a few things for the trip.”
“What trip?” Smoke asked, certain he knew the answer. “Out west, naturally.” Oliver raised a hand to forestall the flood of objection he anticipated from Smoke. “I’m sitting on the story of the decade, if not the century, and there’s no way I’m going to be kept out of it.”
Smoke’s slate-gray eyes darkened. “Ollie, you said yourself that Middleton and Asher are the key to this. You can handle that better from right here. No need running off to the Colorado mountains.”
“No, the story is you, Smoke. Where you go, I go. At least, until I have the whole account of this. Think of it, ‘Conquest in the Name of a Criminal Empire,’ or make that; ‘Smoke Jensen Conquers Criminal Empire, Ends Reign of Terror in Far West.’ How about that?”
“Too long, Ollie.” Smoke wanted nothing to do with it, especially getting his name attached to such folderol.
“Then how about, ‘Smoke Jensen Ends Reign of Terror in Rockies,’ you like that?”
Smoke shook his head, partly in exasperation, and responded in a low, steady voice. “First, there has to be a reign of terror in the mountains, and second, I have to end it. You’re getting ahead of yourself, Ollie.”
“Maybe so, but there is a story here, and I want to be the one to write it. And I promise, no yellow journalism. Deal?” Smoke studied him a long while, then sighed. “These men we heard about are dangerous. Being out of their element could likely make them more so.”
“You know I can shoot, take care of myself, right? Well, then, I rest my case.”
This fiery young newspaper man had a point, Smoke had to admit. It might not be a bad idea to have along someone
who knew the facts from the start. At least, as much as he knew about it himself. “All right. You’re coming along.”
“I thought so.”
A telegram arrived late that morning on the desk of Thad-deus Foley, City Editor of the New York Eagle. It lay there until Foley returned from a liquid lunch at O’Dwyer’s on Lexington Avenue. Foley slit the yellow envelope with a slim silver letter opener. Inside the standard form bore the date and time of the transmission, the source and address of the recipient. Below it was a terse message: “CONGRATULATIONS X DOING A FINE JOB X KEEP UP THE PRESSURE ON JENSEN X” and signed, “LATHROP.” Foley smiled whitely and thought again of the fat sheaf of hundred-dollar notes he had received early that morning by messenger and put away in his private, personal safe. So long as that kept coming, he would see that Smoke Jensen remained the most hated man in New York.
For all the inevitability of it, Smoke Jensen remained grumpy about Sally accompanying himself and Ollie Johnson up until the time Colonel Drew’s private car was attached to the rear of the New York Central’s Daylight Express. Then, with Sally in his arms, he lost all attempts at gruffness.
“I missed you,” Sally informed her husband.
“I—ah—felt empty without you,” Smoke confirmed his own displeasure at their being apart.
Half an hour later, packed to overflowing in all but the last car, the train pulled out. There would be stops only at Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and finally Chicago. They would arrive in the Windy City shortly after dawn the next day. That would put them three days behind Lathrop and his New York City hoodlums, and two days behind O’Boyle and his union gangsters from Boston. Not the hottest of trails he had followed; Smoke allowed. But, with the information they had squeezed out of Victor Middleton’s office manager, he had the destination of the enemy, which would save a passel of time.
“You have some interesting and impressive friends, Smoke,” Ollie Johnson interrupted Smoke’s reflections.
“Yes, well, it goes with the trail you ride,” Smoke said, presenting Ollie with one of those “mysteries” of western speech.
“What do we do when we reach Chicago?”
Smoke looked hard at Ollie, recalling again that the young man had never been east of Worcester or south of New York City. “We change to the Santa Fe and make the run to Denver.”
“And after that?”
Smoke smiled, a wide, white band in sun-browned cheeks. “I hope you’ve taken a liking to horseback riding. We’ll be doing a lot of it.”
Wade Tanner sat his horse in the dooryard of the headquarters of Rancho Puesta del Sol. He and ten others held smoking sixguns on the surviving ten vaqueros and the owner, Ramon Sandoval.
There had been Sandovals in Colorado since the coming of the Spanish. Ramon shook with outrage at the humiliation handed him by these cabrones in their flour-sack hoods and bedsheets. If they had not run out of ammunition, they would have made these bastardos suffer. These gringos would have learned what it meant to make war on a descendant of the conquistadores.
“Waall, what do we do with these greasers, Wade?” Wade Tanner studied on it a moment. “Same’s we did with them white folks a ways back. Th’ man said, ‘If they don’t sell, deal with the widows.’ ”
Five Colts barked and as many Mexican ranch hands fell without a sound. Three of them twitched for a while, then went still. The survivors made the sign of the cross with solemn movements. Two knelt.
"Santa Maria, madre de Dios, orar por nostros pecadores. . ."
A harsh roar of sixguns drowned out their prayer.
“That takes care of all but Sane—yore Sandoval,” Wade observed with a chuckle. “Got any prayin’ to do, best get to it. Or . . . you can still sell this place to Mr. Early.”
“Vaya al infierno, pinche ladron!”
Tanner’s face turned stony under his hood. “I know what them words mean. It ain’t gonna be me goes to hell.” The heavy .45 Colt bucked in his hand.
A hot slug smacked into Ramon Sandoval and spun him sideways, so that Tanner’s second round took him in the temple. The already dead rancher dropped in a heap and quivered as his wounds pumped out his life’s blood.
“An’ I’ll have you know I ain’t no little thief, ” Tanner growled, as he turned away and led his men toward the next ranch to be visited.
Flames crackled in the barn. Long, orange columns of sparks shot from the open door to the haymow. Damn it, Buford Early thought, that will lower the property value. And if those sparks set something else off, it will be even worse. Stray bullets had shattered a kerosene lantern and set the place ablaze.
“You men, watch those other buildings. Don’t let the lire spread.” To his satisfaction, Early saw that his order had been obeyed without question.
It had not always been that way. Until a short time ago, when Buford Early had shot a ranch hand and saved the life of Wade Tanner, he had been viewed with contempt by the hard-faced killers who followed the man Phineas Lathrop had put in charge. Tonight they had come closer to Smoke Jensen’s Sugarloaf ranch than ever before. Too bad about the barn, Early mused, as he watched the hooded raiders spread out with wet blankets and buckets of water to extinguish any sparks that lighted on the bunkhouse and tool sheds. Still others hunted around the barnyard for stray
hands who had not as yet bee
n run off. Early sighed with satisfaction.
“Mr. Tanner, it appears we have added another jewel to Mr. Lathrop’s crown.” Remembering his earlier humiliation at Smoke Jensen’s ranch, he added, “I can’t wait until we take over the Sugarloaf.”
Considerable complaining had gone on all the way from New York City to Dodge City, Kansas. None of the former longshoremen in the O’Boyle gang liked the idea of Dodge being the end of the line for them. When Phineas Lathrop appeared on the loading platform, he soon heard about it from Sean O’Boyle and Eamon Finnegan.
“Sure an’ the train would get us to Denver a lot faster,” Eamon Finnegan protested.
Lathrop had forgotten how big Finnegan was. His broad, thick shoulders bulged the cloth coat he wore over a flannel shirt. A shock of black hair hung over his brow. Finnegan had one flaw, which Lathrop had taken note of at their first meeting. The black Irish bruiser had the florid complexion and ruddy, broken-vesseled nose of a heavy drinker. Only in his late twenties and already caught up in the “Irish disease,” Lathrop thought uneasily. Such a man could quickly go unstable.
“Your introduction to horseback riding in Central Park was entirely too short,” Lathrop snapped at the two leaders of the Boston gang.
“Half me boys is still saddle-sore from that encounter, Mr. Lathrop,” Sean O’Boyle complained. “It’s sheer foolishness makin’ a man ride astride a horse when there’s this perfectly good train to take us on, it is.”
“Nonsense. Riding to Denver will toughen you up for what is ahead.” Accustomed to having his way, Phineas Lathrop made it clear he brooked no differences of opinion among his underlings.
O’Boyle looked again at the line of heavy western saddles, the leather pouches behind the cantle bulging with camp gear and boxes of ammunition. “We’ll be hampered with such overloads, we will,” he objected.
Lathrop’s chin rose pugnaciously. “You won’t be carrying the load, Mr. O’Boyle, the horses will. Now, get your men organized and take these saddles to the livery down the street. Your mounts have been selected.”
Chafed by long hours of inactivity, Smoke Jensen opted to walk the three blocks from the New York Central station in Chicago to that of the A T & S F. Their private car would be shifted through the common railyard. A block down the street, he, Sally, and Oliver came upon five loungers who looked every bit the part of saddle tramps, to Smoke’s practiced eyes.
One in particular eyed Smoke closely. After their party had passed, that one spoke up, confirming Smoke’s suspicion that trouble was about to catch up to him again. “That’s him, I tell you. Seed it in the paper this mornin’.”
“Naw,” another rejected the idea. “He wouldn’t be walkin’ around like that.”
“I’ll prove it to you,” the young man pressed, as he came up from the bench on which he had been slouched. “Hey, you, mister. Smoke Jensen.” he called after the three strollers.
“Ollie, take Sally across the street and go on to the depot.”
“There’s five of them, Smoke,” Oliver protested.
“I know. That’s why I want Sally safely out of the way. Now, go on.” He turned to face the challenger. “You got that one right. I’m Smoke Jensen. Do I know you?”
“No. But the whole country’s soon gonna know me as the man who shot Smoke Jensen.”
“There’s no call for that. Back off while you still can.” “Can’t do that,” said the youth. “Y’see, we’re fixin’ to earn us a free ride out to where the big action is. Word has it a ramrodder named Wade Tanner’s hirin’ all the guns he can get. There’s a special bonus for whoever spots and guns down Smoke Jensen. That’s the free ride I tole you about.” While the young prodder had run his mouth, Smoke had let his right hand lower to his holster and slide the safety thong off the hammer of his .45 Colt. Now he shook his head, almost sadly.
“You’re not good enough to even come close. Give it up, boy, before you get yourself and your friends hurt.”
At Smoke’s pronouncement, the five spread out across the sidewalk and into the street. Smoke didn't like any part of this. They were so young, and calling him out like this was so senseless. One of the youths dropped into an exaggerated crouch and continued to walk, crablike, further into the street. Smoke could almost laugh at the image it created. Obviously all these boys had ever learned about gunfighting had come from, the pages of dime novels.
“I’ll ask you nicely one last time. Forget about this and walk away. That way none of you will get hurt.”
“You’re the one’s gonna be hurt, gunfighter,” the aggressive one snarled.
Then he made a terrible mistake. He went for his gun. Smoke Jensen’s Peacemaker cleared leather before the youth had his fingers closed around the butt-grip of an old .44 Colt Frontier model. Smoke aimed to disable the revolver. His slug entered the young man’s thigh at the midpoint and deflected to exit on the right side, smashing itself against the holster. The kid cried out and fell to his left knee. Fearful of the speed they had just witnessed, yet goaded by their friend’s shout of pain, the other four went for their guns.
“Aw, shit!” one groaned, as he realized he had not slipped the safety thong off his iron. He tugged uselessly at it while he watched the black hole in the muzzle of Smoke Jensen’s .45 center on his belly. Suddenly he wanted no part of this. He raised both hands in surrender and stepped off in a direction away from the developing fight.
Smoke let him go. The other three had unlimbered their weapons and now fired wildly, their bullets cracking through air to both sides of Smoke Jensen. Smoke put a hot round in the shoulder of the nearest shooter, who tried inexpertly to do a border shift. Pain caused him to jerk uncontrollably and he missed his catch. His revolver fell solidly on the hard-packed dirt street and discharged. The bullet cracked and whined off the marble facing of a bank across the street where Smoke stood.
That left two, Smoke kept mental score. One of them had presence of mind to extend his gunhand to arm’s length and try to take aim. His had shook so badly he could not line up on Smoke’s chest. Smoke ignored him momentarily to take care of the other would-be gunfighter.
Still in his crab-walk crouch, the snarling youth fired with his right shoulder sloped downward, which placed him off balance. The slug cut high, past the front brim of Smoke’s hat. It broke a window on the second floor of the bank and a woman’s scream of alarm came a second later. Eyes wide, the shooter indexed the cylinder again.
No time for fancy work, Smoke admitted to himself. He brought the Colt to bear and loosed a .45 lead pellet that took his assailant in the gut, a fist’s depth below the sternum. Eyes bugged, the youthful thug did a pratfall and tried feebly to raise his suddenly heavy sixgun.
A soft sigh left his lips and he toppled over his gunhand as shock brought on unconsciousness. By that time, the mouthy one had revived enough to retrieve his .44 Frontier and make use of it lefthanded. He got a .45 caliber hole in his shoulder for his troubles. The shaky one recovered enough to be a threat. Instead of gunning him down without pity, Smoke Jensen stepped in on the scared youth and knocked the menacing gunhand away, then brought the barrel of his Peacemaker down on the center line of the kid’s forehead.
His eyes crossed and he fell with a soft groan. “God damn you, Smoke Jensen!” the instigator shouted, white froth spraying from thin lips.
“You’ve got two holes in you, boy, and one of your friends is dead. Back down or I put the next bullet between your runnin’ lights.”
Tears filled the pale blue eyes and the young gunhand sat sobbing in a spreading pool of his own blood. By then, two guards from the bank and a policeman had reached the scene. The encounter with the police ended abruptly when Smoke showed his badge and explained that the five had jumped him, and that he had a train to catch.
“You can reach me through the sheriff’s office in Big Rock, Colorado. Monte Carson is the sheriff.” With that final advice, Smoke Jensen walked away from the gapemouthed policeman, on the final leg of his search fo
r Phineas Lathrop.
Eighteen
“I’m tellin’ ye, Mr. Lathrop, sure an’ we’re goin’ crazy out here, we are,” Sean O’Boyle complained to Phineas Lathrop on the third night stop on the trail from Dodge City to Denver. “It’s too quiet. Nothin’ but birds singin’, it is, an’ bugs buzzin’ around. An’ at night, saints preserve us, it’s them spooky wolves howlin’.”
“They’re coyotes,” Phineas Lathrop snapped.
“Whatever. It’s got us all wore thin. We need somethin’ to do.”
“Such as what?” Lathrop asked coldly.
“Well, me an’ some of the boys have been thinkin’ on that. We saw that stagecoach yesterday. And we read about stage holdups in them books about the West. Connor O’Fallon an’ I sort of thought it might be something’ to while away our time, we did, if we was to rob one of those coaches.”
Lathrop didn’t like that in the least. “Just the two of you?”
“No, sir. We’re not daft, man. Paedrik Boyne an’ Seamas Quern have a hankerin’ to join in. Sure four of us could take one man with a little bitty shotgun.”
“Don’t be too sure.” Something troubled him about this, yet Lathrop found himself hard put to express his discomfort. “Those shotgun guards are tough men. Wells-Fargo doesn’t hire eastern dandies to protect their strongboxes.”
O’Boyle’s black Irish temper flared. “Are ye callin’ us boys ‘dandies,’ Mr. Lathrop?”
“Oh, no—no, of course not.”
“I should think not, now you got us decked out all a-bris-tle with firearms. When the stage folk get a look at that, they’ll see reason, right enough, they will.”
Rage of the Mountain Man Page 17