Rage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Damn it all, I don’t want you killed. Is that too awful to accept?”

  For all the misery on the face of Smoke Jensen, Bobby refused to melt even a little. “Go away. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  Exasperated beyond all patience, suspecting that he was somehow to blame for his failure, Smoke Jensen turned away. He’d crossed only half the distance to the house when his keen hearing picked up the wretched sound of the deep sobs that wracked the small boy’s shoulders. Inside the house, he recounted his lack of progress with Bobby to Sally.

  She exerted her usual sensibility in such matters. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll talk to Bobby and help him see this is for his own good.”

  Smoke threw up his hands. “Did we have the same problems with our own?” he asked unhappily.

  Help came to Smoke Jensen shortly before midnight, in the form of a skinny redheaded kid. Little Jamie Seegers, escorted by one of the hands, arrived with his message from Monte Carson. Once he had delivered the sheriff's terse words, he stood in wonder, staring around the living room, which had once been the entire interior of the Jensen home.

  “It’s late,” Smoke observed. “If that army of warhawks wasn’t right on your heels, I’d say you should stay the night. As it is, we’ve got to get you out of here.” The boy appeared startled. Smoke noticed that he was unarmed, unusual for anyone traveling at night in the High Lonesome. “Do you have a gun, boy?”

  “No, sir. My paw won’t let me.”

  “That’s a stupid attitude,” Smoke said musingly to himself. “With Lathrop’s men on the loose here, it isn’t safe for you to go around unarmed.” Smoke continued thinking out loud. “If I could spare one of the hands . . . wait a minute!” he barked a second later.

  Smoke strode to the split logs set into the inner face of an outside wall to form the staircase to the second floor. There he paused to tell Jamie that he would be right back. Upstairs, ducking his head under the low ceiling, Smoke went to Bobby’s room. He rapped sharply before opening the door.

  Bobby sat on the end of his bed in the unlighted room, staring out at the darkness beyond. Smoke crossed to him. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and Bobby squirmed away. He’ll sing a different tune in a minute, Smoke thought.

  “Bobby, do you have your sixgun cleaned, oiled, and loaded?”

  Excitement bloomed on the youngster’s face. “Then you’ve changed your mind?”

  “Sort of. There’s an important thing that needs doing. I think you’re the right one to handle it. Downstairs is a boy who brought me a message from Monte Carson. With Lathrop’s gang swarming around the place anytime now, he can’t get back home safely by himself. He’s unarmed and needs someone to escort him back to Big Rock. I think you’re the one to do that. Are you game?”

  “Am I!” Bobby squeaked. “I’ll get dressed right away.” “You’ll have to take the high pass and go the long way around. I’ll have Sally pack enough food. Take your carbine along, and I think a shotgun for Jamie Seegers.”

  “Jamie! I know him from school. His Pop’s dumb; won’t let Jamie learn to shoot.”

  Smoke Jensen hid his grin. “Don’t speak ill of your elders, Bobby. Though in this case, the truth is, I agree with you. That’s why I think a scatter gun is best. Now, hurry along and we’ll get you on the way.”

  Downstairs Smoke crossed to Sally’s side. He spoke more to her than to Jamie Seegers. “I think we’ve got the problem solved. Bobby Harris will be going with you, Jamie. You’ll take the high pass and circle down to Big Rock. Should be there by late afternoon tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Smoke, you’ve done it again,” Sally praised him, with a light laugh.

  “Just takin’ care of loose ends, ma’am. Now, fix them enough vittles to last. They’re growin’ boys, remember.” “What are you going to be doing?”

  Smoke smiled at Sally. “I’ve changed my mind about sitting here and waiting. I’m going to take a dozen hands out and give Phineas Lathrop a headache.”

  At first, Phineas Lathrop thought some idiots were taking potshots at squirrels and woodpeckers. Dawn had just put a pink haze across the steep grade their horses pulled into, the stretch of road that marked the last five miles to the Sugarloaf. Sharp cries of alarm and a sudden increase in the volume of fire changed his mind. He slowed the heavychested mount he straddled and swiveled in the saddle.

  Darkness still shrouded the trail behind. From it he marked the yellow-orange winks of muzzle blast. He counted five . . . no, seven points from which fire was directed into the rear of his column. It had to be Smoke Jensen. How in hell could he have found out so soon?

  Frantically he pointed to the source of attack. “Up there, in those rocks.”

  Return fire proved to be of no avail. Lathrop’s inexpert gunmen chipped a lot of granite and sprayed lead high over the heads of the Sugarloaf hands. Mounted men, twirling loops and covered by riflemen, charged the rear. The lassos settled around the arms and shoulders of three New Yorkers. A trio of quick dallies and sharp turns, and the hoodlums went flying. They landed hard.

  In the next instant, they were slithering through the grass, away from their companions. Out of sight of the column of thugs, hard-handed wranglers deprived them of their weapons, boots, trousers, and shirts. A few punches convinced them to head back in the direction from which they had come.

  Then, quickly as it had come, the attack broke off. Only echoes of the flurry of gunshots remained in the narrow defile between high mountains. Driven beyond his customary reserve, Phineas Lathrop could only pound an impotent fist on his saddlehorn and bellow his displeasure.

  “God damn you, Smoke Jensen!”

  None of which bothered Smoke Jensen. He had heard it all before—many times.

  Another plan had developed in Smoke’s head on the way to attack Lathrop in the rear. He now led his men, none of whom had received a scratch, on a wide run around the approaching column. Smoke had been surprised to learn that Lathrop had not been battle-wise enough to divide his large force and assault the ranch from several directions at once. Perhaps, he decided, unwilling to underestimate his opponent, Lathrop’s lack of unfamiliarity with the terrain had caused this mistake. Whatever the case, Smoke Jensen determined to make use of the error to the detriment of the would-be empire builder.

  Phineas Lathrop had barely managed to regain his composure and reorganize his column of eastern guns when Smoke Jensen and his twelve ranch hands struck at them from the front. Caught by surprise and confused as to who this could be, Lathrop bellowed to his men to resist with all they had. His hat went flying as a bullet punched through the crown.

  Two more popped through the wide-spread sides of his coat. That sent Lathrop out of the saddle to sprawl in the thorny underbrush. At once, panic ensued. Wade Tanner assumed command and tried to rally the demoralized gangsters.

  “The boss is down!” one of them shouted. “Let’s get outta here.”

  “No! Hold on. We outnumber them,” Tanner urged.

  Gradually, his determination and appeal to reason reached a few, who also turned back to take wildly inaccurate shots at the Sugarloaf hands. A yelp of pain showed one of the greenhorns to be a better shot than most. Another Sugarloaf rider threw up his hands and tumbled from his saddle. A friend swiftly swung from his saddle to scoop up the dead wrangler. With a wild whinny, a wounded horse set off out of control of its rider. Then a shouted command ended the encounter.

  Swiftly as they had descended on the flatlanders, the mountain-wise ranglers set off at a fast run toward the distant ranch. Tanner was quick to seize upon it.

  “Mount up. Get after them. Run them to the ground,” he commanded.

  Numbly the products of the New York tenements and Boston docks began to comply. Then the rage- and pain-hollowed voice of Phineas Lathrop came from the chaparral to the side of the trail. “Someone get me out of here.”

  Wade Tanner hurried to do just that. When a rumpled, leaf-bedecked Phineas Lathrop rose out of the spiny brambl
es, he looked furiously off in the direction Smoke Jensen had taken.

  Both fists shook over his head as he wailed, “Smoke Jensen . . . you baaaastaaard!”

  Smoke Jensen and his hands led the waterfront hoodlums off on a merry chase—one at least that the men of the Sugarloaf enjoyed a lot. Not the same could be said for those who followed. From a vantage point above a box canyon into which the unwitting eastern garbage had been led, Smoke studied their antics:

  “Any bets as to how long before they realize the only way out is back the way they came?”

  “Not me, Smoke.”

  Smoke gave Zeke Tucker a fleeting smile. “What about you boys? Zeke’s not takin’ a chance.”

  “Count me out,” Sam Waters declined. “Where to now, Boss?”

  “We’ll pick up the main body and lead them right to the Sugarloaf . . . over the west slope.”

  Delighted smiles lighted the faces of the Sugarloaf riders. They well knew what waited for the invaders. Less than twenty minutes later, they got the chance to lead the unsuspecting greenhorns into the deadly lane of fire established by Smoke Jensen.

  At first, the Lathrop gang gave off excited halos, like eastern fox hunters, when they sighted their former tormenters. They raced along eagerly, drawing closer as the grassy incline increased. Boston soft A’s vied with nasal New York twangs as they cursed when the quarry disappeared over the crest of the rise.

  Then they topped the ridge and found their way blocked by large, star-shaped wooden obstructions, their outward-pointed arms sharpened to wicked points. They closed up to thunder through a pair of gaps formed by three stumps. Beyond, they jinked to the left to negotiate another such opening. Their pace slowed, while that of those familiar with the layout remained steady.

  Distance widened between pursuers and pursued. More angry curses rose among the flatlanders as they imagined these easy targets escaping them. It all worked the way Smoke Jensen had expected. The hard-riding mass of gunmen advanced at best possible speed, unaware that they were being channeled into an increasingly narrow passage.

  Surprise registered on the faces of those in the lead when the fleeing ranch hands reined in and dismounted halfway up another slope, twin to the one down which they rumbled. Concealed rifle pits suddenly took on life and the meadow blossomed with spurts of gray-white powder smoke.

  Only then did the oncoming hard cases realize that they had heedlessly ridden deep into accurate rifle range. Three men left their saddles, one with a terrible yell of pain. A second later, another New Yorker pitched to the side and fell under the hooves of the horses behind.

  All at once it became too much for the city-bred gunfighters. Too unnerved to press the attack on Smoke Jensen’s ranch, they halted their headlong advance and milled in confusion for precious seconds, while the marksmen of the Sugarloaf picked off four more of their number.

  In the middle of their fear-numbed debate, Smoke Jensen and three men took to their saddles again and rode off, bold as brass, taunting Phineas Lathrop to come to some solid decision. Deep in his heart, Lathrop had to admit to being as demoralized as his followers. He felt helpless, out of his element, and unable to direct the conditions of battle to his liking. He also knew Wade Tanner to be frontier-wise and capable.

  Regretfully, he directed a turnabout and started away from the Sugarloaf. Once beyond the ridge, safely out of range and sight of the dead shots they had faced, Lathrop halted his mob. He directed his first remarks to them, in order to keep them from turning it into a total rout.

  “We’re pulling back for the time being. There’s too many of them. I want Eamon Finnegan and two men to keep a watch on this approach. I wasn’t even aware of it, I’ll admit. Now we know, and we’ll find a way to take advantage of it. Now, Wade, I want you to take six men and go after Smoke Jensen. If he’s taken out of the action permanently, those gunmen he’s hired won’t have any reason to stay here and protect the ranch. Who’ll pay them?”

  Wade Tanner produced a tight grin and a slight nod. Out here, he knew, men who had signed on to ride for the brand stood by it, many times even after the owner had been killed. Range wars had taught him that. Also that fighting to protect a man’s holdings, often won by long, hard battles against Indians, weather, and other land-hungry men, was a lot different from squabbles over defending this neighborhood or that back East.

  Yet he found himself in the same situation. Wade Tanner had signed on to back Phineas Lathrop and his partners. Grudgingly he saw the necessity of his answer.

  “Right away. Boss.” He named off those he wanted to accompany him and rode out.

  After Tanner’s departure, Lathrop revealed his next stratagem to his uneasy men. “For the time being, I want you to break up into groups of eight or nine and go out and terrorize this whole countryside. We can draw Smoke Jensen out that way, get him where we can kill him. And . . . we have another advantage in such a tactic. With a little help from a friendly newspaper editor in Denver, the blame for your rampage will fall on Smoke Jensen.”

  Twenty-two

  Over the next few days, the Sugarloaf knew relative peace. Not so the surrounding countryside. Smoke Jensen soon found himself busy protecting his neighbors from Phineas Lathrop’s predators. Since by the time news could be relayed to the Sugarloaf it would be too late, watching over the beleaguered ranchers of the northwestern corner of Colorado kept Smoke constantly in the saddle. Half a dozen of his hands rode his circuit counterclockwise to his schedule. It kept everyone busy trying to counteract the outrages directed by Phineas Lathrop. Like the situation Smoke Jensen had stumbled into only a minute ago some twenty-five miles west of the Sugarloaf.

  Smoke had come upon trail sign of eight horses, each with a moderate burden, ridden fast toward the location of a ranch owned by Cyrus Hammer. Cyrus and Smoke had been friends for years. The portly, gray-haired Hammer had been in the High Lonesome nearly as long as Smoke. Now it looked like Cyrus Hammer had become the next target of Lathrop’s terror. Although saddle-weary, Smoke picked up Dandy’s pace.

  He was still half a mile off when he heard the first flat reports of gunshots and saw the initial white puff of smoke rise. In these thick stands of resinous pines and firs, any fire could quickly get out of hand. Smoke eased Dandy into a rolling gallop.

  Smoke burst into the clearing with a sixgun in each hand, his reins looped around the saddlehorn. Two hard cases had Cyrus’s foreman on the ground, savagely beating him. One of them looked up in time to die with the terrible knowledge that Smoke Jensen had found them. His partner soon joined him. Smoke pivoted from the hips and lined up his .45 Colt on yet another of the hoodlums.

  Not surprising to Smoke, the New Yorker threw up his hands and ran. Smoke hastened him along with a bullet that clipped cloth from the shoulder of a linen duster. The other five outlaws had spread out behind any sort of cover they could find and exchanged shots with Cyrus Hammer and his wife. Smoke’s sudden arrival instantly disrupted their strategy.

  Two of them made the mistake of turning to confront this threat. Smoke Jensen put a slug through the fleshy part of one man’s thigh. Howling, the former Boston longshoreman dropped his weight on his right knee and gamely tried to bring the .45 Colt into line with Smoke’s chest. He found the weapon unwieldy at the best of times. Yet he managed to get off a round that cut a path uncomfortably close to Smoke Jensen’s right side.

  Smoke righted the situation with a shot that shattered the gunsel’s breastbone and showered his lungs with bone fragments. Dandy flashed past the dying man, guided by the knees of Smoke Jensen. Dandy’s broad chest smashed into the head and shoulders of the amateur gunman as Smoke rode him down.

  A rifle roared in a shuttered window and another of the outlaws flopped face-first in the barnyard. Smoke Jensen turned his attention to the others, who remained out of the line of sight of Cyrus Hammer. It appeared that they had had all they wanted of this encounter. Dragging their wounded friends with them, they scurried for their horses, tied off to a corral
post.

  Smoke Jensen sped them on their way with a few close rounds to remind them of their desire to leave. Then he holstered his off-hand sixgun and set to reload the other Peacemaker. While he did, he reflected on what a fitting name the Colt people had come up with. Things were definitely a lot more peaceful around the Hammer ranch after the proper application of the big .45.

  Cyrus Hammer came from the house as Smoke started to fill the chambers of his other revolver. “You got here just in time. Of all the things, those son of bitches set fire to the outhouse. A couple of my hands got it out before any more harm was done. Light a spell, Smoke Jensen, looks like you could use an hour or two’s rest and a good meal.”

  “I’m obliged.”

  “No, sir, it’s us who’s obliged. You know, Maw an’ me was positive it couldn’t be you attackin’ the ranches hereabout.”

  “What are you talking about, Cyrus?”

  “You ain’t read the Denver papers, Smoke?”

  “Not lately. I’ve—ah—had my hands full.”

  Cyrus chuckled at Smoke’s dry humor, then explained. “The paper’s been full of stories claimin’ that you’re behind these burnin’s and such. Says you want to take over every inch of ground for the Sugarloaf.” Cyrus paused and thought a moment. “Never can believe what they put in some of them papers.”

  “I’m glad to have you on my side, Cyrus. I only hope there’s more with the good sense to see that. If not,” Smoke summed up, “I could be in for some real hard times.”

  Over those past few days, Wade Tanner and his six men had been following Smoke Jensen by a distance of half a day. Try as he might, Tanner could not close the gap. At least, not until Smoke accepted the hospitality of the Hammers.

  From the far side of the cleared meadow where the Hammer ranch headquarters had been established, Wade Tanner watched Smoke Jensen’s broad back blend in with the dark forest of pines. Quickly he sorted out what should be done.