Trek of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  He went to one of the trees on the left side of the trail, wrapped the barbed wire around it about six and a half feet off the ground, and twisted the ends together. Then, unrolling the barbed wire as he went, he crossed the trail and did the same thing on the other side, clipping the bale off the end as he twisted it.

  Pearlie shook his head. “Damn, that’s gonna take a man’s head plumb off if’n he rides into it at speed.”

  Smoke’s lips turned up in a nasty grin, but his eyes were flat and without any trace of humor at all. “That’s the idea, Pearlie.”

  They followed him down the trail as he dug more pits and wired more trees, sometimes stepping off the trail and booby-trapping the area alongside just in case the outlaws got smart and got their horses off the trail.

  At each of the pits and on each of the trees he rigged, Smoke hung a small piece of white cloth.

  “Why for are you doin’ that, Smoke?” Cal asked, a puzzled look on his face. “We ain’t gonna have to shoot these traps to make ’em work.”

  Smoke cocked his head at Cal and frowned. “Come on, Cal,” he said patiently. “You’re smarter than that.”

  Cal looked over at Pearlie, who shrugged. “I ain’t tellin’ you, Cal boy. Figure it out for yourself.”

  Cal thought for a moment, and then he snapped his fingers. “I got it. If’n we’re riding down the trail with them galoots on our heels, we’ll know where the traps are when we see the white pieces of shirt.”

  Smoke smiled, this time for real, and nodded. “That’s right, Cal. If our little surprises up at the clearing don’t kill all of the sons of bitches, we may have to make a run for it to get Sally out of danger. This way, we won’t get hurt by one of our own traps.”

  Finished with their preparations on the lower part of the trail, Smoke and the boys headed back up the mountain toward the outlaws’ camp.

  “One thing’s botherin’ me, Smoke,” Cal said.

  “What’s that?”

  “What if in the mornin’ those galoots start to go down the trail past the clearin’. Won’t they come upon our traps and know somethin’s wrong?”

  “Good question, Cal,” Smoke said. “I’m glad to see you’re thinking of things that can go wrong with our plan. That is one of the most important things to do when you’re trying to trap something, figure out what may go wrong and allow the animal to escape. To keep them from finding our traps below the clearing, I’m going to be in the brush just below the clearing in the morning. If they start to ride down that way, I’ll come out and tell them I got there early.”

  “How about the trail above the camp, Smoke?” Pearlie asked. “We can’t set any traps there or they’ll find them on their way down.”

  “I know,” Smoke said. “What we’re going to do tonight is find the right places for the traps and mark them with white cloth. In the morning, after the outlaws come down the trail and head to the clearing, you and Cal should have time to prepare the pits and wire up above just as we’ve done below before the meeting takes place.”

  “But why are we doing both sides of the clearing, Smoke?” Cal asked. “If we do have to make a run for it, won’t we be going down the mountain toward Pueblo?”

  Smoke looked at him and shrugged. “Probably, Cal, but I don’t want to bet my life and Sally’s life on a probably. Depending on how things break, we may have to head up the mountain instead of down. Much better to make too many traps than not enough.”

  “You got that right,” Pearlie said, “though it plumb galls me to think we may have to run from these bastards ’stead of stayin’ and fightin’ it out face-to-face.”

  “Me too, Pearlie,” Smoke said. “But my first obligation is to get Sally out of danger. Once that’s done, believe me, there won’t be a hole deep enough for them to crawl into to escape what I have planned for them.”

  It took them until almost midnight for Smoke to find and mark the various places he wanted the pits dug and the trees wired and to leave small patches of cloth on the areas for the boys to find the next day.

  By then, they were all dog-tired, and Smoke insisted they go back to their camp near the outlaws and get some shut-eye. “Like Puma Buck used to say,” Smoke told them, “it plumb don’t make no sense to go into a battle sleepy or hungry. Two things a man don’t do good on an empty stomach or on too little sleep: fight or make love to a woman. You need all your wits about you to do either one right.”

  The boys laughed at the old mountain man’s wisdom and humor and as they rode up the trail, they asked Smoke to tell them more mountain man lore.

  By the time they got to their camp, he’d told several stories of how he and Puma Buck and Preacher had pulled some tricks on the Indians that were a constant menace to mountain men in the old days.

  Once at their camp, he built a very small fire and heated up some more steaks and some coffee that was quite a bit weaker than what they’d had for supper.

  “Probably won’t have time for breakfast in the morning, so we’d better fill our bellies now,” he advised.

  Pearlie grunted around a mouthful of steak. “You don’t have to tell me that twice,” he said.

  25

  Before falling asleep the night before, Smoke had set his internal alarm to awaken him before dawn. Over many years of living in the High Lonesome without alarm clocks to keep him on schedule, he’d acquired the ability to make himself awaken at just about any time he wanted. Then it had been an essential survival skill, but now it was Sally’s life that depended on this ability.

  He blinked awake about an hour prior to sunrise and, as was his long habit, he surveyed his surroundings carefully before moving or making a sound. The forest around his camp was very quiet. The night hunters and predators had long since found their evening meals and were preparing for a day of sleep, and the daytime hunters had yet to awaken. Even the hoot owls were quiet and had ceased asking their eternal question, “Who?”

  Smoke eased out of his sleeping blankets and built a small, hat-sized fire in the corner of some boulders to heat some water for coffee. Once the water was boiling, he threw in a couple of handfuls of Arbuckle’s and roused the boys.

  Like Smoke, years on the trail herding cattle had taught them to come instantly awake. They drank their coffee as they broke camp, cleaning up all evidence of their presence and making sure the fire was completely out before they headed down the trail to prepare for their confrontation with Pike and his men later in the day.

  A light dusting of snow had fallen during the night, so they had to stay well off the trail on their way down the mountain lest their horses’ hoofprints in the snow give their presence away to the outlaws.

  Once they were opposite the clearing where the meeting was to take place, Smoke had Cal and Pearlie move the horses well off the trail so they wouldn’t nicker when they smelled the gang’s animals, and then he showed them where to set up their line of fire into the clearing.

  The copse of trees he’d picked had enough underbrush scattered around to hide their position, and there was a fallen pine log behind which they could lay and rest their rifles on for better aim.

  “Remember, don’t dig the pits or fix the barbed wire to the trees until you are sure all of the outlaws have moved down to the clearing area,” Smoke advised. “After the two dead men we left them as a warning, Pike may be worried enough to have a man hang behind to watch their backtrail, so be careful.”

  As the boys nodded their understanding of his warning, Smoke put his two good pistols in Pearlie’s saddlebag and took out a couple of older, less accurate weapons to put in his holsters.

  “Why’re you doin’ that?” Cal asked.

  “First thing Pike’s going to do when I ride up is take my weapons,” Smoke said, “and I don’t want to give him my good ones.”

  Smoke then took a small folding knife from his saddlebags and put it in the inside of his right boot, along with a .44-caliber two-shot derringer. After he’d done this, he took his large bowie knife out of the
scabbard on his belt and stuck it in the outside of his right boot, leaving it where the handle could plainly be seen.

  When Cal raised his eyebrows at this, Smoke explained, “I’m leaving the big knife where they can find it in my boot,” he said. “That way, they’ll hopefully be satisfied they’ve got all my weapons and won’t search any farther and find the other knife or the derringer.”

  Once Cal and Pearlie’s weapons were laid out behind the pine log, along with extra ammunition, Smoke told them to head on up the mountain so they could prepare the other traps as soon as the gang came down.

  He shook each of their hands solemnly, knowing it might well be the last time he saw them, for he was taking an awful risk in putting himself in Pike’s hands. He just hoped the man would want to talk and brag and gloat before deciding to shoot him. He knew if the man were smart, he’d kill Smoke as soon as he was disarmed, but he’d never yet met an outlaw who was smart. He prayed this wouldn’t be the first time.

  * * *

  Pike and his men began to come awake as the sun rose over the eastern peaks and warmed up the air a few degrees. Most of the men were heavy-lidded and groggy after a night of too much whiskey and too little sleep, but before long the fire was rebuilt, food and coffee prepared, and they began to feel as if they might actually survive the morning, headaches and all.

  Sally woke up in the cabin to find both the men assigned to guard her fast asleep, snoring loudly. For a moment, she debated whether to try and undo her ropes and make her escape, but in the end she decided to trust in Smoke and to let things play out the way he’d planned. She was afraid if she tried to escape and was caught, it would put Pike on alert and spoil whatever Smoke had in mind for the man, so she just lay there in her bed, missing Smoke and wishing the day would hurry up and begin.

  * * *

  “Grub’s ready,” Blackie Johnson announced from his place next to the fire.

  Pike looked up over the rim of his coffee mug and told Rufus Gordon to go and get Mrs. Jensen from her cabin so they could feed her.

  “Why’re we wastin’ good food on a dead woman, Boss?” he asked, his eyes glittering with hate at the thought of the woman who’d blown half his hand off.

  Pike scowled at him. “The important question you should be asking yourself, Rufe, is why are you questioning my orders all of a sudden. Are you trying to get yourself killed before we collect that ten thousand dollars of Jensen’s?”

  “Uh, no . . . of course not, Boss. I was just . . .”

  “Shut up and get Mrs. Jensen like I told you,” Pike growled grumpily. He hadn’t slept well the night before. Mrs. Jensen’s warnings and apparent confidence in her husband’s ability had worried him much more than he’d let on to her. He’d dreamed that just as he was facing Jensen the man’s face had turned into a snarling, growling mountain lion. Pike woke in a sweat just as the man/lion’s long, gleaming teeth were tearing into his neck. The rest of the night had been spent tossing and turning in his blankets, his nostrils full of the sour stench of his own fear-sweat. It wasn’t the booze he’d drunk the night before that was making his mood foul this morning, but the fact that the mountain man’s reputation had caused him such fear.

  When Rufus Gordon brought Sally out of the cabin and over to the fire, Pike noticed she looked refreshed and clear-eyed, as if she’d slept like a baby. In fact, he thought, she looked about as beautiful as any woman he’d met his entire life. He shook his head to clear such thoughts from his mind. He couldn’t afford to feel anything for this woman, considering what was going to happen to her after he’d killed her husband.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Jensen,” he said, trying to screw his face up into an expression of confidence he didn’t feel about the upcoming confrontation.

  Sally smiled sweetly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Good morning, Mr. Pike,” she replied as Blackie Johnson handed her a mug of coffee and a tin plate with two biscuits and some pieces of bacon on it.

  She glanced at the sky, which had dawned clear and cloudless after the snows of the night before had blown through. “It looks to be a lovely day today,” she added as she drank her coffee and split the biscuits and put the bacon between them, making sandwiches of her breakfast.

  Pike glanced skyward and grunted. “You think it’s a good day to die, Mrs. Jensen?” he asked, again trying to rattle her out of her good mood.

  She shrugged. “Any day is a good day to die, Mr. Pike, if you’ve lived a full and happy life,” she said agreeably. “When my time comes, whether it is today or in the future, I won’t regret it because I’ve been lucky enough to have had everything in life I always wanted.”

  “Well, enjoy the dawn, Mrs. Jensen, ’cause it’s probably the last one you’ll ever see,” Pike grunted, and he turned back to his own food and coffee, trying to ignore the burning in his gut at the thought of meeting up with Smoke Jensen later in the day.

  Blackie Johnson’s lips were tight and his eyes were narrow. He too didn’t want to think about what the men had planned for this lady. He’d come to respect and even to like her for her courage and loyalty to her husband. He thought he’d never met anyone like her before in his life, and even mused that if he had, things might have turned out differently for him.

  After a moment, Pike looked around at his men, eating and drinking their coffee. A few of the men had laced the dark brew with dollops of whiskey, the hair of the dog and all that. “Hurry up with the grub, men,” he groused. “We’ve got to get going before long.”

  “What’s the hurry, Boss?” Hank Snow asked. “We ain’t supposed to meet up with Jensen until noon.”

  Pike sighed. Snow was a capable gunny and as mean as a snake, but he was also dumb as a doorknob. “Hank, we got to get there and get set up long before Jensen arrives,” Pike tried to explain patiently. “Far as he knows, I’ve only got three men with me. I don’t want him to know about the rest of you, so we got to get you hidden ’fore he gets there.”

  Sally lowered her head to her plate at this comment to hide her knowing smile. Pike was really dumb if he thought Smoke didn’t know to the man what he was up against, she thought.

  Thirty minutes later, the gang had finished breakfast, packed their gear, and were headed down the mountain trail toward the meeting place Pike had told Smoke about.

  “Keep your eyes open, men,” Pike warned. “Jensen might have come early hoping to surprise us, so ride with your guns loose and loaded up six and six.”

  As they moved down the trail, Pike kept his eyes on the ground, making sure there were no fresh tracks in the snow to indicate Jensen had been there before them.

  Sally, on the other hand, noticed the small pieces of white cloth stuck on various trees and bushes along the way. She’d been with Smoke long enough to know his habits and realized this was his doing. She didn’t know exactly what he had planned for Pike and his gang, but she breathed easier at this sign of her husband’s presence in the area.

  When they got to the clearing, Pike pointed at the boulders and outcroppings on the slopes that rose from the edges of the area. He pointed to his men one at a time, showing them where he wanted them to station themselves so they had clear lines of fire down on the clearing.

  “Keep a sharp lookout, men,” he said to the ones he sent up the slope. “Don’t fire unless Jensen tries something or you see something going wrong, and for God’s sake, try not to hit me or any of the other men.”

  He went to the ramshackle cabin in the clearing and brought out an old stool and a rickety handmade chair, which he sat in the center of the open space in front of the cabin. He set Sally on the stool and had Blackie Johnson tie her hands in front of her.

  “Zeke,” he said, “you hide yourself in the cabin. I don’t want Jensen to see you ’cause he might remember your face from the last time he seen you.”

  Zeke nodded, his eyes staring holes in Sally as he licked his lips. Before he moved off to the cabin, he leaned down and whispered, “I can’t hardly wait till I’m
done with your man, Missus, and then it’ll be your turn.”

  “Rufus, you stay here in the clearing with me and Blackie. That scattergun you use won’t be any good from more’n fifteen yards so I want you at my back.”

  Rufus and Blackie nodded and took up station behind the chair that Pike placed ten feet from Sally’s stool. He took a seat facing her, leaned back and crossed his legs, and built himself a cigarette. He struck a lucifer on his pants leg and lit the butt, exhaling a long cloud of smoke into the chilly air.

  Sally watched him, her eyes steady and unafraid as he sat and smoked. She saw a thin trickle of sweat form on his forehead and run down onto his cheek, even though the temperature was in the forties.

  “You know, Mr. Pike,” she said easily, “it’s not to late to stop this thing you’re doing. If you quit now, Smoke might even let you live.”

  Pike’s eyes darted to her and then away, as if he didn’t want her to see the fear in them. “It’s gone too far to stop now, Mrs. Jensen,” he replied in a low voice so his men behind him couldn’t hear. “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, it’s much too late.”

  “Do you have any family you want me to notify about your death then?” Sally asked, sounding as if she were truly concerned about it.

  Pike stared at her, amazed at her faith in her husband’s ability to conquer all of his men. He sighed and shook his head. “If you don’t shut up with that kind of talk, Mrs. Jensen, I’ll have Blackie tie a gag on you.”

  “All right, Mr. Pike. I’ll be quiet and leave you to your thoughts,” she said calmly.

  26

  Smoke observed the activity around the clearing from a bluff up on the mountainside a quarter of a mile down the trail through his binoculars. He saw the various positions that Pike stationed his men in, and fixed them firmly in his memory. He knew that even with Cal and Pearlie covering his back, it was going to be a close thing to get both Sally and himself out of the trap without either of them catching some lead.