After a while, when he was certain he had done all he could to prepare his battleground, he took the pack animals back down the hill to where he had left Horse. He removed his saddle and bridle from Horse and gave him an apple while he spent a moment rubbing his mount’s neck. He knew his gelding would find its way back to Sugarloaf and that there was plenty of sweet grass in the meadows along the way, and sooner or later one of the mountain men or miners who knew Smoke would find him and take him back to the ranch.
He slapped Horse on the rump and watched as he trotted off down the slope. Smoke saddled one of the packhorses and began to make his way back down the mountain. He had a few surprises to construct, and he didn’t know how much time he had before the gang would arrive.
* * *
It was full dark when he reached the lower regions of the mountain, where it first began its steep climb toward the summit. He built a small fire and cooked some of the venison Puma had smoked for him, made some pan bread, and fixed a pot of strong coffee. The air would get very cold, even at this lower elevation, and he wanted something warm in his stomach to get him through the night.
When he was finished eating, he rolled two cigarettes and smoked them both with the last of his coffee. He put out the fire and moved his camp a mile over to the south, not wanting to sleep where there had been any light from his cooking fire.
He picketed the packhorses and snuggled down in his bedroll, covered with an additional layer of pine boughs and leaves. His breath sent frost-smoke from his nostrils and small beads of ice formed on his eyebrows as large, fluffy flakes of snow began to drift down from the clouds overhead.
* * *
At dawn, he began working without taking the time to cook breakfast. He shared some apples and sugar and some cold mountain water from his canteen with the horses and then got busy. Finding a muddy, boggy area, he squatted and got large handfuls of mud and smeared it over rolls of lariat rope and rawhide he brought from the ranch. Once covered with the black mud, the rope blended in perfectly when laid on the ground or wound around a tree. It couldn’t be seen from more than a foot or two away. He left one roll of the rope uncovered. This particular rope he wanted to be noticed.
He cut down a bunch of young saplings, five to six inches in diameter, and ranging from five to ten feet in length. Using a small hatchet, since he didn’t want to dull his tomahawk on the tough trees, he sharpened each end of the spear-like lengths of wood, then tied them to a packhorse. They would be needed later.
As he moved along the trail, he stopped and gathered all the wild pumpkins and gourds he could find, storing them in a gunnysack tied to the side of his packhorse. Whenever he came to a rockfall, he picked up as many small, fist-sized rocks as he could find, throwing them in the sack with the gourds and pumpkins.
Several times, he stopped at narrow places on the trail and got his shovel out and dug holes, about twice the diameter of a horse’s hoof and two feet deep. In the bottom of these, he would place a sharpened wooden stake, then fill the hole with pine needles, making it look as though it was part of the trail. If stepping in the hole didn’t break a horse’s leg, the stake would impale its hoof and make it unable to carry any weight. Smoke hated the idea of injuring innocent animals, but in this case, it was them or him. He needed any advantage he could create, and putting flatlanders afoot in these altitudes would quickly sap them of their strength and will to fight.
In some places, next to drop-offs and cliffs, he dug parts of the side of the trail away, then made a frame of small branches covered with more dirt and pine needles to hide the defect. Any bronc stepping on these would stumble to the side, carrying its rider over the edge with it.
Some heavy limbs were pulled back, with the help of the horses, and tied so that anyone passing would release them and be smacked in the chest, breaking ribs and arms and sowing more confusion.
Fear was to be Smoke’s strongest ally. These men were completely unused to being afraid of anything. Most were certainly not afraid of dying, at least not in ways familiar to them. But, give them a situation in which they felt they were not in control, a situation where they didn’t know what was going to happen to them next, where they were continually seeing their comrades-in-arms dying or being injured without warning, and even the strongest of them was liable to break and head back home.
As Smoke made his rounds, laying traps and setting deadfalls and other surprises for his pursuers, he occasionally came upon lone mining camps and small enclaves of miners and trappers. He felt it was his obligation to warn them of the impending battle. Most of the occupants just shrugged and said they’d take their chances, not having much that would interest the outlaws. Some immediately packed their meager belongings and headed down the mountain, figuring on a short vacation before the snow made their mining impossible anyway.
The following morning, as Smoke was riding through pine forest, familiarizing himself with the layout of the area, he saw smoke rising from just over the next ridge. He loosened the rawhide thongs on his Colts and shucked a shell into his Henry.
With eyes even more alert, scanning the woods and underbrush to either side as he rode, he walked his mount to the top of the hill to take a look. He saw an old, weathered miner’s cabin in flames, with two bodies lying nearby in a small clearing in front of a makeshift tunnel in the side of a mountain.
He spurred his horse and loped down toward the burning building. Before dismounting, he took another look around, but saw no one in the area. Swinging down from his saddle, he approached the bodies, the Henry cocked and ready.
There were two corpses, an older, bearded man who looked to be sixty years old or so, and a younger, clean-shaven boy who had some facial resemblance to the first. “Father and son, probably,” thought Smoke, as he bent and checked for signs of life. There were none. Both men had been shot through the head and were dead as yesterday’s news.
Smoke examined the area. Tracks and boot prints indicated four to six men and their mounts. The majority of the prints led to and from the mine entrance in the side of the cliff. He laid his rifle down, filled his hands with Colts, and walked slowly toward the black hole in the mountain.
His boots kicked up small puffs of dirt, and smoke from the cabin swirled around him, ruffling the fringe on his buckskin shirt and stinging his eyes and nose.
Turning sideways to present less of a target when he was backlighted in the entrance, he slipped into the cool darkness of the tunnel. He could hear a soft sound a short distance down the shaft, like rats scrabbling for food or prey.
He parted his lips and breathed through his mouth to lessen the sound, crouched, and inched his way along, feeling his way in the darkness.
Sensing a movement in the still air, he dove to the ground just as a shadowy figure appeared before him and swung a two-by-four at his head. He heard the board whistle past his ear, and tackled his attacker, the two of them rolling in the dirt and rocks of the tunnel floor.
A woman’s scream pierced the gloom, yelling that she was going to kill him and all his damned friends. After a brief struggle, Smoke managed to subdue the woman, sitting on her with her arms pinned to the ground.
She flung her head from side to side and tried to bite his hands where he held her. When she realized he had her under complete control, she relaxed and went limp, mumbling the Lord’s Prayer to herself.
Astonished and surprised, Smoke helped her to her feet and managed to convince her that he meant her no harm. She began to cry hysterically and told him to help her mother-in-law, pointing farther down the tunnel.
Smoke holstered his pistols and went in search of the other lady. He found her fifteen yards deeper in, and picked up her limp and unresponsive body and carried her to the mine’s entrance.
After finding she was unconscious from a severe beating, but had no life-threatening injuries, he got his bedroll and bundled her in it, just inside the mine shaft. When he had the sleeping lady wrapped and protected from the chilly air, he asked the youn
ger woman what had happened.
She sleeved tears and dried blood off her face, patted her ratted and disheveled hair into some semblance of order, then held out her hand. “I’m Jessica Aldritch, and she is my husband’s mother, Aileen Aldritch.”
Smoke took her hand and said softly, “I’m sorry about your husband and his father. There was nothing I could do for them.”
Jessica nodded, straightening her shoulders and standing straight. “I know. The outlaws killed them before they took us and . . .” She began to cry again, unable to finish her sentence.
She didn’t have to. Smoke could tell what had happened by the ladies’ torn dresses and the bruises and streaks of blood on their thighs.
He found his teeth clenching so hard his jaws ached. “How many were there, and when did this happen?” he asked, his mild voice betraying none of the emotion he felt.
Jessica looked out the tunnel entrance and watched their cabin burn for a moment before she answered. Finally, in a hoarse whisper, she said, “They came to the cabin yesterday, six of them, and asked for food and water. While my husband and his father gathered up some supplies, two of the men grabbed them and two others shot them.” She paused to take a deep breath, “Then they took Aileen and me down into the mine.” Her eyes looked haunted. “They kept at us ’til this morning, then took off, leaving us for dead.”
“I was wondering why they didn’t kill you.”
“Aileen passed out hours ago, and I pretended to faint, hoping that would stop them.” She wiped at her eyes. “It didn’t.”
Smoke walked to his horse and took two extra pistols out of his saddlebag. He gave them to Jessica. “You know how to use these?”
She opened the loading gate of the Colt, spun the cylinder to check the loads, then snapped it shut with a flick of her wrist. “Yes, sir, I do.”
Smoke smiled, thinking, this one would do to ride the river with, all right. He didn’t feel that about many other women other than his Sally.
“I’m going to go after them, then I’ll come back here and see that you two get down to town. Okay?”
“What’s your name, mister?”
“Smoke Jensen.”
“Mr. Jensen, if the chance avails itself, I’d appreciate it if you could manage to bring the red-haired one back with you, alive.”
Smoke raised his eyebrows. “Any particular reason why you want that one?”
Her eyes bored into his. “He’s the one who shot my husband.” Her eyes flashed, reflecting the shimmering flames of her burning home. “I would like to discuss that act with him, and watch his face while I kill him.”
Smoke nodded. “You got every right, I guess. If it’s possible, I’ll be back before sundown.”
As he turned to go, she touched his arm. “Mr. Jensen, do you have a shovel with you? I’m afraid they burned ours.”
Smoke left the ladies with his shovel and rode off, bending low over the saddle to follow tracks the killers left.
* * *
It was almost noon when he found their camp. The sleepless night must have made them exceedingly tired, as they were all sprawled around their campfire snoring. No one was standing watch.
Smoke slipped off his mount and walked on cat feet up to the camp, slipping his knife out on the way and filling his other hand with iron.
At the edge of their campsite, next to a saddle, he found a leather bag with the name Aldritch stamped into the leather. That settled it as far as Smoke was concerned; these were the men he was hunting.
He squatted between two of the sleeping men, and quick as a rattler striking, he slit their throats with his big knife. One of the men only moaned, and lay there bleeding his life out into the dirt. The other squealed like a gut-shot pig and sat up, his hands at his throat, blood pumping and squirting from his neck, glistening scarlet in the bright afternoon sunlight.
Two of the desperados came instantly awake, clawing at their sidearms. Smoke cocked and fired, hitting one in the chest and the other in the abdomen, his second bullet punching through flesh, blowing out part of the gunman’s spine. The gunshots were so close together they sounded like one noise. As his big Colts exploded, shots booming and echoing off the mountains, two of the others shook their heads and stared groggily around them, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Smoke stepped over and kicked one in the side of the face, snapping his head around and shattering his jaw. The other, the red-haired one Jessica had told him about, Smoke grabbed by the throat and jerked to his feet.
The dazed man looked around him, a puzzled expression in his eyes. “Why . . . why did you do this mister? We ain’t done nothin’ to you.”
Smoke pulled the killer’s face close to his. “Did you enjoy what you did to those women last night?”
The outlaw’s eyes widened, then narrowed to slits as he glared at Smoke. “Why . . . what the hell do you mean?”
Smoke’s lips curled in a sardonic grin, but his eyes were dark with hate. “I want you to reflect on it. I want you to remember how much fun you and your friends had, killing two men who were trying to help you; how good it felt to rape and beat their defenseless wives all night.”
The killer’s expression became defiant. “Why should I do that ... and what business is it of yours anyway?”
The mountain man picked the two-hundred-pound man up effortlessly and threw him facedown over one of the horses. As he tied his feet to his hands beneath the nervous animal’s belly, Smoke leaned down and spoke quietly in his ear. “I just hope it was worth it for you. That little episode of fun is going to have to last you an eternity.”
“What do you mean?” the man stammered, fear-sweat dripping off his face.
“You got about an hour left to live. I’m taking you to meet the grim reaper, and she can’t wait to say hello.”
When he started blubbering and pleading for his life, Smoke left him and put the gent with the broken jaw across his horse the same way. After he was certain they were both securely tied, he began to move around their camp, searching carefully for anything that might belong to the Aldritch women.
The leather satchel contained a quantity of gold dust and nuggets, and in addition, he found almost ten thousand dollars, some in old bills and some in new ones. Figuring it was probably stolen from other folks like the Aldritches, Smoke gathered up the gold and money and put it all in the satchel.
The ammunition and guns that he could use, he strung on one of their horses.
Finally, when he had taken everything of use, he strung the rest of their horses together and dallied them to his saddle horn. As he pulled out, headed back to the Aldritch mine, the two killers continued to beg and plead with him to let them go. They promised him untold wealth if he’d only relent and let them live.
Smoke spoke to them one last time over his shoulder. “Your rotten lives aren’t mine to give. I’ll let you ask the women you raped, whose husbands you shot, what should be done with you.”
His final comment sentenced the outlaws to spend their last hours on earth thinking about their miserable lives, and wondering just how they were going to die.
* * *
It was almost dusk by the time Smoke and his prisoners arrived back at the Aldritch place. Aileen Aldritch was awake, and was eating soup that Jessica had heated over a small campfire in the clearing. The cabin fire was almost out, though several logs were still smoldering and smoking, and likely would be for days.
Jessica glanced over her shoulder at the procession, and paled when she saw who was on the horses. She handed the soup bowl to Aileen, stood and smoothed her dress, and waited for Smoke with crossed arms.
Smoke dismounted and inclined his head at the red-haired prisoner. “Now what? It’s your call,” he asked Jessica.
She grabbed the man by his hair and bent his head up where she could look him in the eyes. She smiled, and the sight of it sent chills down Smoke’s spine. He knew then the man was going to die very painfully.
“Mr. Jensen, if you
would be so kind as to tie this coward to that tree over there, I’d be much obliged.”
“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, don’t let her do nothin’ to me mister! Just shoot me right now! Please!”
Without changing expression, Jessica slapped the gunman across the face, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet afternoon air. “You miserable coward! You never had the decency to live like a man your entire life, at least try to have the courage to die like one.”
Smoke bent and cut the rope beneath the horse’s belly, leaving the killer’s hands and feet tied together. He flipped the end of the rope attached to his wrists over a low-hanging branch and pulled the man upright.
The gunman’s eyes were wide with fright, and tears were running down his face while he was crying and shouting and yelling for mercy.
Before Smoke could move, Jessica slipped his knife out of his scabbard and stepped in front of the red-haired cowboy. “Aileen, you can watch or not, it’s up to you,” she called over her shoulder.
After a moment, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were standing side by side in front of the hysterical outlaw. Aileen took the knife and stepped up to him. “Forty-three years. We were together longer than you’ve lived, young man. You might as well have shot me when you killed my man. One thing is certain, you’ll never make another woman a widow.” She held the knife out and with a flick of her wrist slashed his belt and waistband. His pants fell to the ground. He wasn’t wearing any underwear or longjohns.
Aileen handed the knife to Jessica and stepped aside. Jessica said, “When I was a young girl, my father told me that when a stallion, a bull, or a male dog gets vicious or bad, there’s only one cure. Do you know what that is, mister?”
“No . . . no . . . no!” he screamed, twisting his body back and forth, trying to protect his private parts from the women. “You’re plumb crazy . . . you can’t do this to me!” He turned his head toward Smoke. “Mister, for God’s sake! Stop her!”
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 14