“Suarez, you and Curly Bill go upslope to the northwest and look for tracks or campfire smoke. Sing out if you see anything. Bull and Moses, take your men and head straight up the mountain. Spread out and cover as much territory as you can. Lightning Jack and Jeremiah Gray Wolf and I are goin’ to roam, cuttin’ back and forth across all of your back trails. With any luck at all, we’ll bracket that son of a bitch and catch him between us, and he’ll be dead meat if he shows himself.”
Sundance drew his Colt and flipped open the loading gate, checking his loads. “Oh, and by the way, tell your men that the shooter who puts the first lead pill in Jensen’s hide will get a bonus of five thousand dollars, paid when I see his body.”
* * *
Smoke raised his head where he lay hidden in weeds and brush near the outlaws’ encampment. He had heard every word of Sundance’s plan and now he knew the positions and numbers of each bunch of men searching for him. Old hoss, he thought, you’re in for a few surprises before you see my dead carcass.
The outlaws mounted up and began to leave, talking quietly among themselves about their assignments and the five-thousand-dollar reward for Smoke’s death.
Bull and Moses Washburn’s group was the last to leave camp, four men trailing their leaders through tall pines, riding single file.
Moving silently through falling snow, his moccasins making no sound in the shallow drifts, Smoke pulled his knife from its scabbard and sprinted after the men. The last man in line leaned to the side to adjust his stirrup, and grunted in surprise when a tall figure wearing buckskins suddenly appeared at his side.
Smoke’s teeth flashed in a savage grin. “Howdy, neighbor,” he whispered. He grabbed the startled gunman by his shirtfront and growled. “Tell me, is this worth five thousand dollars?” In a lightning-quick move, Smoke’s knife slashed through the gunslick’s neck, severing both carotid arteries and cutting off his strangled yell. Smoke pushed the dying man over his saddle horn and slapped his horse’s rump with the flat of his hand, causing it to bolt forward.
Smoke wiped his blade on his trouser leg and walked back through drifting snow, where he had left his rifle and mount.
* * *
Jack Robertson was surprised and almost jumped out of his saddle when Micah Jacob’s horse galloped by him as he wound his way through thick stands of ponderosa pines. Robertson was trying to keep the riders in front of him in sight, squinting into driving snow flurries, as they followed Bull up a steep slope.
He glanced to one side as Jacob’s mount brushed against his legs and could see the man leaning forward over his saddle horn as if he were too drunk to sit up. “Goddammit, Micah,” he cried, “take it easy. You’re gonna git us kilt ridin’ like that in these here trees.”
Jacob didn’t appear to hear the shouted warning, and his bronc continued to lope ahead, blundering into the next horse in line.
Robertson spurred his mount and pulled up next to Jacob’s, grabbing the frightened animal’s reins and pulling it to a halt.
Jacob’s horse crow-hopped a couple of times, causing its rider to slowly topple sideways out of the saddle, landing with a loud thump in shallow snow.
Robertson stepped out of his saddle, calling ahead, “Hey, Bull, you and Moses wait up a minute! Micah’s hurt back here!”
He grabbed both horses’ reins in one hand, calming the animals a moment, then walked to where Jacob lay facedown on the ground. “You stupid son of a bitch,” he said, grabbing Jacob by the shoulder, rolling him over onto his back. “What’s the matter with . . .”
Vomit rose in his throat and he almost threw up as the dead gunslick’s head rolled back, exposing a neck slashed open to his spine, blood and gore splattered over the front of his shirt.
“Goddamn! Shit ... shit!” He raised his head and put his hands around his mouth and screamed, “Bull, git over here quick! Micah’s been kilt!”
Bull and the others appeared out of the driving snow like ghosts, further scaring the terrified cowboy. “What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Bull asked, as he swung his leg over his cantle and dropped to the ground.
Robertson’s voice rose in pitch as he stammered, “Micah’s gone and gotten his throat cut! That bastard Jensen’s done kilt him deader’n hell!”
Bull squatted next to the corpse, looking at the gruesome wound. After a moment, he glance up at Robertson. “How’d this happen? He was right behind you . . .”
Robertson wagged his head, eyes wide as he looked around wildly. “I don’t know, Bull. I didn’t hear nothin’. I was just followin’ along, an’ then his horse came runnin’ by with Micah dead in the saddle.”
Bull’s eyes narrowed. “He didn’t call out or yell or nothin’?”
Robertson clenched his jaws to keep his teeth from chattering. “I told you, I didn’t hear nothin’.” He drew his pistol and whirled around when a clump of snow fell from a pine branch behind him with a soft plop. The Colt was shaking in his hand as he waved it around, aiming at nothing. “We’re fightin’ a ghost, boys, and we’re all gonna end up like Micah if’n we don’t git the hell outta here.”
Bull quickly stepped over, grabbed Robertson by the shoulder, and spun him around. He slapped the hysterical man once across his face with an open palm, knocking his hat off and sending him sprawling on his back in the snow.
Bull stood over him, looking down in disgust. “Shut up, you sniveling coward!” He put his hands on his hips and swiveled his head slowly, examining his surroundings.
Moses Washburn sat on his mount, his palms on his saddle horn. “Jack’s right, Bull.” Moses pointed to the body on the ground. “This ain’t no ordinary cowboy we’re dealin’ with here. Jensen’s a hairy ole mountain grizzly, an’ we’re gonna take some heavy losses trackin’ him here in his own country.”
Bull scowled at the man. “You figgerin’ on quittin’ us too, Washburn?”
Moses’s shoulders heaved in a deep sigh. “Nope. I took Sundance’s money, so I’ll stay.” He pulled a shotgun from his saddle boot and eared back the hammers, resting it across his knee. His eyes flicked back and forth, trying to see through falling snow. “I’ll stay,” he repeated quietly, “but that don’t mean I like it.”
Bull stepped into a stirrup and swung a leg over his saddle, loosening thongs on his sawed-off shotguns. “All this means is, Jensen’s drawn first blood. I still plan on collectin’ that five-thousand-dollar reward fer killin’ him.”
Robertson swung into his saddle and looked over his shoulder at Jacob’s body, stiffening in the frigid air. His dead, glazed eyes were slowly being covered with white flakes, and the gaping cavity in his neck was half-filled with pink-tinged snow. He shook his head sadly. “Bet that don’t sound like near enough to Micah.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cal was pouring himself a cup of coffee when he looked up through the falling snow and saw Smoke squatting by their small campfire, hands extended to get some warmth. He hadn’t heard him approach, not a single sound.
He shook his head and wondered if maybe someday he’d be able to move through snow so quietly. “Want some coffee, Smoke?”
“Yeah. An’ some breakfast if Pearlie left any.”
Cal grinned. “There’s a couple of sinkers and a hunk of fatback that Pearlie ain’t had time to wolf down yet.”
Pearlie looked at them over a plate of grub he was eating, hunched over, holding it against his chest to keep it from being covered by snow. “Only ’cause I didn’t have no more room on this tin. Lucky you got here ’fore I went back for a second helpin’, Smoke.”
Cal grunted as he handed Smoke a steaming cup. “More like a third or fourth helpin’, you mean.” He shook his head. “Smoke, if’n this fracas lasts more’n a couple of days, we’re gonna have to send to Big Rock fer more supplies. Pearlie goes through food like a grizzly bear fattenin’ up fer the winter.”
Pearlie gazed at them with an innocent look. “That’s only natural. A body needs more food up here in this awful cold.” He s
hivered and hunched his shoulders in the buffalo hide coat he was wearing. “Hell, if’n I don’t eat, I’m liable to freeze plumb solid.” Ice rimmed his moustache and turned his sparse beard white.
Smoke filled his plate and began to eat. “Don’t gripe about the snow and cold, men. It’s gonna help even up the odds if it keeps up. It’s sure to bother those flatlanders a lot more than it does us, an’ it’ll cover our tracks and muffle any sounds we make when we sneak up on ’em.” He nodded toward their horses standing nearby. “Did you cover your mounts’ hooves with burlap like I told you?”
“Yes sir,” Cal answered. “We’re ready to ride soon as you give the word.”
While he ate, Smoke smoothed a patch of snow with his hand, then took a twig and began to draw a crude map of the mountain in it. He made two small marks with the stick. “This here is where we are,” he said, pointing to the one near the top of the mountain, “and this is where Sundance had his camp.”
Pearlie and Cal ambled over to watch him draw. Smoke made six fine lines on the sketch, curving off from the camp location at angles to one other.
“Sundance divided his men up into groups of five or six men and sent them off in different directions.”
Cal frowned. “Why’d he do that?”
Smoke shrugged. “It’s not a bad plan, for a know-nothin’ outlaw. He hopes to cover a lot of territory in a short time. He knows winter’s coming and if his gang gets caught up in these slopes during a blizzard they won’t stand a chance of getting us.”
Pearlie made a cigarette and smoked as he studied the map. “’Pears to me it’ll also make it a lot tougher on us to move around without one of those groups cuttin’ our trail or seein’ our sign, ’specially if’n this snow stays on the ground fer any length of time.”
Smoke nodded. “You’re right, Pearlie. It’s mighty tough to cover your tracks in fresh snow. Sundance was shrewd enough to spread his men out in different sections, so any tracks they come up on will have to be ours.”
Cal frowned. “Jiminy, Smoke. If that’s so, then how are we gonna manage to sneak around and Injun up on them gunnies like you planned?”
Smoke grinned. “Don’t you worry ’bout that, son. Tracks are like women. They can seem to say one thing, and mean exactly the opposite.”
“Huh?”
Pearlie smiled, nodding his head. “I understand, Smoke. You mean the man bein’ followed is in control. He can lead the ones following him anywhere he wants to.”
“That’s the idea, Pearlie. It’s a situation made to order for setting up ambushes and traps. Our other advantage is that Sundance doesn’t know about you and Cal—he thinks I’m up here without any help.”
Smoke bent over his map. “Now, here’s where I want you and Cal to go, and what I want you to do when you get there . . .”
For the next hour, the three men planned their campaign of terror against the Sundance Morgan gang. When Smoke was satisfied his allies understood, he got up and stretched cramped muscles. “Okay men, now I want you to crawl into those blankets and get some shut-eye. We can’t do anything until dark, then we’re gonna be busy most of the night, and I want you fresh and ready to go at sunset.”
Cal looked around, a worried expression on his face. “What if one of those bunches chances upon our camp?”
“Don’t worry about that. Those galoots will be lucky to make it more’n two or three miles in this storm. Let them wear themselves and their mounts out fighting drifts and wind and cold.” Smoke grinned fiercely in the gloom of the storm. “That just means they’ll be sleeping heavier when we come calling on ’em later.”
* * *
As the day wore on the sun rose higher in the sky, but it couldn’t penetrate snow clouds and the temperature stayed just above freezing. Flurries of wind-driven snow coated the outlaws’ faces and entered their horses’ nostrils, making their search a living hell. Several of the groups stopped their trek up the mountain and hobbled their mounts in the shelter of pines and made fires to try to keep hands and fingers from freezing.
El Gato rode hunched over in his saddle, fighting his way along the main trail up the mountain. His men, strung out behind him, were barely visible through the white cloud that surrounded them. Julio Valdez spurred his mount and pulled up next to El Gato.
His moustache and beard were coated with a thick layer of ice and snow, his face was wind-burned a bright red, and blood was trickling from chapped, cracked lips that had split open.
“Jefe, momentito!” he yelled through the wind.
El Gato peered out from under his hat brim as he reined his horse to a halt. “Sí. What is it, Julio?”
“We must stop, Jefe. This storm, she is killing us.” He held up his hands, gloves covered with ice. “I no can feel my hands.”
El Gato twisted in his saddle to look to the rear. His other men were waiting, hands stuffed under their armpits, shoulders hunched against windchill. He nodded, “Okay. Is time for food, and horses need rest.” He pulled his bronc around and began to walk it toward a small clearing a few yards off the trail, Valdez grinning as he rode alongside him.
El Gato’s mount stumbled over something buried in the snow, and a large pine branch suddenly whipped toward the pair of gunmen. The rushing tree limb took them both full in the chest, knocking El Gato backward off his horse to land flat on his back in a snowdrift, his left arm bent at an odd angle.
El Gato moaned and pulled himself up on his right elbow. He looked up to see Valdez sitting on his mount, leaning against the branch, head thrown back, screaming in agony. The other riders rode up and jumped out of their saddles. One helped El Gato to his feet, another walked over to Valdez, then turned away and vomited in the snow, gagging and choking and mumbling, “Madre de Dios,” over and over.
El Gato frowned, “What is matter?” He grabbed Valdez’s shoulder and pulled him around. A two-foot-long sharpened stake was buried in his stomach, just below his rib cage. It was attached to the branch with strands of rawhide, and had speared Valdez hard enough that several inches of the stake were protruding from his back.
El Gato shouted, “Goddamn!” He turned to his men. “Cut him down. Now!”
Juan Gonzalez, Valdez’s partner, said, “But Jefe, if we pull stake out, Julio die.”
El Gato stared at the man for a moment, then reached into his coat and withdrew a long, black cigar. He stuck it in his mouth, struck a lucifer on his saddle horn, and lit it. He stared at Valdez as smoke trailed from his nostrils. “Juan,” he said as he put his arm around the bandido’s shoulders, “what you want to do? Leave him there ’til a priest comes to give last rites?”
Gonzalez shrugged. El Gato scowled around his cigar and inclined his head toward Valdez. “Cut him down.” He grabbed his saddlebags off his horse. “Make fire, muchachos, I am very hungry.”
Chiva held Valdez’s shoulders while Gonzalez jerked the branch back, pulling the stake free. Valdez screamed again, scarlet jets of blood pumping between his fingers as he grasped his stomach, trying to stanch the flow. The gunhawk choked, gasped, and fell from his horse facedown in the snow, dying as he hit the ground.
Gonzalez knelt beside his dead friend, laying a hand on his shoulder. After a moment, he sighed and reached into a pocket of Valdez’s vest and pulled out a gold pocket watch. He studied it briefly, then stuck it in his own pocket and stood, brushing snow off his pants legs.
Chiva frowned and spat on the ground. “You gonna take his boots, too?”
Gonzalez glanced at the dead man’s shoes. “No. His feet is too small.”
El Gato dumped an armload of wood on a fire his men had started and said over his shoulder, “Take his pistolas and ammunition and put in my saddlebags.”
Chiva asked, “You want us to bury him?”
“No. Drag him into bushes away from camp and leave him.” El Gato pulled a coffeepot and burlap sack of supplies from his saddlebags and began to prepare food. “We make camp here and wait for this storm to pass. We begin looking
again tomorrow.”
El Gato built a roaring fire and everyone ate their fill of beans, tortillas, and jerked meat. After they ate, they sat in front of the fire, warming their hands and passing a bottle of tequila around until it was empty.
As the sky became darker and men settled down in bedrolls, Chiva asked, “El Gato, you want guards sent out esta noche?”
El Gato raised his blankets to his chin and pulled his sombrero low over his face. “No. No one can move in this storm in darkness. Get some sleep and we start fresh in morning.”
Chiva grunted, staring out into the dark veil of blowing snow and wind. He shivered and moved his bedroll closer to the fire. As a final precaution, he drew his Colt and placed it on his chest under his blankets.
* * *
Smoke waited patiently for the outlaws’ fire to die down, lying twenty yards from the sleeping men. Thick, fur-lined gloves kept his hands warm, and he shifted positions frequently to keep his legs and back from growing stiff in the frigid air. After two hours, when he could hear El Gato and his men snoring loudly, he started to move.
He crept silently among the horses, running his hands over their necks and backs to soothe them and keep them quiet. He cut their tether ropes and led them, one by one, away from the camp to the trail. Once there, he gently slapped their rumps, causing them to trot down the mountain. Before he sent the last horse off, he lifted Valdez’s lifeless body and laid it over the animal’s back, tying his hands and feet together under the gelding’s belly.
As the horse and its dead rider moved away, Smoke grinned, his teeth flashing in the darkness, Now it was time to really put fear of the unknown into his adversaries.
Smoke walked softly into camp, sliding his feet so he would make no sound as he broke through crusty, frozen snowdrifts. Slipping his knife from its holster, he squatted between Gonzalez and the other Mexican. He placed his left hand over one bandido’s mouth and quickly slit his throat, holding tight while the dying man quivered and shook with death throes. When the body lay still, Smoke turned to Gonzalez and repeated the procedure.
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 21