Ambush of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Cletus put a match to his cigarette and nodded his head through the smoke. “Yeah, there’s just too many trees up there. A hundred men could be ridin’ around up there and if they was careful, we wouldn’t see nothin’ from down here in the flats.”

  Biggs turned to him. “So, you ready to go upland an’ get us a son of a bitch?” he asked, still angry over the death of his friend Charley Blake.

  Cletus nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I was kind’a hoping Mac would’a been back from talking to Angus, but we can’t wait any longer if we want’a get up the side of that mountain ’fore dark.”

  “Good, ’cause I’m itchin’ to get that sumbitch in my sights.”

  Cletus put his hand on Biggs’s shoulder. “Jason, you know we’re going up there to capture Jensen, not assassinate him, don’t you?”

  Biggs showed his teeth, but it was more a grimace than a real smile. “You do what you got to do, Clete, an’ I’ll do the same.”

  Cletus decided to let it drop. He too was pretty pissed off about Blake, though he could understand why Jensen had done what he’d done. As he’d told Sarah, a man running for his life will do just about anything he has to in order to survive.

  Cletus got his men saddled up and headed toward the steep slopes of the mountain in the distance. Like Smoke, he too noticed the clouds whipping around the peaks, and knew they were going to be in for some rough weather before too long.

  When the group came to the trail leading up into the forest on the side of the slope, Cletus stopped them across the stream from a rotting one-room log cabin that looked like it hadn’t been used for years.

  “Jimmy,” he said, pointing to Jimmy Corbett, “I want you to wait over there by that cabin for Mac Macklin to get here. He’ll probably have some more men from Mr. MacDougal, an’ I want you to bring ‘em on up after us when they get here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jimmy said, jerking his horse’s head to the side and riding toward the shallow, ice-encrusted stream.

  “And Jimmy . . . ”

  “Yeah, Boss?” the boy said, looking back over his shoulder to see what Cletus wanted.

  “You’d better fire a couple of shots when you get close to let us know it’s you coming.” Cletus smiled. “I figure we got more’n a few itchy trigger fingers in this group, and you wouldn’t want to sneak up on none of ‘em.”

  Jimmy grinned and touched the brim of his hat as he rode into the stream and over toward the log cabin.

  “We gonna sit here all day jawin’ or we gonna go up there and git Jensen?” Jason Biggs called from the front of the group of men, where he sat impatiently in his saddle.

  Cletus clenched his teeth and walked his horse over next to Biggs’s without answering.

  He leaned over to put his face close to Biggs’s and said in a low voice, “You open your pie-hole like that at me one more time, Jason, an’ we’re gonna see who the best man with a gun is! You hear me boy?” he asked, his face red and his voice harsh. His flat, dangerous eyes let Biggs know he wasn’t kidding in what he said.

  “Uh, I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I said, Clete, you know that,” Biggs answered, his eyes looking down and not meeting Cletus’s.

  “Remember, Jason, one more time is all it’s gonna take. I won’t remind you again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Cletus rode off, his back turned, Biggs let his hand fall to the butt of his pistol. No one could talk to him like that and get away with it.

  Then he looked around at the men gathered nearby. He knew they’d blow him out of the saddle if he shot Cletus, so he relaxed and kicked his horse into following Cletus’s. There’d be plenty of time later for Clete to have an accident.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Sheriff Wally Tupper handed the dally rope he had attached to the two pack animals behind him to Jack Dogget, one of the men riding with Angus MacDougal.

  “Here’s your dynamite and gunpowder and extra shells, Angus,” he said, trying as hard as he could to keep his anger out of his voice.

  Angus MacDougal tipped his head. “Come on with us, Wally,” he said, though this time it was more in the way of an offer instead of an order. “I promise you it’s gonna be fun. After all, hunting a man is much more exciting than hunting elk or bear, and I’m offering a bonus of five hundred dollars to the man who catches that son of a bitch.”

  Wally shook his head. “No, thanks, Angus. I think I’ll stay here.”

  Angus stared at him, his eyes narrowing. “I get the feeling you don’t think much of what I’m doing, Wally. Am I right?”

  Wally nodded. “Yep, you’re right as rain, Angus. I told you, Jensen ain’t done nothing wrong—leastways nothing against the law. Everybody there that day says he fired in self-defense—that Johnny prodded him and drew on him without any provocation.”

  “Bullshit!” Angus screamed, making his horse stomp and crow hop a time or two. “He killed my boy, and he’s going to pay for it!” Angus’s face was beet red and his eyes were wide and full of madness. He looked like he was about to have a stroke.

  Wally shook his head sadly. “Maybe he did kill him, Angus, but Johnny wasn’t no boy. He was a growed man who shot his mouth off and got himself killed for drawing on the wrong man at the wrong time. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and if it hadn’t have been Jensen, it would’ve been somebody else.”

  “You saying my boy deserved to get killed, Wally?” Angus asked, his voice suddenly low and dangerous but the madness still in his eyes.

  Wally sat up straighter in the saddle, tired of being a whipping boy for this crazy old man. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I am saying, Angus, and it’s long past time someone told you like it is.”

  Angus smiled grimly. “This is a dangerous time to try and grow a backbone, Wally.”

  “Maybe, Angus, but I’ll tell you this straight. If you go up in those mountains and kill Jensen, that’s your business ‘cause it’s out of my jurisdiction. But if you bring him back here and do it, then I’ll see that you hang for it.”

  “Those are awfully big words, Sheriff,” Angus said, looking around at the twelve men sitting on their horses with him. “I hope you can back them up.”

  Wally looked around at the men, his face paling just a bit. “These men all agreed to go out with you to catch a gunman, Angus. I don’t think they agreed to kill an officer of the law.”

  Angus snorted through his nose. “Well, we’ll just have to see about that when I get back.”

  Wally nodded. “Things are going to be different when you get back, Angus. That’s what you’d better be thinking on while you’re up in those mountains.”

  Angus growled and spurred his horse right at Wally, waiting for him to jump out of the way. But Wally stood his ground, and it was Angus who had to pull his horse to the side and ride off toward the mountains in the distance.

  Wally sat watching him as he rode off with his hired gunmen. He felt sorry for the old man, but his day was dead and gone, like his son. From now on, Wally intended to be a sheriff for all of the people of Pueblo, not just the MacDougals. And if they didn’t like it, then they could just lump it.

  As they rode up the mountain slope past the log cabin at its base, Cletus followed the tracks of a lone horse in the knee-deep snow.

  “Spread out, men,” he hollered. “Ride in pairs, but keep within sight of the pairs on either side of you and keep your hands on your guns. If Jensen fires on us, everyone take off after him.”

  As his men spread out, Sarah stayed next to Cletus, riding as his partner. He rode slowly, flicking his eyes from the tracks in the snow in front of him to the mountainside up ahead of him, trying to see if there was any movement up there where a man might be lying in wait.

  He felt the sweat start to ooze out of his pores and freeze on his forehead, and the hand that was holding his pistol developed a slight tremor. Damn, he’d never been afraid of a man before, and he’d gone up against some of the meanest men in the West in his day. Maybe he was just getting old—too o
ld to go traipsing through the woods after a man who’d saved Sarah’s life only a couple of days before.

  Sarah saw the sweat glistening on Cletus’s face, and felt ashamed of the situation she’d put him in by bringing Jensen up here and then setting him loose. Cletus had been like a father to her for more years than she cared to remember. In fact, he’d been more of a father to her than her real dad. Angus had always had eyes only for Johnny, and he’d made it clear that he was going to leave the ranch to him, not her.

  Sarah tried to think of some way to get them all out of this mess, get the men to give up and go on home. But for the life of her she couldn’t think of anything to say that would make them give up the hunt. They were all too afraid of Angus MacDougal. They knew if they returned to the ranch without Jensen, Angus would make their lives miserable, or he’d kill them. The old man wouldn’t like his orders being disobeyed, especially when they concerned the man who’d killed his favorite child.

  She could only hope that Jensen would keep right on riding and they’d never find him. If he stayed and fought and more men were killed, more men like Charlie Blake who were friends of hers, she didn’t know if she could live with herself for what she’d done.

  As they rode, she offered a silent prayer that Jensen would never be seen or heard from again.

  Up ahead, Smoke had used his time to good advantage. He’d explored the area of the mountainside, and now he knew his way around as well as if he’d lived there for years. As he rode around exploring and learning the various trails, he spent his time preparing traps and deadfalls to bedevil his enemies.

  Sharpened stakes were set in shallow holes along the trail, and then snow was thrown over them to hide them. Heavy branches were pulled back and tied to rope along the ground so they’d release and knock men off their horses when they were on narrow trails next to cliffs and ledges. He’d found and remembered where there were large boulders that could be pushed down the mountain to start landslides in case the men following him got too close.

  He was ready for war. He wondered if the men riding up the hill after him knew what they were getting into. He doubted they did, or they would’ve turned tail and ridden away as fast as they could.

  Cletus slowed and held up his hand when he saw a man’s footprints next to the horse’s in the snow. Evidently Jensen had dismounted here for some reason.

  Signaling the men on either side of him to circle around in front, he got off his horse and walked it slowly along toward a thick copse of trees up ahead, his pistol out and the hammer cocked.

  When he entered the grove of trees, he found the boulders and the remains of Jensen’s campfire. He knelt and felt the coals. They were still warm, but not hot. Jensen had been gone from this place a while now.

  Cletus holstered his gun, but signaled Sarah to keep hers out. He walked around the camp and searched the ground on all sides of the copse of trees. That was strange, he thought. There were tracks coming into the grove of trees, but none leaving it.

  He stood there, looking around, scratching his head. Damn! The man couldn’t just fly out of here without leaving any traces, could he?

  He glanced up at the sky as the sun suddenly darkened. Heavy, black clouds were whirling around the sky, and the temperature was dropping while the chilly north wind was picking up. A storm, and a big one from the feel of it, was definitely coming soon.

  He stood there thinking. Jensen only had two ways to go. He could go up, or he could’ve circled around and be heading back down the mountain on their flanks.

  For his money, he felt Jensen would go higher. Jensen was an old mountain man, this was his playground, and he wasn’t about to give up his advantage by heading for the flatlands. No, Cletus knew Jensen was up above them somewhere, and he was probably looking down at them at this very moment.

  Well, the hell with him, Cletus thought, getting angry. Sarah had given the man a chance to get away clean. If he chose to stay and fight, then Cletus planned to give him a fight he wouldn’t soon forget. And he surely didn’t intend for any more friends of his to get killed in the doing of it.

  He swung back up into his saddle and waved his men forward and upward.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Smoke was indeed watching the group as Cletus’s men weaved in and out of the forest on their way higher up onto the mountainside.

  “Time to sow a little hate and dissent,” he mumbled to himself as he took the telescope from his eye and picked up the old Winchester he’d stolen.

  Instinctively he aimed a little lower than it looked like he should, since he was shooting downhill. He was a good three hundred yards up the hill and was well hidden, lying on his stomach behind a ponderosa pine that’d been felled by lightning. He’d stacked snow on the brim of his hat so the only thing visible from below would be his dark eyes. Not much of a risk since his targets were so far away.

  He put the bead on the end of the rifle barrel about three inches above the head of one of the men far off to the right, and slowly squeezed the trigger. He didn’t expect to hit the man, but he hoped the rifle was accurate enough to at least come close enough to scare the man.

  The rifle exploded and kicked back against his shoulder. Smoke immediately pulled the gun back to him and lowered his head a couple of inches. He knew it’d take the sound of the gunshot a second or two to reach the men below, after the bullet had already landed.

  The man Smoke had aimed at screamed at the top of his lungs and pitched sideways off his horse. Suddenly, most of the men below were firing their pistols and rifles in all directions as the sound of Smoke’s gunshot echoed and re-echoed around the mountainside, distorting the direction from which it had actually come.

  The man Smoke knew as Cletus rode rapidly over to the wounded man, lying low along his mount’s neck to make himself less of a target.

  As soon as Cletus got to the man, he jumped off his horse and held his hands up in the air, hollering, “Stop shooting! Cease firing!” as loud as he could.

  The gang’s shooting slowed and finally stopped, but it was clear to Smoke from the way the men turned their heads back and forth that they were frightened. It was also clear that most of these men weren’t gunslicks or hired guns, but merely cowboys who were out of their depth in this kind of fracas.

  When the men had stopped their firing, Cletus told the ones nearby to keep a sharp lookout and he bent down over Billy Free, who was lying in the snow, holding his right arm with his left hand and moaning and groaning as he writhed on the ground.

  Cletus said, “Hold on, Billy. Let me take a look at where you got hit.”

  Free moaned again, but moved his left hand. Cletus saw a hole in Free’s right arm just below the shoulder that was leaking blood slowly. A good sign that no major artery had been hit.

  Cletus raised the arm, causing Free to clamp his jaws together and to almost shout out in pain. The bullet had gone through the arm, and was sticking in the heavy leather of Free’s fur-lined winter coat.

  Cletus took Billy’s bandanna from around the boy’s neck and wrapped the arm tight enough to stop the bleeding, making Billy groan again. “Good news, Billy,” Cletus said. “The bullet went right on through and the bone ain’t broken. You should do all right if’n it don’t get infected.”

  “Did anybody see where the bastard fired from?” Billy asked as he struggled to sit up in the snow.

  Cletus shook his head. “No. Evidently, he was far enough away that nobody saw the muzzle flash nor heard the report until he’d ducked back in hiding.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud thumping sound followed immediately by the sharp report of a rifle shot, and Wally Stevens’s horse screamed and reared up before collapsing onto a shouting Wally.

  Wally hollered as loud as he could for somebody to get his damn horse off his leg.

  “I . . . think it’s broken,” he sobbed, grimacing and holding his right thigh with both hands.

  George Jones and Sam Jackson jumped off their horses, and struggled to lift Wal
ly’s horse enough for him to slide his leg out.

  Sure enough, the leg just below the knee was bent at an unnatural angle. Luckily, there was no bone sticking out, but the leg was going to have to be set, and it was a sure thing that Wally was not going to like that, nor the long ride back to the ranch on horseback.

  Cletus waved his arms. “You men get off your horses and take cover behind trees,” he shouted. “And for God’s sake, see if you can spot where the gunshots are coming from.”

  The men complied with Cletus’s order, and soon all of them were hugging trees in a wide semicircle, their eyes pointed up the hill as they looked for any sign of Jensen.

  Up above, Smoke smiled and eased back away from the tree trunk he was behind. Now, he had all the men that were after him sitting around watching for him. As the temperature dropped they’d get colder and colder since they weren’t able to move around. Just what he wanted, and they wouldn’t dare gather around a fire because it would make them perfect targets.

  He grinned as he eased up into his saddle and walked his horse over a ridge and away from the men below. Now, he had to find a good spot to make a fire so that when darkness fell, he’d be able to heat some coffee and finish off the last of his bacon and jerky and get some of the chill out of his bones.

  An hour later, after Wally’s leg had been set and a couple of tree limbs used as a splint, Cletus looked around at his men. They were all shivering and slapping their arms against their chests as they hid behind trees looking for any sign of movement up above them.

  It suddenly dawned on Cletus what Jensen was up to. The sly son of a bitch wanted his men half-frozen to death and scared to move.

  Damn, he thought. He got to his feet, feeling an itchy sensation in the back of his neck as he imagined the mountain man drawing a bead on him. “Come on, men,” he shouted, waving them to their feet. “It’s gonna be dark ‘fore long an’ we gotta find a place to make camp.”