“How do we do this?” York asked.
“We walk in together,” Smoke whispered.
The men slipped the thongs off their six-guns and eased them out of leather a time or two, making certain the oiled interiors of the holsters were free.
York eased back the hammer on his Henry and Smoke jacked back the hammers on the express gun.
They stepped inside the noisy and beer-stinking saloon. The piano player noticed them first. He stopped playing and singing and stared at them, his face chalk-white. Then he scrambled under the lip of the piano.
“Well, well!” an outlaw said, laughing. “Would you boys just take a look at Shirley. He’s done shaven offen his beard and taken to packin’ iron. Boy, you bes’ git shut of them guns, ’fore you hurt yourself.”
Gridley stood up from a table where he’d been drinking and playing poker—and losing. “Or I decide to take ’em off you and shove ’em up your butt, lead and all, pretty-boy. Matter of fact, I think I’ll jist do that, right now.”
Smoke and York had surveyed the scene as they had stepped in. The barroom was not nearly filled to capacity…but it was full enough.
“The name isn’t pretty-boy, Gridley,” Smoke informed him.
“Oh, yeah? Well, mayhaps you right. I’ll jist call you shit! How about that?”
“Why don’t you call him by his real name?” York said, a smile on his lips.
“And what might that be, punk?” Gridley sneered the question. “Alice?”
“First off,” York said. “I’ll tell you I’m an Arizona Ranger. Note the badges we’re wearing? And his name, you blow-holes, is Smoke Jensen!”
The name was dropped like a bomb. The outlaws in the room sat stunned, their eyes finally observing the gold badges on the chests of the men.
Smoke and York both knew one thing for an ironclad fact: The men in the room might all be scoundrels and thieves and murderers, and some might be bullies and cowards, but when it came down to it, they were going to fight.
“Then draw, you son of a bitch!” Gridley hollered, his hands dropping to his guns.
Smoke pulled the trigger on the express gun. From a distance of no more than twenty feet, the buckshot almost tore the outlaw in two.
York leveled the Henry and dusted an outlaw from side to side. Dropping to one knee, he levered the empty out and a fresh round in and shot a fat punk in the belly.
Shifting the sawed-off shotgun, Smoke blew the head off another outlaw. The force of the buckshot lifted the headless outlaw out of one boot and flung him to the sawdust-covered floor.
York and his Henry had put half a dozen outlaws on the floor, dead, dying, or badly hurt.
The huge saloon was filled with gunsmoke, the crying and moaning of the wounded, and the stink or relaxed bladders from the dead. Dark gray smoke from the black powder cartridges stung the eyes and obscured the vision of all in the room.
The outlaws had recovered from their initial shock and had overturned tables, crouching behind them, returning the deadly hail of fire from Smoke and Arizona Ranger York.
Smoke had slipped to the end of the bar closest to the batwing doors, and York had worked his way to the side of the big stage, crouching behind a second piano in the small orchestra pit. Between the two of them, Smoke and York were laying down a deadly field of fire. Both men had grabbed up the guns of the dead and dying men as they slipped to their new positions and they now had a pile of .44s, .45s, and several shotguns and rifles in front of them.
A half-dozen outlaws tried to rush the batwings in a frantic attempt to escape and were met by a half-dozen other outlaws attempting to enter the saloon from the outside. It created a massive pileup at the batwings, a pileup that was too good for Smoke to resist.
Slipping to the very end of the long bar, Smoke emptied a pair of .45s taken from a dead man into the panicked knot of outlaws. Screaming from the men as the hot slugs tore into their flesh added to the earsplitting cacophony of confusion in the saloon.
Smoke grabbed up an armload of weapons and ran to the end of the bar closest to the rear of the saloon. He caught York’s attention and motioned to the storeroom where they had entered. York nodded and left his position at a run. The men ran through the darkened storeroom to the back door.
Just as they reached the back door it opened and two outlaws stepped inside, guns drawn. Smoke and York fired simultaneously, their guns booming and crashing in the darkness, lancing smoke and fire, splitting the heavy gloom of the storeroom. The outlaws were flung backward, outside. They lay on the ground, on their backs, dying from wounds to the chest and belly.
“York, you take the north end of town,” Smoke said. “I’ll take the south end.” He was speaking as he was stripping the weapons from the dead men.
York nodded his agreement and tossed Smoke one of two cloth sacks he’d picked up in the storeroom. The men began dumping in the many guns they’d picked up along the way.
“Find and destroy the heathens!” a man’s strong voice cut the night. “The Philistines are upon us!”
“Who the hell is that?” York whispered.
“That’s Tustin, the preacher. Has to be.”
“A preacher? Here?” The ranger’s voice was filled with disbelief.
The gunfire had almost ceased, as the outlaws in the saloon could not find Smoke or York.
“Oh, Lord!” Tustin’s voice filled the night. “Take these poor unfortunate bastards into the gates of Heaven and give us the strength and the wherewithal to find and shoot the piss outta them that’s attackin’ us!”
“I ain’t believin’ this,” York muttered.
Smoke smiled, his strong white teeth flashing in the night. “Good luck, York.”
“Same to you, partner.”
Carrying their heavy sacks of weapons and cartridge-filled belts, the men parted, one heading north, the other heading south.
York and Smoke both held to the edge of the timber as they made their way north and south. The town’s inhabitants had adopted a panicked siege mentality, with outlaws filling the streets, running in every direction. No one among them knew how many men were attacking the town. Both York and Smoke had heard the shouts that hundreds of lawmen were attacking.
Just before Smoke slipped past the point where he could look up and see the fine home of Davidson, he saw the lamps in the house being turned off, the home on the hill growing dark.
And Smoke would have made a bet that Davidson and Dagget had a rabbit hole out of Dead River, and that both of them, and probably a dozen or more of their most trusted henchmen, were busy packing up and getting out.
Just for a moment, Smoke studied the darkened outline of the home on the hill. And then it came to him. A cave. He would be a hundred dollars that King Rex had built his home in front of a cave, a cave that wound through the mountain and exited out in the timbered range behind Dead River. And he would also bet that White Wolf and his braves knew nothing of it. It might exit out into a little valley where horses and gear could be stored.
Cursing in disgust for not thinking of that sooner, Smoke slipped on into the night, seeking a good spot to set up a defensive position.
He paused for a moment, until York had opened fire, showing Smoke where the ranger had chosen to make his stand. And it was a good one, high up on the right side of the ridge overlooking the town, as Smoke stood looking north. With a smile, Smoke chose his position on the opposite side of the street, above the first store one encountered upon entering the outlaw town.
Below him, the outlaws had settled down, taking up positions around the town. Smoke could see several bodies sprawled in the street, evidence of York’s marksmanship with his Henry.
A handful of outlaws tried to rush the ranger’s position. Hard gunfire broke out on either side and above York’s position. White Wolf’s Utes were making their presence known in a very lethal manner. For years, the outlaws had made life miserable for the Utes, and now it was payback time. With a vengeance.
A horsem
an came galloping up the street, toward the curve that exited the town. The man was riding low in the saddle, the reins in his teeth and both hands full of six-guns. Smoke took careful aim with a rifle he’d picked up in the saloon and knocked the man out of the saddle. The rider hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up on his feet. A dozen rifles spat lead. The man was hit a dozen times, shot to bloody rags. He dropped to the roadway, his blood leaking into the dirt.
The horse, reins trailing, trotted off into an alley.
Smoke hit the ground, behind a series of boulders, as his position was found and rifles began barking and spitting in the night, the lead ricocheting and whining off the huge rocks, spinning into the night.
A Ute came rolling down the hill crashing against the boulder behind which Smoke was hiding. Smoke rolled the brave over and checked his wound—a nasty wound in the brave’s side. Smoke plugged it with moss and stretched the Indian out, safe from fire. The Ute’s dark eyes had never left Smoke’s face, and he endured the pain without a sound.
Smoke made the sign for brother and the Indian, flat on his back returned the gesture. Gunfighter and Indian smiled at each other in the gunfire-filled night above the outlaw town.
Smoke picked up his rifle as the Indian, who had never let go of his rifle, crawled to a position on the other end of the line of boulders. Smoke tossed him a bag of cartridges and the men began lacing the town with .44 rifle fire. The .44s, which could punch through a good three inches of pine, began bringing shouts and yells of panic from the outlaws in the town below.
Several tried to run; they were knocked down in the street. One outlaw, his leg twisted grotesquely, tried to crawl to safety. A slug to the head stopped his strugglings.
Smoke spoke to the Ute in his own language. “If they ever discover how few we are up here, we’re in trouble, brother.”
The Ute laughed in the night and said, “My people have always fought outnumbered, gunfighter. It is nothing new to us.”
Smoke returned the laugh and began working the lever on his Henry, laying a line of lead into a building below their position. The sudden hard fire brought several screams of pain from inside the building. One man fell through a shattered window to hang there, half in and half out of the building.
The Ute shouted a warning as a dozen outlaws charged their position, the men slipping from tree to tree, rock to rock, working closer.
Smoke quickly reloaded the Henry and laid two .44s on the ground beside him, one by each leg. There was no doubt in his mind that the outlaws would certainly breach their position, and then the fighting would be hand to hand.
Smoke heard the ugly sound of a bullet striking flesh and bone, and turning his head, he saw the Ute fall backward, a blue-tinged hole in the center of his forehead. With his right hand, Smoke made the Indian sign for peaceful journey and then returned to the fight.
He took out one outlaw who made the mistake of exposing too much of his body, knocking the man spinning from behind a tree; a second slug from Smoke’s rifle forever stilled the man.
Then there was no time for anything except survival, as the outlaws charged Smoke’s position.
Smoke fought savagely, his guns sending several outlaws into that long darkness. Then his position was overrun. Something slammed into the side of his head, and Smoke was dropped into darkness.
14
He was out for no more than a few seconds, never really losing full consciousness. He felt blood dripping down the side of his face. He was still holding onto his guns, and he remembered they were full. Lifting them, as a dozen shapes began materializing around him in the night, Smoke began cocking and pulling the triggers.
Hoarse screams filled the air around him as the slugs from his pistols struck their mark at point-blank range. Unwashed bodies thudded to the ground all around him, the dead and dying flesh unwittingly building a fort around his position, protecting him from the returning fire of the outlaws.
Then, half-naked shapes filtered silently and swiftly out of the timber, firing rifles and pistols. By now, the remaining outlaws were too confused and frightened to understand how a man whom they believed to be dead from a head wound had managed to inflict so hideous a toll on them.
And then the Utes came out of the timber, and in a matter of seconds, what had been twenty outlaws were no more than dying, cooling flesh in the still-warm mountain air slightly above Dead River.
The Utes vanished back into the timber, as swiftly and as silently as they had come.
Smoke reloaded his guns, pistols, and rifles, and slung the rifles across his shoulders. He wrapped his bandana around his head and tied it, after inspecting his head-wound with his fingers and finding it not serious; he knew that a head wound can bleed hard and fast for a few moments, and then, in many cases, stop.
He loaded his pistols, then loaded the sawed-off shotgun. Then he began making his way down the hill, back into the town of Dead River. He was going to take the fight to the outlaws.
He stopped once to tie a white handkerchief around his arm, so not only the Indians would know who he was but so the posse members would not mistakenly shoot him.
He slipped down to the building where the outlaw was still hanging half out of the window and quietly checked out the interior. The building was void of life. Looking up the street, he could see where he, York, and the Utes had taken a terrible toll on the population of the outlaw town. The street, the alleys, and the boardwalks were littered with bodies. Most were not moving.
He did not know how much time had transpired since he and Ranger had opened the dance. But he was sure it was a good half hour or forty-five minutes.
He slipped to the south a few yards and found a good defensible position behind a stone wall that somebody had built around a small garden. Smoke pulled a ripe tomato off the vine, brushed the dust off it, and ate it while his eyes surveyed the street, picking out likely targets.
He unslung the rifles, laid his sack of guns and cartridges by one side, the express guns by his other side, and then picked up and checked out a Henry.
He had found a man stationed on top of a building. Sighting him in, Smoke let the other outlaws know he was still in the game by knocking the man off the roof with one well-placed shot to his belly. The sniper fell screaming to the street below. His howling stopped as he impacted with earth.
Putting his hand to the ground, Smoke thought he could detect a trembling. Bending over, being careful not to expose his butt to the guns of the outlaws, he pressed his ear to the ground and picked up the sound of faint rumblings. The posse was no more than a mile away.
“York!” he yelled.
“Yo, Smoke!” came the call.
“Here they come, Ranger! Shovel the coals to it!”
Smoke began levering and pulling the trigger, laying down a blistering line of fire into the buildings of the town. From his position at the other end, York did the same. The Utes opened up from both sides of the town, and the night rocked with gunfire.
“For the love of God!” Sheriff Larsen cried out, reining up by the lines of tortured men and women on the outskirts of town. His eyes were utterly disbelieving as they touched each tortured man and woman.
“Help us!” came the anguished cry of one of the few still alive. “Have mercy on us, please. We were taken against our will and brought here.”
The posse of hardened western men, accustomed to savage sights, had never seen anything like this. All had seen Indian torture; but that was to be expected from ignorant savages. But fellow white men had done this.
Several of the posse leaned out of their saddles and puked on the ground.
“Three or four men stay here and cut these poor wretches down,” Jim Wilde ordered, his voice strong over the sound of gunfire. “Do what you can for them.”
“Jim!” Smoke called. “It’s Jensen. Hold your fire, I’m coming over.”
Smoke zigzagged over to the posse, catching the reins of a horse as the man discounted. “Your horses look in good shape.�
�
“We rested them about a mile back. Let them blow good and gave them half a hatful of water. How’s your head?”
“My Sally has hit me harder,” Smoke grinned, swinging into the saddle. He patted the roan’s neck and rubbed his head, letting the animal know he was friendly.
“You comin’ in with us?” the marshal asked.
“I got personal business to tend to. There’s an Arizona Ranger named York up yonder.” He pointed. “I forgot to tell him to tie something about his arm. He’s a damn good man. Good luck to you boys.”
Smoke swung the horse’s head, and with a screaming yell from the throats of sixty men, the posse hit the main street hard. The reins in their teeth, the posse members had their hands full of .44s and .45s, and they were filling anybody they saw with lead.
Smoke rode behind the buildings of the town and dismounted, ground-reining the horse. He eased the hammers back on the express gun and began walking, deliberately letting his spurs jingle.
“Jensen!” a voice shouted from the forward darkness. “Smoke Jensen!”
Stepping behind a corner of a building, Smoke said, “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Cat Ventura here. You played hell, Jensen.”
“That’s what I came here to do, Ventura.”
Step out and face an ambush, you mean, Smoke thought. “No, thanks, Ventura. I don’t trust you.”
As soon as he said it, Smoke dropped to the ground. A half-dozen guns roared and sparked, the lead punching holes in the corner of the building where he’d been standing.
Smoke came up on one knee and let the hammers fall on both barrels of the sawed-off shotgun. He almost lost the weapon as both barrels fired, the gun recoiling in his strong hands.
The screaming of the wounded men was horrible in the night. Smoke thought of those poor people at the end of town and could not dredge up one ounce of sympathy for the outlaws he’d just blasted.
He reloaded the shotgun just as Cat called out, “Goddamn you, Jensen.”
Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man) Page 37