“What the hell?” Smoke heard Biggers holler from above him.
“You bastards!” Whisperin’ yelled at the pair on the top landing.
“That wasn’t us!” Cosgrove shouted.
There was only the howl of the wind, the rush of the rain, the snap and cracking of lightning, and the booming of thunder for a full half minute, as the men above and below each other gave that some thought.
“Oh, hell!” Lonesome Ted Lightfoot muttered. Then he raised his voice to a shout. “Cosgrove, Biggers! We better work together, boys. Smoke Jensen is up here with us.”
“Hell with you!” Biggers shouted. “You look out for your own butt, gunfighter.”
Smoke tossed another bundle of dynamite. It landed flat and stayed put on the slick boards. When it blew, it took about half the landing and forced the remaining gunfighters to press up against the face of the cliff. Patmos’s body rolled off the shattered landing and fell to the rocky ground below.
Cosgrove and Biggers laughed at the men below them. Smoke stopped their laughter by tying a bundle of explosives to the broken ax or pick handle and hurling it up to the top landing.
“Jesus Christ!” Cosgrove yelled, as he and Biggers jumped for the dubious safety of the office building.
The charge blew off half the safety railing, tore a great hole in the floor of the landing, and shattered all the front windows in the office building. It also rattled the hell out of the office building constructed against the face of the cliff.
“That’s it,” Whisperin’ said. “That’s all for me. We can’t get out, boys. We got the vigilantes below us, Cosgrove and Biggers above us, and Jensen over yonder someplace. I’m done.”
“Might as well,” Jim Pell said. The others nodded their agreement.
“Jensen!” Whisperin’ shouted. “Can you hear me over all this damn stormin’?”
“I hear you,” Smoke called.
“Can you see us?”
Smoke shifted positions behind crates and broken wagon wheels and other discarded debris. “I can see you.”
“We’re done, Smoke. You hear me? It’s all over for us. We yield.”
“Throw all your guns over the side. All of you. Unbuckle and toss everything over the side.”
The men chucked it all over the side of the shattered landing. They even reached down into boots and behind their belts in the small of the backs and pulled out hideaway guns and knives. Everything went over the side.
“Now stay where you are. Press up against the face of the cliff. Cosgrove and Biggers can’t see you or hit you with gunfire. Is there a back way out of that office building?”
“No,” Dusty called. “They got to use this landing or the road you’re on. They’re trapped.” Just like us, he thought.
Far below him, Smoke could see men gathering, taking up positions behind rocks and boulders and wagons and rail cars. Two dozen rifles or more were now trained on the office building. He could make out Waco and Wolf and Pasco and several others on his side. The storm had blocked the sounds of the final fight in Red Light. The outlaws were licked.
Almost.
Twenty-six
“It’s all over, Cosgrove, Biggers,” Smoke yelled from below the office building. “You have no more men. Give it up.”
“Hell with you!” Major Cosgrove yelled. “Come and get us.”
“Don’t be fools! Look below you. There are two or three dozen rifles pointed at you right now. We can shoot that office building to bits. Give it up.”
Cosgrove and Biggers chanced a look below them. Jensen sure wasn’t lying.
“I hate Smoke Jensen,” Major Cosgrove said. “I despise that man more than anything on the face of this earth. How the hell was I to know that Jenny was the blood kin of the last mountain man?” Then, out of sheer desperation, hate, fury, and frustration, he lifted his rifle and began firing at the men assembled far below the office building.
No one knows exactly what happened after that. And no one ever really will. The most popular theory is that Cosgrove had cases of dynamite stored in the building and the returning rifle fire touched it off. But still others say they saw a hideous flash of blue lightning strike the building.
Whatever the reason, one second the office building was there, and in the next instant it was gone, debris flying in all directions and raining down to the ground below.
But not one trace of Major Cosgrove or Jack Biggers was ever found. And neither was any of the gold. Some say there was a rear exit to the building, a natural cave that was sealed by the massive explosion. Some say they escaped.
All anybody knew for sure was that when Whisperin’ Langely, Dusty Higgens, Jim Pell, Lonesome Ted Lightfoot, and Russ Bailey were finally rescued from the landing, they had to change underwear. The explosion must have given them quite a fright.
Sheriff Club Bowers and his deputies rode into town just in time to witness the explosion. U.S. Marshals had ridden into Red Light only seconds before the huge wall of flame blew out of the cliff.
Reverend Lester Laymon said it was the heavy hand of God that done it.
Violet said her husband was an idiot … as usual.
When all was said and done, all the legal papers served and filed and settled, the citizens of Red Light were the new owners of the mine and Jenny Jensen owned the entire valley of lush graze and flowing creeks and gushing springs … and the gold up in the towering mountains. That was never mined. All records of where the huge vein was located had gone up in the explosion and only Smoke Jensen knew the exact location, and he wasn’t talking.
The gold is still there. Untouched.
Jenny’s range stretched for miles, north to south. It’s still in the family, and still producing some of the finest beef on the market.
Red Light was soon dropped and the town’s name was changed. Kit Silver married Clementine Feathers and settled down. Club Bowers was honestly elected sheriff of the county and was sheriff until his death, well into the next century. Wolf Parcell vanished back into the mountains. But he kept a close eye on Jenny, until she got married a few years later. Van Horn remained foreman of the ranch until his death, years after the big fight in Red Light, Montana. Wolves still visit the grave of Barrie on the lonesome ridge above the little spring. All the hands stayed on and a hundred years later, the crosses in the cemetery on the ranch bear the names of Pasco, Clarence Bad Dog, Jim Hammon, Cooper, Ford, Ladd, and all the others who fought for and with Jenny Jensen and her Uncle Smoke.
Smoke and Sally stayed around long enough to see that Jenny would be all right, and then they mounted up for the long ride back to the Sugarloaf in Colorado.
Smoke would be back to check on Jenny from time to time. But that’s another story … about the last mountain man.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1992 by William W. Johnstone
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