Cunning of the Mountain Man Read online

  “That back-shooter’s needin’ some frontier justice, you ask me,” a florid-faced, paunchy man in a brocaded red vest and striped pants declared hotly from the front of the bar in the Hang Dog Saloon.

  “Damn right, Hub,” the man on his left agreed.

  Several angry, whiskey-tinged voices rose in furtherance of this outcome. Payne Finney kept the fires stoked as he flitted from group to group in the barroom. “This Smoke Jensen is a crazy man. He’s killed more’n three hunnard men, shot most in the back, like poor Lawrence Tucker.”

  Finney added to his lies as he joined a trio of wranglers at the back end of the bar. “Remember when it was in the papers how he killed Rebel Tyree?” He put an elbow to the ribs of one cowhand and winked. “In the back. Not like the paper said, but in the back.”

  “Hell, I didn’t even know you could read, Payne.”

  “Shut up, Tom. You never got past the fourth grade, nohow. I tell you, this Jensen is as bloodthirsty as Billy Bonney.”

  “Bite yer tongue, Finney,” Tom snapped. “Billy Bonney is much favored in these parts. He done right by avengin’ Mr. Tunstill.”

  Payne Finney gave Tom Granger a fish eye. “And who’s gonna avenge Mr. Lawrence Tucker?”

  “Why, the law’ll see to that.”

  “An’ pigs fly, Tom. You can take my word for it, somethin’ ought to be done.”

  “You talkin’ lynch law, Payne?” The question came from a big, quiet man standing at a table in the middle of the room.

  Turning to him, Payne Finney blinked. Maybe, he considered, he’d pushed it a bit too far. Gotta give them the idea they thunked it up on their own. That’s what Quint Stalker had taught him. Payne silently wished that Stalker was there with him now. He had no desire to get on the wrong side of Clay Unger, this big, soft-spoken man who had a reputation with a gun that even Quint Stalker respected. He raised both hands, open, palms up, in a deprecating gesture.

  “Now, Clay, I was just sayin’ what if . . . ? You know a lot more about how the law works than I do—no offense,” Payne hastened to add. “But from what little I do know, it seems any man with a bit of money can get off scot-free.”

  “And you were only speculating out loud as to, what if it happened to Smoke Jensen?”

  “Yeah . . . that’s about it.”

  Clay Unger raised a huge hand and pointed his trigger finger at Payne Finney. It aimed right between his eyes.

  “Don’t you think the time to worry about that is after it’s happened?”

  “Ummm. Ah—I suppose you’re right, there, Clay.” Finney made his way hastily to the doors and raised puffs of dust from his bootheels as he ankled down the street to Donahue’s. There he set to embellishing his tales of Smoke Jensen’s bloody career. His words fell on curious ears and fertile minds. He bought a round of drinks and, when he left an hour later, he felt confident the seeds of his plan would germinate.

  After Clay Unger and his friends had left the Hang Dog, two hard-faced, squint-eyed wranglers at the bar took up Payne Finney’s theme. They quickly found ready agreement among the other occupants.

  “What would it take to get that feller out of the jail and swing him from a rope, Ralph?”

  Through a snicker, Ralph answered, “If you mean co—oper—ation, not a whole lot. Ol’ Ferdie over there surely enjoys a good hangin’. Especially one where the boy’s neck don’t break like it oughtta. Ferdie likes to see ’em twitch and gag. Might be, he’d even hand that Jensen over to us.”

  “ ‘Us,’ Ralph?” a more sober imbiber asked pointedly. Ralph’s mouth worked, trying to come up with words his limited intellect denied him. “I was just talkin’— ah—sorta hy-hypo—awh, talkin’ like let’s pretend.” “You mean hypothetically?” Ralph’s detractor prodded.

  “Yeah . . . that’s it. Heard the word onest, about a thang like this.”

  Right then the batwings, inset from the tall, glass-paneled front doors swung inward, and Payne Finney strode in. “What’s that yer talkin’ about, Ralph?”

  Puppy-dog eagerness lighted Ralph’s face. “Good to see you, Payne. I was jist saying that it should be easy to get that Jensen outta the jail and string him up.” Finney crossed to the bar and gave Ralph a firm clap on one shoulder. “Words to my likin’, Ralph. Tell me more.”

  Seated in a far corner, at a round table, three men did not share the bloodthirsty excitement. They cast worried gazes around the saloon, marked the men who seemed most enthused by the prospect of a lynching. Ripley Banning ran short, thick fingers, creased and cracked by hard work and callus, through his carroty hair. His light complexion flushed pink as he leaned forward and spoke quietly to his companions.

  “I don’t like the sound of this one bit.” He cut sea-green eyes to Tyrell Hardy on his right.

  Ty Hardy flashed a nervous grin, and stretched his lean, lanky body in the confines of the captain’s chair. “Nor me, Rip. Ain’t a hell of a lot three of us can do about it, though.”

  From his right, Walt Reardon added a soft question. “How’s that, Ty? Seems a determined show of force could defuse this right fast.”

  Tyrell Hardy cut his pale blue eyes to Walt Reardon. He knew the older man to be a reformed gunfighter. Walt’s fulsome mane of curly black hair, and heavy, bushy brows, gave his face a mean look to those who did not know him. And, truth to tell, Ty admitted, the potential for violence remained not too far under the surface. He flashed a fleeting smile and shook his head, which set his longish, nearly white hair to swaying.

  “You’ve got a good point, Walt. But, given the odds, I’d allow as how one of us might get killed, if we mixed in.”

  “There’s someone sure’s hell gonna get killed, if this gets ugly,” Rip Banning riposted. “What’er you sayin’, Walt?”

  Walt’s dark brown eyes glowed with inner fire, and his tanned, leather face worked in a way that set his brush of mustache to waggling. “Might be that we should keep ourselves aware of what’s going on. If this gets out of hand, a sudden surprise could go a long way to puttin’ an end to it.”

  Martha Tucker went about her daily tasks mechanically. All of the spirit, the verve of life, had fled from her. She cooked for her children and herself, but hardly touched the food, didn’t taste what she did -consume. She had sat in stricken immobility for more than two hours, after word had been brought of Lawrence’s death. Now, anger began to boil up to replace the grief.

  It allowed her to set herself to doing something her late husband had often done to burn off anger he dare not let explode. Her hair awry, her face shiny in the afternoon light, an axe in both hands, Martha set about splitting firewood for the kitchen stove. With each solid smack, a small grunt escaped her lips, carrying with it a fleck of her outrage.

  She cared not that at least a full week’s supply already had been stacked under the lean-to that abutted the house,

  beside the kitchen door. Neither did Martha have the words or knowledge to call her strenuous activity therapy; neither she, nor anyone in her world, knew the word catharsis. She merely accepted that with each yielding of a billet of pinon, she felt a scrap of the burden lift, if only for a moment.

  “Mother,” Jimmy Tucker called from the corner of the house.

  He had to call twice more, before his voice cut into Martha’s consciousness.

  “What is it, son?”

  Jimmy’s bare feet set up puffs of dust as he scampered to his mother’s side. “There’s a man coming, Maw.”

  Cold fear stabbed at Martha’s breast. “Who . . . is it?”

  “I dunno. He don’t . . . look mean.”

  “Go in the house, Jimmy, and get me the rifle. Then round up your sister and brother and go to the root cellar.”

  “Think it’s Apaches?”

  “Not around here, son. I don’t know what to think.”

  Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “I had better stay with you, Maw.”

  “No, Jimmy. It’s best you are safe . . . just in case.”

  “If it’s th
at Smoke Jensen, I’ll shoot his eyes out,” Jimmy said tightly.

  A new fear washed over Martha. “You hush that kind of talk, you hear? If I had time, I’d wash your mouth with soap.”

  Almost a whine, Jimmy’s voice came out painfully. “I didn’t cuss, Maw.”

  In spite of the potential danger of the moment, Martha could not suppress a flicker of smile. Since the first time, at age four, that Jimmy had used the S-word, a bar of lye soap had been the answer, rather than his father’s razor strap. Oh, how Jimmy hated it.

  “Go along, son, do as I say,” Martha relented with a pat on the top of Jimmy’s head, something else he had come to find uncomfortable of late.

  In less than a minute, Jimmy returned with the big old Spencer rifle that had belonged to his father. One pocket of his corduroy trousers, cut off and frayed below the knees, bulged with bright brass cartridges. Martha took the weapon from her son and loaded a round. She held it, muzzle pointed to the ground, when the stranger rode around into the barnyard two minutes later.

  “Howdy there,” he sang out. “I’m friendly. Come to give you the news from town.”

  “And what might that be?” Martha challenged.

  “Well, ma’am, it looks like it’s makin’ up for a hangin’ for that Smoke Jensen feller. Folks is mighty riled about what happened to your husband.”

  Unaccountably, the words burst out before she had time to consider them. “Is it certain that he is the guilty party?”

  The young rangier did a double take. “Pardon, ma’am? I figgered you’d consider that good news.”

  Committed already, her second question boiled out over the first. “They’ve held a trial so soon?”

  A sheepish expression remolded the cowboy’s face. “In a way. Sort of, I mean, ma’am. In the—in the saloons. The boys ain’t happy, an’ they’re fixin’ to string that feller up.”

  “Good lord, that’s—barbaric.”

  Self-confidence recovered, the ranch hand responded laconically. “There’s some who might consider what he done to your husband to be that, too, ma’am.”

  “You’re not a part of this?”

  “No, ma’am. I just rode out to bring you the word.” “Then—then ride fast, find the sheriff, and have him bring an end to it. I don’t want another monstrous crime to happen on top of the first.”

  “You don’t mind my sayin’ it, that’s a mighty odd attitude, ma’am.”

  “No, it’s not. Now you get back to town fast and get the sheriff.”

  “I say now’s the time, boys!” Payne Finney shouted over the buzz of angry conversation in the Hang Dog. “Somebody go out and get a rope. Do it quick, while we still got the chance.”

  “Damn right!”

  “I’ll go over to Rutherford’s, they got some good halfinch manila.”

  “No, a lariat will do,” Forrest Gore sniggered. “Cut into his neck some that way.”

  “We’d best be making time, then,” another man suggested. “Who all is with us?”

  Twenty-five voices shouted allegiance.

  “I’ll go wind up the fellers at Donahue’s,” Finney informed them. “Take about half an hour, I’d say. Then we do it.”

  Covered by the shouts of approval, Ty Hardy leaned toward his companions. “Oh-oh, it looks like the boil’s comin’ to a head.”

  “Best we think fast about some way to lance it,” Walt Reardon prompted.

  “Yeah, an’ quick,” Rip Banning urged.

  Long, gold shafts of late afternoon sunlight slanted into the office above the Cattlemen’s Union Bank. Dust motes rose as a strong breeze battered the desert-shrunken window sashes and found the way inside. Crystal decanters sat squat on a mahogany sideboard; glasses had been positioned precisely in front of the three very different men who sat around the rectangular table.

  Seated at one end, head cocked to the side, listening to the growing uproar from the saloons down the street, Geoffrey Benton-Howell pursed his thin lips in appreciation. Tufts of gray hair sprouted at each temple, creating a halo effect in the sunbeams, the rest of the tight helmet remained a lustrous medium brown. Long, pale, aristocratic fingers curled around the crystal glass, and he raised it to his lips.

  Smacking them in appreciation, he spoke into what had become a long silence. “It appears that our designs prosper.” Geoffrey’s accent, although modulated by years in the American West, retained a flavor of the Midlands of England. “Miguel, you were wise indeed to suggest we take the sheriff into our confidence. It sounds to me that he is an inventive fellow.”

  Miguel Selleres glowed in the warm light of this praise. “Gracias, Don Geoffrey. Mi amigos, I would safely suggest that we have killed two birds, so to speak, with a single stone.”

  Although not quite as much the dandy as Benton-Howell, Selleres dressed expensively and had the air of a Mexican grandee. Short of stature, at five feet and six inches, he had the grace and build of a matador. Age had not told on him, though already in his mid-forties; he seemed every bit at home in this rough frontier town as in the salon of a stately hacienda. One side of his short-waisted, deep russet coat bulged with the .45 Mendoza copy of the Colt Peacemaker, which he wore concealed.

  “Señor Selleres,” the third man at the table said, pronouncing the name in the Spanish manner; Say-yer-res. “What, exactly, are you getting at?”

  “May I answer that, Miguel?” Benton-Howell interrupted when he saw his partner’s danger signal, a writhing of his pencil-line mustache.

  “Go right ahead, Señor Geoffrey,” Selleres grunted, containing his anger.

  “What he’s getting at, Dalton, is that Tucker is out of our way, with the perfect man to pin it on.”

  “Umm. You do make things so much clearer, Geoff,” Dalton Wade said with a lip curl, to make clear his attitude toward Miguel Selleres.

  Miguel Selleres cut his jet-black eyes from one partner to the other. He saw affability in the expensive clothing and impeccable manners of Geoffrey Benton-Howell, whom he had referred to as Sir Geoffrey. His obvious affluence radiated security to their ambitious goals.

  Across the table from him sat a man Miguel thought ill-suited to their company. Although he masked it with sugared words and no overt insult, Dalton Wade’s intense dislike of anyone or anything Mexican radiated from his pig face in waves of almost physical force. His swelling paunch matched his heavy jowls, and emphasized his porcine appearance. Wade dressed in the tacky manner of a local banker—which he was—in a rumpled suit of dark blue with too wide pinstripes. Miguel Selleres felt a genuine wave of revulsion rise within himself. Like a seller of secondhand buggies, Miguel thought with a conscious effort to throttle his rising gorge. It further angered him to acknowledge that he was the youngest of this unholy trio.

  “In light of our obvious success, Id suggest that you contact Quint Stalker and ensure that he moves with dispatch on the properties we desire,” Selleres aimed at Wade.

  “It has already been done,” Wade snapped, barely in the boundaries of civility.

  Benton-Howell stepped in to keep the peace. “Let me expand on that. As we speak, Stalker and some of his men should be acquiring the trading post at Twin Mesas. When that is accomplished, they will move on to the next, and the next. So there is little left we must address today. However, I have come upon a third benefit we can count as ours in this affair.”

  “Oh, really? What’s that?” Dalton Wade remained cool, even to the man to whom he was beholden for being included in the grand design.

  “Why, the most obvious of all, gentlemen. I propose a toast to us—the men who are about to put an end to Smoke Jensen.”

  Three

  Sheriff Jake Reno eased his belly through the doorway to his office in the Socorro jail. His small, dusty boots made a soft pattering on the floorboards, as he crossed to a tiny cubicle set in the wall that divided the office from the cellblock. He poked his head in the open doorway and grunted at a snoozing Ferdie Biggs.

  “Open up, Ferdie. I want to t
alk with that back-shooter.”

  A line of drool glistened on Ferdie’s ratlike face. It flashed as he wobbled the sleep out of his head and came to his boots. “Sure ’nuff, Boss. You gonna give him what for?”

  “Do you mean beat hell out of him? No. No entertainment for you this afternoon, Ferdie. I only want to talk to him.”

  Disappointment drooped Ferdie Biggs’s face. He reached for a ring of keys and unlocked the laced strap iron door that opened the cellblock for the sheriff. Reno stalked along the corridor, until he reached the cell that held Smoke Jensen.

  Smoke reclined on his bunk, head propped up by both forearms. He didn’t even open an eye at the sound of the lawman’s approach. Heedless of possible damage to the weapon, Reno banged a couple of bars with the barrel of his Merwin and Hulbert. When the bell tone faded, Smoke opened one eye.

  “What?” he asked with flat, hard menace.

  “I come to get a confession out of you, Jensen.”

  “Fat chance. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Sure of that, are you?” Reno probed.

  “Yes. I’m sure I didn’t back-shoot that man.”

  “You don’t sound all that positive to me.”

  “Sheriff, I’m not sure about what exactly happened to me, how I got here, or when, but I do know that I have never deliberately back-shot a man in my life.”

  “Smoke Jensen, gunfighter and outlaw and he’s never shot a man in the back before? I find that hard to believe. You’re pretending, Jensen. I know it and so do you.”

  “Humor me, Sheriff. Tell me about it.”

  Taken aback, Sheriff Jake Reno gulped a deep breath. “All right. If it will help you see the light and give me a confession. It happened last night, about ten-thirty. Some shots were heard by customers in the Hang Dog Saloon. They rushed out to find out what was going on. In the alley at the edge of town, they came upon a body lying on the ground, and you.