Cunning of the Mountain Man Read online

  “You were cold as a blowed-out lamp. The body was dead,” Reno explained further.

  “Mr. Tucker?”

  Reno brightened. “Then you do admit knowing him?” “No. Your jailer gave me the name early this morning.”

  “That idiot. Handed you a way out on a platter, didn’t he? I’ll fix his wagon later. Yes, it was Mr. Lawrence Tucker, a highly popular and respected local rancher.

  He’d been shot. You were laying not far from him, with a .45 in your hand.”

  “I don’t carry a .45,” Smoke began to protest.

  “You had it in your hand, damnit,” Reno snapped. Then he drew a deep breath to regain his composure. “It had been fired twice. There were two bullet holes in Mr. Tucker’s back. End of case.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Sheriff.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes. I normally carry a .44. Two of them, in fact.” “Don’t matter, Jensen. No ,44s were found anywhere around you, or on Mr. Tucker, and no double rig. Your cartridge belt had a pocket for only one iron, and that .45 fit in it like in a glove.”

  “Did you or anyone recognize the gun and belt, Sheriff? Ever see it before?”

  But Reno had already turned away. Over a shoulder he softly purred his last words for Smoke, Jensen. “I’d like to stay and chat, Jensen, but I have important business outside town. You all just sit tight, an’ we’ll get you hanged all legal and proper.”

  Hank Yates turned from the batwings of the Hang Dog Saloon. “He’s ridin’ out of town now.”

  A wide grin turned the cruel, thin line of Payne Finney’s mouth into something close to happy. Leave it to Jake Reno to cover himself. “Good. Now, boys, we can really get to work. Some of you go out the back way and wait in the alley between here an’ the saddler’s. The rest come with me. Spread out across the street and hold yer place, while I go get the fellers from Donahue’s.”

  “You really think we can just walk down there and take Jensen out?” Yates asked doubtful.

  Finney started for the door as he spoke. “Matter of fact, I know we can.”

  With a surge of action, the men in the saloon obeyed Finney’s commands. For a moment, their alcoholic confusion marred any smooth departure, as men bumped into one another aimed in opposite directions. They ironed it out quickly enough and left the barroom almost empty. All except for three men at the corner table they had occupied since the establishment opened.

  “I think weti best stay here awhile,” Walt Reardon suggested.

  “We’ve gotta do something to help,” Rip Banning urged his face nearly the color of his flaming hair.

  “We will. In due time.”

  “Dangit, Walt, every second means more danger.”

  “Relax, Rip. Those boys have got to get all fired up with more whiskey and brave words, before they do anything drastic. Believe me, I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of more’n one lynch mob.”

  Neither Ty nor Rip wanted to dispute Walt over that. Rip eased back in his chair and stared balefully at the front doors. Ty examined his empty beer schooner. Walt eyed the Regulator clock on the wall above the bar. Sound exploded inside the barroom, as boot heels drummed on the planks of the porch outside.

  Two rough-looking characters burst in, demanding bottles of whiskey. They took no note of the trio in the corner. After they left, Walt and the other two waited out ten long, tense minutes. Then Walt eased his six-gun from leather and put the hammer on half-cock. He rotated the cylinder to the empty chamber and inserted another cartridge. Then he closed the loading gate and returned his weapon to the holster.

  “Rip, you go fetch our gear, an’ go saddle up the horses.”

  Rip nodded and departed. Then Walt turned to Tyrell Hardy. “Ty, why don’t you slip out the back door and go to the hotel. Bring our long guns back with you.”

  “Sure, Walt, right away.” Ty Hardy was gone faster than his words.

  Smoke Jensen heard the ruckus coming from the saloons and correctly interpreted its meaning. He needed to find some way out of this, before they drank enough liquid courage to come and do what they wanted to do. He had to think. He had to find out what had happened after the middle of the previous afternoon, when he and his hands arrived in Socorro.

  “We checked into a hotel,” Smoke muttered softly to himself. “Got our gear settled in the rooms, then stopped off at a saloon for a drink before supper.” It felt like invisible hands were ringing his mind like a washcloth. “What did we eat? Where?”

  The silence of the jail and in his mind mocked him. Smoke came up on his boots and paced the small space allowed in his tiny cell. “Something Mexican,” he spoke to the wall. “Stringy beef, cooked in tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers. Bisték ranchero, that’s it.”

  A loud shout interrupted his train of thought. One voice rose above the others, clear though distant; the cadence that of someone making a speech. It floated on the hot Socorro air through the small window high in his cell.

  “I knew Lawrence Tucker for fifteen years. From when he first moved to these parts. He was a good man. Tough as nails when he had to be, but a good father and husband. Know his wife, too. An’ those kids, why they’re the most polite, hard-working, reverent younguns you’d ever want to know.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” another voice joined the first. “Larry smoked cigars, like y’all know. Right fancy ones, from a place called Havana. Now, I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy a box of those special cigars for the first man who fits a rope around the neck of Smoke Jensen!”

  Loud cheering rose like a tidal wave. Smoke Jensen stared unbelievingly at the stone wall and gritted his teeth. The testimonials went on, and Smoke could visualize the bottles being passed from hand to hand. In his mind he could see the faces, flushed with whiskey and blood-lust, growing shiny with sweat, as the crowd became a mob.

  “In the fifteen years Lawrence Tucker has been here,” the first orator went on, “he never done a mean or vicious thing. Oh, he shot him a few Apaches, and potted a couple of lobo wolves who wandered down from the San Cristobals, but he never traded shots with another man, white or Mezkin. Didn’t hardly ever even raise his voice. Yet, he was respected, and his hands obeyed him. If it wasn’t for havin’ to tend the stock and protect the ranch, they’d be here now, you can count on that. And they’d be shoutin’ loudest of any to hang that back-shooting sumbitch higher than Haymen.”

  More cheers. The whiskey, and the rhetoric, were doing their job.

  Smoke Jensen climbed on the edge of the bunk and stretched to see beyond the walls of his prison. It did him little good. He found that his cell fronted on the brick wall of a two-story bakery. It had been the source of the tormenting aromas since his awakening. So far he had received not one scrap of food—only that swill laughingly called coffee, shortly after first light.

  Never one to worship food, Smoke’s belly cramped constantly now at the yeasty scent of baking bread and sugary accompaniment of pies and cakes. No doubt, the sadistic Biggs had placed him in this cell deliberately, and denied him anything to eat. For a moment it had taken his mind off his very real danger.

  More shouts from the distant street soon reminded him. “What’re we waitin’ for?”

  “The fellers at Donahue’s are fixin’ to join us,” Payne Finney bellowed. “Y’all stay here, I’ll hurry them on.”

  Smoke Jensen knew he had to do something before they got the sand to carry out their threats. To do that, he needed help. The question of getting it still nagged him. What had happened to the hands he had with him?

  Three men sat on their lathered horses under a gnarled, aged paloverde tree that topped a large, red-orange mound overlooking the Tucker ranch. The one in the middle pulled a dust-blurred, black Montana Peak Stetson from his balding head, and mopped his brow with a blue gingham bandanna. He puckered thick lips and spat a stream of tobacco juice that struck an industrious dung beetle, which agitatedly rolled his latest prize back toward the hole it called home.

  “Th
at woman down there,” he said to his companions. “She’s got lots of grit. Say that for her. Wonder what the Big Boss will have to come up with to get her off that place?”

  A soft grunt came from the thick-necked man on his right. “I say we jist ride down there, give her what her old man got, an’ take over the spread.”

  Contempt curled the bald man’s lips. “Idiot! You’d kill a woman? That’s why you take orders from me, and I take ’em from Quint Stalker. It’s gotta be all proper and legal, idjit.”

  “Didn’t used to be that way,” the bellicose one complained.

  “Right you are. But ever since ol’ Lew Wallace was territorial governor, we’ve had an extra large helpin’ of law and order.”

  “You tell me? I done three years, breakin’ rocks, because of him.”

  “Then don’t open that grub hole of yours and spout such stupid ideas, or you’ll do more than that.”

  “Sure, Rufe, sure. But I still say it would be the easiest way.”

  “All we’re here to do is drop in and scare her a little.”

  “Then why don’t we get on with it?”

  They came down in a thunder of hooves. Dust boiled from under their horses, which rutched and groaned at the effort, adding to the eerie howls made by the men who rode them. Quint Stalker had sent only three men because it was such an easy assignment. In less than two minutes, the overconfident hard cases learned how badly their boss had read the situation.

  A skinny, undersized boy with snowy hair popped up out of a haystack and slid down its side, yelling as he went. “Mom! Mom! Hey, they’re comin’ again!” The callused soles of his bare feet pounded clouds from the dry soil.

  He cut left and right, zigzagging toward the house. A woman’s figure appeared in one window. Rufe and his henchmen had no time to take note of that. With a whoop, the bald one bore down on the lad and bowled him over with the churning shoulder of his mount. A wild squawk burst from Jimmy Tucker, as he went tail over top and rolled like a ball. He bit down hard, teeth grinding, and cast a prayerful glance toward his mother.

  In a flash, that became the last bit of scaring they did.

  A puff of smoke preceded the crack of a .56 caliber slug that cut the hat from bald Rufe’s head. He let out a squall of his own and grabbed uselessly at the flying Montana Peak, then set to cursing. Another bullet forced his companions to veer to the side and put some distance between them.

  “Git back here! It’s only a damn woman,” Rufe bellowed.

  Martha Tucker refined her aim some, her left elbow braced on the windowsill, tapered fingers holding the forestock. Calmly she squeezed off another shot from the Spencer. Her third round smacked meatily into Rufe’s right shoulder, and exploded terrible pain through his chest. It also convinced him that this was no simple damn woman.

  He’d had enough. He, too, reined to his left and put spurs to the flanks of his horse. Another shot sounded behind him and sped all three on their way.

  It started with a sound like an avalanche. A low, primal growl that swelled as it advanced metamorphosing into the roar of a tidal bore, bent on smashing up an estuary and inundating everything along the river. Although coming from a distance, the angry bellow echoed from the brick wall of the bakery. It made the hairs on the nape of Smoke Jensen’s neck rise and vibrate.

  They were coming.

  How many? Would they get in? Smoke Jensen had been scared in his life many times before. Yet nothing compared to what he experienced now—not the grizzly that had nearly taken off his face before he killed it with a Greenriver knife . . . not the dozen Blackfeet warriors who had surrounded him, alone in camp, with Preacher out running traps . . . not when he faced down a dozen hardened killers in the street of Banning. None of them compared. This absolutely paralyzed him for the moment. He was so helpless, vulnerable. Death rode the mob like a single steed, a hound out of Hell, and it made Smoke reexamine his own fragile mortality. How easily they could take him.

  NO! He could find a way to get out of this. Somehow, he could hold off the mob. Think, damnit!

  The rattle, squeak, and clang of the cellblock door interrupted Smoke Jensen’s fevered speculation as it slammed open. He left the window at once, pressed his cheek to the corridor bars, and looked along the narrow walkway. Waddling toward him, Smoke saw the fat figure of Ferdie Biggs. The keys jangled musically in one pudgy paw.

  “Turn around and back up against the bars, Jensen.” “You’re taking me out of here?”

  “Yep. Jist do as I say.”

  Smoke turned around and put his hands through the space between two bars. Biggs reached him a moment later, puffing and gasping. Cold bands of steel closed around the wrists of Smoke Jensen. A key turned in the small locks.

  “Now step back. All the way to the wall.”

  “Am I being taken to some safer place?” Smoke asked, his expectations rising.

  “Get back, I said.” Biggs snarled the words as he reached behind his back and drew a .44 Smith and Wesson from his waistband. He stepped to the door and turned a large key in the lockcase. The bar gave noisily, and the jailer swung the barrier wide. He motioned to Smoke with the muzzle of the Smith, and a nasty smirk spread on his moon face. “Naw. I’m gonna give you over to those good ol’ boys out there.”

  Four

  Ferdie Biggs prodded Smoke Jensen ahead of him along the cellblock corridor. At the lattice-work door he passed on through without closing it. He had done the same with the cell, the keys hanging in the lock. The sudden rush of adrenaline had cleared the fuzziness from Smoke’s head. He realized that for all of Biggs’s slovenly appearance and illiterate speech, he was at least clever enough to lay the groundwork for it to appear the mob had overwhelmed him and broke into the jail.

  “You’re not smart enough to fake a forced entry, Ferdie,” Smoke taunted him. “You’re going to get caught.” Biggs gave him a rough shove that propelled Smoke across the room to the sheriff’s desk. The narrow edge of the top dug into his thighs. Bright pinpoints of pain further cleared Smoke’s thinking. He was ready, then, when Biggs barked his next command.

  “Turn around, I wanna have some fun, bust you up some, before I let the boys in.”

  Smoke turned and kept swinging his right leg. The toe of his boot connected with the hand that held the six-gun and knocked it flying. It discharged a round that cut a hot trail past Smoke’s rib cage, and smashed a blue granite coffeepot on a small, Acme two-burner wood stove in the comer. Biggs bellowed in pain and surprise, a moment before Smoke reversed the leg and planted his boot heel in the jailer’s doughy middle.

  Ferdie Biggs bent double, the air whooshing out from his lungs. Meanwhile Smoke Jensen recovered his balance and used his other foot to plant a solid kick to the side of Ferdie Biggs’s head. From where it made contact came a ripe melon plop!, and Ferdie went to his knees.

  “The keys, Ferdie,” Smoke rasped out. “Give me the keys to these handcuffs.”

  “Ain’t . . . gonna . . . do it.”

  Smoke kicked him again, a sharp boot toe in the chest. Ferdie gulped and sputtered, one hand clawed at his throat in an effort to suck in air. He turned deep-set, piggish eyes on Smoke Jensen in pleading. Smoke belted him again, from the side. A thin wail came from far down Ferdie’s throat—he’d been able to gulp some breath.

  “I keep kicking until I get the keys.”

  Smoke’s hard, flat, unemotional voice reached Ferdie in a way nothing else might. One trembling hand delved into a side pocket of his vest. Shakily, he withdrew a single key on a small ring. He dropped it twice, while he knee-walked to where Smoke Jensen stood beside the desk.

  “Now, reach around behind me and unlock these manacles.” Smoke shoved the tip of one boot up in Ferdie’s crotch. “Try anything, and you’ll sing soprano for the rest of your life.”

  Sobbing for breath, and in desperation, Ferdie complied. It took three fumbling attempts to undo the first lock. Then Smoke took the key from Ferdie’s trembling fingers and shoved the bleed
ing, glazed-eyed jailer back against the wall that contained a gun rack. Smoke freed his other wrist, then snapped the cuffs on Ferdie.

  “Is there a back way out of here?”

  Before Ferdie could answer, a loud pounding began on the closed and barred front door. “C’mon, Ferdie, open up!” a man bellowed.

  “Bring him out! Bring him out! Bring him out!” the mob chanted in the background.

  “Don’t be a fool, Ferdie. He ain’t worth gettin’ hurt over.”

  “Your ‘good ol’ boys’ don’t seem to like you much, Ferdie,” Smoke taunted. “Answer me. Is there a back way out?”

  “N-no. Usedta be, but the sheriff had it bricked up.”

  “How brilliant of him. Nothing for it but to face them down.”

  Ferdie Biggs blinked incredulously. “How you gonna do that, all alone?”

  “I won’t be alone,” Smoke advised him as he reached to the gun rack. “I’ll have Mr. L. C. Smith with me.”

  He selected a short-barrel, 10-gauge L. C. Smith Wells Fargo gun and opened the breech. From a drawer at the bottom of the rack, he took six brass buckshot casings. Two he inserted into the shotgun. A loud crash sounded from the direction of the front door. Ferdie Biggs cringed.

  “They shouldn’ do that. It was all set—” He snapped rubbery lips tightly closed and lost his porcine appearance as he realized he had said too much.

  “Set up or not, it isn’t going the way they expected, is it?”

  A rhythmic banging sounded as four men rammed a heavy wooden bench against the outer face of the door. Ferdie worked his thick lips.

  “Oh, hell. Sheriff’s gonna have my butt, if that door gets broke.”

  “The thing you should be worried about is that I’ve got your butt right now.”

  Ferdie Biggs looked at Smoke Jensen with sudden, shocked realization. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you?”

  “Not unless I have to.” The door vibrated with renewed intensity, and Smoke cut his eyes to it. He saw signs of strain on the oak bar.