Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) (3 page)

When it had its fill, perhaps it would amble away, Smoke reasoned. That would give him time to get down, get Thunder, and get the hell out of there.

Nightfall found the grizzly still there. He growled, yawned, grunted in frustration, stomped the ground, and made frequent trips from tree to pond and pond to tree. Smoke hung on and sweated. He removed his belt and fastened it around the trunk and retreaded the buckle. At least he would not fall asleep and become bruin breakfast. The ursine grumbling went on until a thin sliver of moon appeared to float majestically through the plethora of stars in an inky sky. At last, he fell asleep. So did Smoke. His last thought echoed in his head.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

A squat, bow-legged man, with grizzled, thinning hair, looked up from his kitchen table at the sound of a hollow thump that came from the small dock he had constructed out into the Colorado River. Visitors. And wouldn’t you know it, right at breakfast time. Hiram Wells cut his eyes to the cloth-draped larder. He knew by heart what was within it.

Plenty of slab bacon. Only two eggs. Chickens had been acting offish lately. Flour for biscuits. Cornmeal, too. It would serve, and he could come out of it with a few cents in hard money. That would come in handy. Hiram pushed back his chair and came to his feet as he heard boots thud on the planks of his dock. He reached the door in time to count three men approaching at a stiff gait. One of them, he noted, limped. Too long in a boat, Hiram judged.

Yeah, but from where? And all night? The questions plagued him while the strangers approached. They came straight on, not even a howdy. The one in the lead nodded pleasantly.

“Mornin’. We’d be happy to pay if you could fix us something for breakfast.”

Hiram pondered a moment. They stood and carried themselves like men of quality. Businessmen or the like. Yet they wore the thread-bare pull-over shirts and butternut linsey-woolsey trousers, with the broad black stripes that marked them as escaped convicts from the prison down-river at Yuma. A sudden chill struck him. Had he let them get too close already? Hiram decided to hedge.

“I’m a tad light on supplies, gentlemen. But I reckon I can whip up some bacon and some scrambled eggs. Biscuits or cornbread. I’ve some honey.”

“Fine, fine,” the apparent leader said rapidly. “Anything will do. We’re rather hungry.”

He had that cultured way of speaking, Hiram noted. Could be he was mistaken about the clothes. They might be some back-Easty fashionable hunting togs. “Come on in, then,” he invited.

Hiram went to the stove and turned his back to them. That way he failed to note the quick exchange between the trio. His cartridge belt and six-gun hung on a peg in the wall. Above it hung a shotgun and a use-shiny Winchester. Hiram heard a soft footfall and then the strident click of sear notches as a hammer ratcheted back.

Hiram did not hear the bark of his Model ’60 Remington conversion revolver. The bullet beat the sound to his head by a split second. Hiram Wells slammed sideways into the wall and fell dead to the floor. Quickly, Ralph Tinsdale undertook the duties of the cook. He provided a warm meal in minimal time. Victor Spectre had to cut Olin Buckner out of his boot, then all three sat down to consume the food hurriedly. They included that which the late Hiram had prepared for himself.

With their bellies full, they took the flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt, a tub of lard, and the remaining portion of the bacon slab. Done up in a flour sack, the provender accompanied them as they went to the small barn in search of horses. An hour after sinking their escape boat, Victor Spectre and his partners rode off without a trace.

Morning found Smoke Jensen still literally up a tree. He awakened to loud growling—from the bear and from his stomach. He had not eaten since the previous noon. Smoke opened gummy eyes and rubbed them, then looked down to find the grizzly reared back on his haunches, staring up. He had a hungry expression. A night in a tree without even a blanket had induced a lot of stiffness. Smoke hoped that it would not make him a quick snack for the bear. Abruptly, the bruin came to all fours and resumed his circular post around the pine tree.

With each pace on the left side, the grizzly emitted fearsome growls. Each with the right, disturbing rumbles. Smoke looked on and considered his chances of killing the creature with six loads. At least he might incapacitate the animal and not have to track it down later. He had about resigned himself to having to shoot the creature when it stopped pacing abruptly and reared on its massive hind legs.

Its small, pig-eyes stared myopically while it turned its head from side to side, as it listened to slight sounds as yet unheard by Smoke. Gradually, Smoke made out faint hoofbeats and snatches of conversation. The bear’s ears twitched, the black muzzle pointed in the direction of the sound. Dropping to all fours, the animal bolted for hiding in a lumbering gait as two riders cantered into view. Within three minutes, Smoke recognized them, grateful for the help, yet wishful that it had been anyone else but these two.

A laughing Monte Carson reined in under the tree. His face wreathed in mirth, Hank Evans sat beside him. “Hoo-haw! Look what we have here!” Monte chortled. Mid-morning sunlight winked off his sheriff’s badge.

“What do you suppose got him up there?” Hank asked through a titter of laughter.

“Couldn’t be that bear, could it?” Monte queried rhetorically. “That big ol’ grizzly bear?” He held his sides and howled with merriment.

“You mean that little-bitty fur ball that got scared off by our horses?” Hank kept up the badinage.

“That’s it. That’s the one,” Monte guffawed.

“This is it!”
Smoke corrected, while he brandished a big, knobby fist. “This is the one that will smack you right between the runnin’ lights when I get down out of this damned tree.”

“Oh, why, come right ahead,” Monte taunted.

Smoke glowered at them. “Do you think you two could stop cacklin’ like a barnyard full of hens long enough to give me a hand getting down?”

Hank snaked a rope up to Smoke, who draped it over the limb. Then the last mountain man released himself from his emergency sling, restrung his belt and swung one leg over the branch. Balanced sideways, he inserted a boot toe in the loop of the lariat and turned around to hang from his hands.

“Lower away,” he gave the sign.

In less than a minute, Smoke had returned to solid ground. His mood had not improved the least while Monte Carson and Hank Evans plied him with questions about how he had been caught off guard by the grizzly. Hank laid a fire and filled a coffeepot with fresh water. He set that to boil and broke out Smoke’s skillet.

“I’ll bet you’re hungry, right?” he asked Smoke dryly.

“Don’t even mention it.”

“Bacon, eggs, an’ fried tatters?” Hank prompted.

“A pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, and two pounds of potatoes with onions, if you please,” Smoke answered calmly. “And that’s just for starters.” Then his temper caught him out again.
“And I don’t like bein’ done for!”

His voice echoed across the water in the silence that followed. As though on a signal all three men broke up in side-splitting laughter. Finally, Smoke choked out a sensible reply. “I’ll tell you about it after the first cup of coffee.”

Monte stepped forward, extending a silver flask in one hand. “I’ve got a little rye to spike it with.”

“Good,” Smoke grumped. “Damn good. Then you’ll hear it all.”

After Smoke had recounted his incident with the bear, with frequent interruptions of sniggers and out-and-out hee-haw braying laughter, he got around to asking Monte what had brought the lawman out from Big Rock. Monte took a pull on his coffee, rubbed his chin in a contemplative manner, and turned his sky-blue eyes on Smoke.

“Well, it might not mean anything at all. It’s something I picked up from the telegraph. Only, the names were familiar, and I did want an excuse to sample some of Sally’s great pie, so I rode out to tell you about it.”

“Well, then, stop chasin’ around Murphy’s barn and do it,” Smoke responded in mock irritation.

“All right, I will. Three men have escaped from Yuma Prison.”

It left Smoke unimpressed and unconcerned. “There’s more than that has gotten out of there.”

Monte ignored Smoke’s teasing interruption. “These three went together. Beings as how you put all of them behind bars, I got to thinkin’ that maybe you should know.”

“Who are they?’

Monte named them. Smoke listened and shook his head. “I remember those three right well. I had no idea they had gotten together in prison. How’d a thing like that happen?”

Right at home with this sort of situation, Monte called off the list. “Attempted escape can get a man transferred. So can a killing inside prison that a certain convict cannot be proven to have done. Or just being a constant pain in the ass. There’s plenty of causes. And, considering the Territorial Prison at Yuma is the hellhole of the entire system, no doubt the worst all wind up there eventually.”

Smoke nodded affirmatively. “You’ve described Buckner, Spectre, and Tinsdale perfectly, Monte. They are all killers, they would no doubt contrive to escape, and beyond any doubt, they are all huge pains in the ass.”

“There’s more. They badly injured one guard, and killed another and a turnkey on the way out.”

“Yep. I had no idea they’d been put together, like I said, but with these killings, it makes it clear that they’re up to no good. Now, let’s put out this fire and go look at a piece of that pie.”

After the noon-hour rush, business had slackened off at the Grand Canyon Saloon, in the Arizona town of the same name. Five cronies sat around a green baise-topped table playing a desultory game of poker. The hands took forever to be played and the largest bet was half a dollar. At another table, one sequestered in a shadow-darkened corner, Spectre, Tinsdale, and Buckner sat conducting business. They had been in the settlement on the rim of the Grand Canyon for less than a day. They had as yet to pay any notice to the spectacular view. Bored with the lack of activity, Buckner nodded toward the card players.

“Last of the big-time spenders.”

Victor Spectre studied him over the rim of a whiskey glass. “I’d not sneer, were I you. Up until we killed that old man on the Colorado, the most you’ve had in your pocket for the last fifteen years is lint, Olin. You would have sold your soul for fifty cents cash money.”

Buckner flushed deep red. That had hit too close to home. He had sold his soul, or at least it seemed like that, when he was younger and his need for tobacco had become overwhelming. He had stolen it. The first theft of his life. He lost his chance to make a testy reply when a tall, lean, hard-looking man approached their table. The stranger appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and did not remove his hat or act in the least servile, Olin Buckner noted. At a distance of three feet, the man stopped and cleared his throat.

“I hear you’re lookin’ to hire some men.”

“We are. Are you, by chance, interested?” Victor Spectre responded.

A fleeting, icy smile spread full lips. “Not by chance, by lack of other employment. What is it you are hiring for?”

“We need men good with their guns. And I like to know the name of any man I’m talking business with.”

“My name’s Jaeger. Gus Jaeger. M’given name is Augustus, but it’s a lot to work your tongue around, so I shortened it. And who might you be?”

“I am Victor Spectre, these gentlemen are my partners in this little endeavor. Ralph Tinsdale and Olin Buckner. Now, Mr. Jaeger, take a seat and we can discuss this a little further.”

When Jaeger took one of the straight-back chairs, reversed it and seated himself, Spectre signaled the bartender for a round. When that had been duly delivered and the apron absented himself, Spectre steepled his fingers on the green table and spoke in a low voice.

“It did not take much initiative or effort for us to do a little research. I suppose your current unemployment has something to do with the three years you spent in prison for stagecoach robbery, Mr. Jaeger. The others in the gang got considerably more time, am I correct?”

Gus Jaeger went white from anger and clenched a fist before answering. His cold, hazel eyes burned under black brows. “You’re right about that. The reason is I hadn’t pulled as many jobs with the boys as they got caught for. What business is it of yours to go snoopin’ into a man’s past?”

“Oh, we did not do anything so shady, believe me. We simply went through some of the sheriff’s old wanted posters and reviewed past issues of the newspapers. Your name came up, along with some others. We left invitations in their postal boxes, like the one you received. So far, you are the first to respond.”

Jaeger’s full, fleshy lips pulled wide in a rueful grin. He removed his Montana Peak Stetson, revealing thick, black hair, and sailed it toward a row of hooks on the near wall. It caught and held. By then he had recovered himself enough to speak calmly.

“I’m surprised there has not been more interest. What exactly do you have in mind?”

“There is this man. He needs doing away with,” Spectre evaded.

Jaeger looked them over with a puzzled frown. “You want to hire a killing? There’s three of you. Why don’t you simply find him and do it yourselves?”

“It’s—well, it is not quite that easy.” Spectre still tried to avoid naming the target.

“Why not? Is he a gunfighter?”

“Yes, Mr. Jaeger, he is.”

Smiling, Jaeger knocked back his whiskey and tilted his chair away from the table. “Well, then, you needn’t worry about any other applicants. There’s not anyone around that’s better than me in a one-on-one shoot-out. I could even handle two to one, if necessary. If you gentlemen are satisfied, you’ve got yourself all the gunhand you’ll need. By the way, who is this gunfighter?”

“It’s—ah—Smoke Jensen,” Spectre regretfully gusted out.

Jaeger’s chair legs banged noisily back onto the floor and his jaw sagged. Belatedly, he closed his mouth and swallowed hard. “If I weren’t so hard up for work, I’d tell you just how crazy you are and high-tail it out of here.”

Tinsdale responded dryly. “You’ve heard of him, I gather?”

“Heard
of him? I grew up readin’ penny dreadfuls about Smoke Jensen. If only a quarter of it was true, he’s pure hell on wheels. Not anyone I’d want to go up against alone. Hell, I’d be afraid to even try to back-shoot him.”

“It is wise to have a healthy respect for an adversary,” Spectre stated flatly. “Though hardly good to fear someone you are engaged to dispose of. Are you sure you can conquer your awe of Jensen long enough to make an end of him?”

After a long moment of careful thought, Jaeger made reply. “Of course I can. Especial, I’ve got me three or four good boys to back me up.”

Victor Spectre responded almost primly. “We were thinking of more like twenty. Very well, Mr. Jaeger, consider yourself hired. We will, naturally, pay for your hotel accommodations and meals, with a two dollar a day stipend until we are ready to move on.”

“Is Smoke Jensen here, in Arizona?”

“Not that we know of. We assume we will need to do something to flush him out of his high valley ranch in the Colorado Rockies. Until we are in a position to do that, we must build up a sizable gang to make things happen as we want them to. Now, you can do us a first service. Spread the word to those of like inclination. Tell them we are prepared to be most generous.” He paused a moment and pinned Jaeger with his cold eyes. “Only don’t tell them who they’ll be facing.”

After Gus Jaeger departed Olin Buckner spoke what was on all their minds. “A good thing that old man was a miser, or we’d not be able to be so generous.”

“Yes, quite,” Spectre answered. “We will have to act quickly to replenish our purse after our recruiting is ended here, Olin.”

“What did you have in mind, Victor?” Tinsdale asked.

“We have engaged the services of an expert highwayman. I think we should find out all we can about the stage lines coming into here and what they carry.”

Buckner brightened. “Yes. And there are banks along the way, too. By the way, where are we going?”

Spectre spoke in a tone that suggested he had been thinking on the subject for a long while. “North. Perhaps as far as into Wyoming. There’s a place there guaranteed to make Smoke Jensen come to us.”

“Where’s that?” Tinsdale demanded.

“Later. You will all know when the time is right.”

Over the next three days, they learned all that could be expected about the stage lines. Spectre and his partners also interviewed close to twenty-five men. Among them certified hard cases, murderers, and a number of outlaw wanna-bes. They rejected all but two of the latter, and one of the killers, who had an odd cast in his eye that made him appear to be studying them for the best method of making their deaths long and excruciating. That left the trio of vengeance-hungry felons a total of seventeen gunhands.

“We’ll get more along the way,” Spectre advised them philosophically.

“Why do we need more?”

Spectre smiled patronizingly. “Simple, Olin. We have to have a veritable army to take over an entire town.”

Eyebrows climbed Buckner’s forehead. “What town?”

“In due time, Olin. At the right moment, everyone will know. Please, do not bring up the subject again. Uh—Mr. Jaeger, notify the others that we will be leaving early tomorrow morning.”

“Right away, Boss. And—ah—call me Gus, everyone does. And I can call you…?”

“Mister
Spectre,” Victor interrupted.

An hour after first light, the eighteen hard cases rode out of Grand Canyon with the partners. They left by twos and threes in order not to attract unwanted attention. Twenty miles out of town, where the trail disappeared around the curved base of a large hill, Victor Spectre called a halt.

“Men, Gus here has considerable experience at holding up stagecoaches. Miller and Brock, as I understand, have some acquaintance with the technique also.”

An erstwhile thug named Huntoon screwed up his face and, in an Appalachian accent, asked a baby-faced gunfighter named Carpenter next to him, “What’s that feller say?”

Carpenter cut his pale ice-blue eyes to Huntoon. “He says Jaeger, Miller, an’ Brock have robbed themselves a few stages.”

Brow furrowed, Huntoon considered this. “That a fact?”

Spectre ignored the aside and went on. “In a short while, a stage, heavily laden with the payroll for the Valle del Cobre mine, will be coming around that curve. We are going to rob it. In order to do this, you will follow the orders of Mr. Jaeger. Misters Miller and Brock will direct the two phases of the operation. Obey them as you would myself and we shall all enjoy the spoils.”

“We gonna split it up share for share?” Huntoon raised his voice to inquire.

“No. My partners and I shall use the proceeds to pay you your new wage of ten dollars a day.”

An excited murmur ran through the outlaws and thugs. The only objection came from Huntoon. “Now that’s mighty generous, Mr. Spectre, but we’d prefer equal shares.”

Victor Spectre’s face flushed dark red. Fury burned in his green eyes, and sparks crackled in his voice. “And would you also prefer to be left stone dead beside the trail?”

“Uh—no, sir. Not at all, nosir.”

“Then leave the financial affairs of this jolly band to your betters, Mr Huntoon.”

Huntoon’s mouth almost got him dead after all. “What d’y’all mean my betters?’ Y’all may talk lak a dandy but you ain’t nothin’ more than another jailbird on the run. I done seed the flyer in the post office.”

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed in Spectre’s harsh rejoinder.
“We are your betters,
you hillbilly trash, for the simple reason that we can read and write and we do not dally with our cousins and sisters.”

Had it been any other man, or had he not seen Carpenter, a feller he thought of as a friend, put his hand on the butt of his Colt, Huntoon would have dragged iron. Instead he lowered his eyes and spoke softly as he would to his father. “Yes, Boss. You’re right, Boss.” It didn’t keep him from brooding on the idea of a future feud.

Victor Spectre did not even attempt to hide the smirk on his lips. “Very well. Gus, divide the men according to your needs and get them in position. We haven’t much time.”

Twenty minutes later the keener ears among the gang picked up the faint jingle and slap of chain and tack over the rumble of hooves and crunch of iron-shod tires. Before long the creaking of the coach could be heard. It surprised Victor to see the nervousness of so many among his band of desperados. He trusted that they would perform better than it looked like they could.

The flying manes and outstretched necks of the coach horses came into view around the curve. At once, men rode out of the brush and trees to either side of the trail and fired at the men on the driver’s bench. Others blocked the roadway and two of them reached for the lead horses. A shotgun boomed and one of the outlaws screamed horribly. More gunshots crackled from the robbers and the guard slumped dead.

A moment later, the driver dropped the reins and threw up his hands. He pitched forward over the dashboard and fell to the tongue. The horses came to a calamitous halt, the hind four ramming forward into the rumps of those ahead. Swaying wildly, the coach juddered to a halt. From inside, a lone passenger fired a futile, unwise shot. Three rounds answered him.

Silence followed. Then, the unseen passenger groaned as the masked men walked their mounts to the coach. Fin Brock dismounted and opened the door. The wounded passenger leaned outward and two highwaymen helped him from the stage. They sat him against a boulder and ignored him thereafter. It took little time to discover the three large strongboxes filled with gold and silver coin.