Absaroka Ambush

24

Those few hired guns who had ridden their own horses into town rode back to the ranch to get any horse that didn’t have a Circle 45 brand on it. They had taken Puma at his word, which was wise, for the old mountain man had meant what he said, Sheriff Black or no Sheriff Black.

“He what?” Bronco and Clint both screamed at the news.

Tall Mosley repeated what Puma had threatened, and added, “He meant it, Boss. That old man wasn’t kiddin’. I got to get some horses for the boys back in town.”

“Oh, go on, get them,” Clint said, shaking his head. “I should have guessed something like this would happen. I’ll be glad when those old coots are all dead. But Al Martine and Carbone? I can’t figure that. They were after Jensen not that long ago.”

“They switched sides,” Tall said. “I know the story. Martine and Carbone stopped hirin’ their guns and went to ranchin’ down in Mexico. Got them a right nice spread, so I hear. Call it the M/C. And believe me, they don’t have no trouble with rustlers or bandits.”

“Get the horses for the men,” Bronco said. When Tall had left the room, he said to Clint, “You really think that crazy old coot will shoot anyone ridin’ a Circle 45 horse?”

“Oh, yes,” Clint said without hesitation. “But I’ve got horses with every kind of brand you can imagine. And I have bills of sale for them. That’s no worry. Let’s walk outside to the porch. Stuffy in here.”

The rancher and foreman stepped out on the porch and a rifle barked, the slug howling off the stone of the house. Clint and Bronco hit the floor. Another slug, fired from a different direction, came screaming over their heads. A coyote yipped and a wolf replied in a howl.

“Those damned old coots brought friends with them,” Bronco said. “That’s no coyote or wolf.”

Tall Mosley and a few others, caught in the corral, could do nothing except stay low in the dirt, crouched behind whatever cover they could find. Which was precious little.

“Crawl back toward the door,” Clint said. “We can make the house.”

A hand came galloping in from the range and he went galloping back out as long-barreled Springfield rifles, with a range of over three thousand yards, began barking. One knocked his saddle horn off—and another blew his hat off his head. He laid down on the horse’s neck and got the hell gone from there.

The old mountain men on the ridges began making life miserable for those in the house and the hands in the bunkhouses. Stove pipes were knocked loose and windows were shattered. Doors were soon rendered useless as the lead knocked out great chunks of wood. Outhouses were riddled with heavy caliber lead and the horses in the corral screamed and reared and panicked and knocked down the gate. They went thundering out to open range, away from the frightening gunfire and the howling bullets.

Clint Black and Bronco Ford could do nothing except seek cover behind the stone of the house and cuss.

Back in town, the Circle 45 hands sat in the saloon and wondered when in the hell Tall and the others would get back with horses they could ride out on. Not a one of them even remotely considered attempting to mount up on a horse wearing the Circle 45 brand.

Smoke, Martine, Carbone, Huggie, Del, Puma, and Lee waited across the street from the saloon. Waited and watched and smiled at the plight of the hired guns. Harris Black and his deputies sat on the edge of the high boardwalk in front of the sheriff’s office.

And the citizens of the town, men, women, and kids, passed by the saloon in a never-ending stream, pointing and laughing at the grounded gunnies, while the hired guns drank whiskey and got madder by the minute.

“It’s comin’ to a head, Sheriff,” a deputy said. “We ought to stop them people over there. They’re gonna make them gunnies mad and they’ll be a killin’.”

“Not this day, there won’t,” Harris said, rolling a cigarette. “Those boys over there in the saloon aren’t fools. They know that if they opened up on civilians, they’d be slaughtered in two minutes. Smoke and those mountain men and Mex gunslingers would shoot that place to splinters and pick their teeth with what’s left.”

Farmers and riders for other small spreads came into town, saw what was going on, and immediately turned around and beat it back to their places, telling others of the events taking place in Blackstown. By early afternoon, the town was filled up with onlookers.

Out on the Circle 45 range, old mountain men were rounding up the horses and driving them out of the country while others of their kind were having fun riddling the house and bunkhouses with rifle fire.

Up to now, no one had been hurt on either side. Then Clint gave the orders—by shouting—to start making a fight of it.

“Is he out of his mind?” Jim Otis questioned. “Those sharpshooters are a good half mile off and on the ridges. Hell, we can’t even see them.”

“And I seen at least three riders makin’ a gatherin’ of the horses in the south range,” another said. “There’s something goin’ on that I ain’t too sure about.”

Bullets slammed through broken windows and through the now doorless frame. One clanged into a potbellied stove and whined off, spending itself against a wall.

“I’m gettin’ awful tired of this,” Curly Bob Kennedy said. “There’s a wash out back that I think we could make if we stay in the trees. How about it?”

“Let’s go,” another said. “Anything beats this.”

Then the firing abruptly stopped. The hired guns looked at each other for a moment, then slowly began getting to their feet. Most of them veterans of dozens of range wars and shootings, they sensed the sniping was over, at least for this day. A Circle 45 hand walked his horse into the corral. One arm was hanging useless and his shirt was bloody. He was helped from the saddle just as Clint and Bronco walked up.

“Old men,” he said. “Looked like they was all older than God. They rounded up the horses and drove them off. I tried to jerk iron on one of them and he shot me just as cold as could be. Told me to give you a message, Mr. Black. Told me to tell you that you wanted this war, you got it. Now what the hell are you goin’ to do about it?”

Clint’s face hardened. “Who were they, Tim?”

“Boss, I don’t know. I never seen none of them before. They was all dressed in buckskins. And they was old! All of ’em old men. They looked like them drawin’s of mountain men.”

“That’s what they are,” Tall said. “They’ve come out of the caves and hidden cabins up in the high lonesome to help Jensen.”

Clint Black did some fancy cussing. Scoundrel and murderer that he was, he was still a man of the West, and he knew what this development meant. There had never been a breed quite like the mountain man. They were, for the most part, solitary men who could go for months without seeing or speaking to anything other than their horses. They would brook no nonsense from any man, and if they were your friend, you had a friend for life. But if you were their enemy, they would shoot you on sight and do it without hesitation. Clint became aware that his hired guns had fallen silent and were all staring at him.

“They didn’t get all the horses,” Clint said. “Saddle them up and go into the east range and round up those over there. They haven’t been ridden in awhile so they’ll take some topping off. Cleon, you and Donovan hitch up a couple of wagons and go into town and get those men trapped in there.”

“In a wagon, boss?”

Clint’s hard eyes withered him silent. “You got a better idea, Cleon?”

“Ah…no, boss, I reckon not.”

“Then get moving. The rest of you start picking up and repairing the damage. I’ve got to think.”

“I think I’ll ride in with the wagons,” a newly hired gunhand said. “Get me a room at the hotel and take the mornin’ stage out. That is, if you ain’t got no objections. If you do, I’ll walk in.” He dug in his pocket and came up with greenbacks. “Here’s your advance pay, Mr. Black. I ain’t done nothin’ to earn it.”

Clint waved away the money. “You got shot at. That’s enough. Ride in with the wagons and be damned.” He turned and walked back to his shot-up house, Bronco walking beside him.

Hal Bruner looked at the gunny. “You think it’s that bad, Teddy?”

“I think it’s that bad. Man, Clint Black ain’t got a friend in this world. The whole countryside is against him. Now these wild men done come out of their holes and is gunnin’ for him and anyone who rides for him. I’m gone.” He walked back to his bunkhouse to gather up his belongings.

“I think I’ll tag along with Teddy,” another newly hired gunslinger said. “I’m out of this party.”

“Then git,” Grub Carson said. “I don’t want no man stayin’ that I can’t count on.”

“Let’s go get them horses,” Yukon said. “Damned if I feel like walkin’ into town.”

“Who says we’re goin’ into town?” Slim King asked.

“We’re goin’,” Yukon maintained. “Clint ain’t gonna stand for this. Beginnin’ right now, boys, we start earnin’ our money.”

It was an embarrassed bunch of gunslingers who climbed into the bed of the wagons for the bumpy ride back to the Circle 45 range. None of them made any effort to retrieve whatever possessions they might have had in the saddlebags or to get their rifles in the boot. A townsperson talked briefly with Cleon and Donovan, and after the wagons had left he walked over to the sheriff.

“Somebody attacked the Circle 45 headquarters and run off all their horses. They really shot the place up bad. No one was killed, but a hand took a round in the shoulder.”

Smoke, who was standing nearby, said, “Don’t look at me, Sheriff. I don’t know a thing about it and I’d swear on a Bible I had no knowledge of it.”

“I believe you,” Harris said. “But this little stunt just might be the final straw for my brother. You best brace yourself.” He looked around. Puma and Lee had vanished. “Now where did those two old rowdies go?”

“I have no idea,” Smoke told him. “I didn’t send for them. They don’t work for me or the Double D. They’ve lived a long, rich, full life, Harris. They’d rather go out in a blaze of glory. And they damn sure don’t take orders from any man.”

“Yeah,” the sheriff said. “I noticed.”

“You think Preacher sent them, Smoke?” Sally asked as they sat alone in a swing in the side yard that evening.

“I’m not even sure that Preacher is still alive, Sally. I think he is, and living in that home for old mountain men and gunfighters. No, I think these ol’ boys just heard the news and couldn’t wait to jump right in the middle of a good fight.”

Sally looked around her in the dim light of gathering gloom. Mountains loomed all around them. “I wonder where they are right now?”

“The old mountain men? Oh, they’re gathered around a little hat-sized fire, boiling coffee and searing fresh-killed deer or maybe one of the Double D’s steers. They’re laughing about what took place this day and figuring on how best to stir up some more trouble tomorrow. Don’t worry about them. They’ve been taking care of themselves since long before you and I were born.”

“But they’re old men, honey. They’re in their seventies and eighties.”

Smoke chuckled. “And they’re still tough as rawhide and mean as a just-woke grizzly. Sally, those ol’ boys are having the time of their lives. They’re giggling and cackling like a bunch of schoolboys right now. Oh, they’ve got aches and pains from rheumatism and the years of badly-set broken bones and the like. But this is fun to them. They’ve got something to do now. They feel a purpose to their lives. I hope none of them get hurt or killed. But if they do, they went into this with their eyes wide open. I lived with mountain men, Sally. I know the type of men they are; I’m a part of that breed. Don’t worry about them.”

From miles away, they both caught the very faint howl of a wolf echoing around the mountains. Another joined in, then another. Smoke chuckled. “That’s them, isn’t it?” Sally asked.

“Yes, that’s Puma and Lee and their friends. But they’re not doing that for my ears. That’s over on the Circle 45 range. They’re letting Clint and his gunhands know they’re still around. I’d like to be a fly on the wall of the bunkhouses right now.

“Old bastards!” Tall said, as he sat on his bunk, cleaning his guns.

Yukon Golden smiled. “I hear you had your chance at some of them this day. And Al Martine, too. What’s the matter, Tall, you have a change of heart?”

Tall stared at the man. “It ain’t over yet, Yukon. And was I you, I’d watch my mouth.”

“Shut up! “Bronco said from the open door. It would be open for some time, since the mountain men had shot it off. “The both of you. We’re riding tonight. We’re gonna hit the town and burn it to the ground!”