Ambush of the Mountain Man

NINETEEN

Monte Carson, acknowledging Pearlie’s superior tracking skills, let him lead the way up the trail northward toward Pueblo.

Pearlie leaned over the side of his mount, and sometimes he even dismounted to squat next to some tracks, as he looked for the telltale signs of the passage of a wagon with new iron rims on the wheels. This caused the group to move slowly, something Cal in his youthfulness chaffed at.

“Jiminy, Pearlie, can’t you go no faster’n that?” he complained.

Louis glanced over at him. “It won’t do much good to race along, making good time, if we’re going in the wrong direction, Cal.” Louis looked up at the sky. “And this snow covering up the tracks isn’t helping matters any either.”

“I know, I know,” Cal agreed. “It’s just that I’m really worried about Smoke.”

Sally smiled grimly. “We all are, Cal, but we mustn’t let that keep us from doing the right thing in searching for him. It is very difficult to keep a clear mind when one is worried or frightened, but that is precisely when it is most important to do so.”

Suddenly, up ahead, Pearlie got down off his horse and knelt next to some tracks just to the side of the road. “Looky, here,” he called, pointing down. “Here’s where the wagon got off the road a little bit an’ outta all the other tracks. It’s our buckboard, all right,” he said, swinging back up into the saddle.

Monte grinned, taking out his six-gun and opening the loading gate to check his loads. “Now, we can ride full out and see if we can catch up to those . . . owlhoots,” he said, glancing at Sally and editing his last few words so as not to offend her.

“But not too fast, Monte,” Louis advised. “We don’t want to ride so fast we run up on the scoundrels without being ready for them, something easy to do in a storm like this. That could get Smoke killed in a hurry.”

Monte nodded and set his hat down tight on his head. He leaned over the saddle horn, spurred his horse, and kicked it into a gallop, with the others following right behind with bandannas tied over their noses and faces to help against the frigid north wind they were riding right into.

Meanwhile, up ahead a few miles, Bob Bartlett, Juan Gomez, and Billy Free had taken up positions on either side of the trail where it narrowed between two large outcroppings of boulders. The forest on either side of the trail was very thick with brush and the land there had a steep slope to it, which would make it almost impossible for anyone to move around and flank them without becoming targets from the high ground.

“How’re we gonna know who to stop, Bob?” Billy asked. “How’re we gonna be able to tell if they’re trackin’ Jensen or not, especially in this storm? Hell, I can’t see shit through all this snow.”

“Don’t much matter, Billy,” Bob answered. “For the next twelve hours or so, till it gets full on dark, we’re gonna stop anybody an’ everbody who tries to come up that there trail. That way we can be sure nobody can catch up to us ‘fore we get to the ranch in Pueblo.”

“But I don’t hanker on killin’ no innocent people, Bob,” Billy said, his forehead creased in a frown. “I know Jensen deserves what he’s gonna get, but shooting down some regular men who just happen to be in a posse just don’t seem right to me,” he complained.

“I didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout killin’ nobody, Billy,” Bob said. He looked around at the spot they had chosen to defend the trail. “From up here, we can keep anybody from passin’ without having to kill ‘em. We just shoot a couple of hosses out from under the riders, hit some rocks close by ‘em, an’ I have a feelin’ they gonna be hightailin’ it back to Big Rock.” He paused and added, “An’ the way this snow is fallin’, they’ll play hell getting a clear shot back at us.”

Billy nodded, relieved. He glanced across the trail to where Juan Gomez was sitting looking over a large rock. “You think Gomez got that message too?” he asked. “Ol’ Juan likes to use his gun a little too much for my taste.”

Bob followed his glance. “He’d better of gotten the message, since I told him flat out if he killed anybody Angus would have his scalp. The old man don’t want this to turn into a range war. He just wants his revenge on the man that killed his son.”

Suddenly, from across the trail came a low whistle. When they looked, they saw Juan pointing down at the trail as it rose to meet them.

A couple of hundred yards away, five riders could barely be seen riding at speed up the road into the teeth of the storm. Bob held up his hand to keep Juan from firing too soon, and he and Billy lay down across the top of the rock they were behind and took careful aim with their Winchesters.

Once the riders got in range, Bob gently squeezed the trigger on his long gun.

Down below, the rider in the lead was thrown head over heels as his horse swallowed its head and collapsed underneath him.

As the other riders jerked their mounts to a halt, both Billy and Juan fired at the same time. Billy missed, but the horse Juan was aiming at screamed and crow-hopped for a few seconds before it too fell to the ground.

Louis struggled to get his leg out from under his big Morgan. When the horse fell, it trapped Louis’s leg underneath it.

Sally jumped off the big Palouse she was riding and ran to Monte’s side. She gently rolled him over and found he was conscious, but barely. The unexpected fall had clearly stunned him badly.

She looked around quickly. There was no good cover nearby. They’d have to retreat at least a hundred yards back up the trail to find someplace to hide.

Pearlie jumped down off his horse and ran to help her, while Cal did the same with Louis. In minutes, supporting him between them, Sally and Pearlie were moving Monte back up the trail and away from the ambushers.

Louis, once Cal had helped him get up, took a moment to put a bullet into the head of his wounded horse so he wouldn’t suffer. One look at Monte’s mount told him the gelding was already dead, so Louis swung up into the saddle behind Cal and they galloped back up the trail heading for cover.

When they came abreast of Sally and Pearlie, who were still struggling with a dazed and incoherent Monte, Louis swung out of the saddle and took Sally’s place helping Pearlie, while Sally rushed to get control of hers and Pearlie’s horses and keep them with them.

As they hustled Monte up the trail, Louis looked back over his shoulder toward the place where the shots had come from. The snow was blowing so hard he could barely see the spot, and he was surprised there hadn’t been any more gunplay. He knew the men hiding up there could have killed them had they so desired, even with the reduced visibility of the snowstorm. Why they hadn’t was a mystery he didn’t have time to puzzle out now. He had to get Monte under cover and then determine if he needed immediate medical help.

Up on the ridge, Bob nodded in satisfaction. They’d done a good job stopping those pilgrims from getting up the trail. He had no idea who they were, whether they were a posse after Jensen or not, but it didn’t make any difference. No one was going to pass their way on this day, no matter who they were.

“You see that, Bob?” Billy asked.

“What?”

“I think one of those people was a woman,” he answered. “I could see her long, black hair hanging out from under her hat when she ran to that man that was on the ground.”

“So?” Bob asked.

“I just can’t believe if’n that was a posse that they’d let a woman ride along. Leastways, I ain’t never seen no woman on a posse before.”

“Like I said before,” Bob said, “it don’t matter none who’s down there. The fact is, it’s our job to keep everybody from passing.”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Now, I’ll keep an eye on those galoots down there, an’ you can get back there an’ stir up that fire. I’m thinkin’ some hot coffee’d sure go down good right now to take the chill out of my bones.”

Down below, Sally had laid Monte down on his back and was sponging his forehead with cool water from her canteen. As snowflakes began to accumulate on his shirt, she had Pearlie cover him with a blanket.

“How are you feeling, Monte?” she asked when he began to shiver.

“I . . . I don’t rightly know, Sally,” he said with a confused look in his eyes. “Where are we and what happened to me?” he asked with a groan.

“We’re on the trail after Smoke’s kidnappers, Monte, and someone shot your horse out from under you, causing you to take a bad fall.”

“Smoke’s kidnappers?” he asked, clearly still confused and unsure of what was going on.

Louis frowned and touched Sally on the shoulder, indicating he wanted to talk with her out of Monte’s hearing.

She got up and they walked a short distance away, turning their backs to the north wind to lessen the chill. “I think he’s got a concussion, Sally,” he said. “I’ve seen it before when someone got hit on the head. It makes them forget what they’ve done the past few days, and it can be very serious.”

“I know,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at Monte’s pale face. “We’ve got to get him back to Big Rock where Dr. Spalding can take a look at him.”

“You think he’s fit to ride a horse?” Louis asked, doubt in his voice.

“Not by himself,” she answered. “But if you ride behind him and help hold him in the saddle, I think he can do it.” She glanced up at the snowflakes drifting down. “He’s going to have to, Louis. This storm looks like it’s going to be pretty bad, and I don’t know if he will survive a night of freezing temperatures, not in his condition.”

“I agree,” Louis said. He looked around at the terrain surrounding them. “Anyway, they’ve got us pretty well boxed in here, and I don’t see any way past them without a larger force of men.” He grinned sourly. “And especially not with the five of us having only three horses left.”

Sally went back over to Monte. “Monte, we’re going to try and get you up on a horse,” she said. “Louis is going to ride with you on the way back to Big Rock.”

As Pearlie and Cal helped Monte to his feet, he leaned over and vomited in the weeds. Louis glanced at Sally and shook his head. He knew from past experience this was not a good sign in men with head injuries.

It took both Cal and Pearlie to get Monte up on the horse and to hold him there while Louis climbed up behind him. “You just hold on to the saddle horn, Monte, and I’ll do the riding for both of us,” Louis said, putting his arms around Monte to grab the reins.

Since she was the lightest, Sally rode double with Cal while Pearlie had his own horse to himself.

“Pearlie, since you’re riding alone, why don’t you hightail it on back to Big Rock and see if you can get the doc to come out to meet us with a buckboard? That way he can get to see Monte sooner,” Louis suggested.

Pearlie touched his hat and put the spurs to his mount, heading back down the trail as fast as he could ride.

It was slow going as they rode toward home. Louis was afraid to push the horse too fast lest he stumble in the snow or jar Monte and cause more problems inside his head.

“Who do you think that was back there that shot us up?” Cal asked as they rode.

“It must have been some of the people that took Smoke,” Sally said.

“I wonder why they didn’t try and kill us,” Louis said. “They certainly had a good chance to do so.”

Sally shook her head. “I don’t know, Louis. Perhaps their only quarrel is with Smoke and they don’t want to kill anyone else unless they have to.”

“But if they’re that angry with Smoke, why take him?” Louis asked. “Once they had the drop on him, why didn’t they just kill him and be done with it? That would have been a lot less dangerous and would have made a lot more sense than taking him prisoner.”

“I don’t know, Louis,” Sally said, “but I do intend to find out, and God help whoever is behind this.”

Louis glanced at Sally and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. He’d seen that look before in Smoke’s eyes, and it always meant someone was about to die.

Suddenly, he felt very sorry for whoever had taken Smoke, for he knew their days were numbered.