Assault of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Word had spread, not just through the saloon, but all through town, that someone had challenged Wes Harley to a gunfight in the street. The name of the man who had challenged him, Dixon informed the others, was Buck West, a long-ago resident of Risco.

“Why does this West fella want to go up agin’ Harley for?” someone asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to make a name for himself. Whoever kills Wes Harley is goin’ to be famous, that’s for sure.”

“No. What you mean is, whoever goes up agin’ Wes Harley is goin’ to be dead. And that’s what’s about to happen here. We’re about to see this Buck West fella get hisself kilt by Wes Harley.”

Outlaw Way was lined on both sides with spectators, as every resident of Risco had turned out to watch the gunfight.

Smoke was standing in front of the saloon. He felt a little exposed. No doubt there were people in the crowd who had one reason or another to want him dead. But there was also an intense interest running through the crowd, the excitement of seeing a gunfight take place between two men who had far-reaching reputations as to their skills with a pistol.

“Here comes Harley!” someone shouted, and the excitement of the crowd grew more pronounced.

Someone had told Smoke that Wes Harley looked like a walking skeleton, and he thought that description was apt. Harley was a gangly-looking man, that was true, but it wasn’t the fact that he was skinny, as much as that he was hairless, and his head really did look like a skull.

He walked into the middle of the street in front of the general store. He stood, not facing Smoke, but with his side to him, presenting much less of a target that way.

“Before I kill you, mister, you want to tell me who you are?” Harley asked.

“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”

Smoke’s name arced through the crowd, from man to man, like an electric spark jumping between the telegraph key and the sounder.

“Smoke Jensen!”

“Jensen!”

“If there is anyone who could face Harley even up, it would be Jensen.”

“I hope he kills Harley. I haven’t liked that son of a bitch since he got here.”

“Hell, I wish they would just kill each other.”

Laughter greeted the last comment.

“Folks! Folks, let me have your attention!” Judge Webb shouted, stepping into the street between Smoke and Harley. He held his arms up in the air. “Your attention, please!”

“You got our attention, Judge. Say whatever it is you are a’plannin’ on sayin’,” someone from the crowd called back.

“Mr. Jensen came to me a little while ago. He has assured me he is not here in pursuit of bounty, nor does he want to arrest anyone. Oddly enough, his fight is not with Harley, but with Dinkins, and Frank and Travis Slater, they being the men who shot his wife. But, I pointed out that I do not think he can get to them without going through Mr. Harley, thus bringing about the confrontation we are all about to witness.

“I’m going to say now that if anyone in the crowd violates the integrity of this duel, I will see to it that you join Mr. Marlow in hanging from the tree.”

“So,” Harley said. “You are the famous Mr. Smoke Jensen. Yes, sir, killing you is going to be quite a feather in my cap.”

Smoke said nothing.

“You have nothing to say to me, Mr. Jensen?” Harley came down hard on the word mister.

“I’m not here to have a conversation with you, Harley. I’m here to kill you,” Smoke said calmly.

Because of the way Harley was standing, presenting his left side to Smoke, his gun hand was hidden. Smoke couldn’t be sure when Harley started his draw. When he saw Harley twist around toward him, he realized Harley had already pulled his gun, getting it out stealthily as they were talking.

Harley fired even as Smoke was drawing, but the bullet missed, flying past his ear with a loud pop. Smoke returned fire and didn’t miss.

Harley went down on his back, his arms extended on either side, his gun sliding out several inches from his hand.

Smoke held the smoking pistol in his hand for a moment longer. When he was convinced Wes Harley was dead, he holstered his pistol.

Several of the crowd gathered around Harley, looking down at him with morbid curiosity, thus leaving Smoke standing alone, several feet away.

“Mr. Jensen?” The woman who called out to him was short, fat, and aging.

“Yes?”

“You don’t remember me, Mr. Jensen, but my name is Wanda. I met you once many years ago when you were playing cards in a saloon where I was working.”

Smoke smiled, and touched the brim of his hat. “Well, it’s nice to see you again, Wanda.”

“Thank you, but I’m not trying to call back old memories or anything. I understand you are looking for Dinkins and his men?”

“Yes, I am. Do you know where they are?”

“They rode out of town about fifteen minutes ago, soon as they heard your name.”

It wasn’t hard to pick up the trail of three horses moving quickly. Smoke was too far back, and they were moving too fast for him to catch a glimpse of them, but he didn’t need to see them to know where they were going. The trail was leading into a canyon. Black Canyon.

One of the steepest, darkest, and most rugged of all canyons, Black Canyon was formed by the Gunnison River as it flowed through hard ancient rocks at the western edge of the Rocky Mountains on its way to joining the Colorado River at Grand Junction. Smoke had been there before. He knew the canyon walls, composed of volcanic schist, were predominantly black in color, and because the gorge reached a depth of over 2,000 feet and because it was no more than 1,500 feet across, the walls seldom received any direct sunlight. For that reason it was called Black Canyon.

Smoke was a little leery as he approached the canyon. He knew it would be an ideal place for the outlaws to set up an ambush. He stopped for a moment and listened hard, trying to hear anything from ahead ... the whicker of a horse, a voice, even the scratch of iron-shod hooves on stone. If there had been any sound, it should have carried to him quite easily, as the canyon walls had the effect of a megaphone.

But, listen though he did, he could hear nothing.

He reached down and patted his horse on the neck. “What do you think, Seven? You up to going in there?”

Seven whickered, as if he understood what Smoke was saying. The horse was exceptionally intelligent with an innate awareness of things. Smoke knew that Seven sensed danger, but he also knew the horse wouldn’t falter.

Smoke took a deep breath and pulled his rifle from the saddle sheath, then started into the canyon. He hadn’t ridden more than one hundred yards into the canyon before Seven stopped.

“I know, boy, I feel it too.” Smoke neither heard nor saw anything. But, in that sixth sense developed by men who constantly live on the edge of danger, he felt something. Suddenly a bullet whizzed by not six inches in front of his face. It hit a big rock on the other side of the trail, then whined off into space, while the canyon reverberated with the flat crack and high-pitched scream of the missed rifle shot.

With his rifle in his hand, Smoke slid down quickly. “Get back, Seven.”

As the horse whirled around and galloped out of the canyon, Smoke ran toward a nearby line of large rocks, diving for cover just as another shot rang out. Like the first one, it was so close he could hear the bullet passing.

“Jensen, is that you?” a voice called from a position partway up the canyon wall. “Did you kill my brother?”

Like the rifle shots before, the last word echoed back and forth through the canyon.

Brother ... brother ... brother ...

“If Wes Harley was your brother, I killed him.”

Killed him ... killed him ... killed him ...

As soon as he shouted, Smoke rolled to his right to deny them a target. As it turned out, it was the right thing to do. A bullet kicked up sand and pebble at the exact spot where he had been but a second earlier.

Moving to the end of the row of rocks, he studied the canyon wall on the opposite side. He was on one side of the trail and they were on the other. There was no way he could cross the open space unseen.

“We didn’t know the woman we shot was your wife!” the voice yelled.

Wife ... wife ... wife ...

“Besides, she ain’t kilt!”

“Besides, she ain’t kilt!”

Kilt ... kilt ... kilt ...

“No thanks to you,” Smoke shouted.

You ... you ... you ...

He rolled to his left and coming out of the roll, had the rifle to his shoulder, looking out across the barrel at the canyon wall toward the sound of the outlaw’s voice. He saw the puff of smoke from the outlaw’s rifle, then saw the outlaw raise up slightly to have a look. He only stayed up for a second, but that was all Smoke needed. He squeezed the trigger. The Winchester roared and kicked back against his shoulder. A second later the outlaw tumbled down the wall on the other side of the canyon.

“Frank! Frank!” a frightened voice called. “Dinkins, he got my brother! He got Frank!”

Frank ... Frank ... Frank ...

“Yeah? Well, he shoulda kept his head down,” Dinkins replied.

“We shouldn’t have come into this canyon,” Travis said. “We ain’t got no way out!”

Out ... out ... out ...

“Travis is right, Dinkins,” Smoke called up to him. “You boys are in trouble. You have no way out of here, without coming through me.”

Me ... me ... me ...

“Seems to me you’re the one in trouble. We got you trapped down there,” Dinkins replied.

“Uh-uh,” Smoke said. “I’ve got my water and food with me. I’ll just bet you fellas left yours with your horses.”

“He’s right, Dinkins! We ain’t got no water or nothin’ up here.”

“Shut up, Travis. Don’t be such a yellow belly! See if you can get a look at where he’s at.”

“Uh-uh, I ain’t movin’ from here and I ain’t stickin’ my head up, neither,” Travis replied. “I seen what happened to Frank. Jensen kilt my brother.”

“Well he kilt my brother, too.”

“The difference is, you run out on your brother,” Travis said. “Me ’n Frank didn’t run out on each other.”

Dinkins began firing wild and unaimed shots, which gave Smoke a chance to improve his own position without fear of being hit. Crouching over, he ran behind the line of rocks, then darted across the little open gap so he was on the same side of the trail as the outlaws.

“Did you get him?” Travis called.

From the sound of Travis’s voice, Smoke knew he was no more than fifty or sixty yards away. He began looking around for a way up to him.

“I don’t think so,” Dinkins called back. Clearly, Dinkins was farther back in the canyon.

“You musta got him. I don’t see him or hear him movin’ around down there. I think you got him,” Travis said.

Smoke smiled at their confusion.

“Shoot again,” Travis called.

“You shoot,” Dinkins replied. “I’ll keep an eye open and if he returns your fire, I’ll have him.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to shoot at. He’s like a ghost or somethin’.”

“Take a look, Travis, see if you can see him!” Dinkins called out again.

“I ain’t movin’,” Travis said again.

“Shoot at him, you sonofabitch, or I’ll shoot at you,” Dinkins said angrily.

Smoke saw Travis lift his head up. Unlike the others who had rifles, Travis was armed only with a pistol. He began shooting, wild, unaimed shots at the rocks on the other side of the canyon where Smoke had been earlier. The bullets hit the rocks then careened off, screaming long, descending wails that echoed and reechoed and reechoed through the canyon.

“Do you see him?” Dinkins shouted.

Him ... him ... him ...

“No!”

No ... no ... no ...

Smoke managed to climb up a fissure until he was just a few feet away. He waited until the hammer on Travis’s gun fell on an empty chamber.

“All right, I shot at him,” Travis called. “Now it’s your time to shoot at him. I’m out of bullets! I have to reload!”

“You dumb bastard, you didn’t do nothin’ but waste your bullets,” Dinkins replied.

Smoke stepped out in front of Travis at that moment.

“No!” Travis screamed. He raised his pistol and pointed it at Smoke, snapping the trigger even though his gun was empty.

Smoke took him down with a vertical butt stroke of his rifle.

“Travis! Travis, what’s goin’ on over there? What were you yellin’ about?”

Smoke remained quiet.

“Travis, what is it? Answer me!”

“He can’t answer you, Dinkins,” Smoke said.

“What? What are you talking about? Where are you? Where is Travis?”

Smoke looked down at Travis and could tell by the twist in his neck, and his open, but sightless eyes, still fixed in his last instant of terror, that Travis was dead.

“Where is Travis?” Dinkins called again.

“He’s dead,” Smoke answered. “He’s dead, Frank is dead, and Wes Harley is dead. Now there is only you.”

“I give up!” Dinkins said. “Don’t shoot, I’m comin’ down. I give up! Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Smoke said. “Come on out here with your hands high.”

Dinkins came walking down a path that led up to a higher ridge. His hands were up as Smoke had ordered, but he was holding a rifle in his right hand.

Smoke noticed that, though Dinkins was holding the rifle over his head, his hand was wrapped around the narrow part of the stock and the receiver, his finger was inside the trigger guard, and actually on the trigger itself. Smoke also noticed that the hammer was cocked.

“Throw down the rifle,” he ordered.

Dinkins looked up at his rifle, then back toward Smoke, and smiled. “Ahh, no foolin’ the great Smoke Jensen is there? You seen the rifle cocked. Well, you can’t blame me for tryin’, can you?”

“Throw it down,” Smoke ordered.

Dinkins pulled the trigger, firing the rifle. Though as it was over his head and aimed to one side, it represented no danger to Smoke.

“That was just to keep it from goin’ off when it hits the ground. Wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we? It might have gone off on me. Or you.” Dinkins chuckled, then tossed the rifle aside.

“Tell me, Jensen, do you know any good lawyers?” he asked. “Whoever it is, I hope it ain’t the same one that defended Parnell. Poor old Parnell got hisself hung. But I’m sure you know that.”

All the time Dinkins was talking to Smoke, he was going down the path—an easy walk sometimes. Other times, where the path made a steep drop, or in some other way made its transit difficult, Dinkins put one or two hands on a rock to help him negotiate the obstacle.

When Dinkins was no more than thirty feet from Smoke the path stepped down about three feet. It was too far to step directly down, but a rock outcropping provided Dinkins with some leverage when he put his hand on it. He stepped down with some difficulty.

Smoke had been watching him descend, almost lulled into the slow, laborious operation, when all of a sudden a pistol appeared in Dinkins’ hand.

Dinkins wasn’t wearing a holster. That was one of the first things Smoke had checked. So, where did the pistol come from?

That wasn’t a thought Smoke dwelled on for more than a split second, for a split second is all the time he had to respond. He fired, his bullet hitting Dinkins in the middle of his chest.

Dinkins fell headfirst down the drop, his head hitting the stone ground below. He flipped over on his back, then stared up through open, but sightless eyes.