Law of the Mountain Man

12

Smoke shifted his attentions to the front of the mansion as Jud Vale stepped out onto the porch with a cup of coffee in his hand and took a chair. Smoke envied him that cup of coffee, for a fact. His had been a cold camp the night before, and he sorely missed his usual full pot of hot, strong, black cowboy coffee upon waking up.

He contended himself by chewing on a biscuit sandwich made with fried salt pork and chasing it down with sips of water from his canteen.

The girl Smoke had seen meeting with Clint Perkins came out onto the porch and began talking to Jud, gesturing with her hands.

Jud shook his head a couple of times and then, with an angry expression on his face, pointed toward the door. The girl, her shoulders slumped in defeat, walked back inside the house.

Jud stood up and hollered something; Smoke could see his lips move but could not make out the words. Three men stepped out of a bunkhouse and walked toward the house. Three more men, with the girl in tow, quite unwillingly, Smoke noted, by the way one held onto her arm, came out of the mansion to stand by Jud on the porch.

The man holding onto the girl nodded his head and the three went back into the mansion. Shifting his glasses. Smoke watched as Clint ran the short distance from shed to back porch and then disappeared into the mansion.

Gong to get interesting very soon, Smoke thought.

Jud’s horse was saddled and led to the porch, and Jud and three of his bodyguards rode off. Smoke finished his biscuit and salt meat and waited for something to start popping.

It wasn’t long in coming.

One man was suddenly hurled through a side window, the side of his head bloody. Gunfire shattered the early morning quiet and one of Jud’s bodyguards came staggering out onto the back porch. He fell over the railing and lay still.

More gunfire came from within the house and the third bodyguard fell out of the front door, on his back, on the porch. The front of his shirt was bloody.

Wisps of smoke began leaking out of an open window in the rear of the house as Clint and the girl ran out the back door and toward the creek. Several moments later, Smoke watched as two horses pounded away, the girl riding astride. They topped a hill and were gone.

“Robin Hood strikes again,” Smoke muttered, as he took out another biscuit and settled back, just as Jud Vale and his bodyguards came galloping back to the ranch.

The fire had been confined to the kitchen and had been extinguished in a few minutes. Jud was talking to the man who had been bashed on the noggin and tossed out the side window.

“So it wasn’t Jensen all along,” Jud said, standing up, his face tight with anger. “It was that damn Clint Perkins!”

“They look enough alike to be brothers,” Jason reminded his boss. “Be easy to mistake them in the dark.”

“Maybe they’re brothers?” a hand suggested. “And Smoke Jensen come in here to help him out?”

But Jud Vale rejected that on the spot. He’d been in the West for some years when the stories about Smoke Jensen first began surfacing. Jud knew that Jensen’s father had died and the mountain man, Preacher, took care of the boy’s raising after that. Smoke had always been a loner, with no family to speak of, certainly no brother.

He shook his head. “No. He doesn’t have a brother. Not anymore. His brother was killed in the war. Tortured and killed by a group headed by three men who later moved into Idaho. Jensen killed them all and detroyed the town.”

“Then what’s he doin’ here, Boss?” Jason asked.

“Exactly what he said he was dong,” Jud replied, bitterness in his voice. “He was just seeing the country when we braced him. That got his back up, and he stayed.” Jud shrugged. “We brought it on ourselves.”

“And we do what about it?” a gunslinger asked.

“Kill him.”

A Bar V hand had gotten close to Smoke’s hiding place while taking a shortcut to a search area. He now found himself flat on the ground looking up into the cold eyes of Smoke Jensen, with a knife blade across his throat. There were any number of questions he wanted to ask, but wisely kept his mouth shut, figuring if Jensen wanted him to talk, he’d tell him so.

“Who is in the house besides Jud Vale and his men?” Smoke asked.

“Nobody! I swear it!”

“The girl who got away—who is she?”

“Susie somebody-or-another. Nester’s kid from over Wyoming Territory.”

“She was the only servant?” Smoke moved the razor sharp knife blade and the man cringed in fear.

“If that’s what you want to call what she done. Yeah. She cain’t cook and don’t clean house. It’s like a boar’s nest in that house. There was two more girls. One run off— never seen her agin, and Jud kilt the other. But it was an accident, Jud said. He broke her neck whilst they were messin’ around. You know.”

“Sounds like a nice gentle fellow, this Jud Vale does.”

The hand didn’t know how to respond to that, so he kept his mouth closed.

“What’s Clint Perkins’s beef with Jud?”

“Lord, man, I don’t know! ‘Ceptin’ that Perkins is crazy, I reckon. He hates rich folks, I do know that.”

Smoke stared hard at the man. The Bar V hand was scared and sweating, even though the day was cloudy and cool, threatening rain. "Where are you wanted?"

The hand hesitated. Smoke moved the big blade. That loosened his mouth. “Kansas!” He blurted out.

“What for?”

“I robbed a store. I was down on my luck and needed some cash.”

Smoke grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back, exposing his throat even more. “Tell it all!”

“Nebraska! I robbed a bank, kilt a teller! You gonna turn me in?”

“Not if you level with me.”

“Anything you want. Jist anything at all, Mr. Jensen. You want me to git down and howl lak a dog, you jist say so.”

“Is there any puncher on Vale’s payroll who isn’t wanted by the law?”

“Lord, no! Jud laks to hire people on the hoot owl trail. He’s got more control over ‘’m. They’s more outlaws down yonder than at Robber’s Roost.”

“And Jud Vale wants to be king of this part of the state?”

“Mister Jensen, he is king!”

“Huh?”

“Shakespeare wrote that.”

“I ain’t never heard of him. What outfit does he ride for?”

“Forget it.” Smoke stuffed a gag into the man’s mouth and tied him to a tree. He picked up his rifle and began making his way toward the creek that ran behind the mansion of Jud Vale. He wasn’t worried about being spotted by any ranch hands; there weren’t any hands left on the ranch, except those gunslingers and bodyguards in the house with Jud. Every hand, including the cook, was out looking for Clint Perkins and the girl. According to the tied-up and gagged Bar V hand, no one believed Smoke was within thirty miles of the mansion. And by this time, there wouldn’t be a puncher, bounty hunter, or hired gun within ten miles of the ranch.

The day had turned cloudy along with the coolness, and any gunfire would be muffled by the humidity, not carrying nearly as far as on a fair, sunshiny day.

Smoke followed the creek to the rear of the house and then made his way to a pile of wood stacked behind the great two-story mansion. He poked his rifle through a good-sized crack in the stack and let a few shots bang.

The first shot tore through the kitchen wall and ricocheted upward, shattering a chandelier in the fancy dining room and sending bits of glass and coal oil from the expensive lamps spraying. Jud Vale and his men hit the floor, yelling and cussing. The second .44 round whined off the polished wood of the dining room table and stopped in the china hutch, destroying several plates and cups. The third round bounced off a kettle in the kitchen and whined wickedly around the stove before rolling across the floor and coming to rest about three inches from Jud Vale’s nose.

The men began crawling across the floor, toward the rear of the house. Smoke anticipated that move, and

“Somebody get around to the side of the house!” Jud yelled. “Try to get him in a crossfire.”

But Smoke was off and running, coming to rest behind the gazebo in the side yard. He saw the bodyguard come chugging around the corner and knocked a leg out from under him. Dragging his limb, the man crawled back around to the front of the mansion.

Jud and his men moved to the side of the house, but by this time, Smoke had again changed locations, back to the rear of the house. He decided he’d pressed his luck enough for this day, and took a stick of dynamite out of his pocket, capping and fusing the thunder stick. He lit it and let it fly and was heading for the creek before the sputtering stick landed.

The charge landed on the ground and rolled under the porch. When it blew, it tore the whole porch off the rear of the house and busted most of the windows in the back of the mansion.

Smoke stopped at the creek bank long enough to empty his rifle into the back of the house and then ran toward the ridge and his horse.

Inside the mansion, their hearing momentarily impaired from the booming of the giant stick, Jud and his men hugged the floor until the rifle fire stopped. Their ears ringing, the men crawled to their knees.

“That wasn’t Clint Perkins,” Jud said, his voice seeming to come out of a well. “That was Smoke Jensen. Bet on it!”

Chuckling, Smoke cut the Bar V hand loose, laid the barrel of his pistol on the back of the man’s head, insuring that he would be out for some time to come, and mounted up, riding off.

He had a full day of headhunting to do.

The hand Smoke had busted on the noggin finally found noggin the size of a hen’s egg.

“Jensen,” he told Jud.

“Which way did he ride out?”

“Don’t know. He busted me on the head. I just now come to my senses. I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”

Jud cussed and stomped and paced up and down behind the mansion and the ruined porch. He fought to keep his anger under control and managed it.

“Get the boys in,” he told Jason. “Jensen was raised by Preacher. Probably the best Injun fighter the West ever seen. He’s gone headhunting, bet on it. If the boys stay out, he’ll do us some more damage. Get them back here, pronto.”

Jason looked confused. “Jesus, Boss. How? They’re scattered all forty miles.”

Jud Vale sat down on a stump and cussed. Smoke Jensen planned all this, he concluded. He didn’t know how, or even the why of it, but it was all Smoke Jensen’s fault. He convinced himself of that. Damn Smoke Jensen to the pits of Hellfire!

Jud again calmed himself and did a little mental figuring. As of last evening, he had 18 hands on the payroll. He had hired 25 men at fighting wages—God knows they hadn’t earned a penny of it—and he was giving another 15 or 20 men—he forgot the exact number—money just to hang around. Three riders had deserted him last night, thanks to that damn Clint Perkins; or had it been Perkins? And two more had been so badly beaten they were out of it for several days. Maybe a week. So savagely mauled that they hadn’t even been able to leave the bunkhouse when Perkins and then Jensen attacked the house. He had lost two of his most trusted men to the guns of Perkins. Jensen had busted the leg of another. And a third had his head busted open.

“Damn!” he muttered. He looked up at Jason. “You boys stick close to home. I reckon them forty-odd men out A gunslick whose Christian name was Wilber Hammersmith—his friends called him Hammer—thought a damn puma had done jumped onto his back, knocking him from the saddle. Then he looked up into the eyes of Smoke Jensen, sitting on top of him, and suddenly felt an urgent need to relieve his bladder.

He cut his eyes as Jensen balled his right hand into a huge fist. “Aw, hell, man!” he managed to say before his whole head exploded in pain.

And speaking of his head . . . when he finally awakened, he had a whale of a headache, his whole world was upside down, and his head was unnaturally cold.

Hammer figured out why his world was upside down. It wasn’t the world—it was him! Jensen had taken Hammer’s rope and strung him upside down from a tall limb. After stripping him down to his long handles and taking his boots and socks and guns.

But how come his head was so cold? He had always been right proud of his blond hair. He finally managed to get his hands free and to his head.

He screamed as if he’d been mortally wounded, the sound echoing around the hills and ridges.

That damn Smoke Jensen had taken his knife and shaved his head!

“Halp!” Hammersmith started hollering as he swayed in the breeze at the end of the rope. His own rope. “I’m a-gonna kill you, Jensen!” Hammersmith squalled. “Damn your eyes, you heathen! This ain’t right. Halp!”

Buck Wall thought he heard someone hollering. He pulled up and listened. Yep. Someone was sure hollering all right. Coming from over that next ridge, he thought. He eased over that way and found the source of all the noise.

“Boy,” he said to Hammer. “How come you got yourself all tied up like that there?”

“Cut me down, damnit!” Hammer squalled.

“All right, all right.” Buck was in the process of dismounting when the loop settled over-his shoulders and he felt himself jerked from the stirrups. He landed heavily on the rocky ground.

Then Smoke Jensen was all over him, fists flying. The last thing Buck recalled, for a few moments, was that getting the living hell beat out of you was not a very pleasant experience.

When he woke up, his world was also upside down. And his clothes were gone, right down to his socks and boots and guns. And there was not a horse to be seen anywhere.

“Hammer,” he managed to speak through battered lips.

“The next time you get in trouble, I wish you would please keep your mouth shet!”

“Halp!” Hammer hollered.

“Will you stop that! You’re makin’ my head hurt!”

“Halp!”

“Who said that?” Hammer asked.

“Well, it damn shore wasn’t me!”

By twisting around, they could just see a newly hired gunny name of Ben Lewis. Someone—Jensen for sure— had peeled him buck naked and tied him backwards in the saddle. And from the looks of him, he’d been sitting in that saddle for some time. Looked worn to a frazzle.

“I’m a-gonna kill that crummy Smoke Jensen!” Ben hollered.

“Yeah,” Buck said drily. “Right. Shore you are. Me, too. But furst I’d like to get shut of this damn tree limb!”