Pursuit Of The Mountain Man

9

Everybody was in the saddle and moving as the sounds of the single shot filtered faintly to them. John T.’s horse triggered the deadfall and the logs came crashing down, blocking the trail behind him and putting several horses into a panic. They bucked and snorted and tossed Gunter to the ground, knocking the wind from the man. Briscoe’s horse reared up and the gunfighter fought to regain control. His horse’s hooves slammed against the flank of the horse Marlene was riding. Her horse jumped in fear and Marlene’s butt hit the ground. She squalled in shock and sprawled quite unladylike in the hoof-churned mud. She said a lot of very ugly words, in several languages.

John. T. left the saddle in a flying dive when he spotted the body of the man from Nevada. A slug whined wickedly just as he left the saddle. If he had waited another second, his brains would have been splattered against a tree.

So much for Jensen losing his nerve, John T. thought, as he hugged the ground.

Smoke’s second shot tore the saddle horn off and the horse bolted in fear. Leo Grant came riding up and Smoke sighted him in and fired just as Leo turned in the saddle, the .44-.40 slug taking him high in his left arm. Leo screamed in pain but managed to stay in the saddle and jump his horse into the timber.

Smoke had lost the element of surprise and knew it. He grabbed up his pack and ran into the timber behind the jumbled mass of boulders.

“Stay back!” John T. yelled down the trail. “Stay back and get down. Get off those horses and get into the timber.”

“Oh, damn!” Leo moaned. “I think my wing’s busted. Jesus, it hurts.”

“Quit complainin’,” John T. told him. “You’ll live.”

“Is Matt dead?” Utah called, crawling through the brush.

“Near as I can tell, he is,” John T. returned the call. “Leastwise he ain’t movin’ and they’s an awful lot of blood on the ground.”

“Damn!” Utah said. “Guess we was both wrong about Jensen.”

“Yeah. Von Hausen had the same idea, I’m thinkin’. We all misjudged Jensen.”

Smoke had moved back into the timber for a ways, then cut south, making his way through the timber silently and coming up in back of the group.

Larry Kelly turned to glance nervously at his back trail and his eyes widened in shock and fear. Smoke Jensen was standing in the center of the trail.

“Oh, no,” he said, just as Smoke lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger.

The slug took Larry dead center in his stomach with the same effects as a blow with a sledgehammer. The force of it doubled him over and dropped him to the trail, screaming as the pain surged through him, white-hot fingers that seemed to touch every nerve in the man.

Smoke jumped to the other side of the trail and vanished. But he didn’t vanish for long.

A stick of dynamite, tied to a short length of broken off limb came sputtering through the air.

“Goddamn!” Valdes yelled. “That’s dynamite!” Then he hit the ground and said a prayer. It was said very quickly.

The dynamite exploded and horses went running in blind panic in all directions. The pack animals ran into the timber, losing their packs and sending supplies scattering everywhere. Another stick of dynamite came hissing through the air and landed near Maria. When it blew the concussion lifted her off the ground and sent her tumbling down the hill. She landed in a creek, banged her head on a rock, and came up sputtering and yelling.

Nat Reed tried to cross the trail to get a shot at Smoke and a bullet burned his face, taking a chunk of meat out of his cheek. Thinking he was more seriously wounded, Nat bellied down on the ground and started hollering that he was dying.

The wilderness became silent; no more dynamite was thrown, no more shots. But the people of the von Hausen party did not move from their cover for several minutes. With the exception of Maria. She had crawled from the icy waters of the creek to lay huddling, trembling, and sobbing behind a large rock.

“He’s gone,” John T. announced, his voice reaching those sprawled on the ground, crouched behind trees, and hiding in the bushes. John T. stood up and walked over to Larry Kelly who lay on the ground, his legs drawn up and both hands holding onto his .44-.40 punctured belly.

“Help me!” the gun-for-hire said.

“You know there ain’t nothin’ nobody can do,” John T. told him. “We’ll build a fire and make you comfortable, Larry. That’s about it.”

Larry started weeping.

Even von Hausen was shaken by the suddenness and the viciousness of the attack. He sat on a rock and willed himself to be calm.

Gunter slipped and slid and stumbled down the bank toward Maria. Halfway there he lost his footing and rolled the rest of the way, landing on his ass in the cold waters of the creek.

Gunter said a few very vulgar words.

“Assemble,” von Hausen said. “Let’s see how much damage was done.”

“One dead, one dyin’, and two wounded,” John T. told him.

“I don’t wanna die!” Kelly screamed.

“You shoulda thought of that ’fore you signed on,” Utah told him. “That’s the problem with you young squirts. You don’t consider that a bullet might have your name on it.”

“Go to hell!” Kelly yelled at him.

“I’ll be right behind you, boy,” the older gun-for-hire told him.

The cook, Walt, was walking around gathering up what supplies he could find and muttering to himself. An old gunfighter who had given it up years back, Walt no longer carried a gun on him.

“What the hell are you mumbling about?” Hans asked the man.

“You told me this was a huntin’ trip,” Walt snapped at him. “You didn’t tell me ’til we was five hundred miles gone that it was a man-huntin’ trip.”

“You find that repugnant?” von Hausen asked from his seat on the rock.

“I don’t know what that means,” Walt replied, a sack of flour in his hands. “But I think you’re all about half nuts—or better—chasin’ after Smoke Jensen. Ifn you’d asked me from the start I woulda told you Jensen is pure poison. You’d be better off stickin’ your arm in a sackful of rattlers.”

“Keep your opinions to yourself,” Gunter panted the words, as he shoved Maria over the top of the bank. “Just cook.”

“I’ll do that,” Walt said. He tossed the sack of flour to Gil Webb.

“What the hell do you want me to do with this?” Gil asked.

Walt suggested a couple of things.

Smoke left the trail and headed west, between Jenny Lake and Leigh Lake. Miles behind him, Larry Kelly and the man from Nevada were buried in shallow graves, the mounds covered with rocks to keep the scavengers from digging up and eating the bodies.

“Suggestions?” von Hausen said to John T.

“We ain’t got nothin’ to use as leverage to make him come to us,” John T. said. “If you wanna go on, all we can do is keep chasin’ him.”

“I shall press on to the last man,” von Hausen told him. “Will the men stay?”

“There ain’t nobody talkin’ about quittin’.”

“Mount the men.”

Marlene fell back to ride beside old Walt-when the trail permitted that. “Did you know this Preacher person who raised Smoke Jensen?”

“I knew of him.” The cook didn’t like the women any better than he liked Von Hausen, Gunter, or Hans. If anything, he liked them less. Women didn’t have no business out here in the wilderness, shootin’ and chasin’ a human bein’ like he was some kind of animal.

“What was he like—that you know of.”

How could I tell you somethin’ about him that I didn’t know, you ninny? Walt thought. “Tough as rawhide and wild as the wind. He taught Smoke well. Give this hunt up, missy. You’re headin’ for grief if you don’t. Smoke’s done showed you how he fights. And if you think he’ll spare you ’cause you’re a woman, you’re flat wrong. You start shootin’ at him, he’ll put lead in you just as fast as he would a man.”

“Frederick will never quit,” she said with a toss of her head. “This is the ultimate challenge for him, and for us.”

“Well, you couldn’t have picked a prettier place to be buried, Missy.”

“You can’t believe that Smoke Jensen is going to win this, do you? That is ludicrous!”

“I don’t know what that means, Missy. But I do know this: Smoke cut down your party some yesterday. Tomorrow or the next day he’ll whittle it down by two or three more, all the while leading us north, always north, higher and higher into the mountains. And I’ll bet you a dollar that when we get to the north of this lake, Jensen will have cut west.” He smiled.

“Why are you smiling and what significance does the direction have?”

“I’m smilin’ ’cause Jensen is smarter than you folks; only the whole lot of you don’t have enough sense to see it. You’re all a bunch of arrogant fools. The direction means that if we follow his trail, we’ll soon be out of food and the only tradin’ post open to us is on the east side of Jackson Lake. Jensen will be on the west side, headin’ straight north. That’ll give him two/three days, at least, to get ready for us up yonder in the wilderness.”

Marlene left the old cook’s side, in a huff because of his words. “Arrogant, indeed!” she said. She rode straight to Von Hausen and told him what the cook had said.

“I know,” von Hausen said. “I’ve been looking at maps-such as they are. He’s right about that. What the old fool thinks of me, or us, is of no concern at all. And there is the head of the lake,” he said, pointing. “We’ll rest here for a time. I have to think.”

Von Hausen walked back to the cook, gathering up a few men along the way. “Walt, you and these men take the pack horses and head up to the trading post on this little creek or river or whatever it is. We’ll rendezvous here on the Snake.” He looked at the old cook. “Marlene tells me you think we’re all on a fool’s mission.”

“That’s right, your lordship on high.” There was no backup in Walt. None. He’d lived too long and seen the varmint too many times to back up from any man.

Von Hausen laughed at him. “And she also tells me that you think we are all arrogant and not nearly as intelligent as Smoke Jensen.”

“Tattlin’ little thing, ain’t she? That’s right. I shore said it. And meant every word of it.”

“Old man, if you were younger, I’ll give you a thrashing for saying those things about us.”

Walt stared at him and smiled slowly. “No, you wouldn’t, Baron von Hausen. And you won’t do it now, neither. But if you want to test your mettle, Baron, you just let me get my rig outta my pack and we’ll have us a showdown right here and now.”

John T. had walked up, standing off to the side. He was slowly shaking his head at von Hausen, warning him off.

Frederick smiled, then laughed. He patted Walt on the shoulder. “Perhaps later, Walt. Not now. We need you to cook for us.” He walked away, John T. following him.

“Don’t never take up no challenge on fast gunnin’ out here, Baron,” John T. told him. “Walt Webster’s no man to fool with. That old man’s still poison with a short gun. He’s laid men a-plenty in their graves over the years.”

“Why . . . the man must be seventy years old!”

“That don’t make no difference. Not out here. His daddy was a mountain man. Come out here to Washington or Oregon Territory in 1810 or so. Married him a French lady that had something to do with the North West Company. Walt was raised by Injuns and mountain men and the like. He was a fast gun before it become a household word. And he’ll kill you, Baron. Don’t crowd that old man.”

Smoke cooked his supper of fresh caught fish and fried potatoes, then he leaned back against his saddle and enjoyed a pot of coffee just as the sun was going down. It had been three days since he’d ambushed von Hausen’s party and Smoke lay in a little valley just north of Ranger Peak. He was under no illusions; knew that von Hausen was somewhere behind him, probably a day or day and a half. He’d climbed a high peak a couple of days back and picked them up through field glasses. Least he thought it was them. At that distance they were no more than dots, even magnified.

He’d follow the Snake into the Red Mountains and wait for his pursuers to come to him. There might be a few people up in that area, since Smoke had heard talk about the federal government making it some sort of park a few years back. Called it Yellowstone. But Smoke didn’t figure there would be too many folks around. If there were some sightseers and gawkers, he’ll tell them to get the hell out of the way, there was about to be a shooting war.

Smoke was letting his fire burn down to coals in the pit he’d dug. He’d wake up occasionally to add twigs and such to the coals, in order to keep it going through the cool night.

Smoke poured his pot empty and leaned back, trying to figure out what month it was. After some ruminations, the closest he could come was maybe the latter part of March or the first part of April.

He sipped the hot strong brew and frowned. Had it been that long? Yes. Von Hausen and his bunch had been on his backtrail for weeks, worrying at him, nipping at his heels like some small dog, and he was growing very weary of it. It was just a damned nuisance.

Smoke had stopped worrying about any moral aspects of his situation, as he had started calling it in his mind. He’d done everything he could to end it without killing. So much for good intentions.

He smiled as the face of his wife entered his mind. He wondered if Sally was enjoying her vacation back east. He sure hoped she was having more fun than he was.