Pursuit Of The Mountain Man

14

The anthropologists re-supplied Smoke and wished him well on his journey. Then they quickly packed up their equipment and beat it back to park headquarters as fast as they could lope their mules.

Smoke headed north, toward one of the strangest sights he had ever seen in all his life: the dead forest. Old Preacher used to tell a story about Jim Bridger, when someone asked him if it was true about the stone trees. Preacher said Bridger told the person, “That’s peetrification. Head to the Yellowstone and you’ll see peetrified trees a-growin‘, with peetrified birds on ’em a-singin’ peetrified songs.”

Preacher swore it was true. However, Preacher said he never could find them peetrified flowers a-bloomin’ in colors of crystal that Bridger said he saw. “Bridger wasn’t above tellin’ a lie ever’ now and then,” Preacher admitted.

Smoke didn’t make any effort to hide his tracks. The government-or somebody—had cut a nature trail through the park and he stayed on it. It was easier on his horses and on him. He crossed Tower Creek and followed the trail as it curved westward. Near as he could remember, the twenty-five or thirty square miles of stone trees were only a few miles further, most on a ridge.

The scientists in the pith helmets back yonder had told Smoke that the stone trees were millions of years old, buried alive by volcanic ash. Since Smoke had never seen a volcano—and really didn’t want to see one, not up close—he really didn’t have an opinion on it one way or the other.

He pulled up short this time, just as he had the other times he’d looked upon the strangeness of the stone forest. It was eerie, and very quiet. Many of the trees here had not fallen, but stood like silent sentinels over their fallen comrades.

Smoke did not enter the silent dead forest at this point. He rode on, staying with the trail for several miles. When he did decide to enter the stone forest, he made his trail clear for a time. Then he tied sacking around his horses’ hooves and led them out of the stone forest to a small cul-de-sac with graze and water. He blocked the entrance with brush and logs and slipped back into the stillness of the stone forest, taking with him only what supplies he could comfortably carry in a small pack on his back.

He hiked back to Specimen Ridge and chose his site carefully; one that gave him a commanding view of all that lay in front of him. since he had ridden up, no small feat for his horses, von Hausen and party would be coming up the same trail-he hoped. Smoke would be shooting downhill, so that would be tricky, but nothing that he couldn’t overcome with the good sights on the .44-.40.

Now all he had to do was wait and hope that von Hausen and company took the bait.

Roy Drum halted the parade in the valley that Smoke overlooked from his spot on the small mountain that held the stone trees.

“What’s the matter?” von Hausen asked.

“I don’t like it,” the tracker said. “Jensen went right up that big ridge yonder with them dead stone trees. It’s like he wanted us to see his tracks.”

“Hell, man!” John T. said. “He ain’t tried to hide his tracks in a hundred miles.”

“Well, that’s a fact,” Roy admitted.

Von Hausen began scanning the ridge with his long lenses. After several minutes of searching, he cased the binoculars, hung them on his saddle horn, and picked up the reins. “Let’s go. The ridge is void of life.”

“Gary, take the point,” John T. said. “Might be a good idea if we walked our horses up. That’s a steep climb. Wouldn’t do to have a horse break a leg now.”

“You’re right,” von Hausen said, and swung from the saddle to help the ladies down. A true gentleman.

Smoke lay flat on his belly behind a huge stone stump of what had been redwood, millions of years back. He had measured the distance between stone stumps and trees from where he now lay to the crest of the ridge. He had ample brush to help along the way and in addition, a cut in the earth several feet deep that led to the crest and curved with one wall facing those below him.

Gary paused to catch his breath and it was his last one. Smoke’s .44-.40 boomed and Gary went down.

“Goddamnit!” Roy yelled, diving for cover. “I knowed it was a trap.”

Al Hayre exposed part of his body from behind a stone and Smoke drilled him clean through the shoulder. Al dropped his rifle and began a fast roll down the ridge toward the valley below, hollering and yelling and cussing until his head hit a rock and shut him up.

Smoke slung his pack and rolled to another, better protected area, angling toward the cut. Pride Anderson stepped out from cover and dropped to one knee and fired, the slug howling off stone and sending chips into Smoke’s face. Smoke wiped off the blood and moved to the other side of the huge fallen tree, slipping behind a mass of brush and stone. Pride made the mistake of trying for a second shot at Smoke. He would never get another shot at anything.

Smoke quick-sighted him in and pulled the trigger. Pride took the .44-.40 slug in the center of his forehead. The force of the bullet snapped his head back and Pride tumbled, rolling lifeless down the ridge.

Smoke sent several rawhide bound sticks of dynamite down the ridge and everybody hit the earth. Everybody except Smoke. He scrambled for the cut and ran to the top of the ridge just as the dynamite blew. Once again, horses panicked and ran off down the hill.

Smoke found him a good spot behind a small stand of trees on the crest, punched more cartridges into his rifle then chewed on a biscuit and waited.

“A couple of you men work your way over to the timber in that direction,” von Hausen ordered. “Two more to that side,” He pointed. “Try to box him in.”

“You’ll never do it, your majesty,” Walt said, safely behind a petrified log.

Smoke had pulled away from the ridge and worked his way some two hundred yards back from the crest. It put him that much closer to his horses and in better cover should von Hausen order men to attempt to flank him.

On the hill, Andrea and Marlene and Maria looked with horror and disgust in their eyes-more disgust than horror—at the smear of blood and hair and brains that Pride had left on the side of a stone stump.

“Al’s stirring down there,” Angel said, sitting beside Walt behind the huge log.

“If he’s smart, he’ll find his horse and get the hell gone from here.”

“One arm’s hanging limp by his side,” Angel said. “He looks sort of confused.”

“Busted his head on the way down. There’s another walkin’ wounded for us to tend to. We’re gonna look like a hospital ’fore this trip gets over.”

Marty Boswell’s daddy had always told him he had sawdust for brains. Marty got tired of listening to his daddy and shot him dead one day back in Nebraska. Smoke proved Marty’s daddy wrong when Marty stuck his ugly face out from behind a large rock for a look-see. He had some brains. But they were now several feet behind the gunslinger, on the ground, due to the impacting of a .44-.40 slug with Marty’s head.

Gil Webb wisely decided not to move from his position.

Smoke said to hell with it and made his way back to his horses. He was saddled up and riding out ten minutes later. Gil Webb left his hidey-hole only after long moments of silence had passed. He made his way carefully to Smoke’s last position, checking out all possibilities along the way. He found where Smoke had left the ridge, his moccasin-clad feet digging into the soft earth, heading for the timber behind the ridge. Gil motioned for the two men on the other flank to check it out, then called down the ridge for the others to stay put. Of course, von Hausen and those in his immediate party ignored that.

The men scrambled up the ridge to squat panting beside a stone tree. “Marty?” von Hausen asked.

“Dead. Jensen put one right in the center of his forehead.”

“That’s three dead and one wounded,” Hans said. “I don’t know how badly wounded Hayre is.”

“He’s out of it,” Cat Brown said, coming over the crest of the ridge. “Hit high and pretty hard. He wants his money and wants to get gone from this fight.”

Von Hausen nodded his head. “Pay him off, Gunter. Wounded as he is he’d be of no further use to us. He’d only be a hindrance. Have Walt and Angel tend to his wounds and then send him on his way.”

Gunter was gone back down the steep hill.

“He’s gone,” came the shout from the timber. “Headin’ west.”

Von Hausen paced the distance between Smoke’s last defensive position over to where Marty lay dead, a hole in his head. Von Hausen reluctantly admitted-to himsetf—that Smoke was one of the best marksman he had ever seen.

“What type of weapon is he using?” he asked John T.

“.44-.40. It’s got an extra rear sight for better accuracy. Jensen’s good,” he grudgingly conceded.

The German looked at the gunfighter. “That’s like saying trains run on tracks. I measured the distance. Smoke made this shot from two hundred and ten paces.”

John T. whistled softly. “That’s some shootin’.”

“To say the least,” von Hausen added very drily. “Have the men dig some graves, John T.”

“Yes, sir. And have Walt fetch his Bible?”

“Yes. This is becoming a routine.”

Smoke rode west. He put a few miles behind him, knowing that by the time von Hausen and party rounded up their horses, buried their dead, and tended to the wounded, it would be dark. There would be no further pursuit this day.

He stopped long enough to fix his supper and boil his coffee, then moved on another couple of miles before finding a good spot to spend the night. He was up and moving before dawn, pushing west. He was not all that familiar with this region. Years back, he and Preacher had cut north at the stone trees and headed up into Montana. Preacher had told him about the western part of this region, but Smoke had not personally seen it.

He cut southwest, heading for the Gallatin Range. As he rode, he added up how many people-approximately-von Hausen had left. As close as he could figure it, he still had about twenty-five people after him, including the women, and he damn sure wasn’t going to discount them.

His horses began acting skittish, eyes all walled around and ears pricked up. Smoke reined up and listened. And he didn’t like what he heard. This was grizzly country and it was spring, with the mother grizzlies out of the den with cubs. A big grizzly can be as much as seven feet tall and weigh close to a thousand pounds. Smoke heard the huffing sound of a grizzly, and the whining of cubs, and the sounds were close. And he also smelled fresh blood. That probably meant that the grizzly had killed a fresh dropped elk calf and would be awfully irritated at anything that interrupted her meal.

Smoke left the trail and moved east for about a mile, getting away from the grizzly and her cubs-if any-and her meal. Smoke had enough to worry about without the added danger of a grizzly bear.

When his horses had calmed down, he cut west and once more picked up the trail. Although a bear steak would taste nice, there was no way Smoke would kill a mother with cubs. Preacher had instilled in Smoke a deep love and respect for the land and the animals that lived there. Should he kill a bear, there was no way he could come close to using the meat, and no one around to give it to. Smoke had never killed any type of animal for the so-called sport of killing, and never would. He had nothing but contempt for those who killed without need.

There was another reason that humans should be extremely careful in grizzly country: a grizzly can run up to thirty miles an hour; no way a human being could out-race one. But grizzlies, because of their bulk and long straight claws, seldom climb, even as cubs.

Ol’ Preacher had told Smoke that there was only two kinds of trees in grizzly country: them that he could climb and them that he couldn’t.

Smoke hoped that von Hausen and his party didn’t run into a grizzly. Those stupid people would make no effort to avoid contact. They’d just shoot it.

Smoke rode for several days, sometimes making an effort to conceal his tracks, but oftentimes not. He crossed Panther Creek, Indian Creek, and made camp at the north end of Grizzly Lake. Roaring Mountain was somewhere off to his east, he believed, as was Obsidian Cliff, an outcrop of black volcanic glass that was used by various Indian tribes over the centuries for arrow-points. Geyser Basin was to his south. Hot ground, Preacher had told him. Burn your feet, so said Preacher.

That afternoon, before the sun went down and Smoke could still see to write, he scoured the area until he found a large flat rock. Using a small rock, he scratched out a message. Before he left the next morning, he carefully placed the rock in the center of the trail. There was no way von Hausen could miss it if he came this way.

Then he left the trail and headed on over toward Solfatora Creek. He had another ambush to set up.

“Some of the men are grumbling,” John T. informed von Hausen. “ ’Bout half of them want to quit.”

“We discussed this last evening, John T.,” von Hausen said. “Among the six of us.” He tossed the man a small leather sack filled with gold coins. “Several thousand dollars in there, John T. Spread that out among the men. That should make them happy. And tell them there will be a thousand dollar bonus for every man who finishes this.”

“They’ll stay after this,” John T. said.

“The great unwashed,” Gunter said after John T. had left. “They are the same all over the world.” He opened a container of caviar and spread a bit on a cracker. He smiled, but there was a worried look in his eyes.

The next morning, Pat Gilman was riding point. He came up on the flat rock in the trail and read the words. He felt his guts churn and another part of his anatomy tighten up. He yelled for John T.

John T. sat his saddle and read the words scratched on the big flat rock.

I HAVE RUN OUT OF PATIENCE. FROM THIS POINT ON THERE WILL BE NO COMING BACK FOR ANY OF YOU IF YOU FOLLOW ME. THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING.

Von Hausen read the scratchings. He turned to the men. “Anybody want to quit?”

No one did. They all had big money in their eyes. It was easy to forget those men lying lonely in cold graves on the trail behind them when their pockets were jingling with gold coins and big money waiting at the end of the line. What they should have realized, but didn’t, was that only death awaited them at the end of this line.

“How are the supplies holding out, Walt?” Hans asked.

“If we can kill a deer every other day or so we’ll be all right. As far as eatin’ goes. I ‘spect if Jensen keeps thinnin’ the culls out like he’s been doin’, we’ll have plenty.”

“I really wish you would stop that kind of talk,” Gunter said.

“You wanna fire me and Angel? You say the word and we’ll damn sure leave right now.”

“Settle down, old man. You’re entitled to your opinion. Relieve Pat at the point, Briscoe.”

One minute off the trail, following the hoof-prints of Smoke’s horses, a shotgun roared.

“Down!” Hans shouted, as he left the saddle.

They all waited, crouched in the early summer foliage that grew thick and lush in the darkness of the timber. But no more shots were heard.

“Jensen!” von Hausen yelled. “Jensen!”

He received no reply.

“Smoke Jensen!” von Hausen tried again. “Stand and fight like a man, damn you!”

“He wouldn’t be fightin’ us with no shotgun,” Montana Red said, after a moment of deep woods silence. “You ’member we come up missin’ the shotgun that night he attacked the camp and figured it got burned up or blowed up. He musta tooken it and rigged an ambush.”

“Check it out, Nick,” John T. ordered. “And goddamnit, be careful.”

The man with the busted mouth and nose-he wheezed like a steam engine when he talked-was back in a few minutes. “Jensen’s long gone. He rigged a booby trap with the shotgun. You better come look at this.” He cut his eyes to von Hausen. “But not the wimmen, sir.”

Smoke had secured the express gun in the fork of a tree, about head high, then cocked the triggers, pulling the cord taut, that was attached to a cord from the triggers to a trip wire. The loads of buckshot had hit Briscoe in the neck and face, completely blowing off his head. It was a very ugly scene.

Hans took one look and barfed all over the place.

Walt strolled up, shifted his tobacco and spat. The old gunfighter said, “I reckon we can scratch that one off the supper list, Angel.”