Triumph of the Mountain Man

11

Nearing the end of the first week’s visit by the Gittings, tension hung over the Sugarloaf. Normally a direct, outspoken person, Sally Jensen repressed her instinctive reaction to Mary-Beth’s feather-headedness and the constant misbehavior of her undisciplined brood. As a result, Sally’s old friendship with Mary-Beth was in conflict with her good sense. Put simply, Sally knew she should firmly demand that they leave.

Especially when Seth and Sammy had escaped their deserved spanking for stealing the candy. Oh, Mary-Beth had switched them—two half-hearted whacks on buttocks that had not even been bared. Both boys shot sneers at Sally and laughed openly over the lightness of their punishment as they walked away. That had been two days ago, and the situation seemed to worsen by the hour. From the direction of the corral, a boy’s voice, raised in anger, reminded her of that.

“Stop that! Stop it, damn you, Seth, Sammy. Those foals can be hurt real easy.”

It was Bobby’s voice. Sally wondered what devilment the Gittings boys had gotten up to this time. If it was serious enough, she would find out right soon. She had asked their foreman, Ike Mitchell, to keep an eye on the rebellious boys, and to take matters into his own hands if need be. Since he had been successful on earlier occasions, she also implied the same to Bobby.

The boy was more than capable of taking responsibility for himself. He could act in a responsible manner toward others as well, Sally reasoned. Bobby’s voice once more cut through her self-examination. “Hey, what are you doin’? Quit that.”

Then came a long silence. Sally’s apprehension rose.

* * *

Bobby Jensen came upon Seth and Sammy Gittings at the small corral outside the foaling barn. There the mares and their newborn could exercise away from the rest of the herd. Both of the younger boys had taken it in mind that it would be funny to watch the reactions of the small horses when they pelted them with rocks. Bobby looked on in shock and anger as two missiles struck a stalky-legged foal and it ran off squealing in terror to find its mother. The building rage pushed out the disgust Bobby felt. He stepped in at once, voice raised to a strident shout.

“Stop that.”

Seth and Sammy looked blankly over their shoulders at Bobby, and the younger boy stuck out his tongue. As one, they hefted fresh rocks and hurled them at another colt. Bobby’s voice deepened with his outrage.

“Stop it, damn you, Seth, Sammy. Those foals can be hurt real easy.”

“Oh, yeah?” Seth challenged in a quiet voice. “Says who?”

Sammy added his opinion. “Yeah. ’Sides, it’s funny when they make that noise and run around.”

Bobby’s voice grew low and menacing. “You stop that or I’ll make you hurt like you’ve never hurt before.”

Seth sneered. “No you won’t. Mother won’t let you.”

With that, both Gittings boys turned and chucked stones at Bobby Jensen. One struck his left shoulder with enough force to hurt, though it merely angered him more. He tried once again to end their assault. “Hey, what are you doin’. Quit that.”

Laughing, the boys threw more rocks. For a moment, while he dodged the fresh onslaught, Bobby thought of pulling his six-gun and blasting the both of them to oblivion. A satisfying, warm rush washed through him. Then he remembered what Smoke had taught him. Only a coward settles something with a gun that he can handle with his fists. Accordingly, Bobby rushed the smaller boys and threw Sammy to the ground. Seth leaped at him and swung a fist that contained a healthy-sized stone. It struck Bobby on the forehead and split the skin.

Blood began to run down through one white-blond eyebrow and into Bobby’s left eye. He ignored the discomfort and shot a fist to the nose of Seth Gittings, who dropped the rock, screeching his agony. Bobby grabbed the front of Seth’s shirt with both hands and hurled him to the ground. He stood over the supine boys a long, silent minute while they whined and sniveled. Satisfied that the incident had ended, Bobby turned away and started off to clean up his cut and patch it. Another rock, hurled in defiance, decided Bobby that he would report the situation to Sally after all.

* * *

Sally Jensen looked with mounting fury at the rising lump on Bobby’s forehead and the court plaster he had stuck on the cut. “That cuts it, damnit!” Although she rarely swore, Sally thought the situation called for it.

Bobby Jensen looked at her with clear, wide eyes. “What are we going to do?”

“You are going to stand back and make the accusation. I am going to take care of what has needed doing for a long time.” She crossed to the stove corner and brought out her willow switch, then moved to the door to the hallway and called into the depths of the house. “Mary-Beth, come here right away.”

When Mary-Beth arrived, she took one look at the limber willow wand, and her cheeks lost color. A hand flew to the comer of her mouth. “Oh, no. Not again. Not my boys.”

“Oh, yes, Mary-Beth, dear. Take a look at Bobby’s forehead. Seth attacked him with a rock. Smashed him in the head, then threw another that bruised him between his shoulder blades. You are coming with me right this minute and put an end to it.”

Sally took a firm hold on Mary-Beth’s left wrist and literally pulled her to the outside kitchen door. With Bobby at her other side, Sally strode to the foaling barn. They rounded the corner in time to see Seth connect with another of the frightened, tormented foals. Sally did not temper her words.

“You will stop that this instant, you little monster.”

Impudent defiance shone in the eyes of Seth Gittings. “We don’t have to, do we, Mother?”

Sammy let escape a revealing statement. “Yeah, you said we could do anything we wanted.”

Shocked to the core at last, Mary-Beth stammered a partial denial. “I—I said no such thing. I said you could do anything you wanted, so long as it did no harm to others.”

Seth whined in protest of his innocence. “We didn’t hurt anyone. All we did was tease the little horsies some.”

Bobby could contain his outrage no longer. “Then you turned on me and threw rocks at me. When I pushed Sammy down, you hit me in the head.”

Sally advanced on the boys. At the last moment, she whirled to Mary-Beth. “Either you do what is necessary, Mary-Beth, or I will do it for you.”

Faced with such determination, Mary-Beth came forward and took the willow switch from Sally. She started after Sammy first. His small face took on an expression of horror, and he tried to back away, arms extended, palms outward to ward off imagined blows.

“No, don’t. You can’t hit me with that. Poppa wouldn’t like that. No, Mother. Please.”

Without a word, her lips set in a grim line, Mary-Beth yanked down Sammy’s trousers and bent him over one knee. Then she laid on with a dozen good, hard, swift blows. He howled, shrieked and wailed, tears flowed freely from his eyes. When she had finished, she put him on his feet again.

“You, young man, will not leave the house for the next three days. Now, Seth, it’s your turn. You are old enough to know better.”

“You can’t do this! I won’t let you,” Seth screamed in utter panic. “No, Momma, please! You can’t, you can’t.”

A wild light glowed behind golden lashes as Mary-Beth spoke wonderingly, more to Sally and herself than to the boy. “You know, I just discovered that I can indeed.”

In a thrice, Seth received the same treatment as Sammy. Only this time his mother delivered fifteen strokes before ending it. A very satisfied Sally Jensen looked on. When Seth again stood before her, still blubbering, she had further admonishment for him. “If you ever, ever again use a weapon on an animal or another person, whether it is a rock or a knife or, God forbid, a gun, I will beat you to within an inch of your life. Now apologize to Bobby this instant.”

* * *

“Alejandro will round up those among my vaqueros who can shoot the best,” Diego Alvarado told Smoke Jensen.

Ten minutes after Wally Gower arrived at Rancho de la Gloria, Smoke Jensen and fifteen vaqueros rode out for town. The boy kept station close beside Smoke, his chest puffed with pride. They soon came upon several disgruntled people who had been turned back from town, and from them learned more details of the roadblocks.

“Beats all hell,” one long-faced rancher observed. “There was six of them when we made to enter town. Told me an’ the boys to turn about and high-tail it for home. Said that the town was closed ’til further notice. Who can do a thing like that?”

“From what I’ve heard,” said Smoke Jensen, with a nod toward Wally Gower, “it’s Whitewater Paddy Quinn.”

A glower answered Smoke. “That no-account. Claims to be foreman for some outfit called C.S. Enterprises. Common outlaw, you ask me.”

“I think you have the right of it, sir,” Smoke agreed.

They rode on, allowing the horses to walk only when they began to retch and grunt from exertion. In that manner, they made it to a point where they could observe the roadblock from a distance. Smoke studied the activity, noting that people no longer queued up to attempt to leave town. Smoke sent Wally back beyond range and turned to the Mexican cowboys.

“First things first,” he told them. “We’re going to take out these bandidos, then move around to each road entering town and do the same.”

“Do we kill them, Señor Smoke?” Bernal Sandoval asked.

Smoke eyed him levelly. “We’re not here to kiss them, Bernal.”

“Muy bien.” He turned to his companions. “Adelante, muchachos.”

Smoke led the way as they charged down on the outlaws ahead. With weapons at the ready, they closed in a cloud of red dust. Quinn’s men turned at the sound of pounding hooves, and the one in the center of the road shouted a challenge.

“Rein in and turn around. Nobody gets into town today. This is your last chance. Do it now or you’ll be hurtin’.”

With a firm tug on Cougar’s reins, Smoke halted first and took careful aim. He intentionally shot the hard case in charge through the left shoulder. The man grunted and raised his own six-gun. It barked loudly, but without effect. Smoke had given him his chance, and he had not taken it. So the last mountain man put a bullet through the chest of the outlaw. At once the gunman’s underlings opened fire.

Not lacking in courage, the vaqueros sent a storm of hot lead into the rank that partitioned the road. Slugs from both sides whipped and cracked through the air. More dust churned up, to mingle with powder smoke and obscure the view. From the midst of the haze, a man screamed. Another called for help. Alejandro silenced him. Two vaqueros cursed in Spanish. Another ragged volley rippled across the hilly ground. Then, on the far side of the melee, a horse sprinted free. Its rider cried out in near hysteria.

“Get out before they kill us all!”

Within five seconds, the roar of gunfire dwindled to silence. The dust blew away on a stiff breeze, and the vaqueros began to slap one another on the back and congratulate themselves for the easy victory. Smoke Jensen gave them a couple of seconds, then called them together.

“We’ll go on to the next. Alejandro, you take half our men and come at them at an angle; we’ll take them head on. No time to waste until we clean out all of these skunks.” He beckoned to Wally and the boy joined him expectantly.

* * *

Yank Hastings had been with the Quinn gang for three years. He had seen the scruffy rabble of low-grade highwaymen and rustlers turned into a finely tuned force, not unlike an army. At the constant goading of Paddy Quinn and Garth Thompson, they had cleaned up their collective rag-tag, unwashed appearance. They had practiced with their weapons until they had reached a proficiency unheard of among most common bandits. Every man now took orders without questioning them, obeyed to the letter or died trying. They robbed banks like precision machines; they learned the skills of intimidation to add to their ability to use force; those most skilled at it stole cattle by the whole herd, rather than twenty or thirty had at a time. It made Yank Hastings proud to be among their number.

That was why it shocked him, then, when two of the gang ran down on their barricade on the Taos-Raton road on frothing horses. Their eyes wide with panic, they shouted that an attack was imminent.

“A bunch of Mezkin cowboys hit our roadblock jist a while ago,” one blurted out “They shot hell outta Cort an’ Davey and lit out after us toward here.”

“Yeah. They’ll be here any minute,” his companion assured.

Yank had started to calm them and discredit their fears when a bullet cracked overhead. He looked beyond them with a stunned expression.

Alejandro Alvarado and seven vaqueros raced toward the roadblock at an oblique angle to the road. It had been Alejandro who had fired at Yank. Hastings holstered his six-gun and drew his rifle. He was not about to let this jumped-up “Mezkin” get the better of him. He worked the lever to chamber a round and felt a stunning pain in his hand as a bullet struck the small of the stock. Fingers numbed, he dropped the weapon as he stared in disbelief while seven more vaqueros, led by a white man, stormed toward them along the road. The air filled with deadly bees as the attackers blazed away at Yank and his men. He had to do something, and fast.

“Everybody dismount. Josh, take the horses back. The rest of you get in those rocks. Hold your fire until you have a sure target.”

Quickly the men spread out to take positions of at least partial cover. Undeterred, the riders came on. Return fire spurted from the muzzles of guns in the outlaws’ hands. From a peaceful, quiet afternoon, the world had swiftly changed into a place of noise, fury, and death. The fighting intensified. Suddenly, a whole swarm of Quinn’s hard cases appeared over a low rise and charged toward the attackers.

* * *

Smoke Jensen watched the approach of the reinforcements and made a quick decision. He turned aside and cantered back a hundred yards to where Wally Gower had hunkered down in a pile of boulders. He leaned forward and spoke urgently to the boy.

“Wally, I want you to ride like lightning back to where we cleaned out that first roadblock. Then skedaddle into town and go to the sheriff. Tell him what we are doing and to get some men here right now.”

“Yes, sir, I can do that.”

Wally sprinted off on his pony before Smoke could wish him good luck. Smoke turned back to the battle that had developed in his absence. The vaqueros appeared to hold their own. They kept moving, making difficult targets of themselves. Smoke located one outlaw, who had climbed high on the rocks and now took careful aim with a Winchester at Alejandro Alvarado. Smoke settled Cougar with a pat on the neck and sighted in on the exposed target. When he had what he wanted, he gave a sharp whistle and shouted to the hard case.

“Over here!”

Obligingly the man turned, so that Smoke caught him in the upper left chest with his first round. Quickly Smoke cycled the action of his Express rifle and fired again. A shower of volcanic rock chips formed a plume behind the thug after the bullet exited along the midline of his body. He flopped back down and lay still. Smoke sought another target. He had no lack of them, he soon discovered.

Outlaws milled everywhere. The new arrivals had been slow in taking to the rocks. Diego’s vaqueros made a good harvest among them. Bodies sprawled in the grotesque postures of the dead and dying. Smoke saw another man seeking a vantage point high in the rocks. Quickly he raised his Winchester. The discharge of a heavy .44 revolver close by caused Cougar to flinch and side-step at the moment the weapon fired. A torrent of dark, red-brown, porous rock exploded in the face of the gunman.

His sharp cry of pain sounded over the tumult of battle. Smoke levered a fresh round into the chamber and felt the hot breath of a bullet kiss his cheek. Unflinching, he raised the sights into line and shot the author of that close call through the breastbone. Smoke made a quick count. They had taken a hefty toll of the gang. The advantage of numbers had shifted to their side. Only one vaquero showed signs of having taken a wound. And that, Smoke noted, seemed slight. Smoke was about to call to the Mexican cowboys to rally and storm the rocks when more of the outlaw gang closed in, led by Garth Thompson.

* * *

Santan Tossa kneeled at the edge of the sacred sand painting and examined the evidence. Someone had come again to the kiva and stolen several of the religious articles stored there. The footprint of the culprit was distinctive. Much wider than usual, longer also, it served as a signature. Santan Tossa knew to whom the splayed foot belonged. He and several others had been most vocal about raising up the entire male population of the tua pueblo and striking at the outsiders who had invaded their land. And he thought he knew who it was that they worked for.

There was a white man, a round-eye, named Satterlee. This would be the one. He had come to the pueblo to talk the elders into giving him permission to cut trees, a whole lot of trees, on their land. It had been refused, of course. Many of the trees were very old, older than the memories of the Tua. So old as to have shaded the Anasazi, those mysterious dwellers of the time of legends. Santan Tossa had noted the glow of greed in Satterlee’s eyes as he had looked upon the sacred amulets, bracelets and necklaces in their niches. Now, fully half of them had disappeared. How much, he wondered, had Dohatsa taken to become a thief?

No matter the reason or the reward, this required help from outside the pueblo. Although he didn’t like it, Tossa knew he must take his findings to the white lawman in Taos. He was powerless to investigate anyone not of the pueblo, but the sheriff would know how to go about it. Thus decided, Santan Tossa made a quick examination of the remainder of the kiva and exited through the hole in the roof. He went directly to the small corral on the southeast side of the compound and caught up one of his ponies.

Tossa rode the short three miles to the low adobe wall that surrounded the outsider town of Taos. There he went directly to the sheriff’s office. To his surprise, he found it empty. He would wait. Now that he had committed himself to this course, he might as well see it through. While he bided his time, Tossa reflected on conditions at the pueblo.

Theft of the religious objects had been a shock to those who knew—and not all did—and also a source of much justified anger. As a tribal policeman, he kept his own counsel, but Santan Tossa did not question the rightness of his suspicions. Some of the hotheads among the young warriors had been most vocal in demanding retribution against the whites, whom they felt certain had stolen the object. Particularly Dohatsa, who had called a meeting of his warrior society in the kiva the previous night. After the meeting would have been an ideal time to steal the missing items. Santan Tossa had attended the gathering, although he had not been made to feel welcome. Now he recalled what had happened....

Firelight flickered off the bare, bronze shoulders of Dohatsa as he addressed the Puma Society members. “Brothers, we all know that precious articles of our religion have been stolen. It is clear to me who is responsible. It is white men. Not the Mexicans, not even the Spanish before them, would touch any of our holy relics. They considered them heathen and forbidden. Their lust was for gold not silver. So they discounted even the value of our most treasured works.

“I know that somewhere, our sacred squash blossoms and shells decorate the body of a white woman, maybe more than one. We must ask our mothers and sisters who work in the houses of the whites to look for them. Only they must do this carefully and quietly. And caution them not to say anything of this to anyone.”

A young warrior raised a hand in protest. “Our women have never seen the sacred objects. How will they know what to look for?”

Dohatsa produced a wicked smile. “We will describe them, only not tell of their meaning and purpose. When they are found, we will move silently and swiftly. Our knives and lances will taste white blood. Not a one of the guilty shall live.”

Santan Tossa could not keep silent. “If you do such a thing, outside the pueblo, you will bring much trouble to us.”

Dohatsa turned a scornful sneer to Tossa. “What do you know? A policeman? You have already sold yourself to the whites. This is the best way.”

Santan Tossa knew better. He believed it to be wrong that night....

And he believed it today as he awaited the return of Sheriff Hank Banner. More so for knowing now that the thief had been Dohatsa.