War of the Mountain Man

8

Smoke rode over to the Widow Feckles’s house and made a slow circle of the grounds around the neat little home before riding up to the gate and swinging down from the saddle. A girl opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, and Smoke pegged her as Aggie.

“Good morning,” Smoke said. “I’m the new marshal over at Barlow. Don’t be afraid of me. I’m here to help, not hurt you or your mother.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Are you really Smoke Jensen?”

“Yes, I am. Is your name Aggie?”

“How’d you know that?”

“I nooned over at the Brown farm. Thought I’d come over and say hello to you and your ma. Is she home?”

“I’ll fetch her for you.”

Smoke waited by the gate. A very pretty woman stepped out onto the porch and smiled at him. “Mr. Jensen?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Martha Feckles. You wanted to see me?”

“If I may, yes.”

“Please come in. I’ve just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

The sitting room was small but neat, the furniture old and worn, but clean.

“You go look after your brother, Aggie,” Martha said. “And don’t stray from the house.”

“Yes, Momma.”

When the girl had closed the door behind her, Smoke said, “Are you expecting Vic Young?”

That shook the woman. Her hands trembled as she poured the coffee. “Brown spoke out of turn, sir.”

“I don’t think so. I think they spoke because they’re worried about you. You’re in a bad situation—not of your doing—and they’d like to see you clear of it.”

“I’ll never be free of Vic,” she said with bitterness in her voice.

“Oh, you’ll be free of him, Martha. You can write that down in your diary. When do you expect him again?”

“This evening.”

Smoke sipped his coffee—mostly chicory—and studied the woman. She was under a strain; he could see that in her eyes and on her face. And he could also see the remnants of a bruise on her jaw. “Did Vic strike you, Martha?”

Her laugh held no humor. “Many times. He likes to beat up women.”

Smoke waited.

With a sigh, she said, “Vic’s killed women before, Mr. Jensen. He brags about it. I have to protect Aggie. I have to do his bidding for her sake.”

“No longer, Martha. You’ll not see Vic Young again. That’s a promise.”

“If you put him in jail, he’ll come back when he gets out and really make it difficult for us.”

“I don’t intend to put him in jail, Martha. I intend to kill him.”

His words did not shock her. She lifted her eyes to his. “I’m no shrinking summer rose, Mr. Jensen. I was born in the West. I don’t hold with eastern views about crime and punishment. Some peopte—men and women—are just no good. They were born bad. I’ll be much beholden to you if you saw to it that Vic did not come around here again. I can mend your shirts, and I do washing and ironing. I—”

Smoke held up a hand. “Enough, Martha. Do you have friends who would take you in for the night?”

“Why ... certainly.”

“I’ll hitch up your buggy, and you take the children and go to your friends for the night. You come back in the morning. All right?”

“If you say so, Mr. Jensen.”

After they had gone, Smoke put his horse up in the small barn, closed the door securely, and walked the grounds, getting the feel of the place. Back in the house, he read for a time. He dozed off and slept for half an hour, waking up refreshed. He made a pot of strong coffee and waited.

Just as dusk was settling around the high country, Smoke heard a horse approaching at a canter. He stood up and slipped the hammer-thong from his .44’s. He worked the guns in and out of leather and walked softly to the front door.

“Git ready, baby,” a man called from the outside. “And git that sweet little baby of yourn ready, too. It’s time for her to git bred.”

Smoke’s face tightened. He felt rage well up inside him. He mentally calmed himself. Only his eyes showed what was boiling inside him.

“You hear me, you ...” Vic spewed profanity, the filth rolling from his mouth like sewerage.

Smoke opened the door and stepped out onto the small porch. Vic crouched like a rabid animal when he spotted him.

“No more, Vic,” Smoke told him. “You won’t terrorize this good woman anymore.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”

Vic spat on the ground. “You rode a long ways to die, Jensen.”

“You’re trash, Vic. Pure crud. Just like the man you work for.”

“No man calls me that and lives!”

“I just did, Vic. And I’m still living.”

“Where’s Martha and Aggie?”

“Safe. And I intend to see they remain safe.”

“You got no call to come meddlin’ in a man’s personal business.”

“I do when the man is trash like you.”

“I’m tarred of all this jibber-jabber, Jensen. You tell me where my woman is at and then you hit the trail.”

“You got any kin you want me to notify, Vic?”

“Notify about what?”

“Your death.”

“Huh!” Vic looked puzzled for a moment. Then he laughed. “You may be a big shot where you come from, Jensen, but you don’t spell horse crap to me.”

“Then make your move, punk.”

Vic was suddenly unsure of himself. He looked around him. “You alone, Jensen?”

“I don’t need any help in dealing with scum like you, Vic.”

“I’m warnin’ you, Jensen, don’t call me that no more.”

“Or you’ll do what, Vic? I’ll tell you what you’ll do. Nothing. You woman beaters are all alike. Cowards. Punks. Come on, Vic. Make your play.”

All the bluster and brag left the man. His eyes began to jerk and the right side of his face developed a nervous tic. “I’ll just ride on, Jensen.”

“No, Vic. I won’t allow that. You’d just find some other poor woman to terrorize. Some child to molest. It’s over, Vic. You’ll kill no more women.”

“They had it comin’ to them!” Vic shouted as the night began closing in. “All I wanted from them was what a woman was put on earth to give to a man.”

Smoke waited.

Vic began cursing, working his courage back up to a fever. “Drag iron, Jensen!” he screamed.

“After you, punk.”

Vic’s hand dropped to his gun. Smoke drew, cocked, and fired as fast as a striking rattler, shooting him in the belly, the slug striking the child molester and rapist two inches above his belt buckle. Vic stumbled and went down on one knee. He managed to drag his pistol from leather and cock it. Smoke shot him again, the slug taking him in the side and blowing out the other side. Vic Young fell backward, cursing as life left him.

Smoke stood over him. Vic said, “You’re dead, Jensen. Max has put money on your head. Big money. He ...”

Vic jerked on the cooling ground and died staring at whatever faced him beyond the dark river.

Smoke took the man’s gunbelt and tossed leather and pistol onto the porch. He fanned the man’s pockets, finding a very respectable wad of greenbacks and about a hundred dollars in gold coins. Martha would put the money to good use. He put the money on the kitchen table, along with Vic’s gun and gunbelt and the rifle taken from the saddle boot.

Smoke wrote a short note and left it on the table: HE WILL BOTHER YOU NO MORE.

He signed it Smoke.

He saddled up Star and rode around to the front of the house. Smoke tied Vic across the saddle of his suddenly skittish horse and locked up the house.

Leading the horse with its dead cargo, Smoke headed north, toward Big Max Huggins’s town of Hell’s Creek.

It was late when he arrived on the hill overlooking the bawdy town. Lights were blazing in nearly every building, wild laughter ripped the night, and rowdy songs could be heard coming from drunken throats.

Smoke slipped the lead rope and slapped the horse on the rump, sending it galloping into the town.

He sat his saddle and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Vic’s dead!” the faint shout came to him as the piano playing and singing and drunken laughter gradually fell away, leaving the town silent.

Smoke watched the shadowy figures untie the body of Vic Young and lower it to the ground. He couldn’t hear what the men were saying, but he could make a good guess.

Every rowdy and punk and gun-handler in the town would have known that V ic was seeing Widow Feckles. And everyone would know that she was being forced into acts of passion with Vic. And since none of the sodbusters would have the nerve to face Vic—so the gunhandlers thought; whether that was true or not, only time would tell—it had to have been the Widow Feckles who did Vic in.

Smoke kneed Star forward, moving closer to the town.

“Let’s burn her out!” the shout reached Smoke’s ears.

“Yeah,” another man yelled. “I’ll get the kerosene.”

Smoke swung onto the main street of Hell’s Creek and reined up. Staying in the shadows, he shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot and eared back the hammer. He called, “Martha Feckles had nothing to do with killing Vic. I killed him.”

“Well, who the hell are you?” came the shouted question.

“Smoke Jensen.”

“Jensen! Let’s get him, boys.”

They came at a rush and it was like shooting clay ducks in a shooting gallery. Smoke leveled the Winchester and emptied it into the knot of men. A dozen of them fell to one side, hard hit and screaming. Smoke spun Star around and headed for the high country, leaving a trail a drunken city slicker could follow.

About five miles outside of town, Smoke found what he was looking for and reined up. He loosened the cinch strap and let the big horse blow. He took a drink of water from his canteen and filled up his hat, letting Star have a drink.

Smoke had reloaded his rifle on the run, and he took it and his saddlebags down to the rocks just below where he had tucked Star safely away in a narrow draw. He eared back the hammer when he heard the pounding of hooves. The men of Hell’s Creek rounded a curve in the trail and Smoke knocked the first man out of the saddle. Shifting the muzzle, he got lead in two more before the scum started making a mad dash for safety.

Smoke deliberately held his fire, watching the men cautiously edge toward his position under a starry sky and moon-bright night. With a grin, he opened his saddlebags and took out a stick of dynamite. He had a dozen sticks in the bag. He capped the stick of giant powder and set a very short fuse. Striking a match, he lit the fuse and let it fly, sputtering and sparking through the air.

The dynamite blew and shook the ground as it exploded. Smoke saw one man blown away from behind a rock, half of an arm missing. Another man staggered to his boots and Smoke drilled him through the brisket. A third man tried to crawl away, dragging a broken leg. Smoke put him out of his misery.

Smoke put away the dynamite. Taking it along had been Sally’s idea, and it had been a good one.

The trash below him cursed Smoke, calling him all sorts of names. But Smoke held his fire and eased away to a new position, which was some fifty feet higher than the old one. He now was able to see half-a-dozen men crouched behind whatever cover they could find in the night, some of that cover being mighty thin indeed.

Smoke dusted one man through and through. The man grunted once, then slowly rolled down the hill, dead. He shifted the muzzle and plugged another of Max’s men through the throat. The man made a lot of horrible noises before he had the good grace to expire. Smoke had been aiming for the chest, but downhill shooting is tricky enough; couple that with night, and it gets doubly difficult.

The men of Hell’s Creek decided they had had enough for this night. Smoke let them make their retreat, even though he could have easily dropped another two or three. He tightened the cinch strap, swung into the saddle, and headed south. He found a good place to camp and picketed Star. With his saddle for a pillow, he rolled into his blankets and went to sleep.

Two hours after dawn, he rode into the front yard of Martha Feckles. An idea had formed in his mind over coffee and bacon that morning, and he wanted to see how the widow received it.

“I think it’s a grand idea!” she said.

Barlow had another resident.

Big Max Huggins sat in his office and stared at the wall. His thoughts were dark and violent. At this very moment, that drunken old preacher—he was all that passed for religion in Hell’s Creek—was praying for the lost souls of three of those Jensen had shot in the main street of town last night. Those that had pursued him came back into town, dragging their butts in defeat. They had left six dead on the mountain. One of those had bled to death after the bomb Jensen had thrown tore off half of the man’s arm.

“Goddamn you, Jensen!” Max cursed.

He leaned back in his chair—specially made due to his height and weight. He hated Smoke Jensen, but had to respect him—grudgingly—for his cold nerve. It would take either a crazy person or one with nerves of steel to ride smack into the middle of the enemy. And Smoke Jensen was no crazy person.

What to do about him?

Big Max didn’t have the foggiest idea.

Smoke had put steel into the backbones of those in Barlow. A raid against the town now would be suicide. His men would be shot to pieces. There was no need to send for any outside gunfighters. He had some of the best guns in the West, either on his payroll or working out of the town on a percentage basis of their robberies.

Max’s earlier boast that he would just wait Smoke out was proving to be a hollow brag. Jensen was bringing the fight to him.

Of course, Max mused, he could just pick up and move on. He’d done it many times in the past when things had gotten too hot for him.

But just the thought of that irritated him. In the past, dozens of cops or sheriffs and their deputies had been on his trail. Jensen was just one man. One man!

Max sighed, thinking: But, Jesus, what a man.

It was a good thing he’d invited those friends of his from Europe. A damn good thing. They would be arriving just in time.

The good ladies of Barlow welcomed Martha Feckles and her children with open arms. The mayor gave her a small building to use for her sewing. And Judge Garrison, now that he was free of the heavy hand of Max Huggins, was proving to be a decent sort of fellow. He staked Martha for a dress shop.

The preacher and schoolteacher had arrived in town. The newspaper man was due in at any time. Some of those who had left when Max first put on the pressure were returning. Barlow now had a population of nearly four hundred. And growing.

The jail was nearly full. Each time the stage ran north, Smoke jerked out any gamblers, gunfighters, and whores who might be on it and turned them around. If they kicked up a fuss, they were tossed in the clink, fined, and were usually more than happy to catch the next stage out—south.

A depty U.S. Marshal, on his way up to British Columbia to bring back a prisoner, was on the stage the morning a gunslick objected to being turned around.

“There ain’t no warrants out on me, Jensen,” the man protested. “You ain’t got no right to turn me around. I can go anywheres I damn well please to go.”

“That’s right,” Smoke told him. “Anywhere except Hell’s Creek. ”

Amused, the U. S. Marshal leaned against a post and rolled himself a cigarette, listening to the exchange. He knew all about Hell’s Creek and Big Max Huggins. But until somebody complained to the government, there was little they could do. He knew the sheriff, the city marshal, and all the deputies in Hell’s Creek were crooked as a snake. But the outlaws working out of there never bothered anyone with a federal badge, and as far as he knew, there were no federal warrants on anyone in the town—at least not under the names they were going by now.

“Git out of my way, Jensen!” the gunny warned Smoke.

“Don’t be a fool, man,” Smoke told him. “You’re in violation of the law by bracing me. I don’t have any papers on you. So why don’t you just go to the hotel, get you a room, and catch the next stage out?”

“South?”

“That’s it.”

“I’ll rent me a horse and go to Hell’s Creek.”

“Sorry, friend,” Smoke told him. “No one in this town will rent you a horse.”

“Then I think I’ll get back on the stage and ride up yonder like my ticket says.”

Smoke hit him. The punch came out of the blue and caught the gunny on the side of the jaw. When he hit the ground, he was out cold.

Jim and Sal dragged him across the street to the jail.

“Slick,” the U.S. Marshal said. “Against the law, but slick.”

“You going to report what I’m doing?” Smoke asked.

“Hell, no, man! But I can tell you that the word’s gone out up and down the line: You’re a marked man. Huggins has put big money on your head. And I’m talkin’ enough money to bring in some mercenaries from Europe.”

“Are they in the country?”

“As near as the Secret Service can tell, yes. Two long-distance shooters, Henri Dubois and Paul Mittermaier, are on their way west right now. Our office has sent out flyers to you. Oh, yes. We know what you’re doing here. We can’t give you our blessings, but we can close our eyes.”

“Thanks. Dubois and Mittermaier—Frenchman and a German?”

“Yep. And they’re good.”

“I don’t like back-shooters. I’ll tell you now, Marshal: If I see them, I’m going to kill them.”

“Suits me, Smoke. Good hunting.” He climbed back on board the stage and was gone.

Smoke turned to Jim and Sal, who had just returned from the jail. “You hear that?”

They had heard it.

“Pass the word to all the farmers and ranchers. Any strangers, especially those speaking with an accent, I want to know about. You boys watch your backs.”

Sal spat on the ground. “I hate a damned back-shooter,” he said. “These boys are gonna be totin’ some fancy custom-made rifles. I see one, I’m gonna plug him on the spot and apologize later if I’m wrong.”

“You know what this tells me?” Smoke asked. “It tells me that Max is in a bind. What we’re doing is working. We can’t legally stop and permanently block freight shipments to Hell’s Creek. But we can hold them up and make them open up every box and crate for search. And I mean a very long and tedious search. It won’t take long for freight companies to stop accepting orders from Hell’s Creek.”

Jim and Sal grinned. “Oh, you got a sneaky mind, Smoke,” Sal said. “I like it!”

“The last freight wagons rolled through a week ago,” Jim said. “There ought to be another convoy tomorrow, I figure.”

“OK,” Smoke said. He looked at Sal. “You get a couple of town boys. Give them a dollar apiece to stand watch about two miles south of town. As soon as they hear the wagons, one of them can come fogging back to town for us. Everything going north has got to pass through here.” Smoke smiled. “This is going to give Max fits!”

The men grinned at each other. One sure way to kill a town was to dry up its supply line. Big Max was not going to like this.

Not one little bit.