War of the Mountain Man

16

Max had not waited long to retaliate. The gunhands on his payroll and those who lived in Hell’s Creek had hit the town hard from the north and were now preparing to strike again, from the south end. Several had thrown torches and two buildings were on fire; but the bucket brigades were working and the fires were being snuffed out before much damage could be done.

“Get into position!”Smoke yelled. “Just like we practiced. Move!”

The men and women of the town responded, quickly getting into battle positions on the roofs and behind shelter. The outlaws saw what was taking place and broke off the second attack before it could get started. They galloped south.

Smoke didn’t need a fortune-teller to know where they were heading: to Red Malone’s spread.

“Do we follow them?” Toby asked, coming out of the hotel carrying a rifle.

“Not a whole bunch of us. That’s what they want. They’d set up an ambush point and nail us. Jim,” he called, “saddle me a horse. Not Star. He needs a rest.”

Smoke looked around. “Judge, deputize Pete Akins. Pete and Jim will stay here. Sal, come on. Let’s do some head-hunting.”

Sally pressed a couple of biscuits and salt meat in his hand while the hotel cook made a poke of food for the men to take with them. Smoke gulped down a cup of coffee and then was in the saddle, riding a long-legged buckskin with a mean look in his eyes.

“I know that horse,” Sal said. “That’s the stableman’s personal ride. He’s a good one.”

Smoke nodded and the men were off, leaving the road just outside of town and cutting across country. From their tracks, it was clear that the outlaws had arrogantly elected to stay with the road, daring Smoke and any others to chase them.

The short cut that Smoke chose was one pointed out to him by Jim; and Sal knew it as well or better. It would cut off miles getting to the Lightning spread. It was rough country; high-up country.

The men rode the mountain trails and passes in silence. A great gray wolf watched them from a ridge. Smoke spoke to the wolf in Cheyenne, one of several Indian languages that Old Preacher had taught him. Preacher had taught him that for man to fear the wolf was downright ignorant. Preacher had said that he’d never known of a man being attacked by a wolf unless that man was threatening the wolf or got too close to a fresh kill. Either way, according to Preacher, it was the man’s fault, not the wolfs.

“Magnificent animals,” Sal said, looking at the timber wolf. “But they don’t make good pets worth a damn.”

“They’re not meant to be pets,” Smoke agreed. “God didn’t put them here for that. Damn stupid hunters keep killing them, and the deer and elk population suffers because of it. They’re part of the balance of nature. I wish the white man would understand that. Indians understood it.”

The wolf stood on the ridge and watched the men pass. Then it turned and went back to its den, where it was watching over the cubs while its mate hunted for food, which is a lot more than can be said for a great many so-called superior humans.

“There they are,” Sal pointed out.

Smoke looked to his right and slightly behind him. A group of riders, tiny from this distance, rode far below them. About twenty-five of them.

“We’ll be a good fifteen minutes ahead of them after we cut off up yonder,” Sal said. “I know a place that’ll be dandy for an ambush.”

“Take the lead, Sal. I’ll follow you.”

The men rode down from the high country, the temperature warming as they descended from the high-up into a valley. Wildflowers had burst forth, coloring the landscape with brilliant summer hues.

Smoke was going to add some more color to the scenery: blood-red.

The two men left their horses safe within boulders and timber and, with their rifles, got into place. They were about fifty yards above the road. This was not the stage road, but an offshoot that led to and stopped at Malone’s ranch, some miles farther on. They were on Lightning range.

Sal pointed that out.

“Good,” Smoke replied. “Maybe they’ll hear the shots and come to lend their buddies a hand. We’ll lessen the odds against the town if they do.”

Sal took that time to point out that should that occur, the two of them would be outnumbered something like forty to one.

Smoke grinned and patted the bulging saddlebags he’d taken from behind his saddle. “Have faith, Sal. If worse comes to worse, well blast our way out.”

“There ain’t a nerve in your body, is there, Smoke?”

“Oh, I’ve known fear, Sal.” Smoke thought for a moment, then smiled. “Back in ’69, I think it was.”

Both men laughed, then sobered as the outlaws came into view, riding around a curve in the road, still too far away for accurate shooting.

“Wish we had brung one of them fancy rifles you took from them foreigners,” Sal said. “We’d a sure tried it out.”

Smoke eared back the hammer on his Winchester. “They’ll be in range in about a minute. I’ll take the left side, you take the right.”

“Good,” Sal said flatly. “I can recognize Ernie’s horse from here. Ain’t neither one of them worth a damn for anything.”

“Here we go, Sal.”

The men lifted the rifles to their shoulders, sighted in, took up slack on the triggers, and emptied two saddles.

The outlaws appeared confused as their horses reared and bucked at the gunfire and the sudden smell of blood. Instead of turning left or right, or retreating, the outlaws put the spurt to the animals’ flanks and came forward.

“Like shootin’ clay pigeons standin’ still,” Sal muttered, and emptied another saddle.

Smoke grabbed several taped-together sticks of dynamite from the open saddlebag, lit the fuse, and tossed it down the hill. The charge landed just above the road and blew, sending small rocks hurling through the air like deadly missiles.

Through the cloud of dust raised by the dynamite, Smoke and Sal could see a half-dozen more riderless horses, the outlaws on the ground, some of them writhing in agony with hideous head wounds and broken limbs, the others lying very still, their skulls crushed by the flying rocks.

Smoke and Sal started tossing the lead around. The dozen or so outlaws left in the saddle decided it was way past time to clear out. They put the spurs to their horses and were gone, fogging it to Red’s ranch.

Smoke and Sal mounted up and rode down into the carnage, to see if anything could be salvaged. Sal rounded up the outlaws’ horses while Smoke stood among the dead and wounded, making certain no one summoned up the courage to try a shot at either one of them.

They had just finished tying the dead across their saddles and securing the wounded on their horses when Red Malone and his crew thundered up, raising an unnecessary cloud of dust.

“What the hell are you doin’ on my range, Jensen?” the man yelled.

“I’m a deputy sheriff of this county, Red,” Smoke calmly told him. “And I’m carrying out my duties as such. You interfere and I’ll put your butt in jail.”

Sal had worked around; he now faced Red, a rifle pointed at the rancher’s chest. The action did not escape Red, and he knew if trouble started, he would be the first one dead.

But he wouldn‘t, couldn’t, leave it alone. “You got a warrant for the arrest of these men, Jensen?”

“I saw them attack the town of Barlow, Red. Me and several hundred other people. Those alive are going back to stand trial. Now back off.”

All looked up as the sound of hooves pounding against the earth reached them. Twenty men from the town reined up, heavily armed, among them Joe Walsh and a half dozen of his hands.

“The town’s secure, Smoke,” Benson said. “We thought we’d ride out and give you a hand.”

“It’s appreciated. You men start escorting these bums back to town.”Smoke and Sal swung into the saddle. Smoke looked at Red. “Their trial will begin in a couple of days. You and your men are still banned from the town. Keep that in mind, Red.”

“Someday, Jensen,” Red warned, his voice thick with anger. “Someday.”

“Anytime, Red. Just anytime at all.” Smoke lifted the reins and rode away.

The funeral of Aggie Feckles was an emotional, gut-wrenching time for all. Midway through the ordeal, Martha collapsed and had to be carried back to the doctor’s office. Young Elias Brown had a very difficult time fighting back his tears. Just as the earth was being shoveled into the hole, Smoke cut his eyes and looked toward the north. Plumes of smoke were billowing into the sky.

“Max is burning you men out!”he called to Brown and his friends. “Let’s ride.”

They were too late, of course. It was miles to the collection of farmhouses and barns and other outbuildings. Brown had been completely burned out. Gatewood lost his house, but the other buildings were intact. Cooter lost his barn and smokehouse. Bolen’s house was gone, and Morrison and Carson lost barns and equipment. All the farmers’ cows and hogs had been shot, the chickens scattered and trampled.

“Goddamn a man who would do this!” Brown said. He squared his shoulders and added, “That sorry son will not run me out. We’ll rebuild.”

“And well help you,” Tom Johnson said.

“Your credit is good at my store,” Marbly said. “For as long as it takes.”

“I have money put back,” Judge Garrison told the farmers. “I’m good for loans.”

Sally and Victoria had ridden out in a buggy. Sally said, “Smoke, I’m going to wire our family’s board of directors back east. I think it’s time Barlow had a bank. I’ll get the first steps in motion this afternoon.”

Smoke turned and smiled at her. “Good, honey. That’s a great idea.”

“Your wife owns a bank?” Marbly asked.

“Her family is one of the richest families in the nation,” Smoke told the startled crowd. “They own factories, banks, shipping lines, railroads ... you name it. If Sally says put a bank in Barlow, a bank will be put in Barlow.” He turned to Jim Dagonne. “Let’s go pick up some tracks and see where they lead to. As if we didn’t know.”

But the direction the marauders took did not lead toward Hell’s Creek. They went north for a couple of miles, then cut toward the northeast, toward the flathead range and the glacier country.

“What’s up there, Jim?”

“Man, that is rugged country. I understand they’s talk in Washington about making a big chunk of it a national park. It’s about a million or so acres. And the weather is unpredictable as hell. Storms can blow in there—even in the summer, so I’m told—dropping temperatures fifty ... sixty degrees. They’s mountains in there over two miles high and impassable.”

“You’ve been in there?”

“I’ve been on the edge of it several times. Continental Divide runs right through it.”

“Anything between here and there?”

“Tradin’ post of sorts up ahead on the Hungry Horse. Some pretty salty ol’ boys hang around there.”

Smoke nodded. “We’ll follow these tracks as long as we can. We’ll supply at the post. The nick in that shoe is a dead giveaway. That’ll hold up in court.”

“You plan on bringing them back?”

“Not if I can help it.”

The country was so rugged and unsettled that the men could not make the trading post that day. They camped along a creek and dined on fresh fish caught with their hands, Indian style.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” Jim asked after watching Smoke catch their supper by hand.

“I was raised by mountain men, Jim. A very independent and self-sufficient bunch.”

“I’ve met a couple of real old men who was mountain men. I saw something in their eyes that made me back off and talk right respectful to them.”

“Wise thing to do. A mountain man isn’t going to take much crap from anybody.”

They ate until they could hold no more, then rolled up in their blankets, using saddles for pillows, and were up before dawn, making coffee and talking little until they’d shaken the kinks out and had a cup of coffee you could float nails in.

“Who runs this trading post?” Smoke finally asked.

“Don’t know no more. Man by the name of Smith used to run it. He might still. Smith ain’t his real name. He’s a bad one. Have to be bad to run a place like that. Got him a graveyard out back of hard cases who tried to steal from him or brace him over one thing or another.”

“Fast gun?”

“Nope. Sawed-off shotgun. And he don’t hesitate none in usin’ it, neither. He’s got the worst whiskey you ever tried to drink. I think he adds snake heads to it for flavor. And I ain’t kiddin’.”

“I think I’ll stick with beer.”

“That would be wise.”

They rolled their blankets in their ground sheets and were in the saddle as the sun was struggling to push its rays over the mountains.

They followed the tracks, and they led straight to the trading post on the north fork of the Flathead River. Both men had taken off their badges, had dusty clothing from the trail, and had not shaved that morning. Both of them had heavy beards, so they were beginning to look a little rough around the edges.

“If Smith is still here, is he going to recognize you?” Smoke asked.

“Probably. But he ain’t gonna say nothing except howdy, ’til he figures out what I might be up to. How are we going to play this?”

“You just follow my lead.”

“I’s afraid you was gonna say that.”

The men put their horses in the big barn behind the long, low trading post and unsaddled them, carefully rubbing them down and giving them a good bait of corn. 25 ceents a skoop, the sign said.

“Yep,” Jim said. “Smith is still here. You ever seen such outrageous prices?”

“It’s the only game in town, partner.”

“You called that right.”

Smoke lifted the right rear hoof of each animal until he found the one with the chipped shoe. He smiled up at Jim. “We found our man.”

“Men,” Jim corrected. “I count six of them.”

Smoke straightened up and, with a grin on his face, said, “Hell, Jim, don’t look so glum. We got them outnumbered.”

“If that’s the way you count,” Jim said soberly, “I shore am glad you don’t count out my payroll!”