Return Of The Mountain Man Part 20

"You would be better off taking your chances with us," Audie suggested.

Richards looked at Nighthawk. "What do you have to say about it?"

"Ummm."

Richards looked pained.

"That means haul your a.s.s back to your friends," Phew said.

Richards trotted his horse back to what was left of his band. He told them the rules.

Britt looked up the hill toward an old falling-down store. "There he is."

Smoke stood alone on the old curled-up and rotted boardwalk. The men could see his twin .44s belted around his waist. He held a Henry repeating rifle in his right hand, a double-barreled express gun in his left hand. Smoke ducked into the building, leaving only a slight bit of dust to signal where he once stood.

"Two groups of six," Richards said, "one group of three, one group of four. Britt, take your group in from the rear. Turkel, take your boys in from the east. Reese, take your people in from the west. I'll take my people in from this direction. Move out."

Smoke had removed his spurs, hanging them on the saddlehorn of Drifter. As soon as he ducked out of sight, he had run from the store down the hill, staying in the alley. He stashed the express gun on one side of the street in an old store, his rifle across the street. He met Skinny Davis first, in the gloom of what had once been a saloon.

"Draw!" Davis hissed.

Smoke put two holes in his chest before Davis could c.o.c.k his .44s.

"In Pat's Saloon!" someone shouted.

Williams jumped through an open gla.s.sless window of the saloon. Just as his boots. .h.i.t the old warped floor, Smoke shot him, the .44 slug knocking the gunslick back out the window to the boardwalk. Williams was hurt, but not out of it yet. He crawled along the side of the building, one arm broken and dangling, useless.

"Smoke Jensen!" Cross called. "You ain't got the sand to face me!"

"That's one way of putting it," Smoke muttered, taking careful aim and shooting the outlaw. The lead struck him in the stomach, doubling him over and dropping him to the weed-grown and dusty street.

The miners had hightailed it to the ridges surrounding the town. There they sat, drinking and betting and cheering. The mountain men stood and squatted and sat on the opposite ridge, watching.

A bullet dug a trench along the wood, sending splinters flying, a few of them striking Smoke's face, stinging and bringing a few drops of blood.

He ran out the back of the saloon and came face to face with Simpson, the gunhawk having both hands filled with a .44.

Smoke pulled the trigger on his own .44s, the double hammer-blows of lead taking Simpson in the lower chest, slamming him to the ground, dying.

Quickly reloading, Smoke grabbed up Simpson's guns and tucked them behind his gunbelt. He ran down the alley. The last of Richards's gunslicks stepped out of a gaping doorway just as Smoke cut to his right, jumping through an open window. A bullet burned Smoke's shoulder. Spinning, he fired both Colts, one bullet striking Martin in the throat, the second taking the gunnie just above the nose, almost tearing off the upper part of the man's face.

Smoke caught a glimpse of someone running. He dropped to one knee and fired. His slug shattered the hip of Rogers, sending the big man sprawling in the dirt, howling and cursing. Reese spurred his horse and charged the building where Smoke was crouched. He smashed his horse's shoulder against the old door and thundered in. The horse, wild-eyed and scared witless, lost its footing and fell, pinning Reese to the floor, crus.h.i.+ng the man's stomach and chest. Reese howled in agony as blood filled his mouth and darkness clouded his eyes.

Smoke left the dying man and ran out the side door.

"Get him, Turkel!" Brown screamed.

Smoke glanced up. Turkel was on the roof of an old building, a rifle in his hand. Smoke flattened against a building as Turkel pulled the trigger, the slug plowing up dirt at Smoke's feet. Smoke snapped off a shot, getting lucky as the bullet hit the gunhand in the chest. Turkel dropped the rifle and fell to the street, cras.h.i.+ng through an awning. He did not move.

A bullet removed a small part of Smoke's right upper ear; blood poured down the side of his face. He ran to where he had hid the shotgun, grabbing it up and c.o.c.king it, leveling it just as the doorway filled with men.

Firing both barrels, Smoke cleared the doorway of all living things, including Britt, Harris, and Smith, the buckshot knocking the men clear off the rotting boardwalk, dead and dying in the street.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Jensen!" Brown screamed in rage, stepping out into the street.

Smoke dropped the shotgun and picked up a b.l.o.o.d.y rifle from the doorway. He shot Brown in the stomach. Brown howled and dropped to the street, both hands holding his stomach.

Rogers leveled a pistol and fired, the bullet ricocheting off a support post, part of the lead striking Smoke's left leg, dropping him to the boardwalk. Smoke ended Rogers's career with a single shot to the head.

White-hot pain lanced through Smoke's side as Williams shot him from behind. Smoke fell off the boardwalk, turning as he fell. He fired twice, the lead taking Williams in the neck, almost tearing the man's head off.

Ducking back inside, grabbing up a fallen shotgun with blood on the barrel, Smoke checked the shotgun, then checked his wounds. Bleeding, but not serious. Williams's slug had gone through the fleshy part of the side. Using the point of his knife, Smoke picked out the tiny piece of lead from Rogers's gun and tied a bandana around the slight wound. He slipped further into the darkness of the building as spurs jingled in the alley to the rear of the old store. Smoke jacked back both hammers on the coach gun. He waited.

The spurs jingled once more. Smoke followed the sound with the twin barrels of the express gun. Carefully, silently, he slipped across the rat-droppings-littered floor to the wall that fronted the alley. He could hear breathing directly in front of him.

He pulled both triggers, the charge blowing a bucket-sized hole in the old pine wall.

The gunslick was blown clear across the alley, hurled against an outhouse. The outhouse collapsed, the gunhand falling into the s.h.i.+t-pit.

Silently, Smoke reloaded the shotgun, then reloaded his own .44s and the ones taken from the dead gunnie. He listened as Fenerty called for his buddies.

There was no reply.

Fenerty was the last gunhawk left.

Smoke located the voice. Just across the street in a falling-down old building. Laying aside the shotgun, he picked up a rifle and emptied the magazine into the storefront. Fenerty came staggering out, shot in the chest and belly. He died face down in the littered street.

"All right, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Smoke yelled to Richards, Potter, and Stratton. "Holster your guns and step out into the street. Face me, if you've got the nerve."

The sharp odor of sweat mingled with blood and gunsmoke filled the still summer air as four men stepped out into the b.l.o.o.d.y, dusty street.

Richards, Potter, and Stratton stood at one end of the block. A tall, b.l.o.o.d.y figure stood at the other. All their guns were in leather.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Stratton screamed, his voice as high-pitched as a woman. "You ruined it all." He clawed at his .44.

Smoke drew and fired before Stratton's pistol could clear leather. Potter grabbed for his pistol. Smoke shot him dead, then holstered his gun, waiting.

Richards had not moved. He stood with a faint smile on his lips, staring at Smoke.

"You ready to die?" Smoke asked the man.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," Richards replied. There was no fear in his voice. His hands appeared steady. "Janey gone?"

"Took your money and pulled out."

"Been a long run, hasn't it, Jensen?"

"It's just about over."

"What happens to all our holdings?"

"I don't care what happens to the mines. The miners can have them. I'm giving all your stock to decent, honest punchers and homesteaders."

A puzzled look spread over Richards' face. "I don't understand. You did...all this!" he waved his hand-"for nothing?"

Someone moaned, the sound painfully inching up the street.

"I did it for my pa, my brother, my wife, and my baby son."

"But it won't bring them back!"

"I know."

"I wish I had never heard the name Jensen."

"You'll never hear it again after this day, Richards."

"One way to find out," Richards said with a smile. He drew his Colt and fired. He was snake-quick, but hurried his shot, the lead digging up dirt at Smoke's feet.

Smoke shot him in the right shoulder, spinning the man around. Richards grabbed for his left-hand gun and Smoke fired again, the slug striking the man in the left side of his chest. He struggled to bring up his Colt. He managed to c.o.c.k it before Smoke's third shot struck him in the belly. Richards sat down hard in the b.l.o.o.d.y, dusty street.

He opened his mouth to speak. He tasted blood on his tongue. The light began to fade around him. "You'll...meet..."

Smoke never found out who he was supposed to meet. Richards toppled over on his side and died.

Smoke looked up at the ridge where the mountain men had gathered.

They were gone, leaving as silently as the wind.

24.

After MacGregor filed his report with the commanding officer at the fort, the Army made only a cursory inspection of what was left of Bury, Idaho Territory, and the burned ranches around it.

Wanted posters were put out for the outlaw and murderer Buck West. MacGregor wrote the description of the man, thus ensuring he would never be found.

A lot of small ranches sprang up around the area. Very prosperous little farms and ranchers. The ladies from the Pink House stayed. They all got married.

Sam married Becky.

The last anyone ever saw of Smoke Jensen and Sally Reynolds, the two of them were riding toward the mountains, toward the High Lonesome, leading two packhorses.

"You think we'll ever see them again?" Becky asked Sam.

Sam did not reply.

But as Nighthawk might have said, "Ummm."

NOTES FROM THE OLD WEST.

In the small town where I grew up, there were two movie theaters. The Pavilion was one of those old-timey movie show palaces, built in the heyday of Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin-the silent era of the 1920s. By the 1950s, when I was a kid, the Pavilion was a little worn around the edges, but it was still the premier theater in town. They played all those big Technicolor biblical Cecil B. DeMille epics and corny MGM musicals. In Cinemascope.

On the other side of town was the Gem, a somewhat shabby and run-down grind house with sticky floors and torn seats. The Gem booked low-budget "B" pictures (remember the Bowery Boys?), war movies, horror flicks, and Westerns. I liked the Westerns best. I could usually be found every Sat.u.r.day at the Gem, along with my best friend, Newton Trout, watching Westerns from 10 AM until my mother or father came looking for me around suppertime. (Sometimes Newton's dad was dispatched to come fetch us.) One time, my dad came to get me right in the middle of Abilene Trail, which featured the now-forgotten Whip Wilson. My father became so engrossed in the action he sat down and watched the rest of it with us. We didn't get home until after dark, and my mother's meat loaf was a pan of gray ashes by the time we did. Though my father and I were both in the doghouse the next day, this remains one of my fondest childhood memories. There was John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, and Wild Bill Elliot, and Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, and Tim Holt and, a little later, Rod Cameron and Audie Murphy. Of these newcomers, I never missed an Audie Murphy Western, because Audie was sort of an antihero. Sure, he stood for law and order and was an honest man, but sometimes he had to go around the law to uphold it. If he didn't play fair, it was only because he felt ham-strung by the laws of the land. Whatever it took to get the bad guys, Audie did it. There were no finer points of law, no splitting of legal hairs. It was instant justice, devoid of long-winded lawyers, bored or biased jurors, or blackrobed, often corrupt judges.

Steal a man's horse and you were the guest of honor at a necktie party.

Molest a good woman and you got a bullet in the heart or a rope around the gullet. Or at the very least, got the c.r.a.p beat out of you. Rob a bank and face a hail of bullets or the hang-man's noose.

Saved a lot of time and money, did frontier justice.

That's all gone now, I'm sad to say. Now you hear, "Oh, but he had a bad childhood" or "His mother didn't give him enough love" or "The homecoming queen wouldn't give him a second look and he has an inferiority complex." Or "cultural rage," as the politically correct bright boys refer to it. How many times have you heard some self-important defense attorney moan, "The poor kids were only venting their hostilities toward an uncaring society"?

Mule fritters, I say. Nowadays, you can't even call a punk a punk anymore. But don't get me started.

It was "Howdy, ma'am" time too. The good guys, antihero or not, were always respectful to the ladies. They might shoot a bad guy five seconds after tipping their hat to a woman, but the code of the West demanded you be respectful to a lady.

Lots of things have changed since the heyday of the Wild West, haven't they? Some for the good, some for the bad.

I didn't have any idea at the time that I would someday write about the West. I just knew that I was captivated by the Old West.

When I first got the itch to write, back in the early 1970s, I didn't write Westerns. I started by writing horror and action adventure novels. After more than two dozen novels, I began thinking about developing a Western character. From those initial musings came the novel The Last Mountain Man: Smoke Jensen. That was followed by Preacher: The First Mountain Man. A few years later, I began developing the Last Gunfighter series. Frank Morgan is a legend in his own time, the fastest gun west of the Mississippi...a t.i.tle and a reputation he never wanted, but can't get rid of.

For me, and for thousands-probably millions-of other people (although many will never publicly admit it), the old Wild West will always be a magic, mysterious place: a place we love to visit through the pages of books; characters we would like to know...from a safe distance; events we would love to take part in, again, from a safe distance. For the old Wild West was not a place for the faint of heart. It was a hard, tough, physically demanding time. There were no police to call if one faced adversity. One faced trouble alone, and handled it alone. It was rugged individualism: something that appeals to many of us.

I am certain that is something that appeals to most readers of Westerns.

I still do on-site research (whenever possible) before starting a Western novel. I have wandered over much of the West, prowling what is left of ghost towns. Stand in the midst of the ruins of these old towns, use a little bit of imagination, and one can conjure up life as it used to be in the Wild West. The rowdy Sat.u.r.day nights, the tinkling of a piano in a saloon, the laughter of cowboys and miners letting off steam after a week of hard work. Use a little more imagination and one can envision two men standing in the street, facing one another, seconds before the hook and draw of a gunfight. A moment later, one is dead and the other rides away.

The old wild untamed West.

There are still some ghost towns to visit, but they are rapidly vanis.h.i.+ng as time and the elements take their toll. If you want to see them, make plans to do so as soon as possible, for in a few years, they will all be gone.

And so will we.

Stand in what is left of the Big Thicket country of east Texas and try to imagine how in the world the pioneers managed to get through that wild tangle. I have wondered that many times and marveled at the courage of the men and women who slowly pushed westward, facing dangers that we can only imagine.

Let me touch briefly on a subject that is very close to me: firearms. There are some so-called historians who are now claiming that firearms played only a very insignificant part in the settlers' lives. They claim that only a few were armed. What utter, stupid nonsense! What do these so-called historians think the pioneers did for food? Do they think the early settlers rode down to the nearest supermarket and bought their meat? Or maybe they think the settlers chased down deer or buffalo on foot and beat the animals to death with a club. I have a news flash for you so-called historians: The settlers used guns to shoot their game. They used guns to defend hearth and home against Indians on the warpath. They used guns to protect themselves from outlaws. Guns are a part of Americana. And always will be.

The mountains of the West and the remains of the ghost towns that dot those areas are some of my favorite subjects to write about. I have done extensive research on the various mountain ranges of the West and go back whenever time permits. I sometimes stand surrounded by the towering mountains and wonder how in the world the pioneers ever made it through. As hard as I try and as often as I try, I simply cannot imagine the hards.h.i.+ps those men and women endured over the hard months of their incredible journey. None of us can. It is said that on the Oregon Trail alone, there are at least two bodies in lonely unmarked graves for every mile of that journey. Some students of the West say the number of dead is at least twice that. And n.o.body knows the exact number of wagons that impatiently started out alone and simply vanished on the way, along with their occupants, never to be seen or heard from again.