Journey of the Mountain Man (10 page)

Cord heard the riders coming long before he or any of his men could spot them. It was a distant thunder growing louder with each heartbeat.

“Load up the guns, Mother,” he told his wife. “I believe it's time.” He walked to the dinner bell on the porch and rang it loudly, over and over. Del and four hands came on the run, carrying rifles, pistols belted around them.

“Stand with me on the porch, boys. Mother, get your shotgun and take the upstairs.”

“I m up here with a rifle, Daddy!” Sandi called.

“Good girl.”

Rifles were loaded to capacity. Pistols checked. A couple of shotguns were loaded up and placed against the porch railing.

Thirty riders came hammering past the gate and up to the picket fence around the ranch house, Hanks in the lead.

“I don't appreciate this, Dooley,” Cord raised his voice. “You got no call to come highballin' up to my place.”

“I got plenty of call, Cord. Where's my daughter?”

Cord blinked. “How the hell do I know? I haven't seen her in days.”

“You a damn liar, McCorkle!”

Cord unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to Dell. He swung his eyes back to Hanks. “You'll not come on my property and call me names, Dooley. Git out of that saddle and let's settle this feud man to man.”

“Goddamn you! I want my daughter!”

“I ain't got your daughter! But what I will have is your apology for callin' me a liar.”

“When hell freezes over, McCorkle!”

Two upstairs windows were opened. A shotgun and a rifle poked out. Sandi's voice said, “The first man to reach for a gun, I kill Lanny Ball.” The sound of a hammer being eared back was very plain.

The sounds of twin hammers on a double-barreled shotgun was just as plain. “And I blow the two Mexicans out of the saddle,” Alice spoke.

Diego and Pablo froze in their saddles.

“Dooley,” Cord's voice was calm. “Would you like to step down and have some coffee with me? You can inspect the house and the barn and the bunkhouse . . . after you tell me your anger overrode your good sense when callin' me a liar.”

Hanks's eyes cleared for a moment. Then he looked confused. “I know you ain't no liar, Cord. But where'd she go?” There was a pleading note in the man's voice.

“I don't know, Dooley. I didn't even know she was gone.”

But the moment was gone, and Jason Bright and Lanny Ball and most of the others knew it. There would be no gunfire this day.

“The Box T,” Dooley said. “Liz wasn't lyin'.”

“Dooley,” Cord said, “You go over there a-smokin', and if she is there, she's liable to catch a bullet. 'Cause Smoke Jensen and them others are gonna start throwin' lead just as soon you come into range.'

“She's my daughter, dammit, Cord!” Some of the madness reappeared.

“She's also a grown woman,” Alice called from the second floor.

Hanks slumped in his saddle. The fire had left him . . . for the moment. “She don't want my hearth and home, she can stay gone. I don't have no daughter no more.” He looked at Cord. “It ain't over, Cord. Not between us. The time just ain't right. There'll be another day.”

“Why, Dooley? Tell me that. Your spread is just as big as mine. I made peace with Fae Jensen. She ain't botherin' nobody. Let's us bury the hatchet and be friends. Then you can fire these gunslicks and we can get on with livin'.”

Dooley shook his head. “Too late, Cord. It's just too late.” He wheeled his horse and rode off, the gunnies following.

“Did you see his eyes, Boss?” Willie asked. “The man is plumb loco.”

“I'm afraid you're right, Willie. Question is, when will it take control of him . . . or rather, when will he lose control?”

“One thing for certain, Boss,” Del said. “When he does go total nuts, we're all going to be right smack dab in the big fat middle of it.”

“Something is rotten,” Cord spoke softly. “Something is wrong with this whole setup.”

“Riders coming, Boss,” Fitz said.

As the dot on the landscape grew larger, Del squinted his eyes. “Smoke Jensen and the Moab Kid.”

Sandi smiled and Alice said, “I'll make fresh coffee.”

Beans sniffed the air. “Lots of dust in the air.”

“I think Cord's had some visitors,” Smoke replied. “Look at the hands gathered around the house.”

The men swung down and looped the reins around the hitchrail. Cord shook hands with them both and introduced Smoke to those punchers he had not met.

“Fancy seeing you, Beans,” Cord said, a twinkle in his eyes. “It's been so long since you've come callin'. Hours, at least.”

Beans just grinned.

“Gather your men, Cord,” Smoke told the man. “This is something that everybody should hear.”

Cord's three sons had just ridden in. His other four punchers were out on the range. Everybody gathered around on the porch and listened as Smoke related what Rita had told him.

“Damn!” Max summed it up, then glanced at his mother, who was giving him a warning look for the use of profanity.

“Let's kick it around,” Smoke said. “Anybody got any suggestions?”

“Take it to them 'fore they do it to us,” Corgill said.

“No proof,” Cord said. “Only the word of Rita and she didn't even see the men; just heard them talkin'.”

“If we don't do something,” Cal said, “we're just gonna be open targets, and they'll pick us off one at a time.”

Cord shook his head. “Maybe, but I don't think so. I think they got to do everything all at once. At night. If what Rita says is true—and I ain't got no reason to doubt it—they'll split their people and hit us at the same time. And they can't leave any survivors.”

“I've got people bunching the cattle and moving them to high graze,” Smoke said. “They'll scatter some, but they can be rounded up. From now on, we stay close to the ranch house.”

Cord nodded his head and looked at Willie. “Ride on out, Willie. Tell the boys to start moving them up toward summer graze. Get as much as you can done, and then you boys get on back here. We're gonna lose some to rustlers, for a fact. But it's either that or we all die spread out.” He glanced at Smoke. “When do you think they II hit us?”

Smoke shook his head. “Tonight. Next week. Next month. No way of knowing.”

Cord did some fancy cussing, while his wife listened and looked on with a disapproving frown on her face. “We may end up taking to the hills and fighting defensively.”

“I'm thinking that we will,” Smoke agreed.

“You mean leave the house?” Sandi protested. “But they'll just move in!”

“Can't be helped, girl,” her father told her. “We can always clean up and rebuild.”

“Or just go on over and kill Dooley Hanks,” Rock McCorkle said grimly.

“Rock!” his mother admonished.

Cord put a big hand on her shoulder. “It may come to that, Alice. God help me, I don't want it, but we may have no choice in the matter.”

“Here comes Jake,” Del said. “And he's a-foggin' it.”

The puncher slowed up as he approached the house, to keep the dust down, and walked his horse up to the main house, dismounting.

“What's up, Jake?” the foreman asked.

“I just watched about fifteen guys cut across our range, comin' from the northeast. Hardcases, ever' one of them. They was headin' toward Gibson.”

Alice handed the puncher a cup of coffee and a biscuit, then looked at her husband. He wore an increasingly grim expression.

“The damn easterners talk about law and order,” Cord said. “Well, where is it when it comes down to the nut-cuttin'?”

Smoke pulled out his right hand Colt and held it up for all to see. “Right here, Cord. Right here.”

 

 

“The Cat Jennings gang,” Charlie said. He had been to town and back while Smoke was talking with the men and women of the Double Circle C. “He's been up in Canada raisin' Cain for the past few years.”

“This here thing is shapin' up to be a power play,” Pistol said.

“Yeah,” Lujan agreed. “With us right in the middle of it.”

“Damn near seventy gunslingers,” Silver Jim mused. “And the most we can muster is twenty, and that's stretchin' it.”

“One thing about it,” Smoke stuck some small humor into a grim situation, “we've sure taken the strain off of a lot of other communities in the West.”

“Yeah,” Hardrock agreed. “Ever' outlaw and two-bit pistol-handler from five states has done con-verged on us. And it wouldn't do a bit of good to wire for the law. No badge-toter in his right mind would stick his face into this situation.”

“Must be at least a quarter of a million dollars worth of reward money hanging over them boys' heads,” Silver Jim said. “And that's something to think about.”

“Yeah, it shore is,” Pistol said. “Why, with just a little dab of that money, we could re-tire, boys.” There was a twinkle in his hard eyes.

“Now, wait just a minute,” Smoke said.

The old gunfighters ignored him. “You know what we could do,” Charlie said. “We could start us up a re-tirement place for old gunslingers and mountain men.”

“You guys are crazy!” Lujan blurted out the words. “You are becoming senile!”

“What's that mean?” Hardrock asked.

“It means we ain't responsible for our actions,” Charlie told him.

“That's probably true,” Hardrock agreed. “If we had any sense, none of us would be here.” He looked at Lujan. “And that goes for you, too.”

Lujan couldn't argue with that.

“Cat backed up from me a couple of times,” Charlie said. “This time, I think I'll force his hand.”

Smoke and Beans had stepped back, letting the men talk it out.

“Peck and Nappy is gonna be with him, for sure,” Pistol said. “That damn Nappy got lead in a friend of mine one time. I been lookin' for him for ten year. And that Peck is just a plain no-good.”

“No-Count George Victor's got ten thousand on his head,” Silver Jim mused. “And he don't like me atall.”

“Insane old men!” Lujan muttered.

“Well, I damn shore ain't gonna try to stop them,” Beans made that very clear. “I ain't real sure I could take any of them . . . even if I was a mind to,” he added.

Smoke stepped back in. “You boys ride for the Box T,” he reminded them. “You took the lady's money to ride for the brand. Not to go off head-hunting. You all are needed here. Now when the shootin' starts, speaking for myself, you can have all the reward money.”

“Same for me,” Beans and Lujan agreed.

“Aw, hell, Smoke,” Charlie said, a bit sheepishly. “We was just flappin' our gums. You know we're stickin' right here. But Cat Jennings is mine.”

“And Peck and Nappy belong to me.” Pistol's tone told them all to stand clear when grabbin'-iron time came.

“And No-Count George Victor is gonna be lookin' straight at me when I fill his belly full of lead,” Silver Jim said.

Hardrock said, “Three-Fingers Kerman and Fulton kilt a pal of mine over to Deadwood some years back. Back-shot him. I didn't take kindly to that. So them two belongs to me.”

“You men are incorrigible!” Parnell finally spoke.

“Damn right,” Pistol said.

“Whatever the hell that means,” Hardrock muttered.

Fae walked out to join them. “Rita's up, having breakfast.”

“How's she feeling?” Smoke asked.

“Aside from some sore feet—she's not used to walking in men's boots—she's doing all right. I think she's pretty well resigned that her father is around the bend. I told her what you said about Dooley saying he no longer had a daughter. It hurt her. But not as much as I thought it would. I think she's more concerned about her mother.”

“She should be. There is no telling what that crazy bastard is liable to do,” Silver Jim summed it up.

He had looked into their bedroom and came stomping out. “Where is all your clothes, Liz?” Dooley demanded, his voice hard.

“I moved them out. I no longer feel I am married to you, Dooley.”

“You don't . . .
what?”

“I don't love you anymore. I haven't for a long time. Years. I cringe when you touch me. I . . .”

He jumped at her and backhanded her, knocking her against a wall. She held back a yelp of pain. She didn't want Gage to come storming in, because she knew that she had absolutely no rights as a married woman. She owned nothing. Could not vote. And in a court of law, her husband's word was next to God's. And if Gage were to kill Dooley during a domestic squabble, he would hang.

She leaned against the wall, staring at Dooley as the front door opened, her sons stomping in.

Conrad, the youngest of the boys, grinned at her. “You havin' a good time while Pa's usin' you for a punchin' bag?”

Sonny and Bud laughed.

Dooley grabbed Liz by the arm and flung her toward the kitchen. “Git in there and fix me some dinner. I don't wanna hear no more mouth from you.”

Liz walked toward the kitchen, her back straight. I won't put up with this any longer, she vowed. I'll follow Rita, just as quickly as I can.

A plan jumped into her head and she smiled at the thought. It might work. It just might work.

She began putting together dinner and working out the plan. It all depended on what Gage said. And the other hands.

 

 

She had gone out to gather eggs in the henhouse. Dooley and her sons had left the house without telling her where they were riding off to. As usual. All the hired guns were in town, drinking. Gage had ambled over, as he always did, to carry her basket. She told him of her plan.

“I like it, Liz. Go in the house and pack a few things while ever'body is gone. I'll get the boys.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. “You mean . . . ?”

“Right now, Liz. Let's get gone from this crazy house ‘fore Dooley gets back. Move, Liz! '

She went one way and Gage trotted to the bunkhouse. He sent the only rider in the bunkhouse out to tell the others to meet him at the McCorkle ranch.

“We quittin', Gage?”

“I am.”

“I'm with you. And so will the others. Hep me pack up their stuff, will you. I'll tote it to them on a packhorse. How about ol' Cook?”

“He'll go wherever Liz goes. He came out here with them.”

The hand cut his eyes at the foreman and grinned. “Ahh! OK, Gage.”

Working frantically, the two men stuffed everything they could find into canvas and lashed it on a packhorse. “I'll tell Cook to hightail it. Move, Les. See you at the Circle DoubleC.”

Ol' Cook was right behind Les. He packed up his warbag and swung into the saddle just as Liz was coming out of the house, a satchel in her hand.

“You want me to hitch up the buckboard, Gage?”

“No time, Cook.”

“Wal, how's she fixin' to ride then? We ain't got no sidesaddle rigs.”

“Astride. I done saddled her a horse.”

Ol' Cook rolled his eyes. “Astride! Lord have mercy! Them sufferingetts is gonna be the downfall of us all.” He galloped out.

Gage led her horse over to the porch. “Turn your head, Gage. I don't quite know how I'm going to do this. I have never sat astride in my life.”

Gage turned his head.

“You may look now, Gage,” she told him.

He had guessed at the stirrup length and got it right. She sure had a pretty ankle “Hang on, Liz. We got some rough country and some hard ridin' to do.”

“Wherever you ride, I'll be with you,” she told him, adding, “Darling.”

Gage blushed all the way down to his holey socks.

 

 

“I'll kill ever' goddamn one of them!” Dooley screamed. “I'll stake that damn Gage out over an anthill and listen to him scream.” Dooley cussed until he was red-faced and out of breath.

“This ain't good,” Jason said. “I'm beginnin' to think we're snake-bit.”

“I don't know.” Lanny scratched his jaw. “It gives the other side a few more guns, is all.”

“Seven more guns.”

“No sweat.”

Inside the house, Dooley was still ranting and cussing and roaring about what he was going to do to Gage and to his wife. The men outside heard something crash against a wall. Dooley had picked up a vase and shattered it.

The sons were leaning against a hitchrail, giggling and scratching themselves.

“Them boys,” Jason pointed out, “is as goofy as their dad.”

“And just as dangerous,” Lanny added. “Don't sell them short. They're all cat-quick with a gun.”

“About the boys . . . ?”

“We'll just kill them when we've taken the ranches.”

 

 

“Of course you can stay here, Liz,” Alice told her. “And stop saying it will be a bother.” She smiled. “You and Gage. I'm so happy for you.”

“If we survive this,” Liz put a verbal damper on the other woman's joy.

“We'll survive it. Oh, Liz!” She took the woman's hands into hers. “Do you remember how it was when we first settled here? Those first few years before all the hard feelings began. We fought outlaws and Indians and were friends. Then . . .” She bit back the words.

“I know. I've tried to convince myself it wasn't true. But it was and is. Even more so now. Dooley began to change. Maybe he was always mad; I don't know. I know only that I loveGage and have for a long, long time. From a distance,” she quickly. added. “I just feel like a great weight has been lifted from me.”

“You rest for a while. I'll get supper started.”

“Pish-posh! I'm not tired. And I want to do my share here. Come on. I've got a recipe for cinnamon apple pie that'll have Cord groaning.”

Laughing, the two women walked to the kitchen.

Outside the big house, Cord briefed Gage and the other men from the D-H about the outlaws' plans.

Gage shuddered. “Kill the women! God, what a bunch of no-goods. Well, we got out of that snake pit just in time. Cord, me and boys will hep your crew bunch the cattle.” He cut his eyes to Del. “You 'member that box canyon over towards Spitter Crick?”

Del nodded. “Yeah. It's got good graze and water that'll keep ‘em for several weeks. That's a good idea. We'll get started first thing in the morning. Smoke said him and his boys will be over at first light to hep out. They done got their cattle bunched and safe as they could make 'em.”

“I sent a rider over to tell them about y‘all,” Cord told him. “I 'magine Rita will be comin' over to stay with her momma. Smoke s already makin' plans to vacate the Box T. We both figure that'll be the first spread Dooley will hit, and Smoke ain't got the men to defend it agin seventy or more men.”

“No, but them men that he's got was shore born with the bark on,” Gage replied. “I'd shore hate to be in that first bunch that tackles ‘em.'

“They'll cut the odds down some, for sure,” Del said. “You know,” he reminisced, “I growed up hearin' stories about Pistol Le Roux and Hardrock and Silver Jim . . . and Charlie Starr. Lord, Lord! Till Smoke Jensen come along, I reckon he was the most famous gun-handler in all the West. Hardrock and Pistol and Silver Jim . . . why, them men must be nigh on seventy years old. But they still tough as wang leather and mean as cornered grizzlies. It just come to me that we're lookin' at history here.”

“Let's just hope that we all live to read about it,” Cord said drily.

 

 

“I think they'll try us tonight, Smoke,” Charlie said. “My old bones is talkin' to me.”

“I agree with you.”

“I done tossed my blankets over yonder in that stand of trees,” Pistol said, pointing. “I never did like to sleep all cooped up noways. I like to look at the stars.”

“We'll all stay clear of the house tonight,” Smoke said. “Fill your pockets with ammunition, boys, and don't take your boots off. I think tonight is gonna be interesting.”

Bob was in the loft of the barn. Spring and Pat stayed in the bunkhouse, both of them armed with rifles. Lujan was in the barn, lower level. Pistol, Silver Jim, Charlie, and Hardrock were spread around the house. Smoke elected to stay close to the now-empty corral. The horses had been moved away to a little draw; Ring was with them. Beans had slipped into moccasins and was roaming. Parnell was in the house with the women. Rita and Fae were armed with rifles. Parnell refused to take a gun.

About a quarter of a mile from the ranch complex, Beans knelt down in the road and put his ear to the hard-packed earth. He smiled grimly, then stood up. “Coming!” he shouted to Silver Jim, who was the closest to him. “Sounds like a bunch of them, too.”

Silver Jim relayed the message and then settled in, earing back the hammer on his Winchester.

Beans was the first to see the flames from the torches the gunnies carried. “They're gonna try to burn us out!” he yelled.

Then the hard-riding outlaw gunslingers were thundering past Beans's position. At almost point-blank range, Beans emptied his six-shooter into the mass of riders, then holstered his pistol and picked up his Winchester. He put five fast rounds into the outlaws, then shifted positions when the lead started flying around him.

Beans knew he'd hit at least three of the riders, and two of them were hard hit and on the ground.

Silver Jim got three clean shots off, with one outlaw on the ground and the other two just hanging on, gripping the saddle horn. Not dead, but out of action.

Bob took his time with his Winchester and emptied two saddles before Lujan hollered, “Another bunch coming behind us, Bob. Shift to the rear.”

Smoke stood by the corral, a dim figure in the torchlit night, with both hands full of long-barreled Colts, and picked his targets. His aim was deadly true. He knocked two to the ground and knew he'd hit several more before being forced to run for cover

A rider threw his torch through a window—only two windows were not shuttered, front and back, giving the women a place to fire from—and the torch landed on the couch. The couch burst into flames and Parnell went to work with buckets of water already filled against such an action. He managed to keep the fire confined to the couch.

The barn was not so lucky. While Lujan and Bob were fighting at the rear of the barn, a rider tossed a torch into the hay loft. That action got him a bullet from Smoke that cut his spine and shattered his heart, but there was no saving the barn. Bob and Lujan fought inside until it became too difficult to see and breathe and they had to run for cover amid a hail of lead.

The small band of defenders of the Box T were now having to fight against range-robbers on all sides. One outlaw made the mistake of finding the horses and thinking he was going to set them free.

One second he was in the saddle, the next second he was on the ground. The last thing he would remember hearing on this earth was a deep voice rumbling, “I do not like people who are mean to nice people.”

Huge hands clamped around the man's head and with one quick jerk, Ring broke the gunny's neck and tossed him to one side, his head flopping from side to side. Ring got the rifle from the outlaw's saddle boot, made sure it was full, and waited for some more action.

The area around the ranch house was now brightly lighted from the flaming barn; too bright for the outlaws' taste, for the accuracy of the defenders was more than they had counted on.

“Let's go!” came the shout.

No one bothered to fire at or pursue the outlaws. All ran into the yard to form a bucket line to wet down the roof of the house so sparks from the burning barn could not set it on fire. The men worked frantically, for already there were smouldering spots on the roof.

It did not take long for the barn to go; soon there was nothing left except a huge mound of glowing coals.

The men sat down on the ground where they were, all of them suddenly tired as the adrenaline had slowed.

“Fae!” Parnell said. “Give up this madness. Let us leave this barbaric country and return to civilization.”

Fae walked toward him, her gloved hands balled into fists. Her face was sooty and her short hair disheveled and she was mad clear through. When she got within swinging distance she let him have it, giving him five in the mouth and dropping him to the ground.

Parnell lay flat on his butt, blood leaking out of a busted lip, looking up at his baby sister. He wore a hurt expression on his face. He blinked and said, “I suppose, Sister, that is your quaint way of saying no?”

Smoke and the others burst out laughing. The laughter spread and soon Fae and Rita were laughing. No one paid any attention to the bodies littering the yard and the areas all around the ranch complex.

Parnell sat up and rubbed his jaw. “I, for one, fail to see the humor in this grotesque situation.”

That caused another round of laughter. They were still laughing as Ring walked up, leading several horses, one with the body of the neck-broke outlaw draped across the saddle.

“Crazy folks,” Ring said. “But nice folks.”