Rage of the Mountain Man (4 page)

“Oh, hell, I really didn’t want to do this,” Smoke Jensen said, already in that dreamlike state where everything slows down when the action starts.

Red Tyrell and his four juvenile hard cases opened out into positions which gave them each a clear field of fire at Smoke Jensen. Trouble was, they were too stupid to realize that it also gave Smoke an open line on each of them. Tyrell led their way to the butt-grips of their sixguns. Then everything went terribly wrong.

Red Tyrell had not cleared the cylinder from leather when an invisible fist punched him right in the breastbone. Hot pain exploded in his chest and he experienced a rush of dizziness. Reflexive action brought his Peacemaker clear of the holster. But it had suddenly grown to weigh a ton. A brief struggle went on in his dimming mind as he tried to command the blue steel barrel to rise.

Like the pops of tiny firecrackers heard from far away, three more reports registered on Red’s ears. Something twitched at the front of Randy Slate’s shirt and the youthful gunhawk staggered backward. Red blinked his eyes. Feeling awfully tired, he sank to his knees as a great gout of blood and brain tissue erupted from the back of Chet Bolton’s head. Red had scant time to marvel at the pattern it made in the smoke-thick air of the saloon as darkness rushed over him.

Smoke Jensen made a half-turn to line up on Buddy Harmes, who gulped and swallowed with difficulty, then blurted out as he released his revolver to thud on the floor, “No, don’t. Oh, God, don’t shoot me.”

Easing down the hammer, Smoke swiveled his head to check out the fifth young hard case. He saw the boy sitting at a table, his .45 Colt on the green baize in front of him, head down, blubbering. A scraping sound from the floor cut Smoke Jensen’s eyes to Monte Carson.

Holding his throbbing head, Monte sat upright. He eyed the undulating layers of powder smoke and the scatter of bodies, then shot Smoke a querying glance. “Anything I can do to help, Smoke?”

“
Smoke?
” The word came as a strangled gasp from Buddy Harmes. “You aren’t... you can’t be ... tell me you ain’t Smoke Jensen.”

“That’s who he is, all right,” Monte Carson informed the boy.

Buddy’s face washed white. He began to tremble violently, big, wet tears streaming down his downy cheeks. “Oh—my—God, ohmygod, no wonder we never had a chance. I ain’t—ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

The sudden aroma of fear-loosened bowels filled the Silver Dollar. Monte Carson looked at Buddy Harmes, sniffed, and cut his eyes to Smoke Jensen. “Smoke, I think this little boy done dirtied his drawers.”

A warm day had melted away much of the scattered snow of the avalanche. The hands had spread out across the Sugarloaf during the afternoon to tend to various duties, the foremost being fence mending. Smoke had not returned from Big Rock, although that did not distress Sally Jensen as she spoke with the smooth-talking stranger who had introduced himself as Buford Early.

Early had ridden in five minutes before and asked to speak with the “widow of Smoke Jensen.”

“I am Missus Sally Jensen. There is no widow here,” she had told him.

A strange light glowed in his eyes and he spoke with a smirk in his words. “I’ve been given to understand otherwise.”

Sally had taken an immediate dislike to Early, even before he’d spoken in such a presumptuous manner. A dapper dresser, he impressed her as a bit foppish. An overabundant amount of pomade had slicked back his hair, made darker by its presence. Sally presumed it to be dark brown, rather than jet, when free of the goop. His business suit had not a trace of trail dust, which had been screened from it by the long white linen duster he had removed the moment he dismounted . . . uninvited, Sally noted for the second time. His high-button shoes gleamed like patent leather. Now he spoke to her unctuously, with the air of a superior adult to a slow child. That heightened her disapproval.

“I have been authorized by my principals to make a handsome offer for the Sugarloaf, Widow Jensen.”

“Thank you, no, Mr. Early. The Sugarloaf is not for sale.”

Early blinked his eyes behind rimless spectacles secured on a black ribbon, his expression perplexed. “This is a lonesome, I might say—ah—dangerous country of a woman trying to go it alone, Widow Jensen.”

“I told you before, I am not a widow. My husband is alive and well, and should be returning from Big Rock at any time now.”

“Ah, my, I understand. The first stage of grief is always denial,” Early simpered. “Seriously, you must come to grips with the facts and plan intelligently for your future. Consider what you could possibly do if a gang of rustlers struck.”

“Since we keep only ten head of cattle, mostly for table meat, and two milk cows, I don’t think rustlers would be the least interested in the Sugarloaf. Prize horses are what we raise. And they are all marked on the inside of the lower lip in a manner that cannot be altered. So stealing them would be fruitless.”

For all her bravado, icy tendrils of fear invaded Sally’s mind. Any number of things could have happened to Smoke in Big Rock. An opportunist, like this wretch, catching wind of such an event, would be quick to move in, like a vulture.

“Come now, a young widow like yourself must face the facts. My offer is really quite generous.”

“No. My husband is not dead, and the Sugarloaf is not for sale,” Sally persisted.

Growing exasperated, Early blurted, “Face reality!”

Sally cut him off. “Mr. Early, what part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

Again Early blinked eyes made owlish by his thick lenses. “I know for a fact that Smoke Jensen died in an avalanche just last night, here on this ranch.”

Secret relief flooded Sally at this disclosure, which banished her worries about something having gone wrong in town. She had seated her visitor in the large parlor, and now she rose from the Queen Anne chair from her mother’s home she prided. Listening in fascination to the little man spout misinformation, she edged her way toward the drop-leaf secretary in the corner.

“I must caution you, Widow Jensen—you certainly can’t believe that some mere woman can hold out against my principals. They are determined men. With your husband so recently deceased, I can understand a certain hesitancy to act with reason, but one must strike while the iron is hot.” Sally’s eyes narrowed as she delved a hand into the upper drawer. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Early?”

Unaccustomed to this much resistance, Early let his exasperation slip through. “I’m trying to get you to see reason,” he snapped. “This is a difficult time, of course. But such a generous offer won’t come around again.”

Sally gave him an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “My goodness, is that so? From what you said a moment ago, I got the impression you intended to keep pestering me until I did what you wanted, no matter how often you had to come back.”

Confounded woman, Early thought in silent anger. He had no time for this coy fencing. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat as he advanced on her across the large, oval Oriental rug.

“I have the papers right here. I’m going to put them on that desk and you are going to sign them.”

Sally Jensen had her hand on the black hard-rubber grips of the .38 Colt Lightning that Smoke had given her for Christmas when she heard the scrape of boot soles on the porch outside. She looked over the shoulder of the infuriated Early to see Smoke enter the room.

“What is it you have in mind for her to sign?” Smoke’s voice boomed in the room.

Early literally skidded to a halt. The powerful, masculine voice of Smoke Jensen caused him to dig his heels into the brightly colored Esfahan rug. That caused the carpet to slide across the smoothly finished and lovingly polished planks of the floor. His arms windmilled in his attempt to maintain balance and the papers fluttered toward the ceiling. His performance brought a throaty giggle from Sally Jensen.

“Who is this tinhorn?” Smoke asked his wife in a milder tone.

“His name is Buford Early. He came to make an offer for the Sugarloaf to the ‘Widow’ Jensen. I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. Mr. Early,” she went on, stifling her laughter. “Let me introduce Mr. Smoke Jensen.”

Buford Early ended in an awkward position, bent half over, arms extended. He raised his head to gape at the new arrival. What his eyes took in left no doubt. The man was huge. Not in stature alone, but with thick shoulders, a long, square jaw, bulging arms, a trim waist. Below that he saw the gun, a big .45 Colt Peacemaker, in a soft pouch holster, tied down, gunfighter style, and . . . Early blinked in sudden fright. Another revolver nestled in a matching rig, on the left, slanted across a lean, hard belly. The safety thongs had been slipped from the hammers of both. Smoke Jensen, alive and well, and terribly menacing. Early cleared his throat and spoke in an uneven squeak.

“There—ah—there appears to have been some mistake.”

“ ‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ ” Smoke took pleasure in quoting one of his favorite writers. “I’d be interested in hearing how and from whom you got this mistaken information?”

“I—ah—my principals prefer to remain anonymous,” Early stated primly, part of his aplomb recovered.

Smoke Jensen reached him in two swift strides. He wound thick, hard fingers into the blossom of Early’s cravat and yanked the small man upright. Bravado deserted Buford

Early as he hung on tiptoes from the silk stock around his neck. Smoke shook him once.

“I asked you nicely. I could do it another way. Who are you working for?”

Buford Early knew he had to come up with something or he might never leave the Sugarloaf. He knew the legends about Smoke Jensen, the man who had killed hundreds with those use-worn sixguns. Some said three hundred men. He knew those fists to be equally lethal. He swallowed hard around the fear in his throat and fought to stop his eyes from darting around to fix on the face of Smoke Jensen, to make his lie convincing.

“I—I, they will be terribly upset if I breach their confidence,” Early stammered.

“Not nearly so much as I am right now,” Smoke grated through clenched teeth.

Buford Early struggled to fix an expression of verity on his face. “If I provide you that information, you will see to it that I do not suffer as a consequence?” he bargained in a manner he thought convincing.

“What I do with the names is no concern of yours,” Smoke told him with a cold smile. “And what happens to you is none of mine.”

“Oh, my. Oh, dear,” Early dithered. “I—I truly regret this unfortunate interruption.”

“I’m sure you do. Now, the names.” Smoke spoke pointedly.

Early sighed heavily, showing a sign of resignation. “My clients are Misters Armbrewster and Coopersmith of Denver,” he lied, his eyes locked on those of Smoke Jensen.

“Thank you,” Smoke offered sarcastically. “Being straightforward always makes one feel better, don’t you agree?” When Early nodded in agreement, Smoke thrust his next dart. “Now, tell me, how did you intend to get my wife to sign those papers?”

Smoke set him down and Early shrugged to ease the tension in his neck and shoulders. “Well, after all, she is a mere slip of a woman. I felt that the force of my person and the reasonableness of my argument would eventually persuade her.”

Smoke wanted to laugh. “Just a ‘mere slip of a woman,’ eh? Sally, show him the pen you were reaching for to sign his papers.”

An impish grin danced on Sally Jensen’s face as she opened the drawer and took out the Colt Lightning. Buford Early blanched even whiter, if that was possible. He began to tremble.

“Consider yourself lucky I came back when I did. Otherwise, Sally may have punched your ticket to the monument garden. Together we have fought Indians, rustlers, and outlaws intent on carving a big chunk out of our High Lonesome, for more years than I care to count. We’ve even kicked hell out of more than our share of two-bit tinhorn upstarts like you. So far we haven’t gone soft. We haven’t even slowed down much.

“So, take word back to Armbrewster and Coopersmith, if those are their real names,” Smoke added. “The Sugar-loaf is not for sale, will not ever be, for so long as Sally or I am alive. And I don’t look for our children to sell it, either.”

“Wh—what can I say?” Early bleated.

“Goodbye,” Smoke informed him, along with a hard shove toward the front door.

After Buford Early’s hasty departure, Sally Jensen looked admiringly at her husband. “That was some speech. I’ve never heard you string so many words together in all the years we’ve been married.”

Smoke Jensen actually blushed. “That oily snake touched on something close to my heart. And he upset you.” He drew a deep breath, changed the subject. “You’ll be happy to know that we are due to leave in two days. We’ll take the day coach to Denver, then a compartment on a private car all the way to Chicago.”

Sally clapped her hands in enthusiasm. “That’s marvelous. How did that happen?”

“Courtesy of a grateful Colonel Joshua Drew, president of the Denver and Rio Grande. You recall I scouted for him some years back on a breakthrough route in the Rockies? Well, when Nate at the depot telegraphed our reservations to Denver, Colonel Drew learned of it and made arrangements. Nate’s boy brought me word while I was visiting with Monte Carson.”

Sally’s beaming countenance darkened and furrows appeared on her high, smooth brow. “Two days? How can I possibly pack everything in such a short time?”

Phineas Lathrop sat fuming in the parlor of his suite in the Windsor Hotel in Denver. He glared heatedly at Buford Early. “You’re positive?” he demanded. “It couldn’t be just some man in her life?”

“He wore two guns, one of them in a gunfighter crossdraw. He picked me up off the floor without even a sign of effort. It was Smoke Jensen, all right. He all but told me that if I showed my face around there again, he’d kill me. I believed him.”

“I’m sure you did,” Lathrop told him nastily. “Wade Tanner assured me that the avalanche accounted for Jensen.”

Buford Early blinked. He’d heard the name before, but had no idea that Tanner worked for his employer. Tanner was reputed to be trouble on horseback. A real malo hombre, as folks in southern Colorado would say. Then the meaning behind Lathrop’s words struck him: the avalanche had not been an accident of nature.