Triumph of the Mountain Man (17 page)

* * *

Yellow fingers of light reached through the second-floor window of the infirmary maintained by Dr. Adam Walters. They brushed invisibly on the eyelids of Sheriff Hank Banner. The lawman blinked and then abruptly opened his eyes. For the first moments everything registered as a blurred mass. Gradually individual objects came into focus. His head ached abominably. After three minutes of silent effort, he discovered that he could not see clearly out of his left eye. Only impressions of light and dark, all of it fuzzy. At last, he tried to move his arms.

A loud groan, brought on by that effort, summoned Dr. Walters from his office and treatment room. “What do we have here?” he asked with forced joviality.

His old friend and poker adversary looked like hell. His left eye was swollen nearly closed by a huge purple-yellow-green mouse. His left arm was immobile in a splint, in hopes the fracture would mend properly. Another device, created out of necessity by the good doctor, tried to give some semblance of the original shape to a broken—no, mashed would be more apt—nose. It consisted of rolls of cotton batting shoved into the nostrils, with court plaster holding in place two pieces of broken-off tongue depressor. A white sea of bandage held broken ribs immobile. Both lips were split, made three times normal size by puffiness. Without consciously thinking about it, Dr. Walters spoke his thoughts bluntly.

“You look like hell, Hank. How many of them were there?”

“Four I'm certain of. Maybe five.”

“And I oughta get a look at them, eh?”

Banner tried a grimace and flinched at the result. “Horse manure. Adam, they done tom turkey tromped the crap out of me.”

Dr. Walters winced and spoke ruefully. “No kidding. I had to get you out of your trousers to treat your injuries, so I know for a fact.” A loud groan came from his patient. “Did I embarrass you? If so, I'm sorry.”

“No, Doc, it's just your winning bedside manner. What brought that sorrowful noise on was that I just added up the score. It left me with one tail-biting question. What in hell's gonna happen to Taos with me bunged up like this? And, worse, with Smoke Jensen off sniffing around Clifton Satterlee? Those hard cases are going to be back, you can count on it, and who's to stop them from shuttin' down this town right permanent?”

From the bed opposite him came the voice of Pedro Alvarado. Pedro had come in to have the stitches and drain tube removed from his belly wound and stay for overnight observation. “My father will send as many vaqueros as you need.”

“That's mighty kind of you, son. But the way I see it, they got us all outnumbered at least three to one.”

“You just lie back and rest, Hank. I'll have my girl”—he referred to Dorothy Frye, his sometimes nurse and record keeper as
my girl
—“bring you some broth. Though with the shame your mouth is in, I reckon you'll have to take it through a pipette.”

“You're so full of encouragement and good news, Adam.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Walters said with more humor than he felt. Pedro might be encouraging, but for the life of him, the doctor did not have an answer.

* * *

Kyle Curtis, one of the Sugarloaf hands, reined in and raised up on his stirrups. He waved a gloved hand to draw attention from the searchers close at hand. “They're over this way. I can see 'em down in a draw about two hundred yards below me.”

At once, the rider closest to Kyle drew his six-gun and fired three fast rounds into the air to summon the remainder of the search party. Faintly he heard cries of alarm when the last shot echoed away among the mountain peaks. Fully a dozen ranch hands, drawn by the sound, closed in on the shooter. Kyle Curtis then pointed the way to the missing Gittings boys.

When the youngsters saw them coming, they were overjoyed. Then a terrible thought struck Seth. They had taken horses without permission, and then lost them when the cougar attacked. No doubt they would be in for it now. And a worse paddling it would be than one that came from their mother. The idea of having their britches yanked down in front of all those men humiliated and shamed Seth beyond anything so far in his young life. Then a black lance of pure, boyish hatred thrust through him.

He
was there with them. Bobby Jensen. How he'd sneer and make life miserable for them from now on. He swallowed back his outrage and looked up at Ike Mitchell, who led the search party.

“How—how did you find us?”

“Easy,” Ike informed him as he bent forward and down from the height of his sixteen-hand Palouse horse. “We just backtracked those horses that got away from you.”

Seth's eyes widened when he recalled how they had lost their mounts. “It was a mountain lion. He come at us and scared off the horses.”

Ike narrowed his eyes and rubbed at his chin. “Somehow I doubt that. If he had much interest in comin' at you, you would be in his belly 'fore now.”

“Nope.” Pride swelled Seth's shallow chest. “I shot him dead. One bullet, right in his ear.”

Bobby Jensen chose that moment to erupt. “You're a liar as well as a thief, Seth.”

Seth shot out his lower lip in a pout. “I didn' lie, an' I'm not a thief.”

“You took my rifle and those Morgans without permission. That's stealin'. Horse thievin' is still a hanging offense out here in the high lonesome. An' I brought along a good rope.”

Real terror gripped both boys. His legs trembling, Seth dropped to his knees. Sammy flopped on his belly and bawled like a colicky baby. Seth turned to Ike Mitchell and beseeched him. “You can't do that. We're jist little kids. They don't hang children.”

Bobby Jensen stung him with harsh words. “Like hell they don't. They tie a big sack of sand around your ankles so's to get the job done proper-like.”

Ike had the last word. “Before we go back I want you two to show me this cougar. If it's like you say, I might put in a good word for you.”

Face alabaster, the grime overlaying it became more pronounced as fat, salty tears began to stream down the face of Seth Gittings. Both brats had been thoroughly cowed by this revelation. All sign of rebellion was instantly banished. Heads hanging, they submitted without protest to riding behind two ranch hands, it being deemed that they did not deserve mounts of their own. Sammy cried and sniveled all the way back to the Sugarloaf. His butt made even more painful by the lack of support from stirrups, Seth regained some of his spitefulness.

He lost that quickly enough when the small party reined in outside the main house. Instead of rushing to them, wretched with worry over their disappearance, their mother remained in place on the porch, her face rigid with anger and affront. Slowly she raised an arm and commanded them.

“Come up here this instant.”

Ike Mitchell dismounted and handed down the boys, one at a time. With dragging feet, they approached the steps to the porch. Mary-Beth Gittings gazed beyond them and met the eyes of Ike Mitchell. “We know that they took horses without permission, and that Seth, for some insane reason, took a rifle belonging to Sally's son. What else have they done?”

“They left the ranch, ma'am. By a good twelve miles. What I reckon is that they was fixin' to run away for good an' all. Now, about that rifle, ma'am. If they didn't have it along, they would have been cougar meat long before now. Before we started back here, I had them take me to where the cougar jumped them. He was there, all right. Dead with one shot to the brain. Seth, here, saved his brother's life and his own.”

Sally's face remained fixed in stern disapproval. “But that does not excuse the terrible things they have done.”

By then, Seth had preceded his little brother up to the second step. He gulped involuntarily when he looked up at her rigid features. His mother darted out one hand and closed her fingers tightly around his upper arm, so tightly he squealed from the pain it caused. Then she yanked him off his feet and stood him on the porch. She reached with the other hand for the willow switch Sally Jensen held, puffed down his pats and bent him over.

Seth got twenty-five lashes this time, and every one of them hurt more than he could stand. He was bawling by the fourth one, hoping to wring his mother's heart. He did not, and his humiliation grew greater when he heard some of the hands snigger.

17

Wally Gower took the reins of the horse ridden by Smoke Jensen. The moment the tall, rangy man stepped down from the saddle on Cougar, the boy piped up with the news he had been bursting to convey. “Did you hear that the sheriff got beaten up the other night?”

Smoke gazed down at the boy. “No, Wally—Wally is it?” The lad nodded and Smoke went on. “Tell me about it, Wally.”

Wally went on to describe what he had seen of the attack, mainly the results. He concluded with an unhappy expression. “I didn't see any of them, so I can't say who it was. But Doc Walters and the sheriff say it was some of the Quinn gang.”

“Where is the sheriff now?”

“Over at Doc's, Mr. Jensen.”

“Then I suppose the thing to do is pay him a visit.”

Wally trailed along, hopeful of being allowed inside. At the foot of the stairs, Smoke turned to him. “You'd best wait here, Wally. If the sheriff has any message for you, I'll bring it to you.”

Disappointment clouded Wally's face. “Awh, I wanted to talk to him.”

“Maybe later.”

Up in the office, Dr. Walters took Smoke in to Sheriff Banner. The man looked terrible, Smoke noted at once. “You look like you've been run down by a buffalo stampede,” Smoke advised the lawman.

Banner made a sour face as best he could. “I feel like it, too.”

“Tell me what happened?”

“First off, that stray, Wally Gower, saved my life right enough. I sure want to see him and thank him in person.”

Smoke grinned. “He's downstairs, waitin' on word on your condition.”

Hank Banner actually managed a smile. “Bring him up, bring him up. That boy's got him a double eagle waitin' for what he did. He come here right away and brought Doc to me. Hell, we'd jist finished playin' poker half an hour before. Next thing I know, I'm wakin' up in this bed, hurtin' like damn all. But I know who did it. Recognized two of em.” Then he went on to identify the men and describe the beating he took before he lost consciousness.

Smoke Jensen listened with growing anger while the sheriff outlined the boot stomp he had received. When the lawman finished, Smoke spoke softly. “I'll go get Wally now. I don't think he needed to hear what you just told me.”

Wally nearly wept when he saw the condition of the sheriff. But he was manly in fighting back the huge tears that welled in his gray-green eyes. “I'm sorry this happened to you, Sheriff. You're—you're the best man I know.
Please
get well.”

“C'm'ere, Wally.”

Obediently, Wally scuffed bare, callused soles across the wooden floor as he approached the bed. Hank Banner reached with his good hand and took a hinge-clasp leather purse from the table. He snapped it open and dug inside with thumb and forefinger. He withdrew a twenty-dollar gold piece.

“Here. This is yours. It's for saving my life.”

Eyes huge with awe, the eleven-year-old gulped as he stammered out, “Twen—twenty dollars? I can't—can't take that much.”

“You've got to, Wally. It's a reward. That's right, ain't it, Smoke? No one can refuse a reward.”

Smoke reached out and tousled the lad's sandy brown hair. “That's right, Wally. Buy your mother a new dress with some of it, if you want.”

“Really? I can do that? Oh, boy!”

Doc Walters cleared his throat. “Time's up, Wally. You'd best scoot on and do something like that. You're gettin' Sheriff Banner all exercised.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you, thank you.” With that, Wally scampered from the room and thundered down the outside staircase.

“Now, I have some news for you, Sheriff,” Smoke Jensen announced.

“Give it.”

“Don't tax him too much,” warned the doctor.

Quickly Smoke related what he had learned from Mac and told the peace officer that he had proof Satterlee had the stolen Tua religious paraphernalia. Finally he added the abduction of Martha Estes. The sheriff digested it a moment, then spoke brusquely. “That does it, then. Smoke; considerin' the shape I'm in, I want you to become undersheriff. Take over for me. And, you can have a free hand dealing with Satterlee.”

Smoke hesitated only a second. “I'll agree to it, Sheriff. Provided I can make Santan Tossa a deputy.”

Distress displaced the pain etched on the lawman's face. “But, he's an Injun. Oh, I know, they've been peaceable for more'n a hundred years and the Pueblos are civilized and organized. But . . . he'd have to carry a gun.”

“Have any of your deputies been effective against Quinn so far? Tossa has killed at least five of them, and with a bow and arrow.”

Banner frowned. “You've got a point. If the governor gets wind of this, he'll have a fit. Armin' an Injun is serious business. There's some places it's still against the law to provide a firearm to any Injun.”

“But not here, I gather?”

Banner nodded. “That's right. Okay, go ahead and fit him out from the rack in my office. Then I'll swear the both of you in.”

“Not today you won't,” Doc Walters interjected.

Banner scowled. “C'mon, Doc. I'm feelin' fitter every hour. If this town is gonna get besieged, we've gotta move fast.”

Smoke agreed with that. “Just so. First thing, I'm going to send to Diego Alvarado for all the gunhands he can spare. Then, can you give me names of men in town who are loyal to the local government and willing to fight?” At the sheriff's nod, Smoke went on. “I think it would be a good idea for Tossa to try to recruit some help from among his tribal police.”

Banner's good eye widened. “You really like to flirt with wrath from above, don't you, Smoke? All right, Smoke. You're undersheriff, so it's your ball game, as that feller Abner Doubleday would say. Now, you can start by askin' Ezekial Crowder, Marshal Gates, Warren Engals . . .” He went on to name two dozen more.

Sighing heavily, Sheriff Banner lay back on the bed as Smoke Jensen left the room. Within seconds he lapsed into a deep, though troubled, sleep. Even with help from the Tuas and Diego Alvarado, he knew Smoke faced a terrible dilemma.

* * *

A small drum tapped a staccato rhythm, and smoke rose from the square opening in the roof of the Tua kiva. Santan Tossa handed the reins of his pony to his younger brother, who looked up at the tribal policeman with an expression of hero worship. He climbed the single rail ladder and washed his hands and face before taking the descending steps to the floor of the religious center. He saw immediately that a dozen young men had gathered, seated on the circular, shelflike ledges that ringed the domed, circular structure. At the altar, sweet grass, pine needles and sage gave off their pleasant aroma as they smoldered on a small bed of coals.

Using an eagle-wing fan, the gray-haired shaman wafted the thin, gray tendrils of pungent smoke over the empty altar. Silently, Santan Tossa approached and kneeled before the medicine man. From his sash he produced the folds of velvet cloth and opened them.

“Grandfather, I have recovered one part of our stolen sacred heritage.” Quickly he revealed the necklace.

For the first time since the theft, Whispering Leaves smiled. “You have done well, my son. Have you any idea where the . . .” Hope flared a moment in the old man's eyes. “The others might be?”

Torn nodded. “Yes. It is known to me.”

“If he knows that, it is he who stole them,” came the grating voice of Dohatsa from behind and to one side of Tossa.

Tossa whirled as he bounded to his moccasins. The muscles of his neck and arms corded. “You should guard your tongue, traitor.”

Aware from childhood, as with all of them, that this was no place for anger or violence, Dohatsa did not respond to the challenge, merely shrugged and turned away. Inwardly, a striking sensation gripped his heart. Exactly how much did Santan know? He relaxed some as the soft words of the shaman came to his ears.

“This is not the place for hot hearts, Santan,” he gently chided the younger man.

Santan Tossa lowered his eyes and nodded. “That is a true thing. I have come for another reason also.” He turned to take in his fellow Tuas. “You all know of the gang of white outsiders who have tried to take our land. They work for a man named Satterlee. While I recovered the necklace from the house of Satterlee, I learned that the white gang is going to ring Taos, like the Spanish did our Pueblo in the first days of their coming. The gringos call it a siege. The purpose is to prevent anyone from entering or leaving, and to starve the people inside into surrender. The star man, the sheriff, has asked us for help. I am made a dep—u—ty of the star man. I want any who will join me to gather outside the kiva with their ponies. We must ride swiftly back to Taos.”

His precarious situation forgotten in a flush of anger over this outrageous suggestion, Dohatsa snarled his challenge and contempt. “You are a fool, Santan Tossa. The white outsiders are using you. You will get no thanks from those people. And it is shameful that you ask we give any help to them.”

“In other circumstances I would agree with you, Dohatsa. But this is different. These outlaw whites will only come here next. They want all the land, and they can take it if we do not fight.”

Goaded by this, Dohatsa lost his composure and his reason. “You lie! Satterlee and his first warrior, Quinn, are our friends. I have spoken with them. To stop you, I will fight you.”

Automatically, Santan Tossa's hand went to the unfamiliar butt of the six-gun at his hip. “Will you now? That is interesting. But, as Whispering Leaves says, this is no place for anger, or fighting. If I must fight you, I will. Wait for me outside this sacred place.” He turned to the others. “Now, who will join me?”

Several among the young men of the pueblo made as though to come over, among them three of his tribal policemen. They hesitated, though, at a scowl from Dohatsa, who had begun to climb the ladder to the outside. Santan Tossa turned back to the shaman.

“Be patient, and hopeful, Grandfather. I will soon bring the rest of the sacred objects. With enough men, the white outsiders can be defeated, and I can go with my friends to get the holy dolls and the masks.”

“Yes, Santan Tossa, but which outsiders are the real enemy?”

Tossa paused at the foot of the ladder. “Why, the gang led by the one called Quinn, of course.”

With a mocking smile almost identical to the one worn by Dohatsa, Whispering Leaves nodded once. Santan Tossa continued out of the kiva. In a steady line behind him, the other young men followed. Tossa found Dohatsa waiting for him on the ground below.

“I will kill you if I have to,” Dohatsa stated flatly.

“It is forbidden, you know that.”

Dohatsa shrugged. “It does not matter. Take off that white man's weapon.”

“Naturally.”

While the other occupants of the kiva formed a loose circle around them, more men and a number of small boys of the pueblo gathered to watch. Santan Tossa untied the pegging string of his holster and slipped the buckle. He let the six-gun drop as he instantly launched himself at Dohatsa. The renegade had expected that and easily side-stepped Tossa. Dohatsa drove an elbow into the small of Tossa's back smashing him to the ground, his strength robbed by the burst of pain in his kidneys. Some among the onlookers cheered. At once, Dohatsa whirled and kicked Tossa in the stomach. Renewed agony exploded in the tender parts of Tossa's body. He gasped for air and fought to get purchase.

Failing that, he scooped up a handful of dirt and hurled it in the face of Dohatsa.

“There is no honor in that,” shouted two of Dohatsa's partisans.

Fire erupted behind the eyelids of the traitor, and he clawed at his face. Tossa fought back the debilitating effects of the blows he had absorbed and came unsteadily upright. He took two shaky steps forward and engulfed Dohatsa in a bear hug. Flexing his knees, Tossa tried to throw his opponent.

Heavier by far, Dohatsa did not move at first. Then, slowly, his moccasins rose into the air. Tossa swiveled his hips and threw his enemy to the ground. Dohatsa did not land flat. He hit his head first and his shoulders next as Tossa landed on top of him. Now Tossa dimly heard men cheering him. A spectacular nighttime shower of stars filled Dohatsa's head. He fought to suck air into his restricted lungs. When his chest moved, he dimly heard the brittle snap of three ribs. Fiery torment seared his chest cavity. Tossa had greater strength than he had expected. If he did not break this soon, he would not fight on this day, let alone win. As though from a distance, he commanded his legs to rise.

When the soles of his moccasins rested flat on the ground, he flexed powerful thighs and heaved upward. Although the burden of weight upon him shot up into the air, Dohatsa failed to dislodge Tossa. When the wiry young tribal policeman came down, he buried one knee in the slightly paunchy gut of Dohatsa.

Sour bile and the remains of his morning meal erupted from Dohatsa's mouth, preceded by a heavy gust of air. His head swam and his limbs went slack. In desperation, Dohatsa rallied his flagging resources and went for the knife in his bright orange sash. When it came free, he made a swift slash at Tossa.

Nimbly, the young Tua avoided the blade and sprang to his feet. A quick kick sent the knife spinning brightly in the sunlight. Then Tossa had the arm pinned. He rolled the offending hand of Dohatsa over, palm down, and stamped on it with a moccasined foot until he heard bones crack. Howling, Dohatsa doubled up, nursing his injured extremity. Tossa stepped behind him and knelt. He took a large hank of black hair and yanked back the head of his enemy.

“I could, I should, cut your throat. Instead, what I want from you is the truth. Tell me all about our stolen sacred articles.”