Return Of The Mountain Man Part 17

"No sign of him."

"That was a nice hotel," Morgan said wistfully.

"Beautiful church," Necker said. "Takes a heathen to destroy a house of G.o.d."

Simpson spat on the ground. "You d.a.m.ned fake!" he told Necker. "You ain't no more no preacher than I is. I knowed all along I'd seen you 'fore. Now I remember. I knowed you up in Montana Territory. Elkhorn. You was dealing stud and pimpin'. You kilt Jack Harris when he caught you cold-deckin' him."

"You must be mistaken, my good man," Necker said. But his face was flushed. "I came from-"

"Shut up, Necker. Or whatever your name is," Lansing said. "Now I'm gonna tell you all something. Or remind you of it. Remind you all of a lot of things. They ain't none of us clean. We all-all of us-got dodgers out on us. Now we can't none of us afford to lose this fight. 'Cause you all know d.a.m.n well when that stage reports the town is burnt, the Army's gonna come in here and start askin' a bucket full of questions. That means all them pig farmers and nesters in this area's gotta go in the ground. Cain't none of 'em be allowed to live and flap their gums." He glared at Richards. "I tole you time after time that I didn't trust that there Scotsman. He ain't what he appears to be. Bet on it. When the trouble started, he sh.o.r.e wanted to leave in a hurry, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did," Stratton said. "And it appeared that he and Smoke Jensen were friends."

"They got to die," Marshall said. "All of them."

"What about them farmers' kids?" a gunhand asked.

"Them, too," Brown said. "Cain't n.o.body be left alive to point no finger at us."

"I want Smoke Jensen!" d.i.c.kerson gasped from his blankets on the ground. Still gravely wounded, the outlaw had insisted upon coming to the pa.s.s rather than leaving with the men Smoke had ordered out before burning the town.

The men ignored him. d.i.c.kerson's wounds had reopened, and all those present knew the outlaw and murderer was not long for this world.

"Ya'll hear me?" d.i.c.kerson said.

"Aw, shut up and die!" Necker told him. "We're busy."

d.i.c.kerson fell back on his dirty blankets and died.

Smoke, Sam, and the mountain men rode west, toward Marshall's Crooked Snake spread. The Frenchman, Dupre, was ranging ahead of the main body of men. About two miles from the ranch, Smoke pulled up, waiting for Dupre to return with a scouting report.

During this quiet, which, all knew, would soon become very rare, Preacher talked with Smoke. "You beginnin' to feel all the hate leave your craw, boy?"

"Yes," Smoke admitted.

"That's good. That's a mighty fine little gal back yonder at that nester place."

"She wants to see the high lonesome."

"Be tough on a woman. You gonna show her?"

Smoke hesitated. "Yes."

Preacher spat a stream of brown tobacco juice on the ground, drowning a bug. "Soon as this here affair is done, you two best git goin'. High lonesome will soon be gone. Civil-lie-say-shon done be takin' over, pilgrims ruinin' everything. Be a fine thing to show that woman, though. She's tough, got lots of s.p.u.n.k. She'll stand by you, I's thinkin'."

"Us, you mean, don't you?"

"You mean the boy?"

Smoke shook his head. "I mean Sally, Little Ben, me, and you."

"No, Smoke," Preacher said. "I'll be leavin' with my pards. They's still some corners of this land that's high and lonesome. No nesters with their gawdd.a.m.ned barbed wire and pigs and plows. Me and Tenneysee and Audie and Nighthawk and all the rest-wal, our time's done past us, boy. Mayhaps you'll see me agin-mayhaps not. But when my time is nigh, I'll be headin' back to that little valley where you hammered my name in that stone. There, I'll jist lay me down and look at the elephant. I'll warn you now, son. This will be the last ride for Deadlead and Matt. They done tole me that. They real sick. Got that disease that eats from the inside out."

"Cancer?"

"That'd be it, I reckon. They gonna go out with the reins in they teeth and they fists full of smokin' iron. They'll know when it's time. You a gunhand, boy; you understand why they want it thataway, don't you?"

"Yes."

"All right. It's all said then. When it's time for me and the boys to leave, I don't want no blubberin', you understand?"

"Have you ever seen me blubber?"

"d.a.m.n close to it."

"You tell lies, old man."

Preacher's eyes twinkled. "Mayhaps one or two, from time to time."

"Here comes Dupre."

"We gonna be runnin' and ridin' hard for the next two-three days, son. We'll speak no more of this. When this is over, me and boys will just fade out. 'Member all I taught you, and you treat that there woman right. You hear?"

"I hear."

"Let's go bring this to an end, boy."

21.

"If you're cowboys, turn those ponies' noses west and ride out. If you're gunhands, make your play," Smoke said.

The three riders on the Crooked Snake range slowly turned their horses, being very careful to keep their hands away from sixguns. They sat and stared at the mountain men and at Smoke.

"We're drawin' thirty a month and found," one said. "That ain't exactly fightin' pay."

"You got anything back at the bunkhouse worth dyin' over?"

"Not a thing."

"You boys ride out. If you've a mind to, come back in three-four days. They'll be a lot of cattle wandering around with no owners. You might want to start up some small spreads in this area."

"You be the outlaw, Smoke Jensen?" a cowboy asked.

"I'm Jensen. But I'm no outlaw."

"Mister, if you say you're an African go-riller, you ain't gonna git no argument from me," another cowboy said.

"Fine. You boys head on toward the Salmon. Drift back in three-four days. We'll be gone, and so will the ranches. The homesteaders will still be here, though. Unless you want to see me again, leave them be. Understand?"

"Mr. Jensen, I'll even help 'em plow!"

Smoke smiled. "Take off."

The punchers took off.

"Five, maybe six gunnies at the ranch," Beartooth said, riding up.

Smoke looked at Powder Pete. "Got some dynamite with you?"

"You don't have to say no more." Powder Pete wheeled his mustang and took off for the ranch, Smoke and Sam and the mountain men hard after him.

"How do you boys want it?" Smoke called to the deserted-appearing ranch.

A rifle shot was the only reply.

"Hold your fire," Smoke told his people. Raising his voice, he shouted, "Your boss payin' you so much money you'd die for him?"

"h.e.l.l with you, Jensen!" the shout drifted to Smoke. "Come git us if you got the sand to do it."

Smoke looked at Powder Pete. "Blow 'em out!"

The old mountain man grinned and slipped silently away. About five minutes later, the bunkhouse exploded, the roof blowing off. A dynamite charge blew the porch off the main house, collapsing one side of the house. Smoke and the mountain men poured a full minute of lead into the house.

"I'm done with it!" a man shouted from the dynamite-ruined and bullet-pocked house. "Lemme ride out and I'm gone."

"Take what's on your back and clear out!" Smoke yelled. "How 'bout you other men?"

"There ain't no other men," the man shouted, a bitter edge to his voice. "Two was in the bunkhouse. Rafter got another in here. Lead took the others. I'm it!"

"Clear out and don't come back."

"You just watch my dust, Jensen."

They watched it fade out, the gunhand riding toward the west. He did not look back.

"Check the house for wounded, then burn it all," Smoke said.

"You got a mean streak in you," Preacher said. "Sh.o.r.e didn't git it from me."

Smoke grinned at the man who had helped raise him. Preacher was as mean and vindictive as a wounded grizzly.

"I allow as to how we ain't gonna bury them gunhawks in the house," Preacher said, not putting it in question form.

"Somewhere, sometime, they had a ma," Smoke said. "She'd wanna know her boy was buried proper."

"I'd afraid you say that," Preacher b.i.t.c.hed. "I ain't never found no shovel to fit my hand."

"There goes my ranch," Marshall said, looking west into the sky. There was no bitterness in his voice, only a grudging admiration.

The hundred-odd men sat their saddles and stared at the black smoke pluming into the sky.

"We can still save the cattle," one of his men said.

"You want them, you save them," Marshall replied. "I'm headin' out."

"Where the h.e.l.l you think you goin'?" Lansing asked.

"I'm pullin' out. You boys got any smarts, you'll do the same. I just realized that we ain't gonna stop this Jensen. If'n a man's right, and he jist keeps on comin', ain't nothing or n.o.body gonna stop him. And you know what, boys? Jensen's right."

"Right?" Potter squalled. "He comes in here and ruins everything we worked to build and you sit there and say the man's right?"

Marshall chuckled grimly. "That's it, boys. Everything we got we built on stole money and the blood of others. h.e.l.l with it. I'm pullin' out." He wheeled his horse and turned his back to the others.

Josh Richards jerked up his rifle and shot the man in the back. Marshall fell from the saddle, his spine severed. He lay on the ground, looking at the men through pain-filled eyes. "Should have known one of you would do that," he gasped.

Stratton shot the man between the eyes.

Potter looked at what remained of Marshall's men. "Stay with us. All his cattle, his mine holdings-everything is yours if we win this fight."

"We'll stay," one hard-faced Crooked Snake gunnie said. "I never liked Marshall no how."

"Let's ride."

"What do we do with the cattle?" Audie asked.

"Leave them for those cowboys," Smoke said. "They seemed like pretty decent boys to me."

"The cattle on Richards's place?" Tenneysee asked.

"That's another story. We'll give them to the nesters and the miners."

"Seems fair enough," Lobo said. "I d.a.m.ned sh.o.r.e don't want 'um."

"Someone has to meet the stage and turn it around," Smoke said. "Any volunteers?"

"MacGregor said he'd do it," Sam spoke. "But I don't like the idee of one man waitin' out there all alone with a hundred or so gunhands on the prowl."

"You go back and meet the stage with him," Audie suggested. "I should imagine you and your ladyfriend will be settling in this area. So the less you have to do with this matter, the better. Agreed, Smoke?"

"Good idea. Take off, Sam. I'll see you when this is over."