William Johnstone - Code of the Mountain Man

It was nearing dusk when Al Martine and his bunch spotted Smoke high up near the timber line in the big lonesome.

“We got him, boys!” Al yelled, and put the spurs to his tired horse.

A rifle bullet took Al’s hat off and sent it spinning away. The mountain winds caught it, and it was gone forever.

“Goddamn!” Al yelled, just as another round kicked up dirt at his horse’s hooves, and the animal started bucking. It was all Al could do to stay in the saddle.

A slug smacked Zack in the shoulder and nearly knocked him from the saddle. The second shot tore off the saddle horn and smashed into Zack’s upper thigh, bringing a scream of pain from the outlaw.

“He’s got help!” Pedro yelled. “Let’s get gone from here.”

The outlaws raced for cover, with Zack flopping around in the saddle.

Smoke looked down the mountain. “Now who in the devil is that?” he muttered.

Sally punched .44 rounds into her carbine and settled back into her well-hidden little camp in a narrow depression with the back and one side a solid rock wall.

“Who you reckon that was a-shootin’ at us?” Tom Post yelled over the sounds of galloping horses.

“I don’t know,” Crown returned the yell. “But he’s hell with a rifle, whoever he is.”

Using field glasses, Sally watched them beat a hasty retreat, and then laid out cloth and cup, plate and tableware, and napkin for her early supper. just because one was in the wilderness, surrounded by Godless heathens, was no reason to forego small amenities.

She opened a can of beans, set aside a can of peaches for dessert, and spread butter on a thick slice of bread. Before eating, she said a prayer for the continuing safety of her man.

“Hello the far!” the voice came out of the timber.

Louis edged back into the shadows and lifted his Colt. “If you’re friendly, come on in.”

“I reckon we’re friendly,” came the call. Two men stepped into the small clearing. “We’re all in this together, a-huntin’ that damn Smoke Jensen. Share your coffee, friend?”

“Why, certainly!” Louis called out cheerfully.

“Step right on in, boys.”

“Kind of you.” The men stepped closer. “I’m Nick Reeves, and this is my partner, Mike Beecham.”

Louis knew them both. No-goods from down near the Four Corners.

“What might your name be, mister?” Mike asked, squatting down by the small fire. “I think I know the voice, but I cain’t hardly see you in them shadows.”

“Louis Longmont, you cretin!”

Both men yelled, cussed, and grabbed for iron. Louis had both hands filled with .44s, and the campsite thundered with shots, the moist evening air filling with gray smoke.

Louis reloaded then dragged the bodies away, heaving them over a small cliff. He went through their saddlebags and found more food, a goodly amount of .44 ammo, and some stinking socks and dirty longhandles. He kept the food and the ammo and turned their horses loose after relieving them of saddle and bridle. He returned to his fire and slowly ate his supper, scoured out his pan and plate, then broke camp and moved on about a mile, before bedding down for the night.

“Got more bounty hunters in the mountains than boys left in the gang,” Lee Slater said glumly.

He sat staring into the flames of the campfire and sucking on a bottle of rye whiskey.

His brother, Luttie, sat across the fire from him, equally morose. He took a drink from his bottle and wondered how all this was going to turn out. The shock of losing five of his men in a matter of seconds earlier that day still had not entirely left him. He wondered if his boys had managed to get enough lead in that damned ol’ Charlie Starr to kill him. He doubted it.

“Twelve dead, last count,” Lee said. “Six wounded. And you lost five of your boys to Starr.”

“You don’t have to keep reminding me,” Luttie said sourly. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had kept a tight rein on your boys. The dumbest damn thing you did was attackin’ Big Rock and shootin’ up the place. The second dumbest thing you done was shootin’ Smoke Jensen’s wife. And the third dumbest thing you done is torturin’ and rapin’ and killin’ that family up north of here.”

“Aw, shut up!” Lee told him.

“Don’t tell me to shut up! I told you to come straight here and stay out of trouble on the way. We could have had it all, Lee. We could have taken a million dollars worth of gold and silver from the miners and stages and banks and done been gone from this damn place. But, oh, hell, no. You had to surround yourself with idiots and screw it all up.”

“If he’s talkin’ about idiots, he must be talkin’ about you boys,” Lopez said to the Karl Brothers.

Rod gave him a dirty look, and Randy gave him an obscene gesture.

“We got Smoke to the north of us,” Curt said. “A damn good rifleman to the East of us, and it looks like Louis Longmont is to the south of us.”

“And a bunch of U.S. Marshals camped at the edge of the mountains,” Dale pointed out.

“Maybe it’s time to haul out of here,” Max suggested.

“I’ll be damned!” Lee snarled at him. “Good God, people! Countin’ Luttie’s bunch, they’s nearly fifty of us left, all told, and we’re lettin’ two or three people whup us. What the hell’s the matter with you? No one or two people ain’t never whupped fifty people. We’re doin’ somethin’ wrong, is all. We got to study this out and find out what it is.”

“Smoke Jensen and Louis Longmont ain’t no average two people,” Al Martine pointed out. “And that rifleman that hit us this afternoon wasn’t no pilgrim, neither. Now you think about this—all of you: hittin’ Rio is out the winder. They’d shoot us to pieces in ten seconds. The miners has all shut down and gone into town; they ain’t diggin’ no gold, and they shore ain’t shippin’ none. The county seat is out of the pitcher; Sheriff Silva ain’t no man to fool with. So where the hell does that leave us?”

“My ass hurts!” Bud complained.

“He’s up there,” Ace Reilly said, his eyes looking at the timber line. Good light of morning, the air almost cold this high up.

Big Bob Masters shifted his chew from one side of his mouth to the other and spat. “Solid rock to his back,” he observed. “And two hundreds yards of open country ever’where else. It’d be suicide gettin’ up there.”

Ace lifted his canteen to take a drink, and the canteen exploded in his hand, showering him with water, bits of metal, and numbing his hand. The second shot nicked Big Bob’s horse on the rump, and the animal went pitching and snorting and screaming down the slope, Big Bob yelling and hanging on and flopping in the saddle. The third shot took off part of Causey’s ear, and he left the saddle, crawling behind some rocks.

“Jesus Christ!” Ace hollered, leaving the saddle and finding cover. “Where the hell is that comin’ from?"

Big Bob’s horse had come to a very sudden and unexpected halt, and Big Bob went flying ass over elbows out of the saddle to land against a tree.

He staggered to his feet, looking wildly around him, and took a .44 slug in the belly. He sank to his knees, both hands holding his punctured belly, bellering in pain.

“He’s right on top of us,” Ace called to Nap. “Over there at the base of that rock face.”

Smoke was hundreds of yards up the mountain, just at the timber line, looking and wondering who his new ally might be. He got his field glasses and began sweeping the area. A slow smile curved his lips.

“I married a Valkyrie, for sure,” he muttered, as the long lenses made out Sally’s face.

He saw riders coming hard, a lot of riders. Smoke grabbed up his .44-.40 and began running down the mountain, keeping to the timber. The firing had increased as the riders dismounted and sought cover. Smoke stayed a good hundred yards above them, and so far he had not been spotted.