William Johnstone - Battle of the Mountain Man

Aiming well above the warriors’ heads, he triggered off a booming shot that echoed off the slopes. The result was not what he expected.

All five Apaches jumped their ponies forward, shouldering rifles, racing down the trail to engage the enemy. Smoke took it in stride, levering another round. “Start droppin’ as many as you can, soon as they’re in range,” he said, placing his rifle sights on a warrior’s blanketed chest. He heard war cries and the thunder of unshod hooves.

Smoke fired, feeling the Winchester slam into his shoulder. The Apache disappeared from his sights almost instantly, performing a backflip off the rump of his galloping pinto.

Cal fired before Smoke could aim again, and to Smoke’s surprise a squat Apache warrior toppled to the ground, rolling in snowmelt slush and mud, arms and legs like the limbs of a limp rag doll, until he tumbled to a halt at the base of a pinon pine.

“Nice shot,” Smoke told the boy, when only three Indians remained in the reckless charge.

“I allowed fer the drop like you showed me,” Cal said as he worked another cartridge into place, his horse prancing underneath him following the explosion so near its ears.

A fierce war cry ended the instant Smoke pulled the trigger and an Apache tossed his rifle in the air to reach for his throat while he was falling backward. Before anyone could fire another shot, the last two Indians swerved their ponies around, drumming heels into the little horses’ sides to race back up to the top of the pass.

Without a word, Smoke urged his Palouse forward, keeping one eye on the fallen warriors and the other on the pass. When he came to the first downed Indian, he saw a pulpy round hole in the Apache’s neck and a circle of blood growing around his head. He would be dead in a matter of minutes.

The Apache Cal had shot had a mortal wound near his heart, and while he was still breathing slowly, his life would end soon. Cal rode up just then, peering down at what he’d done.

“Jesus,” the boy whispered, losing some of the pink in his cheeks. “Looks like I killed him.”

The others rode up to inspect Cal’s handiwork.

“You done yerself proud, boy,” Pearlie said. “Couldn’t have done no better myself at half that distance.”

“You sure as hell can shoot, son,” Bob said. “I had you figured to be a little bit on the young side to have any nerve, but I was damn sure wrong.”

Smoke gave Cal a nod, all that was needed to praise him for the time being. Later, he would tell the boy how steady his aim and nerves had to be to make that kind of shot at a moving target from two hundred yards away.

Riding further up the trail, Smoke gazed down at his first victim briefly. A bullet hole ran through the warrior’s side, exiting near his backbone. “This one’s gonna die slow. Maybe, if his friends come back for him after we’re across this pass, it’ll be a lesson to them.”

Pearlie was grinning, looking at Cal. “I’m right proud of this young ’un. His color ain’t all come back just yet, but fer that kind of shootin’, I’m gonna overlook a little bit of change in his face. Damn nice work, son.” Sixteen

Jessie Evans had promised he would put a stop to that damn Englishman’s interference. John Tunstall was complaining to the sheriff, the territorial governor, and almost everyone else about cattle rustling in Lincoln County, and the killings, even though there was no real evidence as to who was responsible. Witnesses were hard to come by. But when Jimmy Dolan said he wanted the Englishman taken care of right then, after another complaint had reached Sheriff Brady this morning, there wasn’t anything to do but get the job done immediately.

Today, riding with two new gunmen he’d recently hired, Tom Hill and Billy Morton, they were headed to Tunstall’s ranch to scare him out of the country or silence him. Jessie would have been more comfortable bringing extra men with him, however, word had it that Tunstall had only five or six green kids working for him and with Dolan screaming his head off to put the Englishman in his place, either headed back to England or in a six-foot hole in the ground, Jessie decided the three of them could handle it rather than ride all the way out to Bosque Redondo to pick up a few more shooters. On the road to Tunstall’s ranch, Jessie told Billy and Tom what he wanted done.

“Look for any excuse to kill him,” Jessie said, “an’ if any of them wet-noses reach for a shootin’ iron, blow ’em away. We gotta get this done right. Jimmy’s madder’n hell about all them letters Tunstall’s been writin’.”

“Why do we need an excuse?” asked Billy, a narrow-eyed man who had a reputation in West Texas as a backshooter. “Let’s just ride up to the house an’ kill the son of a bitch. Mr. Dolan don’t have to know. We can say he went for a gun.”

“There may be too many witnesses,” Jessie replied. “If we have to, we’ll take him off somewheres at gunpoint an’ do the job where nobody’s watchin’.”

“It don’t make a damn bit of difference to me,” said Tom Hill, another Texan who made his living in the gunfighter’s trade. “Unless he’s got himself surrounded by some good men with a gun, I say we just shoot the sumbitch an’ be done with it, so we can earn our money.”

Jessie saw no need in planning it until they saw what they were up against at Tunstall’s place. “We’ll wait till we get there to make up our minds. Don’t worry none ’bout his cowboys. I’ve seen a few of ’em. Hardly more’n school boys. John Chisum is another matter. He’s payin’ top wages for men who can shoot. He aims to turn this into a killin’ contest. Dolan told me Buck Andrews is on Chisum’s payroll now, an’ so is Curly Tully. Them two boys is dangerous as snakes. I’ve knowed Buck for years, an’ when he sets out after a man, he’d best be real careful. Curly can be worse’n Buck, if the money’s right. Curly ain’t scared of no man on earth, an’ he ain’t opposed to killin’ a man in his sleep if he gets the chance. Chisum’s got plenty of money behind him, an’ that’s what’s gonna make this dangerous as hell. Soon as Chisum gets an army of shooters behind him like he’s doin’ now, all hell’s gonna break loose.”

Billy looked behind them, resting his palms on his saddle horn while his horse trotted down the two-rut lane leading to Tunstall’s place. “Don’t none of them names scare me,” he said in an offhanded way. “A man’s just a man when the shootin’ starts.”

Tom grunted and nodded once, sighting along the horizon as he spoke. “Billy’s right. Just show us the bastards you want killed, an’ we’ll do the rest. Couldn’t help but notice you got Bill Pickett on your payroll. Now there’s what I call a crazy mean son of a bitch. I was with him on a little job up in Fort Worth a few years ago. Didn’t know who he was back then. We was hired to help clear some hard cases out of a saloon in Hell’s Half Acre, when the law wouldn’t do it on account of they was scared of ’em. Pickett come in the back way with that scattergun, an’ when he started shootin’, wasn’t much left but blood and shredded meat all over the floor. Hell, I was half scared he was gonna shoot me, the way he was blastin’ lead all over the place. Buck Andrews an’ Curly Tully are bad men with a gun, but they ain’t never run into the likes of Bill Pickett.”

Jessie knew all too well how dangerous Pickett could be, and along with Roy Cooper, Ignacio Valdez, and the pistoleros he’d hired from below the Mexican border, Chisum would be up against so many killers, he wouldn’t have time to bid on any beef contracts, And while he never said so publicly, Jessie knew he was a match for any of them, including Pickett…