William Johnstone - Triumph of the Mountain Man

“Banning! Tully Banning.”

Banning turned only his head. “Who th’ hell wants to know?”

“That’s not important. What I want to know is why you don’t pick on someone your own age or older?”

Banning uttered a string of curses, and concluded with, “Maybe you’d be interested in taking this punk kid’s place. If so, I’ll deal with you first, then kill Momma’s little boy anyway.”

Smoke pulled a face. “I don’t think so. Keep your stray curs off me while I step down so I can accommodate you.”

“You’ve got that, old man.”

Old man? Smoke never thought of himself as old. He climbed from the saddle and tied off Cougar and his packhorse, Hardy. Then he walked out to stand beside the youth who had been challenged. “Step out of the street, son. You didn’t ask for this, and there’s no reason you take any harm for it.”

With an expression of mingled relief and frustration, the sandy-haired boy angled off the street to stand by Smoke’s horses. Then Smoke looked up at Banning. “I’m ready any time you are.”

Tully Banning’s shoulders hunched, and his right hand twitched; but he did not go for his six-gun at once. It had been a signal, one old and familiar, to his companions. The challenged individual could be expected to focus his attention and anticipation upon the challenger. That’s the way it had worked for Tully Banning time and again. So, when the cheat and sneak made the little jerk and arrest movement, his henchmen immediately drew their revolvers.

One small miscalculation marred their perfect ambush. Although the trio had often heard of the exploits of Smoke Jensen, none of them had ever met with him face-to-face. Now that they had, it was entirely too late. Smoke expected some sort of dirty work, so he readied himself accordingly. When all three louts drew, Banning last of all, Smoke already had their demise planned.

Drawing with his usual blinding speed, Smoke killed the one on the left first. Then he swung past Banning in the middle to take on the right-hand gunhawk. The poor soul never had a chance. He did get off one wild shot that split the air high above the head of Smoke Jensen. Then the hammer of Smoke’s .45 Peacemaker fell, and a hot slug ripped into the ruffian’s gut. It burned a trail of agony through his liver before it ripped out a piece of his spine and tore a hole in his back. Rapidly dying, he went to his knees as Tully Banning attempted to level his six-gun.

To his horror, Tully Banning saw the calm expression and faint smile of the man facing him an instant before flame and smoke spewed from the muzzle of the Colt and a wrenching agony exploded in his chest. Staggered, he took two feeble, uncertain steps to the right and triggered his piece. Banning’s slug kicked up dirt between the wide-spread legs of Smoke Jensen.

Then Smoke shot again. Another terrible hammer blow smashed into the chest of Tully Banning. His legs went out from under him, and he dropped on his backside in the dusty street. Dimly he heard the shouts of amazement from the onlookers who had assembled well out of the line of fire. This couldn’t be happening. The trap had always worked before. It would take the best gunfighter in the world to best the three of them, Banning’s spinning mind fought to reject his mortality.

Blood bubbled on his lips as he asked weakly, “Who are you?”

Smiling that ghost of a smile again, Smoke Jensen told Tully Banning, who turned even whiter before he died. Suddenly, the freckle-faced, sandy-haired boy appeared at Smoke’s side. “I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Jensen.”

“Don’t reckon they did, either.”

“You sure saved my life. Uh—my name’s Ian MacGreggor. Most folks call me Mac. It’s an honor to meet you. And, thank you, thank you for getting me out of that fix. They never gave me a chance to say no.”

Smoke nodded understanding. “Their kind never do. And, they never, ever pick on anyone capable of defending themselves. Remember that.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Thank you again.”

It took Smoke Jensen an uncomfortable fifteen minutes with the town constable to explain what he had accomplished in two seconds. Given the assurance it would be recorded as self-defense, Smoke at last got on the trail to Taos.

* * *

Thick-foliaged palo verde trees made silver-green smoke clouds against the horizon of red earth and cobalt sky. Cattle grazed on the sparse grass of Rancho de la Gloria. Throughout the prairie lands, from Texas to Montana, cattlemen talked of cows per acre. Not so here. Don Diego Alvarado had learned at his father’s knee to think in terms of acres per cow. In future times, the elegant Diego Alvarado often told himself, irrigation would make this harsh desert into a veritable garden place. Not in his lifetime, though. So he did not share his dream with his friends and fellow ranchers. His vaqueros knew of it, and believed him. Three of them had been given the assignment of tending a herd of two hundred that grazed through a high meadow on the north end of the ranch property.

They found their work peaceful and pleasing. Not far off lay a connected chain of tanques where the beasts would water and they could take their almuerzo. Each had a cloth bag in his saddlebag, provided that morning by his wife, that contained a burrito—beans and onion rolled in a flour tortilla—a savory tamale, and fresh, piquant chile peppers to add flavor and spice. Arturo had even brought along some cornmeal sugar cookies baked by his wife. Arturo Gomez and Hector Blanco had promised their younger sons they could bring lunches and join the men at the tanks, the lads taking a noontime swim. That would get them out from under their mothers’ feet. The older boys all tended goat herds during the day and could always find ways to get cool and wet. As a newlywed, Umberto Mascarenas, the third vaquero, only dreamed of the day when he would have sturdy sons like his companions. He looked up at the sound of pounding hooves. Could it be the niños already?

Caught unaware, Umberto Mascarenas did not hear the first gunshot, or any of those that followed. A bullet struck him in the right side of his head, an inch above his ear, and blew out the other hemisphere. He pitched from his horse in a welter of gore.

“Git them other greasers,” a harsh voice shouted.

More gunfire sounded across the plateau. Arturo Gomez returned fire with his Obrigon copy of a .45 Colt and had the satisfaction of watching an Anglo ladrón spill from his saddle at the third round. Then pain burned the life from him as three bullets struck him in half a second. To his right, Hector Blanco dismounted and drew his rifle. The Marlin cracked sharply, and the hat flew from another rustler’s head. Hector shot again, and the thief threw up his hands and fell backward off his mount.

By that time, the reports of the weapons had registered on the dim brains of the cattle. They reacted at once and broke into a shambling run. Controlling the cattle became the primary objective of the rustlers, yet one took the time to ride down on Hector Blanco and steal his life with a bullet through the brain. Then the killer galloped ahead to join the others in a V-shaped formation in front of the stampeded herd and direct it off Alvarado land toward a waiting holding pen in a blind canyon.

Twenty minutes later, the horrified and grief-stricken sons of Arturo and Hector found the bodies of all three vaqueros. The Whitewater Paddy Quinn gang had struck again.

5

An hour short of sundown, with long, golden and carmine shafts of light spilling through the canyons, Smoke Jensen made night camp on a bluff above the Canadian River. He staked out his horses to graze and prepared a fire ring. Then he gathered dry windfall and laid a fire. With seemingly calm indifference to his surroundings, he went about setting up his cooking equipment. Constantly, though, he kept his ears tuned to the sound of soft footfalls that grew steadily nearer. Smoke’s surprise registered on his face when the source of that noise came up within thirty feet of the campsite and hailed him.