William Johnstone - Triumph of the Mountain Man

Satterlee spoke aloud to himself as he decided on his wardrobe. “I think something elegant, perhaps a morning coat. For the formal capitulation of Taos nothing less would do.” A soft rap sounded on the open door, and he looked up.

His majordomo stood there, a sparkle of expectation in his ebony eyes. “A rider just in from Taos, señor.”

The expression on the face of Satterlee reflected that of his servant. “Show him up.”

In two minutes the official greeter of the house returned with a smiling Yank Hastings. The young outlaw did not dwell on formalities. “Ever’thing’s goin’ fine, Mr. Satterlee. Paddy Quinn says there’s no need for you to hurry up there. We’ll have ’em flushed out by tomorrow morning. That’s his guarantee.”

Satterlee stretched his thin lips to even narrower proportions. “Mr. Quinn may well want his hour in the sun, but I have no intention of being denied my triumph. I will be ready within the hour. You will accompany me and my personal retinue to Taos at that time.”

* * *

Sundown lingered only a quarter hour away. Rich orange light bathed the bowl in which Taos lay. It painted the red, yellow, and brown buttes, mesas and volcanic mountains in muted shadow. Following the ill-thought-out charge of the hotheads, the gang had settled down to strengthen their stranglehold on the town and its occupants. On the three sides not influenced by the creek and its deep gorge, the bandits edged in close enough to be well within range of their weapons. They opened up in a fury.

Windows became the first targets. Every visible pane ceased to exist in a wildfire storm that lasted twelve minutes. By then, the town custodian, whom no one had thought to inform to the contrary, had begun to light the street lamps. They quickly became the objects of punishment for the outlaws.

Glass flew into the street first, followed by thin streams of kerosene. It did not take long for one burning wick to be dislodged from the body of a lamp and fall into a pool of the flammable liquid that formed at the base of the post. Flickering blue at first, to be reduced to yellow-white, the flames swept the length of one block, then a second. At once the alarm sounded at the fire station, and volunteers had to abandon their fighting positions to answer the call. Always a curse, fire could reduce the city as surely as the outlaws who had caused its release.

Chief Ezekial Crowder directed his firemen from the shelter of a doorway. Bullets from the gang continued to be a hazard. One young fire fighter suddenly dropped his length of hose and yowled as he grabbed at his ear. Blood trickled between his fingers.

“At least it ain’t like fightin’ a structural fire,” Crowder observed to Smoke Jensen, who had come at the first alarm. “So far, that is,” Barnes amended.

His volunteers quickly spread out to beat down the flames. To Smoke it appeared the very earth burned. Black smoke vaulted the sky above town, and the outlaws cheered and shouted in derision. Gradually, the blazes subsided. After ten hard minutes the last one went out.

Encouraged by the diversion the fires had created, half a dozen scum charged the vaqueros who had been holding the west road. One of the Mexican cowboys reached to the saddlebag at his feet, grabbed up a bottle and used his hand-rolled cigarette to ignite the fuse that protruded from the cork in its mouth. When it began to sputter, he counted to three, stood and threw it out the open window.

It turned end-for-end four full times before it exploded violently at shoulder level in the midst of the gang members. All six screamed piteously and went down in a heap. That quickly changed the minds of those who thought of joining them. The effect on those who had witnessed the grenade became obvious as the fire it had caused began to dwindle. The last shots came from the outlaws only minutes after nightfall.

* * *

Half an hour later, Smoke Jensen finished off a piece of pie, sent over by one of the restaurants, and licked his lips. “I think that ends it for today. Diego, I’d keep a few people on the lookout for any effort to test our strength. The rest can get a little sleep, at least until an hour before daylight.”

“And you, amigo, what will you be doing?”

Smoke gave him a wicked grin. “I’m going to go out and raise a little hob.”

20

Smoke Jensen chose to leave town by way of the road controlled by the vaqueros from Rancho de la Gloria. The ranch hand on watch gave him a silent salute as he crossed the bridge on foot. Thick coatings of burlap muffled the hooves of his stallion, Cougar. They would remain on until Smoke slipped past the pickets of the outlaw army. So skilled was the last mountain man that when the vaquero lookout who watched him depart blinked, Smoke had completely disappeared.

It did not take long after that for Smoke to find targets for his night’s mischief. Silently he wormed his way in among the outlaws at one camp fire. One look at his gunfighter rig and they accepted him as one of their own. He was offered coffee, which Smoke accepted.

“Thanks, I needed that. Maybe it’ll settle my nerves.”

“What are you gittin’ at—er . . . ?”

Smoke dropped into the loose grammar and dialect of his mentor, the old mountain man called Preacher. “They call me Jagger. An’ what I’m gettin’ at is that there’s Injuns in among the folks in town.”

“Naw,” another hard case disputed. “They’re Mezkins, Jagger. You’ve jist caught a case of the spooks.”

Smoke played the trump in his rumor hand. “Mezkins wearin’ moccasins, loincloths and floppy shirts? Hair down to their shoulders? Believe it. I’ve seen ’em myself. They’re all sharpenin’ scalpin’ knives.”

A shiver passed over his audience. Smoke added more to their unease. “There must be as many fightin’ men in thar as out here.”

The doubtful one again challenged his statement. “Not accordin’ to Whitewater Paddy.”

Smoke cracked a grin. “Mr. Quinn don’t know ever’thing. I’ve seed ’em. There’s Injuns, an’ Mezkin cowboys, and a whole lot of townies.”

Smoke answered a string of troubled questions with inventions calculated to fan the blaze of fear he had introduced. After ten minutes of yarn spinning, Smoke drank off his coffee, came to his boots and drifted on.

* * *

“I’m makin’ the rounds, checkin’ if anyone needs anything,” Smoke explained at the next fire. Using the names he had acquired at the first gathering, he deepened his cover. “Are you Zeke? Well, Rupe told me to tell you howdy for him. He’s holdin’ his own. ’Cept for what he found out about the Injuns in Taos.”

Zeke eyed Smoke. “What’s this about Injuns?”

Smoke launched into his tall tale about scalping. Then he added another log to the overloaded wagon. “That’s not all. A feller who’s been in close to town tells me that this Smoke Jensen has put up a hundred-dollar bounty on every one of us who gets killed.”

Zeke denied that at once. “I don’t believe it. Nobody, especially a rovin’ gunfighter, has that kind of money.”

Smoke ignored him. “Somethin’ more about those Injuns. Jensen’s armed them with rifles and shotguns.”

“No!” Agitated, Zeke came to his boots. “Ain’t no way them townies would stand for that. It’s fools’ work givin’ guns to Injuns.”

“Makes no never-mind. That’s what I saw with my own eyes. Injuns runnin’ around with Winchesters. An’ that’s not all of it. Not by half.” Smoke went on to add yet another burden to the worried outlaws. Then he quietly left the uneasy souls to these imaginings.

* * *

After three more such visits, Smoke decided that his rumors would take sprout and grow with satisfactory speed. Crouched low, he worked his way in among the horses of those who ringed the town between roads. With a cautious hand, he reached for the cinch ring of one animal. He kept the other on the nose of the animal to calm it.