William Johnstone - Triumph of the Mountain Man

There wouldn’t be time enough to take out Quinn and his fast guns and free both women. This small farm lay too close to the ring of outlaws. Any exchange of gunfire would draw two dozen gunmen in seconds. He could not free them, yet he had a firm belief that Satterlee would not want her harmed. What happened next reinforced that attitude. Quinn’s voice raised suddenly, and Smoke listened carefully to each word.

“You’re right, Huber. These two are poison. I think we can get away with it if we do it that way, I do. We just take ’em out in the desert and lose them somewhere.”

At once, Martha snapped hotly at him. “Clifton will have you gelded if you actually go through with killing me. You heard what he said when he had you bring my maid here.”

That was news to Smoke. The criminal overlord was here now. That gave him some fresh ideas. Quietly he slipped away, headed back for Cougar and a ride to town.

* * *

Never one to take strict notice of exact time, Smoke Jensen found himself eying the big, octagonal face of the Regulator wall clock that hung on the wall of the sheriff’s office. When the hour deadline arrived, he strode out to where Quinn had confronted them earlier. It did not surprise Smoke when he found none of the outlaws present. Particularly, Smoke noted, no torturers and no Martha Estes. In the next instant, he learned why.

Rifle fire broke out on two sides of town. With shouts and curses, the outlaw gang opened an attack on Taos in earnest. Smoke could not understand why the entire force that ringed the defenders did not press the engagement. He needn’t have speculated. Smoke had no sooner than reached the line of houses that defined the city limits than riders thundered down the slope where he and Diego had met with Quinn. They opened fire as the range closed.

Immediately, Smoke ducked behind a low adobe wall and drew a .45 Colt. Two .44 slugs slammed into the outer face of the brown mud bricks, which sent a plume of dust upward to obscure Smoke’s vision. He triggered a round, and a hard case cried out in pain, his right arm limp and useless. That concentrated more fire on Smoke’s position. He could not stay in such an exposed place for long, Smoke reasoned.

* * *

Sheriff Hank Banner sat propped up in bed by rolled blankets and plump pillows. At his insistence, Dr. Walters had rolled the bed over close to a window. Now he stood in exasperation at his patient’s request.

“I’ll do no such a thing, Hank Banner,” the physician snapped, his well-scrubbed hands clasped in front of him.

“Awh, come on, Adam. We’ve got the fight of our lives goin’ on out there, and I ain’t in it. Hell, man, even you’ve got a six-gun strapped on.”

“That’s to protect my patients and my medical equipment,” Dr. Walters responded testily.

“You gave Pedro Alvarado a rifle. All I’m askin’ is you get me one, too.”

Unmoved by the argument, Adam Walters answered primly. “Pedro is thirty years younger than you, Hank, and he’s ambulatory. Besides, how are you going to operate a Winchester from that bed?”

Bushy eyebrows knit over his nose, Banner grumped at the doctor. “Easy if you’ll give me a rifle and open the damned window. I mean it now, Adam. I can see out of both eyes now, and things ain’t so fuzzy I’d shoot one of the town folks. I’m the sheriff, and by damn, it’s my duty to help defend the people out there.”

Dr. Walters knew that Hank was right. But he was his friend, and Adam Walters did not want to see Hank Banner taking unnecessary risks in his weakened condition. While his thoughts roamed over that little dilemma, Dr. Walters heard a light smack and the musical tinkle of falling glass. The bullet cracked loudly when it struck the wall opposite the window.

“Goldag it, Adam. That does it. If they’re shootin’ at me, I’ve got the right to shoot back.”

Sighing, Dr. Walters turned from the infirmary and entered his treatment room. From there he proceeded to the office, where he picked up a Winchester and a box of cartridges. He returned to the room where the sheriff continued to fume at the attackers. Adam’s face wore a sheepish expression.

“Here. And try not to shoot yourself in the leg.” The doctor busied himself with opening the sash. From the end window, which faced the alley behind the building, a rifle barked in the hands of Pedro Alvarado.

* * *

For all the fury of their resistance, small groups of Quinn’s outlaw band penetrated the defenders’ barricades. Six of them from the west side of town headed directly for the center. They made their approach by way of one of the radiating alleys that formed an X based on the Plaza de Armas. To reach their goal, they had to go past the window where young Pedro Alvarado waited with a ready Winchester. The moment one of them came into view, he immediately regretted his hastiness.

Fiery agony spread in his leg as Pedro put a round into his hip. The outlaw fell at once and painfully crawled, crablike, toward the shelter of a doorway. Pedro fired again, ending the thug’s movement forever. As his life ebbed from him, the hard case faintly heard the voices of his comrades.

“Up there.”

“Yeah, I see him. In that window.”

Funny, the dying rogue thought, I didn’t hear any shots. He did not hear the return fire as his fellow outlaws opened up and darkness engulfed him.

Up in the infirmary, Pedro Alvarado flattened himself on the floor as a rat-a-tat of slugs punched through the thin wall. Glass shattered in the window above him. The moment a lull came, Pedro popped up and sighted on one of the five. The .44 Winchester recoiled smoothly, and the target clutched his chest and slammed back against a wall. Pedro got off another round before he had to dive for the floor again.

* * *

Ian MacGreggor held his own from his second-floor room in the hotel. He had been on town patrol duty during the night and had returned to grab a few hours’ sleep only to have the attack break out after only forty minutes’ rest. Over his sights, he saw one hard case, who appeared to be directing the actions of a dozen others in a push to breach the defenses to the south of town. A long shot for a rifle, but Mac retained the confidence of youth.

He elevated his aim to the maximum and fired. After what seemed a terribly long time, the section leader jerked in his saddle, then slowly folded forward at the waist. He clung to his horse for a moment, then dropped away to land in a puff of dust on the hard ground. Mac levered another round into his Winchester and sought another target. He found one much closer than he would have liked.

Two hard cases ran out of the mouth of an alley and randomly discharged their weapons upward toward second-floor windows. Mac pulled a quick bead and let fly another. 44 slug. One of the outlaws continued to run forward while the other did a crazy little jig and crashed blindly into a rain barrel. He died before he hit the tile walk.

Mac charged his rifle again and sighted on the remaining gunman. The Winchester bucked, and Mac remembered this time to shove three fresh cartridges through the loading gate. He ejected the empty and chambered a loaded one. If this kept up, they could easily reduce the enemy by half, he speculated.

* * *

Someone else had figured out the same thing. Shouts to pull back went from one outlaw to the next. Slowly they began to withdraw from town, yet they continued to pour a withering fire on the defenders from a distance outside Taos. Whitewater Paddy Quinn sought out his second in command.

“We’ll give it a little time, then go back again. I want to get that bastid Smoke Jensen in me sights, an’ that’s a fact.”

Garth Thompson did not sound so eager. “I’ve heard he is hard to kill. So far, I have no reason to doubt that. How many did we lose?”