Read Online Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William W. Johnstone
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along what women and children they could. The gang spread out and methodically began to exterminate the remaining males. The old women they let go. The young ones they corralled in the Council lodge, a large brush shelter. Back inside the trading post, Victor Spectre examined the booty.
“You were correct about one thing. There isn’t a lot of gold here,” he said to the proprietor. “Too bad. Had there been money enough, I might have been persuaded not to do this,” he added casually as he lifted his revolver.
“No! Oh, please, no!” the Indian agent pleaded. “There’s—there’s more whiskey. In the root cellar,” he bargained with his life.
“We’ll find it,” Spectre assured him, then shot the man dead.
By the time the two prospectors had been killed and stripped of their small pouches of placer gold, the last of the Ute men had run off with the women and children they had rescued. Gus Jaeger gathered the gunhawks and tolled them off by twos to make their pick of the young Ute women and girls. The female population of the Ute village began to shriek and wail the moment the first pair were dragged from the Council lodge.
Sally Jensen sat in the old wooden rocking chair on the front porch at the Sugarloaf. The rocker played a game of tag with the tail of a plump, orange-and-white tabby that lay at her side. So far the cat was winning, the wooden bow had not yet made contact as the tail whipped in and out beneath it. She glanced up at the angle of the sun. The hands would be in for supper before long.
She looked across the open yard to where the ranch cook bent over his pots of spicy beef stew, thick gumbo, and New Orleans-style rice and beans. A Cajun who had drifted north and west of his native bayous, he had proven to be a natural with the hearty fare of the High Lonesome country. Though where he obtained the okra she would never know. The summers were too short and mild to grow it here. He looked up and saw the expression she did not know she wore. A wide smile flashed in the swarthy Acadian face and he spoke with words he hoped sounded reassuring.
“Won’t no harm come to Mr. Smoke, Miss Sally. I gar-ron-tee it.”
How did he know I was worried about Smoke? Sally gave a little shiver and looked expectantly toward the direction from which the hands would ride up on the headquarters as she answered him.
“I know that, Jules. I was…only thinking.”
“He be one brave mon, Miss Sally. Smart, too. He not be steppin’ in front of some sacre bleu outlaw bullet.” Jules Thibedeux nodded his head in confidence and understanding and went back to his cooking.
Sally heard hoofbeats then. She came to her boots and marched to the head of the steps. She paused on the second one, her face lighted by the gold-orange of a lowering sun. Riding beside Ike Mitchell she recognized the slender figure of Bobby Harris.
Bobby had taken to sleeping in his old room in the main house in the five nights since Smoke’s departure. His attitude bothered her. He had not as yet returned to school in Big Rock, and although content to teach him at home, she worried about his adjustment to children his age.
Impatient with herself, she banished the thought and put a smile on her face. Bobby would be moody enough. He saw her worried about Smoke also. She ran fingers through her dark hair and tossed the curls to give them springiness. Then she stamped her foot in vexation when a tiny voice in her head asked her where Smoke was right then.
Smoke Jensen drifted into Wyoming that day at mid-morning, near the small town of Baggs. He had been slowed because of a pulled tendon on his packhorse. The normally sure-footed animal had stepped into a prairie dog hole and badly strained its canon tendon. It limped and fought the lead. He would have to rent another one or trade off at the livery in Baggs.
With that decided for him, he stopped thinking about it. The skyline of Baggs seemed to grow out of the tall, waving
“You were correct about one thing. There isn’t a lot of gold here,” he said to the proprietor. “Too bad. Had there been money enough, I might have been persuaded not to do this,” he added casually as he lifted his revolver.
“No! Oh, please, no!” the Indian agent pleaded. “There’s—there’s more whiskey. In the root cellar,” he bargained with his life.
“We’ll find it,” Spectre assured him, then shot the man dead.
By the time the two prospectors had been killed and stripped of their small pouches of placer gold, the last of the Ute men had run off with the women and children they had rescued. Gus Jaeger gathered the gunhawks and tolled them off by twos to make their pick of the young Ute women and girls. The female population of the Ute village began to shriek and wail the moment the first pair were dragged from the Council lodge.
Sally Jensen sat in the old wooden rocking chair on the front porch at the Sugarloaf. The rocker played a game of tag with the tail of a plump, orange-and-white tabby that lay at her side. So far the cat was winning, the wooden bow had not yet made contact as the tail whipped in and out beneath it. She glanced up at the angle of the sun. The hands would be in for supper before long.
She looked across the open yard to where the ranch cook bent over his pots of spicy beef stew, thick gumbo, and New Orleans-style rice and beans. A Cajun who had drifted north and west of his native bayous, he had proven to be a natural with the hearty fare of the High Lonesome country. Though where he obtained the okra she would never know. The summers were too short and mild to grow it here. He looked up and saw the expression she did not know she wore. A wide smile flashed in the swarthy Acadian face and he spoke with words he hoped sounded reassuring.
“Won’t no harm come to Mr. Smoke, Miss Sally. I gar-ron-tee it.”
How did he know I was worried about Smoke? Sally gave a little shiver and looked expectantly toward the direction from which the hands would ride up on the headquarters as she answered him.
“I know that, Jules. I was…only thinking.”
“He be one brave mon, Miss Sally. Smart, too. He not be steppin’ in front of some sacre bleu outlaw bullet.” Jules Thibedeux nodded his head in confidence and understanding and went back to his cooking.
Sally heard hoofbeats then. She came to her boots and marched to the head of the steps. She paused on the second one, her face lighted by the gold-orange of a lowering sun. Riding beside Ike Mitchell she recognized the slender figure of Bobby Harris.
Bobby had taken to sleeping in his old room in the main house in the five nights since Smoke’s departure. His attitude bothered her. He had not as yet returned to school in Big Rock, and although content to teach him at home, she worried about his adjustment to children his age.
Impatient with herself, she banished the thought and put a smile on her face. Bobby would be moody enough. He saw her worried about Smoke also. She ran fingers through her dark hair and tossed the curls to give them springiness. Then she stamped her foot in vexation when a tiny voice in her head asked her where Smoke was right then.
Smoke Jensen drifted into Wyoming that day at mid-morning, near the small town of Baggs. He had been slowed because of a pulled tendon on his packhorse. The normally sure-footed animal had stepped into a prairie dog hole and badly strained its canon tendon. It limped and fought the lead. He would have to rent another one or trade off at the livery in Baggs.
With that decided for him, he stopped thinking about it. The skyline of Baggs seemed to grow out of the tall, waving
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