Honor of the Mountain Man Read online

  OUTNUMBERED BUT NOT OUTSMARTED

  Smoke glared down at the man on the ground. “Did Murdock send you out to do us in?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” the man said.

  Puma Buck stepped up to stand practically on top of the man. “If he’s not gonna talk, Smoke, let me skin ’im,” he said. “I ain’t skinned nobody fer two, maybe three years now.” He held out his big buffalo-skinning knife; it glinted in the firelight.

  “No, no, please . . .” the man begged.

  Smoke leaned over, his hands on his knees. “Then tell us what you know about Murdock’s plans. How many men he has, when he plans to hit us ...”

  When he had his information, Smoke let the man go. When he was out of earshot, Smoke drained the last of his coffee. “I got an idea,” he said. “What is the last thing a commander with an overwhelming superiority in numbers and firepower expects the opposing army to do?”

  Puma grinned and nodded. “Attack? You can’t mean we’re gonna ride against Murdock and fifty men. That’d be suicide.”

  “A frontal assault’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Smoke said. “Sally brought some books back from her last trip out east. They were about some Japanese fighters called ninjas . . . individuals who swore allegiance to the warlords of feudal Japan, the shgun. Ninjas were called “invisible killers” because they dressed all in black, attacked at night, and killed without being seen or heard.”

  Smoke paused, grinned. “We’re about to become American ninjas.”

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  and J. A. JOHNSTONE

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  HONOR OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN

  William W. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.pinnaclebooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  OUTNUMBERED BUT NOT OUTSMARTED

  Also by

  BOOK YOUR PLACE ON OUR WEBSITE AND MAKE THE READING CONNECTION!

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Notes

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1998 by William W. Johnstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior writ-ten consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-1479-8

  First ebook edition: July 2018

  eISBN-13: 9 78-0- 7860 446 7-2

  eISBN-10: 0- 7860- 4467-5

  Prologue

  Chihuahua, Mexico, sweltered under a brutal summer sun. The temperature was over 110 degrees; dogs, too exhausted by the heat to chase each other, lay panting in what scant shade there was.

  Colonel Emilio Vasquez sat in a cantina called El Gato, enjoying its quiet coolness as he downed a mug of beer and chased it with a tumbler of tequila. He was second in command of the Rurales, local law enforcement officers made up primarily of uneducated men too lazy to work at honest labor and too cowardly to steal openly. Sergeant Juan Garcia, a huge bear of a man weighing almost three hundred pounds, was drinking with him. Garcia sleeved sweat off his forehead. “Madre de Dios, es muy caliente, ” he said. Garcia was called puerquito by the other men, but never to his face. The Spanish word meant both little pig and a person who was filthy and disgusting. Vasquez glanced at Garcia, thinking his compadre fit the description, lacking both personal hygiene and any moral sense whatsoever.

  Vasquez laughed. “Juanito, if you would not eat everything that did not eat you first, you wouldn’t have to complain about the heat so much.”

  Garcia raised his eyebrows. “But, mi corlonel, the food, she tastes so good.”

  Vasquez sneered, about to reply, when his eyes caught a stain on the floor by the bar, covered with sawdust. “Geraldo,” he called to the barman, “do we have to eat in a pigsty?”

  Geraldo frowned in puzzlement. “What do you mean, Colonel Vasquez?”

  Vasquez pointed at the bloodstain on the floor. “It has been almost a week since I taught those vaqueros how to respect my uniform, and their stinkin’ blood still remains.” He turned back to Garcia, waving a dismissive hand. “Have someone mop the floor pronto.”

  “Sí Señor Vasquez!”

  As the bartender rushed to find a mop and a bucket, Vasquez thought back to the incident the previous week....

  * * *

  Vasquez, Garcia, and two other Rurales entered the cantina. They were covered with a fine coat of trail dust from their ride in the desert. Three bandidos had raided a nearby ranch and Vasquez and his men chased them for two days. They caught them at noon and brought all three men back into town draped across their saddles, riddled with rifle bullets. Vasquez was in an irritable mood, because the men had been killed b
efore he had a chance to work on them with his machete.

  “Geraldo, tequila for me and my men,” he called to the barman in a loud, obnoxious voice.

  Vasquez and his three soldiers walked to their usual table, only to find it occupied by four cowboys. The men had large pitchers of beer on the table and were eating tamales and beans, sopping up the juice with folded-over tortillas.

  Vasquez stood with his hands on his hips. “Excuse me, señors, but you are sitting at my table.”

  One of the men looked up, his weather-beaten, wrinkled face evidence of many years working outdoors under the brutal Mexican sun. He glanced around the cantina, seeing several unoccupied tables nearby. He grinned. “There are many places left to sit, señor.” He waved a careless hand and went back to his eating. “Take any of them that pleases you.”

  Vasquez’s face turned purple with rage. He whipped his sombrero from his head and swatted the man across the face with it. “Bastardo! You will address a colonel of the Rurales with more respect in the future.”

  The man jumped from his chair as one of his friends at the table tried to restrain him.

  “Ernesto, it is nothing. We can move to another table.”

  Ernesto shook the man’s hand off his arm, his eyes narrowed with hate. “We were here first, there is no need for us to move.” He leaned his head to the side and spit on Vasquez’s boots. “Find another table, you Rurale piece of dog shit!”

  Vasquez’s lips curled in a sneer. “No one talks to Emilio Vasquez like that,” he growled.

  Ernesto grinned mockingly. “Not to your face, perhaps, but you should hear what the villagers say about you behind your back.”

  “Oh? And what do they say, my brave friend?”

  “That you Rurales are worse than the criminals you pretend to protect us from. You steal more than you’re worth, and they laugh at you and your pompous ways when you’re not around to hear them.”

  Vasquez drew the long-bladed machete from its scabbard on his belt in one lightning-quick move and slashed backhanded at Ernesto. The razor-sharp blade caught the cowboy in the upper right arm just below the shoulder.

  Ernesto screamed in pain and grasped at his shoulder with his left hand. Another slash, and the machete nearly served his neck, killing him and ending his cries of terror.

  When the men at the table with him kicked back their chairs and reached for their guns, Vasquez began to flail at them with the long knife as Garcia and his other soldiers drew their pistols and gunned down the men in a hail of bullets.

  After the smoke cleared, four vaqueros lay in spreading pools of blood on the cantina floor. Vasquez kicked their bodies out of the way with his boot and sat at their table.

  “Geraldo, clean up this mess and bring us our tequila, muy pronto!”

  * * *

  A small smile turned up the corners of Vasquez’s mouth as he remembered the moment. He loved to kill with the machete, it was so much more . . . personal than using a pistol or a rifle. It was almost sexual in its intimacy, and usually caused Vasquez to become so excited that his first action after such a killing was to find a local prostitute and ease himself within her willing body.

  “Garcia, if you are finished eating, it is time to go. General Sanchez has asked to see me.” He puffed out his chest. “Probably wants to congratulate me on the swift apprehension of those bandidos last week.”

  He stood, leaving the cantina without bothering to pay for their drinks. He considered free alcohol his right for protecting the ignorant campesinos from local bandidos and Indians.

  When they arrived at the Rurales command post, Vasquez was summoned into the office of General Arturo Sanchez, his commanding officer. Sanchez was looking out his window with hands clasped behind his back.

  When he turned, his face was serious. “Emilio, I have received official complaints about your actions last week.”

  Vasquez’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

  Sanchez consulted a paper on his desk. “It seems that you killed several workers on Don Gonzalez’s rancho.” He tapped the paper with his index finger while staring at Vasquez. “Don Gonzalez says that you hacked three of his vaqueros to death with your machete for no reason.”

  “That is not true, your excellency. His men were drunk and insulted my honor while at the cantina in town. I did not know until later that they worked for Señor Gonzalez.”

  Sanchez nodded. “Well, El Machete,” he said, calling Vasquez by his nickname, “it seems Don Gonzalez has very important connections in Mexico City. He had complained to the governor of this province, and I have been instructed to arrest you on charge of murder.”

  “What? That is not possible!”

  Sanchez shook his head. “Because of our long friendship, I will delay execution of my orders until tomorrow.” He looked once again out of the window, turning his back on Vasquez. “If you happen to desert and leave Chihuahua before then, why, the matter will be solved to both our satisfaction.”

  Vasquez spit out the words “Si, mi comandante. ” He turned on his heel and stalked angrily from the room. That bastardo, he thought, he has always known and approved of my methods. I will make him pay for abandoning me now.

  Vasquez left the building in search of the men under his command he knew he could trust. Plans had to be made quickly.

  * * *

  That evening Vasquez and ten of his most trusted men, all as corrupt and vicious as he, broke into the command’s stockade—over twenty-five murderers and rapists were housed in the jail, mixed breeds of Mestizo and Mescalero Apache Indians and half-breeds and several notorious bandidos Vasquez and his men had captured.

  Vasquez paced back and forth in front of their cells, offering them a chance to escape a firing squad and to ride free if they promised to obey his orders and ride for him.

  With nothing to lose, the men all agreed, and Vasquez and Garcia unlocked their cells and provided them with guns and ammunition. While Garcia stole horses and tack from the command post stables, Vasquez slipped into Sanchez’s bedroom. He tapped the sleeping man on the shoulder, wanting to look into his eyes while he killed him. Sanchez awakened, his eyes wide and bright in silvery moonlight.

  “Adiós, cabrón, ”Vasquez snarled as he served Sanchez’s neck with his machete.

  Vasquez rejoined his group of desperadoes and led them off into the night, headed northwest toward the Rio Bravo and Del Rio, Texas.

  Along the way they raided several haciendas for food and money, killing with cold abandon, meeting little resistance. After making a cold camp, they slept until dawn. The Rio Bravo, and freedom from pursuit, was less than ten miles away.

  After a short ride, just as the sun was starting its ascent, the riders came upon a ranchito a few miles from the river crossing at Del Rio. The land was dry and its corn was withered and not worth stealing, but there were about twenty head of longhorn cattle milling near the adobe ranch house.

  Vasquez signaled his men to a halt. “Hey, Juanito,” he said to Sergeant Garcia, “I think we can get some money for those cattle across the border. What do you think?”

  Garcia nodded. “Sí. There is a small town called Bracketville not too far away. I have an uncle who works for a ranch there. He say they always need more cattle.”

  Vasquez pulled his pistola from its holster and yelled, “Ride, vaqueros, ride!” He fired his pistol, and the group rode hard toward the little adobe hut, expecting an easy time of it.

  As they approached at full gallop, two men ran from a small corral toward the house, trying to make it to safety. They were knocked off their feet in a fusillade of bullets, each shot several times.

  Suddenly, a diminutive figure wearing a wide western hat and a brace of Colts strapped down low on his thighs stepped out of the doorway. Bullets began to pock the walls of the house, but he didn’t flinch or move. He threw a Henry repeating rifle to his shoulder and began to cock and fire a steady stream of slugs into the bandidos. When two of the Apaches fell screaming to the ground, blood
pouring from their chests, the other riders pulled their mounts around and began to ride in a circle near the house.

  Vasquez screamed, “Kill him, kill the gringo!”

  His men tried, firing over a hundred bullets at the little man, who remained where he stood, shooting calmly and accurately until his rifle was empty. When he threw the long gun down, the riders again tried to rush the hut, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs.

  Suddenly both the man’s hands were filled with iron, and he proceeded to blow four more of Vasquez’s men out of their saddles.

  Vasquez pulled his men back out of pistol range and had several of the Rurales keep the man pinned down in the doorway while the Mescalero Apaches and half-breeds drove the cattle toward the Rio Grande.

  A final shot from one of the riflemen caused a high-pitched scream to come from within the house, and the rancher holstered his pistols and ducked back out of sight. As they rode off, leaving their dead and wounded where they lay, Vasquez said to Garcia, “That hombre had the cojones del toro!”

  Garcia shrugged. “Or maybe him just plenty loco en la cabeza. ”

  * * *

  Joey Wells punched out his empties and reloaded both his Colts just in case the crazy marauders returned. Only then did he turn his attention to his wife and son, who lay in a spreading pool of blood on the dirt floor of his house. One quick look out the door to make sure the killers were gone, then he knelt by his wife’s side.