Butchery of the Mountain Man Read online

  John smiled. “Yeah, I do. First of all, we let them find us. And I know exactly where we need to be found.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a small cabin I discovered not too far from here. The walls are thick, we’ll have good cover as long as we are in there.”

  Smoke shook his head. “I don’t know as I want to be confined in a cabin,” he said. “If they burn it down around us, we’ll be trapped.”

  “Ah, my friend,” John said, holding up his finger. “This cabin can’t be burned down. It is made of adobe.”

  “Adobe? Up here, in the woods?”

  “I know. I was surprised too, when I found it. But it’s there all right. Now, all we have to do is leave a trail they can follow, so they’ll come to us.”

  “I agree. But the trail can’t be too obvious,” Smoke said. “We have to make them think that we are trying to cover it up. We don’t want them to know that we want them to find us.”

  John smiled and nodded. “You’d make a good army officer, Smoke. You catch on fast.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  With the Big Dog Warriors at Elk Prairie Creek

  Whips His Horses and the Indians in his raiding party had spent last night on the banks of Elk Prairie Creek. During the night Whips His Horses had gone off by himself to construct a sweat lodge. When he returned the next morning he called the others together so he could share with them what he had learned during his meditation.

  “I have sought wisdom in the sweat lodge,” he said when the others had gathered. “I asked for knowledge, so that I might know what to do, and that knowledge has been given me. I asked for a special power to guide me in finding Liver Eater, and that special power has been given me. I asked for the courage to face our enemy and to kill him, so we can remove his liver and bring it back to our village so that Iron Bull and the others can see what I have done, and know that Liver Eater is dead and can harm us no more. In the sweat lodge I was given the knowledge, the power, and the courage to do this thing before me.”

  [It may give the reader some insight to understand something about the sweat lodge ceremony. It is, and has been for some time, central to most Indian cultures. It is a place to get answers and guidance by asking spiritual entities for wisdom and power.

  The entrance to the sweat lodge always faces to the east and the sacred fire pit. This is significant to the Indians, because each new day begins in the east with the rising of the sun, which the Indians see as the source of life and power.

  Between the entrance to the lodge and the fire pit, where the stones are heated, is an altar upon which is often placed an animal skull atop a post. At the base of the post is a small raised earthen altar upon which are placed other items of significance, such as sage, grass, feathers, and, always, a pipe.

  While subjecting themselves to heat intense enough to cause a sweat, the participant asks for such things as knowledge, power, courage, and endurance.

  It is not at all unusual that Whips His Horses would have gone to the sweat lodge to seek such assistance as he searched for John Jackson.—ED.]

  “We will find Liver Eater, this I know, for I was told this in a vision,” Whips His Horses said.

  The nineteen other men of the Big Dog Warrior Society who were with Whips His Horses became very excited, not only because Whips His Horses had shared his vision with them, but also because success seemed so assured. They began painting their bodies for the war party.

  At the adobe cabin

  Smoke and John had reached the cabin the day before. After they located a safe place for their horses that night, they brought into the little cabin everything they might need to withstand a prolonged siege. They filled two big earthen vessels, found in the cabin, with water from the creek. They had all their food, as well as what ammunition they had.

  “If there is no set-piece battle, I think we are in an advantageous enough position to be able to defeat the Indians by attrition, if need be,” John said.

  There were two windows in front of the cabin, one on each side of the door. There was at least one window on all the other sides of the cabin, but it seemed unlikely that any Indian would approach them from the back, as the cabin was built so close to a sheer wall of a cliff, that there was no room for them to maneuver.

  They had slept in shifts during the night, and now, early in the morning, Smoke stepped outside. That was when he saw a large dark mass advancing slowly out of the gray dawn. He realized at once that it was the Indians.

  At almost the same moment he saw them, the Indians saw him, and a loud, collective war whoop emerged from their throats. They began riding toward the cabin, their horses thundering across the ground.

  “John, here they come!” Smoke shouted at the top of his voice.

  On came the Indians, their horses leaping, gliding over obstacles, the half-naked, painted bodies of the warriors shining in the first brilliant rays of the morning sun.

  “Get in here!” John shouted, holding the door open.

  Smoke dashed in through the door, then it was closed and bolted.

  Smoke hurried to his window and looked outside. At that precise moment one of the Indians had ridden all the way up to the building. Smoke shot him, his bullet striking the Indian just under his left eye, killing him instantly.

  The Indians greatly outnumbered the two defenders and, perhaps because they had such superior numbers, they were overconfident, and foolishly bold. They would ride all the way up to the walls of the building, then lean over and try to shoot through the windows, or they would dismount and run up to try and force the door open. Because of such foolish activity, they were making themselves very easy targets, and Smoke and John were cutting them down like a scythe through wheat.

  The Indians withdrew, dragging their dead and wounded back with them. After what had been a thunderous roar of gunfire for nearly half an hour, there was absolute silence.

  “You said only one man would be here. There are two,” Swift Hawk, one of the Indians, said, protesting to Whips His Horses. “Where is your medicine?” He pointed to the dead and dying. “Do you see that your medicine does not work?”

  “My medicine is strong,” Whips His Horses insisted. “We will go again!”

  “Here they come!” John said.

  The Indians came again, three abreast this time, galloping through the dust, shouting and whooping their war cries. Again they charged all the way up to the little cabin The Indians fired from horseback, shooting arrows and bullets toward the open windows. Two of them jumped down from their horses and tried to force the door open by hitting against it with the butts of their rifles.

  Again, the marksmanship of Smoke and John was deadly, and riderless horses whirled and retreated, leaving their riders dead or dying on the ground behind them.

  “Damn,” John said. “Is this to be ngôi nhà trang trai, again?”

  “The Nogy what?”

  “You remember, I told you about the business in Annam?”

  “Oh, yes. Well, there the army came just in time,” Smoke said. “We’re on our own, here.” He chuckled.

  “Yeah, I guess we are,” John replied with a laugh. “The problem is, just like at the fight at ngôi nhà trang trai, I’m running out of ammunition.”

  “How much do you have left?”

  “Five rounds for the rifle. Two rounds for the pistol. How about you?”

  “I’m not much better. Three rifle rounds, one pistol is empty, four rounds in the other.”

  Throughout the rest of the day the Indians attacked several more times. But they prefaced each attack with loud screeches and war whoops, and that enabled Smoke and John to be ready for them. They made every shot count.

  “If we can just hold on until dark, maybe they’ll go away,” John suggested. “I’ve heard that Indians don’t like to fight in the dark.”

  “They may not attack, but that doesn’t mean they are going to go away,” Smoke said.

  Smoke was right. The Indians didn’t go awa
y, and all night long Smoke and John—who took turns sleeping just in case—could hear singing, and see the campfires.

  “I wonder how long they’ll stay?” John asked.

  “Hard to say,” Smoke answered. “How many rounds do you have now?”

  “Two. What about you?”

  “One pistol round, one round in the Henry.”

  “Damn.”

  The next morning the Indians had pulled back, and were now milling around on top of a hill. They were making no attempt to conceal themselves, because they were well out of range.

  “Bold bunch of bastards, aren’t they?” Smoke asked.

  John had a pair of binoculars and he used them to study the Indians, only one of whom was mounted.

  “I’ll be damn,” John said.

  “What is it?”

  “The Indian on the horse. Take a look at him. Look at his face. Do you see the black and red vertical lines on his cheek?”

  “Yes.”

  “Claire pointed that out to me when we visited Iron Bull’s camp. That means this man is the leader.”

  “Is he now?”

  “I wonder if we killed him . . .”

  “Would the others leave?” Smoke finished.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Smoke looked at him. “That’s a hell of a long shot. Six or seven hundred yards, easily.”

  “But if we both shot at the same time?”

  “I’ve only got one rifle round left,” Smoke said.

  “Then, one of us had better hit him,” John suggested.

  “Wait,” Smoke said. “I’m going to try a trick Preacher showed me once. It might improve our chances of hitting him. But it’s all or nothing, because if we miss, we are going to be in a bad fix.”

  “What do you have in mind?” John asked.

  Smoke took out the bullet from his pistol, and the one from his rifle. Then he separated the two bullets from their casings. Looking down into the rifle casing, he saw that there was room to add more powder. He filled the rifle casing the rest of the way, with powder from the pistol casing.

  “Good idea,” John said, and he did the same thing, combining the powder from two bullets into one.

  John chuckled. “But this is absolutely an all-or-nothing draw of the cards.”

  When both were ready, they rested the barrels of the rifles on the windowsills and took long and careful aim.

  “I’ll count to three,” Smoke said. “One, two, three.”

  Swift Hawk was standing next to Whips His Horses when he heard an angry buzz, then a loud pop. Looking up he saw blood squirting from Whips His Horses’ head, and from a wound in his chest. Whips His Horses fell at Swift Hawk’s feet.

  “How can this be? How can they kill from so far?” one of the Indians asked in awed fear.

  The Indians were disoriented. Whips His Horses’ medicine had not protected him, which meant it could not protect them.

  “Swift Hawk, there are but five of us now. And surely the spirits are angry with us, for no ordinary man can kill from so far away.”

  “And the bullets of both men found their mark,” another said.

  “Their medicine is strong,” another said. “Swift Hawk, what shall we do?”

  “We will make peace,” Swift Hawk said.

  Swift Hawk mounted his horse then, slowly, very slowly, started riding toward the adobe cabin.

  “Here they come,” John said. “What’ll we do now?”

  “Wait,” Smoke said. “Look!”

  The approaching Indian held his hand up, palm forward, and he continued to ride.

  “I believe he wants to make peace,” John said.

  “They don’t need to know we are out of ammunition. Hold your rifle by your side in your left hand,” Smoke said. “We’ll go outside to meet him, with our right hands up in the sign of peace.”

  Swift Hawk rode to within twenty yards of the cabin, all the while holding his hand up. Smoke and John stood out front, holding their hands up as well.

  “No more will the Crow make war against Liver Eater!” Swift Hawk said in English.

  “No more will I will eat the liver of the Crow,” John said.

  Swift Hawk nodded, then turned and rode away.

  EPILOGUE

  Some may think, upon reading this study of two of Colorado’s most colorful characters, that I have taken what might be considered a soft approach to history, using words that are more sensual than cerebral. And because of this, some readers might suggest that this is a substitute for academic research.

  I assure you that nothing can be further from the truth. No amount of scholarly inquiry, particularly of the kind that requires poring over the printed word, whether it be the work of earlier scholars, newspapers, diaries, or letters, could be more accurate than getting the story directly from one of the actual participants. As of the time of this writing, Smoke Jensen is still alive, and still one of Colorado’s living treasures.

  The peace negotiated between Swift Hawk and John Jackson held up, and never again was there trouble between them. In fact, John Jackson eventually declared himself to be a brother to the Crow.

  He never married again, so there are no direct descendants of this storied legend. He was, during his lifetime, a soldier in the Union army, a soldier of fortune with the French Foreign Legion, a scout, hunter, and trapper. In the end, he returned to Pennsylvania where he died, alone, in a veteran’s hospital on December 21, 1900.

  Jacob W. Armbruster, Ph.D.

  Professor of History, University of Colorado

  Boulder, Colorado

  April 9, 1925

  J. A. Johnstone on William W. Johnstone “When the Truth Becomes Legend”

  William W. Johnstone was born in southern Missouri, the youngest of four children. He was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. Despite this, he quit school at age fifteen.

  “I have the highest respect for education,” he says, “but such is the folly of youth, and wanting to see the world beyond the four walls and the blackboard.”

  True to this vow, Bill attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion (“I saw Gary Cooper in Beau Geste when I was a kid and I thought the French Foreign Legion would be fun”) but was rejected, thankfully, for being underage. Instead, he joined a traveling carnival and did all kinds of odd jobs. It was listening to the veteran carny folk, some of whom had been on the circuit since the late 1800s, telling amazing tales about their experiences, which planted the storytelling seed in Bill’s imagination.

  “They were mostly honest people, despite the bad reputation traveling carny shows had back then,” Bill remembers. “Of course, there were exceptions. There was one guy named Picky, who got that name because he was a master pickpocket. He could steal a man’s socks right off his feet without him knowing. Believe me, Picky got us chased out of more than a few towns.”

  After a few months of this grueling existence, Bill returned home and finished high school. Next came stints as a deputy sheriff in the Tallulah, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department, followed by a hitch in the U.S. Army. Then he began a career in radio broadcasting at KTLD in Tallulah, Louisiana, which would last sixteen years. It was there that he fine-tuned his storytelling skills. He turned to writing in 1970, but it wouldn’t be until 1979 that his first novel, The Devil’s Kiss, was published. Thus began the full-time writing career of William W. Johnstone. He wrote horror (The Uninvited), thrillers (The Last of the Dog Team), even a romance novel or two. Then, in February 1983, Out of the Ashes was published. Searching for his missing family in the aftermath of a post-apocalyptic America, rebel mercenary and patriot Ben Raines is united with the civilians of the Resistance forces and moves to the forefront of a revolution for the nation’s future.

  Out of the Ashes was a smash. The series would continue for the next twenty years, winning Bill three generations of fans all over the world. The series was often imitated but never duplicated. “We all tried to co
py The Ashes series,” said one publishing executive, “but Bill’s uncanny ability, both then and now, to predict in which direction the political winds were blowing brought a certain immediacy to the table no one else could capture.” The Ashes series would end its run with more than thirty-four books and twenty million copies in print, making it one of the most successful men’s action series in American book publishing. (The Ashes series also, Bill notes with a touch of pride, got him on the FBI’s Watch List for its less than flattering portrayal of spineless politicians and the growing power of big government over our lives, among other things. In that respect, I often find myself saying, “Bill was years ahead of his time.”)

  Always steps ahead of the political curve, Bill’s recent thrillers, written with myself, include Vengeance Is Mine, Invasion USA, Border War, Jackknife, Remember the Alamo, Home Invasion, Phoenix Rising, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge, and the upcoming Suicide Mission.

  It is with the western, though, that Bill found his greatest success and propelled him onto both the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists.

  Bill’s western series include The Mountain Man, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, MacCallister (an Eagles spin-off), Sidewinders, The Brothers O’Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter, and the upcoming new series Flintlock and The Trail West. Coming in May 2013 is the hardcover western Butch Cassidy, The Lost Years.

  “The Western,” Bill says, “is one of the few true art forms that is one hundred percent American. I liken the Western as America’s version of England’s Arthurian legends, like the Knights of the Round Table, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Starting with the 1902 publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister, and followed by the greats like Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and of course Louis L’Amour, the Western has helped to shape the cultural landscape of America.