Warpath of the Mountain Man Read online

  Still, there was always the possibility someone would be on their trail. With this thought beginning to worry him, Berlin got out of his bed at the boardinghouse and walked down the hall to the room being shared by Jack McGraw and Tony Cassidy, two of the men who’d helped him rob the train that’d gotten him prison time.

  He banged on the door until a hungover and sleepy-looking Jack McGraw opened the door.

  “What the hell do you . . . oh, it’s you, Boss,” McGraw said, opening the door all the way and stepping to the side.

  “I been thinkin’, Jack,” Berlin said.

  “Yeah?”

  “We might just be gettin’ a mite careless lately. There’s an outside possibility somebody may be on our back trail.”

  McGraw nodded, rubbing his eyes and trying to staunch the massive headache a fifth of whiskey from the night before was causing.

  “I think we ought’a post a couple’a men on the north side of town, just in case trouble comes lookin’ for us.”

  “Yeah?” McGraw said again, still not following what his boss was saying.

  “You and Tony are gonna take the first watch. I want you to station yourselves in that little saloon right inside the town limits to the north. If you see anybody that don’t look right, you hightail it on over to the boardin’house here and give us a warnin’.”

  “But Boss,” McGraw whined, “it’s might near freezin’ outside.”

  Berlin’s face got hard. “I don’t aim to make the same mistake got us caught the last time, Jack. Now you and Tony get your asses over to that saloon . . . an’ go easy on the whiskey while you’re on watch. Beer only, you hear me?”

  McGraw rubbed his temples. “Beer’s about all I can handle right now anyway, Ozark,” he answered.

  “Get Tony outta bed and haul your butts over there. I’ll send somebody to relieve you in time for lunch.”

  “Yes, sir,” McGraw said with poor grace as he turned to wake his friend up.

  * * *

  Sergeant Bob Guthrie was standing in the cab of the snowplow engine, sweating from the heat coming from the furnace as the engine slowly plowed through three feet of snow on the railway line between Grand Junction and Crested Butte. It had been slow going through the previous day and last night, with the mountain passes having accumulated snowdrifts four and five feet high, but they were getting close to breaking through to lower elevations where the snow wouldn’t be so bad.

  “You think we’ll make it by noon?” Guthrie yelled to the engineer, trying to be heard over the roar of the steam engine as it struggled to push the plow through the snow.

  The engineer leaned his head out of the window and spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the snow alongside the tracks before he answered.

  He glanced ahead of the engine, shielding his eyes from the glare of sun off the snow, then leaned back into the engine compartment. “I reckon so. This ought’a be ’bout the last of the heavy snow. From here on in, it’s gonna get flatter, an’ that means we can go faster.”

  “Good,” Guthrie said.

  “You never did tell me why you’re in such an all-fired hurry to get to Crested Butte,” the engineer said. “There ain’t much there to get all excited about.”

  “I got a date with some outlaws,” Guthrie said shortly.

  The engineer laughed. “Hell, if that’s all you’re lookin’ for, you can find them just ’bout ever’where you look in these parts. ’Bout the only kind’a men who come to the high lonesome in the winter are either miners crazy with gold fever or men on the run from someplace else.”

  “Well, these men are the worst of the lot,” Guthrie said, his lips tight. “They need killin’ in the worst way, an’ I intend to oblige ’em.”

  * * *

  When the squad of Army men crested a hill overlooking the town of Rifle, Sergeant Mark Goodson reined his horse to a stop and waited for Lieutenant Riley Woodcock to ride up next to him.

  “Why are you stopping, Sergeant?” Woodcock asked.

  “I was thinkin’, Lieutenant,” Goodson said. “If those outlaws are already in Rifle, maybe we’d better split up the men and sneak into town one or two at a time. No need to warn ’em we’re comin’ after ’em.”

  Woodcock thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t intend to split up my command, Sergeant. That’s a mistake General Custer made against the Sioux, and it cost him the lives of all his men.”

  “But Lieutenant,” Goodson started to protest.

  “You heard me, Sergeant. Let’s ride in showing the colors at full force. If those outlaws have any sense, when they see the United States Army arrive, they’ll give themselves up without a fight.”

  Goodson started to remind the lieutenant they hadn’t given themselves up the last time they faced the Army, but then figured it wouldn’t make any difference. The lieutenant had his mind made up, and didn’t appear ready to listen to reason.

  “Yes, sir,” Goodson said. He stood up in his stirrups and addressed the men. “Make ready your arms,” he called. “I want every one of you ready for trouble the minute we hit the town limits.”

  “I’ll take the point from here on in, Sergeant,” Woodcock said, spurring his horse to lead his men into the town.

  “Damn fool!” Goodson whispered to himself as he followed the lieutenant down the hill toward Rifle.

  * * *

  Tony Cassidy was sitting next to a window overlooking the main street of Rifle, nursing a beer and eating boiled eggs, when he saw the squad of Army men riding into town.

  He almost choked on his eggs as he punched Jack McGraw in the shoulder. “Look at that, Jack,” he whispered urgently.

  McGraw turned his attention from the prostitute he’d been talking to and glanced out the window.

  “Goddamn!” he uttered, pushing her off his lap and putting his beer down.

  “How many you make it?” he asked.

  “Looks like seventeen,” Cassidy answered. “And they’re loaded for bear. They all got their rifles at the ready.”

  “You ease out the front door and keep an eye on ’em,” McGraw said. “I’ll sneak out the back door and let Ozark know what’s goin’ on.”

  “You think they’re comin’ here after us?” Cassidy asked.

  “They didn’t ride through this weather to pick flowers, Tony,” McGraw answered as he walked rapidly toward the back door of the saloon.

  He ran as fast as he could, stumbling through the two feet of snow on the ground, until he came to the back door of the boardinghouse, where the rest of the men were staying.

  He pounded up the stairs and burst into Berlin’s room without knocking.

  “What the . . . ?” Berlin said, jumping out of bed, his pistol in his hand.

  “Soldiers, Ozark, ’bout seventeen of ’em an’ they’re headin’ up Main Street as big as you please.”

  Berlin began pulling his trousers on over his longhandles. “Get the rest of the men up and ready,” he ordered.

  Within several minutes, the entire gang was gathered in the sitting room of the boardinghouse. Berlin began to give orders rapidly. He assigned six men to upstairs windows with rifles, and told the rest to sneak out the door and spread out in the alleys fronting Main Street.

  “We’ll catch the dumb bastards in a crossfire,” he said, checking the loads in his pistol as he spoke.

  * * *

  As they walked their horses down the middle of Main Street, Goodson tried to reason with Woodcock one last time. “Let me get the men to dismount an’ spread out, Lieutenant,” he pleaded. “We’re easy targets out in the middle of the street like this.”

  Lieutenant Woodcock glanced around at the town. There were only a couple of miners visible on the boardwalks, and no horses were seen reined in front of the various saloons at this early hour.

  “I think we’re wasting our time, Sergeant. I see no evidence of thirty men gathered in this town. Perhaps the outlaws were caught in that storm and haven’t made it down out of the mo
untains yet.”

  “Just the same, sir,” Goodson began, but he never got to finish his sentence.

  Explosions of gunfire erupted from the upper stories of a boardinghouse to their right, knocking four soldiers out of their saddles without warning.

  The soldiers’ horses began to crow-hop and jump under the onslaught of the fire from above, making the soldiers unable to return fire.

  Just as Goodson got his mount under control, men began to pour out of alleys and doorways on either side of them, firing and shooting as fast as they could.

  Lieutenant Woodcock was hit in the left arm and stomach and blown off his horse, along with seven more of his men, in the first volley of gunfire.

  Goodson leaned over the neck of his horse, pulling his Colt from its holster, as he spurred his mount forward toward the men in the street.

  He got off three shots, killing two of the outlaws before a bullet hit him square in the forehead, blowing brains and hair out of the back of his skull. Goodson was dead before his body hit the ground.

  The last four soldiers managed to wound only two more of the outlaws before they were killed in the assault. Main Street of Rifle, Colorado, was immersed in a heavy cloud of cordite and gun smoke when the battle ended, just three minutes after it began.

  The townspeople, showing good sense, remained indoors, not wanting any part of whatever was going on in their town.

  Berlin reloaded his pistol as he walked among the dead and dying soldiers, some of whom were moaning and crying for help as they lay in the bloodstained snow of Main Street.

  “Hey, Ozark,” Blue Owl called. “There’s an officer here who’s still alive.”

  Berlin strolled over to where Blue Owl was standing over a man with lieutenant’s bars on his uniform.

  Berlin squatted in front of Woodcock, who was holding his stomach and groaning in pain.

  Berlin slapped him in the face to get his attention. “Lieutenant, how’d you know we was here?” he asked.

  “Go to hell,” Woodcock grunted, staring at Berlin with hatred.

  Berlin cocked his pistol and put it against Woodcock’s right knee. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, Lieutenant. Who told you we was here?”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Woodcock said, his eyes wide with fear and pain.

  Berlin pulled the trigger, blowing Woodcock’s right kneecap off and shattering the bones of his leg.

  “Aiyeee!” screamed Woodcock, rolling to the side and retching in the snow next to where he lay.

  Berlin rolled him back over and put the pistol against his left knee. “You gonna answer me?” he growled.

  “All right . . . we got a wire from an Army Sergeant in Grand Junction,” Woodcock rasped, barely able to speak. “He said you’d killed all his men and were headed this way.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Blue Owl said. “We must’ve let one of those soldiers live back in the mountains.”

  Berlin stood up and holstered his pistol. “Well, this changes our plans a mite. We gotta get movin’, ’fore somebody else gets on our trail.”

  “You gonna finish this one off?” Blue Owl asked.

  Berlin looked down at Woodcock, who was watching blood pump from his shattered leg.

  “Naw, the bastard’ll be dead in five minutes the way he’s leakin’ blood all over the ground. Let him suffer as long as he lasts.”

  “What are we gonna do now?” Blue Owl asked.

  “Round up the men. We’re headin’ south.”

  12

  As soon as the snowplow engine made it to the train station at Crested Butte, Colorado, Sergeant Bob Guthrie thanked the engineer for his help and jumped to the ground. He ran as fast as he could through the several feet of accumulated snow to the office, and asked for directions to the sheriff’s office in town.

  “You can’t hardly miss it, stranger,” the laconic stationmaster drawled. He walked to the door and pointed down the main street. “Ain’t but one street in Crested Butte, an’ the sheriff’s office is smack dab in the middle, on the left ’bout halfway down the street.”

  “Thanks,” Guthrie said, already moving in the direction the man had pointed.

  When he got to the sheriff’s office, he entered, to find a long, tall man, thin as a string bean, sitting leaned back in his desk chair with his boots on the desk and a steaming mug of coffee wrapped in his hands on his chest.

  “Howdy, mister,” the sheriff said. He inclined his head toward a potbellied stove in a corner with a pot of coffee warming on the top. “Grab yourself some coffee to ward off the chill and have a seat.”

  Guthrie slapped his arms against his chest, kicked snow off his boots, and made his way toward the coffeepot.

  “If you call this a chill, I’d hate to see what it’s like when you say it’s cold,” he said.

  The sheriff smiled. “Oh, this is just a little fall storm. We won’t get the real cold weather for another month or so.”

  Guthrie poured the coffee, which was so dark and thick he thought it could float a horseshoe, and walked over to take a chair in front of the sheriff’s desk.

  “I’m Wally Pepper,” the sheriff said, “and if you’re looking for the law in this town, I guess I’m it.”

  “I’m Sergeant Bob Guthrie,” Guthrie said, holding his mug with both hands as he sipped, trying to stop shaking from the cold.

  “Well, we’re a mite far from any Army posts, Sergeant,” Pepper said, putting his feet on the ground and leaning forward with his elbows on the desk.

  “That’s what I’m here about,” Guthrie said. “About two weeks ago, thirty of the worst killers in Utah escaped from the territorial prison.”

  Pepper’s eyes narrowed and his expression became more serious.

  “Since then, the desperados have been making their way in this direction,” Guthrie said. “Along the way, they’ve slaughtered over forty men in my command, along with an unknown number of civilians in Lode, Utah, and Rangely, Colorado.”

  Pepper pursed his lips as he ran a hand over a two-day growth of beard. “You say there’s thirty of these killers?”

  “Thereabouts,” Guthrie answered. “Before I came down here, I wired the Army post at Glenwood Springs in hopes they’d send some men to Rifle to see if they could stop the bastards before they killed anyone else.”

  “Ain’t no telegraph in Rifle,” Pepper said, as if to himself, “so I guess we won’t know for a while if they managed to do any good or not.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Sheriff. If the Army failed to stop them, an’ they keep on their same track, they’ll be headed here to Crested Butte in the next few days.”

  “And you think we ought’a arrange a little welcome for these killers?” the sheriff asked, a slow grin curling his lips up over blackened stubs of teeth.

  Guthrie leaned back in his chair, glad to see the sheriff was getting his drift. “Yes, sir. They are all hardened criminals with nothing to lose, so they kill at the drop of a hat.”

  “And I guess I can assume they’re well armed?”

  “They’ve stolen all the rifles and ammunition, along with considerable amounts of dynamite and gunpowder, they need to go through this town like grain through a goose,” Guthrie said.

  “Well,” the sheriff said, “we’ll see about that. The miners in this town work hard for their money, and they ain’t exactly gonna be thrilled at the idea of a bunch of prison rats trying to steal it.”

  “I don’t mean to push, Sheriff, but we may not have much time.”

  Pepper held up his hand. “Hold onto your water, Sergeant. We got us a fire bell at the end of town. Come on with me and I’ll ring the damned thing and before you know it, the town’ll be full of men armed to the teeth, ready and willing to fight for what’s theirs.”

  * * *

  True to his word, in less than an hour, Sheriff Pepper had over a hundred men gathered in front of his office, and about thirty women who looked every bit as hard.

  “Folks,” the sheri
ff said, standing on the boardwalk in front of the crowd. “The sergeant here tells us we got us a gang of cutthroats and killers headed this way. They’ve managed to make a mess of a couple of towns on the way here, and the sergeant is worried they might do the same to Crested Butte.”

  One of the men, heavyset, with arms as big around as barrels and a full beard, held up a short-barreled shotgun. “You tell the sergeant to step back outta the way, Sheriff, an’ watch us teach those bastards a lesson they won’t soon forget!” the man shouted, to resounding cheers and yells from the rest of the crowd.

  “Jacob, I’m glad to hear you say that,” Sheriff Pepper said. “Why don’t you and Billy Bob and Sammy head on up north of town and stake out the trail coming from Rifle. If you see those sons of bitches headed this way, you scamper on back here and let us know.”

  As the men in the crowd nodded agreement with this plan, the sheriff rubbed his hands together. “Meanwhile, I’d suggest most of you stay here in town for the next couple of days in case we need you.” He hesitated, then grinned. “I’m sure Sadie and the rest of her girls can use the extra income.”

  “You’re right about that, Sheriff,” a woman with a large feather hat and painted face hollered. “And to make sure everybody has a good time, drinks are gonna be half price till the outlaws are killed.”

  A young man who looked to be no more than eighteen years old hollered back, “How about the rest of your merchandise, Sadie? That half price too?”

  Sadie threw back her head and laughed. “I’ll tell you what, Joe. You last longer’n ten minutes, an’ you can have it for free!”

  The crowd yelled their approval as the young man’s face turned beet red, until finally he began to laugh too.

  * * *

  The sheriff took Guthrie to a nearby boardinghouse, and offered to buy him supper for him taking the trouble to travel through the mountain passes to bring them a warning.