Assault of the Mountain Man

“You shoot,” Dinkins replied. “I’ll keep an eye open and if he returns your fire, I’ll have him.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to shoot at. He’s like a ghost or somethin’.”

“Take a look, Travis, see if you can see him!” Dinkins called out again.

“I ain’t movin’,” Travis said again.

“Shoot at him, you sonofabitch, or I’ll shoot at you,” Dinkins said angrily.

Smoke saw Travis lift his head up. Unlike the others who had rifles, Travis was armed only with a pistol. He began shooting, wild, unaimed shots at the rocks on the other side of the canyon where Smoke had been earlier. The bullets hit the rocks then careened off, screaming long, descending wails that echoed and reechoed and reechoed through the canyon.

“Do you see him?” Dinkins shouted.

Him ... him ... him ...

“No!”

No ... no ... no ...

Smoke managed to climb up a fissure until he was just a few feet away. He waited until the hammer on Travis’s gun fell on an empty chamber.

“All right, I shot at him,” Travis called. “Now it’s your time to shoot at him. I’m out of bullets! I have to reload!”

“You dumb bastard, you didn’t do nothin’ but waste your bullets,” Dinkins replied.

Smoke stepped out in front of Travis at that moment.

“No!” Travis screamed. He raised his pistol and pointed it at Smoke, snapping the trigger even though his gun was empty.

Smoke took him down with a vertical butt stroke of his rifle.

“Travis! Travis, what’s goin’ on over there? What were you yellin’ about?”

Smoke remained quiet.

“Travis, what is it? Answer me!”

“He can’t answer you, Dinkins,” Smoke said.

“What? What are you talking about? Where are you? Where is Travis?”

Smoke looked down at Travis and could tell by the twist in his neck, and his open, but sightless eyes, still fixed in his last instant of terror, that Travis was dead.

“Where is Travis?” Dinkins called again.

“He’s dead,” Smoke answered. “He’s dead, Frank is dead, and Wes Harley is dead. Now there is only you.”

“I give up!” Dinkins said. “Don’t shoot, I’m comin’ down. I give up! Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Smoke said. “Come on out here with your hands high.”

Dinkins came walking down a path that led up to a higher ridge. His hands were up as Smoke had ordered, but he was holding a rifle in his right hand.

Smoke noticed that, though Dinkins was holding the rifle over his head, his hand was wrapped around the narrow part of the stock and the receiver, his finger was inside the trigger guard, and actually on the trigger itself. Smoke also noticed that the hammer was cocked.

“Throw down the rifle,” he ordered.

Dinkins looked up at his rifle, then back toward Smoke, and smiled. “Ahh, no foolin’ the great Smoke Jensen is there? You seen the rifle cocked. Well, you can’t blame me for tryin’, can you?”

“Throw it down,” Smoke ordered.

Dinkins pulled the trigger, firing the rifle. Though as it was over his head and aimed to one side, it represented no danger to Smoke.

“That was just to keep it from goin’ off when it hits the ground. Wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we? It might have gone off on me. Or you.” Dinkins chuckled, then tossed the rifle aside.

“Tell me, Jensen, do you know any good lawyers?” he asked. “Whoever it is, I hope it ain’t the same one that defended Parnell. Poor old Parnell got hisself hung. But I’m sure you know that.”

All the time Dinkins was talking to Smoke, he was going down the path—an easy walk sometimes. Other times, where the path made a steep drop, or in some other way made its transit difficult, Dinkins put one or two hands on a rock to help him negotiate the obstacle.

When Dinkins was no more than thirty feet from Smoke the path stepped down about three feet. It was too far to step directly down, but a rock outcropping provided Dinkins with some leverage when he put his hand on it. He stepped down with some difficulty.

Smoke had been watching him descend, almost lulled into the slow, laborious operation, when all of a sudden a pistol appeared in Dinkins’ hand.

Dinkins wasn’t wearing a holster. That was one of the first things Smoke had checked. So, where did the pistol come from?

That wasn’t a thought Smoke dwelled on for more than a split second, for a split second is all the time he had to respond. He fired, his bullet hitting Dinkins in the middle of his chest.