Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) by William W. Johnstone

warden says a trustee told him. Which is that the three of them formed an alliance to get revenge on some unnamed man responsible for them all being in prison. A man who lives somewhere up in the mountain country.”
    Monte Carson looked hard at Smoke Jensen. “He didn’t have a name, huh?”
    “That’s what it says. Although it doesn’t take a whiz at arithmetic to add up one and one and get two.”
    Brow furrowed now in concentration, Monte reached a conclusion. “I think you an’ me, an’ a couple of good deputies had ought to ride up to the Sugarloaf and fort up. That’s what I think.”
    Smoke shook his head. “No offense, Monte, but I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. No sense in bringing the fight home with us. In fact, the farther I can keep Spectre, Tinsdale, and Buckner from the Sugarloaf, the happier I will be.”
    Genuine concern for his long-time friend colored Monte’s words. “What do you have in mind?”
    “I reckon to head into some friendly territory up Wyoming way. Say, maybe Jackson’s Hole. I can settle in, make my presence known, and let the word get out. Then let them come.”
    “Think they’ll do it on their own?”
    “No, Monte, they’ll bring along help. Spectre used to run a large band of outlaws, numbered around forty. He’s known along the Owl Hoot Trail. If he feels the need, he can get all the men he needs.”
    “Why do you single him out as the leader of all this, Smoke?”
    “Because I came close to blowing out his brains in the showdown we had. And I killed his only son. But look at it this way. When they come for me, and they will, I’ll have these would-be avengers on ground I am well familiar with and they know little about. That’ll go a long way toward evening the odds.”
    Monte could not let it go. “I hope you’re right. I sure’s hell do.”
     
     
    Hanksville, in Utah, hovered on the edge of Ute country. As yet, the native dwellers of the sparse ground had not been corralled and driven onto a small, unpromising reservation in the southern corner of Colorado. They roamed free. It was doubtful that more than a handful of politicians in Washington knew that they existed. Not until the arid land they occupied offered something of value would they come under the scrutiny of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Hanksville had a white population of fifty-seven and a scattering of Mexican and halfbreed residents. It also served as a transient haven for men on the run.
    Victor Spectre came there to recruit more guns for his gang. He had little difficulty in achieving that. Eleven hard cases signed on. Men with shifty eyes and a day or more growth of beard, they found the pay acceptable and the promise of a bonus for killing just a single man satisfying. There were no saloons in Hanksville, so the outlaws drank in their rooms and Victor ordered a quick departure when he had all of the reinforcements he could expect to obtain. So far their travels had paralleled the Colorado River. Here they would make a change.
    Five miles outside of town to the east, he halted the growing band and gathered them around. “We’re heading north from here.”
    “How far north?” one fellow with an over-fondness for the desert asked with a gimlet eye.
    “Quite a ways.”
    “Thought you said this feller we’re to kill lives in Colorado?”
    “He does, but we’re not going there.”
    Upon hearing that, Fin Brock looked hard at Spectre, doubt clear in his narrow face. “Then how are we gonna get him?”
    Spectre’s answer was simple enough for anyone. “We make him come to us.”
    Farlee Huntoon got in his nickel’s worth. “Easier said than done, I reckon. ’Specially if he finds out how many of us there is.”
    Others agreed. Huntoon pushed his luck. “One man alone, he don’t have to come up again’ us, lessen he chooses to.”
    Victor Spectre’s voice crackled in reply. “There are ways, Mr. Huntoon, to make a man do anything you want him to. If you weren’t such a