Guns of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Pearlie was now honorary foreman of Smoke’s ranch, though he was only a shade over twenty years old himself—boys grew to be men early in the mountains of Colorado.

  As Smoke emptied his coffee cup, he heard a distant booming, followed by two sharp cracks which echoed off nearby mountain peaks. He jerked his head around to look toward the area the sounds came from.

  “Pearlie!” he called, stepping off the porch to get a better look.

  Pearlie, recognizing the urgency in Smoke’s voice, came running out the door.

  “Yes sir?”

  “I just heard what sounded like shots from the direction you and Cal were working in this morning. Is anybody else out in that section?”

  “No sir,” Pearlie answered, a worried look on his face. “The rest of the hands were over to the west, worming the new calves.”

  “What’s wrong, Smoke?” Sally asked, wiping her hands on her apron as she followed Pearlie out the door.

  “I don’t know, but I’m afraid Cal is in some trouble. Gunshots from the pasture where he’s working.”

  Smoke hesitated just a moment, then said to Sally, “You get a buckboard and head on out to the north pasture, where we have the Hereford crosses. Pearlie and I’ll ride on ahead to see what’s happening.”

  “All right,” she said, jerking her apron off.

  “And Sally, bring your medical kit and your pistol.” Smoke ran to the hitching post in front of the cabin where he and Pearlie had their horses tied. He was riding a new two-year-old stud Joey Wells had sent over from Pueblo, Colorado. Joey and his wife had bought the old Rocking C Ranch after killing Murdock, the man who owned it, and Smoke and Sally gave them some Palouse mares to breed with Joey’s big roan, which he called Red.2

  Smoke’s stud was a blanket-hipped Palouse, roan-colored in the front with hips of snow white, without the usual spots of a Palouse. He’d named him Joker because of his odd coloring.

  Pearlie also had one of the offspring of Red, a gray-and-white Palouse he’d named Cold. When Smoke asked him why he’d named him that, Pearlie said it was because the sucker was cold-backed in the morning and bucked for the first ten minutes every day when Pearlie saddled him up.

  In spite of this, both studs were beautiful animals and had inherited their father’s big size and extreme strength and endurance, along with the Palouse’s legendary quickness and intelligence.

  Smoke and Pearlie leaned over the necks of their mounts and rode hell-bent-for-leather toward the pasture where Cal was.

  A short time later, Smoke was leaning over Cal’s still body, holding a bandanna soaked in water from his canteen pressed tight against the boy’s chest wound when Sally arrived in the buckboard. Pearlie’s bandanna was tied as a tourniquet around Cal’s arm just below the shoulder, and had slowed the bleeding there to a trickle.

  Sally grabbed her medical bag from the seat next to her and jumped to the ground. After ripping Cal’s shirt open to get a better look at his wound, she took a deep breath and glanced at Smoke with a worried frown on her face.

  “It’s a lung wound. See how the blood on his lips is frothy, and bright red?”

  Smoke nodded. No stranger to gunshot wounds himself, he’d come to the same conclusion. “Do you think there’s any chance?”

  Sally frowned. “If we can stop the air from his lungs from coming out of the wound, it might allow his lung to re-expand and keep him alive until Doc Spalding can operate on him.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the wagon she’d ridden in on. Pulling a clean, white cloth from her medical kit, she handed it to Smoke. “Here, take this rag over to the wagon and smear axle grease from around the wheel bearings all over it. Put on a thick coat.”

  Smoke did what she said, then handed her the grease-covered cloth.

  Sally opened it up and slapped it over Cal’s sucking chest wound, plugging the hole and stopping air from hissing in and out every time he tried to breathe.

  The grease had the added effect of slowing the blood from the wound, but even so, Cal was the color of flour.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Sally said.

  “Do you think he’s able to make the trip into Big Rock?” Pearlie asked.

  “We don’t have any choice. If he’s going to have any chance of survival at all, Doc’s going to have to operate as soon as possible.”

  “Smoke, looky here,” Pearlie called.

  Smoke walked over and saw Pearlie standing over Cal’s saddle, lying on the ground. Nearby were two large pools of blood, soaking into the soil.

  “It appears Cal put lead into at least two of ’em,” Pearlie said, pointing to the bloodstains.

  “Yeah, and the bastards stole Dusty after they shot Cal,” Smoke added, his face as dark as clouds fronting a thunderstorm.

  As soon as Cal was breathing more normally, Smoke and Pearlie lifted him up and put him in the back of the wagon.

  Pearlie grabbed the reins and drove while Sally and Smoke sat in the back, trying to keep Cal from rolling around too much as they traveled over rough terrain.

  Once, Cal’s eyes flicked open for a second. They were vacant, as if he really wasn’t fully conscious.

  Smoke leaned close to his ear. “Cal, it’s Smoke. Who did this to you?”

  “Ichabod . . . Ichabod Crane,” Cal croaked through dry, blood-covered lips.

  Smoke sat back, wondering what the hell he meant. As he watched the young man fight for his life in the back of a bouncing wagon, Smoke thought back to the day the boy had come to work for him. . . .

  * * *

  Calvin Woods, going on nineteen years old now, had been just fourteen when Smoke and Sally had taken him in as a hired hand. It was during the spring branding, and Sally was on her way back from Big Rock to the Sugarloaf. The buckboard was piled high with supplies, because branding hundreds of calves made for hungry punchers.

  As Sally slowed the team to make a bend in the trail, a rail-thin young man stepped from the bushes at the side of the road with a pistol in his hand.

  “Hold it right there, miss.”

  Applying the brake with her right foot, Sally slipped her hand under a pile of gingham cloth on the seat. She grasped the handle of her short-barreled Colt .44 and eared back the hammer, letting the sound of the horses’ hooves and the squealing of the brake pad on the wheel mask the sound. “What can I do for you, young man?” she asked, her voice firm and without fear. She knew she could draw and drill the young highwayman before he could raise his pistol to fire.

  “Well, uh, you can throw some of those beans and a cut of that fatback over here, and maybe a portion of that Arbuckle’s coffee, too.”

  Sally’s eyebrows raised. “Don’t you want my money?”

  The boy frowned and shook his head. “Why, no ma’am. I ain’t no thief. I’m just hungry.”

  “And if I don’t give you my food, are you going to shoot me with that big Navy Colt?”

  He hesitated a moment, then grinned ruefully. “No ma’am, I guess not.” He twirled the pistol around his finger and slipped it into his belt, turned, and began to walk down the road toward Big Rock.

  Sally watched the youngster amble off, noting his tattered shirt, dirty pants with holes in the knees and torn pockets, and boots that looked as if they had been salvaged from a garbage dump. “Young man,” she called, “come back here, please.”

  He turned, a smirk on his face, spreading his hands, “Look lady, you don’t have to worry. I don’t even have any bullets.” With a lightning-fast move he drew the gun from his pants, aimed away from Sally and pulled the trigger. There was a click but no explosion as the hammer fell on an empty cylinder.

  Sally smiled. “Oh, I’m not worried.” In a movement every bit as fast as his she whipped her .44 out and fired, clipping a pine cone from a branch, causing it to fall and bounce off his head.

  The boy’s knees buckled and he ducked, saying, “Jiminy Christmas!”

  Mimicking him, Sally twirled her Colt and stuck it in the wai
stband of her britches. “What’s your name, boy?”

  The boy blushed and looked down at his feet. “Calvin, ma’am. Calvin Woods.”

  She leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared into the boy’s eyes. “Calvin, no one has to go hungry in this country, not if they’re willing to work.”

  He looked up at her through narrowed eyes, as if he’d found life a little different than she described it.

  “If you’re willing to put in an honest day’s work, I’ll see that you get an honest day’s pay, and all the food you can eat.”

  Calvin stood a little straighter, shoulders back and head held high. “Ma’am, I’ve got to be straight with you. I ain’t no experienced cowhand. I come from a hardscrabble farm, and we only had us one milk cow and a couple of goats and chickens, and lots of dirt that weren’t worth nothing for growin’ things. My Ma and Pa and me never had nothin’, but we never begged and we never stooped to takin’ handouts.”

  Sally thought, I like this boy. Proud, and not willing to take charity if he can help it. “Calvin, if you’re willing to work, and don’t mind getting your hands dirty and your muscles sore, I’ve got some hands that’ll have you punching beeves like you were born to it in no time at all.”

  A smile lit up his face, making him seem even younger than his years. “Even if I don’t have no saddle, nor a horse to put it on?”

  She laughed out loud. “Yes. We’ve got plenty of ponies and saddles.” She glanced down at his raggedy boots. “We can probably even round up some boots and spurs that’ll fit you.”

  He walked over and jumped in the back of the buckboard. “Ma’am, I don’t know who you are, but you just hired you the hardest workin’ hand you’ve ever seen.”

  Back at the Sugarloaf, she sent him in to Cookie and told him to eat his fill. When Smoke and the other punchers rode into the cabin yard at the end of the day, she introduced Calvin around. As Cal was shaking hands with the men, Smoke looked over at her and winked. He knew she could never resist a stray dog or cat, that her heart was as large as the Big Lonesome itself.

  Smoke walked up to Cal and cleared his throat. “Son, I hear you drew down on my wife.”

  Cal gulped. “Yes sir, Mr. Jensen. I did.” He squared his shoulders and looked Smoke in the eye, not flinching though he was obviously frightened of the tall man with the incredibly wide shoulders standing before him.

  Smoke smiled and clapped the boy on the back. “Just wanted you to know you stared death in the eye, boy. Not many galoots are still walking upright who ever pulled a gun on Sally. She’s a better shot than any man I’ve ever seen except me, and sometimes I wonder about me.”

  The boy laughed with relief as Smoke turned and called out, “Pearlie, get your lazy butt over here.”

  A tall, lanky cowboy ambled over to Smoke and Cal, munching on a biscuit stuffed with roast beef. His face was lined with wrinkles and tanned a dark brown from hours under the sun, and his eyes were sky-blue and twinkled with good-natured humor.

  “Yes sir, boss,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food.

  Smoke put his hand on Pearlie’s shoulder. “Cal, this here chow hound is Pearlie. He eats more’n any two hands, and he’s never been known to do a lick of work he could get out of, but he knows beeves and horses as well as any puncher I have. I want you to follow him around and let him teach you what you need to know.”

  Cal nodded, “Yes sir, Mr. Smoke.”

  “Now let me see that iron you have in your pants.”

  Cal pulled the ancient Navy Colt and handed it to Smoke. When Smoke opened the loading gate, the rusted cylinder fell to the ground, causing Pearlie and Smoke to laugh and Cal’s face to flame red. “This is the piece you pulled on Sally?”

  The boy nodded, looking at the ground.

  Pearlie shook his head. “Cal, you’re one lucky pup. Hell, if’n you’d tried to fire that thing it’d of blown your hand clean off.”

  Smoke inclined his head toward the bunkhouse. “Pearlie, take Cal and get him fixed up with what he needs, including a gun belt and a Colt that won’t fall apart the first time he pulls it. You might also help pick him out a shavetail to ride. I’ll expect him to start earning his keep tomorrow.”

  “Yes sir, Smoke.” Pearlie put his arm around Cal’s shoulders and led him off toward the bunkhouse. “Now, the first thing you gotta learn, Cal, is how to get on Cookie’s good side. A puncher rides on his belly, and it ’pears to me that you need some fattin’ up ’fore you can begin to punch cows.”

  * * *

  Smoke glanced up from his reverie to see Sally staring at Cal, too, tears in her eyes. He figured she was remembering the same things he was.

  He reached across and took her hand in his, squeezing it to show he was as worried about Cal—a young man they’d both come to look upon as a son—as she was.

  “We can’t let him die, Smoke,” she said, her voice husky with worry.

  “Cal’s too tough to die, Sally. He’ll make it through this, I promise.”

  As the buckboard bounced and rocked over the uneven road toward Big Rock, Colorado, both Sally and Smoke prayed silently for their friend.

  Pearlie, on the hurricane deck fighting the reins, was too busy to pray, but not too busy to cuss the men who’d had the gall to shoot his best friend, a man he considered closer than a brother.

  In between hollering at the horse team pulling the wagon to run faster, Pearlie pledged he’d repay those who had done this to Cal if it was the last thing he ever did.

  3

  As he rode, Lazarus enjoyed the feel of the pale horse underneath him. The animal was long through the croup, and thus had an easy, rocking chair gait. It was truly another sign from God that he was a chosen one, picked out of all the men on earth to spread God’s word, and more importantly, to punish those evildoers who didn’t obey His commandants.

  The easy motion of the bronc lulled Lazarus into a dreamlike state, and his mind roamed back to the day the Lord took him under His wing....

  * * *

  It was just one of thousands of dirty little battles in the War Between the States, not even important enough to have a name. The Sixth Confederate Brigade from Arkansas was pinned down in a copse of woods—live oaks, maples, and birch mainly. It was the tail end of winter, and there were ragged patches of snow still on the ground in areas shadowed by trees or rocks.

  The young boy from Lizard Lick, Arkansas, was more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. Laz, as he was called by his friends, lay on his stomach in the soggy, frigid mud and prayed that God would let him live through this terrible day. Over half the men in his troop had been killed or wounded, and the fire from the Yanks on the hills above them was devastating and showed no signs of stopping.

  Another kid from his neck of the woods, Johnny Slater, was lying next to him in the muck, mumbling over and over how he wanted his mom and how he didn’t want to die. Laz, whose father was a lay preacher in the Blood of the Sacred Lamb Pentecostal church back home, planned to follow his father into the preacherhood. He scrabbled over to Johnny on his hands and knees, pulling out his Bible.

  “Johnny, pray with me for a minute, an’ God will get us through this,” Laz said, holding up the palm-sized Bible his dad had given him when he marched off to do battle for the Confederacy.

  Johnny had raised wide, bulging eyes to stare at Laz. Then he’d broken out in maniacal laughter, his voice rising to levels that would have made a choirmaster proud. “Git away from me, Laz. Yore gonna draw their fire, you crazy bastard!” he screeched, waving Laz back with his hand.

  “But, Johnny, you’ve got to take the Lord by the hand or we’ll never survive this battle,” Laz pleaded.

  Just as he finished talking, a ball from a Yankee musket sang as it passed over their heads, making an evil-sounding thump as it buried itself in a tree trunk next to them.

  “See, see?” Johnny screamed, rolling over to get farther away from Laz. “I tole you ya’ was gonna bring their fire down on us with yore da
mn yappin’ an’ Bible-thumpin’.”

  “But—” Laz started to say.

  “But nothin’,” Johnny yelled, scrambling to his feet and lifting his musket out of the mud. He eared back the hammer and held the long rifle in front of him as he started running, low and bent over, toward a thicker group of trees fifty yards away.

  “Johnny,” Laz called, holding up his Bible, “trust in the Lord!”

  Johnny paused and stood up to look back over his shoulder at Laz, and his eyes widened and his mouth opened in surprise as a bullet passed into his back and erupted out of his chest, taking a good part of his ragged gray tunic with it.

  The boy stood there a moment, looking down at the hole in his chest as if he couldn’t believe it. Then he glanced up reproachfully at Laz, just before he tumbled to lie facedown in the soggy grass of the field.

  At the sight of the death of his friend from home something snapped in Laz, and he jumped to his feet. He jammed his Bible into his breast pocket, where his dad had told him to wear it over his heart, and picked up his rifle. He began to yell and scream, urging his friends and fellow troops to get off their bellies and attack the Yankee dogs.

  Unmindful of the withering fire from the slopes and hillocks around them, Laz walked out of the woods and began to fire and reload, fire and reload, all the while remaining miraculously unhit by musket balls and pistol bullets that flew around his head like angry bees.

  Both shamed and inspired by this act of bravery, the men in Laz’s troop jumped up and began to run at the Yankee troops dug in on the hills around them. As they ran they gave rebel yells and screams, terrifyingly loud and eerie in the foggy, misty morning air, ghostly tendrils of fog coming from their mouths.

  Men around Laz began to fall from the fire above, but he remained unhit, firing his musket until the barrel glowed a ruddy red and steam poured off it. The sight of the rebel troops—advancing into hellish fire, screaming and yelling like madmen—unnerved the Yanks, and one by one they began to leave their positions and run away, looking back over their shoulders to see if those crazy rebs were still coming.