Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “To be honest, Marshal, I don’t know as I could say I’m from anywhere,” Matt said. “Though I have spent quite some time in Colorado. I was partly raised there, by a man named Smoke Jensen.”

  “Well, Mr. Jensen, on behalf of the good people of Shady Rest, I’d like to welcome you to our little town. Gerald, give Mr. Jensen a drink on me.”

  “Ha!” Hawkins said. “You picked a good day to be generous, Marshal. I’ve already told him that everything he drinks today is on me.”

  Matt held up his beer. “I appreciate it, Marshal, but this is about my limit. I generally drink one for thirst and one for taste, and this is the one for taste.”

  “At least let me pay for one of them,” Marshal Pruitt said, putting a nickel on the bar.

  At that moment the conversation was interrupted by the crashing sound of a breaking bottle.

  “You cheating son of a bitch!” a man shouted angrily.

  Looking toward the disturbance, Matt saw a man standing over a table, holding a broken whiskey bottle. It was the man whose back had been to him when he first came into the bar, and he still couldn’t see his face. He could see the other man though, and there were streaks of blood streaming down from a wound on his scalp, though the bleeding didn’t appear to be too severe.

  The injured man took out a handkerchief and held it to his head.

  The two other players in the game had backed away from the table so quickly that their own chairs were on the floor, having been knocked over by their rapid withdrawal.

  “By God, nobody cheats me and gets away with it,” the man holding the bottle said.

  Matt tensed. There was something damn familiar about the belligerent man’s voice.

  “He wasn’t cheating you, Morgan,” one of the other players said.

  Morgan? Matt didn’t know anyone named Morgan.

  “The hell he wasn’t. It’s been over an hour since I won my last hand.”

  “I don’t have to cheat to beat you, Morgan,” the bleeding man said. This man was dressed differently from everyone else in the room. He was wearing a white shirt with a black bolo tie and red garters around his sleeves. “You bet wildly without having the cards to back you up. You aren’t aware of the cards that are already on the table, you have no concept of the law of averages. Simply put, Morgan, you have no business gambling, because you don’t know how to play cards.”

  “The hell you say. I can play cards as good as anyone, and I say you’re cheatin’ me! I’m callin’ you out on it!”

  “Is the fancy dude a cheat?” Matt asked Hawkins.

  “No, that’s Emerson Culpepper. He’s a professional gambler, and he is very good. I get ten percent of the table, plus he draws in a lot of players, some who come from neighboring towns just to try their luck with him. And of course, when they come to play cards, they also buy drinks.”

  “Who’s the loudmouth?”

  “That unpleasant gentleman goes by the name of Morgan. I don’t know if that is his first or his last name. He spends most of his time down on Plantation Row, which is fine by me. None of my girls will even go around him anymore, and he once tried to cheat my bartender, Johnny, out of some money, claiming to have paid for a drink with a five-dollar bill, when it was only a dollar. All things equal, I’d just as soon not have his business.”

  “You say his name is Morgan. Do you know that for a fact?” Matt asked. “I mean, have you known him for a long time?”

  “No, I haven’t. He’s only been here a month or so,” Hawkins said. “Morgan is the name he goes by. Why do you ask?”

  By now, Matt knew who the man was.

  “Marshal, does the name Mutt Crowley mean anything to you?” Matt asked.

  “No, not particularly,” Pruitt replied. “Should it?”

  “Mutt Crowley and his partner killed a rancher and his wife a little over a year ago. The last time I saw him he was in jail in Trinidad, Colorado, waiting for the hangman’s noose.”

  “Sounds like a pretty unpleasant fellow,” Pruitt said. “Why do you ask about him?”

  “Less than an hour before he was scheduled to hang, he managed to escape jail. I’ve not seen nor heard from him since then, but that’s him, over there, arguing with the gambler.”

  “How sure are you that this is the same man?”

  “I’m one hundred percent sure. I told you he was in jail in Trinidad? I’m the one who put him there. This is the first time I’ve seen him since then. I’d appreciate it, if you would appoint me as your deputy so I could finish the job I started.”

  Crowley continued his rant.

  “I’m going to put a bullet right through that fancy shirt of yours, you cheating son of a bitch,” Crowley said in a cold and harsh voice.

  “Mr. Morgan, as I’m sure you can see, I am not armed,” Culpepper said, his voice remained calm, and unhurried. He smiled, nervously. “I have found that not being armed manages to defuse most arguments.” He removed his bloody handkerchief from the wound on his head and looked at it. “Broken whiskey bottles notwithstanding,” he added.

  “It only means that you are a coward,” Crowley said. “You better get healed pretty damn quick, ’cause I aim to shoot your guts out.”

  “I appreciate your offer,” Pruitt said to Matt. “But being as I’m the marshal, I’d better handle the job myself.”

  Pruitt drew his pistol, then turned toward Crowley. “Crowley, you are under arrest,” he said.

  Upon hearing his name spoken, Crowley stopped, then turned toward the marshal.

  “What did you call me?”

  “I called you Crowley. That is your name, isn’t it? Mutt Crowley?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got me confused with someone else,” Crowley said.

  “Have I? Well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come with me on down to the office? I’ll send out a few telegrams, and if you’re not Crowley, we can get the situation resolved pretty quickly.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?” Crowley said.

  “I just heard you threaten Mr. Culpepper. And whether your name is Morgan or Crowley, that threat alone is enough for me to put you under arrest. But this gentleman is willing to swear that you are Mutt Crowley, and that you are wanted for murder,” Pruitt said. “And, seeing as I’m the marshal in this town, I believe that makes it my business.”

  Crowley looked over at Matt, noticing him for the first time. “Jensen!” he said in an angry bark. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

  Matt took a swallow of his beer. “So we meet again, Crowley.”

  “I—I don’t know what you are talking about,” Crowley said. He looked at Pruitt, and pointed toward Matt. “This man is lyin’. I’ve never met him before in my life. And I’m not Mutt Crowley.”

  “What do you mean you never met him?” Marshal Pruitt asked. “You just called him by name.”

  “That don’t mean nothin’. He’s famous. Ain’t you ever heard of him?”

  “I think you had better come with me, Mr. Crowley,” Marshal Pruitt said, making a motion toward the front door with his drawn pistol.

  Crowley turned toward him with a humorless smile. “Well now, Mr. Town Marshal, I gave you your opportunity to mind your own business, but it seems like you’ve just invited yourself to this party.”

  “Indeed I have,” Pruitt replied. “Now, unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall to the floor.”

  Crowley moved his hand toward his gun belt, slowly and deliberately, and as he did so, Pruitt looked over toward Culpepper, who was still bleeding from his scalp wound.

  “Mr. Culpepper, are you badly hurt? Do you need to see the doctor?”

  The young marshal’s expressed concern for Culpepper’s well-being was a fatal mistake, because when he took his eyes off Crowley that gave Crowley the opening he needed. Crowley drew his gun and fired before Pruitt could react. With a look of shocked surprise on his face, the young marshal dropped his pistol, took a couple of staggering st
eps backward, then fell.

  Matt had seen this same scene many times before, and he could tell by the lax look on the marshal’s face, as well as the sightless stare of his open eyes, that Pruitt was dead.

  “All of you seen that, didn’t you?” Crowley called to the others, all the while holding a smoking gun in his hand. “You all seen that he drawed his gun first. He made a mistake, is all. I ain’t this man Crowley that he was talkin’ about. My name is Morgan.”

  “You are lying, Crowley,” Matt said. He put his beer down and faced Crowley. “Your name is Mutt Crowley, and you are a thieving, murdering, lying son of a bitch. Marshal Pruitt told you to unbuckle your gun belt, which, as a lawman, he had every right to do. What you just did is commit another murder.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, what business is this of yours, anyway?”

  “I just don’t like to see my work undone,” Matt said. “If you recall, I’m the one that got you put in prison the last time, and I’m the one that’s going to do it again.”

  “You’re goin’ to put me in prison, are you?” Crowley said. He laughed a short, sarcastic laugh. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m either going to put you in prison, or I’m going to kill you,” Matt said. “Which will it be, Crowley? You can make the choice.”

  “Jensen, you ain’t got no sense at all, have you? Maybe you ain’t noticed it, but there’s two of us here, and only one of us is holdin’ a gun.” Crowley held his pistol up. “And as you can see, you ain’t the one holdin’ the gun.”

  “Mr. Hawkins, would you kindly send someone for the deputy?” Matt said.

  “Mr. Jensen, I hate to say this, but Deputy Prescott isn’t up to handling something like this.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, Mr. Hawkins. It won’t be a problem. By the time the deputy gets here, it will all be over,” Matt said easily. “Crowley will either surrender without resistance, or I’ll kill him, right here, and right now.”

  “The hell you say!” Crowley shouted, lifting his pistol. Even though he was holding his pistol in his hand, he was unable to bring his pistol to bear before Matt drew and fired twice, the two shots coming so close together that they sounded like a single shot.

  “How the hell . . . ?” Crowley said, his voice strained. He clasped his hands over his wound and looked down at them as blood oozed through his spread fingers. He looked up again. “How the . . . ?”

  Crowley fell to the floor, his head on the foot of Marshal Pruitt, the man he had just killed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It wasn’t necessary for Hawkins to send someone for the deputy marshal because he was just down the street when he heard the shooting, and he hurried to the saloon.

  “Here’s Deputy Prescott now,” Hawkins said.

  This was the same man Matt had seen leaning against the support post back at the stage depot. He was small and wiry, with a scraggly white beard and unkempt hair. He took one look at the two bodies on the floor, then, turning his head, started a well-aimed squid of tobacco toward a brass spittoon. It hit the spittoon with a dull thud.

  “I’ll be damned,” Deputy Prescott said. “It looks like we done had us another marshal get hisself kilt. At least this time he kilt the man that kilt him.”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Hawkins said. “Crowley killed Marshal Pruitt. Then Crowley was killed by Matt Jensen here. The same man who thwarted the coach robbery.”

  “Crowley? Who’s Crowley?”

  “That man,” Hawkins said, pointing to one of the bodies.

  “I thought his name was Morgan.”

  “He was just calling himself Morgan. It turns out that his real name was Mutt Crowley.”

  “How do you know that was his real name?”

  “Because I knew him,” Matt said.

  “You knew him, and you kilt one of your own friends?” Prescott asked, looking at Matt.

  “Believe me, he was no friend.”

  “Damn,” Prescott said. “You’ve had a busy day, ain’t you, Mr. Jensen? How many men have you kilt today? Three?”

  “It has been a bit more active than a normal day,” Matt agreed.

  “Mr. Jensen, I owe you my thanks,” Culpepper said. “You saved my life.”

  “No,” Matt said. He pointed to the body of the young marshal. “It was Marshal Pruitt who stepped in and saved your life,” Matt said.

  “Yes, I suppose it was,” Culpepper said. Culpepper looked down toward the dead marshal. “He didn’t last any longer than the others, but you can’t say the young man was lacking in grit.”

  “Well, Wash, looks like that makes you the marshal,” Hawkins said. He smiled. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Marshal Wash Prescott?”

  “It don’t have no ring to it at all, on account of I ain’t goin’ to be the marshal,” Prescott said resolutely.

  “Where’s your sense of civic duty?” Hawkins asked.

  “I’m servin’ as the deputy. That’s all the civic duty I want. You can just go find yourself someone else to get hisself kilt, ’cause I ain’t goin’ to do it.” Prescott looked over at Matt. “You want a marshal, then why don’t you get the city council to hire this fella? Hell, he’s been here less than one full day and he’s done kilt three people.”

  “May I remind you, Wash, that all three people needed killing?” Hawkins said. “And I can personally attest to that, as I was a witness to all three incidents.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Deputy Prescott said. “I ain’ sayin’ they didn’t need killin’.” He pointed toward Mutt’s body. “If that scar-faced son of a bitch kilt the marshal, then he sure as hell needed killin’. I was just commentin’, that’s all. I mean, when you think about it, we’re goin’ to need a marshal that ain’t all that easy to kill, and seems to me like Jensen here fits the bill.”

  “Yes,” Hawkins said, reacting then to the deputy’s suggestion. He looked over toward Matt. “What about it, Mr. Jensen? Would you be interested in bein’ our town marshal? I know that the mayor would appoint you in a heartbeat.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Matt said. “But no, I don’t think I would be interested.”

  “That’s too bad,” Hawkins said. He looked back at Deputy Prescott. “That leaves you, Wash.”

  “No, it don’t, ’cause I ain’t a’ goin’ to do it.”

  “Marshal Pruitt’s been kilt!” someone said, coming into the Pig Palace with the news.

  “Are you sure?” Jacob Bramley asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I was there, and I seen it with my own eyes.”

  “Damn! Another marshal kilt?” one of drinkers at the bar said. “That’s how many? Four?”

  “Yeah, four in as many months,” Bramley said.

  “Man, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a marshal in this town.”

  “Doomey, did you say you were there? Who shot the marshal?” Jacob Bramley asked.

  “Morgan shot ’im,” Doomey said.

  “Morgan? You mean the fella that’s been hangin’ around here so much?” Bramley asked.

  “Yeah, only his name warn’t Morgan. It was Crowley, but it ain’t nothin’ now, seein’ as he’s dead.”

  “Wait a minute, are you saying it was Morgan who was killed? I thought you just said that he was the one who killed the marshal,” Durbin asked.

  “Crowley,” Doomey said.

  “Who is Crowley?”

  “Morgan.”

  “What?”

  “Turns out Morgan’s real name was Crowley. Crowley kilt the marshal, then he got hisself kilt.”

  “So Morgan, or Crowley, whatever his name is, is dead?”

  “Yep, him too,” Doomey said.

  Lenny Fletcher was sitting over in the corner of the saloon and he looked up when he heard Doomey say that Crowley had been killed. At the moment, Bill Carter was with Lila, one of the whores. They had made a deal with her that she would give them a little off of her normal price if they would both buy her services. Carter won the coin toss as to who would be fi
rst.

  Doomey looked over toward Fletcher. “Crowley was your friend, wasn’t he? Yours and Carter’s. I’ve seen the three of you together all the time.”

  “I, uh, wouldn’t call him a friend exactly,” Fletcher said. “I mean I never met either one of them boys until I come here.”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t know that his real name was Crowley?”

  “I ain’t never heard of nobody named Crowley.”

  “Doomey, who says that Morgan’s real name was Crowley?” Bramley asked.

  “The man that kilt him.”

  “Now you’re getting me all confused,” one of the other bar patrons said.

  “Hell, Howard, there ain’t nothin’ confusin’ about it. It’s like I said. Crowley kilt the marshal, then he got kilt his ownself.”

  “Will you for crying out loud tell us who killed Crowley?” Bramley asked in exasperation.

  “Matt Jensen shot ’im. You know, the same fella that saved the stagecoach and kilt two of the robbers? And here’s the thing, Morgan already had his gun out whenever Jensen drawed his own gun and shot ’im.”

  “So, Morgan is dead?” one of the bar girls asked.

  “Not Morgan, Crowley,” Doomey said.

  “Whatever his name is, you’re sure he’s dead?”

  “I’ll say. He’s deader’n shit.”

  “Good,” the woman said.

  “Why do you say good? Hell, you just spent the night with him last night, didn’t you?” Bramley asked.

  “Yeah, and you’ll never guess what the son of a bitch did with my water vase.”

  “What?”

  “He . . . well, never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Morgan’s dead, and I sure as hell ain’t goin’ to cry about it.”

  “Crowley,” Doomey repeated.

  “Matt Jensen kilt him, huh? Matt Jensen is a famous man, did you know that? There’s been books wrote about him they say, though I ain’t never read one of ’em,” Howard said.

  “Hell, Howard, you can’t even read, so how would you read a book about him?” one of the other customers teased.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. I ain’t never read nothin’ about him.”