Terror of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Chapter Nine

  Rick Isback grew up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York. One day, in an argument with someone who was older and bigger, he grabbed a shotgun and blew a large hole in the belly of the man who was bothering him. His adversary, who hadn’t expected such a thing, looked at Isback with an expression of shock on his face, holding his guts in his hand as he died.

  Isback’s claim of self-defense held up, so he didn’t go to prison. But he learned two things from that incident. He learned that it didn’t bother him to kill someone, and he also learned that he could employ that willingness to kill to his advantage. Overnight he changed from someone that others had always picked on, to someone that others feared. And he greatly enjoyed the power of seeing others cower before him.

  He was soon able to put that newfound skill to good use, working for a gang of New York outlaws who were willing to pay him to kill people with whom they were having an issue.

  Isback made good money being a killer, and he liked to spend the money on clothes. He enjoyed dressing well, and because of his attire, a tailored jacket, silk shirts, colorful cravats, and well-cut trousers often stuffed into the top of highly polished boots, he always stood out in any crowd.

  He continued to kill for hire for almost a year, until one day one of the men he had been hired to kill was a New York City police captain. One didn’t kill police officers with impunity, especially high-ranking police officers. After that incident, it was no longer safe for Isback to remain in New York. When he went to the criminal element he worked for and asked for enough money to allow him to leave town, they refused his request.

  Isback killed the leader of that gang, and now he was wanted by both sides, the police, and the outlaws. He fled the city just before the law caught up with him.

  When he first arrived in the West he was mocked for being a tenderfoot from the East, partly because of the way he was dressed. Isback killed one of the men mocking him, earning the respect, and the fear, of the others. No one mocked him again.

  Shortly after that incident he discovered a trade that would allow him to continue to do what he was doing in New York. He became a bounty hunter, specializing only in the most desperately wanted men, the “dead or alive” cases. This way he could kill without compunction . . . and without fear of punishment, while also being paid for it. It was as if the vocation had been developed especially for him. He continued to dress in fine clothes, choosing that as his trademark.

  Isback developed a great pride in his craft and, like any craftsman, had the desire to be regarded as the best. To that end, he developed the skill of the quick draw. Although the speed with which one could draw his gun was important, Isback learned early in his career that more important than speed was the willingness to kill. And Isback was not only willing, he was eager to do so.

  Although Isback was developing quite a name for himself, he was soon aware there was another name, more revered, and more respected. That name was Smoke Jensen, and Isback decided that the only way he could ascend to that pinnacle was to kill Smoke Jensen. But he couldn’t just kill him. He would have to kill him in a way that would elevate his name above Jensen’s.

  It took very little effort to learn where Smoke Jensen lived, so he bought a train ticket to Big Rock, Colorado.

  After getting off the train in Big Rock, Isback took a walk around town, winding up in the Brown Dirt Saloon. He bought a beer, and as the bartender set the mug in front of him, he inquired about Smoke Jensen.

  “I’ve been looking for an old friend of mine, Smoke Jensen, and I was told he lived here, in Big Rock.”

  “Not in town, he don’t,” the bartender replied. “He’s got him a ranch about seven miles west of here. Big spread called Sugarloaf.”

  “Ahh, thanks. I’m glad I finally found him. I think I’ll just run out there and see him.”

  “No, sir, you won’t see him if you go out there now,” the bartender said. “He’s gone down to Texas.”

  “He’s moved there?” Isback asked.

  “No, he ain’t moved there. He’s took some horses there.”

  “Texas is a big state,” Isback said with an easy smile. “Where in Texas did he go?”

  “I don’t rightly know where at it was that he went. But they was an article about it in the Big Rock Journal. I reckon if you’d go down to the newspaper office, they’d have a copy so’s you could find out just where it was that he took them horses.”

  “Thanks,” Isback said.

  “San Vicente? Where is that?” Isback asked.

  Blanton, the publisher of the Big Rock Journal, chuckled. “I didn’t know myself where it was, so I got me a map and looked it up. It’s way down in southwest Texas, right there on the Rio Grande River.”

  Isback had intended to check into the hotel but chose, instead, to go back to the depot, where he bought a train ticket to San Vicente, Texas.

  Smoke and the others continued to push the two hundred horses southward. The drum of horses’ hooves, their occasional whicker and whinny, the scream of an eagle, and the bark of a coyote provided a welcome and familiar concert to accompany their passage. They drove the herd through land that was mostly red or brown, and with very few houses, or even ranches to break up the vistas. The horizons were studded with red mesas and cliff walls, and in the distance they saw shadowy purple mountains. When night came, the stars and moon shed so much light that they could see almost as clearly as at midday.

  Rising at dawn each day, they watched the red sun lift above the eastern horizon as they moved deeper and ever deeper into Texas. Then at day’s end, and with curling blue smoke rising from the fire, they had a supper that testified to Sally’s skill at cooking under the most difficult of conditions.

  Thirty-seven days after leaving Sugarloaf Ranch, they found themselves just outside the small village of San Vicente. Hot and dusty, the town was little more than a two-block-long main street with flyblown adobe buildings on either side.

  “Are we goin’ to get to go into town, boss?” Walt Bizzel asked.

  “I tell you what,” Smoke said, producing a deck of cards. “You boys draw from the deck; whoever gets the lowest two cards will have to stay with the herd tonight. Whoever has to stay tonight can go into town tomorrow.”

  “You only need to draw one card, Smoke,” Old Mo said. “I don’t have any need to go into town. I’ll stay.”

  “I’ll stay too,” Fred Stone offered.

  “Yahoo! All right, boys, let’s go into town!” Walt said.

  Smoke and Sally checked into the Marshal House Hotel, and Smoke arranged to have a tub and hot water brought up to their room. Pearlie, Cal, Don Pratt, Walt Bizzel, and Vernon Mathis had other ideas.

  “Want to get a couple of beers?” Pearlie asked.

  “No, sir, not yet. ’Bout the only thing I want to do now, is get me somethin’ to eat that wasn’t cooked out on the range,” Walt said.

  “Whoa, don’t you let Miz Sally hear you sayin’ that,” Pearlie said. “I thought she done a fine job of cookin’.”

  “I reckon she did at that,” Walt replied. “What I meant to say is, I’d like to have me somethin’ I can eat without sittin’ on my own haunches.”

  “Well, I can go along with that,” Pearlie agreed.

  “You fellas go eat if you want to,” Don said. “I’m goin’ to get me somethin’ to drink.”

  Supper turned out to be steak and beans, with the beans being liberally seasoned with hot peppers. They washed the meal down with sweetened tea.

  “Those beans’ll set you afire,” Cal said. “But damn me if they aren’t about the tastiest things I’ve put in my mouth in quite a while.”

  “Yeah? Well, as fast as you ate ’em, how would you know what they taste like?” Pearlie teased. “You ready for them beers now?”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe somethin’ even a little stronger ’n beer.”

  “Yeah, a beer sounds good,” Walt said.

  “I don’t know about you, Walt,�
� Pearlie teased.

  “What is it you don’t know about me?”

  “I don’t know if me ’n’ Cal ought to be lettin’ a boy drink.”

  “I’ve done a man’s job these last few weeks, ain’t I?” Walt asked, bristling.

  Pearlie laughed, and reached out to put his hand on Walt’s shoulder. “I was teasin’ you, Walt. And you’ve done more than a man’s job. Matter of fact, I’ll buy you your first drink.”

  “Thanks,” Walt said with a broad smile.

  The Lone Star Saloon was filled with tobacco smoke and scented with the aroma of beer and various alcoholic spirits. The drinking men, wearing wide-brimmed or high-crowned hats, sat at tables, either playing cards or engaged in animated conversation. Half a dozen painted women, their hair adorned with feathers, ribbons, or sparkling glass jewelry, paraded around, their low-cut, silk dresses rustling. Another dozen drinkers were at the bar, their spurred, high-heeled boots resting on a brass rail. Highly polished brass spittoons were placed at strategic places around the bar, though stains and bits of chewed tobacco were so prevalent in the sawdust on the floor that the spittoons seemed to serve a purpose which was more decorative than functional.

  When Pearlie, Cal, and Walt walked into the saloon, they stepped up to the bar.

  “What’ll it be, gents?” the barkeep asked as he moved down to greet them when they stepped up to the bar. He wiped up a spill with a wet, smelly rag.

  “You got any good whiskey?” Cal asked.

  “Got some Old Overholt.”

  “That’ll do,” Cal said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Pearlie added. “Walt?”

  “I think I’ll stick with beer,” Walt replied.

  Pearlie nodded. “Good for you.”

  The bartender left to pour the drinks.

  “Lookie over there, Pearlie,” Cal said, pointing to one of the painted women. “I do believe that girl’s in love with you. Don’t you want to buy her a drink?”

  “Right now, I just want to drink my whiskey.”

  “You’re goin’ to break her heart,” Cal teased.

  There were several large jars of pickled eggs and pickled pigs’ feet on the bar and Cal used the wooden spoons that were down in the jars to take out a couple of eggs and handful of pigs’ feet.

  “Damn, Cal, we just got up from the supper table. Ain’t there no bottom to your stomach? Don’t you never stop eatin’?”

  “This ain’t eatin’. This is just snackin’.”

  “That’ll be two bits apiece for the whisky, and a nickel for the beer,” the bartender said, returning with the three drinks.

  Pearlie and Cal paid, then the three men took their drinks over to the table where Don Pratt and Vernon Mathis were sitting.

  The saloon had an upstairs section at the back, with a stairway going up to a second-floor landing. When the men glanced up, they could see rooms opening off the second-floor landing. The saloon girl Cal had pointed out to Pearlie a moment earlier was now taking someone up the stairs with her.

  “There goes your girl, Pearlie. You didn’t act soon enough, and now that cowboy is beatin’ your time.”

  “Damn, that girl sure got over her broken heart fast,” Pearlie said.

  The upstairs area didn’t extend all the way to the front of the building. The main room of the saloon was big, with exposed rafters below the high, peaked ceiling. There were nearly a dozen tables full of drinking customers, though there were card games in session at three of them.

  The piano player wore a small, round derby hat and kept his sleeves up with garter belts. He was pounding out a song, though the music was practically lost amidst the noise of a dozen or more conversations.

  A very pretty woman, dressed just as the other girls were, stepped over to the piano player, said something to him, and he stopped in the middle of his song to play a very loud fanfare. The fanfare got not only the attention of Pearlie, Cal, Walt, Don, and Vernon. It also got the attention of everyone else in the room.

  The woman held up a deck of cards. “Gentlemen,” she called. “For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Bridget. And I’m looking for three men who aren’t afraid to play cards with a woman. I’ll be at that table right over there.”

  “Ha!” one of the saloon patrons called. “You’d better get the ones who don’t know you, Bridget. ’Cause ever’one that knows you, knows better than to play you.”

  “You aren’t sayin’ I cheat, are you, Briggs?”

  “No, no, I ain’t sayin’ you cheat,” Briggs replied, stuttering at the accusation. I’m just saying that you’re good, darlin’. Too damn good for me to ever play with you again.”

  “I’ll play with you,” Pearlie said, standing then.

  “Pearlie, you sure you want to do this?” Cal asked.

  “You don’t think I’m good enough?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve seen you play, and I’ve played with you. You’re good, I know that. But we don’t know how good this woman is.”

  “Well, I’m about to find out, and I’ll let you know after the game is over.”

  By the time Pearlie reached the table, two other players had arrived.

  “Gentlemen, new game, new deck,” Bridget said. She picked up a box, broke the seal, then dumped the cards onto the table. They were clean, stiff, and shining. She pulled out the joker then began shuffling the deck. The stiff, new pasteboards clicked sharply. Her hands moved swiftly, folding the cards in and out until the law of random numbers became king. She shoved the deck across the table.

  “Would you like to cut, handsome?” she asked Pearlie. Leaning over the table, she showed a generous amount of cleavage.

  Pearlie cut the deck, then pushed them back. He tried to focus on her hands, though it was difficult to do so because she kept finding ways to position herself to draw his eyes toward her more interesting parts. When he looked around the table, he saw that the other players were having the same problem.

  “Well now, gentlemen, you fellows aren’t having a difficult time concentrating, are you?” Bridget teased.

  “What would make you think something like that?” Pearlie asked, still staring at her cleavage.

  “The game is five-card . . .” Bridget started, then she paused and looked directly at Pearlie before she said the next word. “Stud,” she added pointedly.

  “Fine,” Pearlie answered.

  Chapter Ten

  Pearlie won five dollars on the first hand, and a couple of hands later he was ahead by a little over fifteen, second only to Bridget. The other players were taking Bridget’s and Pearlie’s good luck in stride, but one of the players began complaining.

  “Somethin’ kinda fishy is goin’ on here,” he said.

  “Oh? And just what would that be, Mr. Parker?” Bridget asked.

  Parker looked at Bridget, then nodded toward Pearlie. “You’re dealin’ him winnin’ hands,” he said.

  “How can you say that?” Bridget asked. “The deal has passed around the table and this gentleman, and I, have been winning, no matter who is dealing. Do you think I’m cheating, Mr. Parker?”

  “No, ever’body knows you are good at poker. But they don’t nobody know this man, and I don’t believe all his winnin’ is just dumb luck.”

  “There’s some luck to it,” Pearlie said. “But you have to know how to play with the luck. You need to know how to fold when luck gives you a bad hand, and hold when you get a good hand. I’ve been watchin’ you, mister, and you haven’t learned that. You think you can bluff or buy a pot, when you don’t have the cards to back you up.”

  “I tell you what,” Parker said. “How much have you won tonight?”

  Pearlie looked down at the table. “It looks like I’ve won about fifteen dollars.”

  “Then what do you say about me ’n’ you havin’ us a little two-hand game here? Showdown for twenty-five dollars.”

  “Showdown?” Pearlie chuckled. “Well, there’s no skill in showdown, but if that’s what you want, I’m will
in’.”

  Parker reached for the cards but Pearlie stuck his hand out to stop him. “You don’t think I’m going to let you deal, do you? We’ll let the lady deal.”

  “Huh, uh,” Parker said, shaking his head. “Like I said, she’s been dealin’ you winnin’ cards all night. We’ll let Hendrix here, deal.”

  “Is Mr. Hendrix a friend of yours?” Pearlie asked.

  “What if he is?”

  “I’d rather get someone who doesn’t know either one of us.”

  “I don’t know either one of you,” one of the men who had been watching the game said. “If you fellas will trust me, I’ll deal the hand for you.”

  Pearlie looked at Bridget, and she nodded.

  “All right,” Pearlie agreed.

  “That’s fine by me,” Parker said.

  The new man dealt five cards to each of them. Pearlie took the pot with a pair of sevens.

  Parker laughed. “Not exactly a big hand, was it? How about another?”

  Pearlie won that hand with a jack high.

  “Want another one?” Pearlie asked.

  “Yes,” Parker replied. “You can’t possibly win three in a row.”

  Pearlie did win the third, with a pair of tens, and Parker threw his cards on the table in disgust. He slid the rest of his money to the center of the table. “I’ve only got twenty-six dollars left,” he said. “I’ll bet it all on high card.”

  Pearlie covered the bet, then the dealer fanned the cards out.

  “You draw first,” Parker said.

  Pearlie started to reach for a card, but just as he touched it, Parker stopped him. “No, I changed my mind,” he said. “I’ll draw first.” Parker smiled triumphantly, then flipped over the card Pearlie was about to draw. It was a queen of diamonds.

  “Well now, what do you think about that?” he asked triumphantly. “It looks like I caught you at your own game, don’t it?”

  Pearlie drew a king of clubs.

  “What?” Parker shouted in anger. “You son of a bitch! How did you do that?”