Heart of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke put his hand on Monte’s shoulder. “Calm down, Monte. I don’t think Slaughter will let any harm come to Mary until he’s gotten his hands on the money. He’s going to know you won’t turn it over to him until you’re sure Mary is still alive.”

  Sally nodded. “Smoke’s right, Monte. From what you say, Slaughter is no fool, and he knows you’re not the kind of man to give in unless he has Mary to hold over your head. I’m sure she is being treated well.”

  Monte stood up, grimacing at the pain the movement caused him. “Nevertheless, I can’t just sit around here while she’s in the hands of those outlaws.” He looked at Smoke. “It’s gonna take us more’n a week to get to Wyoming, longer if we have any early winter storms. By then, I’ll be fit as a fiddle and ready to call the dance with Slaughter.”

  Smoke shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it, Monte.” He stood up. “I’ll have Pearlie and Cal start packing our gear and getting some horses from the remuda for the trip. I figure we’ll make better time if we each take a spare to ride when our mounts get tired.”

  Sally shook her head. “If you men insist on this foolishness, I’ll pack enough food for the trip so you won’t have to live on beans and fatback.” She pointed her finger at Monte. “You’re going to need steak if you want those wounds to heal without getting infected.”

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am. I ain’t never turned down none of your cooking, Sally, an’ I ain’t about to start now.”

  The sound of horses’ hooves outside the cabin interrupted their talk. Smoke stepped to the window and pulled the curtains aside.

  He looked back over his shoulder with a grin on his face. “Louis Longmont’s riding up, and he’s wearing his winter coat and pulling a packhorse. Looks like he wants to ante up in this game.”

  Monte smiled. “Good. Louis is the best man with a gun I know, next to you, Smoke, and if those bastards are holed up in the mountains, we’re gonna need all the firepower we can muster to blast ’em out.”

  * * *

  Tired of waiting for his men to return, Slaughter decided to ride into Jackson Hole to see if any telegrams had arrived for him. He left Mary in the care of Juanita Sanchez, common-law wife of one of the bandidos who lived full time in the hole-in-the-wall. He told her that if anything happened to Mary in his absence, he would personally slit her throat.

  “You no need worry, Señor Slaughter,” she told him, patting the Army Colt in a holster on her hip. “Any bastardo try to touch the gringa going to have a beeg hole in his gullet.”

  Slaughter took two of his top guns with him, Whitey Jones and Swede Johanson. Whitey, an albino with silver hair and snow-white skin and pink eyes, was a stone killer who favored a short-barreled ten-gauge Greener shotgun he wore in a cut-down holster on his right hip. Swede Johanson was a six-foot-six-inch giant of a man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a sweet-looking face that belied the fact that he had killed over twenty men, most of whom he’d beaten to death with his ham-sized fists. He wasn’t quick on the draw, but he seldom missed once he cleared leather.

  The three men tied their horses up outside the Cattleman’s Bar, a misnomer since the only patrons were outlaws and footpads and other miscreants who rode the owl-hoot trail. There wasn’t an honest rancher within twenty miles of Jackson Hole.

  As they stepped to the bar, Slaughter stood next to an old man in buckskins and a beaver-skin cap who was leaning on his elbows watching the bartender fill a jug with whiskey.

  Slaughter wrinkled his nose and glanced at the old mountain man. “Whew, what’s that stink? Don’t you ever bathe, old-timer?”

  The man cut his eyes toward Slaughter and his companions and grinned. “Shore, sonny. I takes me a bathing ever’ spring and ever’ summer. I figger twice’t a year is plenty. Any more’n that an’ ya tend to git the fever.”

  “You want me to run this stink-pot outta here, Boss?” Whitey asked, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  Before Slaughter could answer, the mountain man jerked a twelve-inch Bowie knife from a scabbard on his belt and had the point of the blade under Whitey’s chin, forcing his head up.

  As a trickle of blood ran down the albino’s neck, the mountain man said, “Now, fellers, I didn’t come in here lookin’ fer no trouble, but if’n trouble is what yo’re hankerin’ fer, then I’ll be glad to oblige ya.”

  Slaughter laughed, liking the old man’s guts. “No . . . no, old-timer,” he said, holding his hands out. “We don’t want any trouble. Go right ahead and finish getting your. . . supplies.”

  “Thank yee kindly, mister,” the mountain man said with some irony, as if he didn’t need Slaughter’s permission to do anything he wanted to do.

  He holstered his knife and winked at Whitey. “Sorry ’bout that nick, feller, but if’n you reach fer that six-killer again, I’ll skin you like a beaver ’fore you can blink.”

  He took his jug from the bartender and picked up off the bar a Sharps .50-caliber rifle that was almost as long as he was tall.

  He nodded at Slaughter and backed out the door, his finger on the trigger of the rifle. “See you gents later,” he said, showing yellow stubs of teeth in a wide grin.

  Whitey grimaced. “Why didn’t you let me drill that sucker, Boss?”

  Slaughter smiled, turning back to the bar. “You don’t appreciate history, Whitey. That man there is one of the last of a dying breed. Another couple of years and there won’t be any mountain men left.”

  Swede slapped his hand on the bar. “How about some whiskey, barkeep? My friend here needs something to calm his nerves.”

  Whitey took a step toward Swede, his eyes glittering hate, but Slaughter stopped him with a look. “Whitey, why don’t you go on over to the telegraph office and see if there’s any messages for me? I’ll order us some food while you’re gone.”

  “Yes, sir,” Whitey said, glaring at Swede as if he could kill him.

  By the time Whitey returned, Slaughter and Swede were digging into steaks that looked as if they’d been burned to a crisp. “Damn,” Slaughter said as he tried to chew the tough meat, “this is making me appreciate Mrs. Carson’s cooking more and more.”

  Swede nodded. “Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t kill her after we get Carson’s money. We can keep her around for the winter to keep us warm on cold nights.”

  Slaughter gave him a flat look. “Swede, Mrs. Carson is a lady and I don’t want to hear any more talk like that. It’s not her fault she married the wrong man.”

  “You’re not gettin’ soft on us, are you, Boss?” he asked, a funny look in his eyes.

  Slaughter glared at him. “Anytime you think that, Swede, just give me a try and you’ll find out how soft I’m gettin’.”

  Whitey sat at the table, glancing at the two men as if wondering what he’d interrupted. “Here’s a telegram for you, Boss. It’s from Max.”

  Slaughter took the paper and opened it up. As he read, his brow furrowed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What’s it say, Jim?” Swede asked, evidently willing to forget their words of a few moments before.

  “Max says a man name of Smoke Jensen braced him in Big Rock. Said to tell me if anything happened to Mary Carson he was going to cut me to pieces.”

  “Smoke Jensen?” Whitey asked. “The old gunfighter? I thought he was dead.”

  Slaughter looked at him. “So did I. Haven’t heard anything ’bout him in years. Evidently he’s joined forces with Monte Carson and wants to deal himself into this little fracas.”

  “What’s he say about Blackie and Boots?” Swede asked.

  “According to this, they won’t be coming back. Jensen says they send their regards from Hell.”

  Swede leaned back in his chair, pushing his half-eaten steak away. “This is gettin’ complicated, Boss. I thought you said Monte would bring us the money once he knew we had his wife.”

  Slaughter nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. “I must’ve figured him wrong. Now it looks like we may have a little more trouble gett
ing our hands on our money than I thought.”

  “Is Max on his way back here?” Whitey asked.

  Slaughter glanced at the telegram. “I don’t think so. His last line says he wishes us luck, but he didn’t figure on having to face Smoke Jensen for his share and he doesn’t think it’s worth it.”

  “That yellow-bellied bastard!” Swede said. “I told you he was the wrong man to send to Big Rock.”

  Slaughter looked over at him. “Like I said, Swede, any time you think you’re good enough to take over leadership of this gang, you’re welcome to give it a try.”

  Swede’s eyes dropped. “It’s not that. You’re still the boss, Jim, but I don’t like the idea of some gun-slick friend of Carson’s joinin’ up with him. It complicates matters.”

  “Don’t worry. There ain’t no way they can get into the hole-in-the-wall without us knowing about it first, and we’ve still got Mary Carson as our ace in the hole. Monte’s got to come through with the money. He doesn’t have any other choice in the matter, whether he’s got some old geezer ex-gunman to ride with him or not.”

  Whitey caressed the butt of the Greener ten-gauge in his cut-down holster on his hip. “I wouldn’t mind mixin’ it up with this old Jensen feller. Might be fun to see what he’s made of... see if all those stories ’bout him are true or not.”

  Swede cleared his throat. “Uh, he ain’t all that old, Whitey.”

  The albino turned to look at his friend. “You know this galoot?”

  Swede shook his head. “No, but when I was just a kid, my daddy and I were livin’ in this old mining town just west of the Needle Mountains, place called Rico. It wasn’t much more than a camp, and was filled with more gunfighters than miners.”

  “What’s that got to do with Smoke Jensen?” Whitey asked impatiently.

  “I’m gettin’ to it,” Swede answered. “Anyway, I was in the tradin’ post there one morning, gettin’ supplies for my dad and me, and I saw these two men ride up from the window. One wasn’t more’n a boy in his teens, an’ the other was this old mountain man went by the name Preacher. Seems somebody had told Smoke Jensen the men who’d killed his father were in town . . .”

  * * *

  Smoke and Preacher dismounted in front of the combination trading post and saloon. As was his custom, Smoke slipped the thongs from the hammers of his Colts as soon as his boots hit dirt.

  They bought their supplies, and had turned to leave when the hum of conversation suddenly died. Two rough-dressed and unshaven men, both wearing guns, blocked the door.

  “Who owns that horse out there?” one demanded, a snarl in his voice, trouble in his manner. “The one with the SJ brand?”

  Smoke laid his purchases on the counter. “I do,” he said quietly.

  “Which way’d you ride in from?”

  Preacher had slipped to his right, his left hand covering the hammer of his Henry, concealing the click as he thumbed it back.

  Smoke faced the men, his right hand hanging loose by his side. His left hand was just inches from his left-hand gun. “Who wants to know—and why?”

  No one in the dusty building moved or spoke.

  “Pike’s my name,” the bigger and uglier of the pair said. “And I say you came through my diggin’s yesterday and stole my dust.”

  “And I say you’re a liar,” Smoke told him.

  Pike grinned nastily, his right hand hovering near the butt of his pistol. “Why . . . you little pup. I think I’ll shoot your ears off.”

  “Why don’t you try? I’m tired of hearing you shoot your mouth off.”

  Pike looked puzzled for a few seconds; bewilderment crossed his features. No one had ever talked to him in this manner. Pike was big, strong, and a bully. “I think I’ll just kill you for that.”

  Pike and his partner reached for their guns.

  Four shots boomed in the low-ceilinged room, four shots so closely spaced they seemed as one thunderous roar. Dust and birds’ droppings fell from the ceiling. Pike and his friend were slammed out the open doorway. One fell off the rough porch, dying in the dirt street. Pike, with two holes in his chest, died with his back against a support pole, his eyes still open, unbelieving. Neither had managed to pull a pistol more than halfway out of leather.

  All eyes in the powder-filled and dusty, smoky room moved to the young man standing by the bar, a Colt in each hand. “Good God!” a man whispered in awe. “I never even seen him draw.”

  Preacher moved the muzzle of his Henry to cover the men at the tables. The bartender put his hands slowly on the bar, indicating he wanted no trouble.

  “We’ll be leaving now,” Smoke said, holstering his Colts and picking up his purchases from the counter. He walked out the door slowly.

  Smoke stepped over the sprawled, dead legs of Pike and walked past his dead partner in the shooting.

  “What are we ’posed to do with the bodies?” a man asked Preacher.

  “Bury ’em.”

  “What’s the kid’s name?”

  “Smoke.”4

  * * *

  Whitey raised his eyebrows. “He was that fast, huh?”

  Swede smiled. “Faster’n a rattlesnake strikin’. If you do go up against him, Whitey, you’d better get him with your first shot, ’cause you sure as hell won’t get more’n one.”

  Tired of all this talk about Smoke Jensen, Big Jim Slaughter threw a handful of coins on the table and stood up. “Let’s get back to the hole-in-the-wall, boys. If Carson’s got some help, we need to make sure we’re gonna be ready for ’em when they ride in.”

  “I’m ready for ’em right now,” Whitey said, a sneer on his face.

  Swede just smiled. “I’ll remember you said that, Whitey.”

  9

  When Slaughter got back to his hideout in the hole-in-the-wall, he called all of his men together.

  “Boys, we may be facing a little trouble. Seems Monte Carson has gotten some other men to ride with him and he’s on his way out here.”

  Johnny Tupelow, who called himself the Durango Kid, leaned over and spat on the ground. He was a young man, barely out of his teens, and dressed in what he thought a soon-to-be-famous gun hawk should wear—black pants and shirt with a vest festooned with silver conchos and a hat slung low over his forehead. He wore a brace of pearl-handled Colt .45 Peacemakers on his hips and highly polished black boots that rose to his knees. “That mean he ain’t gonna give us the money, Boss?”

  Slaughter’s lips curled in a nasty smile. “Oh, he’ll give us the money, all right, or he’ll be gettin’ pieces of his wife in the mail for months to come.” He hesitated. “I don’t rightly know if he plans on puttin’ up a fight or if he’s just bringing some extra guns to make sure we keep our end of the bargain. In any case, until we find out just what his intentions are, I want two men at each sentry post around the clock. One to keep anybody who tries to get in here pinned down and the other to ride here to let us know we got company.”

  The Durango Kid looked around at the others, then asked, “Any idea who he’s got ridin’ with him?”

  Slaughter hesitated. “Max said it was Smoke Jensen.”

  “Jensen?” the kid asked. “I thought he was dead.”

  “Evidently not, according to Max,” Slaughter said.

  “Any others?” the kid asked.

  Slaughter shrugged. “Don’t have any idea, but if the thought of goin’ up against Jensen worries you, Kid, you’re welcome to ride outta here anytime.”

  The kid leaned over and spat again, a smirk on his face. “Not likely, Mr. Slaughter. I reckon my share of fifty thousand is worth killing a couple of old men past their prime.”

  Slaughter didn’t bother telling the Kid that if he went up against Monte Carson alone, Carson would in all probability plant him six feet under without getting his hair mussed. “Good. Whitey will make out a new schedule for standing watch. I figure it’ll be a couple of weeks ’fore we see anybody, but it won’t hurt to keep a sharp lookout just the same.”


  * * *

  Smoke and his men were making good time toward Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The weather had been unusually mild for this time of year and they’d only had to contend with a few short-lived snowstorms. They made their final camp when Smoke figured they were less than a day’s ride from Jackson Hole.

  As they sat around the campfire, eating the last of the rations Sally had packed for the trip, Louis put down his empty plate. “I’ll tell you something, Smoke. If Sally ever feels the need to leave you for someone who will really appreciate her, she’s welcome to come to my place and cook for me anytime.”

  Smoke grinned. “I’ll bet you won’t say that in front of Andre,” he said, referring to the French chef who’d been preparing meals for Louis for as long as Smoke could remember.

  Louis shook his head. “Don’t even think such a thing, my friend. Andre would gut me like a fish if he even thought I was contemplating letting anyone else cook for me.”

  Pearlie grunted. “Hell, if Miss Sally ever left the Sugarloaf, Smoke wouldn’t have any hands left to tend the stock. They’d all be off following her to wherever she was going. Most of ’em would travel ten mile just for one of her bear sign.”

  Cal laughed. “They’d have to leave awful early to beat you to ’em, or there wouldn’t be any left for ’em to eat.”

  Smoke held up his hands to quiet the banter. “All right, men. We need to form a plan of action for when we get to Jackson Hole. Slaughter will have gotten my message by now, and if he’s as smart as Monte says he is, then he’s going to have men in town watching for us to arrive.”

  “You can bet on that, Smoke,” Monte said. “Slaughter hasn’t survived this long by not watching his back.”

  “I would suggest that we split up on the outskirts of town,” Louis said as he pulled a long, black cheroot from his coat pocket and lit it off a burning twig from the fire. He tilted smoke from his nostrils and continued. “Slaughter will be waiting for Monte and an unknown number of men to arrive together. If we go in by ones and twos, his men won’t know we’re associated with Monte.”

  Smoke nodded. “Good idea, Louis. I propose that Monte camp just outside town, while Cal and Pearlie circle around and go in from the west, Louis from the north, and I’ll enter from the south. With any luck, there won’t be anyone there who will know who I am. That should give us time to locate this Muskrat Calhoon Bear Tooth told us about and see if he’s going to be willing to help us find a back way into the hole-in-the-wall.”