Warpath of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Blue Owl glanced at the snow-covered peaks. “It’ll be hard goin’ if the snows come early,” he observed.

  Berlin laughed. “Not as hard as goin’ the other way. I suspect the Army’ll be on our trail by now.”

  Blue Owl smiled. “If they try to follow us up into the high country, it will be easy to ambush them.”

  “That’s what I figured. If we can kill enough of ’em, they’ll soon tire of chasin’ us,” Berlin said, spurring his horse into a canter toward the mountains ahead.

  * * *

  Army Captain Wallace Bickford looked across his desk at Brock Jackson. “Are you telling me thirty of the worst criminals in your prison just walked out last night?”

  Jackson nodded grimly. “Yeah, Captain. Only, they didn’t just walk out. They killed one guard and smashed another’s head in. Like I told you, these men are all killers—about as bad as men can be. If we don’t do something soon, they’re gonna leave a trail of blood behind them that’ll make newspapers all over the country.”

  Captain Bickford looked out the window for a moment. “Mr. Jackson, I want to be honest with you. I just got a batch of fresh recruits here. Not only have these boys not seen any action yet, I’m just not sure they’re up to a job like this.”

  Jackson leaned forward, his hands on the desk. “Captain, ready or not, the Army took them in and made them soldiers. Now, they got a job to do and I’m afraid there isn’t anyone else available to do it.”

  Bickford pursed his lips. “Maybe it’ll be all right if I send them out with a couple of sergeants who’ve been around for a while.”

  Jackson stood up, a tight smile on his face. “Good. But Captain, be sure and send plenty of men. If I’m right, there are gonna be quite a few who don’t come back.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Mr. Jackson,” Bickford said.

  Jackson put his hat on. “I’ll be sure and tell the governor how cooperative you’ve been.”

  Bickford smiled ruefully. “Yeah. Maybe he’ll be so grateful he’ll write the letters to the families of the boys who don’t come back.”

  3

  Smoke Jensen pushed the batwings to Louis Longmont’s Saloon open and stepped inside. Out of long habit, he stood to the side of the door, his back to the wall, until his eyes had adjusted to the relative gloom of the establishment.

  Cal and Pearlie followed him inside and did the same on the other side of the door, hands near their Colts until they were sure there was no danger waiting inside. Such were the actions that years of standing by the side of one of the most famous gunfighters in the West had taught them.

  Louis Longmont, owner of the saloon, looked up from his usual table in a far corner and smiled over his coffee, smoke from the long black cigar in his hand swirling around his head, stirred by a gentle breeze from the open windows in the walls.

  “Smoke, boys, come on in,” he called, waving them to his table.

  As they approached, Longmont’s eyes drifted to Smoke’s waist. Then his eyebrows raised in surprise. He’d noted Smoke wasn’t wearing his usual brace of pistols on his belt.

  He looked up at his friend walking toward him, noticing again his imposing stature. Standing a couple of inches over six feet, with wide, muscular shoulders and a narrow waist, wearing his trademark buckskins, Smoke still looked dangerous, even though he was unarmed.

  Louis, an ex-gunfighter himself, couldn’t imagine what had made Smoke leave his ranch at the Sugarloaf, a few miles north of the town of Big Rock, without wearing his pistols.

  Louis was a lean, hawk-faced man, with strong, slender hands and long fingers, nails carefully manicured, hands clean. He had jet-black hair and a black pencil-thin mustache. He was, as usual, dressed in a black suit, with white shirt and dark ascot—something he’d picked up on a trip to England some years back. He wore low-heeled boots, and a pistol hung in tied-down leather on his right side. It was not for show, for Louis was snake-quick with a short gun and was a feared, deadly gunhand when pushed.

  Louis was not an evil man. He had never hired his gun out for money. And while he could make a deck of cards do almost anything, he did not cheat at poker. He did not have to cheat. He was possessed of a phenomenal memory and could tell you the odds of filling any type of poker hand, and was one of the first to use the new method of card counting.

  He was just past forty years of age. He had come to the West as a very small boy, with his parents, arriving from Louisiana. His parents had died in a shantytown fire, leaving the boy to cope as best he could.

  He had coped quite well, plying his innate intelligence and willingness to take a chance into a fortune. In addition to the saloon in Big Rock, he owned a large ranch up in Wyoming Territory, several businesses in San Francisco, and a hefty chunk of a railroad.

  Though it was a mystery to many why Longmont stayed with the hard life he had chosen, Smoke thought he understood. Once, Louis had said to him, “Smoke, I would miss my life every bit as much as you would miss the dry-mouthed moment before the draw, the challenge of facing and besting those miscreants who would kill you or others, and the so-called loneliness of the owlhoot trail.”

  Sometimes Louis joked that he would like to draw against Smoke someday, just to see who was faster. Smoke allowed as how it would be close, but that he would win. “You see, Louis, you’re just too civilized,” he had told him on many occasions. “Your mind is distracted by visions of operas, fine foods and wines, and the odds of your winning the match. Also, your fatal flaw is that you can almost always see the good in the lowest creatures God ever made, and you refuse to believe that anyone is pure evil and without hope of redemption.”

  When Louis laughed at this description of himself, Smoke would continue. “Me, on the other hand, when some snake-scum draws down on me and wants to dance, the only thing I have on my mind is teaching him that when you dance, someone has to pay the band. My mind is clear and focused on only one problem, how to put that stump-sucker across his horse toes-down.”

  As Smoke and Cal and Pearlie took their seats at his table, Louis asked, “You gents want some breakfast?”

  Pearlie, who never turned down food, grinned and said, “I thought you’d never ask. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, and some of those fried potatoes Andre is famous for.”

  Cal just shook his head. “Dang, Pearlie, we ate once this mornin’ already.”

  Pearlie assumed a hurt expression. “But that was hours ago, Cal, an’ it was a long ride in from the Sugarloaf.”

  Smoke smiled. “All right, boys.” He glanced at Louis. “Would you ask Andre to bring us all some eggs and bacon and coffee?”

  Louis called out toward a window in a back wall leading to the kitchen. “Andre, we got some hungry cowboys out here. Fix them something special.”

  Andre, Louis’s French chef and friend of many years, stuck his head out the small window, saw Smoke and the boys, grinned, and nodded. He loved cooking for them, especially Pearlie, who was lavish in his praise of the chef’s cuisine.

  The waiter brought cups and a fresh pot of coffee, and poured it all around. Once the men were drinking, Louis stared at Smoke and inclined his head toward his friend. “I notice you are only half-dressed this morning. Any particular reason?”

  Smoke looked down at his naked waist, grinning ruefully. “Well, after that last little fracas, when Sally had to dig two bullets out of my hide, she sat me down for a long talk.”

  “And?” Louis asked, knowing Smoke loved Sally enough to do almost anything she asked.

  “The upshot of it was, I’m not getting any younger. She thinks I’m too old to go traipsing around fighting every saddle tramp and would-be famous gunslinger who wants to make a name for himself by shooting Smoke Jensen.”

  Louis, who was a couple of years older than Smoke, frowned. “And her solution for this deplorable situation?”

  Smoke shrugged. “She said if I quit wearing my guns, there would be less chance of my getting shot.”

  Louis shook his head. “Ty
pical woman’s thinking. And what if by chance some gunny braces you anyway?”

  Smoke glanced at Cal and Pearlie sitting next to him. “I’m supposed to let Cal and Pearlie . . . show them the error of their ways while I stay out of it.”

  Louis leaned forward, his eyes earnest. “Smoke, old friend, you know I respect Sally more than any other woman I’ve ever met, but she’s dead wrong this time. Taking your guns away from you is like taking the fangs off a rattlesnake and thinking he’ll lie down with the rabbits.”

  Smoke laughed. “I agree with you, Louis. In fact, I’m gonna take you out to the Sugarloaf and have you tell that to Sally.”

  Louis leaned back, a look of terror on his face. He held up his hands in front of him. “Oh, no, Smoke. I’d facedown a gang of cutthroats for you, stand with you against a band of bloodthirsty Indians, but I wouldn’t have the nerve to face up to Sally when she’s in her ‘protect my man’ stance. She’d tear me apart.”

  Cal and Pearlie laughed at Louis’s description, remembering the times Sally had saddled up her horse, packed her Winchester and snub-nosed .36-caliber handgun, and gone riding to protect Smoke’s back. They knew Louis was right.

  The conversation was halted when Andre and the waiter appeared bearing platters heaped with scrambled eggs, layers of steaming bacon, fresh-cut tomatoes, and fried potatoes.

  Smoke looked at the red, ripe tomatoes on the platter. “Andre, where did you get fresh tomatoes at this time of the year?”

  Andre grinned, puffing up a little at the compliment. “Monsieur Smoke, I have constructed myself a greenhouse out behind the saloon. There I can grow the tomatoes, and other vegetables, almost year-round.”

  “You’d better not tell Sally,” Smoke said, spearing a few slices off the platter. “Otherwise, she’ll be down here raiding your crop. She hates the taste of the tinned ones we eat in the winter.”

  “Madame Sally may have all she wants,” Andre said, “and be sure to tell her I have a new recipe she asked about, the one with the duck à l’orange.”

  Pearlie glanced up from the prodigious pile of food on his plate. “Duck? I ain’t never ate duck fit to swallow.”

  “That is because you have never eaten duck prepared by Andre,” Andre said haughtily as he turned on his heel and went back into the kitchen.

  “I hope I didn’t hurt his feelin’s,” Pearlie said, a worried look on his face.

  “Don’t worry, Pearlie,” Louis said. “Andre’s ego is impervious to insult.”

  “Whatever that means,” Pearlie muttered, lowering his head and resuming the stuffing of food into his mouth.

  The men had finished their meal and were enjoying after-breakfast coffee and cigarettes when the batwings swung open and four men walked in.

  They stood in the doorway, brushing trail dust off their clothes for a moment before proceeding toward the bar.

  Smoke’s eyes took in their garb. Two of the men were dressed mostly in black, with shiny boots, vests adorned with silver conchos, and pistols worn low on their right hips. They appeared to be related, bearing a strong resemblance to each other, and both looked to be in their early twenties. The men with them were more nondescript, wearing flannel shirts, trail coats, and chaps, but they also wore their pistols in the manner of gunmen rather than trail hands.

  When the men bellied up to the bar and ordered whiskey, Louis whispered, “Uh-oh, looks like trouble.”

  Smoke glanced at the Regulator clock on the wall, which showed it to be ten o’clock in the morning. “Yeah, it’s awfully early to be drinking liquor.”

  As the men downed their shots, one glanced over and noticed Louis and Smoke looking at them. He frowned, put his glass down, and sauntered over toward them.

  He stopped a few feet from the table and stared at Smoke. “Hey, mister,” he said belligerently, “you look familiar, like I seen you someplace before.”

  Smoke shrugged, his face flat. “I’ve been someplace before.”

  The man’s face looked puzzled as he tried to figure out if Smoke was making fun of him for a moment. Then he scowled.

  “I got it, you’re Smoke Jensen.”

  “Congratulations,” Smoke said evenly.

  The man glanced over his shoulder, as if to see if his friends were watching.

  “My friends an’ me traveled a long way to find you.”

  “And just who might you be?” Smoke asked.

  Louis slid his chair back a little and straightened his right leg, letting his hand rest on his thigh next to his pistol, ready for trouble.

  “My name’s Tucson,” the man said.

  “You must be from Arizona,” Louis said.

  Tucson’s eyes flitted to Louis. “How’d you know that?” he asked.

  Louis shook his head, grinning. “A lucky guess.”

  Smoke turned his back. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Tucson. I’m not hiring anyone at the ranch just now.”

  Tucson scowled again. “I didn’t come lookin’ for work, Jensen.”

  Smoke looked back at him. “Then why did you come?”

  “I came to kill you.”

  Smoke’s expression didn’t change. “Any particular reason?”

  “Yeah. A few years back, you killed my cousin.”

  “What was your cousin’s name?”

  “Billy Walker.”

  “And where did this happen?”

  “He came up here from Texas. Billy rode with a man named Lazarus Cain.”

  “Now I remember,” Smoke said, smiling. “Cain was a crazy Bible-thumper who thought God was protecting him. Turned out he was wrong.”1

  “Billy weren’t crazy,” Tucson said angrily. “You gut-shot him an’ left him to die.”

  “If he rode with Cain, he deserved to die,” Smoke said simply, and turned back to his coffee.

  Tucson let his hand drop next to his pistol. “Stand up and face me like a man, Jensen!”

  Pearlie and Cal got to their feet. Pearlie took the rawhide hammer-thong off his Colt and stood off to the side, as did Cal.

  “Settle down, mister,” Pearlie said slowly. “As you can see, Mr. Jensen ain’t wearin’ no guns.”

  Tucson glanced at Smoke’s waist. “Why ain’t he heeled? He afraid to die?”

  Pearlie shook his head. “Nope. It’s just that Smoke’s a mite tired of killin’ scum like you, fellow. You see, he’s done killed a couple of hundred or more an’ he’s gettin’ sick of it. Now me, I ain’t killed near that many, so it don’t bother me none if you want to try your hand.”

  As Pearlie spoke, Tucson’s friends edged away from the bar to stand next to him, their hands near their weapons.

  Cal grinned cockily. “Four to two, Pearlie. That ought’a make it about fair.”

  Louis stood up, sweeping his black coat behind his back, exposing his pistol. “Four to three, Cal,” he said, smiling around the cigar stuck in his mouth.

  “Hold on just a minute,” Smoke said, standing up. “I’m not used to letting other people fight my battles for me.”

  He stepped over to stand just inches from Tucson. “You think you’re pretty fast with that hogleg, son?”

  “Fast enough to beat you, old man,” Tucson said.

  Smoke squared around. “Then go for it! If you can get it out and fire before I take it away from you and stick it up your ass, then you’ll have your revenge.”

  “But . . . but you ain’t got no gun,” Tucson said.

  “I don’t need a gun to beat a pup like you, Tucson. Grab leather!”

  Tucson’s hand went for his gun. Before he had it half out of his holster, Smoke’s left hand moved quicker than the eye could follow.

  He grabbed Tucson’s right hand where it was holding the handle of his pistol, and squeezed.

  The sound of Tucson’s fingers breaking was like dry twigs snapping, and he yelled in pain and let go of his gun, doubling over and holding his broken, mangled hand against his chest.

  At the sound of their friend’s screams, the men be
hind him went for their guns.

  Three shots rang out almost simultaneously and the three men were blown backward to land spread-eagled on their backs.

  Tucson stopped moaning long enough to glance in horror over his shoulder. “Goddamn!” he muttered at the speed with which his friends had been killed.

  Smoke shook his head. “That could be you lying there, spilling your guts all over the floor, boy. Now get on your horse and ride off, while you still can.”

  Without another word, Tucson ran out of the door, and a few moments later they could hear his horse’s hoofbeats as he hightailed it out of town.

  Smoke looked at the dead bodies lying on the floor.

  “What a waste,” he said, shaking his head.

  Meanwhile, Louis stared at Cal and Pearlie. “I’d never have believed it,” he said.

  “Believed what?” Cal asked, holstering his pistol.

  “Yeah, what?” Pearlie asked, sitting back down and calmly finishing his coffee.

  “You boys almost beat me to the draw,” Louis said.

  “What do you mean, almost?” Cal said with a grin.

  4

  Ozark Jack Berlin and his men slowed their horses as they approached the outskirts of the small mining town named Lode in the mountains east of Salt Lake City.

  Berlin glanced at Blue Owl, riding next to him. “Tell the men to ride with their guns loose,” he said.

  Blue Owl smiled grimly. “You expecting trouble from these desert-rat miners?” he asked scornfully.

  Berlin stared at him for a moment. “You never know, Blue Owl. These men have been workin’ for years to pull silver outta those mountains, an’ they’re liable to not take kindly to anybody who tries to take it away from ’em.”

  Blue Owl nodded and jerked the head of his horse around to pass the word among the men riding behind them.

  As they rode down the muddy center of the town, the men looked around. The town consisted mainly of tent-buildings, some with wooden storefronts and tents on the rear. The businesses consisted mostly of brothels and saloons, with a couple of small general stores selling food and mining equipment. There didn’t seem to be a jail or sheriff’s office, which caused Berlin to feel a little better about the town.