Destiny Of The Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Manning wiped at his face, then blinked his eyes a couple of times. Looking around, he saw that it was dark and that he was lying on the ground behind a building. Waco was with him. He sat up, then reached over to nudge Waco’s shoulder.

  “Hey,” Manning said. “Waco.”

  Waco didn’t respond, and Manning nudged him again. “Waco, you alive or dead?”

  “Hrmmph,” Waco grunted.

  “Get up,” Manning said.

  Waco sat up and smacked his lips a few times, looking around him.

  “Damn, I feel like shit,” Waco said.

  “No wonder. We’re lyin’ out here in the alley like some damn drunk or somethin’,” Manning said.

  “Where the hell are we?” Waco asked.

  “I don’t know exactly. But if I was to guess, I’d say we’re out in the alley behind some saloon.”

  “Which saloon?”

  “The one we was drinkin’ in, I guess.”

  “Where’s Preston?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t seen him since he went to the depot to meet that fella we were here to meet.”

  “You mean Pugh?” Waco asked.

  “Yeah, Pugh. Dingus Pugh.”

  “Wonder if he got ’im.”

  “Prob’ly,” Manning said. “What I’m wonderin’ is if maybe Preston ain’t the son of a bitch put us out here.”

  Groaning, Manning stood up and looked around for his hat, then finding it, put it on. “Come on, get up,” he said. “Unless you want to spend the night out here. You’re actin’ like you ain’t never been passed out drunk before.”

  “Don’t know as I have,” Waco replied. “Leastwise, I ain’t never been passed out in no alley before.”

  Waco got to his feet. He had been lying in the residue of several emptied spittoons, and he spent a moment brushing bits and pieces of tobacco from his clothes. He was unable to do anything about the brown stains.

  “What do we do now?” Waco asked.

  “I don’t know. Try and find Preston and Pugh, I reckon. But I don’t have an idea in hell as to where to start.”

  Manning and Waco Jones went back into the Gold Strike Saloon. They were surprised to see so few people inside. When they stepped up to the bar, the bartender slid down toward them.

  “I see you fellas got sobered up. Back for another go-around, are you?”

  “Yeah,” Waco said. “Hey, how’d we wind up sleepin’ in the alley anyhow?”

  “I had you carried out there,” the bartender said.

  “You are the one who done that?” Waco asked angrily.

  “Yes, but you don’t need to thank me,” the bartender answered. “I mean, you was both passed out on the table. I figured you’d be more comfortable layin’ down than all slumped over like that. You was, wasn’t you?”

  “Was what?” Waco asked, confused by the fact that, instead of being defensive about it, the bartender was taking in pride in telling about it.

  “You was more comfortable layin’ down than slumped over the table,” he said. “Leastwise, you looked like you was. I checked on you a couple of times just to make sure you was all right. You was both sleepin’ like babies.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Waco said, his anger defused. “Yeah, I guess we was more comfortable.”

  “Lots of barkeeps would just leave you at the table, but not me. No, sir. For me, it’s a matter of pride that I take care of my customers as best I can. And I don’t expect no tip nor nothin’ neither.”

  “Well, that’s good, ’cause you ain’t goin’ to get no tip from us,” Manning said.

  “That’s all right. Like I said, I ain’t expectin’ one. So, what can I do for you gents now that you have rejoined the land of the living?”

  “Whiskey,” Waco said.

  “Same,” Manning added.

  The bartender pulled the cork on a bottle and filled two glasses.

  “What happened to them other two fingers?” the bartender asked, looking at the three fingers on Manning’s left hand.

  “They got bit off in a fight,” Manning said.

  “Damn.”

  Manning chuckled. “That’s okay. I bit off his ear.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t kill each other.”

  “He was my brother or I would’a killed the sum bitch,” Manning said.

  The two men took their glasses, then turned their backs to the bar and looked out over the nearly empty room. There were no bar girls working the place and nobody was playing the piano. There were only four customers in the saloon, one standing alone at the far end of the bar and three more sitting at a table.

  “Oh,” the bartender said. “Your friend told me to tell you that he was going to go on back without you.”

  “Our friend? You mean Preston?”

  “Didn’t give me his name. He just asked me to tell you that he was goin’ on back without you, which is what I just done.”

  “Both of ’em?” Manning asked.

  “Both of ’em?” the bartender replied. He shook his head. “There was only one that I saw.”

  “I thought Preston come to pick up . . . what was that fella’s name again?” Waco asked.

  “Pugh,” Manning replied. “Dingus Pugh.”

  “Yeah, Dingus Pugh. Well, maybe he didn’t make the train and that’s why Preston went on back.”

  “What was that name you just said?” the bartender asked. “Did you say Dingus Pugh?”

  “Yeah. We was supposed to meet him here. If he made the train, that is.”

  “Oh, he made the train, all right,” the bartender said.

  “You’ve seen him then?”

  “I’ve seen ’im,” the bartender answered. “You can too, if you walk down the street and look in through the window down to the hardware store.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “If you two boys hadn’t been passed out drunk in the alley all day, you would know that a fella by the name of Dingus Pugh got hisself shot,” the customer standing at the end of the bar said, joining the conversation then. “He’s laid out in the front window of the hardware store, all dressed up as pretty as you please.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “Go down there and check it out, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Waco said. “I wonder if Preston shot him.”

  “Nope,” the talkative customer said. “He was shot by a fella name of Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”

  “Smoke Jensen, you say?” Waco asked, perking up at the mention of the name.

  “Yep.”

  “Who is Smoke Jensen?” Manning asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” Waco said.

  “Say what?”

  “Smoke Jensen is just about the most famous gunfighter there is,” Waco said. Almost without any awareness of what he was doing, Waco loosened the pistol in his holster. “But there ain’t never been a man that couldn’t be beat, and someday, somebody’s goin’ to put him down. I’ll say this. Whoever kills Smoke Jensen is goin’ to get hisself quite a name.”

  “Ha,” the man at the end of the bar said. “Well, it sure as hell ain’t goin’ to be you, sonny.”

  Waco’s face grew cold, and he turned to face the man at the end of the bar.

  “Mister, you ain’t sayin’ that I’m not fast enough, are you?” Waco asked.

  Realizing that he might have overstepped himself, the man at the end of the bar turned toward Waco. He cleared his throat, nervously.

  “I . . . I’m not sayin’ nothin’ of the sort,” he said. “I don’t know you. I don’t know how fast you are.”

  “Why don’t you find out?” Waco asked.

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you find out if I’m fast enough?”

  “Look, mister, I got no quarrel with you.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Waco said. “You just picked one with me.”

  “Waco, why don’t you let it be?” Manning said.

  “Huh-uh,”
Waco replied. “He started it. Now I aim to finish it.”

  “Mister, please,” the man standing at the bar said. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I said.”

  “Oh? Then you think I can beat Smoke Jensen?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen either one of you draw.”

  “Well, now is your chance.”

  “No! Please! Mister, I’ve got a wife and kids. The bartender will tell you I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Eddie, tell ’im!” the man pleaded. “For God’s sake, tell ’im I ain’t no gunfighter.”

  “I know Willie,” the bartender said. “He works for a freight company, and he’s a good man. I know he didn’t mean no insult.”

  “So, I’m just supposed to let him off scot-free, am I?” Waco asked. “I mean, after he challenged me like he done?”

  “I didn’t challenge you,” Willie said, his voice hanging on the edge of panic.

  “Oh, so now you are calling me a liar,” Waco said. “I don’t like it when someone calls me a liar.” He pulled his pistol slowly and deliberately.

  The expression on Willie’s face was one of desperation. It seemed that everything he said just made it worse.

  “Oh, my God! My God! Please, mister, please,” Willie begged, now shaking visibly. “Please don’t shoot me. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, I swear I didn’t!” Willie covered his eyes with his hands.

  Waco cocked his pistol and aimed it at Willie.

  “Jesus, Waco, what are you doing?” Manning asked. “Killin’ him ain’t worth you goin’ to jail over.”

  The front of Willie’s pants grew wet and, seeing it, Waco laughed and lowered his pistol.

  “Well, now, lookie there,” Waco said. “It looks like you had yourself a little accident there, Willie boy. Go home and tell your wife and kids that I made you pee in your pants.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willie mumbled. “Yes, sir. Thank you for not killing me.”

  Waco laughed hysterically as Willie hurried out of the saloon. Then he turned toward the bartender. “I wasn’t really goin’ to kill him,” he said. “I was just havin’ a little fun with him.”

  The bartender, having seen a side of Waco that he didn’t want to cross, laughed nervously. “It was funny all right, seeing Willie wet himself like that.”

  Waco looked around the saloon. “Damn, there wasn’t hardly nobody here to see the show. Where the hell is everyone?” he asked.

  “They’re all at the dance.”

  “What dance?”

  “Ever’ month, ’specially during the summer, the cattlemen hold a dance down at the Dunn Hotel,” the bartender answered. “It’s supposed to be for the good of the town but if you ask me, it ain’t all that good for the saloons. Hell, everyone winds up down there and there don’t nobody does come into any of the saloons. I think it’s bad for business.”

  “A dance, huh?” Manning said as he tossed his whiskey down. “Hey, Waco, what do you say we go down to that there dance the barkeep is talkin’ about?”

  “What for?”

  “Damn, Waco, use your head,” Manning said. “If there’s dancin’ down there, there’s bound to be women. Wouldn’t you like to be around some women for a change? Other’n Becky, I mean?”

  Waco smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, let’s go get us a couple of women,” he said.

  “Wait,” Manning said.

  “What?”

  “We need to spiff up a bit. I mean, we’re kind of dirty and stinky to be around women.”

  Waco held his arm up and sniffed it. “Oh, I don’t know as we smell all that bad.”

  Manning laughed. “Believe me, you smell bad.”

  “I don’t smell no worse than you do.”

  “We both smell bad. You got another shirt in your saddlebag?”

  “Yeah, but it’s the one I’d been wearin’ before I put on this here clean one to come into town in.”

  “Put it back on,” Manning said. “It’s cleaner’n the one you’re wearin’. We can wash up in the horse trough.”

  The two men left and Eddie, the bartender, walked over to look out, to make certain they were gone.

  “Damn,” Eddie said. “I’d hate to see the woman who would take up with the likes of them two.”

  The three remaining customers in the bar laughed, but they didn’t laugh very loud. They had seen enough of Waco.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At the Dunn Hotel, the caller called his last call, the fiddler played his last few bars, and the music stopped. Laughing, the dancers left the floor with Pearlie and Cal escorting the two redheaded girls back to the area where they’d met them.

  “I’m Sue and this is Jane,” one of the girls said to Pearlie. “We’re sisters. Are you two brothers?”

  Pearlie looked at Cal and realized that he was probably the closest thing to a brother he had. Smiling, he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t like to claim him, but he’s my brother.”

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” Jane said. “We’re sisters, you are brothers, and here we are together.”

  “Would you like some punch?” Cal asked.

  Sue made a face and shook her head. “No. Have you tasted that punch? It is awful.”

  “Oh,” Cal said, obviously disappointed that yet another attempt to drink the punch had been thwarted.

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen you two before,” Sue said. “Do you work at one of the ranches?”

  “We ride for the Sugarloaf,” Cal said proudly.

  The two girls looked at each other in confusion. “The Sugarloaf?” Jane said. “I don’t think I know it.”

  “Well, it’s just about the finest ranch there is, is all,” Cal said.

  “The reason you haven’t heard of it is because it is up in Colorado,” Pearlie said. “Sometimes my . . . brother . . . forgets some of the details.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cal said. “Maybe I did forget to say that.”

  “So, you have come all the way down here from Colorado? How fascinating!” Jane said, batting long eyelashes at Cal.

  Cal pulled at his collar in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “It’s, uh, fascinating all right.”

  “Form your squares!” the caller shouted.

  “Oh . . . another dance!” Sue said, looking pointedly at Pearlie.

  “Shall we go again?” Pearlie asked, holding out his arm.

  “I’d be delighted,” Sue replied.

  Jane didn’t even wait to be asked. She just took Cal’s arm, and Cal smiled broadly as they returned to the floor for another dance.

  When Manning and Waco stepped into the hotel ballroom, a dance was already in progress and out on the floor couples moved and skipped, swayed and bowed as the music played and the caller called. In addition to the dancers, there were several unattached men standing around the sides of the room, watching.

  “Looks like there’s a lot more men than women,” Manning said. He nodded at a group of women standing together. “There’s some women over there that ain’t dancin’.”

  Waco looked toward the women. “Damn,” he said. “No wonder they ain’t dancin’. They’re uglier than a stump.” He looked around the room. “I’m thirsty. Ain’t there no bar in this place?”

  “There’s a punch bowl over there,” Manning said.

  “Punch? You mean like fruit juice and shit? Hell, I don’t want punch. I want somethin’ to drink.”

  Manning chuckled. “You ain’t been to many things like this, have you?”

  “I ain’t never been to nothin’ like this,” Waco admitted.

  “Nothin’? You mean ain’t never been to a weddin’ or a wake, or nothin’ like that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, believe me, at things like this, punch ain’t what you think it is. Come on.”

  The two men walked over to the table to get a cup of punch. Because they were so dirty and odorous, people moved away from them like Moses parting the water.

  Neither Manning nor Waco noticed the reaction they wer
e getting, or if they did notice, they paid no attention. Waco got a glass of punch, then smiled after he took the first swallow. “You’re right. This here ain’t half bad,” he said.

  The set ended and the couples left the floor. Waco finished his drink, then wiped his hand across his mouth.

  “What do you say we go get us a couple of good-lookin’ women?” he suggested.

  “You got someone in mind?”

  “Yeah,” Waco said, pointing. “How ’bout them two redheaded ones over there?”

  “Can you really see snow on top of the mountains?” Jane asked.

  “Sure can,” Cal replied. “All year long.”

  “Oh, I would love to see such a thing. I’ve never seen mountains so high. I’ve never even seen snow. It must be beautiful.”

  “I reckon it’s pretty if you’re lookin’ at it from a long ways off. But if you’re standing hip-deep in it, and trying to mend a fence to keep the wolves away from your cows, well, it can get downright miserable,” Cal said. He shivered. “And I’ve done that a lot of times,” he added.

  “Oh, I think that would be very exciting,” Jane said, again flirting with him.

  “Hey, you two good-lookin’ women,” someone said. “My name’s Waco, and this here fella is called Manning. What are your names?”

  Cal looked over at the speaker. There were two men standing there, one about his age, the other a little older. He noticed that the older one was missing two fingers on his left hand. Although Cal was irritated by the intrusion, he knew that neither he nor Pearlie had any claim on Sue and Jane. It was up to them to respond in whatever way they wanted.

  Neither Sue nor Jane made any response at all.

  “How about leavin’ them dumb-lookin’ galoots ’n comin’ with us?”

  This time Jane very pointedly turned her back on Waco.

  “Hey, don’t you turn your back on me when I talkin’ to you!” Waco said angrily. He reached to grab Jane by her shoulder and jerked her around roughly.

  Reacting almost before he thought, Cal swung his fist, catching Waco on the point of his chin, knocking him down.

  By now the fracas had caught everyone’s attention, and all looked over to see what was going on.