Trek of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hey, Cal,” Pearlie argued. “As the youngest man on the team, you’re supposed to ride drag every day. I think I’m bein’ right nice to give you a chance to win the point position by flippin’ for it.”

  “But I always lose!” Cal complained.

  “It ain’t my fault you the unluckiest man in Colorado,” Pearlie countered.

  “Oh, all right,” Cal said. “I call tails.”

  Pearlie held out his left hand and flipped a coin. He caught it and turned it over onto the back of his right hand. “Heads,” he said shortly, and spurred his horse toward the front of the herd.

  As Pearly rode past, Smoke said, “Don’t you ever feel guilty, cheating Cal like that?”

  “Why?” Pearlie asked, his face a mask of innocence as he slowed his horse to a stop in front of Smoke. “What do you mean?”

  Smoke shook his head. “I know all about those two coins you had made by the blacksmith in town. One with two heads and one with two tails.”

  Pearlie looked over his shoulder to see if Cal had heard what Smoke said. The boy was already fifty yards away and fast disappearing in the dust cloud that rose behind the herd. “You gonna tell Cal, Smoke?”

  “No. The boy is a grown man now, and he’s got to learn to find these things out for himself. It’s not up to me to teach him how not to be cheated . . . especially by his best friend.”

  Pearlie got a pained expression on his face. “Aw, Smoke, I ain’t exactly cheatin’ Cal,” he said, though it was clear he wasn’t proud of what he’d done.

  Smoke shrugged and smiled. “If it’s not cheating, what exactly would you call it, Pearlie?”

  Pearlie opened his mouth to reply, stopped, and just hung his head as he rode off toward the rear of the herd to change places with Cal.

  Smoke was proud of him. Both of the young men were far more to him than just hired hands. In fact, both he and Sally felt as if the two were members of their family, and treated them accordingly.

  As one of the beeves bolted from the herd and ran past Smoke, he pulled his rope off his saddle horn, let out a four-foot section, and whirled it in a circle as he spurred his horse, Joker, after the errant animal. Time to quit daydreaming and get to work, he thought, exulting in being back on the trail after a summer of working around the ranch.

  Smoke had come to the high country of Colorado almost twenty years before with his father from Missouri to make a new life for them. Here they’d met up with an old mountain man named Preacher, who took both the pilgrims, as he called them, under his wing and taught them the facts of life on the frontier.

  After Smoke’s father was killed, Smoke rode with Preacher for many years, learning all the experienced mountain man could teach him about the mountains he so loved. It wasn’t long before Smoke himself became one of the region’s most famous mountain men, becoming a legend in his own time among that strange breed of men who had no use for civilization and its trappings.

  After outlaws killed his wife and son, Smoke and Preacher tracked them down to Idaho and Smoke killed every one of the sons of bitches in face-to-face combat. This put him on the owlhoot trail for a time and he was a wanted man, until some federal marshals found out the truth and got him a pardon from the governor.

  It was shortly after that when Smoke met up with a schoolteacher named Sally Reynolds and married her. They moved to the area where they lived now and founded their ranch, the Sugarloaf. Smoke had stayed on the right side of the law ever since.

  * * *

  Once the herd was bedded down for the night, Smoke and the boys made camp near a stream so they’d have water for cooking, though it was much too cold for bathing.

  As they sat around the fire, eating beans and fatback bacon cooked in a skillet, Smoke reached in a paper sack and took out a handful of biscuits Sally had prepared for them before they left the Sugarloaf.

  He pitched a couple to Cal and to Pearlie and kept some for himself.

  Pearlie used the biscuit to sop up some of the juice from the bacon and popped it in his mouth. He closed his eyes and moaned at the excellent taste. “Boy, Smoke, these sinkers Miss Sally made are sure tasty,” he said.

  Smoke nodded, too busy eating to reply.

  Cal glanced over at Pearlie. “How would you know how good they taste, Pearlie? You’re such a chowhound you don’t even chew ’em ’fore you swallow ’em.”

  Pearlie grinned back at Cal, bacon juice running down his chin. “You don’t have to chew these, Cal boy, they plumb melt in your mouth.”

  He took a deep drink of his boiled coffee, glanced down at his empty plate, and then looked over at Smoke, a wistful look in his eyes.

  “You don’t happen to have any of them bear sign Miss Sally made, do you?”

  Sally Jensen was famous for miles around for the quality of the sweet doughnuts she baked that were called bear sign by mountain people. Pearlie was one of her most ardent admirers and had been known to eat an entire batch of bear sign on his own and then clamor for more.

  Smoke looked in the paper sack. He reached in and pulled out two bear sign and held them up. “I see there’s two left,” he said, keeping his face serious.

  He pitched one to Cal and kept one for himself. “Sorry, Pearlie, but if I remember correctly, you had a mite more than your share at our nooning today.”

  Pearlie’s face looked panicked. “Smoke, you know you can’t do that to me. You and Cal wouldn’t eat those bear sign in front of me without sharin’, would you?”

  Cal winked at Smoke. “I know, Pearlie,” he said slyly. “Why don’t we flip a coin for the last one?”

  Pearlie smiled quickly, and then his face fell and he hung his head. “I knowed I shouldn’t have told you ’bout those two-sided coins, Cal.”

  Smoke laughed and threw his bear sign to Pearlie. “Here you go, Pearlie. You can have mine.”

  “But don’t you want it?” Pearlie asked, though he made no effort to return the pastry.

  Smoke shook his head. “No.” He patted his stomach. “Sally’s been after me to lose some weight so she won’t have to spend all winter letting out my britches.”

  Pearlie laughed. Smoke was anything but overweight. Standing a little over six feet tall, with shoulders as wide as an ax handle, a stomach that looked like a washboard, and arms as big around as Pearlie’s neck and as hard as granite, he certainly didn’t need to lose weight. Pearlie knew it was simply Smoke’s way of letting him have the bear sign without any argument.

  Pearlie sighed. “I just can’t do it, Smoke,” he said, tearing the bear sign in half and throwing part of it back to Smoke. “But I will let you share it with me,” he added, popping his half in his mouth before he could change his mind.

  Smoke took the bear sign and dunked it in his coffee cup. “I agree with you, Pearlie,” he said after devouring the doughnut. “Sally is the best cook in the territory.”

  “In the territory, hell,” Pearlie added as he bent to light a cigarette off a burning stick from the fire. “She’s the best cook in the world!”

  3

  Bill Pike held up his hand to slow his riders as they crossed several large pastures while moving toward the log cabin in the distance.

  When the riders had slowed their mounts to a walk, Rufus Gordon pulled up next to Pike. “What’s goin’ on, Bill?” he asked.

  Pike gave him a look. “I’m thinkin’, Rufe,” he answered. “Somthin’ you don’t know nothin’ about.”

  Gordon pushed his hat back on his head and scratched his forehead with the barrel of a .44 pistol he was carrying. “What’s there to think about, Bill? I thought we was gonna head on into Jensen’s ranch and blow hell out of him.”

  Pike reined his horse in. “That’s just it, Rufe. Does it look like anybody’s workin’ this here ranch?”

  Gordon and the other men looked around. There were numerous cattle and some horses milling around in the fenced-in pastures between them and the cabin on the horizon, but no cowboys or other workers were present.


  Gordon pursed his lips. “Now that you mention it, Bill, it do look a mite slow fer a workin’ ranch.”

  “And what does that tell you, Rufe?”

  “Uh, I dunno, Boss. You’re the brains of this outfit.”

  Pike nodded. “Yeah, and don’t you forget it. Now, what I think is that either Jensen is in that cabin, or he is somewhere else on the ranch outta sight.”

  “So, what’s that mean?” Gordon asked, his brows knit in puzzlement.

  “It means we don’t want to go riding in all hell-bent for leather and warn him we’re coming if he’s in the cabin. Nope. We’re gonna ride in nice and slow, like we’ve just come to pay a nice visit.”

  “But what if’n he comes outta that cabin blastin’ away with his six-killers?” Gordon asked.

  “Then, we’ll cut him down like autumn wheat,” Pike replied. He stood up in his stirrups to get a better look at the area around the cabin. He saw it was surrounded on three sides by heavy forest, though none of the trees were within a hundred yards of the house.

  He nodded, talking low to himself. “Yeah, that Jensen is a careful feller all right. He’s cut the trees back away from the cabin to give himself a clear field of fire in all directions so nobody can’t sneak up on him when he’s there.”

  Pike saw another building fifty or so yards from the cabin that had the look of a bunkhouse to it.

  “And he’s smart enough to keep the bunkhouse close so his men will be nearby in case he needs ’em,” he mumbled to himself. “This ain’t gonna be no easy hombre to corral,” he said out loud to the men in his group. “He’s careful and he’s smart.”

  “What do you want us to do, Bill?” Gordon asked.

  “Rufe, you take two men with you and ride on around to the left there and come up to the cabin from over there,” he said, pointing to the trees off to the cabin’s left side.

  “Blackie, you take two men and circle off to the right and do the same thing. The rest of you come with me and we’ll head straight on in toward the cabin. That way, if Jensen’s in there and he sees us comin’, he won’t have no place to go to.”

  * * *

  Sally Jensen was in the kitchen, frying some chicken for the ranch hands to eat for lunch when they got back from Big Rock. She’d sent them in to get some fencing supplies to have on hand for the upcoming winter season. The heavy snows of the high country always played havoc with their fences, and much of the winter season was spent repairing the ravages of the storms that came through the high valleys.

  Though she and Smoke didn’t have many employees, the few they had were well paid and treated as friends rather than employees. There were six men besides Cal and Pearlie that were full-time workers, and a dozen more who’d come in and help out part-time when it was calving season or if some beeves needed to be moved to market.

  Four of the men were in Big Rock, and the other two were working on the walls of the bunkhouse, filling up holes so the winter winds wouldn’t whistle through while they were sleeping.

  Sam Curry stood up from the board he was sawing and stretched his back. “I’m going outside for a smoke, Will,” he said. “You want me to see if Miss Sally has any coffee hot ’fore I come back?”

  Will Bagby took some square-headed nails out of his mouth and nodded. “Yep, that’d be right nice, Sam,” he answered. “That north wind is already startin’ to get a mite chilly.”

  Curry laughed. “Hell, this is like summer compared to a month from now when you’ll be freezin’ your cojones off.”

  He fished the canvas sack containing his tobacco out of his shirt pocket, and was just taking one of his papers out of its packet when he stepped out of the bunkhouse to find four men on horses coming up the trail from the north pasture.

  Curry, who knew just about everyone in the county, didn’t recognize the men, and furthermore, he didn’t like the look of them either. The had the look of trouble written on their faces, and the way they wore their guns tied down low on their hips let Curry know they weren’t ordinary cowhands looking for work.

  He’d left his own pistol on a peg in the bunkhouse, and it was too late to go for it now, so he just gave a low whistle as a signal to Will that there was possible trouble brewing.

  “Howdy, gents,” Sam said, nodding his head at the four men while he continued to build himself a cigarette. “What can I do for you?”

  Bill Pike’s eyes drifted down, and he saw the man standing in front of him wasn’t wearing a side arm. “Howdy, mister,” he said, smiling and trying not to look dangerous. “We’re looking for a Mr. Smoke Jensen, and we was told this was his ranch. Is he around?”

  Curry stalled for time. “Uh, what do you want to see Smoke about?”

  Pike tried to keep his voice neutral and unthreatening. “Why, I don’t think that’s any of your business, sir,” he said, smiling widely.

  Suddenly, Will Bagby stepped from the bunkhouse door with a twelve-gauge shotgun cradled in his arms. “Well,” he said, keeping his eyes on the men with Pike, “we work for Mr. Jensen. So if you don’t want to state your business, you’ll just have to ride on back to town,” Bagby finished.

  Pike’s smile faded and he began to frown. “That’s not very friendly, mister, pulling an express gun on us like that.”

  Pike’s eyes raised and he stared behind Curry and Bagby, and then he nodded once.

  A shot rang out and a hole as big as a fist appeared in Bagby’s chest as the bullet Rufus Gordon fired into his back came out. Bagby flopped forward, blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils.

  Curry yelled, “You bastards!” and bent to try to grab Will’s shotgun.

  Pike calmly drew his pistol and shot him in the face, blowing him backward up against the bunkhouse wall.

  The door to the log cabin slammed open and a beautiful, dark-haired, hazel-eyed woman appeared on the porch. She was holding a sawed-off ten-gauge shotgun in her right hand and a short-barreled, silver pistol in her left hand.

  “Hold on there!” she yelled, her eyes wide with horror as she saw her friends lying dead on the ground. “Drop those guns or I’ll blow you to hell!” she said.

  Rufus Gordon laughed and began to move his pistol toward her. She fired without aiming, and the pistol along with two of Gordon’s fingers flew through the air.

  “Ow . . . God damn!” Gordon yelled, bending over and cradling his right hand up against his belly to stop the bleeding. “She blowed my goddamn fingers off!” he moaned, tears of pain in his eyes.

  As Pike’s gun hand began to move, Sally eared back the twin hammers on the ten-gauge and smiled grimly at him. “Just twitch, mister, and give me a reason to scatter your guts all over my front yard,” she said menacingly.

  Pike, who’d rarely ever feared a man, and never a woman, felt his guts turn to ice and knew he was as close to dying as he’d ever been in his life. He let go of his pistol and let it swing down to hang by the trigger guard on his trigger finger.

  Sally shook her head. “That won’t do, mister. My husband invented the border shift. Just drop the pistol on the ground.”

  Pike smiled, though he had to force his lips to move. “Would your husband be Smoke Jensen, ma’am?” he asked.

  Sally didn’t answer, but turned her attention to the other men riding with Pike. “Now, all of you. Unbutton those gunbelts and let them drop.”

  Pike noticed some movement behind the woman out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze fixed on her face so she wouldn’t be warned.

  Spreading his arms wide to get her attention, Pike said, “We don’t want no trouble, ma’am. We just wanted to talk to Smoke about some business,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.

  Sally’s eyes flicked to the two dead men lying next to the bunkhouse.

  Before she had a chance to respond, Blackie Johnson stepped up to her from around the corner of the cabin and stuck his pistol in her back. “Drop that scattergun, little lady,” he growled.

  Sally’s finger tightened on the triggers of
the shotgun, and for a moment, Pike thought she was going to fire anyway. He felt his bowels rumble at the thought of what ten gauge buckshot would do to him, before her face fell and she lowered the two guns to the porch and raised her hands.

  Pike grinned with relief and stepped down off his horse. “Check out the cabin, Blackie,” he said as he bent and picked up his pistol and held it pointed at the woman.

  Blackie entered the door and returned a moment later. “All clear, Boss,” he said, holstering his pistol. “There ain’t nobody else around.”

  Pike walked up to the woman and backhanded her with his left hand, snapping her head back and drawing blood from her full, red lips.

  “Now, unless you want to end up like your men over there, tell us where your husband is, Mrs. Jensen,” he snarled.

  Sally sucked the blood off her lips, grinned, and spat directly into Pike’s face. “You’ll find out soon enough, you coward,” she said evenly, showing not the slightest trace of fear. She looked again at the dead men and smiled grimly. “In fact, his face will be the last thing you ever see when he finds out what you’ve done and comes to kill you.”

  “You talk big for someone who’s lookin’ down the barrel of a six-gun, lady,” Pike said, admiring her courage in spite of his frustration at not being able to cower her.

  “I’ve looked down the barrel of guns before, mister,” she replied, “and I’m still here, which is more than you’ll be able to say after Smoke gets through with you.”

  Pike took a deep breath as he looked around the ranch. “Well, I guess he’s not here, so our best bet is to take his woman and hightail it off his home territory, boys,” Pike said to his men.

  “Where’re we going, Boss?” Blackie asked.

  Pike’s eyes went to the mountains in the distance. “Let’s head on up into the high country. We’ll leave Jensen a note telling him if he wants to see his woman alive again, he’ll come up there to talk to us.”

  He looked back at Sally. “Tie her up good and tight and put her on a horse while I write Mr. Smoke Jensen a note,” he said.