Trek of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “And killed two innocent men and gotten two of your friends killed all because Mr. Pike and Mr. Thompson want revenge against my husband,” Sally added.

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Bide your time, Mr. Johnson, bide your time. Pike will give himself away sooner or later, and then you’ll have the rest of the men with you instead of against you when you confront him.”

  “That’s sound advice, Mrs. Jensen. I’m obliged,” Johnson said, taking his hand off his pistol and sitting back in his saddle.

  * * *

  Just before noon, Pike and his men came to the stream running north and south that he figured must be Fountain Creek. They turned north and rode for another three hours, and finally came to a collection of old, weather-beaten clapboard cabins arranged in a semicircle on the banks of the river. There were well-worn paths from each of the houses down to the water’s edge and to a pit dug in the middle of the open ground in between the cabins. There were even a couple of old privies that were still standing out behind the houses and away from the stream.

  Pike rode into the center of the small camp and got down off his horse. “This must be the place that old miner told us about, boys,” he said. “Get your gear together and see if any of these cabins are in good enough shape to bunk down in.”

  He stood in the center of the open area among the houses and stared up at the mountains that rose on steep slopes on all sides of them. “Hank, while the boys unpack our supplies, why don’t you take a ride up the slope over there and see if you can find the mine entrance the old fool told us about?”

  “All right, Boss,” Snow said, and he jerked his reins around and walked his horse up the side of the mountain.

  Sergeant Rutledge came riding up with the other man Pike had assigned to watch their backtrail. “All clear to the rear, Boss,” he said. “If anyone’s following us, they’re staying well back and out of sight.”

  Pike moved to a circular area in the middle of the open area where dozens of small stones were arranged around a fire pit about two feet deep. “Sarge, take a couple of men and gather up some wood for a fire, and Blackie can fix us our noon meal while the rest of you unpack.”

  As the men bent to their tasks, Pike walked over to Sally and helped her down off her horse. Once she was on the ground, he untied the ropes he had around her wrists. “I’m gonna untie you, Mrs. Jensen, but I warn you again, don’t try to escape or it’ll go hard on you.”

  Sally glanced around at the surrounding mountains on all sides of them and decided to once again play the helpless female. “Why, where on earth would I go, Mr. Pike? I’d never find my way out of this wilderness by myself.”

  Pike gave her a long look, and for a moment Sally wondered if she’d overplayed her role.

  “That’s right, Mrs. Jensen,” he finally said, beginning to turn away from her. “These mountains are no place for a woman on her own.”

  Sally bit her lip to keep from smiling. Truth was, with all Smoke had taught her about the High Lonesome over the years, she was far better equipped to deal with the wilderness than any of these flatlander pilgrims were.

  She followed Pike over to where Blackie Johnson was struggling to get a fire going with wood that was wet from the snow on the ground.

  She stood near him and talked out of the side of her mouth so the others wouldn’t know they were communicating. “Mr. Johnson, if you’ll use that little hatchet to split the wood open, you’ll find it is dry on the inside and will make a much better fire,” she whispered, her head turned away. “I’d start with some dry grass from up close to the trees where the snow hasn’t gotten to it, and then use some pine cones on top of that. It’ll make the fire start a lot easier.”

  “You seem to know a lot about living in the open, Mrs. Jensen,” he said to her as he began to split the wood with his small ax.

  Sally didn’t answer, but she thought to herself, a woman learns a lot married to a mountain man, including how to outsmart galoots like this bunch.

  * * *

  Cal and Pearlie, who’d been keeping pace with the outlaws by riding up higher in the mountains, had been surprised when the gang had made a turn to the north and headed away from Pueblo, where they were supposed to meet with Smoke.

  Smoke had circled around the men, and rode hard to get to Pueblo ahead of the man he was supposed to meet there. He wanted to be waiting for him so he wouldn’t know Smoke knew where his camp was.

  Cal and Pearlie, from their vantage point on a slope high above the outlaws’ camp, watched the men unpack their supplies and settle into the cabins near the stream.

  “Looks like they’re gonna make this their camp,” Pearlie said.

  Cal, who’d been watching Sally as she moved around the camp, nodded. “They seem to be treating Miss Sally all right,” he observed. “At least, they’re givin’ her the run of the place an’ not keepin’ her tied up or anything.”

  Pearlie smiled grimly. “They’d better not do her no harm, if’n they know what’s good for ’em.

  “We’ll watch them a mite longer an’ then you can ride on into town and tell Smoke where they’re stayin’,” he added.

  18

  When Smoke followed the trail into the city of Pueblo, he was surprised at how much the town had grown. He’d been through the area years ago when he was riding with Preacher, but the town seemed to have tripled in size and population since then.

  Back when he and Preacher had passed through, Pueblo had been a sleepy little village built on the bank of the Arkansas River. Now the town straddled the river and was built up all along both sides of the slowly flowing body of water. The buildings weren’t too close to the edge of the river because in the spring, when the snow and ice in the mountains above and all around the city melted, the river would more than double in size and speed of flow.

  There was a wooden bridge built across the narrowest part of the river that allowed the inhabitants to move back and forth along both sides of it. Back when Smoke was first here, there had only been a flat raft that a couple of men pulled back and forth by means of a rope tied to trees on either side of the river.

  As Smoke rode Joker across the bridge, he noticed there was now a fort occupying the north end of town. A sign on the periphery of the fort read FORT PUEBLO, and a small group of soldiers could be seen moving about within the confines of the structure.

  “They must be here to maintain order among the miners, since there hasn’t been any trouble with the Indians for some years,” Smoke said to the back of Joker’s head, a habit he’d picked up long ago when he’d spend half a year or more without laying eyes on another white man. He’d always felt talking to a horse was less troublesome than talking to oneself when alone up in the mountains.

  The town was fairly busy, what with a lot of the miners coming down from their mountain camps to gather up supplies for the winter before the snows blocked the passes down to town. Along with the miners was a conglomeration of the people that invariably congregated around men with too much money in their pockets and too little civilizing influences: prostitutes, gamblers, footpads, thieves, and other assorted rowdy characters of an unsavory nature.

  Now all Smoke had to do was to pick out a saloon out of the many that lined Court Street and grab himself a table. Today was the day he was supposed to meet the man who’d kidnapped Sally, and he couldn’t wait to look the bastard in the eyes.

  * * *

  Back at the outlaws’ camp, Bill Pike finished his meal and got to his feet. He checked his watch and then he looked out over the mountains thinking. It was about time for him to head into Pueblo to meet with Smoke Jensen and discuss the present situation and how they were going to deal with it. He realized he’d gotten himself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he and Zeke needed to get Smoke out of Pueblo so they could wreak their vengeance upon him for killing their kin, but on the other hand, if he brought Smoke up here now, it was likely the other members of his band of cutthroats would soon lea
rn that there was in fact no price on Smoke’s head, and there was no telling how they would react to the news that they’d come all this way without a ten-thousand-dollar payday in the offing.

  If they’d killed Smoke at the ranch, it wouldn’t have been as bad. He could have said anything to his men. Hell, he could have waited a day or two, pretended to go to a sheriff, and then come back and told his men that the poster had been recalled. Maybe a few would have raised a fuss. But he and Zeke could have handled that. And meanwhile, Smoke would be dead.

  But now, after all this time, after all they’d been through, his men needed something more. A payday, preferably a big one.

  The only way out of this quandary that Pike could see would be to put Smoke off another day, and then have Smoke meet him and Zeke somewhere else with the promise to trade Mrs. Jensen for money. Hopefully, that would put Jensen’s suspicions to rest and at that meeting Zeke and Pike could kill the son of a bitch.

  When Zeke got in touch with Pike with the idea of getting revenge on Smoke Jensen for killing their brother and crippling Zeke, Pike had began his search for where Smoke might be living now. As famous as Smoke was, it didn’t take Pike long to discover his whereabouts in Big Rock, Colorado. He’d also discovered that Smoke Jensen had become both respectable and rich.

  Thinking on this, Pike chuckled to himself, seeing a way out of his predicament. He’d have Jensen wire the bank at Big Rock and have a letter of credit wired to the bank at Pueblo for ten thousand dollars as ransom for his wife.

  After he and Zeke killed Jensen, Pike would simply tell the men that they had killed Smoke, taken his body to Pueblo, and gotten the ten thousand dollars reward as he’d promised. That should satisfy the men as far as the money was concerned.

  To make them even happier, once he and Zeke were done with Smoke, he would give the men Mrs. Jensen as an added prize to make up for the hardships they’d faced in the frigid weather. He could then sweeten the pot by arranging to use the men to rob some of the miners in the area and make enough money to enable them to live for years on the proceeds of this little trip.

  This seemed to Pike like the best way to keep everyone happy and for him and Zeke to get the revenge they craved against Jensen.

  On the way into Pueblo, he would keep a sharp lookout for a place suitable for the meeting with Jensen. It would have to be isolated and yet easy enough to describe to the man so he could find it the next day.

  Pike called the men together near the fire. “Blackie,” he said, “take Mrs. Jensen to one of those cabins and tie her up good and tight. We’ve got some business to discuss.”

  Blackie nodded and walked over to help Sally to her feet. He led her to the cabin he’d put his things in, and told her to lie down on the bed.

  Once she was lying down, he bent over her. “Mrs. Jensen, I’m going to put some ropes on your hands and feet, but I’m not gonna tie ’em real tight so they won’t dig into your skin.”

  Sally nodded as he wrapped the ropes around her wrists and ankles. He straightened up. “Now, you got to promise me not to try and escape, or it’ll go hard on me.”

  Sally took a deep breath. “Thank you for you kindness, Mr. Johnson. I will promise not to try and escape right now, but I won’t promise not to try later on.”

  Johnson gave a short laugh. “That’s good enough for me, Mrs. Jensen. I’ll come in and untie you as soon as Pike’s through with his talk.”

  He walked out the door and went over to the fire, where the other men were standing, warming their hands against the chill of the cold, mountain air.

  Pike looked around at his men. “Boys, I’m going to go into Pueblo and see if Jensen showed up like I told him to in that letter we left at his ranch. If he’s there, I’ll get him to come back to camp with me by promising to let him go if he pays us for his wife.”

  “What’s gonna happen when he gets here?” Hank Snow asked, picking his teeth with a stick.

  Pike spread his hands. “Why, we’ll kill him, of course, and then take his body to the nearest marshal’s office and collect our ten thousand dollar reward.”

  Rufus Gordon rubbed the bandages on his ruined hand, hate filling his eyes. “And what’s gonna happen to that bitch what shot off my fingers after we’re done with Jensen?” he asked, letting his eyes go to the cabin where Sally was.

  Pike shrugged. “I guess that’ll be up to you boys. As cold as it is up here, maybe you can figure out some way for her to keep you warm for a spell.”

  Rufus jerked a long-bladed knife out of a scabbard on his belt and held it up. “That’s fine with me, so long as I get her when everybody else is through with her. I owe her big for what she done to my hand.”

  “Rufe,” Pike said, “personally, I don’t give a damn what you do with her after we’ve gotten Jensen, but until that happens, she is not to be touched.”

  “Why not, Boss?” Sergeant Rutledge asked. “If we’re gonna kill the son of a bitch anyway?”

  Pike sighed. “Because I don’t know if Jensen will agree to come into camp unless he sees that she is all right first. We may have to show her to him to get him in here.”

  Rutledge shrugged. “Oh,” he said, “I never thought of that.”

  “That’s why I do the thinking for this group, Sarge,” Pike said, grinning. “Now, you boys get the camp straightened up and try and get some fires in those stoves in the cabins. I don’t want to freeze my ass off tonight when I get back.”

  As the men left the fire and moved toward the cabins, Pike pulled Zeke to the side and explained his plan to him in low tones so no one else would overhear.

  Zeke’s eyes glittered with anticipated bloodlust. “I can’t wait to get my hands on that bastard, Bill,” he said. “I’m gonna make sure he’s a long time dyin’.”

  “Me too, Zeke,” Pike said as he swung up into his saddle and walked the horse down the trail toward Pueblo.

  * * *

  About halfway to the town, Pike came to a bend in Fountain Creek and saw a clearing on the other side of the stream with a ramshackle cabin in it that was leaning heavily to one side as if it were about to fall down. This is a good place to tell Jensen to meet me tomorrow, he thought. He won’t have no trouble finding it, and it’s far enough away from the camp so the boys won’t hear any gunshots when we take Jensen out.

  Going over in his mind what he was going to tell Jensen, and how much money he should ask for to make the man think the ransom demand was on the level, Pike moved down the trail toward Pueblo thinking how clever he was.

  19

  After walking up and down Court Street a couple of times, Smoke decided to enter a saloon named the Dog Hole. He smiled when he read the sign over the saloon, since out West dog hole was a generic name for any bar or saloon, especially one that was dirty or unclean. He thought it would take a man with a special sense of humor to use the term as a name for his establishment, and he looked forward to meeting him.

  As was his usual custom when Smoke first pushed through the batwings, he immediately stepped to one side with his back against the wall and his right hand hanging near his pistol butt. He let his eyes become accustomed to the relatively dark room while he looked over the occupants of the fifteen or so tables scattered around the place.

  He saw no familiar faces from his past, and so he walked slowly to the bar, where he took up station at the end nearest another wall. He never stood with his back to the room or where people were sitting behind him. It was a habit that had saved his life on more than one occasion and the practice had become second nature to him now.

  The bartender ambled over, wiping out a glass with a dirty-looking cloth rag, as bartenders always seemed to be doing.

  “What can I getcha?” he asked, his eyes dull with boredom and disinterest.

  Though Smoke was normally not a drinking man, when in such places he would order a drink so as not to stand out from the usual crowd. “A shot of whiskey with a beer chaser,” Smoke answered.

  When the man bent ov
er and pulled out a bottle with no label on it, Smoke held up his hand. “I don’t want that,” he said in a friendly tone. “Give me some of the good stuff off that back shelf.”

  “It’ll cost you extra,” the man said sullenly. Smoke shrugged. “That’s not a problem,” he said, still keeping his voice amiable.

  The barman turned and took a dusty bottle off the rear shelf with a label that read OLD KENTUCKY on it. Smoke doubted if any part of the bottle or the liquor within had ever been within a thousand miles of Kentucky, but he kept his mouth shut.

  The bartender pulled the cork and slapped a glass down in front of Smoke that was so dirty it was almost black.

  Just as the man started to pour, Smoke put his hand over the rim of the glass. “And I’d appreciate a clean glass,” he said, his voice getting a little harder this time.

  The bartender raised his eyebrows. “Am I gonna have trouble with you, mister?” he asked, pulling a three foot long wooden stake that was three inches in diameter from under the bar and slapping his open palm with it.

  Smoke’s eyes grew flat and dangerous. “The only trouble you’re going to have is trying to take a shit with that pole stuck up your ass!” Smoke growled, letting his voice grow deeper and harsher.

  “Why you . . .” the barman began as he raised the large stick.

  Before he got the words out or moved the pole more than a couple of inches, Smoke’s pistol was drawn, cocked, and the barrel was against the man’s nose.

  “You want to get that glass, or do I pull this trigger and decorate the mirror behind you with what little brains you have?” Smoke asked, a grim smile on his lips.

  When the barman looked into Smoke’s eyes, he knew he was seconds away from death and his bladder let loose.

  He groaned and glanced down at his urine-soaked trousers, and his face paled.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” a deep, gravely voice that had suffered too much tobacco and too many glasses of whiskey intoned from the other end of the bar.

  Smoke holstered his pistol and smiled nicely at the heavyset man who was approaching behind the bar. The man had salt-and-pepper hair and a dark mustache whose ends hung down to the bottom of his chin, but his eyes were the blue of wildflowers and seemed to shine with amusement at his barman’s state.