Trek of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yeah. That’s Bill Pike, brother to the Pike I killed years ago. He and his half brother named Thompson are the cause of this mess.”

  Pearlie leaned forward. “You know, Smoke, there’s only about eight or nine of them galoots out at the camp. If you and me and Cal lined ’em up in our sights, we could probably get them all ’fore they knew what was happening.”

  Smoke shook his head. “No, Pearlie, I don’t want to do it that way for two reasons. One, we might miss one and give him time to hurt Sally. Two, that’d be too easy for these bastards. I don’t want to just kill them, I want to make their lives miserable with fear before I let the hammer down on them and end it all.”

  Just as Smoke finished talking, Pearlie’s stomach growled loudly, causing Smoke to break out in a wide grin. “Sounds like you’re a mite hungry, partner,” Smoke said.

  Pearlie blushed and rubbed his stomach to try and make it quit howling. “Yeah. Cal and I didn’t want to risk building a fire while we watched those assholes, so about all we’ve had for two days has been old cold biscuits and water.”

  “Well, I can fix that,” Smoke said. “Hey, Homer,” he called, “you got a good place to eat in this town?”

  Homer nodded and pointed to the left. “You bet, Smoke. The Shorthorn Diner right down the street. Has the best steaks this side of the mountains.”

  * * *

  While Smoke and Pearlie ate their late lunch, with Pearlie of course eating enough for two men, they discussed Smoke’s plans for the outlaws.

  “After we finish eating, I want you to buy an extra horse with saddle and all the gear to take back up the mountain with us.”

  When Pearlie looked puzzled, Smoke explained, “We may need it for Sally. When I take her out of the gang’s camp, I may not have time to get her horse and she’ll need it to ride out on.”

  “What about the packhorse we got up there?” Pearlie asked around a mouthful of steak.

  “It doesn’t have a saddle on it, and we may need it for our supplies,” Smoke answered. “Besides, we may lose a horse in the battle and it’s always better to have too many horses than not enough, especially up in the High Lonesome in winter.”

  Pearlie nodded as he continued to stuff food into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks instead of just two days.

  “Now,” Smoke continued, sitting back and lighting a cigarette since he was already finished with his meal, “Pike is expecting me to meet him at noon tomorrow at a small clearing a few miles up Fountain Creek, but we’re not going to wait that long. As soon as you finish your meal and get the horse for Sally, we’re going to head up there and get Cal.”

  Pearlie pointed his fork at the remains of his steak. “Don’t let me forget to take him some food with us.”

  Smoke smiled. “All right, but we’re going to be plenty busy setting up some surprises for those bastards. I’m going to use those supplies you and Cal bought for me to set some traps on the trails around their camp and on the slopes up above it. As soon as Sally’s safely away from them, we’re going to show them just how stupid they were to mess with us.”

  Pearlie grinned as he stuffed a gravy-soaked roll into his mouth. “Damn right!” he agreed.

  * * *

  As he rode back toward his camp, Pike kept looking back over his shoulder. His meeting with Smoke Jensen had spooked him pretty bad. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who looked as downright dangerous as the mountain man. He recalled stories he’d heard about Jensen back when he was tracking him down in preparation for his revenge. Stories of how he’d dealt with men who’d crossed him—stories that made a man’s blood run cold.

  As he thought about this, his mind went back to the bloody scalp and the pieces of Sam Kane’s face that someone had left for them as a warning. Now, he had no doubt it had been done by Smoke Jensen.

  He knew he was riding a thin line, and if he made one false step, Jensen would exact a terrible retribution. He was going to have to make sure he and his men were on their guard at all times, or they’d never live to spend the money Jensen was getting together.

  * * *

  When he finally got back to the camp, he saw Mrs. Jensen sitting near the fire, her face turned away from Hank Snow, who was standing next to her. Mrs. Jensen’s expression was shocked and her face was blushing a bright red. From the stiffness of her back and neck, Pike knew something was wrong.

  He got down off his horse and walked rapidly over to the couple. As he got there, Snow turned and gave him a smirk.

  “What’s going on here?” Pike asked.

  Sally cut her eyes at him and then she looked away, as if he didn’t deserve her attention.

  “I was just tellin’ this little lady what I plan to do to her after we kill her husband,” Snow said, a husky tone to his voice.

  Pike stepped around so Sally would have to look at him. “Has he been bothering you, Mrs. Jensen?” he asked in a kind voice.

  “What do you think, Mr. Pike?” she asked scornfully. “He is an animal and no matter what happens to my husband, he will have to kill me before I will allow him to lay a hand on me!”

  “You stupid bastard!” Pike said angrily as he moved toward Hank Snow. “Didn’t I tell you to leave Mrs. Jensen alone?”

  “But Boss,” Snow began, a puzzled look on his face.

  Before he could finish, Pike reared back and smashed him in the face with his fist, knocking him down flat onto his back.

  Snow grimaced in pain and his hand went toward his gun on his hip.

  Pike drew and pointed his pistol at the man’s face and growled, “Go on, Hank, just give me one more reason to blow your fool head off!”

  Snow slowly moved his hand away from his gun and said, “Jesus, Boss. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I was just havin’ a little fun with her is all.”

  Pike looked up at the men who’d gathered around to see the fight. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said in a harsh voice. “I’m still the ramrod of this outfit, and anyone who crosses me is going to get this, or worse.”

  When no one said anything, Pike holstered his pistol and took Sally by the arm, helping her to her feet. “Why don’t you go into your cabin and I’ll have someone bring you some coffee, Mrs. Jensen?” he asked.

  Sally gave him a slight nod. “Thank you, Mr. Pike,” she said, and moved off toward the cabin they’d put her in the day before.

  “What’s the problem, Boss?” Rufus Gordon asked. “Why are you treatin’ her with kid gloves all of a sudden?”

  “Because she’s worth ten thousand dollars to us, Rufe,” Pike explained. “If she’s hurt or messed up, Jensen ain’t gonna take the bait.”

  “Oh,” Gordon said.

  “I just met with him in Pueblo,” Pike said. “I convinced him we just wanted some money and we’d let her go.”

  “That’s a good idea, Boss,” Sergeant Rutledge said.

  “He’s gonna get the money from the bank tomorrow and meet me at a place about halfway here from Pueblo at noon.”

  “How much money we talkin’ about?” Gordon asked.

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Pike answered.

  “Holy shit!” Gordon whooped. “That means with the reward money, we’ll be getting twenty thousand!”

  Pike decided now was the time to break the bad news about the reward to the men, before they found out about it on their own.

  “Uh, there’s not gonna be any reward, boys,” he said.

  “What?” several of them exclaimed in unison.

  He held up both hands. “That’s right. While I was in Pueblo, I checked with the sheriff’s office and found out that wanted poster was recalled some years ago.”

  As his men glowered at him angrily, Pike continued. “But the good news is, we’re gonna be getting it anyway. The only difference is, it’s gonna be comin’ outta Jensen’s own bank.”

  This last seemed to mollify the men, and Pike said, “I think this news deserves a drink, what do you say?”

  The men grinned
, their anger of a moment before forgotten, and they all went to get their bottles of whiskey. Any excuse for a drink was a good excuse to them.

  Once they all had bottles in their hands, Pike held his up and gave a toast, “To ten thousand dollars, and what it can buy.”

  Gordon added, “And to the little lady over there, and all the fun we’re gonna have with her after we kill her man!”

  22

  After Smoke and Pearlie got an extra horse and tack for Sally and some food for Cal, they proceeded northward up Fountain Creek. Smoke made sure to stay off the trail in case Pike checked his backtrail to see if he was being followed, though Smoke doubted the man bothered—from their meeting at the saloon, Smoke figured he was a mite slow when it came to thinking.

  A few miles out of Pueblo, they came to the small clearing with the ramshackle shack that Pike had designated for their meeting the next day.

  “Hold on a minute, Pearlie,” Smoke said. “I want to check this place out a little before we head on up the mountain.”

  Since the clearing was on the other side of the stream, Smoke turned Joker’s head toward it and gently spurred the horse out into the water. Though the current was moving fairly quickly, he found the water level to be only a couple of feet deep at this time of the year.

  He glanced to the sides and saw the banks of the river were several feet higher than the water level, indicating that when the spring thaws came, the stream would turn into a raging torrent unsafe to cross at any place.

  Pearlie followed him across the creek and they rode around the clearing, checking for places to set traps and such. The ground rose sharply on three sides of the clearing, with assorted boulders and outcroppings of granite at many different levels. Smoke pointed these out to Pearlie.

  “Pike told me he only had two or three men with him, so I’ll bet he’ll have the others hidden up behind those rocks, ready to fire down on me if he gives the signal,” Smoke said.

  Pearlie glanced back across the creek to where the trail passed the clearing. “Yeah, Smoke. It’d have to be up there ’cause there ain’t much cover on the other side of the crick,” he observed.

  Smoke followed his gaze and saw that the nearest heavy cover was a copse of pine trees with some low brush about four hundred yards away. Other than that, the trail was pretty much open for the next quarter mile.

  Smoke smiled. The setting gave him an idea if he ended up having to meet with Pike here the next day. Of course, if things go well tonight, he thought, we’ll have Sally out of their camp safe and sound and I can deal with them on my own terms after that.

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, Pearlie slowed his mount. “The gang’s camp is about another quarter mile up the trail, Smoke, so we’d better move on up the side of the mountain to get around them in case they got some sentries out watchin’ the trail.”

  Smoke nodded, and let Pearlie lead the way off into the bushes off to the side of the trail. He found his heart was beating faster and his mouth was dry in anticipation of seeing his wife again. Even though Pearlie had assured him Sally was all right and being treated good, he wanted to see for himself, and God help any man who’d bothered her.

  It took them another hour of moving slowly through dense underbrush and ravines where melting snow had washed out the side of the mountain before they got to the place where Cal was keeping watch over the gang.

  Just before riding into the area, Pearlie cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a short cry like that of a bobcat on the hunt.

  Smoke smiled. “You did that pretty well, Pearlie,” he said. “I couldn’t tell it from the real thing.”

  This was a high compliment from the mountain man, and Pearlie grinned back. “I had a good teacher, Smoke. You showed Cal and me how to do all the calls of the mountain critters a couple of years back, remember?”

  Smoke nodded. “Yeah, but you seem to have gotten better at it than you used to be.”

  Pearlie shrugged, blushing at the compliment. “Well, when Cal and I are out on the trail with the beeves at the ranch, we practice a bit.” He gave a low laugh. “Hell, anything’s better than having Cal sing.”

  Seconds later, an answering cry came from the slope just ahead of them, signaling Cal knew they were coming and wouldn’t shoot them when they rode into his camp.

  A few minutes later, Smoke and Pearlie, along with the extra horse for Sally, pulled into a small clearing just back from a ledge that looked down on the outlaws’ camp.

  Cal was there to greet them. Smoke noticed he had a bandanna tied over his horse’s mouth and nose to keep it from whinnying to the horses in the camp below. Smoke nodded, pleased that Cal had remembered what he’d taught him in the past about tracking men in the High Lonesome.

  Cal grinned and shook Smoke’s hand. “Jiminy, but I’m glad to see you, Smoke,” he said.

  “Everything going all right?” Smoke asked, anxious to get a look down into the camp below the ridge.

  “Yes, sir. They’ve been sitting around the fire and drinking all afternoon.”

  “Is Sally there?”

  “Come on and you can see for yourself,” Cal said, bending down and moving low as he moved toward the ridge.

  Smoke followed, crawling the last few feet on hands and knees so they couldn’t be seen from below in case any of the gang happened to look up.

  Smoke eased his head over the ledge just enough to look below. He saw the outlaws sitting in various positions around a roaring fire, talking and laughing and drinking from bottles of whiskey. Off to one side, a cup of coffee in her hands, Sally was sitting by herself near the far edge of the fire. Her head was down and she looked tired, but otherwise all right.

  Smoke thought his heart was going to break seeing her sitting alone and in such danger. He didn’t know what he would do if he ever lost her. She was his entire reason for living, and nothing would ever be the same if something happened to take her from him.

  Suddenly, he had an idea of how to make her feel better. He moved back from the ledge until he could stand up and see her through a stand of hackberry bushes. He cupped his hands around his mouth and gave the whooping call a coyote would make when calling to his mate in the wild. It was a sharp barking sound followed by a mournful wail.

  At the sound, he saw Sally’s back stiffen and her head come up. He was too far away to see her eyes, but he knew they were looking in his direction. In their years together, Sally had spent a lot of time with Smoke up in the mountains, and she knew his calls as well as he did. She also knew that coyotes never barked or called in the middle of the afternoon, only at dawn and dusk and in the middle of the night.

  The outlaws all looked up too, and one or two of them shivered at the ghostly sound Smoke made.

  Sally got to her feet and moved to the fire to refill her coffee cup from the pot sitting at the edge of the coals. As she straightened up, she briefly let her right hand cross over her heart, a sign that she’d heard and recognized Smoke’s call to her.

  She went back to her place and as she drank her coffee, she sat straighter and more confident now that she knew her man was nearby.

  * * *

  When Smoke gave the coyote call, Pike lowered his bottle and looked around, clearly spooked by the mournful cry coming from the slopes above the camp.

  He got to his feet and moved slowly around the campfire, his eyes on the ledges around them, his hand hovering near his pistol butt.

  “What’s the matter, Boss?” Rufus Gordon said, more than a little drunk. “You’re not afraid of a little ol’ coyote, are you?” he asked, his voice slurred.

  Pike answered with his eyes still on the mountainside. “I didn’t know they had coyotes up here in the mountains,” he said warily.

  “Well, it can’t be Indians, Boss,” Sergeant Rutledge said, “The man in Canyon City said they ain’t given no trouble around here in years.”

  “It’s not Indians I’m worried about,” Pike said. He took a short drink from his bottle and
moved over to stand next to Sally, staring down at her.

  “You hear that, Mrs. Jensen?” he asked.

  She stared up at him. “Of course, Mr. Pike. It was a coyote calling to its mate. Fall is the rutting season for coyotes in the mountains,” she added, hoping he didn’t know anything about coyotes, which mated all year long.

  “Is that so?” he asked suspiciously. “It wouldn’t be your husband out there signaling to you, would it?”

  Sally smiled sweetly. “Mr. Pike, if my husband were out there that close, you would already have a bullet between your eyes and would be lying flat on your back.”

  Pike grunted as if he didn’t believe her.

  Sally looked around at the men lying sprawled around the fire. “You said you met with Smoke today, Mr. Pike. Did he impress you as a man who would be afraid of a bunch of men who are so drunk they couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a shotgun right now?”

  Pike followed her gaze and realized she was right. His men were in no condition to fight anyone right now. He decided enough was enough.

  “All right, men,” he called, moving back over to the fire. “Put the liquor away and get ready for nightfall. I want two men to stay in the cabin with Mrs. Jensen tonight, just in case Jensen decides to try and take her without paying the money.”

  He looked up at the mountains around them, which were turning slowly darker as dusk approached. “You hear that, Jensen?” he hollered. “If you’re out there and you try anything, the first thing my men are going to do is put a bullet in your wife!”

  Gordon looked around at the men, who were getting worried that their boss had lost his nerve. “Boss, take it easy,” he said. “It was just a coyote, that’s all.”

  “Nevertheless,” Pike said, remembering the look in Jensen’s eyes when they talked in Pueblo. “We’re gonna post a couple of sentries and we’re gonna keep a close eye on Mrs. Jensen tonight. I don’t want anything goin’ wrong until we get that money tomorrow.”

  Gordon got clumsily to his feet and stuffed the cork back in his bottle. “Whatever you say, Boss.”