Trek of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke didn’t need a second invitation. He shucked out of his buckskins and joined her, taking a long-handled brush off the wall as he walked to the tub. For the next twenty minutes, they took turns scrubbing the trail dirt off each other and generally getting reacquainted after their long absence from each other.

  When the scrubbing threatened to lead to more serious play, Sally stopped him with a smile. “Why don’t you wait until tonight, darling,” she said. “It’s been a long time since we stayed in a hotel together.”

  Disappointed, but looking forward to the upcoming evening, Smoke got out of the tub and then helped Sally out. She dressed in her new clothes and they went down the corridor to find Cal and Pearlie’s room.

  There was a note on the door that read, “Couldn’t wait. We’re in the hotel dining room.”

  Smoke and Sally laughed and went to join the boys for a late lunch.

  When they got to the dining room, they found them at a table for four, with enough food in front of Pearlie to serve three people.

  “I see you didn’t waste any time finding the grub,” Smoke said as he pulled out a chair for Sally.

  “I told the cook to put on a few more steaks for you two,” Pearlie said. He blushed. “I didn’t know how long you were going to be, so I just told him to get them ready and keep them warm until you showed up.”

  Smoke called the waiter over and told him to keep bringing food out until they told him to stop.

  Sheriff Ashby showed up just as the last bit of steak was consumed, and raised his eyebrows at Sally’s new look. When she stood up from the table and he saw the pistol tied down low on her hip, he glanced at Smoke. “Is Missus Jensen gonna go with us?” he asked.

  Smoke grinned. “You want to try and stop her, you’re welcome to try.”

  Ashby inclined his head at her pistol. “She know how to use that?” he asked.

  “Probably better than you, Sheriff,” Smoke said.

  The sheriff looked at Cal and Pearlie, who both nodded. “He’s right, Sheriff,” Pearlie said.

  “Then let’s shag our mounts,” Ashby said. “I’ve got four men ready to ride up there with us an’ check the place out.”

  30

  Bill Pike led his men down the mountain, making sure to stay well off the trail that Smoke Jensen had booby-trapped. It was very slow going with the snowdrifts halfway up their mounts’ legs in some areas, and they had to be careful not to let their horses break a leg on stones or gopher holes covered by the thick blanket of snow and ice that was everywhere.

  As he rode, Pike looked back at his motley crew of men, ravaged by the encounter with Smoke Jensen and his friends. Hank Snow rode hunched over, his wounded left arm covered with a bandage made out of a couple of bandannas tied together; Zeke Thompson was wearing his usual scowl, still wearing his clothes with holes in them from the buckshot Smoke had peppered him with and with the balls he’d pried out of his skin with his skinning knife resting in his shirt pocket; Sergeant Joe Rutledge was riding cocked over to one side, favoring his right flank and keeping his right arm pressed tight against it to stop the bleeding; Blackie Johnson was nursing a bottle of whiskey to stop the throbbing in his swollen jaw and to ease the pain of his broken and missing teeth.

  Pike shook his head. All in all, he’d made the one mistake he’d tried to avoid—underestimating Smoke Jensen. Well, he thought, that was one error he wasn’t about to make twice. His plan was to circle around Pueblo and to head back to Canyon City. There, he would use some of the ten thousand dollars Jensen had thrown in his face to hire more men for his next foray against the mountain man, and this time he would make sure to plant the bastard forked end up.

  Lost in his thoughts of revenge and death, Pike almost didn’t hear the hoofbeats of the men riding up the trail in front of him. When he realized there were riders coming, he raised his hand and motioned for his men to move further into the brush, out of sight and hearing of the trail.

  From deep in the forest, Pike could barely make out a band of eight or nine men, heavily armed, riding up the trail toward the clearing they’d just left. That son of a bitch Jensen had gotten the sheriff of Pueblo and he’d brought a posse up the mountain after him and his men.

  Once the posse was past, Pike said, “Spur them mounts, boys, ’cause Johnny Law is gonna be on our tracks ’fore long and we’d better be shut of this place by then.”

  “I don’t know if I can ride any faster, Boss,” Rutledge moaned. “My side’s about to kill me.”

  “Then I’ll leave your worthless ass behind an’ let Jensen finish what he started,” Pike growled, putting the spurs to his horse.

  Rutledge and the others gritted their teeth and followed, all of them wincing at the pain the faster pace caused to their wounds.

  * * *

  Smoke led the posse, along with Cal and Pearlie and Sally, up the trail toward the clearing. He was riding point so he could help the men avoid the traps he’d set for Pike and his men. As they came to the pits, he would have Cal and Pearlie take out the stakes and fill in the holes so no one else would inadvertently injure themselves or their horses in the traps he’d laid for Pike and his men. He also clipped the barbed wire off the trees as they passed so innocent miners or trappers wouldn’t be injured.

  Sheriff Ashby raised his eyebrows when he saw what Smoke had done to prevent their being followed. “Looks like you play pretty rough, Jensen,” he observed while Cal and Pearlie filled in one of the pits.

  Smoke looked at the sheriff, his face serious. “Man takes my wife and kills my hands, Sheriff, he deserves whatever happens to him,” he said.

  Then, Smoke’s face softened as he remembered something Preacher had once told him. “A friend of mine once said any man who sticks his hand in a bees’ nest trying to steal the honey has to expect to be stung a few times,” he said.

  Ashby laughed. “I can’t hardly argue with that sentiment or with whatever happens to kidnappers or killers.”

  A few hundred yards farther along, just past a bend in the trail, the posse came upon a man sprawled on his back, his head torn off and lying ten yards from his body.

  One of the posse members, a young man of no more than seventeen or eighteen years who wore his twin holsters tied down low on his hips like the gunfighters he’d read about in dime novels, leaned to the side after he saw the headless man and puked his guts out, retching and choking up his lunch.

  Smoke, who’d seen many such men who fancied themselves gunnies, rode up next to the boy. “It isn’t much like you thought it would be, is it?” he asked gently.

  The boy sleeved vomit off his lips with his arm and turned red, bloodshot eyes to Smoke. “No, sir, it ain’t.”

  Smoke inclined his head at the dead man lying on the ground. “Take a good look at him, son,” he said, leaning forward and crossing his arms over the pommel of his saddle. “When you kill a man, you take everything he ever was or ever will be from him. It’s not a thing you should do lightly, or without good reason.”

  “Have you kilt many men, Mr. Jensen?” the boy asked.

  “Yeah, I have,” Smoke answered seriously. “But none that didn’t deserve it, son, so I can live with that. The question you have to ask yourself is, can you live with pictures like this in your mind for the rest of your life? If you can’t, then you’d better hang them guns up right now and think about a different way of life, ’cause if you keep wearing those six-killers, sooner or later you’re either going to be looking down at a man you’ve killed, or a man who’s just killed you will be staring down at your lifeless body.”

  “I can’t believe his friends just left him here an’ didn’t take the time to bury him,” one of the posse said.

  “Just because killers ride together doesn’t mean they’re friends,” Smoke said, and spurred Joker on up the trail.

  Further up the trail was a dead horse lying over one of the pits, its front legs broken and a bullet hole in its head.

  “The clearing is just up the way a
bit,” Smoke said as he led the posse forward.

  When they arrived opposite the clearing, Smoke led them across Fountain Creek to the site of the gunfight.

  “Jesus God Almighty,” one of the posse exclaimed when they saw a pack of timber wolves working on the remains of the outlaws that had been killed.

  Sheriff Ashby pulled a Winchester rifle out of his saddle boot and started to take aim at the wolves. Smoke reached out and pushed the barrel of the rifle down. “Hold on, Sheriff,” he said. “Wolves got to eat, same as worms. They’re only doing what they have to in order to survive up here in the High Lonesome.”

  Smoke drew his pistol and fired a couple of shots into the air, scaring the wolves off without killing any of them.

  The posse spread out and moved around the clearing and up the slopes around it, checking for bodies. When two of the men came upon what was left of the two men who’d been blown apart by the explosives, they too bent over, hands on knees, and gave up their lunch.

  Sheriff Ashby shook his head at the scattered body parts lying around the area. “Like I said before, Jensen, when you go after somebody, you do it in a serious way.”

  Smoke was standing in the center of the clearing, his hands on his hips, staring down at the place where he’d left Pike’s body. “Looks like the ringleader got away,” Smoke said.

  “But I shot him full in the stomach,” Sally said.

  Smoke nodded. “Well, I don’t see any blood here where he was lying, Sally. If he was gut shot, he should’ve leaked some blood here and there.”

  “Maybe you missed, Mrs. Jensen,” Sheriff Ashby said.

  Smoke shook his head. “No, she hit him dead center and knocked him off his feet. The only thing I can figure is something must have deflected the bullet—either the gun he took from me and stuck in his belt or his belt buckle. Either way, he took the money I left and what was left of his gang and hightailed it somewhere else.”

  Pearlie, who’d been searching the area for tracks, found where the outlaws had left the trail and headed down the mountain. He gave a shrill whistle through his fingers and yelled, “Smoke, here’s their tracks.”

  Smoke and the rest of the posse rode back across the creek and found the place where Pike and his men had left the trail and taken to the brush. It was right next to where the headless outlaw’s body was lying.

  “I guess after they lost this man to one of your traps, they decided the trail was not a healthy place to ride,” Sheriff Ashby observed.

  Smoke got down off his horse and knelt in the snow, examining the horses’ tracks. “It looks like four or five horses, Sheriff, headed back down the mountain toward Pueblo,” Smoke said.

  “Damn!” Ashby said. “We’d better hightail it back down there.”

  “Ain’t we gonna bury these men, Sheriff?” one of the posse asked.

  “Hell, Jensen killed ’em, let him bury ’em,” another posse member said.

  Smoke climbed back in the saddle. “Like I said, boys, wolves and bears got to eat too. Let the bastards serve some purpose in death, ’cause they sure as hell didn’t in life.”

  He took off down the trail, riding hard, followed by Cal and Pearlie and Sally. After a moment’s hesitation, the sheriff grinned and said, “What the hell, let’s go, boys!”

  * * *

  When they got to a fork in the trail, just outside the city limits of Pueblo, Smoke saw tracks coming out of the brush and going off on the side trail toward Canyon City.

  He reined his horse to a halt and sat staring down the trail. When the sheriff and his posse arrived a couple of minutes later, Smoke pointed at the tracks.

  “Looks like Pike and his men headed back toward Canyon City instead of into Pueblo, Sheriff.”

  Ashby frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t have any jurisdiction in Canyon City, Jensen. The county line is about a mile up that trail. Past that, it’s the sheriff in Canyon City’s problem.”

  “Can you wire him to be on the lookout for them, Sheriff?” Sally asked.

  “I can, if the wire’s not down,” he answered. “Usually, it goes down after the first heavy snowfall and we don’t bother to put it back up until spring.”

  Smoke shook his head. “Well, I don’t intend to chase them any farther right now. Me and my friends are gonna ride back up the trail and take care of some traps we set between that clearing back there and the outlaws’ old camp.” He looked at Sally and winked where only she could see it. “After that I’m going back to Pueblo, have a good dinner, get a good night’s sleep, and worry about those bastards tomorrow.”

  Pearlie smiled and nodded. “That part about the good dinner sure sounds good to me.”

  Smoke looked at him and grinned. “You might also want to consider a bath and a change of clothes while we’re there, Pearlie.”

  Pearlie looked surprised. “Change my clothes? Heck, I’ve only been wearing these for a week now. They ain’t hardly used at all.”

  31

  When they arrived at the town of Pueblo, the sheriff dismissed his posse and turned to Smoke. “Mr. Jensen, I don’t know much about this Bill Pike who started this vendetta against you, but if he did all this to get back at you for something you did ten or fifteen years ago, then he must be a mighty determined fellow.”

  Smoke smiled grimly. “I guess you could say that, Sheriff.”

  “I don’t have either the manpower or the budget to post guards around your hotel tonight, but if I was you, I’d sleep with one eye open. Even though Pike’s tracks seemed to head toward Canyon City, he might just decide to double back and try and finish what he started while you and your friends are here in Pueblo.”

  “Point taken, Sheriff,” Smoke said. “Believe me, we’re going to be very careful until we get back home or I plant Pike and his men six feet down.”

  Sheriff Ashby grinned and stuck out his hand. “Well, even under the circumstances, it was nice to meet you, Jensen. I been hearing about you for some time and I must say, the stories I heard weren’t exaggerated.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff. We’ll check in with you before we leave in the morning.”

  “Good night, Jensen, ma’am,” Ashby said, tipping his hat and turning his horse’s head toward his office.

  “Come on, let’s get these mounts to the livery so we can get to the hotel and get some dinner and then some shut-eye,” Smoke said.

  At the livery, he told the boy on duty to be sure and give their horses plenty of grain and a good rubdown so they’d be fit for the trip back to Big Rock the next day.

  They walked back to the hotel and found they were just in time for the evening meal.

  When the waiter came to their table and saw Pearlie, he broke out in a wide grin. “I hope your appetite is good, sir,” he said. “I have a bet with the cook. He says you can’t possibly eat as much for supper as you did this morning for lunch.”

  “How much did you wager?” Pearlie asked, pleased to be the center of attention.

  “My tip, sir, and since you and your friends are so generous, it amounts to a lot of money for me.”

  Pearlie leaned back in his chair, grinning at Cal and Smoke and Sally, who were watching the byplay with smiles on their faces. “Well, son,” Pearlie said, “bring on the grub, ’cause I got a powerful appetite that needs fixin’.”

  “Yes, sir!” the waiter said happily. “And for the rest of you?”

  Smoke nodded at Pearlie. “He’s right, just keep on bringing out the food until we say we’ve had enough. And son,” he added, “don’t cook those steaks too much. Just tell the cook to throw them on the fire until they quit moving and then bring ’em out here.”

  * * *

  When they were done with dinner, Smoke left the happy waiter a large tip so he could win more money, and they moved to the lobby. When they got to the desk clerk, Smoke asked for their keys. As the man was getting them, Smoke asked, “Has anyone been inquiring as to our presence in your hotel?”

  The clerk shook his head. “Why, no, sir. A
re you expecting company?”

  Smoke handed the man a ten-dollar bill. “No, but if someone should happen to stop by asking for us, you haven’t seen us, all right?”

  “Yes, sir!” the man said, making the bill disappear in his pants pocket.

  “Oh, and my friends here are going to need plenty of hot water and some strong soap for their baths,” Smoke said, glancing sideways at Cal and Pearlie.

  “Aw, Smoke,” Cal protested. “It’s too cold for a bath. I’ll catch my death.”

  Smoke put a serious expression on his face. “If you two want to ride the trail back home with Sally and me, you’ll take a bath and get some clean clothes. I don’t want to have to ride the whole way home staying upwind of you fellas.”

  As he and Sally started to go up the stairs, Sally turned and smiled at them. “And boys, no spit baths. Put your whole body in the tub, it’ll be good for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they replied, glaring at the clerk when they saw him smiling.

  * * *

  When Smoke and Sally got to their room and began to undress, Smoke saw Sally digging in the valise she’d bought that morning.

  “What are you doing, dear?” he asked, shucking his shirt off and dropping it on the floor.

  She glanced back over her shoulder. “Why, I’m looking for the nightgown I bought this morning when we were shopping for my new clothes.”

  Smoke grinned and moved over to put his arms around her. “Never mind,” he said. “You won’t be needing a nightgown to keep you warm tonight. I intend to do that all by myself.”

  She looked up into his eyes and pressed herself against him. “Are you sure you’re up to it, sir?” she teased. “After all, you’ve been through a lot lately.”

  He pressed back against her. “I think I can manage,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.

  Her eyes opened wide and she moved back to look down. “Yes, I can see you’re up to it after all, darling.”

  * * *

  In the morning, Smoke and Sally were up early and dressed just as dawn was breaking. They walked down the stairs, arm in arm, intending to get breakfast before the boys woke up.