Vengeance of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Hampton’s face flared red and he looked down. “Uh, yessir. My bowels kinda let loose when you cocked that big pistol of yours.”

  Pearlie let out a guffaw. “Hell, Smoke. You don’t want to kill this ’un. Let him go and if he’s any kind of man he’ll die of shame ’fore the day’s over.”

  Smoke holstered his gun and turned to walk away. Cal nodded at Hampton. “Drop your gun belt and rifle and get out of here while the gettin’s good.”

  As Hampton stepped in his saddle and took off looking for a hole, Pearlie called out, “And you can tell your kids you once looked over the barrel of a gun at Smoke Jensen and lived to tell about it. Damn few men can say that!”

  Smoke flipped open the loading gate of his .44 and began to punch out his empties as he spoke to Pearlie. “I’ll bet you think that scratch on your arm is going to keep you from loading up all this wood Cal cut, don’t you?”

  Pearlie looked back through wide eyes, then grabbed his arm and moaned, loud and long.

  Smoke continued reloading his gun without looking at Pearlie. “Course, if you’re hurtin’ that bad, I don’t guess you’d want any of those bearsign I’ve got left.”

  The moaning stopped and Pearlie jumped to his feet and started back toward Smoke’s horse. “I’ll just go and get some java started while you and Cal finish loading up. I’ll wait for you at camp.”

  “Leave a few for me, you polecat!” Cal yelled to the rapidly disappearing man.

  CHAPTER TWO

  On their way back to his cabin, with Cal driving the buckboard and Pearlie in the back cussing every rock and bump in the trail, Smoke reflected on how many men he had carried home with enemies’ lead in them. Quite a few, he thought. Horse, Smoke’s Palouse, had been sired by old Seven, a gift to Smoke from the Nez Perce who started the breed. He knew the way home without prompting, leaving Smoke to his thoughts about his early days in the mountains.

  Young Kirby Jensen had come to the mountains with his father while barely in his teens. The pair teamed up with a mountain man, who some call the first mountain man, named Preacher. For some reason, unknown even to Preacher, the loner took to the boy and began to teach him the ways of the mountains: how to live when others would die, how to be a man of your word, and how to fear no other living creature. On the first day they met, Preacher gave the boy a name that would become legend in the West over the years, Smoke.

  Preacher was with Smoke when he killed his first man during an Indian attack, and he took the boy in when his dying father left him in Preacher’s care.2

  While still a teenager, Smoke left Preacher’s tutelage and set out on his own to marry and raise a family in the wilderness he learned to call home. Marauders raped and killed his wife and baby son while Smoke was away. He tracked them down and killed them to a man, then he rode into an Idaho town owned by the men who had sent the killers and wiped it and those that lived there off the face of the earth.3

  Smoke had been married to Sally, a former schoolteacher, for years and was happier than he thought any man had a right to be. Their ranch in the valley called Sugarloaf was just beginning to become famous as a source of fine-bred Palouse horses and beef that grew fat and juicy on the sweet grass of mountain meadows.

  As Horse neared the cabin, he nickered, glad to be home. Sally came running out of the door, an anxious expression on her face at the sight of Pearlie lying in the wagon, a blood-soaked bandage around his left arm.

  Her face softened as she reached into the wagon and brushed the bearsign crumbs off his face. “Well, I can see your wound hasn’t hurt your appetite any. Are you okay, Pearlie?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s just a scratch. I’ll be back at work in no time.”

  Smoke swung his leg over the saddle horn and slid to the ground, giving Sally a hug that lifted her off her feet. “Pearlie’s lucky, Sally. That bushwhacker was using one of those new .44/.40 pistols, otherwise that slug would’ve taken his arm off clean.”

  Cal looked up, eyebrows raised. “What’s a .44/.40, Smoke?”

  “It’s a .40 caliber barrel and works on a .44 caliber frame. Gives less of a kick and is more accurate for amateurs, but has lots less stopping power.” He nodded his head toward the valley where the other hands were with the beeves. “Cal, would you ride down to the herd and send one of the boys to Big Rock to see if Doc Spalding can come up here and take a look at Pearlie’s arm?”

  Before Cal could answer, Pearlie said, “Oh boss, you don’t have to do that. I’ll heal just fine without any old doctor messing with it.”

  Cal chuckled. “He’s just afraid the doc’ll give him some stitches, Smoke. I’ll get someone to go fetch him right now.”

  Sally put her hand on Pearlie’s shoulder. “It’ll heal a lot faster if Doctor Spalding closes the wound.”

  Pearlie shook his head. “Well, I’m not in any real hurry, Miss Sally, and I’m not real partial to needles.”

  “Well,” she said with a wink at her husband, “I’ve got some fresh hot apple pie cooling in the kitchen. If you’re not in too much pain, perhaps you can have a piece while we’re waiting for the doctor to get here.”

  “Yes ma’am, I mean, no ma’am . . . oh, you know what I mean.”

  As tough as mountain folks needed to be to survive, Sally thought, the men were like little kids when it came to sweets from the oven. Miners and farmers had been known to endure a day’s ride for bearsign, and pies cooling on the window sill would make cowboys forget their branding and spur their mounts home.

  That night, after Doc Spalding had tended to Pearlie’s arm and been treated to Sally’s home cooking and an after-dinner whiskey and cigar for his trouble, Smoke and Sally strolled through the moonlight, arm in arm.

  “Smoke, who do you think that man meant when he said a gunhawk had paid them to kill you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been in this country for a lot of years and made a lot of enemies.” He looked out over their valley shimmering in the moonlight and sighed. “It could be anyone of a dozen or more, I suppose.”

  Sally took his face in her hands and pulled it close for a gentle kiss. “You ride with your guns loose, Smoke Jensen. Sugarloaf wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  He grinned. “You mean you’d miss me?”

  She took him by the sleeve and pulled him toward their cabin. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  The next morning, over scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, Smoke told Sally he was going in to Big Rock to discuss the disposition of the bushwhackers’ bodies with Sheriff Monte Carson.

  She arched her eyebrows. “You mean you left those men lying on the ground up in the north woods?”

  He blew on his coffee, then sipped cautiously. “Yep.”

  “Smoke, those men deserve a Christian burial.”

  “Well, Sally, they weren’t acting like Christians when they came up on our mountain to kill me.”

  “But—”

  He placed his hand over hers on the table. “But nothing, dear. I know you’re a forgiving lady, one not taken with revenge and such, but in this country, a man deserves only what he can carve out of the mountain, nothing else. Those men up there made the decision to ride the owlhoot trail, to live or die by their guns. Well, they died. That’s the long and the short of it. I don’t owe those men nothing but what I gave them, an ounce of lead in a .44 caliber.”

  Smoke knew Sally was no fool. She realized when Smoke put his foot down it was time to keep her opinions to herself. In the way of women since time immemorial, she would bide her time, come at him from a different direction, and, more often than not, get her way in the end without him even realizing it. Such was marriage, even in the High Lonesome and even among the singular breed called the mountain men.

  As he sauntered outside and climbed on Horse, she handed him a package of jerked beef, biscuits, and a couple of apples. He laughed, “You never forget my trail food, do you?”

  She smiled, a mischievous smile. “Got
to keep your strength up.” She walked up to his horse and put her hand on Smoke’s thigh. “I don’t want you too tired when you get home. There’s lots of work to be done around the cabin.”

  He laughed out loud, making her blush a fiery red. “I was about to say I’d stay the night in Big Rock, but now I think I’ll come home if I have to ride the entire way after dark.”

  He whirled the big Palouse around and took off down the trail toward town, waving his hat at Sally as he rounded the curve in the road.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Smoke was halfway to Big Rock when Horse began to act up. First the horse snorted, pricked his ears, and looked back toward Smoke with eyes wide. Smoke had been lost in thought about who might be gunning for him, letting Horse find his own way to town. He came fully awake and alert when the animal began to nicker softly.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, he patted Horse’s neck and whispered, “Thanks, old friend. I hear you.” Mountain-bred ponies were better than guard dogs when it came to sensing danger. Smoke shook his head, thinking Preacher would be disgusted with him. If there was one thing the old mountain man stressed, it was the mountains were a dangerous world, not to be taken lightly. Riding around with your head in the clouds, especially when you knew someone was trying to nail your hide to the wall, was downright stupid, if not suicidal.

  Smoke slipped the hammer thongs from his Colts, then put his hand on the butt of the Henry rifle in the scabbard next to his saddle and shook it a little to make sure it was loose and ready to be pulled.

  He tugged gently on the reins to slow Horse from a trot to a walk and settled back in the saddle, hands hanging next to his pistols.

  Even with his precautions, he was surprised when a man jumped out of the brush into the middle of the trail in front of him. It was George Hampton, and he was pointing a Colt Navy pistol at Smoke.

  “Get down off that horse, you bastard.”

  Smoke spread his hands wide and swung his leg over the cantle and dropped, cat-like, to the ground. “Hampton, I thought you’d be halfway home by now.”

  “I ain’t gonna go home ’til I’ve put a bullet between the eyes of the famous Smoke Jensen.”

  Smoke glanced at the revolver Hampton was holding, smiled, and shook his head. “Hampton, I really don’t want to kill you. Why don’t you just put that gun down and head on home?” He spread his hands wider, stepping closer to him. “And just where is your home anyway? You never got around to telling me yesterday.”

  Hampton licked his lips, the gun trembling a little in his hand. “Just keep your distance, Jensen. I’ll admit I ain’t no expert with this six-gun like you are, but I can’t hardly miss at this distance.”

  Smoke kept his hands in front of him. “Okay, okay, don’t get nervous. I’ll stay back, but it seems to me a man oughta know just why he’s bein’ killed.”

  Hampton nodded. “Well, you’re right. I can see the justice in that, ’cept I don’t rightly know. Larry, the man you kilt yesterday, he made me and the other boys the offer down on the Rio Bravo in Texas. Seems that gunhawk met him in a saloon in Laredo and told him he wanted you dead in the worst way . . . somethin’ about how you had humiliated him a while back and he wanted you in the ground because of it.”

  Smoke’s eyes narrowed and turned slate gray. “So you and the other boys decided to pick up some easy money on the owlhoot trail, huh?”

  Sweat was beading on Hampton’s forehead in spite of the cool mountain air. “Naw, it wasn’t like that. We’re just cowboys, not gunslicks. There’s an outbreak of Mexican fever in the cattle down Texas way and there ain’t much work for wranglers, leastways not unless you’ve hooked up with one of the big spreads.” He shook his head, gun barrel dropping a little. “Hell, it was this or learn to eat dirt.”

  Smoke relaxed, his muscles loosening. “I’ll tell you what, Hampton. There’s always work for an honest cowboy in the high country. If you’re willing to give an honest day’s labor, you’ll get an honest day’s pay.”

  The pistol came back up and Hampton scowled. “You’re just sayin’ that cause I got the drop on you.”

  Smoke smiled, then quick as a rattlesnake’s strike, reached out and grabbed Hampton’s gun while drawing his own Colt .44 and sticking the barrel under Hampton’s nose. “No George, you’re wrong. You never had the drop on me.” He nodded at Hampton’s pistol. “That there is a Colt Navy model, a single-action revolver. You have to cock the hammer ’fore it’ll shoot, and I can draw and fire twice before you can cock that pistol.”

  Hampton’s shoulders slumped and he let go of his gun and raised his hands. “Okay Jensen, it’s your play.”

  Smoke holstered his Colt and handed the other one back to Hampton. “I told you, George, you got two choices. You can get on that pony there and head on back to Texas, or I can give you a note and send you up to one of the spreads hereabouts and you can start working and feeling like a man again. It’s all up to you.”

  Hampton looked down at his worn and shabby boots and britches, then back to Smoke. “That’s no choice, Mr. Jensen. You give me that note and I promise I’ll not make you sorry you trusted me.”

  Smoke walked to Horse and took a scrap of paper and pencil stub out of his saddlebags. After a moment, he handed the paper to Hampton. “Take this note to the next place you see up to the north of mine. It belongs to the Norths. They can always use an extra hand, and Johnny pays fair wages.”

  Hampton held out his hand. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Jensen, but ... thanks.”

  Smoke grinned, knowing Hampton was a friend for life. In the rough-hewn country of the West, favors, or slights, were not soon forgotten. Help a man who’s down on his luck, and he’s honor-bound to repay you, even at the cost of his life, if it comes to that.

  * * *

  Smoke rode into Big Rock, Colorado, the town he had helped build, and began to relax again. If there was any place he felt safe, other than the Sugarloaf, it was here. Though it was growing faster than he liked, Smoke knew just about everyone in town and counted all of them as friends. In spite of his reputation as one of the most feared shootists in the country, the citizens of Big Rock knew Smoke personally for what he was, a good neighbor who would never let a friend down and a man any would be proud to ride the river with.

  As Smoke nodded to the men and tipped his hat to the ladies he passed, he saw Sheriff Monte Carson in front of the jail. He was sitting in a chair tilted back on its hind legs with his back against the wall and his hat down over his face, snoring loudly.

  Smoke smiled at the sight of the sheriff sleeping peacefully. He and Monte Carson had become very good friends over the past few years. Carson had once been a well-known gunfighter, though he had never rode the owlhoot trail.

  A local rancher with plans to take over the county had hired Carson to be the sheriff of Fontana, a town just down the road from Smoke’s Sugarloaf spread. Carson went along with the man’s plans for a while, ’til he couldn’t stomach the rapings and killings any longer. He put his foot down and let it be known that Fontana was going to be run in a law-abiding manner from then on.

  The rancher, Tilden Franklin, sent a bunch of riders in to teach the upstart sheriff a lesson. The men killed Carson’s two deputies and seriously wounded him, taking over the town. In retaliation, Smoke founded the town of Big Rock, and he and his band of aging gunfighters cleaned house in Fontana.

  When the fracas was over, Smoke offered the job of sheriff of Big Rock to Monte Carson. He married a grass widow and settled into the job like he was born to it. Neither Smoke nor the citizens of Big Rock ever had cause to regret his taking the job.

  Being careful not to make a sound, Smoke eased down off Horse and took one of the apples Sally had given him from his saddlebag. He walked over to stand in front of Carson and pitched the apple into his lap.

  Carson snorted, flipped his chair forward, and drew his pistol with his right hand while pushing his hat back with his left, all in one quick movement.


  As his pistol cleared leather, Smoke reached out and grabbed the barrel in his left hand, saying, “Hold on there, Hoss.”

  A sheepish Monte Carson grinned. “Oh, it’s you, Smoke.”

  Smoke released the weapon and hooked another chair over with the toe of his boot. He straddled the chair backward, leaning his arms on the back of the chair and his chin on arms. “Pretty fast draw for an old fart like you, Monte. Been practicing?”

  “An old fart, am I?” Carson glared at Smoke through narrowed eyes. “Best I remember, I’m only a couple of years older than you, and you’re—”

  “Too old to remember all my birthdays, that’s for sure.” Smoke interrupted. “Matter of fact, I’m old enough to remember when a fella used to be offered some coffee or a drink when he came to visit the big city, but I guess times have changed.”

  Carson shook his head. “Smoke Jensen acting like company, now that’s a laugh. The coffeepot’s in the same place it’s always been, and this here jail ain’t no restaurant and this here sheriff ain’t no waiter. You want some, you’re welcome to it.”

  With that statement, Carson leaned his chair back and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

  Smoke laughed and got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. As he was pouring the evil-looking brew, he heard Carson say, “And pour me a cup while you’re at it. These legs are so old I don’t know if they’ll carry me in there to get my own.”

  Smoke carried both cups out on the boardwalk and handed one to Carson. “Monte, I know cowboys like their coffee strong and all, but,” he looked down at the liquid in his cup that had the color and consistency of axle grease in winter, “don’t you think this bellywash is just a touch past due for thinning?”

  Carson smiled as he blew on the coffee to cool it and drank a mouthful. He smacked his lips and said, “Ahhh. That’s good. It’s like an old trail cook once told me. The secret to makin’ good coffee is that it don’t take near as much water as you think it do.”