Vengeance of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Her husband, the station manager Olaf Johanson, was wiping down the bar when Carlito Suarez, One-Eye Jordan, Curly Bill Cartwright, and Bull burst through the door.

  He slipped his hand around a Greener shotgun out of sight beneath the bar and said, “Howdy, gents. Mighty windy out there today, huh?”

  Suarez grinned widely, exposing a greenish-yellow front tooth. A dentist in Monterey had told him it was gold, but it turned out to be brass. It was a costly lie. The dentist lived to regret it, and died cursing the day he met Perro Muerte. “Sí, señor.” He took his sombrero off and dusted his arms and pants with it. “The dust, she is flying pretty damn mucho today.”

  One-Eye Jordan turned his head and surveyed the clapboard shack. Along one wall were homemade shelves lined with canned goods, a few bolts of cloth, and barrels of dried beans and flour. “This here a store or a dog hole?”

  Johanson grinned. “Well, boys, I ’spect it’s a bit of both. If you’re short of supplies, we can fix you up, at fair prices, and if’n you’re thirsty or hungry, we can do something about that, too.”

  The men sauntered up to the bar and leaned against it. Suarez ordered a tequila and Curly Bill smiled with his lips, but his eyes never changed. “I’d like a whiskey, with a beer chaser if’n it’s not flat.”

  “Make that two,” joined in Bull, in his high voice.

  Johanson’s lips started to curl in a smile, but the look on Bull’s face stopped him cold. He shivered, as if someone had walked over his grave, and reluctantly let go of his shotgun to fix the men their drinks.

  Jordan walked to a window and glanced toward a corral behind the building. There were eight horses grazing on hay piled on the ground. “Them the horses for the stage?” he asked.

  Johanson looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah. Should be here any time now, ’less they broke a wheel or something.”

  He put the drinks on the bar in front of Bull and Cartwright. “You boys up from Laredo?”

  Cartwright threw back his whiskey and followed it with a draught of beer. “Yeah, why?”

  Johanson shrugged. “Oh, no reason. A couple of punchers came through from there earlier today and said a Mexican rancher south of there was burned out. All of his hands and family was killed and his wife and daughter was scalped.”

  Cartwright smiled and held out his glass for a refill. “Yeah, awful what them greasers do to one another, ain’t it?”

  Suarez glanced at the kid, death on his face, then grinned, exposing his tooth again. “Sí, is terrible.”

  Johanson looked from one of the men to another, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.

  Bull sipped his whiskey slowly, almost delicately. “You say that stage is due here soon?”

  Johanson nodded, his hand searching under the bar for his shotgun.

  Bull took another drink. “You work this place all by yourself?”

  Johanson glanced quickly over his shoulder and said in a loud voice. “Yes, I’m here alone.”

  “Lotta work fer one man.” Bull sniffed. “Smells like ya left somethin’ cookin’ in the back room there.”

  Johanson started to bring the shotgun up, but, faster than the eye could follow, a knife appeared in Cartwright’s hand and he swung backhanded across the bar.

  Johanson stepped back, looking startled, and reached for his throat. He found a hole he could stick his fist in, before he fell to the floor, gurgling and drowning in his own blood.

  One-Eye Jordan stepped quickly into the kitchen and came out a moment later dragging a struggling Catherine Johanson into the room by her hair.

  “Hey boys, look what I found me. A wildcat of a woman.”

  He spun her around and grabbed her head and pulled it toward his face, trying to kiss her. A loud boom sounded in the small room, rattling the walls and filling the area with smoke. Catherine backed out of the gunpowder cloud, holding the derringer in front of her. Jordan rolled on the floor, cradling his left hand against his stomach. “Jesus, the bitch shot my fingers off!” he cried, adding to the confusion.

  When Catherine saw her husband writhing on the floor, his blood spurting in the air, she gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

  Bull took two quick steps and slapped her backhanded, knocking her against the wall, unconscious, the derringer falling beside her.

  Suarez bent over Jordan and pulled his hand out where he could see it. It was missing the index and middle finger and was tattooed black from the gunpowder blast. He poured tequila over the hand, causing Jordan to begin wailing again, and wrapped his filthy bandanna around the mutilated stumps. “Git up, Señor One-Eye. You cryin’ like a woman is makin’ my head hurt.”

  “I’m gonna kill that bitch fer what she did to me,” he groaned.

  Bull stepped in front of Catherine’s limp body. He began to undo his belt. “Not just yet, you ain’t,” he growled. “I got me some business with her first.”

  Suarez looked over his shoulder at Cartwright. “Curly, go signal Sundance. We must clean floor before stage come.”

  Cartwright stepped out the door and fired his pistol in the air three times, then returned to the room. He walked to Johanson’s body and squatted before it, careful not to step in the blood that pooled the boards around him. Without haste, he pulled the dead man’s shiny black boots off and took them across the room to the table. He sat and removed his threadbare boots and put on the stationmaster’s newer ones. He stood and shined them on his pants, one at a time, admiring their sheen for a moment. Then, with a jaunty step, he pitched his old boots onto Johanson’s body and dragged it out the rear door and covered it with some firewood he found there.

  Sundance entered the room to find Suarez throwing dirt over the bloodstains and Jordan sitting propped against a wall, rocking back and forth with his wounded hand against his stomach, swigging whiskey with the other, tears streaming down his face.

  Cartwright was in the kitchen, eating some of the food that Catherine had been preparing. Sundance glanced around the small enclosure. “Where’s Bull?”

  Suarez shrugged. “He in other room. Say he have business with lady there.”

  Sundance grimaced and shook his head. “Lord save me from galoots who think with their balls ’stead o’ their brains.”

  He pointed to Jordan. “Git off your ass and pull the mounts around back and outta sight. The stage’ll be here any minute an’ we don’t have much time.”

  Once the blood was covered and the horses were hidden, he stationed Suarez and Cartwright behind the door to the building and told Jordan to stay in the kitchen. Bull strolled in from the Johansons’ living quarters, fixing his pants, sweat running down his face and making rivulets in the dirt.

  “Where’re the rest of the boys, boss?”

  “I left them outta sight over that ridge yonder. I figger we got enough to do what we need right here.”

  “What you want me to do?”

  Sundance inclined his head toward the back door. “You station yourself behind the corner of the building. The stage driver will send the passengers in while he and the man riding shotgun change horses. They’s your responsibility.”

  Bull tipped his hat and drew his shotguns, breaking them open to check the loads as he ambled out the door.

  A few minutes later, the stage pulled up outside amid a squealing of wheel-brakes and a cloud of dust. There was much excited talking and laughing as four passengers unloaded and headed for the station, anxious to get out of the stifling Texas heat and to stretch muscles cramped from the jolting ride.

  Sundance was behind the bar, wearing an apron he had liberated from the kitchen. The first person through the door was a middle-aged white man, dressed in black, carrying a brown case worn yellow in spots. He looked like a drummer to Sundance. He was followed by three women, all appearing past forty years of age and wearing heavy makeup and brightly colored dresses with hats and carrying small parasols to ward off the sun. Saloon girls, unless I miss my guess, thought Sundance as they approached the ba
r.

  Sundance inclined his head. “Mister, ladies. How can I help you?”

  The man put his case down and leaned his elbows on the bar-rail. “Whiskey, if you please, my good man.”

  Two of the women asked for beer, and one ordered whiskey. Sundance grinned as he fixed the drinks, thinking he was the most expensive bartender these folks would ever meet.

  As he set the glasses down, there came a loud double explosion from behind the building, shaking dust out of the ceiling, to fall and settle like snow on the bar top. The women screamed and the man reached inside his coat, stopping when he felt the barrel of Cartwright’s Colt against his ear.

  Sundance raised his hands, palms out. “Settle down, now, folks. Finish your drinks and nobody’ll get hurt.”

  Suarez put his arms around two of the women. “Especially you ladies,” he murmured, dropping his hands to caress their breasts.

  From outside came a single scream, followed by a sound like a watermelon falling off a table onto the floor. A moment later, Bull walked in, wiping blood and hair off the butt of his shotgun with a dusty bandanna. He raised his eyebrows at Sundance’s look. “The driver didn’t wanna die, so I helped him along a little. Weren’t no need to waste a shell on ’im, so I jist tapped him on the head.” He frowned, looking down at his gun. “Damn near broke my stock.”

  One of the women moaned softly and sunk to the ground in a faint. The other two shut their eyes and began to pray to themselves, evidently hoping for more mercy than they typically gave their clients.

  Sundance glanced at the drummer. “What’s in the case?”

  He sleeved sweat off his forehead before answering, then placed the case on the bar. “Airtights.” He opened the case to reveal several tin cans bearing the names Beef Biscuit, Meat Biscuit, and Condensed Milk. “I work for the Gail Borden company. She’s trying to expand her market to the southwest.”

  He continued, sweat pouring off his face. “It’s really quite popular up north.”

  Cartwright picked up one of the cans, sniffing it to see if it had a smell. “Mister, that’s ’bout the dumbest thang I ever heared.” He waved his hand at the window. “Look around, pardner. There ain’t nothin’ out there ’ceptin’ beeves. We got pretty near all the meat and milk we want, jest fer the takin’. What fer we need beef in a can?”

  Suarez laughed. “Sí, is said, only fool eats his own meat in this country.”

  The drummer stammered, “But this is different. You can carry these tins with you in your saddlebags and not have to eat bacon and beans with every meal. We even have tinned peaches and tomatoes so you can have them in the winter.”

  Bull pushed his way into the group. “Hey, I like peaches. You got any of those in there?”

  Sundance jerked his Colt and shot the drummer in the face, the booming of his gun causing the others to curse and cover their ears, and the drummer to be thrown backwards, landing spread-eagled on his back on top of a small rough-hewn table in the middle of the room.

  “Enough of this chatter. Bull, put that tin down and go out to the stage and see what’s in the strongbox. We need to git outta here ’fore anybody else decides to come visitin’.”

  The women began crying and begging Suarez and Cartwright to let them live. “We won’t tell anyone anything,” one said, rubbing her hand up and down Cartwright’s arm, pleading for her life. “I can make you happy, just give me a chance,” she purred, tears on her cheeks and terror in her eyes.

  “Well darlin’,” he drawled, no life at all in his eyes, “I intend to give you that chance.”

  Bull walked into the room, a metal strongbox looking small on his shoulder. He dropped it to the ground with a loud thump. “H’yar it is, boss.”

  Sundance inclined his head at Suarez. “Carlito,” he said.

  Suarez walked to the box and drew his pistol, then shot the lock off. His bullet ricocheted off the metal and buried itself in the wall next to Bull’s head, causing him to curse and duck. “Goddamn, Suarez, watch what you’re doin’!”

  Suarez grinned. “Sorry, amigo. I aim a little better next time.”

  Bull nodded, then frowned and glowered at Suarez through narrowed eyes, wondering just what he meant by that remark.

  Sundance toed the box open with his boot, revealing a pile of letters and two canvas bank bags. He reached down and picked out the bags, holding them up in front of Cartwright. The kid drew his knife and slit them without a word, letting handfuls of greenbacks and double-eagle gold coins fall to the floor.

  Sundance’s face broke into a toothy grin. “Okay, boys, fun’s over. Pack that dinero, saddle up some of those broncs out back, set fire to this place, and let’s git outta here.”

  Cartwright said, “Hey, wait a minute. What about the women?” He rubbed his crotch in an obscene gesture. “I’m not finished here jest yet.”

  Sundance said, “Hell, bring ’em along.” He waved his hands at the corral behind the building. “We got plenty of horseflesh to carry ’em on.”

  One of the women groaned and said, “Oh no.”

  Cartwright put his palm against her cheek. “It’s your choice, darlin’.” He glanced at the cooling body of the drummer, still leaking blood and gore out of his skull. “We kin leave ya here, if’n ya want.”

  Sundance started to leave, hesitated, and pointed over his shoulder at the shelves against the far wall. “Bull, before you torch this place, pack up any supplies we might need and bring ’em along. It might be a while ’fore we git to town again.”

  Cartwright, his arm around the woman’s shoulder, asked, “Where we headed, boss?”

  Sundance raised his eyebrows. “Why, north, of course. We’re heading for Smoke country. I got me a score to settle, boys, and I’m tired of waitin’.”

  As the group mounted and rode off, no one noticed a small figure scramble out the back door of the burning building, her dress on fire.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cal hollered, “Gosh darn it, Pearlie. Why for do we have to do this?”

  He and Pearlie were standing waist deep in a small brook three quarters of the way up the mountain they’d been climbing. Pearlie had ordered Cal into the water with him, and was now standing behind him, picking ticks and fleas off his hide. Cal was shivering and shaking and had turned a light blue color in the near-freezing stream.

  “Listen up, pup,” Pearlie answered, as though talking to a small child. “If’n we don’t git these critters off’n our skin now, they’ll fester up and cause itchin’ like you never had before in your born days.”

  “Aw, Pearlie. I had ticks afore. They didn’t bother me none. Hell, anybody who herds beeves gits used to ticks ’n fleas and such.”

  Pearlie shook his head. “Yeah, boy. You’ve had ticks before, but these’r high mountain ticks. They’s a difference. Kinda like the difference ’tween a tame shorthorn you’re always dealin’ with, an’ a rangy ole longhorn out in the bush. These here critters’ll eat you fer lunch, and carry off your horse fer dessert.”

  The two men had ridden through very thick underbrush for the last half day, switching back and forth and trying to find a trail through the dense undergrowth. The ride left them covered from head to toe with hundreds of thick, voracious mountain ticks, and not just a few fleas.

  When it came time to pitch camp, with still no sign of Smoke Jensen, Pearlie stripped down to his longjohns and told Cal to do the same. With much protesting, Cal followed him into the frigid water.

  After picking each other as clean of the pests as they could, Pearlie made Cal take a currycomb to both mounts to try and rid them of some of the ticks, while he made a fire and prepared their supper.

  Cal, with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, walked to the campfire, still grumbling about never having taken so many baths in his life until he met up with Smoke and joined his crew.

  Pearlie grinned and tossed him a steaming biscuit. “Here, young’un, eat this sinker and maybe it’ll take your mind off ’n your troubles fer a spell
.”

  Cal juggled the hot biscuit from hand to hand, trying to keep it from burning him. Finally, with a deep sigh, he shoved the entire thing in his mouth and began to chew as if he hadn’t eaten for days. “Hmmm, I swear Pearlie, you’re damn near as good a cook as Miss Sally is.”

  Shaking his head, Pearlie poured them both cups of coffee as black as Mississippi mud. “You only think that ’cause you’re ’bout starvin’ to death, being as how it’s been mite near six hours since we last ate.”

  Cal squatted before the fire, took his tin plate and heaped it full of beans and fried fatback, and piled three more biscuits on top of that. After a giant draught of coffee, he began to shovel food into his mouth as fast as he could, making Pearlie grin in disbelief.

  “I don’t know how you do it, boy. If’n you ate any faster, you wouldn’t need teeth a’tall. You could jest git an ole kerosene funnel and put it in your mouth and pour the food down your gullet.”

  Cal tried to smile, but his bulging cheeks wouldn’t allow it, so he continued to eat, ignoring Pearlie’s remarks. Finally, satiated, he put his plate and empty coffee cup down and leaned back against his saddle. He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward Pearlie’s saddlebags. “How about throwin’ me your fixin’s and gittin’ that there bottle of Kaintuck whiskey out’n your bag and let’s have us a little smoke and a drink or two?”

  Pearlie put his head in his hands and mumbled, “Oh God, Smoke is gonna kill me. I’ve done gone and corrupted this poor young’un and taught him evil ways.”

  With a sigh, he handed Cal his pouch of Bull Durham and a packet of papers. “You’ll have to git your own fire,” he mumbled sarcastically to the boy.

  While Cal fumbled and cursed, spilling more tobacco than he managed to roll in the paper, Pearlie poured small amounts of whiskey into their cups and passed one over to Cal.