Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “You boys in there,” Smoke called. “You want to die for Casey, do you? I’ve already killed two of you back on the road.”

  “Your daddy ride with Mosby?” someone called from inside.

  “That’s right.”

  “You had a brother named Luke?”

  “I did.”

  “Yeah, well, he was shot in the back and the gold he was guardin’ was stole. Casey done it, not me! You got no call to come after me.”

  Smoke fired several more rounds into the house.

  “Jensen! The name is Barry! I come from Nevada. Din’t have nothin’ to do with no war, never been East. They’s another fella in here just like me. We herd cattle for wages, we ain’t got no stake in this fight.”

  “Come on out and ride away then,” Smoke called. “I won’t shoot you.”

  The cabin door opened and two men came out with their hands up.

  “We’re just goin’ to get our horses,” one of them shouted.

  “Go ahead.”

  The two men were moving toward the barn when a couple of shots rang out. Both were shot in the back by someone from within the house.

  “What’d you do that for, Casey?” Smoke shouted. “They weren’t part of this.”

  “When I pay men to work for me, I expect loyalty,” Casey called back.

  Smoke didn’t answer. He was quiet for several moments, trying to decide what he should do.

  “Jensen? Jensen, you still out there?” Casey called.

  Casey’s voice was getting nervous.

  “Jensen? Come on down. Come out in the open so I can see you and we can talk.”

  Smoke still didn’t answer.

  “Jensen, you there?”

  “I think he’s gone,” another voice said.

  “That’s what he wants us to think, you fool,” Casey’s voice replied.

  Smoke followed the arroyo on around to the bunkhouse. In a pile behind the bunkhouse he found a bunch of rags, and in the bunkhouse, a jar of coal oil. He stuck the rags down into the mouth of the coal-oil jar, lit it, then threw it at the ranch house. The jar broke and the fire erupted almost immediately. As the logs burned, they began filling the house with smoke and fumes.

  From inside the house, Smoke heard coughing. Then one man broke from the cabin and started running. Smoke cut him down with his rifle. A second began running and Smoke pulled the trigger on the rifle, only to hear the hammer fall on an empty chamber. He pulled his pistol and shot the man once, watching him double over with a slug in his gut.

  Casey waited until the last minute before he stumbled out into the yard, his eyes blinded from the smoke and fumes. He fired wildly as he stumbled around, finally pulling the trigger repeatedly on an empty gun.

  Smoke walked calmly up to him, even as Casey was trying to reload, and knocked him out.

  Just outside the little town of Prosperity, Smoke dumped a bound and gagged Casey onto the ground. Curious about what was going on, several townspeople came forth to watch as Smoke took a rope from the saddle of Casey’s horse and began making a noose.

  “What do you think you are going to do here?” Marshal Crowell asked.

  “Obvious, isn’t it?” Smoke replied. “I’m going to hang the son of a bitch who killed my brother and my pa.”

  “I am an officer of the law. What if I ordered you to stop?” Crowell asked.

  “Then I’d just kill you and hang him,” Smoke answered.

  “But you can’t do this,” Crowell insisted. “He hasn’t been found guilty.”

  “Yeah, he has. He’s already admitted it to me,” Smoke said. “I also watched him kill two of his own men. He shot them in the back.”

  “That doesn’t make what you are doing right,” Crowell said.

  “It’s right in my book,” Smoke said. He put the noose around Casey’s neck, then threw the other end of the rope over a tree limb. “Get up on your horse,” he ordered.

  “You go to hell,” Casey said, spitting at him.

  “Have it your way,” Smoke said. He tied the end of the rope to the saddle horn, and started to slap the horse on the rump.

  “No, wait!” Casey shouted. “Not that way.” Casey’s hands were tied in front of him, but he put them on the pommel, then swung himself into the saddle.

  “You got anything to say before I send you to hell?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah. I already sent your brother and your pa there, and when I get there I’m going to kick them both in the ass. Now, do your damn’dest, you son of a bitch.”

  Smoke slapped Casey’s horse on the rump. With a protesting whinny, it leaped forward and Casey, dying quickly from a broken neck, swung back and forth, the only sound being the creaking of the rope and the cawing of a distant crow.

  “I’ll be notifying the governor about this,” Crowell said.

  “You do what you think you need to do,” Smoke said. Without looking back, Smoke walked over to his horse, swung into the saddle, and rode away.

  “Son of a bitch,” someone said, almost reverently. “That’s the damn’dest thing I done ever seen.”

  Chapter Six

  With Matt Cavanaugh, three years later

  True to his promise, Eddie managed to get Matt a job at McDougal’s Saloon. There, Matt emptied and shined the spittoons, swept and mopped the floors, washed dishes, chopped wood in the wintertime, and swatted flies in the summertime.

  During the school year, they came to work at the saloon for two hours before school opened, then worked from three o’ clock until eleven every night. Despite the long hours, the owner of the saloon, Drew McDougal, did treat them fairly, and he did provide them with lunch every day.

  For their labors, Matt and Eddie were paid a dollar and a half per week, but the money went to the Home, not to them.

  “This money is needed to pay the expenses,” Captain Mumford informed them.

  As time went by, Matt learned that every penny any of the home residents earned went directly to Captain Mumford. And while he claimed to spend it all on upkeep, there was no one to look over his books but him. Whatever he spent it on, Matt was certain it wasn’t spent on food or clothes. He got new clothes only when he outgrew what he was wearing, or when he wore them out.

  In Matt’s case, it was generally a matter of outgrowing them because he had grown considerably in the three years he had been there. Although there were several kids who were older than his twelve years, only two, Connors and Simon, both of whom were sixteen, were bigger than he. And in their case, they were only marginally bigger.

  In the early days of Matt’s stay in the Home, Connors and Simon had sometimes taken it upon themselves to punish him for real, or imagined, infractions. But there came a time when Connors told Matt to bend over and grab his ankles so he could swat him.

  “Hit me with that paddle one more time and I’ll cram it down your throat,” Matt responded menacingly.

  Startled by Matt’s challenge, Connors walked away without administering punishment, and now neither Connors nor Simon was courageous enough to take him on by himself.

  Matt’s size, courage, and demeanor had made him a popular leader among the others in the Home, and even those who were older than Matt looked up to him.

  That is why when Matt told them all to follow his lead and not eat supper one night, no one questioned him as to why they should do such a thing. When they went through the line for supper, they accepted their bowls of pease porridge, then went to their tables. As they looked toward Matt, he reminded them by sign and signal that they were not to eat their porridge.

  In the meantime, they watched as Connors and Simon walked confidently back to their table. Unlike the other residents of the home, neither Connors nor Simon had to go through the line. Instead, they were served at their seats.

  One of the kitchen workers brought two bowls out to them and set them on the table in front of Connors and Simon.

  “Here, hold on!” Simon called out as the woman started back toward the kitchen. “What is this
?”

  “It’s your supper,” the woman answered.

  “The hell it is. We’re having ham tonight.”

  The kitchen worker shook her head. “No ham,” she said.

  “What’s going on here? What happened to our ham?”

  “I haven’t seen any ham,” the woman answered.

  Though none of the other residents laughed out loud, they all repressed giggles and smiles while they watched the frustration of the two oldest of their number as they tried to eat the pease porridge.

  “What is this?” Connors shouted in anger. “Nobody can eat this shit!”

  Again, there were repressed giggles from the other residents. Then, at a nod from Matt, everyone got up from the table and took their untouched bowls of porridge to the garbage can. There, they dumped the porridge, turned the bowls in, then filed out of the dining room.

  “Connors, did you see that?” Simon asked.

  “Did I see what?”

  “None of them ate.”

  “Yeah, well, who can blame them?” he replied, looking at his meal with disgust.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Simon said. “None of them ate so much as one bite. They always eat.”

  “Yeah,” Connors said. “Yeah, you’re right. I wonder why not. Why don’t you follow them, Simon, and see if you can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Yeah,” Simon said. “I will.”

  Simon slipped out of the dining room, then hanging back a little, watched as the others went into the chapel. Curious, he moved up to the door of the chapel, then looked inside. Everyone was sitting quietly in the pews, with their heads bowed and their eyes closed.

  “Simon,” Matt called, seeing Simon standing at the door. “It’s so good to see you here. Come on in.”

  “What?” Simon asked.

  “Why don’t you go get Connors and bring him with you? We would love to have you two join us.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Why, we’re having a prayer service, of course,” Matt said.

  “What do you mean you’re having a prayer service? How can you have a prayer service if there ain’t no preacher here?”

  “You don’t need a preacher to have a prayer service,” Matt said. “All you need to do is pray. Won’t you join us?” He reached out as if to grab Simon and pull him on into the chapel.

  Simon held out his hands as if warding Matt off. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I ain’t doin’ no prayin’ .”

  “What about Connors? Won’t you ask him to join us?”

  “You’re crazy,” Simon said. “There ain’t neither one of us goin’ to be comin’ in here and sayin’ a bunch of prayers.”

  “Then we will pray for you,” Matt said.

  “You’re crazy, I tell you. Every last one of you.”

  “Oh, Simon?” Matt called as Simon started to leave.

  “What?” Simon responded in a belligerent bark.

  “Enjoy your pease porridge.”

  The others laughed out loud.

  “You’re crazy,” Simon repeated.

  Matt waited for a moment, then looked over at Eddie. “Make sure he’s gone.”

  Eddie went to the door, looked through it, then turned back. “He’s gone,” he said.

  “Let’s eat,” Matt said, and with that, everyone crowded up to the altar where, from beneath the pulpit, Matt pulled out a large cooked ham.

  “Oh, this looks so delicious,” Tamara said. Tamara was two years older than Matt. In the early days, when Matt first came to the home, it had been Tamara who recognized the grief he was suffering, and who had tried, as well as she knew how, to comfort him. “Where did you get it?”

  “The ladies of the Episcopal church cooked it especially for us,” Matt said. “I just happened to be outside Captain Mumford’s office when they brought it. Captain Mumford thanked them for it, then told Connors that he and Simon could both have a little of it before he took it home.”

  “Took it home? He was going to take it home?” someone asked.

  Matt nodded. “Yeah. You think pease porridge is all we ever get? Churches and the like been bringing us food ever since I got here, only we don’t ever see any of it,” Matt said.

  “That ain’t right,” one of the boys said. He had only been there about six months.

  “I agree, Billy, it isn’t right, so that’s why I decided to do something about it,” Matt said.

  “Get this ham?”

  “Yeah, get this ham. I waited until Captain Mumford stepped out of the office, then I took it and brought it here.”

  “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do that,” one of the others said.

  “Sure you would have,” Matt said. “All you would have had to do was smell it when you were hungry.”

  “When is anyone not hungry in here?” one of the other girls asked, and they all laughed.

  Timmy carved the ham and several came back for seconds, until everyone had eaten their fill. Now, the only thing remaining was the large ham bone.

  “What are you going to do with the ham bone?” Eddie asked.

  “My mama always made beans with it,” Matt said. “Beans and cornbread.”

  “Oh, beans and cornbread. If I weren’t so full right now, that would make me really hungry,” Timmy said, and again, everyone laughed.

  “Seriously, what are you going to do with it? If you just throw it away and Captain Mumford discovers it, we’re all going to get in trouble,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah,” Matt said with a big smile. “If Captain Mumford discovers it, he really will be mad, won’t he? I mean, really mad. There’s no tellin’ what he might do.” Matt chuckled.

  “I’ll say,” Eddie started. “He would . . .” Eddie paused in mid-sentence. “Wait a minute! You are up to something, aren’t you? What are you going to do?”

  “You’ll see,” Matt said.

  “Matt, do be careful,” Tamara said.

  “I will be,” Matt promised.

  The next evening, just before supper, Captain Mumford came into the dining room.

  “I want all of you to line up!” he shouted. “Boys on the right, girls on the left.”

  Everyone began to do as he ordered, though nobody had any idea what is was all about. They began talking among themselves, asking questions and speculating as to what this was about.

  “Shut up!” Mumford shouted. “All of you, just shut up!”

  “Cap’n Mumford, you want me’n Simon to go take care of some of the loudmouths?” Connors asked.

  “I do not, sir!” Mumford said in a cold and calculating voice. “I want you two to stand over there with the boys.”

  “You—you are asking us to stand over there with them?” Connors asked, surprised by the request.

  “I’m not asking you anything,” Mumford said. If anything, his voice was even colder now than it had been earlier. “I am telling you.”

  Simon and Connors exchanged worried and confused glances, then walked over to stand against the wall with the others.

  Mumford was holding a gunnysack.

  “Any time you get several people living together as we do here, the one thing that you must be able to count on is trust,” Mumford said. “You must be able to depend upon one another to be loyal, and honest. The worst thing that can happen in a society such as ours is that one might steal from another.”

  Mumford stuck his hand down into the gunnysack, then pulled out the remnants of the ham the residents had eaten the night before.

  “This ham was to have been a gift to you.” He took in the residents with a wave of his hand. “To all of you,” he continued. “It was provided to us by the ladies of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. I had it on my desk, ready to take back to the kitchen for your supper. I stepped out but for a moment, and when I came back, it was gone.”

  No one made a sound.

  “Stolen!” he shouted loudly.

  He looked over at Simon and Connors. “Then, this morning, I
found this ham bone in the trunk shared by these two.”

  “What?” Connors shouted. “Look here, we didn’t have nothin’ to do with stealin’ that ham!”

  “I will not tolerate stealing, sir, and I will not tolerate lying,” Mumford said coldly.

  “But we didn’t . . .” Simon said.

  “Hush, sir! Hush your foul mouth,” Mumford said. “You are both sixteen years old. I have kept you on here out of the goodness of my heart. But I am not required to keep anyone beyond the age of sixteen. So, I am ordering both of you out of here tonight.”

  “What do you mean out of here? Where are we supposed to go?”

  “I don’t care where you go,” Mumford said. “As long as you aren’t here. If I see either of you here ever again, I shall go to the sheriff ’s office and have you both charged with trespassing.”

  “I don’t know who did this to us,” Connors shouted to the boys and girls who were lined up on either side of the dining hall. “But when I find out, I will get you. I will get you for this, I promise!”

  “Get out,” Mumford said.

  Connors and Simon both left, followed by the cheers, jeers, and catcalls of the ones they were leaving behind.

  The next day, Mumford asked Matt to come to his office.

  “Yes, Captain Mumford?” Matt said.

  “I’ve been watching you, Matt,” Mumford said. “And I like the way you handle yourself.”

  Matt didn’t answer, because he had no idea where the discussion was going.

  “Connors and Simon served their purpose well, as long as they were here,” Mumford continued. “But they outlived their purpose, and it was time for them to go.”

  “I think everyone was happy to see them go,” Matt said.

  “Maybe so,” Mumford said. “Still, as I say, they did serve their purpose. Matt, when you are in charge of something like this, you need people to help you. Specifically, you need someone who is himself a resident, someone who knows what is going on, who knows what the others are talking about. Someone who can report back when they see misbehavior.”