I am the wound and the knife!
I am the blow and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the wheel
—the victim and the executioner.
Baudelaire
1
They had struck as cowards usually do, in a pack and at night. And when the man of the house was not at home. They had come skulking like thieving foot-padders; but instead of robbery on their minds, their thoughts were of a much darker nature.
Murder.
And they had tried to kill Smoke Jensen’s wife, Sally. When Smoke and Sally had married, just after Smoke almost totally wiped out the small town of Bury, Idaho, Smoke had used another name; but later, during the valley war around Big Rock and Fontana, he had once more picked up his real name, and be damned to all who didn’t like the fact that he had once been a gunfighter.
It had never been a reputation that he had sought out; rather, it had seemed to seek him out. Left alone as a boy, raised by an old mountain man called Preacher, the young man had become one of the most feared and legended gunslingers in all the West. Some say he was the fastest gun alive. Some say that Smoke Jensen had killed fifty, one hundred, two hundred men.
No one really knew for certain.
All anyone really knew was that Smoke had never been an outlaw, never ridden the hoot-owl trail, had no warrants out on him, and was a quiet sort of man. Now married, for several years he had been a farmer/rancher/horse breeder. A peaceful man who got along well with his neighbors and wished only to be left alone.
The night riders had shattered all that.
Smoke had been a hundred miles away, buying cattle, just starting the drive back to his ranch, called the Sugarloaf, when he heard the news. He had cut two horses out of his remuda and tossed a saddle on one. He would ride one, change saddles, and ride the other. They were mountain horses, tough as leather, and they stood up to the hard test.
Smoke did not ruin his horses on the long lonely ride back to the Sugarloaf, did not destroy them as some men might. But he rode steadily. He was torn inside, but above it all Smoke remained a realist, as old Preacher had taught him to be. He knew he would either make it in time, or he would not.
When he saw the snug little cabin in the valley of the high lonesome, the vastness of the high mountains all around it, Smoke knew, somehow, he had made it in time.
Smoke was just swinging down from the saddle when Dr. Colton Spalding stepped out of the cabin, smiling broadly when he spied Smoke. The doctor stopped the gunfighter before Smoke could push open the cabin door.
“She’s going to make it, Smoke. But it was a close thing. If Bountiful had not awakened when she did and convinced Ralph that something was the matter…” The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it would have been all over here.”
“I’m in their debt. But Sally is going to make it?”
“Yes. I have her sedated heavily with laudanum, to help her cope with the pain.”
“Is she awake?”
“No. Smoke, they shot her three times. Shoulder, chest, and side. They left her for dead. She was not raped.”
“Why did they do it? And who were they?”
“No one knows, except possibly Sally. And so far, the sheriff has not been able to question her about it.”
“Bounty hunters, maybe. But there is no bounty on my head. I’m not wanted anywhere that I’m aware of.”
“Nevertheless, Sheriff Carson believes it was bounty hunters. Someone paid to kill you. Or to draw you out, to come after them. The sheriff is with the posse now, trying to track the men.”
“I’ll just look in on her, Colton.”
The doctor nodded and pushed open the cabin door. Smoke stepped past him.
The doctor’s wife, Mona, a nurse, was sitting with several other women in the big main room of the cabin. They smiled at Smoke as he removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. He took off his gunbelt and hung it on another peg.
“Doc said it was all right for me to look in on her.”
Mona nodded her head.
Smoke pushed open the bedroom door and stepped quietly inside, his spurs jingling faintly with each step. A big man, with a massive barrel chest and arms and shoulders packed with muscle, he could move as silently as his nickname implied.
Smoke felt a dozen different emotions as he looked at the pale face of his wife. Her dark hair seemed to make her face look paler. In his mind, there was love and hate and fury and black-tinged thoughts of revenge, all intermingled with sorrow and compassion. Darker emotions filled the tall young man as he sat down in a chair beside the bed and gently placed one big rough hand on his wife’s smaller and softer hand.
Did she stir slightly under his touch? Smoke could not be sure. But he was sure that somehow, in her pain-filled mind, Sally knew that he was there, beside her.
Now, alone, Smoke could allow emotions to change his usually stoic expression. His eyes mirrored his emotions. He wished he could somehow take her pain and let it fill his own body. He took the damp cloth from her head, refreshed it with water, wrung it out, and softly replaced it on her brow.
All through the rest of that day and the long, lonely night that followed, the young man sat by his wife’s bed. Mona Spalding would enter hourly, sometimes shooing Smoke out of the room, tending to Sally’s needs. Doc Spalding slept in a chair, the two other women, Belle North and Bountiful Morrow, Smoke and Sally’s closest neighbors, slept in the spare bedroom.
Outside, the foreman, Pearlie, and the other hands had gathered, war talk on their lips and in the way they stood. Bothering a woman, good or bad, in this time in the West, was a hangin’ matter…or just an outright killin’.
Little Billy, Smoke and Sally’s adopted son, sat on a bench outside the house.
Just as the dawn was breaking golden over the high mountains around the Sugarloaf, Sally opened her eyes and smiled at her husband.
“You look tired,” she said. “Have you had anything to eat?”
“No.”
“Have you been here long?”
“Stop worrying about me. How do you feel?”
“Washed out.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” he said gently. “I go off for a time and you get into a gunfight. That isn’t very ladylike, you know? What would your folks back east think?”
She winked at him.
“Doc says you’re going to be all right, Sally, But you’re going to need lots of rest.”
“Three of them,” she whispered. “I heard them talking. I guess they thought I was dead. One was called Dagget…”
“Hush now.”
“No. Let me say it while I still remember it. I heard one call another Lapeer. He said that if this doesn’t bring you out, nothing will.”
She closed her eyes. Smoke waited while she gathered strength.
Doc Spalding had entered the room, standing in the doorway, listening.
He met Smoke’s eyes and inwardly cringed at the raw savagery he witnessed in the young man’s cold gaze. Spalding had seen firsthand the lightning speed of Smoke’s draw. Had witnessed the coldness of the man when angered. Fresh from the ordered world back east, the doctor was still somewhat appalled at the swiftness of frontier justice. But deep inside him, he would reluctantly agree that it was oftentimes better than the ponderousness of lawyers jabbering and arguing.
Sally said. “The third one was called Moore. Glen Moore. South Colorado, I think. I’m tired, honey.”
Spalding stepped forward. “That’s all, Smoke. Let her sleep. I want to show you something out in the living room.”
In the big room that served as kitchen, dining, and sitting area, the doctor dropped three slugs into Smoke’s callused palm.
He had dug enough lead out of men since his arrival to be able to tell one slug from another. “.44s, aren’t they?”
“Two of them,” Smoke said, fingering the off-slug. “This is a .44-40, I believe.”
“The one that isn’t
mangled up?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the one I dug out of her chest. It came close to killing her, Smoke.” He opened his mouth to say something, sighed, and then obviously thought better of it.
“You got something else to say, Doc?”
He shook his head. “Later. Perhaps Sally will tell you herself; that would be better, I’m thinking. And no, she isn’t going to die. Smoke, you haven’t eaten and you need rest. Mona agrees. She’s fixing you something now. Please. You’ve got to eat.”
“You will eat, and then you will rest,” Belle said, a note of command in her voice. “Johnny is with the posse, Smoke. Velvet is looking after the kids. You’ll eat, and then sleep. So come sit down at the table, Smoke Jensen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Smoke said with a smile.
“I was waiting to be certain,” Sally told him the next morning. “Dr. Spalding confirmed it the day before those men came. I’m pregnant, Smoke.”
A smile creased his lips. He waited, knowing, sensing there was more to come.
Sally’s eyes were serious. “Colton is leaving it all up to me, isn’t he?”
“I reckon, Sally. I don’t know. I do know that your voice is much stronger.”
“I feel much better.”
Smoke waited.
“You’re not going to like what I have to say, Smoke. Not…in one way, that is.”
“No way of knowing that, Sally. Not until you say what’s on your mind.”
She sighed, and the movement hurt her; pain crossed her face. “I’m probably going to have to go back east, Smoke.”
Smoke’s expression did not change. “I think that might be best, Sally. For a time.”
She visibly relaxed. She did not ask why he had said that. She knew. He was going after the men who attacked her. She expected that of him. “You’re not even going to ask why I might have to go back east?”
“I would think it’s because the doctor told you to. But you won’t be going anywhere for weeks. You were hard hit.” He smiled. “I’ve been there, too.” He kissed her mouth. “Now, you rest.”
Mona and Belle stayed for three days; Bountiful lived just over the hill and could come and go with ease. On the morning of the fourth day, Sally was sitting up in bed, her color back. She was still in some pain and very weak, and would be for several more weeks.
Smoke finally brought up the subject. “The Doc is sure that you’re with child?”
“Both of us are,” she smiled with her reply. “I knew before the doctor.”
Discussion of women’s inner workings embarrassed Smoke. He dropped that part of it. “Now tell me why you think you might have to go back east.”
“I have several pieces of lead in me, Smoke. Colton could not get them all. And he does not have the expertise nor the facilities to perform the next operation. And also, I have a small pelvis; the birth might be a difficult one. There is a new—well, a more highly refined procedure that is being used back east. I won’t go into detail about that.”
“Thank you,” Smoke said dryly. “’Cause so far I don’t have much idea of what you’re talking about.”
She laughed softly at her husband. A loving laugh and a knowing laugh. Smoke knew perfectly well what she was saying. He was, for the most part, until they had married, a self-taught man. And over the past few years, she had been tutoring him. He was widely read, and to her delight and surprise, although few others knew it, Smoke was a very good actor, with a surprising range of voices and inflections. She was continually drawing out that side of him.
“Mona’s from back east, isn’t she?”
“I’m way ahead of you, Smoke. Yes, she is. And if I have to go—and I’m thinking it might be best, and you know why, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the baby or the operation—Mona will make all the arrangements and travel most of the way with me.”
“That’ll be good, Sally. Yes. I think you should plan on traveling east.” She knew the set of that chin. Her leaving was settled; her husband had things to do. “You haven’t seen your folks in almost five years. It’s time to visit. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll come out for you when it’s time for you and the baby to return.”
This time her laugh was hearty, despite her injuries. “Smoke, do you know the furor your presence would arouse in Keene, New Hampshire?”
“If fu-ror means what I think it does, why should people get all in a sweat about me coming east?”
“For sure, bands would play, you would be a celebrity, and the police would be upset.”
“Why? I ain’t wanted back there, or anywhere else for that matter.”
She could but smile at him. If he knew, he had dismissed the fact that he was the most famous gunfighter in all of the West; that books—penny dreadfuls—had been and still were being written about his exploits—some of them fact, many of them fiction. That he had been written up in tabloids all over the world, and not just in the English-speaking countries. Her mother and father had sent Sally articles about her husband from all over the world. To say that they had been a little concerned about her safety—for a while—would be putting it mildly.
“People don’t really believe all that crap that’s been written about me, do they? Hell, Sally, I’ve been reported at fourteen different places at once, according to those stories.”
“If they just believed the real things you’ve done, Smoke, that is enough to make people very afraid of you.”
“That’s silly! I never hurt anybody who wasn’t trying to hurt me. People don’t have any reason to be afraid of me.”
“Well, I’m not afraid of you, Smoke. You’re sort of special to me.”
He smiled. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’d have to give it a lot of thought if someone was to offer to trade me a spotted pony for you, Sally.”
2
Smoke Jensen and Sally Reynolds, gunfighter and schoolteacher, had met several years back, in Idaho. Just before Smoke had very nearly wiped out a town and all the people in it for killing his first wife and their child, Nicole and Baby Arthur; the boy named after Smoke’s friend and mentor, the old mountain man, Preacher.
Smoke and Sally had married, living in peace for several years in the high lonesome, vast and beautiful mountains of Colorado. Then a man named Tilden Franklin had wanted to be king of the entire valley…and he had coveted Smoke’s wife, making it public news.
Gold had been discovered in the valley, and a bitter, bloody war had ensued.
And in the end, all Tilden Franklin got was a half-a-dozen slugs in the belly, from the guns of Smoke Jensen, and six feet of hard cold ground.
That had been almost two years back; two years of peace in the valley and in Smoke and Sally’s high-up ranch called the Sugarloaf.
Now that had been shattered.
On the morning of the first full week after the assault on Sally, Smoke sat on the bench outside the snug cabin and sipped his coffee.
Late spring in the mountains.
1880, and the West was slowly changing. There would be another full decade of lawlessness, of wild and woolly days and nights; but the law was making its mark felt all over the area. And Smoke, like so many other western men, knew that was both good and bad. For years, a commonsense type of justice had prevailed, for the most part, in the West, and usually—not always, but usually—it worked. Swiftly and oftentimes brutally, but it worked. Now, things were changing. Lawyers with big words and fancy tongues were twisting facts, hiding the guilt to win a case. And Smoke, like most thinking people, thought that to be wrong.
The coming of courts and laws and lawyers would prove to be both a blessing and a curse.
Smoke, like most western men, just figured that if someone tried to do you a harm or a meanness, just shoot the son of a bitch and have done with it. ’Cause odds were, the guilty party wasn’t worth a damn to begin with. And damn few were ever going to miss them.
Smoke, like so many western men, judged other men by what they gave to society as opposed to what they took awa
y from it. If your neighbor’s house or barn burned down or was blown down in a storm, you helped him rebuild. If his crops were bad or his herd destroyed, you helped him out until next season or loaned him some cows and a few bulls. If he and his family were hungry through no fault of their own, you helped out with food and clothing.
And so on down the line of doing things right.
And if a man wouldn’t help out, chances were he was trash, and the sooner you got rid of him, the better.
Western justice and common sense.
And if people back east couldn’t see that—well, Smoke thought…Well, he really didn’t know what to think about people like that. He’d reserve judgment until he got to know a few of them.
He sipped his coffee and let his eyes drift over that part of his land that he could see from his front yard. And that was a lot of land, but just a small portion of all that he and Sally owned…free and clear.
There was a lot to do before Smoke put Sally on the steam trains and saw her off to the East—and before he started after those who had attacked her like rabid human beasts in the night.
And there was only one thing you could do with a rabid beast.
Kill it.
Billy stepped out of the house and took a seat on the bench beside his adopted father. The boy had been legally adopted by the Jensens; Judge Proctor had seen to that. Billy was pushing hard at his teen years, soon turning thirteen. Already he was a top hand and, even though Smoke discouraged it, a good hand with a gun. Uncommon quick. Smoke and Sally had adopted the boy shortly after the shoot-out in Fontana, and now Billy pulled his weight and then some around the Sugarloaf.
“You and Miss Sally both gonna go away?” Billy asked, his voice full of gloom.
“For a time, Billy. Sally thought about taking you back east with her, but you’re in school here, and doing well. So Reverend Ralph and Bountiful are going to look after you. You’ll stay here at the ranch with Pearlie and the hands. We might be gone for the better part of a year, Billy, so it’s going to be up to you to be the man around the place.”
Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man) Page 25
