Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man)

by Johnstone, William W.

  Damned if he really wasn’t beginning to look like a dandy. Except for his eyes; those cold, expressionless, and emotionless eyes. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that.

  Or was there? he pondered, smiling.

  Oh, yes, there was.

  Allowing himself a chuckle, he swiftly broke camp and packed it all up, carefully dousing his fire and then scattering the ashes and dousing them again. He mounted up and swung Drifter’s head toward the south and slightly west. If he couldn’t find what he was looking for in Colorado City, he’d head on down to Jim Beckworth’s town of Pueblo—although some folks tended to spell it Beckwourth.

  Smoke stopped in at the fanciest store in town and browsed some, feeling silly and foppish in his high-top lace-up boots and his city britches tucked into the tops like some of them explorer people he’d seen pictures of. But if he was gonna act and look like a sissy, he might as well learn the part—except for the walk—cause he damn sure was gonna look mighty funny if he could find him a pair of those tinted eyeglasses.

  He found several pairs—one blue-tinted, one yellow-tinted, and one rose-tinted.

  “Oh, what the hell,” he muttered.

  He bought all three pairs and a little hard case to hold them in, to keep them from getting broken.

  Smoke put on his red-tinted eyeglasses and walked outside, thinking that they sure gave a fellow a different outlook on things.

  “Well, well,” a cowboy said, stepping back and eyeballing Smoke and his fancy getup. “If you jist ain’t the purtiest thing I ever did see.” Then he started laughing.

  Smoke gritted his teeth and started to brush past the half-drunk puncher.

  The puncher grabbed Smoke by the upper arm and spun him around, a startled look on his face as his fingers gripped the thick, powerful muscles of Smoke’s upper arm.

  Smoke shook his arm loose. Remembering all the grammar lessons Sally had given him, and the lessons that the urbane and highly educated gambler, Louis Longmont, had taught him, Smoke said, “I say, my good fellow, unhand me, please!”

  The cowboy wasn’t quite sure just exactly what he’d grabbed hold of. That arm felt like it was made of pure oak, but the speech sounded plumb goofy.

  “What the hell is you, anyways?”

  Smoke drew himself erect and looked down at the smaller man. “I, my good man, am an ar-tist!”

  “Ar-tist? You paint pitchers?”

  “I sketch pic-tures!” Smoke said haughtily.

  “Do tell? How much you charge for one of them sketchies?”

  “Of whom?”

  “Huh?”

  Smoke sighed. “Whom do you wish me to sketch?”

  “Why, hell…me, o’ course!”

  “I’m really in a hurry, my good fellow. Perhaps some other time.”

  “I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

  That brought Smoke up short. Twenty dollars was just about two thirds of what the average puncher made a month, and it was hard-earned wages. Smoke stepped back, taking a closer look at the man. This was no puncher. His boots were too fancy and too highly shined. His dress was too neat and too expensive. And his guns—two of them, worn low and tied down—marked him.

  “Well…I might be persuaded to do a quick sketch. But not here in the middle of the street, for goodness sake!”

  “Which way you headin’, pardner?”

  Smoke gestured with his arm, taking in the entire expanse. “I am but a free spirit, a wanderer, traveling where the wind takes me, enjoying the blessing of this wild and magnificent land.”

  Preacher, Smoke thought, wherever you are, you are probably rolling on the ground, cackling at this performance.

  Smoke had no idea if Preacher were dead or alive; but he preferred to believe him alive, although he would be a very old man by now. But still?…

  The gunfighter looked at Smoke, squinting his eyes. “You shore do talk funny. I’m camped on the edge of town. You kin sketch me there.”

  “Certainly, my good man. Let us be off.”

  Before leaving town, Smoke bought a jug of whiskey and gave it to the man, explaining, “Sometimes subjects tend to get a bit stiff and they appear unnatural on the paper. For the money, I want to do this right.”

  The man was falling-down drunk by the time they got to his campsite.

  Smoke helped him off his horse and propped him up against a tree. Then he began to sketch and chat as he worked.

  “I am very interested in the range of mountains known as the Sangre de Cristos. Are you familiar with them?”

  “Damn sure am. What you wanna know about them? You just ax me and I’ll tell you.”

  “I am told there is a plethora of unsurpassed beauty in the range.”

  “Huh?”

  “Lots of pretty sights.”

  “Oh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Damn shore is that.”

  “My cousin came through here several years ago, on his way to California. Maurice DeBeers. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

  “Cain’t say as I have, pardner.”

  “He stopped by a quaint little place for a moment or two. In the Sangre de Cristos. He didn’t stay, but he said it was…well, odd.”

  “A town?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “There ain’t no towns in there.”

  “Oh, but I beg to differ. My cousin wrote me about it. Oh…pity! What was the name? Dead something-or-the-other.”

  The man looked at him, an odd shift to his eyes. “Dead River?”

  “Yes! That’s it! Thank you!”

  Drunk as he was, the man was quick in snaking out a pistol. He eased back the hammer and pointed the muzzle at Smoke’s belly.

  5

  Smoke dropped his sketch pad and threw his hands into the air. He started running around and around in a little circle. “Oh, my heavens!” he screamed, putting as much fright in his voice as he could. Then he started making little whimpering sounds.

  The outlaw—and Smoke was now sure that he was—smiled and lowered his gun, easing down the hammer. “All right, all right! Calm down ’fore you have a heart attack, pilgrim. Hell, I ain’t gonna shoot you.”

  Smoke kept his hands high in the air and forced his knees to shake. He felt like a total fool but knew his life depended on his making the act real. And so far, it was working.

  “Take all my possessions! Take all my meager earnings! But please don’t shoot me, mister. Please. I simply abhor guns and violence.”

  The outlaw blinked. “You does what to ’em?”

  “I hate them!”

  “Why didn’t you just say that? Well, hell, relax. Don’t pee your fancy britches, sissy-boy. I ain’t gonna shoot you. I just had to check you out, that’s all.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t understand. May I please lower my hands?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t start beggin’. You really is who you say you is, ain’t you?” His brow furrowed in whiskey-soaked rumination. “Come to think of it, just who in the hell is you, anyways?”

  “I am an artist.”

  “Not that! What’s your name, sissy-britches?” He lifted the jug and took a long, deep pull, then opened his throat to swallow.

  “Shirley DeBeers,” Smoke said.

  The outlaw spat out the rotgut and coughed for several minutes. He pounded his chest and lifted red-rimmed eyes, disbelieving eyes to Smoke.

  “Shirley! That there ain’t no real man’s name!”

  Smoke managed to look offended. What he really wanted to do was take the jerk’s guns away from him and shove both of them down his throat. Or into another part of the outlaw’s anatomy.

  “I will have you know, sir, that Shirley is really a very distinguished name.”

  “I’ll take your word for that. Get to sketching, Shirley.”

  “Oh, I simply couldn’t!” Smoke fanned his face with both hands. “I feel flushed. I’m so distraught!”

  “Shore named you right,” the outlaw muttered. “All rig
ht, Shirley. If you ain’t gonna draw my pitcher, sit down and lets us palaver.”

  Smoke sat down. “I’ve never played palaver; you’ll have to teach me.”

  The outlaw put his forehead into a hand and muttered under his breath for a moment. “It means we’ll talk, Shirley.”

  “Very well. What do you wish to talk about?”

  “You. I can’t figure you. You big as a house and strong as a mule. But if you’re a pansy, you keep your hands to yourself, you understand that?”

  “Unwashed boorish types have never appealed to me,” Smoke said stiffly.

  “Whatever that means,” the gunhawk said. “My name’s Cahoon.”

  “Pleased, I’m sure.”

  “What’s your interest in Dead River, Shirley?”

  “I really have no interest there, as I told you, other than to sketch the scenery, which I was told was simply breathtakingly lovely.”

  Cahoon stared at him. “You got to be tellin’ the truth. You the goofiest-lookin’ and the silliest-talkin’ person I ever did see. What I can’t figure out is how you got this far west without somebody pluggin’ you full of holes.”

  “Why should they do that? I hold no malice toward anyone who treats me with any respect at all.”

  “You been lucky, boy, I shore tell you that. You been lucky. Now then, you over the vapors yet?”

  “I am calmed somewhat, yes.”

  “Git to sketchin’, Shirley.”

  When Smoke tossed off his blankets the next morning, the outlaw, Cahoon, was gone. Smoke had pretended sleep during the night as the outlaw had swiftly gone through his pack, finding nothing that seemed to interest him. Cahoon had searched one side of the pack carefully, then only glanced at the other side, which held supplies. Had he searched a bit closer and longer, he would have found Smoke’s twin Colts and the shotgun.

  Smoke felt he had passed inspection. At least for this time. But he was going to have to come up with some plan for stashing his weapons close to Dead River.

  And so far, he hadn’t worked that out.

  Cahoon had left the coffee pot on the blackened stones around the fire and Smoke poured a cup. He was careful in his movements, not knowing how far Cahoon might have gone; he might well be laying out a few hundred yards, watching to see what Smoke did next.

  Smoke cut strips of bacon from the slab and peeled and cut up a large potato, dropping the slices into the bacon grease as it fried. He cut off several slices of bread from the thick loaf and then settled down to eat.

  He cut his eyes to a large stone and saw his sketch pad, a double eagle on the top page, shining in the rays of the early morning sun.

  Cahoon had printed him a note: YOU DO FARLY GOOD DRAWINS. I PASS THE WORD THAT YOU OK. MAYBE SEE YOU IN DEAD RIVER. KEEP THIS NOTE TO HEP YOU GIT IN. CAHOON.

  Smoke smiled. Yes, he thought, he had indeed passed the first hurdle.

  Smoke drifted south, taking his time and riding easy. He had stopped at a general store and bought a bonnet for Drifter and the packhorse. The packhorse didn’t seem to mind. Drifter didn’t like it worth a damn. The big yellow-eyed devil horse finally accepted the bonnet, but only after biting Smoke twice and kicking him once. Hard.

  Smoke’s beard was now fully grown out, carefully trimmed into a fuller Vandyke but not as pointed. The beard had completely altered his appearance. And the news was spreading throughout the region about the goofy-talking and sissy-acting fellow who rode a horse with a bonnet and drew pictures. The rider, not the horse. The word was, so Smoke had overheard, that Shirley DeBeers was sorta silly, but harmless. And done right good drawin’s, too.

  And Cahoon, so Smoke had learned by listening and mostly keeping his mouth shut, was an outlaw of the worst kind. He fronted a gang that would do anything, including murder for hire and kidnapping—mostly women, to sell to whoremongers.

  And they lived in Dead River, paying a man called Rex Davidson for security and sanctuary. And he learned that a man named Danvers was the Sheriff of Dead River. Smoke had heard of Danvers, but their trails had never crossed. The title of Sheriff was a figurehead title, for outside of Dead River he had no authority and would have been arrested on the spot.

  Or shot.

  And if Smoke had his way, it was going to be the latter.

  Smoke and Drifter went from town to town, community to community, always drifting south toward the southernmost bend of the Purgatoire.

  Smoke continued to play his part as the city fop, getting it down so well it now was second nature for him to act the fool.

  At a general store not far from Quarreling Creek—so named because a band of Cheyenne had quarreled violently over the election of a new chief—Smoke picked up a few dollars by sketching a man and his wife and child, also picking up yet more information about Dead River and its outlaw inhabitants.

  “Outlaws hit the stage outside Walensburg last week,” he heard the rancher say to the clerk. “Beat it back past Old Tom’s place and then cut up into the Sangre de Cristos.”

  The clerk looked up. There was no malice in his voice when he said, “And the posse stopped right there, hey?”

  “Shore did. I reckon it’s gonna take the Army to clean out that den of outlaws at Dead River. The law just don’t wanna head up in there. Not that I blame them a bit for that,” he was quick to add.

  “Nobody wants to die,” the clerk said, in a matter of agreeing.

  “I have heard so much about this Dead River place,” Smoke said, handing the finished sketch to the woman, who looked at it and smiled.

  “You do very nice work, young man,” she complimented him

  “Thank you. And I have also heard that around Dead River is some of the most beautiful scenery to be found anywhere.”

  The rancher put a couple of dollars into Smoke’s hand and said, “You stay out of that place, mister. It just ain’t no place for any decent person. And you seem to be a nice sort of person.”

  “Surely they wouldn’t harm an unarmed man?” Smoke asked, holding on to his act. He managed to look offended at the thought. “I am an artist, not a troublemaker.”

  The clerk and the rancher exchanged knowing glances and smiles, the clerk saying, “Mister, them are bad apples in that place. They’d as soon shoot you as look at you. And that’s just if you’re lucky. I’d tell you more, but not in front of the woman and child.”

  “Mabel” the rancher spoke to his wife. “You take Jenny and wait outside on the boardwalk. We got some man-talking to do.” He glanced at Smoke. “Well…some talking to do, at least.”

  Smoke contained his smile. He could just imagine Sally’s reaction if he were to tell her to leave the room so the men could talk. A lady through and through, she would have nevertheless told Smoke where to put his suggestion.

  Sideways.

  The woman and child waiting on the boardwalk of the store, under the awning, the rancher looked at Smoke and shook his head in disbelief. Smoke was wearing a ruffle-front shirt, pink in color, tight-fitting lavender britches—he had paid a rancher’s wife to make him several pairs in various colors—tucked into the tops of his lace-up hiking boots, tinted eyeglasses, and that silly cap on his head.

  Foppish was not the word.

  “Mr. DeBeers,” the rancher said, “Dead River is the dumping grounds for all the scum and trash and bad hombres in the West. Some of the best and the bravest lawmen anywhere won’t go in there, no matter how big the posse. And for good reason. The town of Dead River sits in a valley between two of the biggest mountains in the range. Only one way in and one way out.”

  The clerk said, “And the east pass—the only way in—is always guarded. Three men with rifles and plenty of ammunition could stand off any army forever.”

  Smoke knew that one-way-in and one-way-out business was nonsense. If he could find some Indians, he’d discover a dozen ways in and out. When he got close to the range of mountains, he’d seek out some band and talk with them.

  The rancher said, “There’ve been report
s of them outlaws gettin’ all drunked up and draggin’ people to death just for the fun of doin’ it, up and down the main street. Some men from the Pinkerton agency, I think it was, got in there a couple of years ago, disguised as outlaws. When it was discovered what they really was, the outlaws stripped ’em nekkid and nailed ’em up on crosses, left the men there to die, and they died hard.”

  “Sometimes,” the clerk added, “they’ll hang people up on meathooks and leave them to die slow. Takes ’em days. And it just ain’t fittin’ to speak aloud what they do to women they kidnap and haul in there. Makes me sick to just think about it.”

  “Barbaric!” Smoke said.

  “So you just stay out of that place, mister,” the rancher said.

  “But Mr. Cahoon said I would be welcome,” Smoke dropped that in.

  “You know Cahoon?” The clerk was bug-eyed.

  “I sketched him once.”

  “You must have done it right. Cause if you hadn’t, Cahoon would have sure killed you. He’s one of the worst. Likes to torture people—especially Indians and women; he ain’t got no use for neither of them.”

  “Well, why doesn’t someone do something about it?” Smoke demanded. “They sound like perfectly horrid people to me.”

  “It’d take the Army to get them out,” the rancher explained. “At least five hundred men—maybe more than that; probably more than that. But here’s the rub, mister: No one has ever come out of there to file no complaints. When a prisoner goes in there, he or she is dead. And dead people don’t file no legal complaints. So look, buddy…eh, fellow, whatever, the day’ll come when the Army goes in. But that day ain’t here yet. So you best keep your butt outta there.”

  Smoke drifted on, and his reputation as a good artist went before him. He cut east, until he found a town with a telegraph office and sent a wire to Boston. He and Sally had worked out a code. He was S.B. and she was S.J. He waited in the town for a night and a day before receiving a reply.

  Sally was fine. The doctors had removed the lead from her and her doctor in Boston did not think an operation would be necessary for child-birthing.