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

by Johnstone, William W.

  An outlaw is, in many ways, like an ignorant person, who knows he is ignorant and is proud of it, enjoying wallowing in blind unenlightenment, knowing that he is is wrong but too lazy to climb the ladder of knowledge. Too inwardly slovenly to make the effort of reaching out and working to better himself.

  To hell with them!

  “It’s a different world for me,” Sally said, sitting in her parents’ fine home in New Hampshire. “And a world, I fear, that I no longer belong in.”

  “What an odd thing to say, dear,” her mother said, looking up from her knitting.

  Sally smiled, glancing at her. She shifted her gaze to her brothers and sisters and father, all of them seated in the elegant sitting room of the mansion. And all of them, including her father, not quite sure they believed anything Sally had told them about her husband, this seemingly wild man called Smoke.

  “Odd, Mother? Oh, I think not. It’s just what a person wants; what that person becomes accustomed to, that’s all. You would consider our life hard; we just consider it living free.”

  “Dear,” her father spoke, “I am sure you find it quite amusing to entertain us with your wild stories about the West and this…person you married. But really now, Sally, don’t you think it a bit much to ask us to believe all these wild yarns?”

  “Wild yarns, Father?”

  Jordan, Sally’s oldest brother, and a bore and stuffed shirt if there ever were one, took some snuff gentlemanly and said, “All that dribble-drabble about the wild West is just a bunch of flapdoodle as far as I’m concerned.”

  Sally laughed at him. She had not, as yet, shown her family the many newspapers she had brought back to New Hampshire with her; but that time was not far off.

  “Oh, Jordan! You’ll never change. And don’t ever come west to where I live. You wouldn’t last fifteen minutes before someone would slap you flat on your backside.”

  Jordan scowled at her but kept his mouth closed.

  For a change.

  Sally said, “You’re all so safe and secure and comfortable here in Keene, in all your nice homes. If you had trouble, you’d shout for a constable to handle it. There must be more than a dozen police officers here in this town alone. Where I live in Colorado, there aren’t a dozen deputies within a two-thousand-square-mile radius.”

  “I will accept that, Sally,” her father, John, said. “I have heard the horror stories about law and order in the West. But what amazes me is how you handle the business of law and order.”

  “We handle it, Father, usually ourselves.”

  “I don’t understand, Sally,” her sister Penny said. “Do you mean that where you live women are allowed to sit on juries?”

  Sally laughed merrily. “No, you silly goose!” She kidded her sister. “Most of the time there isn’t even any trial.”

  Her mother, Abigal, put her knitting aside and looked at her daughter. “Dear, now I’m confused. All civilized places have due process. Don’t you have due process where you live?”

  “We damn sure do!” Sally shocked them all into silence with the cuss word.

  Her mother began fanning herself vigorously. Her sisters momentarily swooned. Her brothers looked shocked, as did her brothers-in-law, Chris and Robert. Her father frowned.

  “Whatever in the world do you mean, dear?” Abigal asked.

  “Most of the time it’s from a Henry,” Sally attempted to explain, but only added to the confusion.

  “Ah-hah!” John exclaimed. “Now we’re getting to it. This Henry person—he’s a judge, I gather.”

  “No, a Henry is a rifle. Why, last year, when those TF riders roped and dragged Pearlie and then attacked the house, I knocked two of them out of the saddle from the front window of the house.”

  “You struck two men?” Betsy asked, shocked. “While they were stealing your pearls?”

  Sally sighed. “Pearlie is our foreman at the ranch. Some TF riders slung a loop on him and tried to drag him to death. And, hell, no, I didn’t strike them. When they attacked the house, I shot them!”

  “Good Lord,” Chris blurted. “Where was your husband while this tragedy was unfolding?”

  Sally thought about that. “Well, I think he was in Fontana, in the middle of a gunfight. I believe that’s where he was.”

  They all looked at her as if she had suddenly grown horns and a tail.

  Smiling, Sally reached into her bag and brought out a newspaper, a copy of Haywood’s paper, which detailed the incident at the Sugarloaf, where she and young Bob Colby had fought off the attackers.

  “Incredible!” her father muttered. “My own daughter in a gunfight. And at the trial, dear, you were, of course, acquitted, were you not?”

  Sally laughed and shook her head. They still did not understand. “Father, there was no trial.”

  “An inquest, then?” John asked hopefully, leaning forward in his chair.

  Sally shook her head. “No, we just hauled off the bodies and buried them on the range.”

  John blinked. He was speechless. And for an attorney, as he and his sons were, that was tantamount to a phenomenon.

  “Hauled off the…bodies,” Robert spoke slowly. “How utterly grotesque.”

  “What would you have us do?” Sally asked him. “Leave them in the front yard? They would have attracted coyotes and wolves and buzzards. And smelled bad, too.” Might as well have a little fun with them, she concluded.

  Robert turned an ill-looking shade of green.

  And Sally was shocked to find herself thinking: what a lily-livered bunch of pansies.

  Abigal covered her mouth with a handkerchief.

  “Did the sheriff even come out to the house?” Walter inquired.

  “No. If he had, we’d have shot him. At that time, he was in Tilden Franklin’s pocket.”

  John sighed with a parent’s patience.

  Penny was reading another copy of Haywood’s newspaper. “My God!” she suddenly shrieked in horror. “According to this account, there were ten people shot down in the streets of Fontana in one week.”

  “Yes, Sister. Fontana was rather a rowdy place until Smoke and the gunfighters cleaned it up. You’ve heard of Louis Longmont, Father?”

  He nodded numbly, not trusting his voice to speak. He wondered if, twenty-odd years ago, the doctor had handed him the wrong baby. Sally had always been a bit…well, free-spirited.

  “Louis was there, his hands full of Colts.”

  Sally’s nieces and nephews were standing in the arch-way, listening, their mouths open in fascination. This was stuff you only read about in the dime novels. But Aunt Sally—and this was the first time most of them could remember seeing her—had actually lived it! This was exciting stuff.

  Sally grinned, knowing she had a captive audience. “There was Charlie Starr, Luke Nations, Dan Greentree, Leo Wood, Cary Webb, Pistol LeRoux, Bill Foley, Sunset Hatfield, Toot Tooner, Sutter Cordova, Red Shingletown, Bill Flagler, Ol’ Buttermilk, Jay Church, The Apache Kid, Silver Jim, Dad Weaver, Hardrock, Linch—they all stayed at our ranch, the Sugarloaf. They were really very nice gentlemen. Courtly in manner.”

  “But those men you just named!” Jordan said, his voice filled with shock and indignation. “I’ve read about them all. They’re killers!”

  “No, Jordan,” Sally tried to patiently explain, all the while knowing that he, and the rest of her family, would never truly understand. “They’re gunfighters. Like my Smoke. A gunfighter. They have killed, yes; but always because they were pushed into it, or they killed for right and reason and law and order.”

  “Killed for right and reason,” John muttered. His attorney’s mind was having a most difficult time comprehending that last bit.

  Abigal looked like she might, at any moment, fall over from a case of the vapors. “And…your husband, this Smoke person, he’s killed men?”

  “Oh, yes. About a hundred or so. That’s not counting Indians on the warpath. But not very many of them. You see, Smoke was raised by the mountain man, Preacher. And
we get along well with the Indians.”

  “Preacher,” John murmured. “The most famous, or infamous, mountain man of the West.”

  “That’s him!” Sally said cheerfully. “And,” she pulled an old wanted poster out of her bag and passed it over to her father, “that’s my Smoke. Handsome, isn’t he?”

  Under the drawing of Smoke’s likeness, was the lettering:

  WANTED

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  THE OUTLAW AND MURDERER

  SMOKE JENSEN

  $10,000.00 REWARD

  “Ye, Gods!” her father yelled, “the man is wanted by the authorities!”

  Sally laughed at his expression. “No, Father, That was a put-up job. Smoke is not wanted by the law. He never has been on the dodge.”

  “Thank God for small favors.” John wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

  Walter said, “And your husband has killed a hundred men, you say?”

  “Well, thereabouts, yes. But they were all fair fights.”

  The kids slipped away into the foyer and silently opened the front door, stepping out onto the large porch. Then they were racing away to tell all their friends that their uncle, Smoke Jensen, the most famous gunfighter in all the world, was coming to Keene for a visit.

  Really!

  Sally passed around the newspapers she had saved over the months, from both Fontana and Big Rock. The family read them, disbelief in their eyes.

  “Monte Carson is your sheriff?” John questioned. “But I have seen legal papers that stated he was a notorious gunfighter.”

  “He was. But he wasn’t an outlaw. And Johnny North is now a farmer/rancher and one of our neighbors and close friends.”

  They had all heard of Johnny North. He was almost as famous as Smoke Jensen.

  “Louis Longmont is a man of great wealth,” Jordan muttered, reading a paper. “His holdings are quite vast. Newspaper, hotels, a casino in Europe, and a major stockholder in a railroad.”

  “He’s also a famous gunfighter and gambler,” Sally informed them all. “And a highly educated man and quite the gentleman.”

  Shaking his head, John laid the paper aside. “When is your husband coming out for a visit, Sally?”

  “As soon as he finishes with his work.”

  “His work being with his guns.” It was not put as a question.

  “That is correct. Why do you ask, Father?”

  “I’m just wondering if I should alert the governor so he can call out the militia!”

  9

  On the morning he set out for Dead River, Smoke dressed in his most outlandish clothing. He even found a long hawk feather and stuck that in his silly cap. He knew he would probably be searched once inside, or maybe outside the outlaw town, and what to do with his short-barreled .44 worried him. He finally decided to roll it up in some dirty longhandles and stick it in his dirty clothes bag, storing it in his pack. He was reasonably sure it would go undetected there. It was the best idea he could come up with.

  He adjusted the bonnets on Drifter and his packhorse, with Drifter giving him a look that promised trouble if this crap went on much longer. Smoke swung into the saddle, pointing Drifter’s nose north. A few more miles and he would cut west, into the Sangre de Cristo range and into the unknown.

  About two hours later, he sensed unfriendly eyes watching him as he rode. He made no effort to search out his watchers, for a foppish gent from back east would not have developed that sixth sense. But White Wolf had told him that there were guards all along the trail, long before one ever reached the road that would take him to Dead River.

  Smoke rode on, singing at the top of his lungs, stopping occasionally to admire the beautiful scenery and to make a quick sketch. To ooh and aah at some spectacular wonder of nature. He was just about oohed and aahed out, and Drifter looked like he was about ready to throw Smoke and stomp on him, when he came to a road. He had no idea what to expect, but this startled him with its openness.

  A sign with an arrow pointing west, and under the arrow: DEAD RIVER. Under that: IF YOU DON’T HAVE BUSINESS IN DEAD RIVER, STAY OUT!

  Smoke dismounted and looked around him. There was no sign of life. Raising his voice, he called, “I say! Yoo, hoo! Oh, yoo hoo! Is anyone there who might possibly assist me?”

  Drifter swung his big bonneted head around and looked at Smoke through those cold yellow eyes. Eyes that seemed to say: Have you lost your damn mind!

  “Just bear with me, boy,” Smoke muttered. “It won’t be long now. I promise you.”

  Drifter tried to step on his foot.

  Smoke mounted up and rode on. He had huge mountains on either side of him. To the north, one reared up over fourteen thousand feet. To the south, the towering peaks rammed into the sky more than thirteen thousand feet, snow-capped year-round.

  The road he was on twisted and climbed and narrowed dramatically.

  The road was just wide enough for a wagon and maybe a horse to meet it, coming from the other direction. Another wagon, and somebody would have to give. But where? Then Smoke began to notice yellow flags every few hundred yards. A signal for wagon masters, he supposed, but whether they meant stop or go, he had no idea.

  He had ridden a couple of miles, always west and always climbing, when a voice stopped him.

  “Just hold it right there, fancy-pants. And keep your hands where I can see them. You get itchy, and I’ll blow your butt out of the saddle.”

  Smoke reined up. Putting fear into his voice, he called, “I mean you no harm. I am Shirley DeBeers, the artist.”

  “What you gonna be is dead if you don’t shut that goddamn mouth.”

  Smoke shut up.

  The faint sounds of mumbling voices reached him, but he could not make out the words.

  “All right, fancy-britches,” the same voice called out. “Git off that horse and stand still.”

  Smoke dismounted and stood in the roadway. Then he heard the sounds of bootsteps all around him: There was Hart, the backshooter; Gridley, who murdered his best friend and partner, and then raped and killed the man’s wife; Nappy, a killer for hire. There were others, but Smoke did not immediately recognize them, except for the fact that they were hardcases.

  “Take off that coat,” he was ordered, “and toss it to me. Frisk ’im, Nappy.”

  Smoke was searched and searched professionally; even his boots were removed and inspected. His pack ropes were untied and his belongings dumped in the middle of the road.

  “Oh, I say now! Is that necessary, gentlemen?”

  “Shut up!”

  Smoke shut up.

  His belongings were inspected, but his bag of dirty underwear was tossed to one side after only a glance. Luckily the bag landed on a pile of clean clothes and the weight of the .44 did not make a sound.

  So far, so good, Smoke thought.

  Finally, the search was over and the men stared at him for a moment. One said, “I reckon Cahoon and them others was right. He ain’t got nothing but a pocket knife. And it’s dull.”

  “Is my good friend Cahoon in town? Oh, I hope so. He’s such a nice man.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  “What about it, Hart?”

  “I reckon some of us can take silly-boy on in.”

  “I say,” Smoke looked around him at the mess in the road. “Are some of you good fellows going to help me gather up and repack my possessions?”

  The outlaws thought that was very funny. They told him in very blunt language that they were not. And to make their point better understood, one of them kicked Smoke in the butt. Smoke yelled and fell to the ground. Drifter swung his head and his yellow eyes were killer-cold. Smoke quickly crawled to the horse and grabbed a stirrup, using that to help pull himself up, all the while murmuring to Drifter, calming him.

  Rubbing his butt, Smoke faced the outlaws. “You don’t have to be so rough!”

  “Oh, my goodness!” Gridley cried, prancing about to the laughter of the others. “We hurt his feelin’s, boys. We got t
o stop bein’ so rough!”

  And right then and there, Smoke began to wonder if he would be able to last a week.

  He calmed himself and waved his hand at his pile of belongings. “I say, as you men can see from your trashing of my possessions, I am low on supplies. Might I be allowed to continue on to Dead River and resupply?” He had left most of his supplies at the head of the Sangre de Cristo creek.

  “Cahoon was supposed to have given you a note,” a man said. A hardcase Smoke did not know. “Lemme see the note, sissy-pants.”

  “I am not a sissy! I am merely a man of great sensibilities.”

  “Gimme the goddamn note!”

  The note was handed over and passed around.

  “That’s Cahoon’s writin’ all right. What about it, Hart, it’s up to you?”

  “Yeah, let him go on in. He can draw us all, and then we’ll have some fun with him.”

  Smoke caught the wink.

  “Yeah. That’s a good idee. And I know just the person to give him to.”

  “Who?” Nappy asked.

  “Brute!”

  That drew quite a laugh and narrowed Smoke’s eyes. He had heard of Brute Pitman. A huge man, three hundred pounds or more of savage perversions. He was wanted all over the eastern half of the nation for the most disgusting crimes against humanity. But oddly enough, Smoke had never heard of a warrant against him west of the Mississippi River. Bounty hunters had tried to take him, but Brute was hard to kill.

  It was rumored that Brute had preyed on the miners in the gold camps for years, stashing away a fortune. And he had lived in Dead River for a long time, keeping mostly to himself.

  But, Smoke thought, if these cruds think Brute is going to have his way with me, I’ll start this dance with or without the rest of the band.

  Smoke looked from outlaw to outlaw. “This Brute fellow sounds absolutely fascinating!”

  The outlaws laughed.

  “Oh, he is, sweetie,” Hart told him. “You two gonna get along just fine, I’m thinkin’.”