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

by Johnstone, William W.

  “I’m not,” Smoke told him.

  “Lord suffer us all!” the officer said. “What would you have done had you been angry?”

  “Killed him.”

  “I’d not like to get on the wrong side of the road with you, young man. But I would like to know your name.”

  “Smoke Jensen.”

  The crowd gasped and the cop smiled grimly. “Are you as good with your guns as you are with your dukes, me boy?”

  “Better.”

  Louis handed Smoke a towel and held his coat while his friend wiped his face and hands. York had stood to one side, his coat brushed back, freeing the butts of his .44s.

  And the cops had noticed that, too.

  The cop looked at all three of the men. “You boys are here for a reason. I’m not asking why, for you’re officers of the law, and federal officers at that. But I’d not like to see any trouble in this town.”

  “There won’t be,” Smoke said, raising up from a rain barrel where he had washed his face and hands. “We’ll be leaving at first light.”

  “You wouldn’t mind if I stopped by the stable to see you off, would you now?”

  “Not a bit,” Smoke said, smiling.

  The waiter stuck his head out the back door. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’ve freshened your drinks. The management has instructed me to tell you that your dinners are on the house this evening.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Smoke told him. “I assure you, we have ample funds.”

  The waiter smiled. “Gentlemen, Bull Everton will not be returning to this establishment for quite some time, thanks to you. And,” he grinned hugely, “if it isn’t worth a free meal to get rid of a big pain in the ass, nothing is!”

  19

  The men were in the saddle and moving out before first light; they would take their breakfast at the first inn they came to once outside of Springfield. It was cold in the darkness before dawn, with more than a hint of fall in the air, and it was going to be a beautiful day for traveling.

  The road followed the Connecticut River. The men stayed on the east side of the river, knowing they would have to veer off toward the northeast once inside New Hampshire.

  All were taken in by the beauty of the state. Although the leaves were turning as fall approached, the lushness of nature was a beautiful thing to see. As they traveled, the road was bordered by red spruce, red oak, white pine, sugar maple, yellow birch, and white birch.

  “It’s shore purty,” York observed, his eyes taking in the stone fences that surrounded the neat fields and farms. “I can’t rightly describe the way I feel about this place. It’s, well—” He paused and shook his head.

  “Civilized,” Louis finished it.

  “I reckon that’s it, Louis. The only gun I’ve seen all day is the ones we’re totin’. Gives me sort of a funny feelin’.”

  “Bear in mind,” Louis sobered them all, “that all that will change with the arrival of Davidson and his thugs.”

  By mid-afternoon, the schools out for the day, boys and girls began to appear by the fences and roadways, staring in mute fascination as the cowboys rode slowly by. Smoke and Louis and York all smiled and waved at the young people, and just to give the kids something to talk about and remember, they swept back their jackets, exposing the butts of their guns for the kids’ wide eyes.

  And the children loved it.

  They could have easily made the distance to Keene by nightfall but decided to break it off at the inn on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts line. The innkeeper was a bit startled as the three jingled into his establishment.

  “Innkeeper,” Louis said, “rooms for three, if you please. And we’ll stable our own horses.”

  “Yes…sir,” the man said. “Right around back. You’ll see the corn bin.”

  “And warn people to stay away from our horses,” Smoke told him. “Anybody gets into Drifter’s stall he’ll kill them.”

  “Sir!”

  “That’s what he did to the last man who owned him.”

  “Yes, sir! I will so advise any locals.”

  The man and his wife and the girls who worked in the tavern and dining room were having a hard time keeping their eyes off the twin guns belted around each man’s lean waist.

  “We’ll freshen up a bit and then come down for a drink at the bar,” Louis told the man and woman.

  Louis, York, and Smoke waited.

  The man and woman and hired help contined to stare at the three tall men. No one seemed able to move.

  Louis rapped gently on the desk. “The keys, please?”

  The man came alive. “Oh! Yes! Here you are, gentlemen.”

  Smoke smiled at the lady behind the desk. “We don’t bite, ma’am. I promise you we don’t.”

  His smile broke the barriers between old, settled, and established codes and those who came from the freewheeling western part of the nation. She returned his smile and glanced down at the register.

  “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Jensen! Smoke Jensen?”

  And once more, pandemonium reigned.

  The trio crossed into New Hampshire at first light, having paid their bill and slipped out quietly before dawn.

  York was dressed in jeans, a red and white checkered shirt, and a leather waist-length jacket. Louis dressed in a dark suit, a white shirt with black string tie, highly polished black boots, and a white duster over his clothing to keep away the dust. Smoke was dressed in dark jeans, a black shirt, a red bandana, and his beaded buckskin jacket. All wore western hats. Only York and Smoke’s big bowie knives could be seen; Louis’s duster covered his own knife.

  About ten miles inside New Hampshire, they picked up the Ashuelot River and followed that toward Keene. Some fifteen miles later, the outskirts of the town came into view.

  The men reined up, dismounted, and knocked the dust from their clothing. Louis, loving every minute of it, removed his linen duster and tied it behind his saddle. A farmer came rattling along in a wagon, stopped, and sat his seat, staring at the heavily armed trio.

  “The Reynolds house,” Smoke said, walking to the man. “How do we find it?”

  The man sat his wagon seat and stared, openmouthed.

  “Sir?” Smoke asked. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s really you,” the farmer said, awe in his voice. “I been readin’ ’bout you for years. Knew you by your picture.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad to meet you, too. Could you direct us to the Reynolds house?”

  “Oh…sure! That’s easy. Cross the bridge and go three blocks. Turn right. Two blocks down they’s a big white two-story house on the corner. You can’t miss it. Wait’ll I tell my wife I seen Smoke Jensen!” He clucked to his team and rattled on.

  “What day is this?” York asked. “I’m havin’ the damndest time keepin’ track of things.”

  “Saturday,” Louis told them. “Smoke, do we inform the local authorities as to why we are here?”

  “I think not. If we did that, they’d want to handle it the legal way. With trials and lawyers and the such. We’d be tied up here for months. So let’s keep it close to the vest and wait until Davidson makes his play. Then we’ll handle it our way.”

  “Sounds good to me,” York said. He swung into the saddle.

  Smoke and Louis mounted up.

  They cantered across the wooden bridge, three big men riding big western horses. They slowed to a walk on the other side of the street. People began coming out of houses to stand and stare at the men as they rode slowly by. Little children stood openmouthed; for all, it was the first time they had ever seen a real western cowboy, much less three real gunslingers like they’d been reading about in the penny dreadfuls and the tabloids.

  Louis tipped his hat to a group of ladies, and they simpered and giggled and twirled their parasols and batted their eyes.

  A little boy spotted them as they turned the street corner, and he took off like the hounds of hell were nipping at his feet.

  “Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally!” he
hollered. “They’re here, Aunt Sally!”

  He ran up the steps of the huge house and darted inside.

  The front porch filled with people, all staring at the three horsemen walking their mounts slowly up the street.

  “Your relatives, Smoke,” Louis said. “Looks like quite a gathering.”

  “I am not looking forward to this, Louis,” Smoke admitted. “I just want to get this over with, see Davidson and his bunch dead in the streets, and take Sally and the babies and get the hell back to the Sugarloaf.”

  “You’ll survive it,” the gambler said. “I assure you, my friend. But I feel it will be somewhat trying for the lot of us.”

  And then Sally stepped out onto the porch to join her family. Smoke felt he had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life. She stood by an older man that Smoke guessed was her father.

  The entire neighborhood had left their houses and were standing in their front yards, gawking at the gunslingers.

  “Smoke Jensen!” a teenager said, the words reaching Smoke. “He’s killed a thousand men with those guns. Bet he took that coat off an Indian after he killed him.”

  Smoke grimaced and cut his eyes at Louis. The gambler said, “I feel awed to be in the presence of someone so famous.” Then he smiled. “A thousand men, eh? My how your reputation has grown in such a short time.”

  Smoke shook his head and could not help but smile.

  John Reynolds said, “That horse he’s riding looks like it came straight out of the pits of hell!”

  “That’s Drifter,” Sally told him. “He’s a killer horse. Killed the last man who tried to own him.”

  John looked at his daughter. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, yes. But he’s really quite gentle once he gets to know you. I was baking pies one afternoon and he stuck his head into the kitchen and ate a whole pie before I realized it. I picked up a broom and spanked him.”

  “You…spanked him,” John managed to say. He muttered under his breath and Sally laughed at his expression.

  The riders turned and reined up, dismounting at the hitchrail. Sally stepped off the porch and walked toward the picket fence, a smile on her lips.

  Smoke stood by the gate and stared at her, not trusting his voice to speak.

  “You’ve lost weight,” Sally said.

  “I’ve been missing your cooking.”

  He opened the gate.

  Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Is that all you’ve been missing?” She spoke low, so her words reached only his ears.

  Smoke stepped through the open gate, his spurs jingling. He stopped a few feet from her. “Well, let’s see. I reckon I might have missed you just a tad.”

  And then she was in his arms, loving the strong feel of him. Her tears wet his face as she lifted her lips to his.

  York lifted his hat and let out a war whoop.

  Walter Reynolds swallowed his snuff.

  20

  “Should you be out of bed this soon?” Smoke asked his wife.

  “Oh, the doctors tried to get me to stay in bed much longer, but since I didn’t have the time to get to the city to have the babies, and they came so easily, I left the bed much earlier than most, I imagine.”

  “I keep forgetting how tough you are.” Smoke smiled across the twin cradles at her.

  “Have you thought about names, Smoke?”

  “Uh…no, I really haven’t. I figured you’d have them named by now.”

  “I have thought of a couple.”

  “Oh?”

  “How about Louis Arthur and Denise Nicole?”

  Louis for Louis Longmont. Arthur for Old Preacher. And Nicole for Smoke’s first wife, who was murdered by outlaws, and their baby son, Arthur, who was also killed. Denise was an old family name on the Reynolds side.

  “You don’t object to naming the girl after Nicole?”

  “No,” Sally said with a smile. “You know I don’t.”

  “Louis will be pleased.”

  “I thought so.”

  Smoke looked at the sleeping babies. “Are they ever going to wake up?”

  She laughed softly. “Don’t worry. You’ll know when they wake. Come on. Let’s go back and join the rest of the family.”

  Smoke looked around for Louis and York. John caught his eye. “I tried to get them to stay. I insisted, told them we had plenty of room. But Mr. Longmont said he felt it would be best if they stayed at the local hotel. Did we offend them, Son?”

  Smoke shook his head as the family gathered around. “No. We’re here on some business as well as to get Sally. It would be best if we split up. I’ll explain.”

  John looked relieved. “I was so afraid we had somehow inadvertently offended Mr. Longmont.”

  John Reynolds stared at Smoke as his son-in-law laughed out loud. “Hell, John. Louis just wanted to find a good poker game, that’s all!”

  It was after lunch, and the family was sitting on the front porch. Smoke had not removed his guns and had no intention of doing so.

  And it was not just the young people who stared at him with a sort of morbid fascination.

  “Tell me about Dead River,” Sally spoke. She glanced at her nieces and nephews. “You, scoot! There’ll be a lot of times to talk to your Uncle Smoke.”

  The kids reluctantly left the porch.

  Smoke shaped and rolled and licked and lit. He leaned back in his chair and propped his boots up on the porch railing. “Got kind of antsy there for the last day or two before we opened the dance.”

  “You went to a dance?” Betsy asked.

  Smoke cut his eyes. “Opening the dance means I started the lead flying, Betsy.”

  “Oh!” Her eyes were wide.

  “You mean as soon as you told the hooligans to surrender, they opened fire?” Jordan inquired.

  Smoke cut his eyes to him. “No,” he drawled. “It means that me and York come in the back way of the saloon, hauled iron, and put about half a dozen of them on the floor before the others knew what was happening.” It wasn’t really accurate, but big deal.

  “We don’t operate that way in the East,” Walter said, a note of disdain in his voice.

  “I reckon not. But the only thing Dead River was east of was Hell. And anybody who thinks they can put out the fires of Hell with kindness and conversation is a damn fool. And fools don’t last long in the wilderness.”

  John verbally stepped in before his son found himself slapped on his butt out in the front yard. “A young lady named Martha will be along presently. She had some foolish notion of traveling back west with you and Sally. She wants to teach school out there.”

  “Fine with me.” He looked at Sally. “Has she got the sand and the grit to make it out there?”

  “Yes. I believe she does.”

  “Tell her to start packing.”

  “But don’t you first have to get the permission of the school board?” Jordan asked.

  “Ain’t got none,” Smoke slipped back into the loose speech of the western man. “Don’t know what that is, anyways.”

  Sally laughed, knowing he was deliberately using bad grammar.

  And cutting her eyes to her mother, she knew that Abigal did, too.

  But her father appeared lost as a goose.

  And so did her brothers.

  “Well, sir,” Jordan began to explain. “A school board is a body of officials who—”

  “—sit around and cackle like a bunch of layin’ hens and don’t accomplish a damn thing that’s for the good of the kids,” Smoke finished it.

  Abigal smiled and minutely nodded her head in agreement.

  With a sigh, Jordan shut his mouth.

  Smoke looked at him. “Are you a lawyer?”

  “Why, yes, I am.”

  “Thought so.”

  “Do I detect a note of disapproval in your voice, Son?” John asked.

  “Might be some in there. I never found much use for lawyers. The ones I knowed, for the most part, just wasn’t real nice people.”

>   “Would you care to elaborate on that?” Walter stuck out his chin. What there was of it to stick out.

  Smoke took a sip of coffee poured from the freshly made pot. Made by Sally and drinkable only by Smoke. Jordan said it was so strong it made his stomach hurt. Walter poured half a pitcher of cream in his, and John took one look at the dark brew and refused altogether.

  “I reckon I might,” Smoke replied. But first he rolled another cigarette. “Man chooses a life of crime, he does that deliberate. It’s his choice. Hell with him. You ladies pardon my language. On the other side of the coin, a man breaks into another house and starts stealing things, the homeowner shoots him dead, and they’ll be those in your profession who’ll want to put the property-owner in jail. It don’t make any sense. And now, so I read and hear, you folks are beginning to say that some criminals was drove to it, and the courts ought to take into consideration about how poor they was. Poor!” he laughed. “I was a man grown at thirteen; doing a man’s work and going to school and looking after my sick mother, all at once. My daddy was off fighting in the war—for the gray,” he added proudly. “Not that he believed in slaves, because he didn’t. War wasn’t fought over slaves nohow.

  “We didn’t have any money. Tied the soles of our shoes on with rawhide. Ate rabbit stew with wild onions for flavor. Shot them when we had the ammunition; trapped them and chunked rocks at them when we didn’t.

  “Or didn’t eat at all,” he added grimly. “But I never stole a thing in my life. Some of our neighbors had more than they needed; but I didn’t envy them for it, and if I caught myself covetin’ what they had, I felt ashamed.

  “Y’all got a big fine house here, and I ’spect you all got lots of money. But how many times have you turned a begger-man away from your back door without givin’ him a bite to eat? That don’t happen often out where me and Sally live. If that man is able, we hand him an axe and tell him to chop some wood, then we’ll feed him. If he ain’t able, we’ll feed him and see to his needs. There ain’t no need to talk on it a whole lot more. Y’all know what I’m talkin’ about. But if I find somebody tryin’ to steal from me, I’m gonna shoot him dead.”