Violence of the Mountain Man

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Oh, Smoke, that’s wonderful!” Sally said.

  “It’s going to be a long drive, especially with just these two worthless cowboys to help me,” Smoke said, taking in Pearlie and Cal with a wave of his hand. His otherwise unkind words were contradicted by his broad smile. “But it’s worth it.”

  “When are we leaving?” Pearlie asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Af first light.”

  “First light?” Pearlie repeated. “Come on, Smoke, me and Cal’s goin’ into town for the dance tonight. The night’ll just be gettin’ started at first light.”

  Sally laughed. “You’re going into Big Rock, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cal replied.

  “What do you mean the night will just be getting started at first light. You know as well as I do that they roll up the sidewalks at ten o’clock in Big Rock.”

  “Well, yes, ma’am, I reckon they do,” Pearlie said. “But just in case they don’t, why, me and Cal’s got to be ready.”

  “It’s Cal and I,” Sally corrected.

  “Sally, when are you going to learn that trying to teach these two worthless cowboys anything is a waste of your time?” Smoke said. Then, to Pearlie and Cal, he added, “Stay in town as long as you want.”

  Pearlie smiled broadly. “That’s more like it.”

  “As long as you are back here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, by first light in the morning.”

  “Bushy-tailed?” Maria said, her eyes wide in wonder. “Señor Cal, Señor Pearlie, do you really have bushy tails?”

  “I don’t have a bushy tail,” Pearlie said. “But Cal does. He has a tail just like a squirrel.”

  Maria’s eyes opened wider and she put her hand over her mouth.

  “He’s teasing you, child,” Sally said.

  “Oh. I am glad,” Maria said. “I do not think I would like Señor Cal to have a tail like a squirrel.”

  “Come on, Cal,” Pearlie said. “You want to stand around here and gab, or go into town and have some fun?” Pearlie started toward the barn to saddle his horse.

  “I’m coming,” Cal said, trailing after him.

  “Good Lord, look at them,” Smoke said as they walked away. “They’ll be dead in their saddles tomorrow. Like as not, I’ll wind up leading their horses and herding the cattle all by myself.”

  “Don’t give them a hard time, Smoke. Don’t you remember what it was like to be young?” Sally asked.

  “Do I remember? What kind of question is that? I am still young,” Smoke replied. “But if you have trouble remembering, just ask me and I’ll tell you what it’s like.”

  “Oh, you!” Sally said, laughing as she hit Smoke on the shoulder. Smoke retreated into the house, and Sally started to go after him, but realized that Maria was still standing at the foot of the steps. She turned back to the little girl.

  “Maria, thank you again for the beautiful handkerchief,” she said.

  “You are welcome,” Maria said, beaming at the praise.

  “Consuela, tell Carlos to take extra good care of Smoke’s horse tonight. It brought us good news.”

  “Sí, Señora.”

  Sally watched young Maria and her mother walk away, then turned to go into the house after Smoke. She had in mind a very special welcome home.

  Chapter Ten

  Big Rock

  Every Saturday night, the Morning Star Hotel in Big Rock held a dance. It wasn’t part of a big city-wide event such as the annual Cattlemen’s Appreciation Day or the Fourth of July. Those events often brought in professional bands from Denver or San Francisco, or even from as far away as St. Louis. On such special occasions, entire families would show up, not only from town but from all over the county. Of course, then the dance would be only one part of a much larger celebration.

  The music for the Saturday night dances was provided by local talent, the quality of the music varying according to the skill of the musicians. Very few families, or, for that matter, very few married couples, came to the Saturday night dances. These were primarily a means whereby young, unmarried men and women could socialize. From time to time, couples would meet here, get married, then drop out of the Saturday night scene.

  Pearlie and Cal tied their horses off at the hitching post, then went inside. The ballroom of the hotel was brightly lit with hanging chandeliers and wall sconce lanterns, and approximately two dozen young men and women were milling about, waiting for the music to begin. Pearlie and Cal saw a couple of friends from Twin Peaks Ranch, and went over to talk to them.

  “Cal, wherever did you get that hat?” one of the cowboys asked.

  Cal took off his hat and looked at it. “What’s wrong with the hat?” he asked.

  The young cowboy laughed. “What’s wrong with it? Look at it.”

  “I am looking at it,” Cal said. “I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s it!” the cowboy said.

  “What’s it?” Cal said. “For the life of me, Moe, I don’t see anything.”

  Moe laughed. “Like I said, that’s it.”

  “Moe, if you don’t tell me what the hell you are talkin’ about, and tell me quick, I’m goin’ to go right upside your head,” Cal said.

  “Look at my hat,” Moe said, putting his alongside Cal’s. “Do you see any difference?”

  Cal’s hat was black, Moe’s was brown. Cal shook his head. “Yours is brown,” he said.

  “Pearlie, ain’t you learned this young pup nothin’?” Moe asked. “Look at the hatband, Cal. What do you see?”

  “You got one of leather and turquoise,” Cal said.

  “Uh-huh. And what do you have?”

  “I don’t have a hatband.”

  “That’s my point,” Moe said. “You want to show off to the girls, you need to get yourself sharpened up a bit. Maybe a red kerchief, or a silver belt buckle, or a hatband like this.”

  “How much does somethin’ like that cost?”

  “What do you care? You work for Smoke Jensen, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with it?”

  “Well, hell, he’s one of the richest men in the state. Surely, he pays you enough to be able to buy a hatband,” Moe said.

  “I think you should get a silver hatband,” a young woman said, overhearing the conversation.

  Looking toward the sound of the voice, Cal saw Lucy Goodnature. “Do you really think so?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” Lucy said. “What do you think, Pearlie? Don’t you think our young friend should have a silver hatband?”

  It did not escape Pearlie’s notice that Lucy had referred to Cal as “our” friend. It was an intimate way of alluding to a shared friendship, thus suggesting a relationship between them.

  “Yes, I think he should have a silver hatband,” Pearlie said.

  “How come you never said anything like that before?” Cal asked.

  “I guess I never thought of it.”

  “Ha. The only reason you are saying it now is because Miss Lucy said it, and you are so crazy about her that you’ll do anything she says,” Cal said.

  “Cal!” Pearlie said sharply, giving his friend an angry glance.

  Lucy smiled, obviously pleased by the way the conversation was going.

  “Ladies and gents, choose your partners and form up your squares!” the dance caller shouted, ending an embarrassing moment for Pearlie.

  “Come on,” Lucy said, reaching for Pearlie. “Let’s be in the first square.”

  In a moment, there were three squares formed and waiting. Pearlie and Lucy were in the square nearest the band. The music began, with the fiddles loud and clear, the guitars carrying the rhythm, the accordion providing the counterpoint, and the slide guitar singing over everything. The caller began to shout, and he stomped his feet and danced around on the platform in compliance with his own calls. He was the center of fascinated attention from those who weren’t dancing as he bowed and whirled just as if he ha
d a girl and was in one of the squares himself. The dancers moved and swirled to the caller’s commands.

  Pearlie danced two more sets with Lucy, but because she was a pretty, and popular girl, others came around afterward so that, for the next several dances, Pearlie either danced with someone else—or stood on the side and watched the activity.

  One of the dances was nearing the end when Cal heard Lucy’s voice. Her voice was agitated, and he looked toward her to see what she was upset about. He saw a tall, lanky cowboy reaching for her, and he saw Lucy draw back from him. It was Lucas Keno.

  “Just ’cause you’re the daughter of a ranch owner don’t mean you’re too good for an ordinary cowboy,” Keno said.

  “You being a cowboy has nothing to do with it,” Lucy said. “I don’t want to dance with you because I don’t like you.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’ve come to the dance, and that means you’re supposed to be willin’ to dance with anyone who asks you to dance. So I’m askin’, and you’re goin’ to dance me whether you want to or not,” Keno said, reaching for her.

  “Lucy, I believe you had promised me this dance,” said Pearlie, coming up to her.

  The frown on Lucy’s face was replaced by a relieved smile. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I had promised this dance to you. I was afraid you had forgotten.”

  “No way I would forget something like that,” Pearlie said, extending his hand toward her.

  “Like hell you are going to dance with her!” Keno said angrily. Once more he reached out to grab Lucy by the shoulder, this time pulling her forcefully away from Pearlie.

  Pearlie didn’t say a word. Instead, he stepped in and hit Keno hard. The cowboy went down.

  By now, several others had noticed the commotion and had stopped in mid-conversation to watch. When they saw Pearlie knock Keno down, they applauded.

  Pearlie offered Lucy his arm and they started to walk away from the cowboy. The others at the dance, thinking the episode was over, also turned their attention away from the cowboy as they prepared for the next dance.

  “You son of a bitch!” Keno shouted, getting to his feet. “I’ve had about enough of you!”

  “He’s got a gun!” someone yelled.

  One of the women screamed.

  “So have I,” Cal said, and everyone in the room could hear the deadly click of the hammer being pulled back on Cal’s gun. “And my gun is cocked,” he added.

  Keno’s thumb was on the hammer of his pistol, but he hadn’t yet pulled it back.

  “Keno, if your thumb so much as makes one little twitch, I’m going to blow your brains out,” Cal said.

  “This ain’t your fight,” Keno said.

  “Oh, you mean the one between you and Pearlie when he knocked you on your ass? You’re right, that one wasn’t my fight. But this one is. This one is just between you and me.”

  Keno’s face broke out in perspiration; then, slowly, he lowered his pistol.

  “I—I don’t want no trouble,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you what. The best way to avoid any more trouble now would be for you to just put your pistol on the floor, then leave.”

  “I ain’t puttin’ my pistol on the floor,” Keno insisted.

  “Have it your way, Keno. I’ll just kill you, then you and your pistol will wind up on the floor,” Cal said easily.

  “No!” Keno said. “No, wait, wait.”

  “Put it on the floor and walk away from it.”

  The cowboy did as instructed, and Cal walked over to retrieve the pistol. Cal took out all the bullets, then stepped to the front door and threw the pistol as far as he could out into the night.”

  “Damn, Keno, I hear Miss Sally took that gun away from you, too,” one of the other cowboys said. “Seems to me like you need to tie a rope around that thing.

  The others at the dance laughed.

  “Show’s over, folks,” Pearlie said. “Bandleader, play us some music.”

  The band struck up a Virginia reel and, almost instantly it seemed, the incident was forgotten and merriment returned.

  “You want to dance again?” Pearlie asked.

  “We could do that. Or, we could take a walk. Don’t you think it is awfully hot in here?”

  “Oh, I don’t know that it is that hot,” Pearlie replied.

  Lucy laughed. “Tell, me, Pearlie. Just how hard is it to get you to take a hint? Can’t you tell when a girl is asking you to take her for a walk?”

  “Oh!” Pearlie said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I am being a little dense. Miss Lucy Goodnature, might I have the pleasure of your company for a stroll around town?” He offered her his arm.

  “You may, indeed, sir,” she answered with a smile, putting her hand through his arm.

  Leaving the hotel, they stepped out onto the boardwalk, then walked, arm in arm, down Main Street all the way to the tracks at the far end of town.

  Behind them, the lights around the dance floor glittered brightly. The rest of the town was dark, or nearly so. Here and there, a candle or lantern gleamed. Overhead, the moon was just over half full, and shining brightly enough to paint the surrounding countryside in shades of silver and black. The sky was filled with stars, some so bright that it looked as if you could almost pluck them from the sky. Then, between the very bright ones were thousands of stars of lesser magnitude, then lesser still, until the entire night sky seemed to glow dimly with a soft blue light from those stars that couldn’t quite be seen. That made the night sky just a little lighter than the nearby mountains so that the range stood out in bold, black relief on the distant horizon.

  “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Pearlie replied. “I haven’t.”

  There was something in the tone of Pearlie’s voice that caused Lucy to look back at him and when she did, she saw that he was staring at her.

  “I mean the sky,” she said self-consciously.

  “I mean this,” Pearlie answered. He put his hands on her shoulders, then leaned down toward her. She turned her face up, offering him her mouth, and they kissed.

  Pearlie held the kiss for a long time, feeling, first Lucy’s surrender to it, then her embrace of it as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him.

  Suddenly, Pearlie pulled away from her and looked down at her. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, Lucy, I’m sorry, I had no right to be so forward.”

  “Don’t be silly, Pearlie,” Lucy said. “That is exactly what I wanted.” In the distance could be heard the whistle of an approaching train. “But maybe we should get back now.”

  “Yes, I think so,” Pearlie agreed.

  Halfway back to the dance floor, Lucas Keno suddenly stepped out of the darkness of the space between two buildings, holding an ax handle. He held it in his right hand and tapped it softly into the palm of his left hand.

  “Get out of here, Lucy,” Pearlie ordered.

  “No, I’m not going to leave you with…”

  “I said get out of here! Now!” Pearlie said more sternly.

  Lucy hesitated just a second, then started running back toward the lights at the far end of the street.

  Keno swung at Pearlie, and Pearlie danced back out of the way.

  Keno swung again, this time managing to hit Pearlie a glancing blow on the shoulder. Pearlie felt the pain shoot down his arm, but he was sure it was a bruise and not a break.

  Keno got overconfident then. With a triumphant yell, he raised the ax handle straight up over his head, intending to bring it smashing down onto Pearlie. But Pearlie stepped into him, not away from him, and Keno had no leverage. He tried to back up, but Pearlie grabbed the ax handle, jerked it from Keno’s hand, then tossed it away.

  “What the—?” Keno started to shout, but that was as far as he got before Pearlie took him down with a hard right to the chin.

  Pearlie stood over Keno for a moment, then turned to head back to the hotel. That’s when he saw Cal and Lucy, standing no more than fifty feet away.
<
br />   “I thought I told you to go back,” Pearlie said.

  “I—I couldn’t just leave you,” Lucy said. “Besides, Cal was with me.”

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “If you had gotten into real trouble, I would have stepped in to help you out.”

  Pearlie chuckled. “Well, damn, Cal, he came after me with an ax handle. How much trouble would I have to be in before you thought I was in trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” Cal answered. “It looked to me like you were handling it pretty well. Don’t you think so, Miss Lucy?”

  “I think it was the bravest thing I ever saw,” Lucy said, the tone of her voice reflecting the genuineness of her statement.

  After Pearlie, Cal, and Lucy left, Keno groaned, then got up onto his hands and knees. He stayed that way for a moment.

  “Well, you are still alive, I see,” a voice called from the darkness.

  Keno looked toward the voice, but could see nothing. “Who is it?” he asked. “Who is there?”

  A man stepped from the darkness. “It’s me, Jeeter,” he said.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Watching,” Jeeter said.

  Keno got to his feet, then rubbed his chin. “I was just aimin’ to scare him,” he said. “I should have gone after him for real.”

  “Yeah, you should have,” Jeeter said.

  “What do you mean, you’re watching?”

  “Well, maybe a little more than that,” Jeeter said. “I followed you when you left the dance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got a proposition for you. I know how you can make some money and get even with Jensen.”

  “What do you mean, get even with Jensen? Pearlie is the one I want. And Cal.”

  “The way them all is joined at the hip, I reckon if you get even with one of them, you get even with all of them.”

  “You may have a point there. What do you have in mind?” Keno asked.

  Let’s get out of here,” Jeeter said. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”