Savagery of The Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “This is leftovers from my special over at the café tonight,” Kathleen said.

  “That may be,” Dawson said. “But I know damn well the town ain’t payin’ you enough meal money for a prisoner to eat like that. What are you plannin’ on doin’? Stickin’ us with a higher bill later on?”

  “No need. The city pays ten cents for the meal, I won’t charge you a penny more,” Kathleen said.

  “Then I don’t understand. Why the feast?”

  “From what I understand, the poor man is going to be hung when the judge arrives,” Kathleen said.

  “Yes, ma’am, you understand that right,” he said. “Soon as Judge McCabe gets here, we’ll hold the trial, then we’ll hang him, prob’ly that same day.” Marshal Dawson chuckled. “I reckon you seen that they are buildin’ gallows out front.”

  “Yes, I saw it as I walked by,” Kathleen replied. “I don’t know why you decided to build it right in the middle of Front Street. That is a little gruesome, if you ask me.”

  “It may be, but that’s where Mr. Quentin wanted it built.”

  “And you do everything Quentin tells you to do?”

  “Well, let’s be fair here, Miz York,” Marshal Dawson replied. “After all, it was Quentin’s boy who was murdered. And he’s the one paying for the scaffold, not the town. So I reckon he can have the prisoner hung just about anywhere he wants to.”

  “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? The jury hasn’t found the young man guilty.”

  Dawson laughed out loud. “The jury ain’t found him guilty, you say?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Well, the thing is, Miz York, that’s just what you might call a technicality. I know you didn’t come to Billy Ray’s buryin’, but iffen you had come, why, you would of heard Pogue warn ever’one that might serve on the jury that they better find this murder guilty.”

  “That isn’t right,” Kathleen said. “You can’t order someone to find a person guilty. There has to be a trial, the jury has to listen to the case and weigh all the evidence, before they can decide guilt or innocence.”

  Dawson laughed. “You know all about juries, do you?”

  “I know what is right and what is wrong,” Kathleen replied.

  “Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. This fella is as guilty as sin and ever’one in town knows that, so there ain’t no way the jury won’t find him guilty, no matter whether Quentin ordered them to or not.”

  “I know two people who say that Billy Ray fired first.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “My son for one,” Kathleen said. “And Mary Lou Culpepper for another.”

  Dawson laughed. “Mary Lou Culpepper? The whore? And you believe her?”

  “I do. Especially when my son tells the same story.”

  “Yes, ma’am, well, that don’t mean much, seein’ as ever’one in town knows your son is stuck on that whore. But I reckon, when you get right down to it, we’re goin’ to have to go with the evidence, the other eyewitness accounts, and the prisoner’s own confession.”

  “Confession?”

  “Yes, ma’am. When I asked if he was the one that kilt him, why, he said, flat out, that he was. And there wasn’t nobody in the saloon what didn’t hear him say that.”

  “But that isn’t an admission of guilt. Didn’t he also say that Billy Ray shot first? That it was in self-defense?”

  “He may have,” Marshal Dawson admitted. “But the thing is, Miz York, that kind of thing ain’t mine to decide. That’s for the court to decide. All I got to go on is the man who said he kilt him, which is my prisoner, and Billy Ray’s body, which is dead.”

  “Marshal Dawson reached for the biscuit, but Kathleen pulled it back.

  “This food is for the prisoner,” she said.

  “Well, then, you better get it to him before it gets all cold,” Dawson said.

  Kathleen took the tray back to the cell.

  “Lenny asked me to make certain you get enough to eat.” As Lenny had before, she handed each dish through the bars to him before turning the tray on its side and sliding it through.

  “Whoowee, I tell you the truth,” Pearlie said as he first looked at, then smelled, the food. He took a bite of chicken, then smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s almost worth bein’ put in jail here if I’m goin’ to get to eat like this.”

  Kathleen laughed nervously. “Don’t be foolish, young man,” she said. “I appreciate the compliment, but nothing is worth being in jail for.”

  “You must be Lenny’s sister,” Pearlie said.

  Kathleen smiled, then blushed slightly. “I’m his mother,” she said.

  “You don’t say,” Pearlie said. “Well, all I can say is, you must’a had him when you was about twelve or somethin’. You sure don’t look old enough to be his mother.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Have you heard from Lenny?” Pearlie asked as he forked some mashed potatoes and gravy to his mouth.

  “Indirectly,” Kathleen said. She looked back over her shoulder to make certain Marshal Dawson wasn’t watching her, and when she saw it was clear, she pulled a telegram from under the bodice of her dress.

  Leaning a little closer to the cell, she spoke very quietly. “Your friend, Mr. Jensen, sent this telegram this afternoon.”

  “Why did he send it to you?” Pearlie responded, speaking as quietly as Kathleen.

  “I expect he sent it to me so you would be sure and get it,” Kathleen replied. “If he had sent it directly to the marshal, you might never even see it.”

  “Yeah,” Pearlie agreed. “I don’t know much about this marshal, but I think you might be right.”

  Kathleen pushed the telegram through the bars and, making sure he wasn’t being watched, Pearlie took it.

  LENNY YORK HAS TOLD US OF YOUR

  TROUBLES PEARLIE STOP WE ARE ON

  OUR WAY TO TAKE CARE OF IT STOP

  KEEP UP YOUR SPIRITS STOP SMOKE

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tumbling Q

  “Thank you, Pete,” Quentin said as he took a paper from the telegrapher. “This telegram is from Smoke Jensen, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Quentin,” the telegrapher said.

  “Well, now, what do you know about that?” he said. “Smoke Jensen, huh?”

  “Do you know Mr. Jensen?” Pete Hanson, the telegrapher, asked.

  “Oh, yes, I know him,” Quentin replied. “I met him in Colorado Springs during the cattle auction.”

  “I understand he is quite well known throughout the state,” Pete said.

  “So I have been led to believe,” Quentin said. “I must say, he did not make a very good impression on me. What I am wonderig is, why would he be sending a telegram to the man who murdered my son?”

  “Evidently, they are friends,” Pete said. “As you will see when you read the telegram.”

  Quentin read the telegram, then looked up. “I wonder what he means by ‘take care of it’?” Quentin asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “His telegram says he is on his way to ‘take care of it,’ and I was just wondering what he meant by that.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t hazard a guess as to what he might mean by that, Mr. Quentin,” Pete said. “I just thought you might want to see the telegram, that’s all.”

  “Yes, Pete, you were quite right in bringing it to me, and I thank you. If you get any more telegrams you think I might find interesting, please bring them to me as well.”

  Pete cleared his throat. “Of course I will, Mr. Quentin. I’m always glad to help out an outstanding citizen like yourself even though”—the telegrapher cleared his throat again—“even though I am taking a great personal risk in doing so. I am sure that you realize it is a violation of the law to show private telegrams to anyone other than the person to whom the telegram is addressed. And the punishment for violating that law is quite severe.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” Quentin said as he withdrew a te
n-dollar bill from his billfold and handed it to Pete. “The fact that you are sharing certain telegrams with me will never go beyond this point.”

  “Very good, sir,” Pete said. He turned to leave but, before he left, he looked back toward Pogue Quentin. “You know, Mr. Quentin, I didn’t mention it, but the telegram was not sent directly to the prisoner, nor even to the marshal.”

  “It wasn’t? Who was it sent to?”

  “It was sent to Kathleen York.”

  “Well, now, that is interesting,” Quentin said. “Why would it be sent there?”

  “I expect it’s because young Lenny York spoke up for this fella, Pearlie, right after the shooting. And later, he seemed to get real friendly with him while he was in jail.”

  “Yes, well, after I take care of the man who murdered my son, I’ll take care of Lenny York.”

  “I’m sorry about your son, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Quentin said.

  Quentin followed Pete out onto the front porch of his large house, then watched as the thin, bespectacled telegrapher climbed into his surrey, picked up the reins, and drove away.

  The truth was, Quentin had not been all that shocked over the fact that his son had been killed. Billy Ray was an unmitigated horse’s ass, and Quentin knew it. The real surprise was that nobody had shot him before now.

  But that didn’t matter. Now it was a matter of power. If he did not make the killer of his son pay, it would be a sign of weakness.

  He smiled. The fact that the one who killed his son was a friend of Smoke Jensen just made his play sweeter. He would be able to kill two birds with one stone. He laughed at that thought, and wished there was someone he could share the joke with.

  Before Quentin went back into the house, he looked over toward the stable and saw his foreman talking to a couple of his hands.

  “Cole,” he called.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Quentin.”

  “Come over here.”

  Cole Mathers, a big bearded man with a wandering eye, walked over toward Quentin.

  “I want you to run an errand for me.”

  “All right.”

  “I want you to go over to a place called La Vita. There, you will find a man named Cates. Tell him I want to hire him.”

  “Cates? Wait a minute. Are you talking about Snake Cates?” Cole asked.

  “Some people might call him Snake Cates, but I wouldn’t if I were you. Leastwise, not to his face. His real name is Bogardus.”

  “Bogardus?” Cole asked. He laughed. “Damn, if I wouldn’t prefer to be called Snake.”

  “You will call him ‘mister’ if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Quentin,” Cole said, holding up his hand. “I may be dumb, but I ain’t that dumb. No, sir, when I get around a fella like Snake Cates, I’ll be callin’ him mister for sure. He’s got what, seventeen, eighteen men that he’s kilt?”

  “Something like that,” Quentin agreed.

  “And ever’one of ’em has been in a face-to-face shootout. I mean, he ain’t got no easy kills in all them gunfights. No easy kills at all.”

  “Just find him, and bring him here.”

  “Uh, Mr. Quentin, he’s goin’ to ask for money.”

  “Give him one hundred dollars.”

  Cole cleared his throat.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, sir, for somebody like me, a hunnert dollars is a lot of money. I reckon I’d do pert’ nigh anything for a hunnert dollars. But for somebody like Snake Cates, a hunnert dollars wouldn’t be nothin’.”

  “The one hundred dollars is just to get him to come speak with me,” Quentin said. “Tell him that I guarantee that we will come to an agreement that he will find satisfactory.”

  “All right,” Cole said. Cole started toward the corral.

  “Oh, and Cole?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If you can’t find him, or if for some reason you can’t persuade him to come back with you, don’t bother to come back.”

  “I’ll find him, Mr. Quentin. And I’ll bring him back,” Cole promised.

  “What are you doing here?” Deputy Wilson asked when Mary Lou Culpepper came into the marshal’s office.

  “I’ve brought food for Mr. Pearlie,” Mary Lou said.

  “What the hell is it with this man?” Wilson asked. “Have the Yorks taken him to raise? First Lenny came by to feed him, then his mama, and now his whore.”

  Mary Lou didn’t respond.

  “You are Lenny’s whore, aren’t you?”

  “I am his friend,” Mary Lou said.

  “His whore friend, you mean. All right, all right, go ahead. Take the food to him. Only, next time you come here, you better bring a little extra for me. Otherwise, I’ll eat whatever you brung him. Go on, take his food to him. Only, don’t you be givin’ him anything more than food back there, if you know what I mean,” Wilson added with a ribald laugh.

  “Thank you,” Mary Lou said, walking quickly to the cells at the back of the office, as much to get away from Wilson as for any other reason.

  Because it was late in the day and the filtered light coming through the window was weak, the shadows reached into the three cells. For a moment, Mary Lou saw no one.

  “Mr. Pearlie?” she called out.

  “It’s just Pearlie,” a male voice replied. He moved out of the shadows so she could see him.

  “I’ve brought you your supper,” she said, pulling the cover off the tray.

  Seeing the food brought a smile to Pearlie’s face. “If I stay here long enough, I’m liable to get fat,” he said. “That is, if I don’t hang first.”

  “Oh, you mustn’t say that,” Mary Lou said quickly. “It’s bad luck.”

  “You’re Lenny’s friend, aren’t you?” Pearlie said. “I saw you in the saloon on the day it happened.”

  “Yes.”

  “Lenny is a very lucky man,” Pearlie said as he bit into a ham and biscuit sandwich.

  “Oh, we aren’t that kind of friends,” Mary Lou said. “Besides, someone as fine as Lenny, I mean, he plays the piano and all, could never really be that kind of friends with someone like me. Maybe you don’t know it, but I’m a—uh—a whore.”

  “Like I said,” Pearlie said. “Lenny is a very lucky man to have a friend like you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  La Vita, Colorado

  The two young men stopped in front of the Ace High Saloon, dismounted, and looped the reins around the hitching rail. Both were wearing long trail dusters, and they brushed their hands against them, raising a cloud of dust.

  “Whoa, hold it there, Jerry,” one of the two said, coughing. “You’re near’bout smotherin’ me with all the trail dust you’re a-raisin’ there.”

  Jerry laughed. “Yeah, like you just stepped out of a washtub, I s’pose? Come on, Ken, let’s get somethin’ to wet down our gullets. Then we’ll get us a bath, a bottle, and find us someplace to have a real good dinner.”

  “And a couple of women,” Ken replied. “Let’s don’t forget to get us a couple of women.”

  “You wantin’ to spend all that money we stole in one night, are you?” Jerry asked.

  Ken chuckled. “Why not? As easy as that money was to get, we can always get some more. Did you see how that old fart shook when we told him we was robbin’ him?”

  “Come on, let’s get us a couple of beers.”

  The two men stepped into the saloon, then stopped for a moment to have a look around. The saloon was busy, but not crowded. There were several empty tables, and several empty spots along the bar. One of the men standing at the bar was Cole Mathers, and he paid little attention to the two men as they came in.

  “Want to stand at the bar or sit at a table?” Ken asked.

  “Let’s sit at a table,” Jerry suggested, and the two men found one near the stove. Because it was summer, the stove was cold, and had been for several weeks now. But even though there was no fire in the stove at the present, the
remnants of past fires were still present in the unmistakable aroma of old smoke and burnt wood.

  “Oh, that ain’t good,” the bartender said when the two young men sat down.

  “What ain’t good?” Cole asked.

  “That’s Mr. Cates’ table them two boys took. And Mr. Cates, he don’t like nobody else sittin’ at it.”

  Cole turned to look toward the two young men.

  Shortly after they sat down, both Ken and Jerry noticed that the hum of normal conversation had ended and it grew quiet in the saloon. And the sudden quiet did not seem to be a mere coincidence, as it soon became evident that everyone in the house was looking directly at their table.

  “Hey, you,” Ken called toward Cole. “What is it you are a-lookin’ at?”

  “How do you know he’s even a-lookin’ at us?” Jerry asked with a mocking laugh. “Hell, one of his eyes looks one way and the other looks another. I’ll bet he don’t even know his ownself what he’s lookin’ at.”

  Cole turned away from the two.

  “Oh, now,” Ken said. “You done gone an’ hurt his feelin’s.”

  Jerry laughed, then looked around the saloon and saw that nearly everyone in the room was looking at them.

  “What the hell are all you people a-lookin’ at?” Jerry asked.

  “Maybe they heard of us,” Ken replied. “This here wasn’t the first job we’ve pulled. Could be we’re gettin’ to be famous.”

  Jerry laughed. “Yeah, that’s prob’ly it.” He held up his hand as a signal to the bartender.

  “Barkeep,” he called to the bartender. “How about a couple of beers over here?”

  “And I’ll have the same,” Ken added, laughing at the joke.

  The bartender ignored the request.

  “Hey, what the hell? Don’t you want our business?” Trey asked.

  “Not until you two galoots change tables, I don’t,” the bartender replied.

  “Change tables? What do you mean, change tables? This here is the table we want.”

  “It ain’t goin’ to be the table you want when he comes in,” the bartender said.

  “When who comes in?”

  “When he comes in,” the bartender replied without specifics.