Live by the West, Die by the West

by William W. Johnstone

  Only Smoke, Lujan, and Hardrock were at the bar. Pistol and Silver Jim positioned themselves around the room, and that move made several of the outlaws very nervous.

  Smoke decided to take a chance and make a try for peace. “The war is over, boys. This doesn’t have to be. You’re professionals. Dooley is dead. You’re off his payroll. There is no profit in dying for pride.”

  A very tough gunfighter that Pistol knew only as Bent sighed and pushed his chair back. “Makes sense to me. I don’t fight for the fun of it.” He walked out the batwings and across the boardwalk, heading for the livery.

  “One never knows about a man,” Diego spoke softly. “I was certain he had more courage than that.”

  “I always knowed he was yeller,” Hazzard snorted.

  “Maybe he’s just smart,” Smoke said.

  Diego ignored that and stared at Lujan. “The noble Lujan,” he said scornful “Protector of women and little children.” He spat on the floor.

  “At least, Diego,” Lujan said, “I have that much of a reputation for decency. Can you say as much?”

  “Who would want to?” the gunfighter countered. “Decency does not line my pockets with gold coins.”

  There was no point in talking about conscience to the man—he didn’t have one.

  Lujan flicked his dark eyes to Smoke. No point in delaying upcoming events, the quick glance seemed to say.

  Smoke shot the Mexican gunfighter. He gave no warning; just drew, cocked, and fired, all in a heartbeat. Lujan was a split second behind him, his slug taking Gomez in the belly.

  Hardrock took out Pooch Matthews just as Smoke was pouring lead into Eddie Hart, and Silver Jim and Pistol had turned their guns on the others.

  Royce was down, hanging onto a table. Dave and Hazzard were backed up against a wall, the front of their shirts turning crimson. Blaine and Nolan were out of it, their hands empty and over their heads, total shock etched on their tanned faces.

  Diego raised his pistol, the sound of the cocking loud in the room.

  “Don’t do it, Diego,” Smoke warned him.

  The gunfighter cursed Smoke, in English and in Spanish, telling him where he could go and in what part of his anatomy he could shove the suggestion.

  Smoke shot him between the eyes just as Lujan was putting the finishing touches to Gomez.

  The batwings pushed open and Jackson Bodine walked in, carrying a sawed-off double-barrel express gun.

  “There might be re-ward money for them two,” Hardrock said, pointing to Blaine and Nolan. “You might send a telly-graph to Fort Benton.”

  Hazzard finally lost the strength to hang onto the table and he fell to the floor. Dave hung on, looking at Smoke through eyes that were beginning to lose their light.

  “We was snake-bit all through this here job,” he said, coughing up blood. “Didn’t nothin’ turn out right.” The table tipped over under his weight and he fell to the floor. He lay amid the cigar and cigarette butts, cursing Smoke as life left him. Profanity was the last words out of his mouth.

  “Anyone else gunnin’ for you boys?” the marshal asked.

  “Several more,” Smoke told him.

  “I sure would appreciate it if y’all would take it on down the road. This is the first shootin’ we’ve had here in three years.”

  Hardrock laughed at the expression on the marshal s face. “I swear, Jackson. I do believe you’re gettin’ crotchety in your old age.”

  “And would like to get older,” the marshal replied.

  Hardrock slapped his friend on the back. “Come on, Jackson, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  * * *

  The men rode on south, crossing the Tongue, and rode into the little town of Sheridan, Wyoming. There, they took their first hot soapy bath since leaving Gibson, got a shave and a trim, and enjoyed a café-cooked meal and several pots of strong coffee.

  The sight of five of the most famous gunslingers in all the West made the marshal a tad nervous. He and some of the locals, armed with shotguns, entered the café where Smoke and his friends were eating, positioning themselves around the room.

  “I swanny,” Silver Jim said. “I do believe the town folks is a mite edgy today.” He eyeballed the marshal. “Ain’t it a bit early for duck-huntin’?”

  “Very funny,” a man said. “We heard about the shootin’ up North. There ain’t gonna be no repeat of that around here.”

  “I shore hope not,” Hardrock told him. “Violence offends me turrible. Messes up my di-gestive workin’s. Cain’t sleep for days. I’m just an old man a-spendin’ his twilight years a-roamin’ the countryside, takin’ in all the beauty of nature. Stoppin’ to smell the flowers and gander at the birds.”

  “Folks call me Peaceful,” Silver Jim said, forking in a mouthful of potatoes and gravy. “I sometimes think I missed my callin’. I should have been a poet, like that there Long-britches.”

  “Longfellow,” Smoke corrected.

  “Yeah, him, too.”

  “I think you’re all full of horse hockey,” the marshal told them. “No trouble in this town, boys. Eat your meal and kindly leave.”

  “Makes a man feel plumb unwanted,” Pistol said.

  They made camp for the night a few miles south of town. Staying east of the Bighorns, they pulled out at dawn. They rode for two days without seeing another person.

  Over a supper of beans and bacon, Smoke asked, “Where do you boys pick up the rest of your reward money?”

  “Cheyenne,” Silver Jim replied.

  “You best start anglin’ off east down here at the Platte.”

  “That’s what we was thinkin’,” Pistol told him. “But I just don’t think it’s over, Smoke.”

  “You can’t spend the rest of your life watching my backtrail.” He looked across the fire at Lujan. “How about you, Lujan?”

  “I’ll head southwest at the Platte.” He smiled grimly. “My services are needed down on the Utah line.”

  Smoke nodded. “Are you boys really going to start up a place for old gunfighters and mountain men?”

  “Yep,” Hardrock said. “But we gonna keep quiet about it. Let the old fellers live out they days in peace and quiet. Soon as we get it set up, we’ll let you know. We gonna try to get Preacher to come and live thar. You think he would?”

  “Maybe. You never know about that old coot. He’s nearabouts the last mountain man.”

  “No,” Silver Jim drawled the word. “The last mountain man will be ridin’ the High Lonesome long after Preacher is gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You, boy. You be the last mountain man.”

  * * *

  The men parted ways at the Platte. They resupplied at the trading post, had a last drink together, and rode away; Lujan to ply his deadly trade down on the Utah line; Silver Jim and Pistol Le Roux and Hardrock to get the bulk of their reward money and find a spot to build a home for old gunfighters. Smoke headed due south.

  “We’re goin’ home, boy,” he spoke to Dagger, and the horse’s ears came up. “It’ll be good to see Sally and the babies.”

  Smoke left the trail and took off into the wild, a habit he had picked up from Ol’ Preacher. He felt in his guts that he was riding into trouble, so he would make himself as hard to find as possible for those wanting to kill him.

  He followed the Platte down, keeping east of the Rattlesnake Hills, then crossing the Platte and making his way south, with Bear Mountain to his east. He stayed on the west side of the Shirley Mountains and rode into a small town on the Medicine Bow River late one afternoon.

  He was clean-shaven now, having shaved off his mustache before leaving Gibson, although he did have a stubble of beard on his face, something he planned to rectify as soon as he could get a hot bath and find a barber.

  He was trail-worn and dusty, and Dagger was just as tired as he was. “Get you rubbed down and find you a big bucket of corn, boy,” Smoke promised the horse. “And me and you will get us a good night’s sleep.”

/>   Dagger whinnied softly and bobbed his head up and down, as if to say, “I damn well hope so!”

  Smoke stabled Dagger, telling the boy to rub him down good and give him all the corn he could eat. “And watch my gear,” he said, handing the boy a silver dollar.

  “Yes, sir! ”

  Slapping the dust from his clothes, Smoke stopped in the town’s only saloon for a drink to cut the dry from his throat.

  He was an imposing figure even in faded jeans and worn shirt. Wide-shouldered and lean-hipped, with his arms bulging with muscle, and cold, emotionless eyes. The men in the saloon gave him a careful once-over, their eyes lingering on the guns around his waist, the left gun butt-forward. Don’t see many men carrying guns thataway, and it marked him immediately.

  Gunfighter.

  “Beer,” Smoke told the barkeep and began peeling a hard-boiled egg.

  Beer in front of him, Smoke drank half of the mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then ate the egg.

  “Passin’ through?” the barkeep asked.

  “Yeah. Lookin’ for a hot bath and a shave and a bed.”

  “Got a few rooms upstairs. Cost you . . .”

  “He won’t be needin’ no bath,” the cold voice came from the batwings. “Just a pine box.”

  Smoke cut his eyes. Jason Bright stepped into the room, which had grown as silent as the grave.

  Smoke was tired of killing. Tired of it all. He wanted no trouble with Jason Bright. But damned if he could see a way out of it.

  “Jason, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Diego, just before I killed him.”

  Chairs were pushed back and men got out of the line of fire. Diego dead? Lord have mercy! Who was this big stranger anyways?

  “Speak your piece, Jensen,” Jason said.

  Smoke Jensen! Lordy, Lordy!

  “The war is over,” Smoke spoke softly but firmly. “Nobody’s paying you now. There are warrants all over the place for you. Ride out, man.”

  “You queered the deal for me, Smoke. Me and a lot of others. They scattered all around, from here to Colorado, just waitin’ for a shot at you. But I think I’ll just save them the trouble.”

  “Don’t do it, Jason. Ride on out.”

  The batwings were suddenly pushed inward, striking Jason in the back and throwing him off balance. Smoke lunged forward and for the second time in about a month, Jason Bright was about to get the stuffing kicked out of him.

  Smoke hit the gunfighter in the mouth and floored him, as the man who had pushed open the batwings took one look inside and hauled his freight back to the house. He didn’t need a drink noways.

  Smoke jerked Jason’s guns from leather and tossed them into a man’s lap, almost scaring the citizen to death.

  “I’m tired of it, Jason,” Smoke told the man, standing over him like an oak tree. “Tired of the killing, tired of it all.”

  Jason came up with the same knife he once tried to use on Cord. Smoke kicked it out of his hand and decked the man with a hard right fist. He jerked Jason up and slammed him against the bar. Then Smoke proceeded to hammer at the man’s midsection with a battering-ram combination of lefts and rights. Smoke both felt and heard ribs break under the hammering. Jason’s eyes rolled back in his head and Smoke let him fall to the floor.

  “You ought to go on and kill him, Smoke,” a man called from the crowd. “He ain’t never gonna forget this. Someday he’ll come after you.”

  “I know,” Smoke panted the words. “But I’m tired of the killing. I don’t want to kill anybody else. Ever!”

  “We’ll haul him over to the doc’s office for you, Smoke,” a man volunteered. “He ain’t gonna be ridin’ for a long time to come. Not with all them busted ribs. And I heard ’em pop and crack.”

  “I’m obliged to you.” He looked at the bartender. “The tub around back.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get a boy busy with the hot water right away.”

  “Keep anybody else off me, will you?”

  Several men stood up. “Let us get our rifles, Mister Jensen. You can bathe in peace.”

  “I appreciate it.” He looked down at Jason. “You should have kept ridin’, Jason. You can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Dagger was ready to go when Smoke saddled up the next morning. Not yet light in the east. He wanted to get gone, get on the trail home. He would stop down the road a ways and fix him some bacon to go with the bread he’d bought the night before. But he would have liked some coffee. He looked toward the town’s only café. Still dark. Smoke shrugged and pointed Dagger’s nose south. He had his small coffeepot and plenty of coffee. No trouble to fix coffee when he fixed the bacon.

  About an hour after dawn, he stopped by a creek and made his fire. He fixed his bacon and coffee and sopped out the pan with the bread, then poured a cup of coffee and rolled a cigarette.

  The creek made happy little sounds as it bubbled on, and the shade was cool. Smoke was reluctant to leave, but knew he’d better put some miles behind Dagger’s tail.

  Jason’s words returned to him: “They scattered all around, from here to Colorado, just waitin’ for a shot at you.”

  He thought back: Had there been a telegraph wire at that little town? He didn’t think so. And where would the nearest wire office be? One over at Laramie, for sure. But by the time he could ride over there and wire Sally to be on the lookout, he could be almost home.

  He really wasn’t that worried. The Sugarloaf was very isolated, and unless a man knew the trails well, they’d never come in from the back range. If any strangers tried the road, the neighbors would be instantly alerted.

  Smoke made sure his fire was out, packed up his kit, and climbed into the saddle. He’d make the northernmost edge of the Medicine Bow Range by nightfall. And he’d stay in the timber into Colorado, doing his best to avoid contact with any of the outlaws. Ol’ Preacher had burned those trails into his head as a boy. He could travel them in his sleep.

  Nightfall found him on the ridges of the Medicine Bow Range. It had been slow going, for he followed no well-traveled trails, staying with the trails in his mind.

  He made his camp, ate his supper, and put out his fire, not wanting the fire’s glow to attract any unwanted gunslicks during the night. Smoke rolled up in his blankets, a ground sheet under him and his saddle for a pillow.

  He was up before dawn and built a hat-size fire for his bacon and coffee. For some reason that he could not fathom, he had a case of the jumps this morning. Looking over at Dagger, he could see that the big horse was also uneasy, occasionally walling his eyes and laying his ears back.

  Smoke ate his breakfast and drank his coffee, dousing the fire. He filled his canteens from a nearby crick and let Dagger drink. Smoke checked his guns, wiping them free of dust, and then loaded up the chamber under the hammer, usually kept empty. He checked his Winchester. Full.

  Then, on impulse, he dug out a bandoleer from the saddlebags and filled all the loops, then added a handful of cartridges to his jacket pocket.

  He would be riding into wild and beautiful country this day and the next, with some of the mountains shooting up past twelve thousand feet. It was also no country to be caught up high in a thunderstorm, with lightning dancing all around you. That made a fellow feel very small and vulnerable.

  And it could also cook you like a fried egg.

  The farther he rode into the dark timber, the more edgy he became. Twice he stopped and dismounted, checking all around him on foot. He could find nothing to get alarmed about, but all his senses were working hard.

  Had he made a mistake by taking to the timber? The outlaws knew—indeed, half the reading population of the States knew—that Smoke had been raised in the mountains by Preacher, and he felt more at home in the mountains.

  He pressed on, slowly.

  He came to a blowdown, a savage-appearing area of about thirty or forty acres—maybe more than that—that had suffered a ravaging storm, probably a twister touc
hdown. It was a dark and ominous-looking place, with the trees torn and ripped from the earth, piled on top of each other and standing on end and lying every which-a-way possible.

  He had dismounted upon sighting the area, and the thought came to him that maybe he’d better picket Dagger and just wait here for a day, maybe two or three if it came to that. He did not understand the thought, but his hunches had saved his life before.

  He found a natural corral, maybe fifty by fifty feet, with three sides protected by piled-up trees, the front easily blocked by brush.

  He led Dagger into the area and stripped the saddle from him.

  There was plenty of grass inside the nature-provided corral, so he covered the entrance with brush and limbs and left Dagger rolling; soon he would be grazing. There were pools where rainwater had collected, and that would be enough for several days.

  Taking a canteen and his rifle, Smoke walked several hundred yards from where he left his gear, reconnoitering the area.

  Then he heard a horse snort, another one doing the same. Faint voices come to him.

  “Lost his damn trail back yonder.”

  Smoke knew the voice: Lanny Ball.

  “We’ll find it,” Lodi said. “Then we’ll torture him ’fore we kill him. I done had some of that money spent back yonder till he come along and queered it for us.”

  Smoke edged closer, until he could see the men as they passed close by. Cat Jennings’s gang were in the group.

  “Hell, I’m tarred,” a man complained. “And our horses are all done in. We gonna kill them if we keep on. And we got a lot of rough country ahead of us.”

  “Let’s take a rest,” Lodi said. “We can loaf the rest of the day and pick up the trail tomorrow.”

  “Damn good idee,” an outlaw named Sutton said. “I could do with me some food and coffee.”

  “All right,” Lanny agreed. “I’m beat myself.”

  Smoke kept his position, thinking about this new pickle he’d gotten himself into.