Journey of the Mountain Man (15 page)

“Now!” Silver Jim yelled.

Parnell's right hand dipped and his left hand came across to support the sawed-off shotgun. One barrel exploded in a roar of gunsmoke, the second barrel was shattered as Parnell let loose the second charge. As fast as anything Smoke had ever seen—considering the cumbersome weapons he was using—Parnell dropped the first sawed-off to the ground and drew the left hand shotgun. The third barrel was reduced to splinters.

“I'm impressed,” Smoke said.

“I'm proud of you, Brother!” Fae said.

“I love you!” Rita yelled.

Hardrock looked close at Parnell and shook his head. “Furst time I ever seen a wolf blush!”

“Feel like trying out the new general store?” Cord asked Smoke.

“I thought you'd never ask. I forgot to pick up some tobacco last time in.”

“Ah . . . Parnell wants to go along. I refuse to call him Wolf. I just can't!”

Smoke laughed. “I can't either. Sure, if he wants to come along. I notice he's been in the saddle for the last week. He's turned out to be a pretty good rider.”

“Man is full of surprises. And speaking of surprises, I'm told that we're all in for a surprise when we see what's happening, or has happened, to Gibson.”

“Yeah. I hear there's even a paper.”

“The
Gibson Express.
I want to pick up a copy.”

“How about your boys?”

“I ordered them to stay close to their ma. They'll obey me.”

“I'll put on a clean shirt and meet you out front.”

Cord, Smoke, Parnell, Lujan, Beans, Del, Charlie, and Ring rode into Gibson. A wagon rattled along behind them to carry the supplies back, Cal at the reins. At the edge of town, they reined up and stared in disbelief. The once tiny and sleepy little town was now a full three blocks long and several blocks deep on either side. Many of the new stores were no more than knocked-together sideboards with canvas tops, but it was still a very impressive sight.

“This spells trouble, gentlemen,” Lujan said.

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed, standing up in his stirrups for a moment. “You bet your boots it does.”

“I fail to see how the advancement of civilization, albeit at first glance quite primitive in nature, could be called trouble, Parnell stated.

“That town ain't filled with nothin' but trash,” Charlie told him. “Hurdy-gurdy girls, tin-horn hustlers and pimps, two-bit gunslingers, slick-fingered gamblers, and the like. It's dyin' while it seems to be growin'. As soon as this war is settled, one way or the other, ninety-nine percent of them down yonder will pull up stakes and haul their ashes. Town will be right back where it started from.”

“How about the one percent that will stay?” Parnell questioned.

“Good point,” Charlie agreed. “Wolf, you stay on top of things down yonder in that town. They's gonna be a bunch of people eyeballin' ever move you make. And you gonna get called out. Bet on it.”

“I am aware of that,” the schoolteacher turned gunfighter said. “I am ready to confront whatever comes my way.”

“Me and you, Parnell,” Beans said, “will have us a cool beer in one of them new saloons. Check things out.”

Parnell glanced at him. “I detest the taste of beer. However, I might have a sarsaparilla.”

The Moab Kid returned the glance. “You go sashayin' up in a saloon in the middle of a bunch of hardcases and order sodee pop, Parnell, you better be ready for trouble, 'cause it's shore gonna be comin' at you.”

“I am aware of that, too.”

“Let's go,” Smoke said.

The men rode slowly toward the now-crowded street of the West's newest boom town. The news of their arrival spread as quickly as a prairie fire across dry grass. In less than a minute, the wide street had emptied. No one wanted to be caught in the middle of a gunfight, and that was something that everybody knew might be, probably was, only a careless word away.

As the men rode past the Pussycat, Charlie cut his flint-hard eyes to a stranger sitting on the boardwalk, his chair tilted back. Charlie smiled faintly.

Gonna get real interestin' around here, Charlie thought.

Ring reined up in front of Hans and dismounted. “I shall be visiting Hilda,” he told them. “I will come immediately if there is trouble.”

Cord, Del, and Cal pulled up in front of the new gener store. “Which one of those new joints are you boys going try?” Cord asked.

“How about Harriet's House?” Parnell asked. “That sounds quite congenial.”

“Oh, I'm sure it will be,” Beans said. “Harriet always runs a stable out back.”

“Well, then, that will be a convenient place for our horses.”

“A stable of wimmin, Parnell,” Beams told him. “For hire.”

“You mean . . . I ... ladies who sell their . . .?”

“Right, Parnell.”

Smoke dismounted and almost bumped into a small man wearing a derby hat and a checkered vest. The man's head struck Smoke about chest-high.

“Horace Mulroony's the name, sir. Owner and editor of
The Gibson Express.
And you would be Smoke Jensen?”

“That's right.”

Horace stuck out his hand and Smoke took it, quickly noticing that the hand was hard and calloused. He cut his eyes just for a flash and saw that the stocky man's hands were thick with calluses around the knuckles. A Cornish boxer sprang into Smoke's mind. Not very tall, but built like a boxcar. Something silently told him that Horace would be hard to handle.

“And your friends, Mister Jensen?”

Smoke introduced the man all around, pointing them out. “Charlie Starr, Lujan, The Moab Kid, Parnell Jensen.”

“The man they're calling the Reno Kid.”

“I am not the Reno Kid.”

“Name's Wolf,” Charlie said shortly. He didn't like newspaper people; never wanted any truck with them. They never got anything right and was always meddlin' in other folks' business.

“I see,” Horace scribbled in his notebook. “That is quite an unusual affair strapped around your waist, Wolf.”

“I would hardly call two sawed-off shotguns an affair, Mister Mulroony. But since this is no time to be discussing proper English usage, I will let your misunderstanding of grammer be excused—for now.”

Mulroony laughed with high Irish humor. “You sound like a schoolteacher, Wolf.”

“I am.”

“Ummm. Are you gentlemen going to have a taste in Miss Harriet's saloon?

“We was plannin' on it,” Charlie said. “The sooner the better. All this palaverin' is makin' me thirsty.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“Could we stop you?” Charlie asked.

“Of course not!” Horace grinned. “After you, Mister Starr.” He waved at a man toting a bulky box camera and the man came at a trot. Horace grinned at the gunfighters. “One never knows when a picture might be available. I like to record events for posterity.”

Charlie grunted and pushed past the smaller man, but not before he saw the stranger leave his chair in front of the Pussycat and walk across the street, toward the saloon they were entering.

Charlie had a hunch the stranger was thinking about joining the game. He knew from experience that the man was a sucker for the underdog.

The saloon was filled with hardcases, both real and imagined. Smoke's wise and knowing eyes immediately picked out the real gunslingers from the tinhorn punks looking for a reputation.

Smoke knew a few of the hardcases in the room. Several from Dad Estes's gang were sitting at a table. A few that had left Cord's spread were there. A couple of Cat Jennings's bunch were present. They didn't worry Smoke as much as the young tinhorns who were sitting around the saloon, their guns all pearl-handled and fancy-engraved and tied down low.

The known and experienced gunhandlers had stiffened when their eyes touched the awesome rig belted around Parnell's waist. Nobody in their right mind wanted to tangle with a sawed-off shotgun, since a buckshot load at close range would literally tear a man in two. Even if a man could get lead into the shotgun toter first, the odds were, unless the bullet struck him in the brain or the heart, that he could still pull a trigger.

“Beer,” Smoke said.

“Tequila,” Lujan ordered.

Beans and Charlie opted for whiskey.

Horace ordered beer.

Parnell, true to his word, looked the barkeep in the eyes and ordered sarsaparilla.

Several young punks seated at a nearby table started laughing and making fun of Parnell.

Parnell ignored them.

The barkeep served up the orders.

“What's the matter with you, slick?” a young man laughed the question. “Cain't you handle no real man's drink?”

Parnell took a sip of his sarsaparilla and smiled, setting the bottle down on the bar. He turned and looked the young man in the eyes. “Does your mother know where you are, junior?”

The punk's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to retort just as the batwings swung open and the stranger entered.

There is an aura about really bad men, and in the West a bad man was not necessarily an outlaw. He was just a bad man to fool with. The stranger walked between the punk and Parnell, his hands hanging loosely at his side. He wore one gun, a classic Peacemaker .45, seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. It was tied down. The man looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties, deeply tanned and very sure of himself. He glanced at Parnell's drink and a very slight smile creased his lips.

Walking to Charlie's side, he motioned to the barkeep. “A sarsaparilla, please.”

Another loudmouth sitting with the punk started giggling. “Another sissy, Johnny. You reckon they gonna kiss each other.”

“I wouldn't be surprised.”

The barkeep served up the stranger's drink and backed away, to the far end of the bar. When they had entered, the bar had been full. Now only the seven of them remained at the long bar.

The stranger lifted his bottle. “A toast to your good health,” he said to Charlie.

Charlie lifted his shot glass and clinked it against the bottle. “To your health,” he replied. If the man wanted to reveal his real identity. That was up to him. Charlie would hold the secret.

“Hey, old man!” Johnny hollered. “You with them wore-out jeans on.”

Charlie sipped his whiskey and then turned to face the mouthy punk. “You talkin' to me, boy?”

“I ain't no boy!”

“No,” Charlie said slowly, drawling out the word. “I reckon you ain't. Strappin' on them guns makes you a man. A loudmouth who ain't dry behind the ears yet. And if you keep flappin' them lips at me, you ain't never gonna be dry behind your dirty ears.”

Johnny stood up, his face flushed red. “Just who the hell do you think you are, old man?”

“Charlie Starr.”

The words were softly offered, but they had all the impact of a hard slap across Johnny's face.

Johnny's mouth dropped open. He closed it and swallowed hard a couple of times. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

Charlie spoke, his words cracking like tiny whips. “Sit down, shut your goddamned mouth, or make your play, punk!”

The experienced gunhandlers had noticed first off that the men at the bar had entered with the leather thongs off their hammers.

“You cain't talk to me lak 'at!” Johnny found his voice. But it was trembly and high-pitched.

“I just did, boy.”

Johnny abruptly sat down. He tried to pick up his beer mug but his hand was shaking so badly he spilled some of it on the tabletop.

Charlie turned his back to the mouthy punk and picked up his shot glass in his left hand.

But there wasn't a man or woman in the bar who thought it was over. The punk would settle down, gulp a few more drinks to boost his nerve, and would have to try Charlie, or leave town with his tail tucked between his legs.

“Been a long time, Charlie,” the stranger said.

“Near'bouts ten years, I reckon. You just passin' through?”

“I was. I decided to stay.”

“What name you goin' by nowadays?”

“Same name that got hung on me seventeen-eighteen years ago.”

Being a reporter—Charlie would call it being a snoop, among other things—Horace leaned around and asked, “And what name is that, sir?”

The stranger turned around, facing the crowd of punks and tinhorns, loudmouths and barflys, hurdy-gurdy girls, gamblers, and gunfighters, who were all straining to listen. He let his eyes drift around the room. “I never did like a lopsided fight, Charlie. You recall that, I suppose.” It was not posed in question form.

“I allow as to how I do. I 'member the time me and you up to a whole room filled to the rafters with trash and cleaned it out.” He chuckled. “That there was a right good fight.” Charlie held up his shot glass in salute and the stranger clinked his sarsaparilla bottle to the glass.

“I got my other gun in my kit over to the roomin' house. reckon I best go on over and get it and strap it on. Looks like got some house-cleanin' to do.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

Smoke was smiling, nursing his beer. He'd already figured who the stranger was.

One of Cat Jennings's men lifted his leg and broke wind. “That's what I think about you, stranger.”

“How rude!” Parnell said.

“Sissy-pants,” the man who had made the coarse social comment stood up. “I think I'll just kill you. 'Cause I n't believe you're the Reno Kid.”

“Of course, he isn't,” the stranger said. “I am!”