Journey of the Mountain Man (4 page)

Across the room, a young man stood up, irritation on his face. He said to his companion, “I think I'll go over there and tell them old men to shut up. I'm tared of hearin' them hoot and holler.”

“Sit down and close your mouth,” his friend told him. “That's Charlie Starr and Pistol Le Roux.”

The young man sat down very quickly. A chill touched him, as if death had brushed his skin.

“I thought them old men was
dead
!” he managed to croak after slugging back his drink.

“Well, they ain't. But I got some news that I bet would interest them. I might even get to shake their hands. My daddy just come back from haulin' freight down in Colorado. You wanna go with me?”

“No, sir!”

The young man walked over to where the two aging gunfighters were sitting and talking over their beers. “Sirs?”

Charlie and Pistol looked up. “What can I do for you?” Le Roux said.

The young man swallowed hard. This was real flesh and blood legend he was looking at. These men helped tame the West. “You gentlemen are friends with a man called Smoke Jensen, aren't you?”

“You bet your boots!” Charlie smiled at him.

“My daddy just come home from haulin' freight down to a place called Big Rock. He spoke with the sheriff, a man called Monte Carson. Smoke's in trouble. He's gone up to some town in Montana Territory called Gibson to help his cousin. A woman. He's gonna be facin' forty or fifty gunhands; right in the middle of a range war.”

Pistol and Charlie stood up as of one mind. The young man stared in astonishment. God, but they were both big and gray and gnarled and old!

But the guns they wore under their old jackets were clean and shiny.

“I wish we could pay you,” Charlie said. “But we're gonna have to scratch deep to get up yonder.”

The young man stuck out his hand and the men shook it. Their hands were thickly calloused. “There's a poke of food tied to my saddle horn. Take it. It's all I can do.”

“Nice of you,” Pistol said. “Thankee kindly.”

The men turned, spurs jingling, and were gone.

 

 

The silver-haired man pulled off his boot and looked at the hole in the sole. He stuck some more paper down into the boot. “Hardrock, today is my birthday. I just remembered.”

“How old are you, about a hundred?”

“I think I'm sixty-seven. And I know you two year older than me.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thankee.”

“I ain't got no present. Sorry.”

Silver Jim laughed. “Hardrock, between the two of us we might be able to come up with five dollars. Tell you what. Let's drift up to Montana Territory. I got a friend up in the Little Belt Mountains. Got him a cabin and runs a few head of cattle. Least we can eat.”

“Silver Jim ... he died about three years ago.”

“Ummm ... that's right. He did, didn't he. Well, the cabin's still there, don't you reckon?”

“Might be. I thought of Smoke this mornin'. Wonder how that youngster is?”

“Did you now? That's odd. I did, too.”

“I thought about Montana, too.”

The two old gunfighters exchanged glances, Silver Jim saying, “I just remembered I had a couple of double eagles I was savin for hard times.”

“Is that right? Well ... me, too.”

“We could ride back to that little town we come through this morning and send a message through the wires to Big Rock.”

The old gunslingers waited around the wire office for several hours until they received a reply from Monte Carson in Big Rock.

“Let's get the hell to Montanee!” Silver Jim said.

“I thought you would be a much older man,” Ring remarked after they had made camp for the evening.

It was the first time Smoke's real identity had been brought up since leaving the little village.

Smoke smiled and dumped the coffee into the boiling water. “I started young.”

“When was you gonna tell us?” Beans asked.

“The same time you told me that you was the Moab Gunfighter.”

Beans chuckled. “I wasn't gonna get involved in this fight. But you headin' that way ... well, it sorta peaked my interest.”

“My cousin is in the middle of it. She wrote me at my ranch. You can't turn your back on kin.”

“Y'all must be close.”

“I have never laid eyes on her in my life. I didn't even know she existed until the letter came.” He told them about his conversations with Big Foot.

“This brother of hers sounds like a sissy to me,” Beans said.

“He does for a fact,” Smoke agreed. “But I've found out this much about sissies: they'll take and take and take, until you push them to their limits, and then they'll kill you.”

 

 

The three of them made camp about ten miles outside of Gibson, on the fringes of the Little Belt Mountains.

“There is no point in any of us trying to hide who we are,” Smoke told the others. “As soon as Park and the others get in town, it would be known. We'll just ride in and look the place over first thing in the morning. I'm not going to take a stand in this matter unless the big ranchers involved try to run over Fae ... or unless I'm pushed to it.”

The three topped the hill and looked down at the town of Gibson. One long street, with vacant lots separating a few of the stores. A saloon, one general store, and the smithy was on one side of the street, the remainder of the businesses on the other side. Including a doctor's office. The church stood at the far end of town.

“We'd better be careful which saloon—if any—we go into,” Beans warned. “For a fact, Hanks's boys will gather in one and McCorkle's boys in the other.”

“I don't think I'll go into either of them,” Ring said. “This is the longest I've been without a drink in some time. I like the feeling.”

“Looks like school is in session.” Smoke lifted the reins. “You boys hang around the smithy's place while I go talk to Cousin Parnell. Let's go.”

They entered the town at a slow walk, Ring and Beans flanking Smoke as they moved up the wide street. Although it was early in the day, both saloons were full, judging by the number of horses tied at the hitchrails. A half a dozen or more gunslicks were sitting under the awnings of both saloons. The men could feel the hard eyes on them as they rode slowly up the street. Appraising eyes. Violent eyes; eyes of death.

“Ring,” they heard one man say.

“That's the Moab Kid,” another said. “But who is that in the middle?”

“I don't know him.”

“I do,” the voice was accented. Smoke cut his eyes, shaded by the wide brim of his hat. Diego. “That, amigos, is Smoke Jensen.”

Several chair legs hit the boardwalk, the sound sharp in the still morning air.

The trio kept riding.

“Circle C on the west side of the street,” Beans observed.

“Yeah.” Smoke cut his eyes again. “That's Jason Bright standing by the trough.”

“He is supposed to be very, very fast,” Ring said.

“He's a punk,” Smoke replied.

“Lanny Ball over at the Hangout,” Beans pointed out.

“The Pussycat and the Hangout,” Ring said with a smile. “Where do they get the names?”

They reined up at the smith's place; a huge stable and corral and blacksmithing complex. Beans and Ring swung down. Smoke hesitated, then stepped down.

“Changed my mind,” he told them. “No point in disturbing school while it s in session. We'll loaf around some; stretch our legs.”

“I'm for some breakfast,” Ring said. “Let's try the Cafe Eats.”

Smoke told the stable boy to rub their horses down, and to give each a good bait of corn. They'd be back.

They walked across the wide street, spurs jingling, boots kicking up dust in the dry street, and stepped up onto the boardwalk, entering the cafe.

It was a big place for such a tiny town, but clean and bright, and the smells from the kitchen awakened the taste buds in them all.

They sat down at a table covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth and waited. A man stepped out of the kitchen. He wore an apron and carried a sawed-off double-barreled ten gauge express gun. “You are velcome to eat here at anytime ve are open,” he announced, his German accent thick. “My name is Hans, and I own dis establishment. I vill tell you what I have told all the rest: there vill be no trouble in here. None! I operate a nice quiet family restaurant. People come in from twenty, terty miles avay to eat here. Start trouble, und I vill kill you! Understood?”

“We understand, Hans,” Smoke said. “But we are not taking sides with either McCorkle or Hanks. I do not hire my guns and neither does Beans here.” He jerked his thumb toward the Moab Kid. “And Ring doesn't even carry a short gun.

“Uummph!” the German grunted. “Den dat vill be a velcome change. You vant breakfast?”

“Please.”

“Good! I vill start you gentlemen vith hot oatmeal vith lots of fresh cream and sugar. Den ham and eggs and fried potatoes and lots of coffee. Olga! Tree oatmeals and tree breakfasts, Liebling.”

“What'd he call her?” Beans whispered.

“Darling,” Ring told him.

Smoke looked up. “You speak German, Ring?”

“My parents were German. Born in the old country. My last name is Kruger.”

The oatmeal was placed before them, huge bowls of steaming oatmeal covered with cream and sugar. Ring looked up.
“Danke.”

The two men then proceeded to converse in rapid-fire German. To Beans it sounded like a couple of bullfrogs with laryngitis.

Then, to the total amazement of Smoke and Beans, the two big men proceeded to slap each other across the face several times, grinning all the time.

Hans laughed and returned to the kitchen. “Y'all fixin' to fight, Ring?” Beans asked.

Ring laughed at the expression on their faces. “Oh, no. That is a form of greeting in certain parts of the old country. It means we like each other.”

“That is certainly a good thing to know,” Smoke remarked drily. “In case I ever take a notion to travel to Germany.”

The men fell to eating the delicious oatmeal. When they pushed the empty bowls away, Hans was there with huge platters of food and the contest was on.

“Guten appetit, gentlemans.”

“What'd he say?” Beans asked Ring.

“Eat!” He smiled. “More or less.”

Olga stepped out of the kitchen to stand watching the men eat, a smile on her face. She was just as ample as Hans. Between the two of them they'd weigh a good five hundred pounds. Another lady stepped out of the kitchen. Make that seven hundred and fifty pounds.

When they had finished, as full as ticks, Ring looked up and said,
“Prima! Grobartig!”
He lifted his coffee mug and toasted their good health.
“Auf Ihre Gesundheit!”

Olga and the other lady giggled.

“I didn't hear nobody sneeze.” Beans looked around.

 

 

Ring stayed in the restaurant, talking with Hans and Olga and Hilda and drinking coffee. Beans sat down in a wooden chair in front of the place, staring across the street at the gunhawks who were staring at him. Smoke walked up to the church that doubled as a schoolhouse. The kids were playing out front so he figured it was recess time.

The children looked at him, a passing glance, and resumed their playing. Smoke walked up the steps.

Smoke stood in the open doorway, the outside light making him almost impossible to view clearly from the inside. He felt a pang of ... some kind of emotion. He wasn't sure. But there was no doubt: he was looking at family.

The schoolteacher looked up from his grading papers. “Yes?”

“Parnell Jensen?”

“Yes. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

Smoke had to chew on that for a few seconds. “I reckon I'm your cousin, Parnell. I'm Smoke Jensen.”

 

 

Parnell gave Smoke directions to the ranch and said he would be out at three-thirty. And he would be prompt about it. “I am a very punctilious person,” Parnell added.

And a prissy sort too, Smoke thought. “Uh-huh. Right.” He'd have to remember to ask somebody what punch-till-eous meant.

He was walking up the boardwalk just as the thunder of hooves coming hard reached him. The hooves drummed across the bridge at the west end of town and didn't slow up. A dozen hard-ridden horses can kick up a lot of dust.

Smoke had found out from Parnell that McCorkle's spread was west and north of town, Hanks's spread was east and north of town. Fae's spread, and it was no little spread, ran on both sides of the Smith River; for about fifteen miles on either side of it. McCorkle hated Hanks, Hanks hated McCorkle, and both men had threatened to dam up the Smith and dry Fae out if she didn't sell out to one of them.

“And then what are they going to do?” Smoke asked.

“Fight each other for control of the entire area between the Big Belt and the Little Belt Mountains. They've been fighting for twenty years. They came here together in '62. Hated each other at first sight.” Parnell flopped his hand in disgust. “It's just a dreadful situation. I wish we had never come to this barbaric land.”

“Why did you?”

“My sister wanted to farm and ranch. She's always been a tomboy. The man who owned the ranch before us, hired me—I was teaching at a
lovely
private institution in Illinois, close to Chicago—and told Fae that he had no children and would give us the ranch upon his death. I think more to spite McCorkle and Hanks than out of any kindness of heart.”

Smoke leaned against a storefront and watched as King Cord McCorkle—as Parnell called him—and his crew came to a halt in a cloud of dust in front of the Pussycat. When the dust had settled, Jason Bright stepped off the boardwalk and walked to Cord's side, speaking softly to him.

Parnell's words returned: “I have
always
had to look after my sister. She is so
flighty.
I wish she would marry and then I could return to civilization. It's so primitive out here!” He sighed. “But I fear that the man who gets my sister will have to beat her three times a day.”

Cord turned his big head and broad face toward Smoke and stared at him. Smoke pegged the man to be in his early forties; a bull of a man. Just about Smoke's height, maybe twenty pounds heavier.

Cord blinked first, turning his head away with a curse that just reached Smoke. Smoke cut his eyes to the Hangout. Diego and Pablo Gomez and another man stood there. Smoke finally recognized the third man. Lujan, the Chihuahua gunfighter. Probably the fastest gun—that as yet had built a reputation—in all of Mexico. But not a cold-blooded killer like Diego and Pablo.

Lujan tipped his hat at Smoke and Smoke lifted a hand in acknowledgment and smiled. Lujan returned the smile, then turned and walked into the saloon.

Smoke again felt eyes on him. Cord was once more staring at him.

“You there! The man supposed to be Smoke Jensen. Git down here. I wanna talk to you.”

“You got two legs and a horse, mister!” Smoke called over the distance. “So you can either walk or ride up here.”

Pablo and Diego laughed at that.

“Damned greasers!” Cord spat the words.

The Mexicans stiffened, hands dropping to the butts of their guns.

A dozen gunhands in front of the Pussycat stood up.

A little boy, about four or five years old, accompanied by his dog, froze in the middle of the street, right in line of fire.

Lujan opened the batwings and stepped out. “We—all of us—have no right to bring bloodshed to the innocent people of this town.” His voice carried across the street. He stepped into the street and walked to the boy's side. “You and your dog go home, muchacho. Quickly, now.”

Lujan stood alone in the street. “A man who would deliberately injure a child is not fit to live. So, McCorkle, it is a good day to die, is it not?”

Smoke walked out into the street to stand by Lujan's side. A smile creased the Mexican's lips. “You are taking a side, Smoke?”

“No. I just don't like McCorkle, and I probably won't like Hanks either.”

“So, McCorkle,” Lujan called. “You see before you two men who have not taken a side, but who are more than willing to open the
baile.
Are you ready?”

“Make that three people,” Beans's voice rang out.

“Who the hell are you?” McCorkle shouted.

“Some people call me the Moab Kid.”

“Make that four people,” Ring said. He held his Winchester in his big hands.

“Funf!
” Hans shouted, stepping out into the street. He held the sawed-off in his hands.

The window above the cafe opened and Olga leaned out, a pistol with a barrel about a foot and a half long in her hand. She jacked back the hammer to show them all she knew how to use it. And would.

“All right, all right!” Cord shouted. “Hell's bells! Nobody was going to hurt the kid. Come on, boys, I'll buy the drinks.” He turned and bulled his way through his men.