Rage of the Mountain Man (3 page)

“You are absolutely sure of that?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Smoke Jensen is now just a memory.”

For Sally Jensen, the avalanche was the final straw. She was not one to make issues out of frivolous discomforts, but the snow slide that had nearly claimed the life of her husband and many of his workers hardened Sally’s determination to escape the rigors of the past winter. Hands still worked to dig out the imprisoned livestock and their damaged bunkhouse. With the stove dislodged, no cooking could be done in the men’s quarters. Sally did double duty, helped by Cynthia Patterson, to serve hot, filling meals to the ranch employees.

She put down a skillet now to peer through the open rear door and up the face of the mountain that, to her way of thinking, had betrayed them. Was that a blackened smudge she saw against the sparkling white of the snow ledge? Her eyes watered at the brightness and strain. There appeared to be two—no, three—dark spots. Her vision was no longer as sharp as when their children had been the age of Bobby Harris. Smoke would be able to tell, Sally assured herself. But first she must make it clear to him how badly she needed to get away from the basin.

Turning from the stove, she spoke with hands on hips. “Kirby, we simply have to get out of here.”

That got Smoke’s immediate attention. She never called him by his given name unless a situation had reached the critical level. “I’ve been thinking along those lines myself,” he allowed neutrally.

“Well, I’m glad. Because I’m convinced we need to get as far away from these mountains and that dreadful snow as possible.”

Smoke cocked a raven eyebrow. “Meaning where?” Sally took a deep breath. “New Hampshire. My father’s place. It’s been years since I’ve spent more than a day or two there. Longer still since you visited. He would be so pleased, and so would mother.”

Astonishment registered on Smoke’s face. He viewed any country north, south, east, or west of the Rocky Mountains with suspicion. But particularly east. And he considered anywhere east of the Mississippi River with abhorrence. People didn’t know how to live right back there.

Fact was, to Smoke they seemed only to exist. Odd creatures, they chose to spend their lives bunched up on top of one another in tall, narrow row houses, on tiny plots of ground not fitting even to grow a kitchen garden. And they had cities with two, three times the population of the entire state of Colorado. No, definitely not the place for them to go. He opened his mouth to say so, but Sally rushed on, eager to sell her idea.

“In his last letter, father grew almost poetic when he described the coming of spring in the Green Mountains.” 

Mountains?
Smoke thought, faintly amused at the use of the term.
More like worn-down hills.
“I was thinking of New Orleans,” Smoke managed to insert. He hoped to distract Sally from her temporary madness by offering a trip to her favorite city. Sally called New Orleans “the most civilized town in America.”

For a moment, her blue eyes glowed as she considered the Vieux Carre, and all those tiny balconies with their ornate wrought-iron banisters and the gaily painted shutters at the narrow windows. The spanking clean carriages and Hansom cabs that twinkled around Jackson Square. The French Market, with its heady aromas of spices, exotic coffees, and succulent vegetables. And, oh, the plethora of seafood: oysters, shrimp by the ton, redfish, crabs, and lobsters.

The latter were not so good, Sally had to admit, as those of New England. Yet she found the Crescent City enchanting. Who could not be charmed by the Garden District, where all the swells lived? And the constant rainbow flow of humanity and its many languages. From the palest, pampered milk white to coaly black, with cajuns, creoles, and red men mingled in for variety.

With conscious effort; Sally arrested her fleeting images and returned to her original campaign. “That would be very nice, dear,” she answered Smoke’s tempting blandly. “But Father has been growing more earnest in his urging for us to pay a visit. His last letter said he had a marvelous diversion in mind for you.”

“You are all the diversion I need,” Smoke teased, as he cleaned up his noontime plate of pork chops, beans, and cornbread. “We could rent a room in that big old house on Basin Street, and I could have you all alone to myself.”

“It’s . . . tempting,” Sally admitted. “But father would be so disappointed. “I’ve all but agreed, needing only to confer with you, of course.”

A perfunctory necessity at best, the ruggedly handsome gunfighter admitted to himself. Sally Reynolds Jensen had a knack for getting around him on nearly anything. And why not? She had given him everything a man could want out of life: a home that had grown from a cabin to a sturdy, two-story log mansion; fine, healthy children; a partner in hard times, a nurse when needed, a companion, friend, and lover. That revelation brought to Smoke Jensen a sudden change of heart.

“All right,” he drawled gently, albeit with a tinge of reluctance. “I suppose we can spare a couple of weeks to visit your father and mother. But I’m holding out for at least a week in New Orleans.”

Sally’s eyes went wide. “Why, that’s wonderful. Only . . . it’s so extravagant.”

“What’s wrong with that? We can afford it,” Smoke simply stated the obvious. “When do you want to go?” 

“Right now. Right away,” Sally rushed to advise him. “I mean, right after the livestock have been rescued.”

Smoke pushed back from the table. “I’ll ride in to Big Rock this afternoon to telegraph John about our intended arrival, and also get the tickets for the train.”

Sally Jensen hung her arms around her husband’s neck and delivered a long, powerful, very wet kiss. “You darling, I knew you would say yes,” she sent after him as Smoke headed for the out of doors.

Big Rock, Colorado, had grown considerably over the years since Smoke Jensen had first ridden into town. The main street had lengthened to three blocks of businesses, with an additional residential block at the north and south ends. Cross streets featured shops at least to the alley, with the central intersection extending the commercial area a full block east and west. Smoke concluded his business at the railroad depot by four in the afternoon.

With himself committed to the journey east, he decided on paying a call on Sheriff Monte Carson. They had not seen each other for two weeks. Although Smoke Jensen had hung up his gun long ago, he liked to keep in touch with what went on outside the Sugarloaf. Particularly which specific gunhawks or bounty hunters happened to blow through town.

A man could never be too careful, Preacher had taught him early on. In his wild, single years, Smoke had walked both sides of the law. He had never gone so far as to be considered a desperado. Yet he had made enemies. Some of them still lived, and carried around grudges the size of Pike’s Peak. So, after his siding with the sheriff during the Valley War, Smoke Jensen had cultivated his friendship with Monte Carson. It had more than once saved his life. He walked Dandy along Berry Street, the main drag, to the squat, stone building that housed the sheriff's office and jail.

There, a deputy told Smoke that Monte had left for the day, and could be expected in the Silver Dollar. Monte liked his beer, as the slight rounding and thickening of his middle gave testimony. Smoke thanked the deputy and headed to the saloon anticipating their chat.

He entered through the batwings and spotted the lawman at the bar. One elbow resting on the mahogany, Monte Carson was turned three-quarters away from the array of bottles on the backbar. His left hand held a large, bowl-like schooner, its contents lowered by half. The other wiped idly at a froth of foam on his walrus mustache. A smile lighted his face when he made out the features of Smoke Jensen.

“Now, ain’t that a sight,” Monte brayed good-naturedly. “What brings you to town?”

“Cabin fever,” Smoke Jensen responded, as he neared the lawman. To the apron, “Beer.”

“Let’s sit down,” Monte invited, when the brew had been delivered.

They took a table off to one side. Settled in, their conversation ran to small talk, until Smoke mentioned the avalanche of the previous night. Carson asked for details and got them. He shook his head wonderingly as Smoke recounted the initial downfall of winter-packed snow. He literally gaped when Smoke told of the second slide.

When Smoke concluded, Monte asked with genuine concern, “Did you lose many horses?”

“Only one had to be put down. Broken leg. The others in the corral got bruised up by ice chunks and a right good chill.”

Smoke went on to tell of the intended trip and suggested the sheriff might take a swing or two up to the Sugarloaf in their absence. Monte readily agreed. Smoke had started to launch into a colorful account of how he viewed matters in the East, when five youthful drifters entered the saloon.

They surrounded a table and glowered menacingly at the sole occupant until he rose and hastily departed. The apparent leader plunked into the vacated captain’s chair and propped his boot heels on the scarred, water-ringed tabletop. The over-sharp rowels of his spurs punched deep gouges.

“Get yer ass over here and bring us a bottle,” he growled in the general direction of the bartender.

Smoke and Monte exchanged meaning-loaded glances and the ex-gunfighter put their mutual understanding into words. “Looks like you’ve inherited someone else’s troubles.”

Monte Carson looked again at the five loud-mouthed punks. “I’d say we had a problem.”

“Where do you get that ‘we,’ Monte? You have a chipmunk in your pocket?”

Monte didn’t even blink. “You’re here, you’re packin’ iron, and it’s too far for me to go get a deputy.”

Smoke Jensen gave a mock sigh. “You’re slowing down in your old age, Monte?”

“I’m not that much older than you, Smoke.”

“Hey, what’d you old farts come in here for, to take a nap?” another of the rowdies asked the usual throng of regular customers.

Wisely, the locals refrained from answer and tried to ignore the quintet so obviously on the prod. It did them little good as two of the testy drifters came to their boots and swaggered toward the bar.

“What’s keepin’ our whiskey, you bag of guts?” he demanded.

Tortoise-like, Opie Quinn’s head appeared to pop down into the protection of his rising shoulders. Without a word, he pointed to a big, bold sign that read,

We Reserve the Right

      to Refuse Service

        to Anyone

“What? You think yer too good to serve us? Y’all think yer too good to drink with us? Waall, jist who do you think that is, sittin’ over there? That’s Red Tyrell. That’s right,
Red Tyrell
, the man who gunned down three Texas Rangers in a fair fight, an’ all at once.”

Softly, from a table a dozen feet from Smoke and Monte, came a one-word appraisal of that astounding piece of information: “Bullshit.”

At once, the punk at the bar whirled in their direction. “You lookin’ for an early trip to the boneyard? Which one of you gutless wonders said that? C’mon, ’fess up. We’re reasonable boys. We’re in a mood for some whoop-de-do, bein’ cooped up all winter, so we’re inclined to go easy. Leave y’all breathin’ an’ with all yer teeth.”

“Locked in a jail cell, more likely,” Monte said in an aside to Smoke.

Smoke gave him a momentary pained frown. “You do like living dangerously, don’t you, Monte?”

Another of the saddle tramps rammed to his boots. “I heard that. Don’t think I didn’t. You sure don’t know who it is yer raggin’. That’s Randy Slate, an’ I’m Buddy Harmes, an’ that really is Red Tyrell.”

Smoke Jensen rocked back his captain’s chair and came to his boots. “Pardon me if I’m underimpressed,” he stated dryly. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to visit the outhouse.”

With slow, deliberate insolence. Smoke turned his back on the quarrelsome punks and strode to the rear door. His disdain left Harmes and Slate slack-jawed. Smoke made it out the door before the first man to comment on their brags added fuel to the fire.

“Talk about big fish in a little pond.”

Slate and Harmes rounded on him. They crossed to his table in three swift strides. “You’re the one said ‘bullshit,’ ain’tcha? Now yer gonna have to back that up with iron. Come on, get up out of that chair and pull yer piece, you son of a bitch,” Slate snarled at him.

Intimidated by the bulging muscles and harsh voices, the local stammered, “Bu—but I’m unarmed.”

“Like hell!” Randy Slate snarled at him. “Buddy, give him a sixgun.”

Their spouting off had gone far enough, Monte Carson decided. He flipped the lapel of his black coat away from his vest, revealing the five-pointed star he wore there. He snapped to his boots and advanced on the two agitators.

“That’ll be enough of that. Back off, or spend a night in our jail,” the lawman growled close in the face of Buddy Harmes.

Red Tyrell moved with the liquid speed and silence of a snake. He came up behind Monte Carson and laid the seven-inch barrel of his Colt Peacemaker alongside Monte’s head, an inch above his right ear. The sheriff grunted, went rubber-legged, and dropped to the floor a moment before Smoke Jensen entered through the back door.

Monte’s head had just bounded off the padding of sawdust by the time Smoke took in the situation. He flashed a broad smile he didn’t feel and spoke in a calming tone. “Now, you’ve done a very unwise thing. Assaulting a peace officer can get in you some real trouble.”

Like a winter-starved trout, the mouthy Randy Slate went for the bait. “What do you think killin’ Texas Rangers could get us, sissy-boy?”

The soft gray of Smoke’s eyes turned to steel. “Dead, if I know Texas Rangers, and I do.”

“Dead?” Slate crowed, as though he’d never heard of such a thing.

“Yes. Exactly like you will all be if you don’t pick up my friend the sheriff, clean the sawdust off him, and accompany me to the jail.”

“You?” chortled an amused Randy Slate.

Smoke had grown tired of one-word sentences. “I’ve handled a dozen pieces of shit like you before breakfast and never turned a hair.”

“That does it! By God, that does it,” Red Tyrell shrieked, an octave above where he wanted his voice to be. “Spread out, boys.” To Smoke, “Fill your hand, you bastard!”