Rage of the Mountain Man (9 page)

Priscilla laughed at him, a harsh, bitter note. “There’s not a one of them that would have meekly given up. What were Smoke and Sally to have done? Stand there babbling sweet reason to them while these sons of bitches gunned them down?”

Thomas turned an even paler shade of white. Scandalized, he blurted, “
Priscilla!
In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you use such coarse language. A legacy from your father, no doubt.”

“Yes, I got it from my father. Also my shooting skills,” Priscilla snapped.

Thomas appeared ready to swoon. He put a delicate hand to the area of his heart. “I can’t imagine you putting your hand on one of those obscene instruments of violence.” “You can be sure that I did. And enjoyed it to the fullest. I was five when my father taught me to shoot. Mother had died the winter before and he was pushing the D & R G south toward Pueblo. He took me along. That summer I learned to ride and to shoot a gun. That year, and the next seven, were the happiest of my life.”

Shocked to the depths of his most tender sensibilities, Thomas collapsed, rubber-kneed, into the nearest chair. “What have I done? I can’t accept that I’ve married a gunslinger. Mother—Father—they’ll never understand.” 

Something snapped in Priscilla. Her detestation of this husband who had become a stranger turned to pitying contempt. “They won’t have to,” she said softly, her voice vibrant with regret at her sudden decision. “I thought I knew you. I find I do not. Thomas, no matter how much this pains me, how much it might hurt you, I am entirely serious about this. I want an annulment.”

Thomas groaned wretchedly. “Please, not that. Think of your future, your reputation, if not of mine.”

Priscilla studied on that for a while. Her expression lost its harshness and a sublime serenity eased the taut lines around her eyes and mouth. At last she came to her feet, head cocked to one side.

“Frankly, Thomas, I don’t really give a damn.”

At first, Smoke Jensen had listened to her tirade with a sense of embarrassment. When she waxed most eloquent in her defense of western custom, he began to smile. Her arrival at this unexpected conclusion set off chuckles. After Priscilla departed in haughty isolation, he laughed even louder, until the tears began to roll. For her part, Sally looked at him as though he had lost his mind, then hurried off to commiserate with Priscilla.

Liam Quincannon turned away from the meeting of crewmen and spoke to Smoke Jensen. “We have a portable key. With it we can send for a track crew to replace the ties and rails. It will take some time, I fear. The nearest gandy dancers are at the division point in Fort Hays. We’ll also have to report the robbery attempt.”

Smoke frowned about that. “I’d be obliged if you kept my name out of it.”

“Why? Yer a famous man as it is. Another victory over the bad ones can’t possibly do you any harm.”

“On the contrary,” Smoke countered. “It will attract unwanted attention.” He considered the realities of the situation and grunted in resignation. “You’ll do what you must, but I would appreciate being kept out of it.”

“Devil take it, man, the law will have to know who is responsible for saving the passengers and the express car contents. An’ that was you.”

“Who shot the hard cases in the cab and got the train rolling again?”

Liam grinned. “Ye have me there. I’ll see what I can do.” An hour went by after Liam climbed the nearest telegraph pole, during which time the bodies of the outlaws had been removed to the express car, before a shrill hoot came from a work engine on the opposite side of the breech. The 0-4-0 locomotive rapidly grew in size and detail. A whoop of encouragement came from the train crew as the three flatcars behind the locomotive ground to a halt and two dozen burly track layers scrambled off.

Within half an hour the barricade had been broken up. The old rails were discarded, along with about a third of the ties. Muscles bulging, teams of two hefted new, creosote-fragrant wooden beams and laid them in place. Others stood by with shovels to fill around the base of each with coarse gravel. When finally the long, gleaming strips of steel rail were lowered in place by a hand-operated crane, the fish-plates bolted to them, and the spike setters pounded the last giant nail into the last tie, all hands turned to raising the ballast level to the original.

Three short shrieks of the work engine whistle signaled its backward departure to the nearest siding, where it would get off the main line to let the express flash past. Although the repair procedure held little interest for Smoke Jensen, he had absorbed himself in it, rather than keep company with the moping Thomas Henning. When the passenger train got under way, he returned to the private car to find a much revived Thomas seated in the dining room, industriously polishing off a generous portion of meatloaf. To Smoke, the crusty brown slices smelled suspiciously of lamb, a meat he generally avoided.

Thomas looked up and interrupted his chewing. “Lee Fong tells me this is antelope. I’ve never had it before. Actually it’s quite delicious.”

Smoke wondered if Thomas was trying over-hard to compensate for his wife’s earlier outburst, or had he actually managed to forget the tongue-lashing? Smoke sniffed the air again. “I thought at first it might be lamb. Now I can tell that it’s goat.”

“What?” Thomas’s expression of gastronomic pleasure altered subtly to one of incredulous alarm.

“Antelope are in the goat family. They’re sort of overgrown, wild goats.” Smoke took secret pleasure in the shift in Thomas’s features that betrayed the images of revulsion that must be dancing in the young fop’s head. “But then, deer are also related, and every classy restaurant back East features medallions of venison. I think I’ll find Sally and we’ll join you.”

“Th—there’s plenty,” Thomas invited in a sickly mutter.

Once past the sidetracked work train, the express took slightly less than an hour, at full throttle, to reach Fort Hays. Smoke Jensen experienced the familiar unease even before he saw the swarm of gawkers, local journalists, and a tight knot of lawmen who waited on the platform. Someone had wasted no time in passing the word about the robbery attempt.

It wouldn’t be the first time some politically ambitious sheriff leaked information to the newspapers in order to get his name on the front page, Smoke reasoned resignedly. Perhaps Liam Quincannon had kept his name out of it as promised. Or the private car of Colonel Drew of the D & R G would serve as a barrier between them and the inquiries of the scribblers and law alike.

Smoke’s hopes were dashed when a deputy U. S. Marshal, the sheriff, and two of his deputies became the first to open the safety chain and step onto the observation platform. They entered the car full of urgency, then removed their hats in deference to the two ladies.

“We understand that one of the passengers in this car was instrumental in foiling the robbery,” the marshal began peremptorily.

Smoke sighed and quickly cut his eyes to Sally, imploring her to remain silent. He rose from his chair. “I’m the man you are looking for.”

“And who might you be?” the sheriff pushed in.

“My name’s Smoke Jensen.”

Jaws dropped among the deputies. The sheriff’s face rivaled a beet and he spluttered as he spoke. “By God, what’s to say you didn’t engineer this whole robbery? I know you, Jensen,” he hastened on. “Know all about your outlaw connections, gunfighter ways, and so on.”

“No, you don’t Sheriff,” Smoke answered the old accusations tiredly. “What you ‘know’ you got from reading dime novels and some spurious wanted posters put out by my enemies. And even if the bullshit—er, excuse me, ladies— was true, do you think I would plan a train robbery and bring along a newlywed couple and my own wife?” He made a curt gesture with one big, square-palmed hand to include Sally and the Hennings.

Pasting a sneer on fleshy lips to go with his words, the sheriff replied, “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“Let me handle this, Alf,” the marshal put in. “I think some introductions are in order. I’m Deputy Marshal Dale Walker, from the U. S. Marshal’s office in Dodge. This is Sheriff Alf Carter of Ellis County.” He gave Smoke a “Now it’s your turn” look.

“May I present Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Henning. Priscilla Henning is the daughter of Colonel Drew of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. And this is my wife, Sally. This is the colonel’s car, which he put at our disposal for a journey east. The Hennings are starting out on their honeymoon.” Sheepishness replaced the skepticism on the face of Sheriff Carter. Logic belatedly told him that robber baron he might be, but Colonel Drew did not associate with people who held up trains, even as a pastime. And he didn’t lend that sort his private car. Still, he could not back down too easily. It would make him look bad.

“If you don’t mind,” Carter cut in, “we’ll have to verify that with Colonel Drew.”

Priscilla came out of her chair. If Thomas showed tendencies to be timid, she had enough boldness for them both. “How dare you, you provincial buffoon! I certainly mind, and so will my father, if you are stupid enough to disturb him for something as inconsequential as this.”

Face flushed even darker, Sheriff Carter made a spluttering disavowal and beat a hasty path for the door, trailed by his deputies. Marshal Dale Walker made apologies for the local law and then led Smoke Jensen through a carefully detailed description of the robbery attempt. When it had ended, he roused himself from a comfortable wing chair and shook Smoke’s hand.

“Somehow I feel I’ve met a piece of history. I doubt the other passengers are aware how fortunate they were that you happened to be on the train. Now,” Walker went on in a changed tone, as he nodded toward the crowd that had grown on the rear platform, “I’m afraid I must leave you to the tender mercies of the local press. I’ll have a talk with the conductor—Liam Quincannon, you said?”

“Yes. He did more than his share in breaking it up,” Smoke added his compliment to the fiery Irishman.

“I’m sure he did,” Walker agreed, and excused himself again.

He had shouldered his way only through the first line of journalists when the tide broke and they spilled into the parlor section of the car. Their pencils poised to scribble on notepads, they vied to outshout each other with a cascade of questions.

“Where are the bodies?”

“How many did you kill, Smoke?”

“Did they have their way with you ladies?” one oily-haired scribbler asked with a nasty, anticipatory leer.

“Get your mind out of the gutter and your butt off this train,” Sally Jensen barked, surprised at the crudeness of her words and their delivery.

“Say, Sister . . ." the smutmonger drawled, then blinked at the bulge in her purse that outlined the cylinder and barrel of her Colt Lightning. That convinced him it would be wise to ignore her. He turned to Priscilla. “What about you? Did those outlaws manage to defile you?”

His sneering innuendo struck some heretofore unsuspected chord in Thomas Henning. He rose and spoke in icy fury. “If you don’t do as the lady said, I’ll kick your butt so hard you’ll be wearing your asshole for a fur collar.”

“Thomas?
Tommy?
” Priscilla spoke wonderingly to her husband.

“Excuse yourself and go to our room, dear. I’ll show this guttersnipe out,” Thomas replied to her.

Smoke Jensen couldn’t quite believe it. Thomas Henning had sniveled and whimpered in the presence of real danger, but right now he had stood up for his wife’s honor as any man would. Maybe the sand was there, all right, only covered by too many layers of eastern-upbringing mud. His own temper inflamed by the insensitivity and pushiness of the press, Smoke turned a hot, gray gaze on the small, aggressive reporter who shoved his cigar-chomping face up close to Smoke’s chest.

“You’re the notorious Smoke Jensen, right? How many does this make? Four, five hundred innocent men you’ve killed?”

Smoke Jensen took him by the front of his soiled, once-white shirt and lifted him clear of the floor. When they came face-to-face, he spoke in a low, menacing rumble. “Listen, you little pile of dog crap, I’ve never killed an innocent man. That’s for starters.” The diminutive journalist gulped and tried to sputter a clever retort. Smoke cut him off. “Further, I don’t keep records. I quit counting after the fourth one. If I’m such a big, bad hombre, you’d be wise to keep a hard rein on that snotty tongue of yours so you don’t get it ripped out by the roots. I can give you a shot-by-shot account of the fight down the line today, if that’s what you want.”

Rapidly nodding in nervous jerks, the offensive reporter bit through his cigar. It left a small gray-black smudge on his shirtfront as it fell and bounced to the bare floorboards. Smoke released him and he made swift, fussy adjustments to his coat.

“That would be quite satisfactory—er—Mr. Jensen.”

“Well,” Smoke began. “I shot the first one between the eyes, blew most of his brains out the back of his head. They sprayed everywhere,” he added with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

For the next three minutes he invented the most chilling, gory details he could imagine. It had the desired effect. First one, then another of the offensive journalists gave in to their more tender sensibilities. By the time he launched into a graphic description of how the outlaws in the express car met their end, three more with weak stomachs had scurried away. With the departure of the last, Smoke laughed uproariously. Sally looked at him with real concern.

“Smoke, do you know what you’ve done? They’ll print every word you said, along with self-righteous condemnation of such ‘barbarity.’ ”

“To hell with them. Let them print whatever they want. They would anyway, even if I'd refused to tell them a thing. Only theirs would be a lot bloodier than mine.

“I hope all this won’t take much longer,” Smoke changed the subject. “I’m eager to get to Kansas City, so we can part company with our lovebirds.”

“I. . . wonder . . .” Sally began. “Perhaps they will patch it up before then. Thomas did something a while ago that offered promise.”

“I know, I saw it. Will you do your best to make it happen? Because, barring another train robbery, that’s the only problem we’ll have from now on.”