Assault of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Risco

Dinkins and the others came upon a large cottonwood tree standing just outside the town. Hanging from a limb was a corpse. His hands were tied behind his back and his head and neck were misshapen from the effect of the hanging. The corpse was twisting slowly at the end of the rope.

“Son of bitch!” Travis said. “What the hell is this? I didn’t think there was any law in Risco.”

Whoever hanged the man did not bother to put a hood over his face, leaving the grotesque visage of a violent death for all to see. The man’s skin was black, though it did not appear that he had been a black man in life. His cheeks were puffed, his mouth was open, and flies were crawling in and out of it. The worst part about him was his eyes. They were bulging nearly out of their sockets.

“He sure is an ugly son of a bitch, ain’t he?” Frank asked.

“Does anyone know who he is?” Dinkins asked.

“I don’t know him,” Travis replied. “But him bein’ all black and puffed like he is, I don’t think I would recognize him even if I did know him.”

“He’s got a sign pinned to his pant leg there,” Dinkins said, pointing to a piece of paper.

Frank rode up to the hanging corpse, then, standing in the stirrups, reached up to pull off the sign.

“What does it say?” Travis asked.

Frank read it aloud. “This is the corpse of Frank Marlow. Do not assume that because we have no law in this town means we have no law. Mr. Marlow carved up and killed one our soiled doves, and for that, has paid the extreme penalty.”

“Better pin the sign back on him,” Dinkins said.

Frank did, then the four men rode on into Risco, stopping in front of the saloon.

Inside they got two bottles of blended whiskey, then found a table. When the whores they had stayed with before saw them, they came over to the table to join them. The dissipation of years on the line told in all four of them. There was not one who was in the least attractive, and none of them could have been able to make a living in their profession anywhere else but Risco.

The irony was that they were making more money than they had ever made before in their lives. But the money did them little good, since it cost so much to live in Risco.

“I see you boys are back.” Wanda was the largest of the four, the one Dinkins had awakened with the last time he was in Risco. Because of that, she established a proprietary attitude toward him.

“You know why they’re back, don’t you, Wanda?” Emma said. Emma was running her hand through Travis’s hair. “They fell in love with us, and they can’t live without us.”

The four women laughed at Emma’s joke, but none of the men found it particularly funny.

“Go away,” Harley said to the women.

“Oh, honey, you don’t really want us to—” Wanda started to say, but that was as far as she got before Harley, without getting up from his chair, backhanded her. The sound of the slap was heard all over the saloon, and though Wanda gasped in shock and pain, she neither cried out, nor cried.

“I said go away,” Harley repeated.

The four women left.

“You didn’t have to do that, Wes,” Travis said. “I kinda like havin’ the women around.”

Harley glared at Travis, but he said nothing.

“Of course, I reckon if we want the women, we can always ask ’em to come back,” Travis said.

“We need to decide where we’re goin’ to go from here,” Dinkins said.

“I hope you ain’t got no more ideas about holdin’ up another train,” Frank said. “’Cause we sure didn’t get much from the last one.”

“Yeah,” Travis said. “This was about as bad as the bank in Gothic was.”

“You can’t win ’em all,” Dinkins said. “And we ain’t done all that bad. We got six thousand dollars from the bank in Crystal, and another five thousand from the coach hold-up.”

“So what do you have in mind next?” Travis asked.

“I figure we won’t do anything for a while,” Dinkins said. “We got some money, we’ll just stay here until somethin’ else comes up.”

Sapinero

It was nearly ten o’clock, and the night creatures were calling to each other as Smoke stood looking toward Sapinero. The cloud passed over the moon and moved away, bathing in silver the little town that rose up like a ghost before him. The main street was fronted on both sides by buildings, more than half of which were dark. The biggest and most brightly lit building was the saloon at the far end of town.

Inside the saloon someone was playing a guitar, and Smoke could hear the music all the way out to the edge of town. The player was good, and the music spilled out in a steady beat with two or three poignant minor chords at the end of each phrase. An overall, single string melody worked its way in and out of the chords like a thread of gold woven through the finest cloth.

Between Delta and Sapinero, he had found ten of the DEAD OR ALIVE dodgers, which were posting a five thousand dollar reward on his head. He had destroyed ever y one of them, but he wondered if there were any reward posters in this town. Well, if there were, he would just have to deal with them.

Smoke passed by a coach sitting in front of the stage depot. The coach was dark and there was no team attached, but it had obviously moved into position to be able to leave town at first light. He heard a cat screech and a dog bark. A baby cried, and a woman’s loud and angry voice cut through the night.

He rode on through the town, the only one out on the street at that hour, and the hollow-sounding clops of his horse’s hooves echoed back loudly from the buildings that stood on either side of the street. He stopped in front of the saloon, then wrapped the reins around the hitching rail before stepping up onto the porch.

Two men came through the front door, laughing and talking as they continued the conversation they had started inside. In the lantern light that spilled out from the interior, Smoke studied them. He had no idea what Bill Dinkins looked like, and he only knew Wes Harley by description. “He’s one of the ugliest men you’ll ever see. His head looks just like a skull, with skin stretched over it,” he had been told.

He knew what Travis and Frank Slater looked like, because he had studied their pictures. He studied the two men as they exited the saloon, their private conversation so intense they took no notice of Smoke.

He didn’t know who they were, but he knew who they weren’t. They were not the Slater brothers.

Once his eyes had adjusted inside, Smoke stepped up to the bar. He didn’t call for the bartender, but waited quietly until he saw him.

When the barman noticed him, he was slightly startled. “Damn, mister, I didn’t see you come in. You been standin’ there long?”

“Not too long,” Smoke answered easily.

“What can I get you?”

“A beer. And some food, if it’s not too late.”

“It ain’t too late if you ain’t none too particular. We got some boiled ham and boiled taters.”

“That’ll be fine.” Smoke paid for the beer, then nodded toward a nearby table. “I’ll be right over there.”

As he was eating his late supper, Smoke noticed a card game going on in a small alcove off the back of the saloon. The players were engaged in an animated conversation and he heard one of them say the name Dinkins.

Smoke lingered over his supper until one of the four players left the game, then he walked to the table. “If you need a fourth player, I would be willing to join you,” he said politely. “But if this is a private game, I have no wish to intrude.”

“There’s an empty chair there, you’re welcome to join us,” one of the players said.

“Thank you.” Smoke pulled out the chair.

“Wait a minute,” one of the other players said quickly. “Before you sit I need to know if you are a saddle tramp, or a man of means.” This was a fat man with heavy jowls and narrow, squinting eyes. He was wearing a tan jacket and a dark brown silk vest. A gold chain stretched across his vest, accenting his girth.

“Why do you ask?” Smoke replied

“The reason I ask is because this isn’t a penny-ante game. I wouldn’t want you to get in here and suddenly realize you was in over your head.”

“Jim is right. We don’t want to take you in, mister, without you knowing what you are letting yourself in for. This is what you might call a high-stakes game.” The player who had invited Smoke to pull up a chair was a man in his early sixties, wearing a dark blue suit. He also had gray hair and whiskers, and friendly eyes. “Here is the thing, you see. You have to buy a minimum of fifty dollars worth of chips, just to get into this game. If you can do that, you’re more than welcome at our table.”

“Thank you. I’ll take a hundred.” Smoke took five gold double-eagles from his pocket and put them on the table in front of him.

“Take care of him, Ollie,” the gray-haired man said. Then to Smoke he added, “Ollie is our banker.”

Ollie was about thirty, slim and clean-shaven, with a hawklike nose. Like Smoke, Ollie wasn’t wearing a suit. He reached into the chip box and took out a handful of painted chips, in red, white, and blue. “Red is one dollar, white is five, and blue is ten,” he explained, sliding the appropriate amount over to Smoke.

“I’m Al Frakes,” the gray-haired man said by way of introduction. “I publish the newspaper here. The banker is Ollie Lynch. Ollie is a messenger for Wells Fargo. And the gentleman who challenged you is Jim Saddler. He owns the leather goods and saddle shop, which I think is most appropriate for someone with the name Saddler.”

“Who might you be?” Saddler asked.

“The name is Jensen. Kirby Jensen. But most folks just call me Smoke.”

The three players looked at him in shock.

“You are Smoke Jensen?” Ollie asked.

“Yes.”

Jim Saddler stuck his hand across the table. “It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Jensen. I hope you don’t hold it against me that I asked if you had the means to play in this game.”

“Not at all,” Smoke said. “If I didn’t have enough money to play, it would have been a friendly gesture.”

Saddler was the dealer and on the first hand, Smoke drew two pair, which was enough to keep him in the game. He wasn’t able to convert it into a full house though, and he lost to Frakes, who had drawn three tens.

Over the next half hour Smoke won some and lost some so that he stood at about ten dollars ahead in the game.

The conversation flowed easily, mostly about the game, but often coming back to an article that had been published in Al Frakes’ newspaper about the train robbery.

“What article is that?” Smoke said.

“Well now, I just happen to have a copy of that newspaper with me,” Frakes said. “It is, in my humble opinion, the best newspaper published between Denver and San Francisco.”

“Your opinion isn’t all that humble, when you figure that you are the publisher,” Saddler said, and the others laughed.

Frakes gave Smoke the newspaper, then pointed out the article that appeared on the front page.

Bold Train Robbery Near Sapinero

BILL DINKINS GANG THE CULPRITS

It was lacking five minutes of eleven in the evening when one of the outlaws, believed to be Travis Slater, climbed over the tender and ordered engineer Ernest Gibson to slow the train. Complying with the request the train was slowed, then diverted to a side track where it was ultimately brought to a halt.

Engineer Gibson jumped down from the engine cab and attempted to escape, but was shot down and killed by Travis Slater. When conductor Martin Kraft and passenger Thad Wallace exited the train to see what was the reason for the unscheduled stop, passenger Wallace was shot and killed.

The robbers then dynamited the express car and ordered the messenger, Sy Miller, to open the safe, from which the robbers took one hundred and thirty-six dollars. They then proceeded to pass through the train, ordering the passengers to “give it up,” but were able to gather less than two hundred dollars in that operation, making their entire haul for the robbery, just over three hundred dollars.

What the robbers did not know was that, when the train was stopped, Mr. Miller, anticipating a robbery, had opened the safe and removed a money shipment of twenty thousand dollars, hid same in the express car, then closed the safe again, fooling the robbers into believing the money they found was all the money that was being transferred.

They fared little better in robbing the passengers, for the quick thinking conductor convinced the passengers to entrust their funds with the Negro porter, Julius Jackson. Jackson, while pretending to help the robbers by carrying their loot bag from car to car was, unbeknownst to them, carrying over three thousand dollars of the passengers’ money on his person.

The robbers were so bold as to make no effort to conceal their identity, and Bill Dinkins even suggested to Lydia Lane, a young, fifteen-year-old girl making the trip alone, that she could someday brag to her grandchildren that she was robbed by Bill Dinkins.

A mounted posse went in pursuit of the gang by the next morning, but they lost the trail and returned empty handed.

“I’ll bet they were some mad when they found out the messenger had hidden the money shipment,” Frakes said.

“Ha! And that the porter had hidden all the passengers’ money,” Saddler added.

“They ain’t likely to find out,” Ollie said. “Not where they are now. There’s no newspapers.”

“Where they are now?” Smoke said. “Why do you say that? Do you know where they are?”

“More’n likely they are in Risco,” Ollie said.

“Risco?” Frakes asked.

“It’s a little town on Cebella Creek, about halfway between here and Powderhorn,” Ollie said.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Frakes said.

“It’s not on any map,” Smoke said. “And that’s by design. They don’t want anybody to know they’re there.”

“Why, that beats all I’ve ever heard,” Saddler said. “Why would a town not want anybody to know of its existence?”

“It’s what some might call a Robbers’ Roost,” Smoke said. “Men who are running from the law go there, knowing there is little chance anyone from the law will trace them there.”

“You know the town, Mr. Jensen?” Ollie asked, surprised by Smoke’s response.

Smoke had visited the town once when he was on the dodge, going by the name of Buck West. “Yes, I know the town.” He gave no further explanation.

“How is it that you know the town, Ollie?” Frakes asked.

“I wasn’t always an agent for Wells Fargo. At one time in my life I was a different kind of agent.”

“My God,” Saddler said. “You mean you were a road agent?”

“I was nineteen,” Ollie said. “And I fell in with the wrong crowd. I served two years, and I’ve been straight ever since.”

“Does Wells Fargo know about this?” Frakes asked.

“They know.” Ollie smiled. “That’s why they let me handle their money, just as you men are doing in this card game.”

The others laughed.

“I would like to ask you something, Ollie,” Smoke said. “When you say you fell in with the wrong crowd, would that be Bill Dinkins?”

“I don’t have anything to do with Dinkins anymore,” Ollie said.

“What?” Saddler said. “Ollie, are you telling me that you were not only a road agent, but that you actually rode with Bill Dinkins?”

Ollie folded his cards and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “If you gentlemen would rather I not play cards with you anymore, I will understand. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“We aren’t saying that, Ollie. We aren’t saying that at all, are we, Jim?” Frakes asked the question pointedly, challenging Saddler.

“No, I, uh, didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”

“Mr. Lynch, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything, but I have a personal interest in locating Bill Dinkins and the men who are riding with him,” Smoke said.

“I know you do, Mr. Jensen. I doubt there is anyone in Colorado who doesn’t know that Dinkins shot your wife. It’s been in all the papers. How is she, by the way?”

“She has had a hard time of it. But she’s doing quite well now.”

“I figured she must be, or you wouldn’t be huntin’ for him. You would be back home with your wife.”

“You think he might be in Risco, do you?”

“I can’t be for sure, because I haven’t seen him in over five years. But when I was ridin’ with him, we used to spend quite a bit of time there.”

“May I ask what was the attraction of such a place?” Frakes asked.

“Well, think about it, Al. What is the good of holding up a stagecoach, or robbing a bank, if you can’t spend your money? And if you are a wanted man, you can’t spend it in a town like a normal person would—you can’t even go into a regular town without fear of bein’ recognized.

“So, ever’one winds up in Risco at one time or another. Risco has restaurants, hotels, drugstores, general stores, saloons, gambling halls, and whore houses. In short, ever’thing a man might need. Only thing is, ever’thing costs ’bout three or four times more there than it does anywhere else.”

“Mr. Lynch, I thank you kindly for the information,” Smoke said. “I just don’t know why I hadn’t thought of Risco myself.”

“You’ll be goin’ there, will you, Mr. Jensen?” Lynch asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe you’re goin’ after Bill Dinkins, and I know why you are. But he ain’t the one you got to worry about. The one you got to worry about is Wes Harley. I reckon you’ve heard of him.”

“Yes, I have heard of him. Cole Parnell told me about him, before he was hanged. Parnell said he was Dinkins’ brother.”

“Yes sir, he is. They got the same ma, but their pa is different.”

“I’m not looking for Harley. He isn’t the one who shot Sally.”

“That don’t matter none. Like as not, he knows you are after them, so he’ll be lookin’ for you now. And here’s the thing. He’s like Dinkins, in that he would just as soon kill you, as look at you. What makes him different from Dinkins is that he is good at it.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Smoke said.

“It’s not goin’ to stop you from lookin’ for him though, is it?” Ollie asked.

“Not for a minute.” Smoke said.

“I didn’t think so.”