Dakota Ambush

Chapter Three

Hayes and Cruise were not the first outlaws Matt had ever tracked down. He was neither a lawman, nor someone who hunted other men for any reward the government paid for them, but he was always on the side of law and order, and sometimes, like this time, going after an outlaw just seemed to be the right thing to do.

He never sought trouble, but somehow, trouble had a way of finding him. As a result, Matt Jensen was one of a select company of men in the West whose very name could evoke fear among the outlaws and evildoers.

Matt took the bag of bank money from Hayes’s saddle and started back to Pueblo, but just after noon, his horse stepped into an unseen prairie dog hole. The horse broke a leg and Matt had to shoot him. It was a hard thing to do; Spirit was only the second horse he had ever owned. Indeed, this horse had carried with him the spirit of his first horse, who was also named, not coincidentally, Spirit. There was nothing Matt could do now but take shanks mare, so, throwing his saddle, saddlebags, and the money bag over his shoulder, he began walking.

Matt Jensen dropped his saddle with a sigh of relief, then climbed up the berm to stand on the ballast between the railroad tracks. Just before him, the clear tracks of the Denver and New Orleans lay like twin black ribbons across the landscape, stretching north to south from horizon to horizon. For the moment, they were as cold and empty as the barren sand, rocks, and mountains that surrounded him, but Matt knew that a train would be passing through here sometime before sundown.

Since putting his horse down, Matt had walked for two hours, carrying his saddle with him, thus bringing him to his current position. He was, at the moment, standing alongside the railroad tracks some thirty miles south of Pueblo. Now all that was left for him to do was catch the train, so, using his saddle as a pillow, he lay down beside the tracks to wait. As he waited, he couldn’t help but think of the horse he had just put down, and in order to combat the grief that threatened to consume him, he turned his thoughts to his first horse named Spirit, and particularly, to how he had come by him.

Right after the war, while still a boy named Matt Cavanaugh, the man now known as Matt Jensen made the trip west from Missouri with his father, mother, and sister. On the trail west, their wagon was attacked by outlaws, and all were killed but Matt. Matt escaped, managing to kill one of the outlaws in the process. The incident left Matt an orphan and shortly thereafter, he wound up in the Soda Springs Home for Wayward Boys and Girls. Rather than providing a refuge, though, the orphanage was so evilly run that eventually Matt escaped from the home.

A few days later, Matt, nearly dead from hunger and the cold, was found in the mountains by the legendary Smoke Jensen. Smoke took the boy in and raised him to adulthood. Out of respect and appreciation, Matt Cavanaugh changed his name to Matt Jensen, and though there was no blood relationship between the two men, they regarded each other as brothers. When it was time for Matt to go out on his own, Smoke surprised him with an offer.

“Why don’t you go out to the corral and pick out your horse?” Smoke had asked.¹

“My horse?”

“Yeah, your horse. A man’s got to have a horse.”

“Which horse is mine?” Matt asked.

“Why don’t you take the best one?” Smoke replied. “Except for that one,” he added, pointing to an Appaloosa over in one corner of the corral. “That one is mine.”

“Which horse is the best?” Matt asked.

“Huh-uh,” Smoke replied, shaking his head. “I’m willing to give you the best horse in my string, but as to which horse that might be, well, you’re just going to have to figure that out for yourself.”

Matt walked out to the small corral that Smoke had built and, leaning on the split-rail fence, looked at the string of seven horses from which he could choose.

After looking them over very carefully, Matt smiled and nodded.

“You’ve made your choice?” Smoke asked.

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“I want that one,” Matt said, pointing to a bay.

“Why not the chestnut?” Smoke asked. “He looks stronger.”

“Look at the chestnut’s front feet,” Matt said. “They are splayed. The bay’s feet are just right.”

“What about the black one over there?”

“Huh-uh,” Matt said. “His back legs are set too far back. I want the bay.”

Smoke reached out and ran his hand through Matt’s hair.

“You’re learning, kid, you’re learning,” he said. “The bay is yours.”

Matt’s grin spread from ear to ear. “I’ve never had a horse of my own before,” he said. He jumped down from the rail fence and started toward the horse.

“That’s all right, he’s never had a rider before,” Smoke said.

“What?” Matt asked, jerking around in surprise as he stared at Smoke. “Did you say that he’s never been ridden?”

“He’s as spirited as he was the day we brought him in.”

“How’m I going to ride him if he has never been ridden?”

“Well, I reckon you are just going to have to break him,” Smoke said, passing the words off as easily as if he had just suggested that Matt should wear a hat.

“Break him? I can’t break a horse!”

“Sure you can. It’ll be fun,” Smoke suggested.

Smoke showed Matt how to saddle the horse, and gave him some pointers on riding it.

“Now, you don’t want to break the horse’s spirit,” Smoke said. “What you want to do is make him your partner.”

“How do I do that?”

“Walk him around for a bit so that he gets used to his saddle, and to you. Then get on.”

“He won’t throw me then?”

“Oh, he’ll still throw you a few times,” Smoke said with a little laugh. “But at least he’ll know how serious you are.”

To Matt’s happy surprise, he wasn’t thrown even once. The horse did buck a few times, coming down on stiff legs, then sunfishing, and finally galloping at full speed around the corral. But after a few minutes, he stopped fighting and Matt leaned over to pat him gently on the neck.

“Good job, Matt,” Smoke said, clapping his hands quietly. “You’ve got a real touch with horses. You didnt break him, you trained him, and that’s real good. He’s not mean, but he still has spirit.”

“Smoke, can I name him?”

“Sure, he’s your horse, you can name him anything you want.”

Matt continued to pat the horse on the neck as he thought of a name.

“That’s it,” he said, smiling broadly. “I’ve come up with a name.”

“What are you going to call him?”

“Spirit.”

As Matt lay there alongside the track he continued to think about his two horses named Spirit. He had given them good lives, treated them well, always making certain they were well fed and cared for, but in the end, both had died before their time, precisely because by being his horses, they had been subjected to more danger than most other horses.

He thought about the expression in Spirit II’s eyes just before he had pulled the trigger. It was as if Spirit II knew what was about to happen to him. Was he blaming Matt? Was he telling Matt he understood that it had to be done?

Fortunately, before Matt could sink any deeper into the morass of melancholy, he heard a distant whistle. Pushing the gloomy thoughts away, he got up from his impromptu bed and looked south, toward the train. When first he saw it, it seemed to be just creeping along, though Matt knew that it was doing at least twenty miles per hour. It was the distance that made it appear as if the train was going much slower. That same distance also made the train seem very small, and even the smoke that poured from its stack seemed but a tiny wisp against a sky which had now been made gold by the setting sun.

Matt could hear the reverberation of the puffing engine, sounding louder than one might think, given the distance. When the train came close enough for him to be seen, Matt stepped up onto the track and began waving. After a few waves, he heard the train begin braking, so he knew that the engineer had spotted him and was going to stop. As the engine approached, the train, which had appeared so tiny before, now appeared huge. It ground to a squeaking, clanking halt with black smoke pouring from its stack. Tendrils of white steam, escaping from the drive cylinders and limned in gold by the rays of the setting sun, wreathed the huge wheels.

The engineer’s face appeared in the window.

“What do you want, mister? Why’d you stop us?” the engineer called down to him. He had to raise his voice over the rhythmic sound of venting steam.

“My horse stepped in a prairie dog hole and I had to put him down,” Matt said. “I need a ride.”

The engineer stroked his chin for a moment, studying Matt as if trying to decide whether or not he should pick him up.

“What’s going on here? Why did we stop?” another man asked, approaching the engine quickly and importantly from somewhere back in the train. The man was wearing the uniform of a conductor.

“This fella needs a ride,” the engineer said. “His horse went down on him.”

“I’m not in the habit of giving charity rides to indigents,” the conductor said.

“I can pay,” Matt said. “I need to get to Pueblo.”

“You can pay, can you? Well, let me ask you this. Does this place look like a depot to you? Do you think you can just flag down a train and board it anywhere you wish?” the conductor asked in a self-important and sarcastic voice.

“I don’t know about you, Mr. Gordon, but I wouldn’t feel right just leavin’ him out here,” the engineer said. “I mean, him losin’ his horse and all kind of makes it like an emergency, don’t it?”

The conductor stroked his chin and spent a long moment studying Matt. All the while, the pressure relief valve continued to vent steam, giving the engine the illusion of some great beast of burden, breathing heavily now from its exertions. Some distance away, a coyote barked, and closer in, a crow called.

“Hey! What’s going on? Why have we stopped?” a passenger called, walking up toward the engine.

“Get back in the cars, sir!” the conductor shouted.

“You’ve got a trainload of people wondering why we stopped. We’ve got a right to know what is going on,” the passenger said.

“Please, sir, get back in the cars,” the conductor repeated. “I will take care of the situation.” The conductor waited until the passenger reboarded the train, then looked up at the engineer.

“All right, Cephus, have it your way,” the conductor said. He turned to Matt. “I don’t like unscheduled stops like this, but I don’t want it said that I left you stranded out here. It is going to cost you two dollars to go to Pueblo.”

“Thanks,” Matt said, taking two dollars from the poke in his saddlebag and handing it to the conductor.

“Sorry about your horse, mister,” the engineer called down from the cab window.

“Yes, he was a good horse.”

In an elaborate gesture, the conductor pulled a watch from his vest pocket, popped open the cover, and examined the face. The silver watch was attached to a gold chain, the chain making a shallow U across his chest.

“Cephus, we are due in Pueblo exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes from right now,” the conductor said to the engineer as he snapped the watch closed and returned it to his vest pocket. “I do not plan to be late. That means I expect you to make up the time we have lost by this stop.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Gordon, don’t worry. If Doodle keeps the steam up, we’ll be there on time.”

“Don’t you be worryin’ none about the steam,” Doodle, the fireman, said, stepping out onto the platform that extended just behind the engine. “You’ll have all the steam you need.”

“Come along,” the conductor said to Matt. “You can ride in any car. There are seats in all three of them, and they are all day coaches.”

“I’d rather ride in the express car, if you don’t mind,” Matt said.

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t let you in there,” the conductor replied.

“Maybe you haven’t heard,” Matt said, “but the bank in Pueblo was robbed this morning.”

“Yes, I heard. What does that have to do with anything?”

Matt held up the canvas bag he had taken from Cyrus Hayes’s body. “This is the money that was taken from the bank.”

“What? What the hell, mister? Are you telling me you are the one who held up the bank?”

“No,” Matt said. “I’m the one who is taking the money back to the bank. And I would just as soon not be riding in one of the passenger cars while I’m carrying this.”

“Oh,” the conductor said.

At that moment, the door to the express car slid open, and the express messenger looked down on them.

“He can ride in here with me, Mr. Gordon. It will be all right.”

“I’ll let him in there, but remember, it was your idea, not mine,” Gordon replied.

“I’ll remember. Hi, Matt,” the messenger said.

Matt smiled up at a friend with whom he had played cards many times. “Hi, Jerry,” he greeted.

¹Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man