Journey Of The Mountain Man

“No-Count!” Silver Jim yelled, his voice carrying over the din of battle, the screaming of the wounded, and the sounds of panicked horses.

No-Count whirled around, his hands full of pistols. Silver Jim drew and fired as smoothly as he had forty years back, when he had cut the flap off a soldier’s holster and tied it down.

Both the old gunfighter’s slugs struck true and No-Count squatted down in the muddy alley, dropped his pistols, and fell over facefirst in the mud.

Hardrock felt a numbing blow striking him in the shoulder, staggering him. He turned, falling back up against a building front, his right hand gun coming up, his thumb and trigger finger working as partners, rolling thunder from the muzzle.

Three-Finger Kerman went down, the front of his shirt stained with blood. Fulton fired at Hardrock and missed. Hardrock grinned at the outlaw and didn’t miss.

Pistol Le Roux rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Peck and Nappy. Pistol’s guns spat fire and death before the two so-called badmen could react. Pistol looked down at the dead and damned.

“Pikers!” he snorted, then turned and walked into one of the new saloons, called the Pink Puma, and drew himself a cool one from the deserted bar. He could sense the fight was over. He had already seen Dad Estes and his gang hightail it out of town.

Damn! but he hated that about Charlie. Him and Charlie had been buddies for nigh on ... Hell, he couldn’t remember how many years.

He drew himself another beer, sat down, and propped his boots up. It could be, he mused, he was getting just too old for this type of nonsense.

Naw! he concluded. He looked up as Hardrock came staggering in, trailed by Silver Jim.

“What the hell happened to you, you old buzzard?” he asked Hardrock.

“Caught one, you jackass!” Hardrock snapped. “What’s it look like—I been pickin’ petunias?”

“Wal, sit down.” He shoved out a chair. ”I’ll fetch you a beer and then try to find the doctor. If I don’t, you’ll probably whine and moan the rest of the day.“ He took his knife and cut away Hardrock’s shirt. ”Bullet went clear through.” He got Hardrock a beer and picked up a bottle of whiskey. ”This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it is me,” he warned.

Hardrock glared at him.

Pistol poured some whiskey on the wounds, entrance and exit, and took a reasonably clean bar towel that Silver Jim handed him and made a bandage.

“You’ll keep. Drink your beer.”

“Make your play, gentlemen,” Lujan told the Sabler Brothers.

Parnell stood by Lujan’s side, smiling faintly.

The sounds of battle had all but ceased.

The Sablers grabbed for iron.

Lujan’s guns roared just a split second before Parnell’s blasters boomed, sending out their lethal charges. In the distance, a bugle sounded. Someone shouted, “The Army’s here!”

Ben, Carl, and Delmar Sabler lay on the muddy bloody ground. Ben and Carl had taken slugs from Lujan. Delmar had taken a double dose from Parnell’s blasters. He was almost torn in half.

Lojan holstered his guns and held out his hand. “My friend, you can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me anytime you like. You are truly a man!”

Parnell blushed.

“Thank you, Lujan.” He shook the hand.

“Come on, amigo. Let’s go have us a ... sarsaparilla.”

Thirty

The commander of the Army contingent, a Captain Morrison, met with Cord, Smoke, and a few others in what was left of the Hangout, while the undertaker and his helper roamed among the carnage.

“A lot of bad ones got away,” Smoke told the young captain. Smoke’s shirt was stiff from sweat and dirt and blood. “I expect I’ll meet up with some of them on the trail home.”

“Are you really Smoke Jensen?” The captain was clearly in awe.

“Yes.”

Horace’s photographer popped another shot.

The captain sighed. “Well, gentlemen. This is not an Army matter. I will take a report, certainly, and have it sent to the sheriff. But I imagine it will end there. I’m new to the West; just finished an assignment in Washington. But during my short time here, I have found that western justice is usually very short and very final.”

“I don’t understand part of what you just said,” Cord leaned forward. “You mean you weren’t sent in here?”

“No. We were traveling up to Fort Benton and heard the gunfire. We just rode over to see what was going on.”

Smoke and Cord both started laughing. They were still laughing as they walked out of the saloon.

“The strain of battle,” Captain Morrison spoke the words in all seriousness. “It certainly does strange things to men.”

A grizzled old top sergeant who had been in the Army since before Morrison was born shifted his chew of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and said, “Right, sir.”

Smoke went to the tubs behind the barber shop and took a long hot bath. He was exhausted. He dressed in clean clothes purchased at the new general store and walked over to Hans for some hot food. The bodies of the outlaws were still being dragged off the street.

Hans placed a huge platter of food before the man and poured him a cup of coffee. Smoke dug in. Cord entered the cafe and sat down at the table with Smoke. He waved away the offer of food and ordered coffee.

“We have a problem about what to do with the wounded, Smoke.”

“I don’t have any problem at all with it. Treat their wounds and when they’re well, try them.”

“We don’t have a jail to hold them.”

“Build one to hold them or hang them or turn them loose.”

“Captain Morrison is leaving a squad here to see that we don’t hang them.”

“Sounds like a real nice fellow to me. Very much law and order.”

“You’re being sarcastic, Smoke.”

“I’m being tired, is what I am. Sorry to be so short with you. Is it OK to have Charlie buried out at the ranch?”

“You know it is,” the rancher replied, his words softly spoken. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Any reward money goes to Hardrock and Silver Jim and Pistot.”

“I’ve already set that in motion.” He smiled. “You really think they’re going to open a home for retired gun-fighters? ”

“It wouldn t surprise me at all.”

“I tell you what: I’d hate to have them for enemies.”

The men sat and watched as wagons pulled up to the four new saloons and began loading up equipment from Big Louie’s, the Pink Puma, The JimJam, and Harriet’s House.

“I’ll be glad to see things get back to normal,” Cord said.

“It won’t be long. I been seeing that fellow who opened up the new general store makin’ trips to Walt and Leah’s place. Looks like he’s tryin’ to buy them out.”

Cord’s smile was not of the pleasant type. “Liz and Alice paid Walt and Leah a visit. They convinced Walt that it would be the best thing if they’d sell out and get gone. Parnell is buyin’ their house. Him and Rita will live there after they’re married.”

“Beans?”

“I told him he was my new foreman. He’s gonna file on some sections that border my spread.”

Smoke finally smiled. “Looks like it’s going to be a happy ending after all.”

“A whole lot of weddin’s comin’ up next week. You are goin’ to stay for them, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. I couldn’t miss those.” He looked up at Hans, smiling at them from behind the counter. “Hilda and Ring gonna get hitched up, Hans?”

The man bobbed his big head. “Ja. Ever’boody vill be married at vonce.”

Smoke looked out at the muddy, churned-up street. All the bodies had been toted off.

“I reserved all the rooms above the saloon,” Cord said. “The hands are back at the ranch, cleaning it up and repairing the damage. Bartender has your room key.”

Smoke stood up, dropped some money on the table, and put on his hat. “I think I’ll go sleep for about fifteen hours.

Bob and Spring and Pat and some hands from the D-H and the Circle Double C began rebuilding Fae’s burned-down house and barn. Smoke, Hardrock, Silver Jim, and Pistol began driving the cattle back onto Box-T Range.

The legendary gunfighter, Charlie Starr, was buried in a quiet ceremony in the plot on the ridge above the ranch house at the Circle Double C. His guns were buried with him. He had always said he wanted to be buried with his boots on. And he was; a brand-new pair of boots.

Dooley Hanks and his sons were buried in the family plot on the D-H.

Horace Mulroony said he would stay around long enough to photograph the multiple weddings and then was going to open a paper up in Great Falls. Things were just too quiet around Gibson.

“How about you, Lujan?” Smoke asked the gunfighter.

“Oh, I think that when you pull out I might ride down south with you. I have talked it over with Silver Jim and the others. They re coming along as well.” He lit a long slender cigar and looked at Smoke. “You know, amigo, that this little war is far from over.”

“I think they’ll wait until we’re out of Montana Territory to hit us.”

“Those are my thoughts as well.”

“We’ll hang around until Hardrock’s shoulder heals up. Then we’ll ride.”

Lujan smiled. “The first of the reward money has arrived. The old men said I would take a thousand dollars of it or we’d drag iron. I took the money. It will last a long time. I am a simple man and my needs are few.”

“I’d hate to have to drag iron against those old boys,” Smoke conceded. “They damn sure don’t come any saltier.”

Lujan laughed. “They have all bought new black suits and boots and white dusters. They present quite a sight.”

Parnell packed away his double-barreled blasters. But his reputation would never quite leave him. He would teach school for another forty years. And he would never have any problems with unruly students.

Walt and Leah Hillery pulled out early one morning in a buckboard. They offered no goodbyes to anyone, and no one lifted a hand in farewell. It was said they were going back East. They just weren’t cut out to make it in the West. back East.

Several of the wounded outlaws died; the rest were chained and shackled and loaded into wagons. They were taken to the nearest jail-about a hundred miles away-escorted by the squad of Army troops.

The brief boomtown of Gibson settled back into a quiet routine.

Young Bob drew his time and drifted, as Smoke had predicted he would. The hard-eyed young man would earn quite a name for himself in the coming years.

Then came the wedding day, and the day could not have been any more perfect. Mild temperatures and not a cloud in the sky.

Del and Fae, Parnell and Rita, Liz and Gage, Ring and Hilda, and Beans and Sandi got all hitched up proper, with lots of fumbling around for rings and embarrassed kisses and a big hoo-rah right after the weddings.

Beans took time out after the cake-cuttin’ to speak to Smoke.

“When you pullin’ out, partner?”

“In the morning. I’m missin my wife and kids. I want to get back to the Sugarloaf and the High Lonesome. Reno is pullin’ out today; headin’ back to Nevada.”

“Them ol’ boys is gonna be comin’ at you, you know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Might as well get it over with, ’way I look at it. No point in steppin’ around the issue.”

“You watch your backtrail, partner.”

Smoke stuck out his hand and Beans took it. “We’ll meet again,” Smoke told him.

“I’m countin’ on it.”

As was the western way, there were no elaborate or prolonged goodbyes. The men simply packed up and mounted up before dawn and pointed the noses of their horses south, quietly riding down the main street of Gibson, Montana Territory, without looking back.

“Feels good to be movin’,” Pistol said. “I git the feelin’ of being all cooped up if I stay too long in one place.”

“Not to mention the fact that your face was beginnin’ to frighten little children,” Hardrock needled him. “All the greenbacks you got now you ought to git you a bag special-made and wear it over your head.”

Smoke laughed and put Dagger into a trot. It did feel good to be on the trail again.

They followed the Smith down to the Sixteenmile and then followed an old Indian trail down to the Shields—the trail would eventually become a major highway.

The men rode easily, but always keeping a good eye out for trouble. None of them expected it until they were out of the territory, but it never hurt to be ready.

They began angling more east than south, crossing the Sweetgrass, taking their time, enjoying some of the most beautiful scenery to be found. They would stop early to make camp, living off the land, hunting or fishing for their meals, for the most part avoiding any towns. They ran out of coffee and sugar and bacon just north of the Wyoming line and stopped in a little town to resupply.

The man behind the counter of the general store gave Smoke and the others a good eyeballing as they walked into the store. The men noticed the clerk seemed awfully nervous.

“Feller’s got the twitchies,” Hardrock whispered to Silver Jim.

“I noticed. I’ll take me a stroll down to the livery; check out the horses there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Hardrock said. “Might be walkin’ into something interestin’.”

“You Smoke Jensen, ain’t you?” the clerk asked.

“Yes.”

“You know some hard-lookin gents name of Eddie Hart and Pooch Matthews? They travelin’ with several other gents just as hard-lookin’.”

“I know them.”

“They here. Crost the street in the saloon. My boy—who earns some pennies down to the stable—heared them talkin’. They gonna kill you.”

“They’re going to try.” Smoke gave the man his order and then took a handkerchief and wiped the dust from his guns. Hardrock stepped back into the store.

“Half a dozen of them ol’ boys in town, Smoke.”

“I know. They’re over at the saloon.”

As the words were leaving his mouth, the town marshal stepped in.

“Jackson Bodine!” Hardrock grinned at the man. “I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age.”

“Hello, Hardrock.” The marshal stuck out his hand and Hardrock gripped it.

“When’d you take up lawin’?”

“When I got too old to do much of anything else.” He looked at Smoke. “I don’t want trouble in my town, Mister-whoever-you-are.”

“This here’s Smoke Jensen, Jackson,” Hardrock said.

The marshal exhaled slowly. “I guess a man don’t always get his wishes,” he said reluctantly.

“I don’t want trouble in your town or anybody else’s town, marshal. But I’m afraid this is something those men over in the saloon won’t let me sidestep.” Briefly, he explained what had taken place over the past weeks.

The marshal nodded his head. “Give me ten minutes before you call them out, Smoke. That’ll give me time to clear the street and have the kids back at home.”

“You can have as much time as you need, Marshal.”

The marshal smiled. “I never really knew for sure whether you were real or just a made-up person. They’s a play about you, you know that?”

“No, I didn’t. Is it a good one?”

The marshall laughed. “I ain’t seen it. Folks that have gone to the big city tell me they got you somewheres between Robin Hood and Bloody Bill Anderson.”

Smoke chuckled. “You know Marshal, they just may be right.”

Jackson Bodine left the store to warn the townspeople to stay off the streets.

“He’s a good man,” Hardrock said. “Come out here ‘bout, oh, ’42 or ‘43, I reckon. Preacher knows him. ’Course, Preacher knows just about ever’body out here, I reckon.”

Silver Jim stepped inside. “I could have sworn we dropped Royce back yonder at the ranch,” he said. “But he’s over yonder, ’live and well and just as ugly as ever.”

“Anybody else?” Lujan asked.

“Lodi, Hazzard, Nolan ...” His eyes touched Lujan’s unblinking stare. “And Diego and Gomez. Three or four more I know but can’t put no names to.”

The Chihuahua gunfighter grunted. “Well, gentlemen, shall we cross the street and order us a drink?”

“I am a mite thirsty,” Hardrock said. “Boredom does that to me,” he added with a smile.

Thirty-One

The men walked across the dusty street, all of them knowing the gunfighters in the saloon were waiting for them, watching them as they crossed the street.

Smoke was the first to push open the batwings and step inside, moving to one side so the others could follow quickly and let their eyes adjust to the dimmer light.

The first thing Smoke noticed was that Diego and Gomez were widely separated, one standing clear across the room from the other. It was a trick they used often, catching a man in a crossfire.

Smoke moved to the bar, his spurs jingling softly with each step. He walked to the far end of the bar while Lujan stopped at the end of the bar closest to the batwings. The move did not escape the eyes of Diego and Gomez. Both men smiled knowingly.

Only Smoke, Lujan, and Hardrock were at the bar. Pistol and Silver Jim positioned themselves around the room, and that move made several of the outlaws very nervous.

Smoke decided to take a chance and make a try for peace. “The war is over, boys. This doesn’t have to be. You’re professionals. Dooley is dead. You’re off his payroll. There is no profit in dying for pride.”

A very tough gunfighter that Pistol knew only as Bent sighed and pushed his chair back. “Makes sense to me. I don’t fight for the fun of it.” He walked out the batwings and across the boardwalk, heading for the livery.

“One never knows about a man,” Diego spoke softly. “I was certain he had more courage than that.”

“I always knowed he was yeller,” Hazzard snorted.

“Maybe he’s just smart,” Smoke said.

Diego ignored that and stared at Lujan. “The noble Lujan,” he said scornfully. “Protector of women and little children.” He spat on the floor.

“At least, Diego,” Lujan said, “I have that much of a reputation for decency. Can you say as much?”

“Who would want to?” the gunfighter countered. ”Decency does not line my pockets with gold coins.”

There was no point in talking about conscience to the man—he didn’t have one.

Lujan flicked his dark eyes to Smoke. No point in delaying upcoming events, the quick glance seemed to say.

Smoke shot the Mexican gunfighter. He gave no warning; just drew, cocked, and fired, all in a heartbeat. Lujan was a split second behind him, his slug taking Gomez in the belly.

Hardrock took out Pooch Matthews just as Smoke was pouring lead into Eddie Hart and Silver Jim and Pistol had turned their guns on the others.

Royce was down, hanging onto a table. Dave and Hazzard were backed up against a wall, the front of their shirts turning crimson. Blaine and Nolan were out of it, their hands empty and over their heads, total shock etched on their tanned faces.

Diego raised his pistol, the sound of the cocking loud in the room.

“Don’t do it, Diego,” Smoke warned him.

The gunfighter cursed Smoke, in English and in Spanish, telling him where he could go and in what part of his anatomy he could shove the suggestion.

Smoke shot him between the eyes just as Lujan was putting the finishing touches to Gomez.

The batwings pushed open and Jackson Bodine walked in, carrying a sawed-off double barrel express gun.

“There might be re-ward money for them two,” Hardrock said, pointing to Blaine and Nolan. “You might send a telly-graph to Fort Benton.”

Hazzard finally lost the strength to hang onto the table and he fell to the floor. Dave hung on, looking at Smoke through eyes that were beginning to lose their light.

“We was snake-bit all through this here job,” he said, coughing up blood. “Didn’t nothin’ turn out right.” The table tipped over under his weight and he fell to the floor. He lay amid the cigar and cigarette butts, cursing Smoke as life left him. Profanity was the last words out of his mouth.

“Anyone else gunnin’ for you boys?” the marshall asked.

“Several more,” Smoke told him.

“I sure would appreciate it if y’all would take it on down the road. This is the first shootin’ we’ve had here in three years.”

Hardrock laughed at the expression on the marshal s face. “I swear, Jackson. I do believe you’re gettin’ crotchety in your old age.”

“And would like to get older,” the marshal replied.

Hardrock slapped his friend on the back. ’Come on, Jackson, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The men rode on south, crossing the Tongue, and rode into the little town of Sheridan, Wyoming. There, they took their first hot soapy bath since leaving Gibson, got a shave and a trim, and enjoyed a cafe-cooked meal and several pots of strong coffee.

The sight of five of the most famous gunslingers in all the West made the marshal a tad nervous. He and some of the locals, armed with shotguns, entered the cafe where Smoke and his friends were eating, positioning themselves around the room.

“I swanny,” Silver Jim said. “I do believe the town folks is a mite edgy today.” He eyeballed the marshal. “Ain’t it a bit early for duck-huntin’?”

“Very funny,” a man said. “We heard about the shootin’ up North. There ain’t gonna be no repeat of that around here.”

“I shore hope not,” Hardrock told him. ”Violence offends me turrible. Messes up my di-gestive workin’s. Cain’t sleep for days. I’m just an old man a-spendin’ his twilight years a-roamin’ the countryside, takin’ in all the beauty of nature. Stoppin’ to smell the flowers and gander at the birds.”

“Folks call me Peaceful,” Silver Jim said, forking in a mouthful of potatoes and gravy. “I sometimes think I missed my callin’. I should have been a poet, like that there Longbritches.”

“Longfellow,” Smoke corrected.

“Yeah, him, too.”

“I think you’re all full of horse hocky,” the marshall told them. “No trouble in this town, boys. Eat your meal and kindly leave.”

“Makes a man feel plumb unwanted,” Pistol said.

They made camp for the night a few miles south of town. Staying east of the Bighorns, they pulled out at dawn. They rode for two days without seeing another person.

Over a supper of beans and bacon, Smoke asked, “Where do you boys pick up the rest of your reward money?”

“Cheyenne,” Silver Jim replied.

“You best start anglin’ off east down here at the Platte.”

“That’s what we was thinkin’,” Pistol told him. “But I just don’t think it’s over, Smoke.”

“You can’t spend the rest of your life watching my backtrail.” He looked across the fire at Lujan. “How about you, Lujan?

“I’ll head southwest at the Platte.” He smiled grimly. “My services are needed down on the Utah line.”

Smoke nodded. “Are you boys really going to start up a place for old gunfighters and mountain men?

“Yep,” Hardrock said. “But we gonna keep quiet about it. Let the old fellers live out they days in peace and quiet. Soon as we get it set up, we’ll let you know. We gonna try to get Preacher to come and live thar. You think he would?”

“Maybe, You never know about that old coot. He’s nearabouts the last mountain man.”

“No,” Silver Jim drawled the word. “The last mountain man will be ridin’ the High Lonesome long after Preacher is gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You, boy. You be the last mountain man.”

The men parted ways at the Platte. They resupplied at the trading post, had a last drink together, and rode away; Lujan to ply his deadly trade down on the Utah line; Silver Jim and Pistol Le Roux and Hardrock to get the bulk of their reward money and find a spot to build a home for old gunfighters. Smoke headed due south.

“We’re goin’ home, boy,” he spoke to Dagger, and the horse’s ears came up. “It’ll be good to see Sally and the babies.”

Smoke left the trail and took off into the wild, a habit he had picked up from Ol’ Preacher. He felt in his guts that he was riding into trouble, so he would make himself as hard to find as possible for those wanting to kill him.

He followed the Platte down, keeping east of the Rattlesnake Hills, then crossing the Platte and making his way south, with Bear Mountain to his east. He stayed on the west side of the Shirley Mountains and rode into a small town on the Medicine Bow River late one afternoon.

He was clean-shaven now, having shaved off his mustache before leaving Gibson, although he did have a stubble of beard on his face, something he planned to rectify as soon as he could get a hot bath and find a barber.

He was trail-worn and dusty, and Dagger was just as tired as he was. “Get you rubbed down and find you a big bucket of corn, boy,” Smoke promised the horse. “And me and you will get us a good night s sleep.”

Dagger whinnied softly and bobbed his head up and down, as if to say, “I damn well hope so!”

Smoke stabled Dagger, telling the boy to rub him down good and give him all the corn he could eat. “And watch my gear,” he said, handing the boy a silver dollar.

“Yes, sir!”

Slapping the dust from his clothes, Smoke stopped in the town’s only saloon for a drink to cut the dry from his throat.

He was an imposing figure even in faded jeans and worn shirt. Wide-shouldered and lean-hipped, with his arms bulging with muscle, and cold, emotionless eyes. The men in the saloon gave him a careful onceover, their eyes lingering on the guns around his waist, the left gun butt-forward. Don’t see many men carrying guns thataway, and it marked him immediately.

Gunfighter.

“Beer,” Smoke told the barkeep and began peeling a hardboiled egg.

Beer in front of him, Smoke drank half of the mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then ate the egg.

“Passin’ through?” the barkeep asked.

“Yeah. Lookin for a hot bath and a shave and a bed.”

“Got a few rooms upstairs. Cost you ...”

“He won’t be needin’ no bath,” the cold voice came from the batwings. “Just a pine box.”

Smoke cut his eyes. Jason Bright stepped into the room, which had grown as silent as the grave.

Smoke was tired of killing. Tired of it all. He wanted no trouble with Jason Bright. But damned if he could see a way out of it.

“Jason, I’ll tell you the same thing I told Diego, just before I killed him.”

Chairs were pushed back and men got out of the line of fire. Diego dead? Lord have mercy! Who was this big stranger anyways?

“Speak your piece, Jensen,” Jason said.

Smoke Jensen! Lordy, Lordy!

“The war is over,” Smoke spoke softly but firmly. “Nobody’s paying you now. There are warrants all over the place for you. Ride out, man.”

“You queered the deal for me, Smoke. Me and a lot of others. They scattered all around, from here to Colorado, just waitin’ for a shot at you. But I think I’ll just save them the trouble.”

“Don’t do it, Jason. Ride on out.”

The batwings were suddenly pushed inward, striking Jason in the back and throwing him off balance. Smoke lunged forward and for the second time in about a month, Jason Bright was about to get the stuffing kicked out of him.

Smoke hit the gunfighter in the mouth and floored him, as the man who had pushed open the batwings took one look inside and hauled his freight back to the house. He didn’t need a drink noways.

Smoke jerked Jason’s guns from leather and tossed them into a man’s lap, almost scaring the citizen to death.

“I’m tired of it, Jason,” Smoke told the man, standing over him like an oak tree. “Tired of the killing, tired of it all.”

Jason came up with the same knife he once tried to use on Cord. Smoke kicked it out of his hand and decked the man with a hard right fist. He jerked Jason up and slammed him against the bar. Then Smoke proceeded to hammer at the man’s midsection with a battering ram combination of left’s and right’s. Smoke both felt and heard ribs break under the hammering. Jason’s eyes rolled back in his head and Smoke let him fall to the floor.

“You ought to go on and kill him, Smoke,” a man called from the crowd. “He ain’t never gonna forget this. Someday he’ll come after you.”

“I know,” Smoke panted the words. “But I’m tired of the killing. I don’t want to kill anybody else. Ever!”

“We’ll haul him over to the doc’s office for you, Smoke,” a man volunteered. “He ain’t gonna be ridin’ for a long time to come. Not with all them busted ribs. And I heard ’em pop and crack.”

“I’m obliged to you.” He looked at the bartender. “The tub around back.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get a boy busy with the hot water right away.”

“Keep anybody else off me, will you?”

Several men stood up. “Let us get our rifles, Mister Jensen. You can bathe in peace.”

“I appreciate it.” He looked down at Jason. “You should have kept ridin‘, Jason. You can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.’

Thirty-Two

Dagger was ready to go when Smoke saddled up the next morning. Not yet light in the east. He wanted to get gone, get on the trail home. He would stop down the road a ways and fix him some bacon to go with the bread he’d bought the night before. But he would have liked some coffee. He looked toward the town’s only cafe. Still dark. Smoke shrugged and pointed Dagger’s nose south. He had his small coffeepot and plenty of coffee. No trouble to fix coffee when he fixed the bacon.

About an hour after dawn, he stopped by a creek and made his fire. He fixed his bacon and coffee and sopped out the pan with the bread, then poured a cup of coffee and rolled a cigarette.

The creek made happy little sounds as it bubbled on, and the shade was cool. Smoke was reluctant to leave, but knew he’d better put some miles behind Dagger’s tail.

Jason’s words returned to him: “They scattered all around, from here to Colorado, just waitin’ for a shot at you.”

He thought back: Had there been a telegraph wire at that little town? He didn’t think so. And where would the nearest wire office be? One over at Laramie, for sure. But by the time he could ride over there and wire Sally to be on the lookout, he could be almost home.

He really wasn’t that worried. The Sugarloaf was very isolated, and unless a man knew the trails well, they’d never come in from the back range. If any strangers tried the road, the neighbors would be instantly alerted.

Smoke made sure his fire was out, packed up his kit, and climbed into the saddle. He’d make the northermost edge of the Medicine Bow Range by nightfall. And he’d stay in the timber into Colorado, doing his best to avoid contact with any of the outlaws. Ol’ Preacher had burned those trails into his head as a boy. He could travel them in his sleep.

Nightfall found him on the ridges of the Medicine Bow Range. It had been slow going, for he followed no well-traveled trails, staying with the trails in his mind.

He made his camp, ate his supper, and put out his fire, not wanting the fire’s glow to attract any unwanted gunslicks during the night. Smoke rolled up in his blankets, a ground sheet under him and his saddle for a pillow.

He was up before dawn and built a hat-size fire for his bacon and coffee. For some reason that he could not fathom, he had a case of the jumps this morning. Looking over at Dagger, he could see that the big horse was also uneasy, occasionally walling his eyes and laying his ears back.

Smoke ate his breakfast and drank his coffee, dousing the fire. He filled his canteens from a nearby crick and let Dagger drink. Smoke checked his guns, wiping them free of dust and then loaded up the chamber under the hammer, usually kept empty. He checked his Winchester. Full.

Then, on impulse, he dug out a bandoleer from the saddlebags and filled all the loops, then added a handful of cartridges to his jacket pocket.

He would be riding into wild and beautiful country this day and the next, with some of the mountains shooting up past twelve thousand feet. It was also no country to be caught up high in a thunderstorm, with lightning dancing all around you. That made a fellow feel very small and vulnerable.

And it could also cook you like a fried egg.

The farther he rode into the dark timber, the more edgy he became. Twice he stopped and dismounted, checking all around him on foot. He could find nothing to get alarmed about, but all his senses were working hard.

Had he made a mistake by taking to the timber? The outlaws knew—indeed, half the reading population of the States knew—that Smoke had been raised in the mountains by Preacher, and he felt more at home in the mountains.

He pressed on, slowly.

He came to a blow-down, a savage-appearing area of about thirty or forty acres—maybe more than that—that had suffered a ravaging storm, probably a twister touch-down. It was a dark and ominous-looking place, with the trees torn and ripped from the earth, piled on top of each other and standing on end and lying every which-a-way possible.

He had dismounted upon sighting the area, and the thought came to him that maybe he’d better picket Dagger and just wait here for a day, maybe two or three if it came to that. He did not understand the thought, but his hunches had saved his life before.

He found a natural corral, maybe fifty by fifty feet, with three sides protected by piled-up trees, the front easily blocked by brush.

He led Dagger into the area and stripped the saddle from him.

There was plenty of grass inside the nature-provided corral, so he covered the entrance with brush and limbs and left Dagger rolling; soon he would be grazing. There were pools where rainwater had collected, and that would be enough for several days.

Taking a canteen and his rifle, Smoke walked several hundred yards from where he left his gear, reconnoitering the area.

Then he heard a horse snort, another one doing the same. Faint voices come to him.

“Lost his damn trail back yonder.”

Smoke knew the voice: Lanny Ball.

“We’ll find it,” Lodi said. “Then we’ll torture him ‘fore we kill him. I done had some of that money spent back yonder till he come along and queered it for us.’

Smoke edged closer, until he could see the men as they passed close by. Cat Jennings’s gang were in the group.

“Hell, I’m tarred,” a man complained. “And our horses are all done in. We gonna kill them if we keep on. And we got a lot of rough country ahead of us.”

“Let’s take a rest,” Lodi said. “We can loaf the rest of the day and pick up the trail tomorrow.”

“Damn good idee,” an outlaw named Sutton said. ”I could do with me some food and coffee.”

“All right,” Lanny agreed. “I’m beat myself.”

Smoke kept his position, thinking about this new pickle he’d gotten himself into.

It was only a matter of time—maybe minutes or even seconds—before Dagger caught the scent of other horses and let his presence be known. Then whatever element of surprise Smoke had working for him would be gone.

There were few options left for him. He could backtrack and saddle up, hoping Dagger didn’t give his position away, and try to ride out. But he knew in his heart that was grabbing at straws.

His other option was to fight.

But he was body and soul sick of fighting. If he could ride out peacefully and go home and hang up his guns and never strap them on again he would be content. God, but that would be wonderful.

The next statement from the mouth of a outlaw drifted to him, and Smoke knew this fight had to be ended right here and now.

“They tell me that Jensen’s wife is a real looker. When we kill him, let’s ride on down to Colorado. I’d like to have me a taste of Sally Jensen. I like it when they fight.” Then he said some other things he’d like to do to Sally. The filth rolled in a steady stream from his mouth, burning deep into Smoke’s brain. Finally he stood up , the verbal disgust fouling the pure clean mountain air.

Smoke lifted his Winchester and shot the man in the belly.

Smoke shifted position immediately, darting swiftly away. He was dressed in earth colors, and had left his hat back at the corral. He knew he would be nearly impossible to spot. And after hearing the agreeing and ugly laughter of the outlaws at the gut-shot man’s filthy, disgustingly perverted suggestions, Smoke was white-hot angry and on the warpath.

He knelt behind a thick fallen log, all grown around with brush, and waited, his Winchester at the ready, hammer eared back.

Movement to his right caught his eyes. He fired and a wild shriek of pain cut the air. “My elbow s ruint!” a man wailed.

Smoke fired again into the same spot. The man with the ruined elbow stood up in shock and pain as the second bullet slammed into him. He fell forward onto his face.

As the lead started flying around him, thudding into the fallen logs and still-standing trees, Smoke crawled away, working his way around the outlaw’s position, steadily climbing uphill.

He swung wide around them, moving through the wilderness just as Ol’ Preacher had taught him, silently flitting from cover to cover, seething mad clear through; but his brain was clear and cold and thinking dark primal thoughts that would have made a grizzly back up and give him room.

In the West, a man just didn’t bother a good woman—or even a bad woman for that matter. Or even say aloud the things the now-dead outlaw had mouthed. Molest a woman, and most western men would track that man for days and either shoot him or hang him on the spot.

Smoke caught a glimpse of color that did not fit into this terrain. He paused, oak-tree still, and waited. The man’s impatience got the better of whatever judgment he possessed, and he started to shift positions.

Smoke lifted his rifle and drilled the outlaw, the bullet entering his right side and blowing out the left side.

Smoke thought the man’s name was Sweeney; one of Cat Jennings’s crud.

Lead splattered bark from a tree and Smoke felt the sting of it. He dropped to one knee and fired just under the puff of gunsmoke drifting up from the outlaw’s position, working the lever just as fast as he could, filling the cool air with lead.

A crashing body followed the spray of bullets.

“He ain’t but one man!” a harsh voice shouted. “Come on, let’s rush him.”

“You rush him, Woody” was the reply. “If you so all-fired anxious to get kilt.”

“I’m gonna kill you, Jensen!” Woody hollered. “Then drag your stinkin’ carcass till they ain’t nothing left for even the varmits to eat.”

Smoke remained still, listeneing to the braggard make his claims.

“I’ll take him,” a high thin voice was added to the brags.

Danny Rouge.

The only thing that moved was Smoke’s eyes. He knew he couldn’t let Danny live, couldn’t let Danny get him in gunsights, for the punk’s aim was deadly true.

There, Smoke’s eyes settled on a spot. That’s where the voice came from. But was the back-shooter still there? Smoke doubted it. Danny was too good to speak and then remain in the same spot. But which direction did he take?

There was only one direction that was logical, at least to Smoke’s mind. Up the rise.

Smoke sank to the cool moist earth that lay under the pile of storm-torn and tossed logs. As silent as a stalking snake he inched his way under a huge pile of logs and paused, waiting.

“Well, dammit, boy!” Woody’s voice cut the stillness, broken only by someone’s hard moaning, probably the gut-shot outlaw. “What are you waitin’ on, Christmas?”

But Danny was too good at his sneaky work to give away his location with a reply.

Smoke lay still, waiting.

Someone stepped on a dry branch and it popped. Smoke’s eyes found the source and he could have easily killed the man. He chose to wait. He had the patience of an Indian and knew that his cat-and-mouse game was working on the nerves of the outlaws.

“To hell with you people!” a man spoke. “I’m gone. Jensen ain’t no human person.”

“You git back here, Carlson!” Lanny shouted.

Carlson told Lanny, in very blunt and profane language, where to go and how to get there.

That would be very painful, Smoke thought, allowing himself a thin smile.

He heard the sound of horses’ hooves. The sound gradually faded.

Rifle fire slammed the air. A man cursed painfully. “Dammit, Dalton, you done me in.”

A rifle clattered onto wood and fell to the earth with a dull thud. The outlaw mistakenly shot by one of his own men fell heavily to the earth. He died cursing Dalton.

Still Smoke did not move.

“Smoke? Smoke Jensen? It’s me, Jonas. I’m gone, man. Pullin’ out. Just let me get to my hoss and you’ll never see me agin.”

“Jonas, you yeller rabbit!” Lanny yelled. “Git back here.”

But the fight had gone out of Jonas. He found his tired horse and mounted up. He was gone, thinking that Smoke Jensen was a devil, worser than any damn Apache that ever lived.

Smoke sensed more than heard movement behind him. But he knew that he could not be spotted under the pile of tangled logs, and he had carefully entered, not disturbing the brush that grew around and over the narrow entrance.

For a long minute the man, Danny, Smoke felt sure, did not move. Then to Smoke’s surprise, boots appeared just inches from his eyes. Danny had moved, and done so with the stealth of a ghost.

He was good, Smoke conceded. Very good. Maybe too good for his own good.

Very carefully, Smoke lifted the muzzle of his rifle, lining it up about three feet above the boots. The muzzle followed the boots as they moved silently around the pile of logs, then stopped.

Smoke caught a glimpse of a belt buckle, lifted the muzzle an inch above it, and pulled the trigger.

Danny Rouge screamed as the bullet tore into his innards. Smoke fired again, for insurance, and Danny was down, kicking and squalling and crying.

“I’m the bes’,” he hollered in his high, thin voice. “I’m the bes’ they is.”

Wild shooting drowned out whatever else Danny was saying. But none of the bullets came anywhere near to Smoke’s location. None of the outlaws even dreamed that Smoke had shot the back-shooter from almost point-blank range.

Danny turned his head and his eyes met those of Smoke, just a couple of yards away, under the pile of logs.

“Damn you!” Danny whispered, his lips wet with blood. “Damn you to hell!” He closed his eyes and shivered as death took him.

Smoke waited until the back-shooter had died, then took a thick pole and shoved the body downhill. It must have landed near, or perhaps on, an outlaw, for the man yelped in fright.

“Lanny, let’s get out of here,” a man called. “He ain’t gonna get Jensen. The man’s a devil.”

“He’s one man, dammit!” Lanny yelled. “Just one man, that’s all.”

“Then you take him, Lanny.” The outlaw’s voice had a note of finality in it. “’Cause I’m gone.”

Lanrry cursed the man.

“Jensen, I’m hauling my freight,” Hayes called. “I hope I don’t never seen you no more. Not that I’ve seen you this day,” he added wearily.

Another horse’s hooves were added to those already riding down the trail, away from this devil some called the last mountain man.

Smoke remained in his position as Lanny, Woody, and a few more wasted a lot of ammunition, knocking holes in trees and burning the air.

Smoke calmly chewed on a piece of jerky and waited.

Thirty-Three

Smoke had carefully noted the positions of those left. Five of them. He had heard their names called out. Woody, Dalton, Lodi, Sutton, and Lanny Ball.

The outlaws had tried to bait Smoke, cursing him, voicing what they were going to do to his wife and kids. Filthy things, inhuman things. Smoke lay under the jumble of logs and kept his thoughts to himself. If he had even whispered them, the white-hot fury might have set the logs blazing.

After more than two hours, Sutton called, “I think he’s gone, Lanny. I think he suckered us and pulled out and set up a new position.”

“I think he’s right, Lanny,” Woody yelled. “You know his temper; all them things we been sayin’ about his wife would have brought him out like a bear.”

Sutton abruptly stood up for a few seconds, then dropped to the ground. Lodi did the same, followed by the rest of them, and cautiously, tentatively, the outlaws stood up and began walking toward each other. Lanny was the last one to stand up.

He began cursing the rotten luck, the country, the gods of fate, and most of all, he cussed Smoke Hensen.

Smoke emptied his rifle into Lodi, Sutton, Dalton, and Woody, knocking them spinning and screaming to the littered earth.

Lanny hit the ground.

Smoke had dragged Danny’s fancy rifle to him with a stick. Dropping his empty Winchester, Smoke ended any life that might have been left in the quartet of scum, then backed out of his hiding place and stretched his cramped muscles, protected by the huge pile of logs.

Smoke carefully checked his Colts, wiping them free of dirt with a bandana. “All right, Lanny!” he called. “You made your brags back in Gibson. Let’s end this madness right here and now. Let’s see if you’ve got the guts to face a man. You sure have been real brave telling me what you planned to do with my wife.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that to no good woman, Jensen. That was just to make you mad.”

“You succeeded, Lanny.”

“Let’s call it off, Smoke. I’ll ride away and you won’t see me no more.”

“All right, Lanny. You just do that little thing.”

“You mean it?”

“I’m tired of this killing, Lanny. Mount up and get gone.”

“You’ll back-shoot me, Jensen! ” There was real fear in the outlaw’s voice.

“No, Lanny. I’ll leave that to punks like you.”

Lanny cursed him.

“I’m steppin’ out, Lanny.” This was to be no fast draw encounter. Smoke knew Lanny was going to try to kill him any way he could. Smoke’s hands were full of Colts, the hammers eared back.

At the edge of the piled-up logs, Smoke started running. Lanny fired, missed, and fired again, the bullet burning Smoke’s side. He turned and began pulling and cocking, a thunderous roar in the savage blow-down.

Lanny took half a dozen rounds in his upper torso, the force of the striking slugs driving him back against a huge old stump. He tried to lift his guns. He could not. His strength was gone. Smoke walked over to him, reloading as he walked.

“You ain’t human,” Lanny coughed up the words. “You a devil.”

“You got any kin you want me to write?”

“You go to hell!”

Smoke turned his back to the man and walked away.

“You ain’t gonna leave me to die alone, is you?” Lanny called feebly.

Smoke stopped. With a sigh, he turned around and walked back to the outlaw’s side. Lanny looked up as the light in his eyes began to dim. Smoke rolled a cigarette, lit it, and stuck it between Lanny’s lips.

“Thanks.”

Smoke waited. The cigarette fell out of Lanny’s lips. Smoke picked it up and ground it out under the heel of his boot.

“Least I can go out knowin’ it wasn’t no two-bit tinhorn who done me in,” were Lanny’s last words.

Smoke returned to the natural corral and saddled up. He wanted no more of this blown-down place of death. And from Dagger’s actions, the big horse didn’t either. Smoke rode out of the Medicine Bow Range and took the easy way south. He crossed the Laramie River and made camp on the shores of Lake Hattie.

He crossed over into Colorado the next morning and felt he was in home territory, even though he had many, many hard miles yet to go.

He followed the Laramie down into the Medicine Bow Mountains, riding easy, but still with the smell of sudden and violent death seeming to cling to him. He wanted no more of it. As he rode he toyed with the idea of selling out and pulling out.

He rejected that almost as quickly as the thought sprang into his brain.

The Sugarloaf belonged to Smoke and Sally Jensen. Fast gun he might be, but he wasn’t going to let his unwanted reputation drive him away. If there were punks and crud in the world who felt they just had to try him ... well, that was their problem. He had never sought the name of Gunfighter; but damned if he was going to back down, either.

The West was changing rapidly. Oh, there would be a few more wild and woolly years, but probably no more than a decade before law and order settled in. Law and order was changing everything and everybody west of the Mississippi. Jesse James was dead, killed in 1882. Clell Miller had been dead for years. Clay Allison had died a very ignoble death back in ‘77. Sam Bass was gone. Curley Bill Brocius had been killed by Wyatt Earp in Tombstone in ’82. John Wesley Hardin was in a Texas prison. Rowdy Joe Lowe had met his end in Denver, killed in a gunfight over his wife. Mysterious Dave Mather had vanished about a year back and no one knew where he was.

Smoke doubted Dave would ever resurface. Probably changed his name and was living respectable.

Smoke rode the old trails, alive with the ghosts of mountain men who had come and gone years back, blazing the very trails he now rode. He thought of all the gunfighters and outlaws that were gone.

Charlie Storms was dead—and not too many folks mourned his passing. Charlie had been sitting at the table in Deadwood back in ‘76 when Cross-Eyed Jack McCall walked up behind Wild Bill and blew his brains out. Charlie tried to brace Luke Short in Tombstone back in ’81. He rolled twelve.

I’ve known them all, Smoke mused. The good and the bad and that curious combination of both.

Dallas Stoudenmire finally saw the elephant back in ’82.

Ben Thompson had been killed just the year back, Smoke recalled, down in San Antonio. Killed while watching a play.

The list was a long one, and getting longer.

And me? Smoke reflected. How many men have gone down under my guns?

He really didn’t know. But he knew the count was awesomely high. He knew that he was rated as the number-one gunfighter in all the West; knew that he had killed a hundred men—or more. Probably more.

He shook those thoughts out of his head. There was no point in dwelling on them, and no point in trying to even think that he could live without his guns. There was no telling how many tin-horn punks and would-be gunslicks would be coming after him after the news of Gibson hit the campfires and the saloons of the West.

He stopped at a small four-store town and bought himself a couple of sacks of tobacco and rolling papers. He cut himself a wedge of cheese and got him a pickle from the barrel and a sackful of crackers. He went outside to sit on the porch of the store to have his late-afternoon snack.

“That there’s Smoke Hensen.” The words came to him from inside the store.

“No!”

“Yeah. He’s killed a thousand men. Young, ain’t he?”

“A thousand men?”

“Yeah. ’Course, that ain’t countin’ Indians.”

Small children came to stand by the edge of the store to stare at him through wide eyes. Smoke knew how a freak in a carnival must feel. But he couldn’t blame the kids. He’d been written about so much in the penny dreadfuls and other books of the time that the kids didn’t know what to think of him.

Or the adults, either, for that matter.

Damn! but he was tired. Tired both physically and mentally.

Once he got back to Sally and the Sugar loaf, he didn’t think he’d ever leave her side until she got a broom and ran him off.

He offered a cracker to a shy little girl and she slowly took it.

“Jeanne!” her mother squalled from a house across the dusty street. “You get away from him!”

Jeanne smiled at Smoke, grabbed the cracker and took off.

Smoke looked up at the sounds of horses walking toward him. He sighed heavily. The two-bit punk who called himself Larado and that pair of no-goods, Johnny and Brett, were heading his way.

He slipped the thongs off his hammers and called over his shoulder, “Shopkeep! Get these kids out of here—right now!”

Within half a minute, the street was deserted.

Smoke stood up as the trio dismounted and began walking toward him.

“Back off, boys!” Smoke called. “This doesn’t have to be.”

Larado snorted. “What’s the matter, Jensen? You done turned yeller on us?”

“Don’t be a fool!” Smoke’s words were hard. “I’m tryin’ to make you see that there is no point to this.”

“The point is, Mister Big-Shot,” Johnny said, and Smoke could smell the whiskey from all them even at this distance, “we gonna kill you.”

Smoke shook his head. “No, you’re not, boys. If you drag iron, you’re dead. All of you.” He started walking toward them.

Bret’s eyes widened in fear. Johnny and Larado wore looks of indecision on their young faces.

“Well!” Smoke snapped, closing the distance. “At this range we’re all going to die, you know that don’t you boys?”

They knew it, and it literally scared the pee out of Bret.

Smoke slapped Larado with a hard open palm, knocking the young man’s hat off and bloodying his mouth. He backhanded Johnny with the same hand and drove his left fist into Bret’s stomach.

Reaching out, he tore the gunbelt from Larado and hit the young man in the face with it, breaking his nose and knocking him to the ground.

Smoke tossed the gunbelt and pistols into a watering trough. He looked down at the young men, lying on the ground.

“It’s not as easy as the books make it out to be, is it, boys?” Smoke asked them. He expected no reply and got none.

Smoke reached down and jerked guns from leather, tossing them into the same trough.

“You can keep your rifles. Keep them and ride out. Go on back home and learn you a trade. Go to school; make something out of yourselves. But don’t ever brace me again. For if you do, I’ll kill you without hesitation. I’m giving you a chance. Take it.”

The young men slowly picked themselves up off the ground and mounted up. They rode out without looking back.

“Mighty fine thing you done there, Mister Smoke,” a man said. “Mighty fine. You could have killed them all.”

Smoke looked at the citizen. “I’m tired of killing. I know that I’ll have to kill again, but I’m not looking forward to it.”

“The wife is fixin’ a pot roast for supper. We’d be proud to have you sit at our table. She’s a good cook, my old woman is. And the kids would just be beside themselves if you was to come on over. Don’t a home-cooked meal sound good to you?”

A smile slowly creased Smoke’s lips. “It sure does.”

Smoke did not leave the Sugarloaf for a week. He got reacquainted with Sally every time she bumped into him... and she bumped into him a lot.

He rolled on the floor with the babies and acted a fool with them, making faces at them, letting them ride his back like a horse, and in general, settling back into the routine of being a husband, father, and rancher.

On the morning that he decided to ride into town, Sally’s voice stopped him in the door.

“Aren t you forgetting something, Smoke.”

He turned. She was holding his guns in her hands.

He stared at her.

“I know, honey,” she said. “I’ve known for a long time that you’re tired of the killing.”

“It just seems like a man ought to be able to ride into town without strapping on a gun.”

“I don’t know whether that day will ever come, honey. As long as you are Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man, there will be people riding to try you. And you know that.” She came to him and pressed against him. “And speaking very selfishly, I kind of like to have you around.”

Smoke smiled and took the gunbelt, hooking it on a peg.

She looked up at him, questions in her eyes.

He whispered in her ear.

She laughed and bumped into him again.

Table of Contents

DEADLY CHALLENGE

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Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three