Law of the Mountain Man

7

Smoke took the bank draft from the cattle buyer and tucked it safely away in a money belt around his waist. He had a letter from Walt giving him the authority to endorse the draft and deposit it in the bank over in Malad City, a wild, rip-roaring town with a history of murder, lynchings, and stage holdups. But the Overland Stage Company —whose run stopped at Malad City—had a good record of foiling holdups, so Walt’s money would be reasonably safe after being deposited.

Smoke told Dolittle and Harrison to keep the boys close until he got back.

He crossed the Bear and headed for the wide-open town of Malad City. The town was named by French trappers, who, after becoming sick from gorging on beaver meat, named the town Malade, thinking the area unhealthy.

Smoke had a hunch that with the news of Jud Vale’s hiring of gun hands now so widespread, Malad City would be crawling with guns for hire stopping for liquid refreshments—and a fling with the hurdy-gurdy girls—as they made their way to the Bar V. And he also wondered if the ante on his head had been upped past the five thousand dollar mark.

It wouldn’t surprise him a bit.

As he rode. Smoke tried to put some more reason behind what Jud Vale was doing. Or was what Walt had told him the sum total of it all? Smoke concluded that Walt was probably right in his assessment of the situation. If Vale could get his hands on the Box T, he would then have the largest spread in the state, and would certainly be a powerful man, a man to reckon with.

On this trip, Smoke stayed with the main road leading to Malad City, and a sorry road it was.

He met several groups of men, riding in twos and threes, all looking like hardcases, and all heading east. They either did not recognize him, or did not want to brace him with such short backup.

Since he had been late getting away from the railhead, Smoke made camp just to the south of Oxford Peak, the snow-capped mountain thrusting up more than a mile and a half into the air. He was boiling his coffee and frying his bacon when he heard the faint sounds of hooves approaching his camp from out of the fast falling dusk, the rider coming from the north.

“Hello, the fire! I’m friendly.”

“Then come on in and light and sit. Coffee’s almost fit to drink."

Smoke saw the young man’s hair sticking out from under his hat before he saw anything else. Flame red. He’d bet the young rider was called Rusty. The man’s outfit was old, but well-cared for, and Smoke liked the way the young rider saw to his horse’s needs before he took care of his own. He carefully rubbed the animal down with handfuls of grass and saw that it was watered and picketed on good graze. Smoke also noticed that the redhead’s gun was tied down—which might not mean anything, or everything.

As he approached the fire, tin cup and plate in his left hand, his grin was genuine and his handshake firm and quick.

“Sure am glad to see a friendly face. Most of the hombres I been seein’ the past couple of days all looked like they could eat a porcupine and not feel the quills!”

Smoke filled his coffee cup without comment.

“My folks dubbed me Clarence, but nobody calls me that. Just Rusty.”

“I guessed right at first glance.” Smoke speared some bacon out of the pan and handed a hunk of bread to Rusty.

“Much obliged.” He let his eyes drift over Smoke’s rig, noting the two guns, one butt-forward.

“You ridin’ east like all them others?” Smoke asked.

“West for a day, then I’ll do a turnaround back to the Bear. Any work over yonder?”

“I’m lookin’ for hands.”

“You shore found one. My poke’s as flat as a sit-on pancake.”

“Might be dangerous signin’ on with me.”

Rusty’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of work you got in mind, mister-whatever-your-name-is?”

“Punching cows. Fixing fence. Cleaning out water-holes. Cowboy work. You up to it?”

“Shore! That’s what I been doin’ since I was big enough to sit a saddle. What’s the danger you talkin’ about?”

Smoke sipped his coffee before replying. “Big rancher who is about half nuts is trying to run the old man and woman who own the spread off their land. They hit us the other night. We emptied seven saddles.”

“How many is us?”

“You talking about hands?”

“Yep.”

“Three old men who are about seventy and a handful of kids, average age twelve.”

Rusty looked dead at him. “Are you serious?”

“As a crutch.”

“What’re you payin’?”

“A hundred a month and found.”

“A hundred a month! Shoot, man! You just hiredyourself a hand.”

“Those are fighting wages, Rusty.”

“I kinda figured they was. But I got to tell you, I ain’t never hired out my gun.”

“Can you use it?”

“Oh, yeah. I reckon I’m as good as the next man. I’ve drug iron a time or two.”

“Any family?”

“Ma and Pa died years back. I got some cousins somewhere that I ain’t never seen.”

“Just curious. I want to know who to notify if you catch one.”

“Just plant me where I fall, I reckon. And make sure my horse is taken care of. He’s a good one.”

“I’m heading over to Malad City. Then we’ll head back to the Box T.”

“Sounds good to me. You got a name?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“You are a most exasperatin’ feller! You ’shamed of your handle?”

“No.”

Rusty cussed and then ate his bacon, mopping the grease out of his tin plate with bread. He poured another cup of coffee, rolled a cigarette, and leaned back. “You a gunfighter?”

“Some say I am.”

“You look familiar to me. I seen you somewheres before. On a wanted poster, maybe?”

“No. I’m not wanted. I own a ranch down Colorado way. The Sugarloaf. I’m just helping out an old couple. I don’t like to see folks shoved around.”

“Right nice of you. I kinda get riled up some myself when somebody tries to roll over other folks. You gonna tell me your name?”

Smoke smiled faintly. “I tell you my name, you might not come to work.”

“For a hundred a month and found? You could tell me your name was Satan and I wouldn’t back away.”

“All right,” Smoke replied. “Come to think of it, you just might be riding into a corner of Hell after all.” He left it at that.

Smoke and Rusty reached Malad City at mid-morning, just as the town was catching its breath after a wild and raucous night. Things had been reasonably quiet the previous night, with only one killing.

“Don’t never ask nobody for directions in this place,” Rusty told him. “When they laid out these streets, they just tossed a handful of sticks on the ground for a blueprint... and then followed it.”

They stabled their horses and Smoke pointed out a cafe, telling Rusty he’d meet him there in a few minutes. He took care of Walt’s bank draft and walked the boardwalk to the cafe. He saw several gunslicks he knew by name and a dozen more who had the hardcase brand stamped all over them. And a half-dozen punks who were looking for a reputation, but more than likely would find a grave to hold their swagger long before they found a reputation.

Smoke Jensen had been elusive for over a decade, surfacing outside of his ranch in Colorado only briefly. Many people knew his name but could not put a face to it, unless they had memorized the covers of the many penny dreadfuls, most of which were rarely accurate.

He received many a furtive glance as he walked toward the cafe, for danger clung to him; it was an aura that made many strong and brave men step aside until he had passed.

Smoke was scarcely into his thirties, just now approaching the prime years of his life, but he was already a living legend, and not just west of the Mississippi. Had he elected to cut notches into the handles of his Colts after each kill, he would have gone through half a dozen sets and still not have any handles left. But only tinhorns did that.

He opened the door to the cafe and stepped in, the good smells of cooking making him realize how hungry he was. Rusty was already working on his first plate of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes—and the first of several pots of coffee.

The redhead pushed out a chair with his boot and Smoke sat down.

“Been several folks wonderin’ who you are,” the newly hired puncher said. “Most I heard come to the conclusion that you was a lawman of some sort.”

“I’ve worn a badge a time or two,” Smoke admitted, then called out his order to the counterman. He picked up his cup and allowed the waitress to fill it.

She met his eyes. “I seen you two or three years back,” she spoke the words softly. “You be careful in this town. It’s filled up with hired guns, all of them just bumin’ to kill you.”

“I appreciate that.”

She nodded and walked back into the kitchen.

Rusty’s freckled face screwed up with disgust. “Seems like ever’body knows who you are but me!”

Smoke sugared his coffee and stirred. “The name is Jensen.”

The redhead’s fork froze midway to his mouth. “Smoke Jensen?” he finally managed to say.

“That’s it. Now close your mouth before a bug decides to fly in there.”

Rusty filled his mouth with food and then closed it. “Boy, I sure know how to pick ’em,” he muttered. “I’m beginnin’ to wonder if a hundred a month is enough.”

“And found,” Smoke reminded him.

“Food ain’t too tasty with a bellyful of lead,” the puncher said mournfully. But there was a definite twinkle in his eyes.

“You didn’t sign a contract,” Smoke reminded him. “Feel free to ride.”

“Naw! Hell, I’ll stick around. I ain’t never ridden with such highfalutin’ company before. Might be interestin’.”

“I’m not looking for trouble, Rusty. After we eat our meal, I plan on saddling up and riding out.”

“That must be why you walk around with them hammer thongs off your guns.”

Smoke grinned. “I just believe in being a very cautious man, that’s all.”

“Right. With your name, you damn well better be.”

The two men cleaned their plates, Rusty eating two plates of food without apology, then finished off another pot of coffee. Not as strong as they liked it, but it would do. Then they leaned back, rolled cigarettes, and lit up. The cafe was gradually filling with the lunch crowd, all of the diners giving the two men short and cautious looks as they took their seats.

Then the door opened and four hardcases stepped inside.

Bob Garner and Montana Slim were the only two that Smoke recognized. The other two were unknown to him. But Garner and Montana Slim were quite enough to face on a full stomach.

Or an empty belly for that matter.

Slim’s eyes widened as they settled on Smoke and recognition set in. Then he grinned, his hands close to the butts of his guns.

But the humor—if that’s what it was—did not reach his killer eyes.

“We done got the hotshot all bottled up, boys,” Slim announced, in a too-loud voice. “And some funny lookin’ pup with him.”

“This dog’s got teeth, partner,” Rusty told him. “An’ I ain’t been a pup in a long time.”

“Little puppy dog done got up on his hind legs, boys,” Garner said with a nasty grin. “I just might have to find me a slick and whup his tail back between his legs. What’d you boys think about that?”

“I wouldn’t try it,” the redhead warned. His quietly spoken words had steel behind them. “You just might find that stick stickin’ out of a part of you that you didn’t figure on.”

Several of the men in the cafe laughed at that.

Several more men in the cafe softly pushed back their chairs and took their leave before the lead they knew was coming started flying.

And a stray bullet doesn’t give a damn who it hits.

“You got a fat mouth, red on the head,” Slim told Rusty.

“You wearin’ a gun, ugly face?” Rusty popped right back at him.

Slim’s face turned as red as Rusty’s hair. “In here or outside?” He challenged the soft-voiced but hard-talking puncher.

“It don’t make a damn to me.”

The counterman came up with a sawed-off shotgun, pointed right at Slim’s belly. “You hardcases ain’t gonna shoot up this place,” he informed them, earing back both hammers. “So this is my way of tellin’ you to take your guns and your big mouths and your quarrel out into the street. And I mean lak raht now!”

Slim nodded then looked at Smoke and Rusty. “We’ll meet you boys at the south edge of town. That is, if you’ve got the belly for it.”

“We’ll be there,” Smoke told him, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out. “Watching our backs all the way.”

Bob Garner spun around, red from the neck up and his ugly face turning even uglier. “What the hell does that mean, Jensen?”

“It means, Garner, that I think you’re all a bunch of back-shooting cowards!”

“Git outta here!” the counterman hollered. “Afore I turn loose both of these barrels!”

The four hired guns and bounty hunters stomped out of the cafe. Smoke poured another cup of coffee and Rusty did the same. They sugared and stirred and sipped.

“How do we handle this?” Rusty asked, his voice low so that only Smoke could hear. “And what’s this about them bein’ back-shooters?”

“They’re not back-shooters. I just said that to make sure they wouldn’t try it. It’s a matter of pride for them now. Some of their own kind would shoot them if they tried to set up an ambush.”

They both looked up as the waitress set two thick slices of apple pie on the table before them.

“On the house, boys,” the counterman said. “I ain’t never had nobody as famous as Smoke Jensen come in my place afore.”

The men nodded their thanks and fell to eating the pie, chasing it down with gulps of coffee. Around them, men were beginning to place wagers on the outcome of the impending gunfight. Most of the bets went to Smoke and the red-headed cowboy with him.

Their pie and coffee finished, Smoke and Rusty pushed back their chairs, settled their hats on their heads, and stood up, hitching at their gun belts.

“Good luck, boys!” the waitress called, as they were stepping out the door and onto the boardwalk.

The street that had been bustling with people when Smoke entered the cafe was now barren of human life as the two men began their lonely walk toward the edge of town. The word had been quickly passed among the townspeople that, lead was about to fly.

A dog looked up from its midday doze and wagged its tail, its eyes seeming to say: you leave me alone and I’ll do the same for you.

They walked past the animal, their spurs softly jingling. They stayed in the shadows of the buildings until coming to the very edge of town.

“I got a hunch that Slim and Bob will stay together,” Smoke said. “So we play it like that. I’ll take Montana Slim and Bob Garner. You handle the other two. I don’t know them; they might be fast as lightning.”

“I ain’t all that fast,” Rusty conceded. “But I don’t hardly ever miss.”

“That’s the main thing. Many so-called fast guns usually put the first bullet into the dirt. There they are, Rusty. I got a hunch they’ll want to jaw a little first; work up some courage. We’ll let them. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

The men stepped off into the dirt of the street and began the short walk toward destiny.