Preacher's Assault

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MATT JENSEN, THE LAST MOUNTAIN MAN: DAKOTA AMBUSH

by

William W. Johnstone

with J. A. Johnstone

Coming in February 2011

Wherever books are sold

CHAPTER 1

When Matt Jensen rode into Swan, Wyoming, few who knew him would have recognized him. He had a heavy beard, his hair was uncommonly long, and he looked every bit the part of a man who had not been under a roof for two months. He had said good-bye to Smoke Jensen in Fort Collins, Colorado, arranging to meet him in Swan eight weeks later. Not since then had Matt seen civilization, having spent the entire two months in the mountains prospecting for gold.

The success of Matt’s two months of isolation was manifested by a canvas bag he had hanging from the saddle horn. The bag was full of color-showing ore. Prospecting wasn’t new to Matt. He had learned the trade under the tutelage of his mentor, Smoke Jensen, so he knew the color in the ore was genuine. But exactly how successful he had been would depend upon the assayer’s report.

Swan was a fly-blown little settlement, not served by any railroad, though there was stagecoach service to Rawlings where one could connect with the Union Pacific. The town had a single street that was lined on both sides by unpainted, rip-sawed, false-fronted buildings. It could have been any of several hundred towns in a dozen western states. As Matt rode down the street, a couple scantily dressed soiled doves stood on a balcony and called down to him.

“Hey, cowboy, you’re new to town, ain’t you?” one of them shouted.

“You gotta be new ’cause I don’t know you,” the other one added. “And I reckon I know just about ever’ man in town if you get my drift,” she added in a ribald tone of voice.

Matt smiled, nodded, and touched the brim of his hat by way of returning their greeting.

“Come on up and keep us company. We’ll give you a good welcome,” the first one shouted down to him.

“Ladies, until I get a bath, I’m not even fit company for my horse,” Matt called up to the two women as he rode underneath the overhanging balcony where the two women were standing.

The second soiled dove pinched her nose and, exaggerating, made a waving motion with her hand. “Oh, honey, you’ve got that right,” she teased.

Laughing, Matt rode on down the street until he reached a small building at the far end. A sign in front of the building read, J.A. MONTGOMERY, ASSAYER.

Matt swung down from his saddle and tied his horse at the hitching rail. Hefting the canvas bag over one shoulder, he stepped inside where he was greeted by a small, thin man.

“Can I help you?” the little man asked.

“Are you the assayer?”

“I am.”

Matt set the canvas bag on the counter, then took out a handful of rocks and laid them alongside the bag.

“I need you to take a look at this,” Matt said.

Montgomery chuckled. “You want me to tell you if it is gold or pyrite, right?”

“No, mister,” Matt said. “I know it’s gold. What I want you to do is tell me how much money all this is worth.”

The assayer picked up a couple rocks and looked at them casually, before putting them back down. Then, taking a second look at one of them, he picked it up again, and examined it through a magnifying glass.

“What do you think?” Matt asked.

“You’re right,” Montgomery said. “It is gold.”

“You have any idea as to the value?”

“Do all the rocks have this much color?”

“I wouldn’t have bothered carrying them in if they didn’t,” Matt replied.

“Well, then I would say you have two or three hundred dollars here. In fact, I’ll give you three hundred dollars for the entire bag, right now.”

Matt put the rocks back in the bag. “Would you now?”

“In cash,” Montgomery said.

“You always cheat your customers like that?” Matt asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“What I have here is worth two thousand dollars if it is worth a cent,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. Montgomery, but I believe I’ll take my business somewhere else.”

“I’m the only assayer in town.”

“Perhaps. But Swan isn’t the only town,” Matt said as he left the office.

Up the street from the assayer’s office Matt saw a sign that read HAIRCUTS, SHAVES, BATHS.

“Tell you what, Spirit, you’ve had to put up with my stink long enough,” Matt said, speaking to his horse. “I think I’ll get myself cleaned up before I go looking for Smoke.”

Dismounting in front of the building, Matt lifted his bag of ore from the horse, then went inside. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting in a tub of warm water, scrubbing himself with a big piece of lye soap.

“Don’t know if there is enough lye soap in all of Wyoming to get that carcass clean,” a voice teased.

“Smoke!” Matt said, a big smile spreading across his face. He started to stand.

“No, no need to stand,” Smoke said, holding his hand out, palm forward, to stop him. “You think I want to see that?”

Matt laughed. “How did you know I was in here?”

“We did say we were going to meet in Swan today, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw Spirit tied up out front. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize him? He used to be my horse, remember?”

“I remember,” Matt said.

“How did you do?” Smoke asked.

“See that bag there? It’s full of ore. At least two thousand dollars worth, I would guess.”

Smoke whistled. “That is good,” he said.

“Tell you what, I’ll be finished here in a bit. What do you say we go get us a beer? I haven’t had a beer in two months.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll go get us a table, and I’ll even let you buy the beer, seein’ as you had such a good outing,” Smoke said.

A few minutes after Smoke left, Matt was out of the tub, had his shirt and trousers on, and had just strapped on his gun belt when three men burst, unexpectedly, into the room. All three had pistols in their hands.

“We’ll take that bag of ore, mister,” one of them shouted.

“Who are you?” Matt asked.

“We’re the folks you’re goin’ to give that bag of ore to,” one of the three said, and they all laughed.

While the three men were laughing, Matt was drawing his pistol, and while they were reacting to him drawing his pistol, Matt was shooting.

The pistol shots sounded exceptionally loud in the closed room as Matt and the three men exchanged gunfire. When the shooting stopped Matt had not a scratch, but the three would-be robbers lay dead on the floor.

Matt was examining the bodies when four more men came bursting into the room. Three of them were carrying sawed-off shotguns. They were also wearing badges.

The fourth man with them was the assayer.

“There he is, Sheriff! He is the one who stole the bag of ore!” Montgomery shouted, pointing at Matt.

“What?” Matt asked. “What are you talking about? I didn’t steal any ore from you!”

“He come into the office a little while ago,” Montgomery said. “He had a bag of worthless rocks, usin’ it as a way o’ getting my attention. While I was looking at his rocks, he stole a bag of genuine ore. I didn’t have no choice but to send my brother and two cousins to get the ore back. Didn’t know it would come to this, though.”

Montgomery looked down at the three dead bodies, then shook his head sadly. “If I had known they was goin’ to be murdered like this, I never woulda sent ’em over here. A bag plumb full of gold nuggets isn’t worth getting three good men killed.”

“Come along, mister,” the sheriff said, waving his shotgun menacingly at Matt. “You are about to learn that folks don’t come into my town to steal and murder and get away with it.”

“Sheriff, this man is lying,” Matt said. “I brought some ore in for him to assay. He tried to cheat me out of it so I told him I would go somewhere else. You think I would stop to take a bath if I stole anything in this town?”

“I don’t know what you would do, mister,” the sheriff said. “But the thing is, I know Montgomery and I don’t know you. So I reckon we’ll let the judge sort it all out.”

Matt looked at the three shotguns leveled at him. He was holding a pistol and he had a notion, but declined. He might be able to kill the sheriff and both his deputies before they realized what was happening, but then, he might not, either. They were carrying shotguns, which gave them an advantage. It would also mean killing innocent men and he couldn’t bring himself to do that.

Matt turned the pistol around and handed it, handle first, to the sheriff.

“You are making a mistake, Sheriff,” Matt said.

“You let me worry about that.”

Montgomery reached for the sack of gold ore.

“Leave it,” the sheriff said.

“Why should I leave it, Sheriff? This is the selfsame sack of ore he stole.”

“Leave it,” the sheriff said again. “We’ll let the judge decide whether or not that gold ore is yours.”

Montgomery glared at the sheriff, then looked over at Matt. “I’ll be standin’ in the crowd, watchin’ you hang,” Montgomery said.

“Let’s go, mister,” the sheriff said to Matt with a wave of his shotgun. “I got a nice jail cell for you until the judge gets here.”

Matt had been in jail for three days awaiting the arrival of the circuit judge so he could be tried. Smoke sat outside his cell visiting with him.

“I shouldn’t have left you,” Smoke said.

“Why not? If you had stayed, you would be in jail with me right now,” Matt said. “What good would that do?”

“I guess you have a point. I couldn’t help you any if I were in there with you. At least, by being out here, if you can’t convince the judge you are innocent, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I’ll get you out of here, no matter what I have to do.”

Matt was about to answer when he looked up to see the sheriff coming into the jailhouse, leading Montgomery. Montgomery was in shackles.

“What is it?” Matt asked. “What is going on?”

“You’re free to go,” the sheriff said as he opened the door to the cell. “Mr. Montgomery here will be taking your place.”

“Sheriff, I have to hand it to you for doing your job,” Matt said. “You’ve had a good three days of investigating.”

“It wasn’t me,” the sheriff said. “It was John Bryce.”

“Who?”

“John Bryce,” the sheriff repeated. “Mr. Bryce is a newspaper writer for the Swan Journal, and he has been doing some, he calls it, investigative journalism. Here, read this,” he said, handing Matt a newspaper.

An Innocent Man in Jail!

J. A. MONTGOMERY A CROOK

SHOULD BE CALLED TO ACCOUNT

We are under obligation to report to the public in general and to Sheriff Daniels in particular, the criminal activities of J. A. Montgomery who has set himself up in Swan as an assayer. Montgomery is no such thing. Although he has hanging on the wall of his office a degree from Colorado School of Mines, this newspaper is in receipt of a letter from that institution claiming that no such person as J. A. Montgomery graduated, nor was ever a student there.

Further investigation has disclosed that Montgomery is wanted by the sheriff of Madison County, Montana, where, also fraudulently passing himself off as an assayer, he murdered and robbed a prospector. The circumstances of that event are so similar to the recent event between J. A. Montgomery, his brother Clyde,two cousins, Drake and Birch, and a recent visitor to our town, Matt Jensen, that this newspaper believes Mr. Jensen, who is currently incarcerated, is innocent.

Should Matt Jensen be any longer detained, it would be a gross miscarriage of justice. Subjecting the county to a trial to establish his innocence would be a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. The writer of this piece, John Bryce, is willing to stake his reputation upon the accuracy of this report, and urges Sheriff Daniels to act quickly to correct this error.

“After the paper come out I sent a telegram to the sheriff of Madison County Montana, and he answered that Montgomery was wanted for murder, just like the newspaper article said. I went over to talk to Montgomery and found that he was tryin’ to leave town.”

“So I am free to go?” Matt asked.

“Yes, sir, you are free as a bird.”

“Is this fella, John Bryce in town?” Matt asked.

“Yes, sir, he’s over at the newspaper office right now,” Sheriff Daniels said.

“I think I’ll go look him up.”

“Do you own this paper?” Matt asked when he and Smoke found John Bryce hard at work in the newspaper office.

“Oh, heaven’s no. It takes a lot of money to own and operate your own newspaper,” John said. “I just work here for Mr. Peabody as one of his journalists. Someday I expect to own my own paper, though,” he said.

Matt, who had had the ore returned to him, reached down into his canvas bag and pulled out four pretty good sized rocks. “Here,” Matt said, handing the rocks to the newspaper man. “Cash these in and you may have your paper sooner than you realize. If there is ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.”

“Bless you, Mr. Jensen,” John said, accepting the gold with a broad smile. “I’ll never forget you for this.”

CHAPTER 2

Fullerton, Dakota Territory, twelve years later

A brick had been thrown through the front window, and great jagged spears of the glass reached out from all corners of the frame. Two months earlier John Bryce had paid a professional painter to come over from Bismarck to paint the window.

FULLERTON DEFENDER

John Bryce—Publisher

Millie Bryce—Office Manager

The letters were broad and black, outlined in white and gold. That sign, once a source of pride, was now no more than a few discordant letters on the remaining shards of glass.

Not one letter of Millie’s name remained.

At the moment John was standing inside the office of the Fullerton Defender, surveying the damage. The perpetrators had done more than just break his front window, they had also trashed the office. His arm was around his wife, and he held her close to him as she sobbed quietly. Type had been scattered about the room, newsprint had been ripped and spread around, the Washington Hand Press, by which John put out his weekly paper, was lying on its side.

They had come to the newspaper office directly from their breakfast table, after City Marshal Tipton told of the break-in. More than a dozen citizens of the town had already been drawn to the scene of the crime by the time John and Millie arrived. The group stood in a little cluster on the boardwalk in front of the building.

The perpetrators had left a note.

Don’t be writting no more bad artacles about

Lord Denbigh or we will kum back and do

more damige to you nex time.

“Who would do such a thing?” Millie asked between sobs.

“It’s fairly apparent, isn’t it?” John replied. “Denbigh did it.”

“We don’t know that,” Marshal Tipton said.

“The note doesn’t suggest that to you, Marshal?” John asked.

“Just the opposite,” Tipton said. “Denbigh is an educated man. Now, I’m not as smart as you are, but even I know how to spell the words come, and damage.”

“I don’t mean Denbigh did it himself,” John said. “I mean he had it done.”

“Maybe there are just some people in town who got upset with you because you’ve been coming down pretty hard on Denbigh in your stories. Denbigh has done a lot of good for this town.”

“Really? What good has he done?”

“Let’s just say he does a lot of business with the town.”

“Yes, by allowing only the businesses he wants to stay, and squeezing out the others. He’s killing this town, Marshal Tipton. And the people in town know it, only they are too frightened to do anything about it.”

“So you plan to mount a one person campaign do you, Bryce?”

“If I am the only one willing to do anything about it, then yes, I will mount a one person campaign.”

“Uh—huh,” Tipton said, stroking his jaw as he surveyed the shambles of the newspaper office. “And look what it got you.”

“It has set me back a bit, I’ll admit,” John said. “But it won’t stop me. It’ll take me a day to clean up. I’ll have the paper out this Thursday, just as I do every Thursday.”

“I’ll help you pick up all the type, Mr. Bryce,” a young boy of about twelve said.

“Thank you, Kenny.”

“I can go get Jimmy to help too, if you want me to.”

“That would be nice,” John said. He turned toward the group of people still standing outside the office, and seeing Ernie Westpheling, called out to him.

“Ernie, would you help me set the printing press back up?”

“Sure thing.” Ernie, who had been a colonel during the Civil War, was a local businessman who owned a gun store.

A couple other men also volunteered to help, and within a few minutes the printing press had been righted and was once again in its proper place. John surveyed it for a moment or two, then patted the press with a big smile.

“Not a scratch,” he said. “It takes more than a few of Denbigh’s hooligans to put ole George out of business.”

“George? I thought your name was John,” one of the men who had helped him said.

“It is. George is the name of my printing press.”

“You’ve named your press?”

“Sure. It’s not only a part of this newspaper, it is the heart of the newspaper.”

“What are you going to do about your window?” Ernie asked.

“I’ll have to order a new glass from Bismarck,” John said. “In the meantime I guess I’ll just board that side up.”

“What are you going to do about this, Marshal?” Ernie asked.

“I’ll look into it, see if I can find out who did it,” Tipton replied. “But if I don’t come up with any witnesses, I don’t know what I can do.”

“There has to be a witness somewhere,” Millie said. “It had to make a lot of noise when they broke out the window.”

“You live no more than a couple blocks from here, Mrs. Bryce. Did you hear anything?” Tipton asked.

“No.”

“The newspaper belongs to you and your husband, so you would be even more attentive, I would think. You heard nothing, but you expect others in the town did?” Tipton shook his head. “No ma’am, I don’t expect I’m going to find anything.”

“That’s because you aren’t looking in the right place,” John said. “You and I both know who is behind this.”

Tipton glared at John, but he said nothing.

Central Colorado

“Is the son of a bitch still following?” Cyrus Hayes asked Emmet Cruise. The two men had stopped for a moment in order for Hayes to relieve himself, and Cruise crawled up onto a rock to look back along the trail.

“Yeah, he’s there,” Cruise said.

“What the hell? Are we leaving bread crumbs or something?” Hayes asked as he buttoned his trousers. “Who the hell is that, and how is he staying on our trail?”

“I don’t know who he is, but he’s good,” Cruise said.

“Yeah, well, let’s go,” Hayes said. “The more distance we can put between us and him, the better I will feel.”

Earlier that morning, Hayes and Cruise had robbed the Rocky Mountain Bank and Trust in Pueblo, Colorado, and, during the robbery, had shot down in cold blood, a teller and two customers. The two customers, a man and his pregnant wife, had been friends of Matt Jensen. Because of that, even before the state got around to offering a reward for two bank robbers and murderers, Matt went after them.

Knowing they would be pursued, the two outlaws took great pains to cover their true trail, while leaving false trails for anyone who would follow. Reaching a stream, they rode right down the middle of it, confident they were erasing any sign that could possibly be followed.

For most trackers that might work, but not for Matt. He had learned his tracking expertise from Smoke Jensen, who had learned his own skills from an old mountain man named Preacher, arguably, the best tracker who had ever lived. Because that know-how had been passed down, Matt was almost as accomplished as Smoke or Preacher. He could follow a trail through the water by paying attention to such things as rocks dislodged against the flow of water, or silt disturbed by horse’s hooves, leaving a little pattern in the water for several minutes afterward.

He was tracking down the streambed when a rifle boomed and a .44-40 bullet cracked through the air no more than an inch from his head.

He leaped from his horse and ran though the stream, his feet churning up silver sheets of spray as he ran. The rifle barked again. Right on top of that he heard the flatter sound of a pistol shot. Almost simultaneously two bullets plunged into the water close by.

Reaching the bank on the opposite side of the stream, Matt dived to the ground then worked his way toward a nearby outcropping of rocks. He sat with his back against the biggest of the rocks while he took a few deep breaths.

“Who are you?” one of the men called out to him.

“My name is Jensen,” Matt called back.

“Jensen? Matt Jensen? Son of a bitch!” The outlaw had obviously recognized Matt’s name. There was fear in his voice.

“Which one are you?” Matt called back. “Are you Hayes or Cruise?”

“What? I’m Hayes. How did you know our names?”

“Half the town saw you two boys riding away from the bank, and half the ones who saw you, knew who you were.”

“What are you after us for, Jensen?” Hayes called. “I’ve heard of you, but I ain’t never heard that you was someone who would chase a fella down for the reward. Is that why you are chasin’ us?”

“I’m not after the reward.”

“Then if you ain’t after the reward, what the hell are you comin’ after us for?”

“It seems the thing to do,” Matt said without being specific as to his reasons.

“Well, mister, you made a big mistake,” Hayes shouted. “’Cause all you’re goin’ to do now is get yourself kilt!”

Hayes and Cruise fired again, and once more the bullets whistled by harmlessly.

“You still there?” Hayes called.

“I’m still here.”

“I tell you what, mister. Me and my partner here just talked it over, and we got us an idée. We have got us near ’bout five thousand dollars that we taken from the bank. A thousand of it is your’n if’n you’ll just go away,” Hayes called.

“No deal.”

There was a beat of silence, then Hayes called out again. “All right, how ’bout two thousand? We’ll give you two thousand and all you got to do is let us ride away.”

“You expect me to believe you two are willing to give me nearly half of what you took from the bank?”

“Why not? It’s no big deal, we can always rob another bank,” Hayes shouted back. “Two thousand dollars. You don’t come across money like that very often, do you?”

“Not very often,” Matt agreed.

“So, what do you think? You going to take us up on the offer?”

“Let me think about it,” Matt said.

“You do that.”

Matt had no intention of taking the two men up on their offer, but he responded in such a way as to enable him to stall for time until he figured out how best to handle the situation. He picked up a stick about two feet long, put his hat on top of the stick, then raised it slightly above the rock.

A rifle boomed, and the hat flew off the end of the stick.

“Ha! You got ’im, Cruise!” Hayes shouted.

“Whoa, I guess you two boys weren’t really serious about giving me all that money, were you?” Matt called out.

“Son of a bitch, I missed!” Cruise said.

“Mister, you know what I said about givin’ you that money? Well you can forget about it. We ain’t goin’ to give you nothin’,” Hayes said. “Except maybe a bullet right between your eyes.” His shout was punctuated with another rifle shot hitting the top of the rock, then whining off into the valley.

After that there was silence.

The silence stretched into several long minutes.

“Hayes? Cruise? You still up there?” Matt called.

Another rifle shot hit the rock just to the right of him. The one with the rifle had improved his position. As Matt scooted around to put the rock between himself and the shooter, there was a second shot.

Matt saw the puff of smoke from the rifle, so he aimed at the spot and waited. Seconds later he was rewarded by seeing Cruise’s face raise up.

Matt pulled the trigger, and Cruise fell forward, sliding belly down until his face ended up in the stream. Matt watched for a moment longer to make certain Cruise was dead when suddenly he heard the sound of horse’s hooves. Looking around he saw that Hayes had used the opportunity to get mounted and was galloping toward him. Hayes had his pistol in his hand, firing at Matt as he rode.

Matt fired back. A puff of dust rose from Hayes’ vest, followed by a tiny spray of dust and blood. Hayes pitched backward out of his saddle but one foot hung up in the stirrup. His horse continued to run, raising a plume of water as the outlaw was dragged through the stream. When the horse reached the other side of the stream and started up the bank, Hayes’ foot disconnected from the stirrup and he lay motionless, half in the water and half out, not more than ten feet from where the body of his partner lay.

Matt ran over to them, his gun still drawn, but the gun wasn’t necessary. Both men were dead.

CHAPTER 3

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, but he was always on the side of law and order. Sometimes, 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 evoked fear among the outlaws and evil doers.

Matt took the bag of bank money from Hayes’ 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, that horse had carried with him the spirit of his first horse, who was also named, not coincidentally, Spirit. There was nothing Matt could do but take shanks mare, so, throwing his saddle, saddle bags, 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. 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 a train would pass through there sometime before sundown.

Since putting his horse down, Matt had walked for two hours, carrying his saddle with him. At the moment, he was standing alongside the railroad tracks some thirty miles south of Pueblo. 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 thought of the horse he had just put down. In order to combat the grief that threatened to consume him, he turned his thoughts to his first horse named Spirit, and how he had come by him.

Right after the war, while still a boy named Matt Cavanaugh, the man 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. He 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, 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 had surprised him with an offer.

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

“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 in one corner of the corral. “That one is mine.”

“Which horse is the best?” Matt asked.

“Uh-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?”

“Uh-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 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 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 didn’t 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 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. By being his horses, they had been subjected to more danger than most.

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 it had to be done?

Before he 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 creeping along, though Matt knew 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. Even the smoke pouring from its stack seemed but a tiny wisp against a sky which had 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 onto the track and began waving. After a few waves, he heard the train braking so he knew the engineer had spotted him and was going to stop. The train which had appeared so tiny before, 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?” he called down to Matt, raising 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 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 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 re-boarded the train, then he 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 saddle bag 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 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 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. 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’ 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. 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.