Return of the Mountain Man

8

Buck had ordered his one suit pressed, had bought a new set of longhandles and a new pearl-gray shirt, and was ready to knock on Miss Sally Reynolds’s door promptly at six.

As he walked the short blocks from the hotel to Sally’s house, Buck had been conscious of eyes on him. Not unfriendly eyes, but curious ones. He had passed several ladies during his walk. They had batted their eyes and swished their bustles at him. Buck had smiled at the ladies and continued walking, his spurs jingling.

He had spoken to the crowd of little boys that had followed him—at a safe distance. He had noticed that several of them were wearing two wooden guns in makeshift holsters, the leather tied down low.

Buck didn’t know whether he liked that or not. He didn’t want any young people aping his lifestyle. But he didn’t know what he could do about it.

Miss Sally Reynolds was dressed in gingham; a bright summer color with matching parasol. The light, bright color setting off her dark hair. She wore just a touch of rouge on her cheeks.

Dusk when they closed the gate to her picket fence and began their stroll to the hotel dining room. The crowd of boys had been called in to supper by their mothers, so Buck and Sally could walk in peace.

They had just left Sally’s house when two carriages, accompanied by half a dozen outriders, rolled stately past them.

“Wiley and Linda Potter in the first carriage,” Sally said. “Keith and Lucille Stratton in the second carriage. They’re going out to Josh Richards’s. He lives on the PSR Ranch. They have a monthly dinner and business meeting. The sheriff will be there too, I should imagine.”

“Same time, every month?” Buck asked.

“Oh, yes. Very punctual and predictable.”

Buck smiled at that. But his smile was only to hide his true inner feelings. And those thoughts were dark and dangerous.

For one hot, flashing instant, Buck’s thoughts were flung back in time.

La Plaza de los Leones—Square of the Lions, later to be renamed Walsenburg—was a major farming and ranching community in 1869, when Smoke and Preacher rode in from the west.

They were met by the town marshal and told to keep on riding.

They planned to do just that. But first they wanted to know about the Casey ranch.

“Southeast of here. On the flats. Casey’s got eight hands. They all look like gunnies.”

“You got an undertaker in this town?” Smoke asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“Tell him to dust off his boxes—he’s about to get some business.”

Ten miles out of town, they met two hands riding easy, heading into town.

“You boys is on the TC range,” one of the riders warned. “Get the hell off. The boss don’t like strangers and neither do I.”

Smoke smiled. “You boys been ridin’ for the brand long?”

“You deef?” the second hand asked. “You been told to git—now git!” “You answer my question and then maybe we’ll leave.”

“Since ’66. That’s when we pushed them longhorns up here from Texas. If that’s any of your damned business. Now git!”

“Who owns TC?”

“Ted Casey. Boy, are you plumb crazy or jist stupid?”

“My Pa knew a Ted Casey. Fought in the war with him—for the Gray.”

“Oh? What be your name?”

“Some people call me Smoke.” He grinned. “Jensen.”

Recognition flared in the eyes of the TC riders. They grabbed for their guns. They were far too slow. Smoke’s left-hand .36 belched flame and smoke as Preacher fired his Henry one-handed. Horses reared and snorted and bucked at the noise. The TC gunnies dropped from their saddles, dead and dying.

The one TC gunhand alive pulled himself up on one elbow. Blood poured from two chest wounds, the blood pink and frothy, one .36 ball having passed through both lungs, taking the rider as he turned in the saddle.

“Heard you was comin’,” he gasped. “You quick, no doubt ’bout that. Your brother was easy.” He smiled a bloody smile. “Potter shot him low in the back; took him a long time to die. Died hard. Hollered a lot.” The TC rider closed his eyes and died.

Smoke and Preacher burned the house down, driving the men from it after a prolonged gunfight. They took only Casey alive.

“What are you figurin’ on doin’ with him?” Preacher asked.

“I figure on going back to town and hanging him.”

“I don’t know how you got that mean streak, boy. Seein’ as how you was raised—partly—by a gentle old man like me.”

Despite the death he had brought and the destruction wrought, Smoke had to laugh at that. Preacher was known throughout the West as one of the most dangerous men ever to roam the high country and vast Plains. The old mountain man had once gone on the prowl, spending two years of his life tracking down and killing—one by one—a group of men who ambushed and killed a friend of his, stealing the man’s furs.

Smoke tied the unconscious Casey across a saddle. “’Course you never went on the hunt for anyone, right?”

“Well…mayhaps once or twice. But that was years back. I’ve mellowed a mite since then.”

“Sure.” Smoke grinned. Preacher was still as mean as a cornered puma.

By the banks of a creek outside of town, a crowd had gathered for the hanging. Marshal Crowell was furious as he watched Smoke build a noose.

“This man has not been tried!” the marshal protested.

“Yeah, he has,” Smoke said. “He admitted to me what he done.”

The marshal looked at the smoke to the southeast.

“House fire,” Preacher said. “Poor feller lost everything.”

Casey spat in the direction of the crowd. He cursed them.

“This is murder!” the marshal said. “I intend to file charges against you both.”

“Halp!” Casey hollered.

A local minister began praying for Casey’s poor wretched soul.

Casey soiled himself as the noose was slipped around his neck.

The minister prayed harder.

“That ain’t much of a prayer,” Preacher opined sourly. “I had you beat hands down when them Injuns was fixin’ to skin me alive on the Platte. Put some feelin’ in it, man!”

The local minister began to shout and sweat. The crowd swelled; some had brought their supper with them. A hanging was always an interesting sight. There just wasn’t that much to do in small western towns. Some men were betting how long it would take for Casey to die—providing his neck didn’t snap when his butt left the saddle.

A small choir had assembled. The ladies lifted their voices to the sky.

“‘Shall We Gather at the River,’” they intoned.

“I personally think ‘Swing Low’ would be more like it,” Preacher opined.

A local merchant looked at Casey. “You owe me sixty-five dollars.”

“Hell with you!” Casey tried to kick the man.

“I want my money!” the merchant shouted.

“You got anything to say before you go to Hell?” Smoke asked Casey.

“You won’t get away with this!” Casey screamed. “If Potter or Stratton don’t git you, Richards will.”

“What’s he talkin’ about?” the marshal asked.

“Casey was with the Gray—same as my Pa and brother,” Smoke explained. “Casey and some others waylaid a patrol bringing a load of gold into Georgia. They shot my brother in the back and left him to die. Hard.”

“That was war,” the marshal said.

“It was murder.”

“Hurry up,” a citizen shouted. “My supper’s gettin’ cold.”

“I’ll see you hang for this,” the marshal told Smoke.

“You go to hell!” Smoke told him.

Casey swung in the cool, late afternoon air.

“I’m notifying the territorial governor of this,” the marshal said.

Casey’s bootheels drummed the air.

“Shout, man!” Preacher told the minister. “Sing, sisters, sing!” he urged the choir.

“What about my sixty-five dollars?” the merchant shouted.

All the memories had flashed through Buck’s mind in the space of two heartbeats.

“You’ve gone away again,” Sally said.

Buck looked at her. She was smiling up at him. “Yes, I guess I was, Sally. I apologize for that.”

They continued walking toward the hotel. Sally said, “Buck, are you here to slay dragons or to tilt at windmills?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Are you familiar with Cervantes?”

“Is he a gunhand?”

She looked at him to see if he was serious. He was. “No, Buck. A writer.”

“No, I guess I missed that one. I know what slaying dragons means. But what’s that about tilting windmills?”

“Oh, I suppose you’re not. I didn’t notice Sancho riding in with you.”

Now Buck was thoroughly confused. “I never had a Mex sidekick, Sally.”

“I have a copy of Don Quixote—somewhere. I’ll find it and loan it to you. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“All right.” Buck was well-read, considering his lack of formal education and allowing for the locale and his lifestyle. But he sure as hell had never heard of any Don Quixote.

Heads turned as they entered the dining room. Some dining there gave the young couple disapproving looks. A few smiled. They took a table next to the wall, affording them maximum privacy, and ordered supper. PSR beef, naturally, with boiled potatoes and beans, and apple pie for dessert.

Neither admitted it, for separate reasons, but both wondered what might be taking place at the grand house of the PSR ranch.

“And it was a fair fight?” Josh Richards asked Sheriff Reese.

“Stand up and square,” Reese said. “I didn’t see it, but Sam did. He said he ain’t never seen nothin’ like that Buck West’s draw. Lightnin’ fast. Neither Dickerson nor Russell got a shot off. And they drew first.”

“And he’s a bounty hunter?” Stratton asked. He was a big man gone to fat. Diamond rings glittered on his soft fat fingers.

“That’s what Jerry told me.”

“Jerry saw him fight back at the trading post, that right?” Potter asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Wiley Potter, like his two partners, had pushed his past from him. He almost never thought of his outlaw and traitor days. He was a successful man, a man under consideration to be territorial governor. And he played his political power to the hilt. He was always well dressed, well groomed.

Josh Richards listened, but had little to say on the subject of the bounty hunter, Buck West. If this West was as good as described, Richards wanted him on the payroll. Of the three men, Richards had changed the least. Physically. He was still a powerful man. Something he had always been proud of. That and his reputation with the ladies. But he knew it was time for him to be thinking of settling down. And while Janey’s reputation was a bit scarlet, she was, nevertheless, the woman he planned to marry. She was just as ruthless and cunning as Richards. Would do anything for money. They made a good team.

“I’ll see him in the morning,” Richards said. “Let’s eat. I’m hungry.”

Potter was big politically—the front man, all smiles and congeniality, territory-wide. Stratton was the local big shot—the president of the bank and so forth. But Richards ran the show, always staying quietly in the background. That’s the way he wanted it.

The men trouped out of the study into the dining room. Richards looked at Jane. “Something the matter?” he asked in a whisper.

“That Buck West. I’ve seen him before. Somewhere.”

“Can you remember where?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. But I will.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “He’s trouble, Josh.”

“Your imagination, my dear. He’d be a good man to have on our side.”

“Watch him,” she cautioned. “I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t even know him, Jane!”

“Yeah, I do. I just can’t remember where I met him, that’s all.”

“It’ll come to you.”

“Bet on it.”