Return of the Mountain Man

11

Buck had asked the Scotsman how he had known about him. MacGregor had shown him a wanted dodger on Smoke. He had cut off the hair and added a beard. It was eerie; almost like looking into a mirror.

“Your skill and speed with your guns gave you away, Buck,” MacGregor said. Then he smiled. “What are you planning to do here?”

“I’m going to kill Potter and Richards and Stratton and then burn this damn town to the ground.”

“Warn me before you start putting your suicidal plan into action. I need to gather up my evidence and get out of here.”

Buck had looked at the smaller man, not knowing how to take the man. “But you’re a federal marshal, MacGregor. Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

“On what charges, Buck? I’m not aware of any federal charges against you. You haven’t committed any acts of treason against the government of the United States. You haven’t robbed any federal mints. You haven’t assaulted any federal agents or destroyed any federal property. Hell, I personally hope you are successful in destroying this cesspool. Good day, Mr. West.”

Buck stabled Drifter and went back to the hotel for a bath and shave. MacGregor hadn’t told him very much as to the why of a federal marshal being in Bury; just that if he, MacGregor, was successful, another chapter in that regrettable bloody insurrection referred to as the Civil War would be closed. And perhaps a young man would finally be at peace with himself.

MacGregor had left it at that.

After cleaning up, Buck walked to Sally’s house carrying a small package wrapped in brown paper. He found her working in the yard, planting flowers. She turned at the sounds of his bootheels and the jingle of his spurs and smiled at him.

Brushing off her hands, Sally asked, “Did you have a good trip?”

“Oh, yes.” Buck held out the package. “Brought you something.”

She waved him onto the porch and they both took chairs. She opened the package and laughed out loud. Two pounds of coffee.

“I’ll grind these beans and make some coffee right now,” she said. “While it’s perking I’ll clean up. It won’t take me five minutes.”

They chatted away the remainder of the morning. Sally fixed sandwiches for lunch, then the two went for a stroll around town. While resting on the cool banks of a creek, Buck said, “Sally, I want to tell you something.”

She glanced at him. “Sounds serious.”

“Might be. Sally, if I ever come to you and tell you to pack up and get out of town, don’t question it. Just do as I say. If I ever tell you that, it’s because a lot of trouble is about to pop wide open.”

“If there is an Indian attack, wouldn’t it be safer in town rather than outside of town?”

“It won’t be Indians, Sally.”

“There are children in this town, Buck,” she reminded him.

“I’m aware of that.”

“Are you saying the sins of the father are also on the head of the son?”

“No,” Buck’s reply was given slowly, after much thought. “Why would I think that?”

She touched his face with her small hand. “Who are you, Buck?”

And just before his lips touched hers, Buck said, “Smoke Jensen.”

“Well, this cinches it,” Richards told MacGregor. “I’ve got a man I can trust. You agree?”

“Oh, most assuredly,” the Scotsman said. “I like the young man.”

Richards gave his bookkeeper a sharp glance. Damned little sour man had never seemed to like anybody. But if MacGregor gave his OK to Buck West, then Buck was all right.

“Boss,” Jerry stuck his head into the office. “Some range-rider just reported a group of old mountain men’s gatherin’ south and west of here.”

“Mountain men?” Richards said. “That’s impossible. All those people are dead.”

“No, sir,” Jerry respectfully disagreed with his boss. “There’s still a handful of ’um around. They old, but they mean and crotchety and not to be fooled with. Dangerous old men. I’ve run up on ’um time to time. And Benson over to the general store reports that one was in his place ’bout three days back. Bought supplies and sich.”

“Mountain men,” Richards vocally mused. “Now why would those old characters be hanging around here?”

Neither Richards nor Jerry noticed the faint smile on MacGregor’s face. The Scotsman now knew what Buck/Smoke was up to. And it amused him. But, he cautioned himself silently, you damn sure don’t want to be around when Buck and his friends lift the lid on Pandora’s Box. Best start making arrangements to pull out. It isn’t going to be long.

“Don’t know, boss,” Jerry said. “Just thought you’d want to know about it.”

“Yeah, right, Jerry. Thanks.”

MacGregor watched the men leave the office. The under-cover federal marshal sat down at his desk and took up his pen, dipping the point into the inkwell. He returned to his company ledger book. But he had a difficult time entering the small, precise figures. His shoulders kept shaking from suppressed laughter.

“I must keep reminding myself that I’m a lady,” Sally told Buck. But the twinkle in her eyes told Buck that while a lady she might be, there were a lot of hot coals banked within.

“Aren’t you going to run away, screaming in fear?” Buck asked her. “After all, I’m the murderer, Smoke Jensen.”

“You took an awful chance, telling me that.”

“Maybe I have some insight, too.”

“Yes, I suppose you do. Now tell me about Smoke.”

She listened attentively for a full ten minutes, not interrupting, letting him tell his painful story, his way. Several times during the telling he lapsed into silence, then with a sigh, he would continue.

When he had finished, she sat on the cool creek bank, her long skirt a fan of gingham around her, and mentally digested all she had heard.

Finally she said, “And to think I work for those creatures.” She hurled a small stone into the water. “Well, I shall tender my resignation immediately, of course.”

Buck’s smile was hard. “Stick around, Sally. The show’s just about to begin.”

“What would you do if I told you…well, I am quite fond of you, Buck?”

“What would you want me to do?”

“Well,” she smiled, “you might kiss me.”

Just as their lips touched, a voice came from behind them. “Plumb sickenin’. Great big growed-up man a-moonin’ and a-sparkin’ lak some fiddle-footed kid. Disgustin’.”

Buck spun around, on his feet in a crouch, his hands over the butt of his guns. His mouth dropped open.

“Shut your mouth, boy,” Preacher said. “Flies is bad this time of year.”

“Preacher!” Buck croaked, his voice breaking.

“It damned shore ain’t Jedediah Smith,” the old man said drily. “We lost him back in ’35, I think it was. Either that or he got married. One and the same if’n you’s to ask me.”

Buck ran toward Preacher and grabbed him in a bear hug, spinning around and around with the old mountain man.

“Great Gawd Amighty!” Preacher hollered. “Put me down, you ox!”

Buck dropped the old man to the ground. His big hands on Preacher’s shoulders, Buck said, “I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead!”

“I damn near was, boy! Took this old body a long time to recover. Now if’n you’re all done a-slobberin’ all over me, we got to make some plans.”

“How’d you find me, Preacher?”

“Hell’s fire, boy! I just followed the bodies! Cain’t you keep them guns of yourn in leather?”

“Come on, Preacher! Tell the truth. I know you’d rather lie, but try real hard.”

“You see how unrespectful he is, Missy?” Preacher looked at Sally. “Cain’t a purty thang lak you do no better than the laks of this gunslick?”

“I’m going to change him,” Sally said primly. She was not certain just how to take this disreputable-looking old man, all dressed in buckskins and looking like death warmed over.

“Uh-huh,” Preacher said. “That’s whut that white wife of mine said, too.”

“White wife!” Buck looked at him. “You never had no wife except squaws!”

“That’s all you know, you pup. I married up with me a white woman that was purtier than Simone Jules Dumont’s mustache.”

“Heavens!” Sally muttered.

Simone Jules Dumont, also known as Madame Mustache, was either from France or a Creole from the Mississippi Delta region—it had never been proven one way or the other. She’d showed up in California during the 1849 gold rush and had soon been named head roulette croupier at the Bella Union in San Francisco. Eventually, Simone had moved on to a livelier occupation: running a gambling saloon/whorehouse at Bannack, Montana. It was there she is rumored to have taught the finer points of card dealing to Calamity Jane. And her mustache continued to grow, as did her reputation. She killed what is thought to be her first husband—a man named Carruthers—after he conned her out of a sizable amount of money. She moved on to Bodie, California, mustache in full bloom, and killed another man there when he and another footpadder tried to rob her one night. She lost most of her money in a card game on the night of September 6, 1879, and passed on through the Pearlies that same night after drinking hydrocyanic acid.

“Did you have any children from that union, Mister Preacher?” Sally asked.

“Durned if’n I know, Missy. I lit a shuck out of there one night. Walls was a-closin’ in on me. I heard she took up with a minister and went back east. I teamed up with John Liver-Eatin’ Johnston for a time. He lost his old woman back in ’47 and went plumb crazy for a time. Called him Crow Killer. He kilt about three hundred Crows and et the livers out of ’em.”

Sally turned a little green around the mouth. Buck had heard the story; he yawned.

“I didn’t think crows were good to eat, Mister Preacher,” Sally said.

“Not the bird, Missy,” Preacher corrected. “The Indian tribe. You see, it was a bunch of Crows on the warpath that kilt Johnston’s old woman. John never did lak Crows after that. Et a bunch of ’em.”

“You mean he was a…cannibal?”

“Only as fer as the liver went,” Preacher said blandly. “He got to lookin’ at me one night while we’s a-camped in the Bitterroot. Right hongry look in his eyes. I took off. Ain’t seen him since. Last I heard, old Crow Killer was a scout for the U.S. Army, over on the North Plains.”

Sally sat back on the bank, averting her eyes, mumbling to herself.

“I wish you had gotten word to me that you were still alive, you old coot,” Buck said.

“Couldn’t. I were plumb out of it for a couple of months. By the time I could ride out of that Injun camp, Nicole and the baby was dead and buried and you was gone. I’m right sorry about Nicole and the boy, Smoke.”

Buck nodded. “Better get use to calling me Buck, Preacher. You might slip up in town and that would be the end of it.”

“I ain’t goin’ into town. Not until you git ready to make your move, that is. You wanna git a message to me, Smoke, they’ll be a miserable-looking old Injun in town named Hunts-Long. Flathead. Wears a derby hat. He’ll git word to me. Me and the boys was spotted last yesterday, so we’ll be changin’ locations.” He told Buck where. “I’s tole you met up with Audie.” That was said with a grin.

“I thought I was seeing things. I thought he was an elf.”

“He’s the furrtherest thang from an elf. That little man will kill you faster than you can spit. Yessir, Smoke, you got some backup that’ll be wrote up strong when they writes about the buryin’ of Bury. Got Tenneysee, Audie, Phew, Nighthawk, Dupre, Deadlead, Powder Pete, Greybull, Beartooth, and Lobo. And me. ’Course I’m a better man than all them combined,” Preacher said, in his usual modest manner. “And Matt.”

“Phew?” Sally said. “Why in Heaven’s name would you call a man that?”

“’Cause he stinks, Missy.”

“I know Matt. The negro.”

“That’s him. Ol’ one-eye.” Preacher stuck out his hand. “Be lookin’ at you, Smoke. You take care, now.” He whistled for his pony and the spotted horse trotted over. Preacher jumped onto the mustang’s back and was gone.

Sally looked at Buck. A load seemed to have been removed from his shoulders. His eyes were shining with love as he watched the old man ride out. He seemed to stand a little taller.

He met her eyes. “It’s sad. When those men are gone, a…time will have passed. And it will never be again.”

“That is not entirely true, Smoke Jensen,” Sally said.

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“You’ll be here to carry on.”