Savagery of The Mountain Man

Chapter Ten

As Pogue Quentin stood in the hotel hallway unlocking the door to his hotel room, Emil Sinclair stepped out of the broom closet.

“Sinclair, are you a damn fool? The whole town is looking for you. What are you doing here?” Quentin asked.

“I got to get out of town,” he said.

“Well, you aren’t going to get out of town standing here.”

“I ain’t got no money.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have any money? I gave you three hundred dollars.”

“Jason wanted to hold on to the money until we was done,” Emil said.

“That’s not my problem,” Quentin said. “If I hadn’t given you that money, I would have been able to raise the bid. And if you and your brothers hadn’t been so incompetent, you would have a lot of money now and I would have Prince Henry.”

“You wound up gettin’ both my brothers killed,” Sinclair said.

Quentin shook his head. “That was your bungling.”

“They was killed doin’ somethin’ you wanted done. You owe me.”

Quentin shook his head. “I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

“There’s things I could tell people about you, Quentin, about things we done together down in Texas.”

“So you told me,” Quentin said. “But like I told you, I am a successful rancher, and you are a wanted man. Who is going to believe you?”

“That ain’t right, Quentin. That ain’t no way right. My two brothers got kilt and I damn near did. All I need is a little travelin’ money.”

Quentin opened the door to his room. “Come inside for a moment,” he said. “I don’t want to talk out here.”

Sinclair followed Quentin into his room, then stood to one side as Quentin locked the door behind him.

“I’ll give you one hundred dollars,” Quentin said.

A huge smile spread across Sinclair’s face. “A hunnert dollars? Yes, that’s enough. That’s more than enough.”

“You have to earn it.”

“Earn it? Earn it how?”

“Smoke Jensen bought a bull today.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I want you to find that bull and kill it.”

“Ain’t that supposed to be some champion bull worth a lot of money?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to try and steal it?”

“Now you tell me just how in the hell you are going to steal it,” Quentin replied. “What are you going to do? Drive him down the middle of the street for everyone to see?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I see what you are talking about,” Sinclair said. “But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to kill the bull?”

“If I can’t have him, then I don’t want anyone to have him,” Quentin replied.

“Where is the bull now?” Sinclair asked.

“I imagine it’s down at the railroad station, waiting to be put on the train. Wherever he is, it’s your job to find him. Find him and kill him.”

“What about Jensen?”

“What about him?”

“You want me to kill him, too?”

“I’m not giving you any more than one hundred dollars,” Quentin said. “At this point, I don’t care what happens to Jensen.”

Sinclair held out his hand. “You just give me the money, Mr. Quentin. I’ll kill the bull for you, and throw in killin’ Jensen for free. I owe the son of a bitch for killin’ my two brothers.”

Quentin gave the one hundred dollars to Sinclair, then opened the door. “Make this the last time we see each other,” Quentin said.

“Don’t worry, it will be. After I take care of business, I’m heading for California.”

As Sinclair started toward the stairs, Billy Ray Quentin was just arriving. He passed Sinclair by without saying a word, but when he got to the room where his father was standing in the open doorway, he gave in to curiosity.

“What was Sinclair doing here?”

“We were taking care of some last-minute business,” Quentin said. “Did you get the train tickets?”

“I got ’em, Pa,” Billy Ray said, holding them up for his father to see.

“Mr. Jensen, won’t you and Mrs. Jensen join us for dinner?” Tucker Phillips called. The ranch manager and his wife were sitting with Miller Smith and his wife.

“We would be happy to,” Smoke said.

Phillips and Smith stood as Smoke pulled out a chair for Sally; then all took their seats.

“Well, this was quite a spirited auction today, wasn’t it?” Phillips asked.

“Perhaps a bit too spirited,” Smoke replied with a smile. “I paid a lot more for Prince Henry than I intended.”

“I think it will work out for you,” Phillips said. “Prince Henry is a fine bull, and if my owner had given me permission to bid whatever I wanted, I would have continued the bid.”

“I believe you made an enemy today,” Smith said.

“You would be talking about Pogue Quentin, I take it,” Smoke said. He looked around the saloon. “Mr. Quentin isn’t here, I see.”

“I haven’t seen him since he left the auction,” Phillips said. “Which is fine by me. From what I have heard of the man, the more distance I can keep between us, the better it is.”

A waiter brought their dinner then, and the three men and their wives carried on a pleasant conversation until it was time for the train. As Smoke and Sally stood, the other two ranchers stood as well.

“Mindy, Carol, you two must visit us at Sugarloaf,” Sally said. “I feel that I have made two new and good friends during this trip, and I would love to entertain you sometime.”

“I can think of nothing that would bring me more pleasure,” Mindy Phillips said.

“Nor I,” Carol Smith added.

Although there was a cab available in front of the restaurant, the depot was only a couple of blocks away, so Smoke waved the driver off, saying he would rather walk.

“The Phillipses and the Smiths were nice people, weren’t they?” Sally said.

“Yes, I enjoyed their company.”

“I’m so glad you invited me along. And I’m so happy we got Prince Henry. I’m going to treat him like a house pet.”

“Ha! Does that mean we’re going to keep an animal that weighs three quarters of a ton in the house?” Smoke asked.

Sally laughed. “Well, maybe not a house pet,” she amended. “I am glad we bought him, though.”

“Even though we paid a lot more than we intended?”

“Yes. I think he will pay off in the long run,” Sally said.

“I think you are right. At least, I hope you are right.”

“Jensen!” a loud, angry voice shouted.

Smoke had not seen Emil Sinclair standing in the shadows of the alley between the apothecary and a feed store. He whirled toward the sound of the shout, drawing his pistol as he did so. He didn’t have to use it, though, because even as Sinclair raised his own gun to fire, Sheriff Walker stepped up behind Sinclair and brought his gun down hard on Sinclair’s head.

Smoke put his pistol back in its holster.

“Lucky for me you came along when you did,” Smoke said.

“More ’n likely, it was luckier for Sinclair,” Sheriff Walker said. “I saw him sneaking in here and figured he was up to no good, so I followed him.”

“You’re a good man, Sheriff Walker.”

Walker smiled broadly. “Comin’ from you, Mr. Jensen, that’s quite a compliment,” he said.

When Smoke and Sally reached the depot, they saw several people gathered around one of the stock pens.

“Who would do such a thing?” someone asked.

“Never mind who, why would they do it?” another asked.

Curious, Smoke walked over to the pen, but before he even got there, he saw a Hereford lying on the ground. He quickened his pace.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Somebody shot this bull,” one of the bystanders said.

Smoke pushed his way to the fence, then looked at the animal. He saw someone squatting beside it.

“I just paid two hundred and fifty dollars for this bull,” the man said, shaking his head in anger. “I’d like to get my hands on the son of a bitch who did this.”

Smoke’s first reaction was one of relief that it wasn’t Prince Henry. But that was followed quickly by a sense of guilt for feeling such relief, since he knew that the man who had bought the bull was out the money.

“Mr. Jensen?” someone called.

Turning from the pen, Smoke saw the railroad dispatcher.

“Yes?”

“Your bull has been loaded onto a private stock car,” he said. “I have the bill of lading here. It’s all taken care of.”

“Thanks,” Smoke said, walking over to retrieve the papers.

“A terrible thing, that,” the dispatcher said, nodding toward the cow pen and the dead bull.

“Did you see what happened?” Smoke asked.

“No, sir, nobody did,” the dispatcher said. “Ken and I were in the depot when we heard the shot. When we looked out, we saw the bull lying on the ground.” He shook his head. “It takes a special kind of meanness to kill an animal for no reason,” he said.

Santa Clara

When Pogue and Billy Ray Quentin stepped down from the train, they were met by the foreman, Cole Mathers, and two other cowboys from the Tumbling Q.

“Where at’s the bull, Mr. Quentin?” Mathers asked.

“I didn’t get him,” Quentin replied with a growl.

“You didn’t? Why not? Was there somethin’ wrong with him?”

“No, he was a good bull. But some fool by the name of Jensen outbid me.”

“Ha. I didn’t think there was anyone who could outbid you,” Mathers said. “You got more money that Croesus.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t keep it if I throw it away in a foolish bidding war,” Quentin said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Jensen and the seller weren’t in cahoots, bidding against me just to run the price up.” He chuckled. “If they were together, I snookered them, ’cause once it reached a certain point, I quit bidding.”

“Yes, sir. Well, there ain’t never been nobody say you wasn’t smart,” Mathers said.

“Did you bring our horses?”

“Yes, sir, they’re tied up out front.”

“All right, good. Come on, Billy Ray, let’s go home,” Pogue said.

“Pa, I’ll come along later,” Billy Ray said. “I ordered me a pair of boots to be made, and I’m goin’ to go see if Donovan has ’em done yet.”

A little bell attached to the top of the door tinkled as Billy Ray stepped into Donovan’s Leather Goods shop.

“I’ll be right there,” a voice called from the back of the shop.

Donovan was a small man with thinning hair that he kept combed over the top. He was wearing a leather apron with a full pocket, in which he kept some of his tools.

“Ah, Mr. Quentin,” he said. “Come for your boots, have you?”

“Yes,” Billy Ray said.

“I have them right here,” Donovan said, taking a pair of boots down from the shelf. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Billy Ray said. “They are. Let me try them on.”

“Please do,” Donovan invited.

Billy Ray sat down, pulled one of his old boots off, then stuck his foot down in the new boot. It didn’t go on easily, and he worked with it until he finally got it on. Then, when he stood up, he winced in pain as he took a step.

“They are too small!” he said. “You dumb son of a bitch! You made them too small!”

“They are still new, they will loosen up,” Donovan said. “I made them to the exact measurements.”

“I paid good money for these boots! And they don’t fit.”

“They will fit as soon as they are broken in, I assure you.”

Billy Ray sat down and pulled the boot off, then threw it through the front window. The glass shattered with a loud crash.

“Mr. Quentin!” Donovan gasped. “You broke my window!”

“Yeah, and that ain’t all I’m goin’ to break,” Billy Ray said as he picked up a bench, then slammed it into a leather cutter.

After leaving Donovan’s, Billy Ray walked down to the New York Saloon.

“Whiskey,” Billy Ray said to Lloyd Evans, the bartender. “Leave the bottle.”

Evans took a bottle from beneath the bar and put it in front of Billy Ray. Billy Ray pulled the cork with his teeth, then spit it into one of the nearby spittoons.

“Billy Ray, that means you just bought that whole bottle,” Evans said. “There ain’t no way we can re-cork it now.”

“I asked for the whole bottle, didn’t I?” Billy Ray replied with a snarl. He poured himself a glass.

Doc Patterson was standing at the bar just a few feet down from Billy Ray.

“Hello, Billy Ray,” Doc Patterson said. “How was your trip?”

“What trip?” Billy Ray replied. He tossed down the glass of whiskey.

“Didn’t you and your pa go up to Colorado Springs to buy a bull?”

“What? Oh, yeah,” Billy Ray said. He poured himself another glass. “Yeah, I guess we did.” He drank that glass as well.

“I’ll be anxious to see him,” Doc Patterson said. Doc was a veterinarian, and as he was the only veterinarian in the county, he did a lot of business with the Tumbling Q. “Tell your pa I’ll come out and look him over whenever he wants. I’ve read about him, sure will be nice to examine a champion. What’s he like?”

“What’s who like?” Billy Ray poured himself a third glass of whiskey.

“Why, Prince Henry, of course. I’m talking about the champion bull you bought,” Doc said.

“We didn’t buy no bull,” Billy Ray said. He tossed down the third glass, then poured a fourth, spilling a little of it onto the bar.

“You didn’t? I thought that was why you went.”

“That’s why my pa went,” Billy Ray said, tossing down still another glass of whiskey.

“Say, you’d better go easy on that. It’s not good to drink that much whiskey that fast,” Doc said. “Why don’t you slow down a little?”

“And why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Billy Ray replied. This time, when he poured the whiskey, he got more on the bar than he did in the glass. “You ain’t a people doctor anyway, you’re a horse and cow doctor. What the hell do you know about what’s good for me and what ain’t?”

“Nothing at all,” Doc said, holding up his hands and backing away. “I was just making conversation.”

“Yeah? Well make it somewhere else.” Billy Ray looked around the bar and seeing Mary Lou toward the back, he called out to her. “Hey, you! Whore! Let’s me an’ you go upstairs.”

“You’re drunk,” Mary Lou said.

Billy Ray walked toward her, stumbling into a chair and knocking it over, almost falling, but catching himself at the last minute by putting his hand down on a table.

“All right, if you won’t go upstairs with me, come have a drink with me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“What do you mean, you’d rather not? Ain’t that what you’re supposed to do? Drink with your customers, then go upstairs with them when they want?”

“Mr. Gibson lets us choose who we go upstairs with,” Mary Lou said. “And I don’t choose to go upstairs with you.”

“Gibson, our ranch does a lot of business in this saloon,” Billy Ray said. “How would you like it if I said nobody who works for us can come in here any more?”

“I’m not going to make her go upstairs with you if she doesn’t want to,” Gibson replied.

“All I want is to have a drink or two with her. Just till I get calmed down. Donovan—” With an unsteady hand, he pointed toward the street. “Donovan, that cheatin’ son of a bitch, just cheated me out of a pair of boots.”

“Have a drink with him, Mary Lou,” Gibson ordered. “You don’t have to do any more than that.”

“All right,” Mary Lou replied in a nervous voice. With a little look of apprehension, Mary Lou walked over to him. Thinking it would be better to have him calmed down, she forced a smile. “All right, cowboy,” she said. “Let’s have that drink.”

Billy Ray smiled at her, but there was something about the smile that alerted Mary Lou, as if the smile was a reflection in a flawed mirror. Suddenly, the smile left Billy Ray’s face, to be replaced by a snarl.

“I’ll teach you not to say no to me when I tell you I want you to go upstairs with me!” Billy Ray said. He swung at her, hitting her in the face with his doubled-up fist.

Mary Lou went down.

“Now, I’ll carry you upstairs,” Billy Ray said as he bent over to pick her up.

Billy Ray didn’t see Gibson coming up behind him. Gibson brought a small wooden club down on Billy Ray’s head, and Billy Ray went down and out.

Everyone else in the saloon was shocked into silence.

“What do we do now, Boss?” Evans asked.

Gibson sighed. “I don’t reckon we have much choice,” he said. “Go get the marshal.”

“The marshal? Are you kidding? You know Quentin controls the marshal.”

“Go get him,” Gibson said again.

Tumbling Q

When Pogue Quentin awakened the next morning, he got dressed, then walked down the hallway to his son’s room.

“Billy Ray? Billy Ray, you in there?”

Getting no answer, he opened the door and looked inside. The bed had not been used.

Leaving the big house, Quentin walked out to the bunkhouse. Several of the cowboys were already up and about, including Cole Mathers.

“Cole, have you seen Billy Ray? I looked into his room. It doesn’t look like he even came home last night.”

Cole cleared his throat, then looked over at a cowboy who was standing nearby.

“Well, sir, uh, accordin’ to what Reeves just now told me, Billy Ray got hisself into trouble yesterday. I was about to come tell you that Billy Ray is in jail.”

“Reeves, are you saying Billy Ray got into trouble yesterday but you are just now telling us?” Quentin asked angrily.

“Yes, sir, well, the thing is, I got drunk yesterday, and spent the night in jail my ownself,” Reeves said. “And that’s where Billy Ray is. I couldn’t tell you before this mornin’ ’cause the marshal didn’t let me out till this mornin’.”

“If it was just drunkenness, why didn’t he let Billy Ray out at the same time?”

“With Billy Ray, it was a little more than just bein’ drunk,” Reeves said.

“What has Billy Ray done now?” Quentin asked with a long-suffering sigh.

“Well, sir, you may remember that he ordered himself a new pair of boots and had the shoemaker make ’em for him. But when he went down to try ’em on, they didn’t fit, so he got mad and busted up the boot store pretty good. He threw a bench through the window, broke up some of Mr. Donovan’s tables, even broke one of his machines.”

“Surely Dawson didn’t have to put him jail for that, did he?” Quentin asked. “He knows I would have paid Donovan for the damage Billy Ray did.”

“Yes, sir, and I think if that had been all there was to it, the marshal would have let him go. But Billy Ray still had a mad on when he come into the New York Saloon, and he beat up Mary Lou.”

“He beat up who?”

“Mary Lou Culpepper. She’s one of Gibson’s whores.”

“Dawson put my son in jail, just for beating up a whore?”

“Yes, sir. From what the marshal was sayin’ this mornin’, there was lots of folks pretty upset about it.”

“Cole, get my horse saddled,” Quentin ordered.

“Yes, sir, I’ll get him ready.”

It took about fifteen minutes to ride the three miles into town. Quentin rode down the street toward the marshal’s office, which was located at the far end of town, and as he did so, several citizens of the town paused to nod at him, or to raise their hands to their eyebrow in a respectful salute. Reaching the marshal’s office, he dismounted, tied the horse off at the hitching rail, then stepped inside.

Marshal Dawson was sitting at his desk, playing a hand of solitaire.

“I figured you’d be comin’ in here as soon as you got into town,” Dawson said without looking up. He put a red queen on a black king.

“What the hell is Billy Ray doing in jail?” Quentin asked.

“Maybe you ain’t heard the whole story.”

“I heard he broke up some furniture and windows over at Donovan’s Leather Goods. Hell, Dawson, you know I’m good for whatever damages he might have caused. You didn’t have to put him in jail.”

“Did you also hear about the girl he beat up?”

“I heard he slapped a whore around a bit. You can’t tell me that’s the first time that’s ever happened to her. Whores get slapped around all the time. It’s the nature of their business.”

“He did more than just slap her around. He broke her nose. There was some folks got pretty upset over it. I figured the best thing to do was to put Billy Ray back in jail until you come into town today. Else there might have been even more trouble. You know how he is.”

“No, how is he?” Quentin asked, a sharp edge to his question.

“Come on, Pogue, you know how he is. Billy Ray’s got about the quickest temper of anyone I’ve ever known. You need to talk to him about that. One of these days he’s goin’ to get mad at the wrong person.”

“You let me worry about my boy,” Quentin said. “He’s my problem, not yours.”

“That ain’t entirely right. He’s my problem, too, as long as I’m marshal of this town.”

“Yeah, well, that’s another thing, Dawson. You are marshal of this town only as long as I say you are marshal of this town.”

“I know that, Pogue,” Dawson said obsequiously. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I was sayin’.”

“Find out how much damage was done to Donovan’s store and I’ll make it good.”

“What about the whore?”

“What about her?”

“It cost her two dollars to have the doctor look at her. Plus, she ain’t goin’ to be makin’ a lot of money as long as she’s got a broke nose and two black eyes.”

Quentin took out a twenty-dollar bill. “Give this to her,” he said. “This should be enough, don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir, this ought to more than satisfy her,” Marshal Dawson said.

“Now, turn Billy Ray loose.”

“I hope I didn’t get you upset none by me puttin’ him in jail.”

“When I get upset with you, Dawson, you’ll know it,” Quentin said.

“Wilson,” Dawson said to his deputy.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go back and let Billy Ray out of his cell.”

Quentin walked over to the wall and stared at the wanted posters for a moment as he waited for his son to be brought out to him.

“What you should be doin’ is lookin’ out for people like this, instead of wastin’ your time puttin’ my son in jail,” Quentin said. He leaned over to examine two of the posters more closely. “I’ll be damn,” he said. “No wonder he had enough money to bid against me.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“These two men here, Jason and Stu Sinclair. It says here there was a five-hundred-dollar reward on each of them.”

“Yes, sir, there still is.”

Quentin shook his head. “Not anymore there isn’t,” he said. “That’s how come Jensen was able to go as high in the bid as he did. He had that reward money.”

“Are you saying someone has collected the reward on those two?”

“Yeah. Them two got themselves killed by Smoke Jensen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it happened back in Colorado Springs while I was there,” Quentin said.

At that moment, Deputy Wilson brought Quentin’s son out.

“What the hell, Billy Ray. Can’t you stay out of trouble?” Quentin asked.

“Them boots didn’t fit, Pa,” Billy Ray said. “I paid good money to have him make ’em special, and when I tried ’em on, they was too little.”

“That didn’t give you cause to tear up his place. It’s going to cost me a couple hundred dollars just to make things right.”

“He should’a made the boots the right size.”

“Where’s your horse?” Quentin asked.

“I don’t know. Last I seen of him, he was tied up in front of the New York Saloon.”

“He’s in the stable out behind the jail,” Marshal Dawson suggested.

“Come on, let’s get your horse and get back to the ranch.”