Shootout of the Mountain Man

Chapter Fourteen

“Cloverdale is a nice town,” Doc Baker was saying. “That’s why I moved my practice here. Right now we are at end-of-track, but if they ever continue it on into California, as I believe they will, it will be an even nicer town.”

“It would be nicer now if it weren’t for Wallace,” Nabors said.

“Tell me about this sheriff,” Smoke said.

“I saw a word one time that fits this sheriff,” Nabors said. “The word was potentate. That’s what this sheriff thinks he is.”

“But he was elected, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, he was elected all right,” Doc Baker said. “And if you would ask the average person on the street what kind of job they think he is doing, they would probably say he is doing a good job. He keeps his jail full of drunks, people who spit on the street, deadbeats, and the like. But all the time he is doing that, people like Frank Dodd and his gang operate with impunity.”

“Impunity,” Nabors said, laughing. “Now, you see here, Smoke? That’s why I like to keep the doc on as my friend. How many people do you know who can use a word like impunity?”

Smoke thought of his wife, Sally, back at Sugarloaf. A former schoolteacher, and the smartest person he had ever known. Impunity would be one of her words. He smiled.

“It’s a good word all right,” he agreed.

“That’s him,” someone suddenly yelled, his shout having the effect of bringing all other conversation to a halt.

Looking toward the sound of the shout, Smoke saw Dawes standing just inside the saloon, holding his bandaged hand. He let go of it long enough to point Smoke out to a man wearing a badge. Smoke recognized him as the same man he had seen on the railroad track, shortly after the cowboy, Andy Emerson, had been killed. It was Sheriff Wallace.

“That’s the man who shot me.”

“Is that true, mister?” Wallace asked. “Did you shoot Mr. Dawes?”

“I did.”

“Wait a minute, I know you. You’re the fella I met who had just came in on the train after the little ruckus with Andy Emerson, aren’t you? You’re the one who was interfering with the law.”

“We’ve met,” Smoke said.

“Well, I don’t know where you came from, mister. But in Nye County, we got us a law against shootin’ folks.”

“Yes, that’s been my observation in most places I’ve been,” Smoke replied. “But from what I have seen here, it evidently does not apply to people who are wearing a badge. I notice that you had no compunctions about killing that unarmed cowboy. ”

The sheriff, who was probably three inches taller and eighty pounds heavier than Smoke, got an irritated look on his face.

“Mister, I’ve only met you twice, and you’ve put a burr under my saddle both times.”

“What do you mean, Sheriff? I haven’t been belligerent.”

“No, but you always seem to have something smart to say.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve been too smart. I know how difficult it can be for someone like you to have to deal with intelligent comments. I’ll try and bring it down,” Smoke said.

Minnie, Doc, and Nabors tried hard to smother their smiles.

“Just as long as you understand,” the sheriff said, totally unaware that he just been mocked. “Why did you shoot Dawes?”

“Because he was shooting at me,” Smoke replied.

“He’s tellin’ the truth, Sheriff Wallace,” Doc Baker said. “Dawes came in here shooting.”

“That’s right, Sheriff,” Nabors added. “And I aim to sue him for a new table and a new stovepipe. Look here what he did.” Nabors pointed to the hole in the tabletop, and another in the stovepipe.

“Can anyone else back that up?” Sheriff Wallace asked.

“I can back it up, Sheriff,” the bartender said. He pointed to Dawes. “Truth to tell, it’s a plumb wonder Dawes didn’t get hisself shot dead. Most anyone else would have kilt him. But this feller, just as calm as a summer day, shot the gun right out of his hand. Then, when Dawes tried to pick it up, this feller shot again, only this time what he done was, his bullet pushed the gun all the way across the floor. ”

Sheriff Wallace squinted as he looked back at Smoke. “Do you mean to tell me you wasn’t shootin’ at him and just missed? You was tryin’ to shoot the gun out of his hand?”

“I wasn’t trying to do it, Sheriff. I did it,” Smoke said.

“You are either one hell of a good shot, or a damn fool,” Sheriff Wallace said. He looked at Dawes. “Did you shoot first?”

“I told you, Sheriff, he hit me from behind.”

“Get on out of here,” the sheriff growled. “If what these folks are saying is true, then you are the one I should put in jail.”

“It ain’t right, Sheriff, he had no call to—”

“I said get out of here,” Sheriff Wallace repeated, more forcefully this time.

Glaring at the sheriff and the others in the saloon, Dawes left. Sheriff Wallace walked over to the door and watched for a moment to make certain that Dawes left as ordered. Then he turned back toward Smoke.

“What did you say your name was, back at the depot?”

“Jensen.”

The sheriff squinted at Smoke. “Wait a minute, I thought you said your name was Cody, or Kirby, or something like that.”

“Kirby,” Smoke said. “Kirby is my first name. Kirby Jensen.”

“Well, Mr. Jensen, here is a word of advice. Next time someone points a gun at you, I wouldn’t recommend you trying to shoot the gun out of their hand. If you are going to shoot, shoot to kill. You might not be so lucky the next time.”

“Thanks,” Smoke said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Minnie,” the sheriff said. “Have you heard anything back from that telegram you sent to Buck West?”

Minnie gasped. “What? How did you know I sent a telegram?”

“I’m the sheriff. It’s my business to know.”

Minnie looked over toward Smoke, who, with a barely perceptible shake of his head, cautioned her to say nothing about it.

“Well, if it’s your business to know, then you probably already know that I didn’t hear anything back from him.”

“It’s just as well,” Sheriff Wallace said. “I don’t know what Cabot had in mind when he had you send that telegram, but I plan to keep a close eye on him.”

“Sheriff, I don’t know what happened to that letter he sent you, but if you had gotten it, you would know that he really didn’t have anything to do with that holdup,” Minnie said.

“There was no letter,” Sheriff Wallace said.

“There was too,” Minnie insisted. “I don’t know why you never received it, but there was a letter.

“Even if there had been no letter, he talked to you about it,” Minnie added. “He made plans for you to be waiting for him in the express car. ”

“And you know this because?”

“I know this because he told me about it before the robbery took place. He told all three of us.” Minnie took in Doc Baker and Nate Nabors with a wave of her hand. “And we were ready to testify about it too, but the judge wouldn’t allow it.”

“The judge said that we could not testify, because it would not be direct information. It would be considered hearsay,” Nabors said.

“Only you could have testified that he set up an arrangement with you,” Doc Baker said.

“But you didn’t do it,” Minnie added angrily.

Sheriff Wallace chuckled. “I didn’t do it because there was no letter, and he didn’t talk to me. Don’t you understand what he was doing? He was setting up his alibi with you. I’ll give him this. For all that he is a train robber and murderer, he’s smart. It takes someone smart to set up something like that. But what it all comes down to is his word against mine. The jury believed me. They didn’t believe Cabot.”

“I believe him,” Doc Baker said.

“Why should you believe him? You were in the courtroom, Doc. You heard the letter they read from the WCSA. They said no such investigation had been authorized. No, sir, Bobby Lee Cabot is as guilty as sin.”

“And because the judge wouldn’t agree to let us testify, he is going to hang,” Minnie said.

Sheriff Wallace chuckled. “Yes, ma’am, he is going to hang, all right. We are goin’ to have us one Jim Dandy of a hangin'. We’ll have folks comin’ in from all over the county this Friday mornin’ to watch it, and I don’t plan to let ‘em be disappointed by anything this Buck West fella might have in mind. I reckon this is goin’ to be about one of the best days for business we’ve ever had. If it goes over as well as I think it will, why, I just might see if I can’t arrange a hangin’ about ever’ month or so. It’ll bring so much business into town that I’ll have ever’ storekeep in town votin’ for me.”

“You murderer!” Janet suddenly yelled. She was coming from the kitchen, moving quickly toward the sheriff with a butcher knife her hand. “You killed Andy!”

“What the hell?” Sheriff Wallace shouted. He started to draw his gun but before he could, Smoke reached out and grabbed Janet’s wrist, forcing her to drop the knife.

“Janet, you don’t want to do this,” Smoke said.

Janet put both her hands to her face and began crying.

Looking back toward Wallace, Smoke saw that he was still holding his gun, though he wasn’t pointing it at anyone.

“Put your gun away, Sheriff,” Smoke said.

“Did you see that crazy bitch? She tried to kill me!”

“You were never in any real danger. Now, put your gun away, unless you plan to kill an unarmed woman in front of all these witnesses.”

Wallace hesitated for a moment, then returned his pistol to his holster. He pointed at Nabors. “She works for you,” he said angrily. “And I’m telling you right now that you had better keep her under control.”

“You aren’t going to try anything like that again, are you, Janet?” Nabors asked.

Still sobbing, and with her hands covering her face, Janet shook her head no.

“You won’t have any more trouble with her, Sheriff,” Nabors said.

“Yeah, well, like I say, you just damn well better keep her under control,” the sheriff said.

There was a long moment of silence after the sheriff left. Then a couple of the other saloon girls went over to comfort Janet and general conversation in the saloon resumed.

“It looks bad for Bobby Lee, doesn’t it?” Doc Baker asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Smoke agreed.

“So, what you are saying is, there is no way we can stop the hanging this Friday?” Minnie asked.

“No, I didn’t say that. He’s not going to hang this Friday,” Smoke said.

“But you said that it looks bad for him.”

“I can stop the hanging.”

“How?”

“If he’s not in jail, they can’t hang him. And I intend to get him out of jail,” Smoke said. “But that isn’t enough. We are also going to have to prove his innocence. If we don’t do that, he’ll just be an escaped prisoner with wanted posters plastered in just about every state and territory west of the Mississippi.”

“Do you think you can prove his innocence?” Doc Baker asked.

“Let me ask you this,” Smoke replied. “Do you believe he is innocent?”

“Yes, of course I do. Don’t you believe he is innocent?” Doc Baker replied.

“I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I last saw Bobby Lee,” Smoke said. “But it doesn’t matter to me whether he is innocent or not. I don’t intend to let him hang.”

“If he is innocent, and I believe with all my heart that he is, will you be able to prove it?” Minnie asked.

“Yes. If he is innocent, I will prove it.”

“How?”

“We’ll start by finding the man who actually did kill the express messenger,” Smoke said.

“That would be Frank Dodd,” Nabors said.

“Yes.”

“That’s quite an order,” Doc Baker said. “There is a rather significant reward out for him, and people have been after him for at least three years now.”

“And they say he got over five thousand dollars from that last robbery. With that much money, there’s no tellin’ where he is by now.”

“We’ll find him,” Smoke said.

“You said you were going to get Bobby Lee out of jail,” Doc Baker said.

“That’s right.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Smoke shook his head. “If you know beforehand how I’m going to do it, then you would be a co-conspirator. It’s better that you don’t know. All I can say is, when it happens, you’ll know.”

Back in Desolation, everyone was still talking and laughing about the bluff Emmett Clark had run on Jules Stillwater. There was some concern as to how Stillwater would handle it, but most thought he would do nothing more than sulk around for a few days.

But Stillwater had something else in mind, and the first indication Emmett Clark had of Stillwater’s sudden intrusion into the saloon was when a bullet from Stillwater’s gun smashed the glass that was sitting on the table between Clark and Cindy. Glass and whiskey flew from the impact of the bullet. Even before the second bullet plowed into the table, Clark leaped up from his chair, but to his shocked surprise, the back of the chair caught the handle of his pistol and jerked it out of his holster. He was now unarmed!

“You son of a bitch!” Stillwater shouted. “Cindy is my woman! You stay the hell away from her!”

“Jules! Have you gone crazy?” Cindy shouted. “I’m anyone’s woman who will buy me a drink! You know that!”

Stillwater fired again as Clark dashed across the saloon toward the bar. The bullet crashed into the mirror behind the bar, bringing it crashing down in great jagged shards of glass.

With angry shouts and screams of terror, every customer in the saloon, men and women alike, hurried to get out of the way of the mad gunman’s wild shooting.

Stillwater’s third shot was fired as Clark rolled across the bar and onto the floor behind. Clark lay on the floor for a moment, breathing a sigh of relief that Stillwater had missed. Then, even as he spied the double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun the bartender kept behind the bar, he heard a low, evil laughter. Clark reached over and pulled the shotgun toward him, cocking both barrels.

“You think you can hide behind the bar? “ Stillwater said.

Looking toward the sound of the voice, Clark saw that Stillwater had come to the open end of the bar and was now looking down at Clark, an evil smile displaying his pleasure at now having the advantage. “You took the wrong man’s woman, you snot-nosed kid.”

Stillwater was holding a smoking pistol, which Clark knew held three more shots. Stillwater smiled triumphantly. Then he saw the shotgun in Clark’s hands and the smile of triumph changed quickly to an expression of horror. He tried to pull back the hammer of his pistol, but it was too late. Clark pulled both triggers.

The roar of the two shells discharging at the same time sounded like a cannon, compared to the pop of the pistol shots. The twin loads of ten-gauge double-aught buckshot opened up Stillwater’s chest and he fell back through the window, crashing onto the porch in front of the saloon.

Clark put the gun down, then lay still on his back for a long moment, relieved that he was still alive. Gun smoke was swirling about, now permeating the room with its nostril-burning, acrid smell. Finally, he stood up, and walked over to the window to look through the smashed glass of the front window.

“What happened?” someone shouted from the street.

“What was that?” another called.

The shouts were all coming from outside, as nobody in the saloon had yet recovered from the shock of what they had just witnessed.

Stillwater had one foot up on the windowsill, the other had somehow folded up underneath him in a way that would have been impossible if he were still alive. His chest had been carved open by the heavy load of buckshot.

“Damn, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that,” someone said, and looking around, Clark saw that the others were beginning to reemerge. Walking back over to the table, Clark picked up his pistol, which was still lying on the floor.

“Cindy?” Clark called out as he put the pistol back in his holster. “Cindy, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” a woman’s voice replied. Like the others, Cindy had regained her feet and was now walking toward Clark.

“What was this all about?” Clark said. “Why did he come after me like that?”

Cindy shook her head. “I don’t know why,” she answered. “I mean, he always hung around me anytime him and his friends were here, but there was never no words spoke or nothin’ to make him think we was anything but just friends. I mean, he know’d what I done for a livin'.”

“Who the hell just killed Stillwater?” a gruff voice asked, and looking toward the door, Clark saw Frank Dodd coming in. Almost imperceptibly, Clark moved his hand closer to his pistol, not knowing how Dodd was going to react to losing one of his men.

“I killed him,” Clark said.

“Stillwater’s the one that started it. He come in here a’ blazin’ away,” one of the other men said.

Dodd walked over to the shattered window to look out at the body. Stillwater’s eyes were open and opaque, his mouth was set in a sneer.

“You carry a shotgun, do you?” Dodd asked.

Clark shook his head. “Not normally. But I just happened to have one handy when I needed it.” he said.

Suddenly, and inexplicably, Dodd laughed out loud. “You just had one handy, did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Stillwater needed killin', Frank,” Conklin said. “Hell, the way that dumb sumbitch was blastin’ away, he could of kilt any of us.”

“That’s the truth,” one of the others said.

Dodd stroked his chin and nodded as he stood there, looking down at Stillwater’s body.

“The only thing is, that makes four good men I’ve lost in the last week,” Dodd said.

Suddenly, Emmett Clark saw this as his opportunity to join Dodd’s gang.

“You lost four men,” Clark said. “But you didn’t lose four good men. Not if Stillwater was any indication.”

“I suppose you think you are better than they were?” Dodd asked, showing a little irritation as Clark’s comment.

“Hell, yes, I’m better,” Clark said. “I’m better than all four of them combined. ”

“What do you think, Conklin?” Dodd said. “Sounds to me like this boy is applyin’ for a job.”

“Sounds like that to me too,” Conklin said.

“What about it, boy? You want to ride with me?”

“Yeah, I do,” Clark said. “If truth be told, that’s why I came here in the first place.”

“What do you say, Conklin? Is he as good as Stillwater was?”

“Look at it this way, Frank. Stillwater and this boy had a face-to-face showdown, and the boy won.”

“All right, boy, you can ride with us,” Dodd said.

Clark held up his hand. “Not so fast.”

“What do you mean, not so fast? I thought you wanted to ride with me.

“I do, but not if you are going to keep calling me boy,” Clark said.

Dodd laughed out loud. “So, you don’t want to be called boy, do you?”

“My name is Clark. Emmett Clark.”

Dodd nodded, and laughed again. “All right, Mr. Emmett Clark, I reckon anyone who can come out on top of a fight with Stillwater has earned the right to be called by his name.”

“In that case, Mr. Dodd, I’d be just real happy to ride with you.”