War of the Mountain Man

11

Something nagged at Smoke as he walked through the town. He walked up and down the streets, on the boardwalks wherever they were, on the dusty paths where they had not yet been built.

Something was wrong, and Smoke could not pull it out of his brain. Then it came to him. The town lacked adequate water barrels for bucket brigades in case of fire.

Swiftly, he walked back to his office and sent Jim out to round up Tom Johnson, Judge Garrison, and several others in the town.

“What’s the drill in case of fire?” he asked bluntly, as was his way.

“Why ...” Tom looked puzzled. “There isn’t any.”

“There will be by dark. Judge, alert the people. I want water barrels by every store and every house; buckets placed nearby. And I want those barrels to stay full at all times. We have an old pumper down at the livery stable. See that it’s checked out and the hoses inspected for leaks. Benson,” he looked at the blacksmith, “you’re in charge of the fire brigade.”

The blacksmith nodded his head. “You’re thinkin’ Max might try burning us out?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. I’ll start rounding up volunteers to clear out the brush and other cover that surrounds the town. I’ll ride out to Joe’s place and see if he’ll lend us some hands to help. Check out and destroy any place where sharpshooters could hide and pick us off. Get on it now, Sal.”

The man quietly left the room.

“Max would do it, too,” Judge Garrison said. “He told me when he first confronted me that if I didn’t do exactly as he said, he’d pick out a child and kill her in front of me. I didn’t like what I was doing, but I figured it was the only way to save some children’s lives.”

“I understand, Judge.” Smoke leaned back in his chair. “If we can get most of this done by the dance night and keep a close eye on Max to check his reaction, we can know pretty well that he had burning us out in mind. Then he’ll have to come up with another plan.”

“He will,” Judge Garrison said. “The man is totally and utterly ruthless.”

“What are you gonna do with them mercenaries when they step off the stage, Smoke?” Jim asked.

“Oh, welcome them to town, Jim,” Smoke said with a smile. “Roll out the red carpet.”

That afternoon, Smoke met the southbound stage and was pleased to see it was full, with several men riding on top. The driver handed the mailbag to Marbly’s wife—who was the town’s postmistress—and seeing there were no passengers departing Barlow, he hollered his team forward.

Those men perched precariously on top gave Smoke some extremely dirty looks as the stagecoach pulled out. Its next stop would be a way station some fifty miles south, where it would change teams, another stop near Salmon Lake for food and a fresh team, and then on into Missoula, some one hundred twenty-five miles from Barlow.

“Stage was full today,” Mrs. Marbly noted, handing Smoke a letter posted from Kalispell, addressed to Sally Jensen, the Grand Hotel, Barlow, Montana Territory. “That means some are giving up on Hell’s Creek.”

“That it does, ma’am,” Smoke said. “Those were all gamblers riding on top. The inside was filled with saloon girls. When the gamblers and the wilted roses start leaving a town, it’s like they say about rats leaving a ship. It’s about to sink.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say,” Mrs. Marbly said. “I’m not an evil-hearted person, Marshal Jensen. My motto is if you can’t say something good about a person, don’t say anything at all. But that motto has been sorely put to the test by those holligans and trash up at Hell’s Creek. If God were to strike them all dead, I would dance on their graves, Lord forgive me.”

She walked back into the store. A good, decent woman who had been pushed just too far, one time too often. Smoke knew she carried a Smith & Wesson pocket .38 in her purse. And he had no doubts but that she would use it.

He took the letter back to the hotel, gave it to Sally, and waited until she had read it.

“You guessed, of course, that it was from Victoria?”

He nodded his head.

“This was posted yesterday in Kalispell—that’s only thirty miles away from Hell’s Creek—but it’s still fast service. There have been a rash of killings in Hell’s Creek. Outlaws killing outlaws. One of them managed to escape from the town and came to Robert for treatment. He told Robert that Big Max had ordered the killings. He didn’t know why, but that something big was up. Then the man died. Robert—he’s no fool—took the body back into Hell’s Creek and told Big Max he had found the body on the road and thought it should be reported to the authorities. Big Max thanked him for being such a civic-minded person and told Robert he’d take care of it. Max knows that Robert is scared to try to leave because of the threats made against Lisa. What does it mean, Smoke?”

“Probably that Val Singer and Warner Frigo and the other gang leaders are getting rid of those they feel might not be able to keep their mouths shut once this something big goes down. So much for honor among thieves.”

“And this something big is? ...”

“Probably a raid against the town. A raid that includes killing everyone here. Sally, have the hotel pack me a bait of food. I’m going to take a little trip. I should be back by late tomorrow afternoon. I’ll arrange for Jim and Sal to meet the stage in case Dubois and Mittermaier should arrive; but I think it’s still a couple of days early for that.”

“Where are you going, honey?”

“To get the one thing this town needs, Sally.” He grinned. “A doctor.”

Smoke had checked the land office and knew where the Turner spread was located. He spared his horse, resting often, and rode into Big Max Huggins’s country well after dark. He avoided the town by several miles and pulled up at what he hoped was the Turner spread about ten o’clock.

He circled the house to see if they kept a dog and was relieved to find they did not. Smoke picketed Star and slipped up toward the house. He flattened himself against the woodshed when the front door opened and a man stepped out. The man closed the door behind him and stood in the front yard, breathing in the cool night air.

“Dr. Turner?” Smoke called softly.

The man spun around, startled.

“Take it easy, Doctor,” Smoke said. “I’m friendly. I’m going to walk toward you, both my hands in plain sight. OK?”

“Who are you?” the doctor demanded.

“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.” Smoke walked closer.

“Hold it right there!” the doctor warned. “I have a gun.”

“No, you don’t,” Smoke replied, stepping closer. “And even if you did, it’s doubtful you’d know how to use it.”

Smoke stopped a few feet from the man and stared at him.

“If you’re Smoke Jensen, tell me about yourself.”

“My wife’s name is Sally. We live in Colorado on a spread we named the Sugarloaf. My wife went to college back east with your wife, Victoria. Sally calls her Vicky. Vicky lost her parents while she was in school and had to work very hard to get through. You have one child that lived, Lisa. Your wife can’t have any more children. Sally got a letter from Vicky today, telling us about the recent killings in Hell’s Creek and the outlaw who staggered up to this ranch and told you about it. You got this ranch by befriending an old man who was visiting back east. You ...”

“Enough.” The doctor held up a hand, visible in the faint light of a quarter moon. He smiled and stuck out the hand for Smoke to shake it. “Welcome to our home, Mr. Jensen.”

Smoke shook the hand. “We don’t have much time, Doctor. Things are going to blow wide open around here very soon, and you and your family have got to get clear. Let’s go in the house and talk.”

Lisa was in bed, asleep. Vicky was introduced to Smoke. She stepped back and inspected him, good humor in her eyes. Smoke liked her immediately. He would reserve judgment on the doctor.

“Sally always could pick them,” Vicky said. “You are one hell of a man, Smoke Jensen.”

“Vicky,” her husband said in a long-suffering tone.

Smoke laughed. “Relax, Robert. Sally can occasionally let the words fly herself. I can see why these two were friends at school.”

“How about some coffee and something to eat, Smoke?” Vicky asked.

“That would be nice. While I’m eating, you two can pack.”

That stopped them both in their tracks. Robert asked, “Pack? Where are we going?”

“Getting out of here.” Smoke found the cups and poured his own coffee. Very quickly, he explained what was going on. “As far as your ranch goes, if Max burns the buildings down, you’ve still got the land. You don’t have any cattle or any hands. You can always rebuild. You can’t do anything from the grave. So pack. We’re pulling out.”

Smoke drank his coffee and ate a sandwich. Then he went outside and hitched up the teams to a wagon and a buggy. He helped the doctor load his medical equipment onto the wagon, then their luggage and a few possessions from the house. Lisa was awake and wide-eyed as she solemnly stared at the most famous gunfighter in the West.

“I’m surprised Lisa doesn’t have a dog,” Smoke said.

“I did,” the little girl said, sadness in her voice. “Patches was his name. A man killed it a few months ago.”

“A rather unsavory character named Warner Frigo rode up into the yard and shot him,” Robert said. “It was another one of Max Huggins’s little not-too-subtle warnings.”

Smoke knelt down and, with a gentleness in his voice that surprised Robert and Vicky, said to Lisa, “We’ll get you another dog, Lisa. It won’t take the place of Patches, I know that. You’ll always remember him. But you can love your new puppy, too. How about it?”

“I’d like that, Mister Smoke. I really would.”

Smoke picked her up with no more effort than picking up a feather pillow and smiled. “First thing after we get you all settled is a new puppy, Lisa.”

“Frigo is a bad man,” the girl said. “He’s awful. Only cruel people kill dogs who aren’t doing them any harm.”

“That’s right, Lisa. That’s exactly right. Don’t you worry about Frigo. I’ll take care of him.”He set her back down and said, “Let’s go, people. We’ve got a long haul ahead of us.”

Vicky walked through the house once more, and there was sadness in her eyes. “I’ve grown to love this old house, this land with the mountains and the eagles and all its vastness.” She blew out a lamp, plunging the room into darkness. “I pray that Max and his hooligans will let the house stand.” She sighed and squared her shoulders. “But if they don’t ... we’ll rebuild.”

“That’s the spirit,” Smoke told her. “But you might decide to relocate down in Barlow.”

“Why would we do that?” Robert asked.

“Because I intend to destroy Hell’s Creek, that’s why.”

Because with the wagons they would have to come within a half mile of Hell’s Creek, Smoke wrapped the horses’ hooves in sacking when they got close. Out of habit, he checked his guns, loading them up full. The action did not escape the eyes of the doctor and his wife. Lisa had fallen asleep in the back of the wagon, lying on a soft comforter and wrapped up in a blanket, for the night was cool.

“Rumor has it you’ve killed twenty-five men, Smoke,” Robert said.

“Closer to two hundred, I reckon,” Smoke corrected.

“Two hundred!” the doctor blurted out. “Two hundred men?”

“Killed twenty-five when I was about nineteen or twenty, I think I was. They raped my wife and then killed her and our son. I tracked them down to a silver camp on the Uncompahgre and read to them from the Scriptures, so to speak.”

“You were only nineteen?” Vicky breathed the question.

“Maybe twenty. I don’t remember.”

“So young,” Robert muttered.

“Oh, I dropped my first man when I was about seventeen, I think I was. After Pa died an old mountain man named Preacher took me in and raised me. It was a shooting just west of the Needle Mountains. They call the place Rico now. Two men braced me in the trading post. Pike and another man. Never did know his name. I killed them both.”

Robert and Victoria listened in silence, their mouths open in shock and fascination, their expressions much like one would wear while gazing at a rattlesnake.

“Me and Preacher, we rode over to what’s now called Pagosa Springs—that’s Indian for healing water. Two men called me out over there. Man named Haywood and another fellow who was Pike’s brother.” Smoke tied another piece of sacking in place. “I dropped Haywood and let Pike’s brother live. I only shot him twice, in the leg and the arm.

“Me and Preacher rode on over to La Plaza de los Leones; that’s on the Cuchara River. It’s now called Walsenburg. You see, I was looking for the men who killed my brother and my pa. Killed seven that day and hung one. Casey was his name.

“We drifted on over to Canon City, looking for a man named Ackerman. He found us, him and five of his gang. Killed five, left one alive.”

“Lord Jesus,” Robert said softly. “That’s thirty-three men.”

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started yet,” Smoke said. “Me and Preacher, we spent the winter back at Brown’s Hole, then come spring we drifted out again. That summer I met Nicole and we got married. Sort of. Within a year it all fell to pieces. Bounty hunters got lead in Preacher and I thought they’d killed him. They did kill Nicole and the baby. That’s when I rode up to the silver camp with hate in my heart.”

“And there have been many more dead men since then?” Robert asked.

“More than I can count, Robert. They just keep coming at me. It was early spring in ... oh, ’74 I think it was. I rode over into Idaho looking for the rest of the men who killed my pa and my brother. Town called Bury. I was going by the name of Buck West.”

The horses’ hooves muffled, the small party moved out.

“A man called Big Jack braced me at a trading post. His partner buried him out back. I rode on. I had ten thousand dollars on my head at that time, and a lot of bounty hunters were hard after me.

“It was in Challis that two gunhands called me out in the street. I think their names were Carson and Phillips. After I killed them, the marshal asked me to leave. I don’t blame him, and I left.

“I rode into Bury with no one knowing who I really was. I was looking to kill the last of the three men who killed my pa and brother: Josh Richards, Wiley Potter, and Keith Stratton. Sally was teaching school there. I saw my sister Janey for the first time in ten years. She was Richard’s mistress. She didn’t recognize me right off.

“I was walking Sally back to her home when two gunhandlers braced me on the street. Dickerson and Russell. I dropped them both.

“Things turned both tragic and funny after that. Sally lost her job school-teaching and went to live in a whorehouse.”

“A whorehouse!” Victoria almost shouted the word. “Sally in a whorehouse?”

Smoke chuckled. “Yep. Oh, she didn’t work there. She just lived there.”

“My heavens!” Robert muttered.

“Ol’ boy on the SRP payroll braced me. I don’t remember his name. I had to kill him. It was that day that Janey recognized me as her brother.”Smoke cut his eyes and turned his head. He held up a hand for the wagons to stop.

“What’s the matter?” Robert asked.

“Something out there,” Smoke said.

“How do you know that?”

“Star’s ears just came up. A horse is a good as a dog about warning you.”

They all heard the clop of horses’ hooves and watched as two men rode out of the darkness and up to their wagon.

Both of the men had guns in their hands, the hammers jacked back.

“Well, now,” one said. “Ain’t this a sight? The doctor and his pretty wife tryin’ to slip out, and Smoke Jensen leadin’ them. Look here, Jensen. Look down the barrel of the gun that’s gonna kill you!”