War of the Mountain Man

1

“I don’t like the idea of the kids on the ocean,” Smoke said. “By God, I just don’t.”

Sally faced him from across the table in the house in the high-up country of Colorado. “Smoke, there is a new treatment available in France, and Louis Arthur has got to have it. We’ve been to the finest doctors on this continent. They all say the same thing.”

“Sally, I’m not arguing that. I want what is best for Baby Arthur. But why do all the children have to go? My God, they’ll be gone for more than a year.”

She smiled at him. Smoke Jensen and Sally never had the hard, deadly quarrels that so many couples suffered. They were both reasonable people of high intelligence, and each loved the other. “The exposure to a more genteel climate—and I’m not talking about the weather—will be good for the older children. They need to broaden their horizons.”

Smoke laughed as he picked up his coffee mug, holding it in one big, flat-knuckled hand. The laughter was full of good humor and did not contain a bit of anger or scorn. He stuck out his little finger. “They gonna learn how to hold a coffee cup dainty-like, with their little pinkies all poked out to one side?”

Sally laughed at him. “Yes. You heathen.”

Smoke chuckled and rose from the table, picking up Sally’s cup as well as his own. He walked to the stove, a big man, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, huge, heavily muscled arms, and a lean waist. He walked like a cat. His presence in a room, any room, usually brought the crowd to silence. His eyes were brown and could turn as cold as the Arctic. He was a ruggedly handsome man, turning the heads of ladies wherever he traveled.

He was Smoke Jensen. The man some called the last mountain man.

Smoke was the hero in dozens of dime novels. Plays had been written and were still being performed about his exploits. Smoke, himself, had never seen one. He was, without dispute, the fastest gun in the West. He had never wanted the title of gunfighter; but he had it.

There was no accurate count of how many would-be toughs, punks, thugs, thieves, and killers had fallen under the .44’s of Smoke Jensen. Some say fifty; others said it was closer to two hundred. Smoke didn’t know. As a young man, scarcely out of his teens, he had ridden into a mining camp taken over by the men who had killed his wife and baby son and had wiped it out to the last man.

His reputation had then been carved in solid granite. Smoke had become a living legend.

He had met Sally, who was working as a schoolteacher, and they had fallen in love. Together, working side by side—even though she was enormously wealthy, something Smoke didn’t find out until well after they were married—they carved out a ranch in Colorado and named it the Sugarloaf.

For three years Smoke dropped out of sight, living a normal, peaceful life. Then he had to surface and once more strap on his guns in a fight for survival. He stayed surfaced. He would not hunt out a fight, but God help those who came to him trouble-hunting. As the western saying goes: Smoke could point out dozens of his graveyards.

Their coffee mugs refilled, Smoke sat back down at the table and they both sugared and stirred. Sally laid her hand on his. “Roundup is all over and the cattle sold, right, honey?”

“Yes. And it was a good one. We made money. Now we’re rebuilding the herds, introducing a stronger breed, mixing in some Herefords. What’d you have on your mind, Sally?”

“I’d like to go with the children....” She put a finger on his lips to stop his protests before they got started. “But I’m not. I know what the doctors said. And I’m never going to set foot on a ship again. But if we stay here, rattling around in this house, well both go crazy with worry. Let’s wait until we receive the wire that the ship has steamed out, and then take a trip. Just the two of us.”

“That’s a good idea. The boys can run the spread; no worries there. You got some special place in mind?”

“Yes. It’s a friend I went to college with. She and her husband just moved to Montana. They live near a small town about thirty miles from Kalispell. She’s married to a doctor and they have a small ranch. I’d like to see her. She was my best friend.”

“Suits me. We’ll take a trip up there. It’ll do us both good to get away, see some country, and meet new people. We’ll take the train as far as it goes and then catch a stage.”

“No,” Sally shook her head. “Let’s put the horses in a car and ride in, Smoke. lt’ll be worth it to see the expressions on their faces when we ride in.”

“Sidesaddle?” he kidded her, knowing better.

“You have to be kidding!”

Smoke was with her. “All right, honey. But we’re going to be heading into some rough country. I’ve been there. Cousin Fae lives not too far from there. We can take the train probably to Butte. That’s wild country, Sally. Some ol’ boys up there still have the bark on. And that’s Big Max Huggins’s country.”

She smiled, but the curving of her pretty lips held no humor. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going, Smoke.”

He laughed. “I was wondering if you were going to get around to leveling with me.”

“You know this Max Huggins?”

“Only by name. We’ve never crossed trails.”

She stared into her coffee cup.

“Sally, this town your friends have settled near ... it wouldn’t be Hell’s Creek, would it?”

“Yes.”

Smoke sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then they didn’t show a lot of sense. Hell’s Creek is owned—lock, stock, and outhouse—by Big Max Huggins. It’s filled with gunfighters, whores, gamblers, killers.... You name it bad, and you’ll find it there. Why did they settle there?”

“Robert—that’s Vicky’s husband—befriended an old man who took sick while visiting back east. Robert was just setting up his practice. Years later, he got a letter from an attorney telling him the old man had died and left him his ranch.”

“And Big Max wanted the ranch?”

“Yes. But mostly he wants Victoria.”

The next morning, Smoke rode into town and checked with Sheriff Monte Carson.

“What can you get me on Hell’s Creek and a man named Big Max Huggins?”

Monte snorted. “I can tell you all about Big Max, Smoke. We got lead in each other about ten years ago.”

“Over near the Bitterroot?”

Monte nodded his head.

“I remember that shoot-out. Is there any kind of law in Hell’s Creek?”

“Only what Big Max says. Oh, there’s a sheriff up there. But he’s crooked as a snake’s track and so are his deputies. I hear the governor keeps threatening to send men in to clean up the town, but he hasn’t done it yet. Why the interest in Hell’s Creek?”

“Sally has some friends who live near there. We’re going to visit them. I’d sort of like to know what I’m riding into.”

“You’re riding into trouble, Smoke. Hell’s Creek is a haven for outlaw gangs. In addition to Big Max’s gang—and he’s got forty or fifty men who ride for him—there’s Alex Bell and his boys. Dave Poe, Warner Frigo, and Val Singer all run outlaw gangs out of Hell’s Creek. The only way that town is ever going to be cleaned up is for the Army to go in and do it.”

“Damn, Monte, it’s 1883. The wild West is supposed to be calming down.”

Monte shifted his chaw. “But you and me, Smoke, we know better, don’t we?”

Smoke nodded his head. “Yeah. There’ll be pockets of crud in the West for years to come, I reckon.”

“Any way you can talk your missus out of takin’this trip?”

Smoke just looked at him.

“I do know the feelin’,” Monte said. “Women get a notion in their heads, and a man’s in trouble, for a fact. When are you and Sally pullin’ out?”

“Probably in about a week. Who else do you know for sure is up there?”

“Ben Webster, Nelson Barlow, Vic Young, Dave Hall, Frank Norton, Lew Brooks, Sid Yorke, Pete Akins, and Larry Gayle. Is that enough?”

“Good God!” Smoke said, standing up. “You just named some of the randiest ol’boys in the country.”

“Yeah. And believe you me, Smoke, they’ll be plenty more up there just as good as them boys I just named. You’re gonna be steppin’ into a rattler’s den.”

“They do sell .44’s up there, don’t they?” Smoke asked dryly.

“Probably not to you.” Monte’s reply was just as dry.