War of the Mountain Man

5

Big Max rode into Barlow at the head of a small army. He had fifty men behind him, all heavily armed. They kicked up enough dust riding into town to put a thin cover of dirt on every storefront.

Max dismounted and walked to the boardwalk in front of the marshal’s office. He turned to face his men, and the instant his back was to the office, he felt the twin barrels of a sawed-off shotgun pressing into his back.

“Move, and I’ll scatter your guts all over the street, Huggins,” the voice told him.

Max froze. He knew what an express gun could do. A sawed-off shotgun could literally blow a man in two. “I’m froze,” he told the voice. “You Smoke Jensen?”

“That’s me. Now tell your men to drop their guns in the street. Every gun they’ve got. In the dirt.”

“And if I don’t?”

The muzzle of the shotgun nudged his back. That was all it took.

Max gave the order.

Men began appearing out of stores, all of them armed with rifles or shotguns, all of them with pistols belted around their waists.

Women came out after them, holding buckets of water and rags.

“What the hell? ...” Max said.

“Your men created all this dust in town,” Smoke told him. “So your men are going to clean it up. They’re going to wash all the windows, sweep the boardwalks, and wipe down everything.”

“I’ll be goddamned if I will!” a gunny said, sitting his saddle.

Smoke stepped to one side and let one barrel of the express gun roar. It belched smoke and flame, and the mouthy gunhand was blown out of the saddle. He landed about ten feet behind his rearing and frightened horse, hitting the dirt in a bloody pile of torn flesh.

Holding the shotgun in his right hand, Smoke palmed one of his .44’s and stuck the muzzle to Max’s ear. “Give the order,” Smoke told him, his voice very cold and deadly.

Max swallowed with an audible gulp. He was a hard man in a hard land and he’d known some salty ol’ boys in his time. But none as hard as this man holding a .44 to his head. Smoke Jensen was death walking around.

“You boy’s get to cleaning,” he told his men. “I’m paying you and you take orders from me. Do it.”

“And drag that trash out of the street and bury it,” Smoke said. He looked at a citizen who’d introduced himself as Tom Johnson. “You get some boys and gather up their guns, Tom. All of them. And take their rifles from the saddle boots. Bring them to me at the jail.” He lowered and holstered his .44 and jerked Max’s guns from leather. “In my office, Max. Move.”

Seated, Max studied Jensen. And he was impressed. Smoke was about four inches shorter than him and probably weighed sixty pounds less, but he was a hell of a man, Max concluded. No doubt about that.

“You won the first little skirmish, Smoke,” Max told him. “But you can’t win the war.”

Smoke poured them both coffee and sat down behind the desk. “What war, Max?” he asked innocently. “I did what I did in this town because I don’t like to see citizens bullied, and I especially don’t like to hear about children being threatened.”

Max grunted. “There ... may have been some incidents where my men got a little heavy-handed. But as far as I know, no kids have been harmed.”

“But if you continue, Max, they will be. The odds are tilted that way.”

“And you intend to do what about that?” Max challenged the gunfighter.

“For the good of humanity, I ought to just stop it right now.”

“How?” Max smiled the question.

“By killing you,” Smoke said bluntly.

Max studied Smoke Jensen carefully. He concluded that Smoke meant what he’d just said. He also concluded that if he was to leave this town alive, he’d better play his cards close to the vest. Very close.

Max was a cold-blooded killer. But he was an intelligent one. He knew he was sitting very close to the grave. He also knew that like himself, Smoke Jensen had been born without that one tiny cog in his psyche that prevented man from killing without remorse. But unlike Max, Smoke Jensen had landed on the side of the law. He would always defend the underdog, the poor, the right and just causes.

“Are you?” Max asked softly.

“Am I what?”

“Going to kill me?”

“Probably.”

Max felt the cold touch of fear grip his heart.

“Someday,” Smoke added.

Max struggled with all his might to contain the emotion of relief that flooded him. He was not accustomed to the sensation of fear. It angered him that just by looking at Smoke Jensen such an emotion could be unleashed within him.

Big Max Huggins knew this, too: Smoke Jensen had to die. And soon.

“But for right now?” Max asked.

“I don’t know,” Smoke admitted. “But I wouldn’t press it if I were you.”

“I can’t buy you off, can I?”

“No.”

“Women?”

“I’m married to a beautiful woman. I have never been unfaithful to her and never will be.”

“You’re everything I am not, is that it?”

Smoke smiled. “Oh, we’re somewhat alike, Max. We just took different paths, that’s all.”

And damned intelligent, too, Max thought. I’m not confronting some ignoramus. “What is it, specifically, that I do that offends you so?”

Smoke laughed softly. He turned his swivel chair and pecked on the window, pointing. “You missed a spot,” he told the red-faced gunhand on the boardwalk with a wet rag in his hand. He turned his attention back to Max. “Everything about you, your type, offends me, Max. You’re an intelligent man; could have been a success at anything you tried to do. But you chose to be an outlaw. You’ve probably been a bully and a thief all your life. You like to humiliate people. You like to grind them down under your boot heel. I’m going to play a game with you, Max. You like games?”

“I’m a gambler, you know that.”

“But in my game, Max, if you cheat, you die.”

Sweat broke out on Max’s face. Goddamn this man! He’s sitting there as cool as an icehouse and talking about my death. He glanced out the window. The body of Butch had been removed and another gunhand was sprinkling dirt over the blood-soaked spot on the street. He cut his eyes back to Smoke.

“You see, Max, I don’t have to work. My ranch practically runs itself. My wife is very rich. And I have a lot of money personally. Do you have any idea how many thousands and thousands of dollars in reward money I’ve collected over the years just by shooting wanted men?”

Max personally knew of several dozen wanted men who had gone facedown in the dirt under Smoke’s guns. And there were probably a hundred more that he didn’t know about. “I know you’re a wealthy man, Jensen,” he said grudgingly. “What kind of game do you have in mind?”

“You’re going to be a solid citizen, Max. You’re going to run all the trash out of your town, build a new school, a new church, a new town hall, and be a credit to this territory.”

“Are you out of your damned mind!” Max almost yelled the question. “If I ran all the scum out of Hell’s Creek, there wouldn’t be fifty people left.”

“That is a fact,” Smoke acknowledged.

“You’re not going to shoot me now, are you, Jensen?”

“Not unless you push me to it.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not.” The words were bitter on the big man’s tongue. He had never kowtowed to anyone in his life. Until this moment. And he didn’t like it one bit.

“You want to play the game or not, Max?”

“No.” Max’s courage was returning after standing on the edge of death. He stood up slowly. “If you shoot me, Jensen, you’re going to have to shoot me in the back. And I don’t think you’ll do that. I’m going to walk outside, gunfighter. I’m going to sit on the bench just outside this office and smoke me a cigar. I’m not going to bother a soul. When my men have finished mopping and scrubbing this crappy little town, we’re going to ride out.We won’t bother this town again. I’ll give my people orders to stay clear. But if you ever come to Hell’s Creek, I can’t guarantee your safety. Badge or not. That’s my deal.” He walked out the door and sat down, pulling a cigar out of a breast pocket of his suitcoat and lighting up.

Smoke stood up and stepped outside just as Tom Johnson and several others came walking up, carrying sacks of guns taken from the outlaws.

“Put the weapons in a cell and lock it,” Smoke told them.

When that had been done, Smoke locked the front door to his office and walked up the boardwalk, leaving Big Max Huggins sitting quietly and smoking his stogie.

Smoke stopped to inspect the work of Larry Gayle, the New Mexico gunslinger. Gayle turned mean eyes to him.

“I guess I’ll have to kill you before long, Larry,” Smoke told him.

“You’ll try,” Larry growled the words at him.

Smoke chuckled and walked on a few yards, stopping at the side of a gunny he didn’t know.

“You ain’t gonna kill me, Smoke,” the man said. “‘Cause just as soon as I get done with this spit-polishin’, I’m gone like the wind.”

Smoke patted him on the shoulder. “Good man. Find a job and settle down somewhere. Be a good citizen.”

“I ain’t promisin’ that. But I will get gone from wherever you is.”

Smoke walked on. He stopped when he spotted Pete Akins, a gunhand he had met down in Arizona about six months back. “You going to stay on Huggins’s payroll, Pete?”

“Yep.” Pete put the finishing touches on a windowpane. It was so clean it squeaked under the rag.

“There’s going to be a lot of blood spilled before this is over, Pete.”

“For shore.”

“Sorry to hear you’re staying. You’ve never done me a harm. But if you stay, you’re my enemy. I just wanted you to know that, Pete.”

“You could pull out, Jensen.”

“Not likely. I never leave a job unfinished.”

“Me neither. Now get on out of here and leave me alone. I got winders to wash.”

Chuckling, Smoke walked on. He didn’t really dislike Pete Akins. But that wouldn’t prevent him from gunning Pete if push came to shove.

He crossed the wide street and stopped by the side of a young man probably still in his late teens. The boy still had a few pimples on his face.

“You better haul your ashes out of here, boy,”Smoke told him. “Straighten up while you’ve got the time.”

“I’ll see you in hell, Jensen,” the punk told him.

“You’ll be there long before I pass by, son,” Smoke replied, and walked on.

He stopped by Ben Webster, who had finished his windows and was sitting on the boardwalk, smoking a cigarette. “You hire your guns, Ben, but I never knew of you working for someone as low as Big Max Huggins.”

“He pays good, Smoke. ’Sides, the man who finally drops you can write his own ticket.”

“You intend to be that man?”

“Yep.”

“Make your will out. Ben. ’Cause when you pull iron on me, I’m gonna kill you.”

Ben looked up at him. “That’s a risk we take in this business, ain’t it, Smoke?”

Smoke stared at the man hard. Ben finally dropped his eyes. “I don’t hire my gun, Ben. Not for money.”

Ben looked up. “Why then, Smoke? Why do you do it?”

“Because I have a conscience, Ben. And I’ve got to live with myself.”

Ben spat in the street. “I don’t have a bit of trouble sleepin’ at night. Or in the daytime, for that matter.”

“That’ll make it easier when you decide to brace me, Ben.”

Ben tossed his cigarette into the street and looked away.

Smoke walked on. “Sid,” he spoke to Sid Yorke.

“Smoke. I ain’t gonna forget this damn winder-washin’.”

“Least it got your hands clean, Sid. That’s probably the first time they’ve been clean since your mother stopped takin’ a belt to your butt.”

“There’s always a day of reckonin‘, Jensen. My day’s comin’.”

Smoke crossed the street and sat on the bench beside Max. Now that he knew he’d live through this day, Max was beginning to see the humor in some of the toughest men in the territory washing windows and mopping up the boardwalk.

He saw Smoke watching him. “Yes, Jensen, I can see the humor in it. But have you thought about this: You’ve made some rough boys awfully angry at you. And they’re going to be sore about this for a long time.”

“They’ll either get over it or come hunting me. If they come hunting me, they’ll be over it permanently.”

Max stared at him. “You’re that sure of yourself, aren’t you, Jensen?”

“I’ve put more than a hundred men in their graves, Max. I’m still standing.”

“How many men have you killed, Jensen?”

“I honestly don’t know. I would be very happy if I never had to kill another human being.”

“Then quit.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because of people like you.”

That stung the big man. His face darkened with color. He took several deep breaths, calming himself. “I never thought of myself as a bad person, Jensen. And that’s the God’s truth.”

“You have any plans to change, Max?”

“No. And that’s the truth, too. Why should I? You won’t stay around here long. So I pull in my horns for a summer. So what? What have I lost? No, Jensen. Unless you kill me now, right now, in cold blood, I’ll survive. Because you’re going to have to come to my town to get me. And you won’t last two minutes in Hell’s Creek.”

“You got it all figured out, huh, Max?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“It promises to be an interesting summer, Max.”

Max threw his smoked-down cigar into the street and rose from the bench. “I hope I don’t see you again, Jensen,” he said, with his back to Smoke.

“Oh, you will, Max. You will.”

Smoke sat on the bench and watched as the sullen bunch of gunfighters rode slowly out of town, being very careful to kick up as little dust as possible. Only Pete Akins raised a hand in farewell.

With a grin on his face, he called, “See you around, Smoke.”

“Take it easy, Pete.”

The pimply-faced boy whose name Smoke had learned was Brewer, glared hate at him as he rode past.

“You bear in mind what I said, son,”Smoke called to him.

The young man gave Smoke an obscene gesture.

Bringing up the rear of the procession was a wagon, the two bone-broken deputies lying on hay in the bed, groaning as the wagon lurched along.

Tom Johnson crossed the street, leading a group of men and women, Judge Garrison among them.

“Tom, did you send those wires like I asked?” Smoke said.

“Yes, sir. Folks should start arriving in about a week. What about those people in town loyal to Huggins?”

“Tell them to hit the trail, Tom. You’re the newly elected mayor.”

“How about me?” Judge Garrison asked.

“You’re staying, Judge. You and me, we’re going to see to it that justice prevails in this part of the county. Tom has arranged for a man to come in and reopen the newspaper. He’s got people coming in that include a schoolteacher, a preacher, and some shopkeepers. Barlow is going to boom again, Judge. Nice and legal.”

“Young man,” the judge said, sitting down on the edge of the boardwalk, “have you given any thought as to what will happen when you decide to leave?”

“Oh, yes.”

They waited, but Smoke did not elaborate.

The judge sighed. “I must admit, it’s a good feeling to be free of Max Huggins.” He cut his eyes to Smoke. “For as long as it lasts, that is.”

“Trust me, Judge,”Smoke told him, putting a finger to the side of his head. “I’ve got it all worked out up here.” He pulled out his watch and clicked it open. “What times does the stage run?”

“It’ll be here in about an hour,” Tom told him.

“It turns around at Hell’s Creek?”

“That’s right.”

Smoke smiled. “Well, then, I’ll just make plans to meet the stage. Right now, I have to see about finding a deputy.”

“That’s not going to be easy, Smoke,” the judge said. “I don’t know of a single person who is qualified. Most of the ranches in this part of the county have only the hands they absolutely need to get by. There’s about a dozen farmers in this area. Good people, but not gunslingers.”

“Who is that prisoner in the jail? What’s he being held for?”

The judge rolled his eyes. “His name is Dagonne. Jim Dagonne. He’s not a bad sort; matter of fact, he’s rather a likable fellow. He just likes to fight. The problem is, he never can win one. He’s a good cowboy. Works hard. But when he starts drinking, he picks fights. And he always loses.”

Smoke nodded his head, a smile on his face. “All right, folks, let’s get to work. We’ve got a lot to do.”