William Johnstone: Battle of the Mountain Man

Smoke took a sip of coffee, using his left hand to handle his cup. “The one who calls himself the Arizona Kid will be the one to start trouble.”

Louis chuckled mirthlessly. “Wonder just where in Arizona Territory he’d like to have his body shipped to? I don’t suppose we’ll have time to ask.”

“I feel it coming,” Smoke whispered, “just like a mountain man can feel a chinook wind before it starts to blow.”

“I sure as hell hope you’re wrong,” Pearlie said, “on account I’m sure as hell hungry fer them eggs…” Two

Cal added his voice to Pearlie’s concerns. “Y’all sure are makin’ me nervous, all this talk about a shootin’. Maybe I ain’t got so much appetite after all.”

Pearlie looked at the boy. “Relax, son. If any two men can handle them three, it’s Smoke an’ Mr. Longmont. Truth is, either one could most likely handle all three, no matter how tough they claim to be.”

Smoke wasn’t really listening, pretending to watch a sunrise out the front windows when in fact he was keeping an eye on the three men at the corner table.

“It’s my belly that ain’t relaxed,” Cal muttered.

Right at that moment the Arizona Kid signaled the bartender for another round of beers.

Louis seemed amused over Cal’s uneasiness. “My money says when those eggs and steaks get here, you’ll lick your plate clean as a whistle.”

“Maybe,” Cal replied, taking his own quick glance at the men in the corner “Those boys look like a bad case of indigestion to me.”

Smoke still sensed the nearness of danger, a lifelong habit, learning to trust his instincts. There was something about the three gunmen, not merely the way they wore their guns tied down, but something more, an attitude of confidence, even arrogance, on their faces. He drank more coffee, hoping he was wrong about the prospects of trouble.

The bartender brought three beers to the table. Smoke heard one of the men ask who the newcomers were.

“That big feller’s none other than Smoke Jensen,” the barman replied. “He makes his home right close to Big Rock.”

“He came struttin’ in here like he thinks he’s tough, them big shoulders thrown back.”

The barkeep lowered his voice even more. “Make no mistake about it, stranger. He is tough. Plenty of men have tried him to see if he’s as mean as his reputation. Some got away with a hole or two in their hides. Some went below ground to feed the worms.”

The Arizona Kid was watching Smoke closely now. “You say his name is Smoke Jensen? Never heard of him. Maybe all he’s got is that mean reputation.”

The bartender glanced over his shoulder in Smoke’s direction and quickly looked away. “I ain’t no doctor, mister, but if I was you an’ wanted to stay healthy, I wouldn’t test Mr. Jensen to see if I’m tellin’ you the truth.” He turned on his heel and hurried away. The Arizona Kid and the gunman named Otto continued to stare at Smoke.

Like predicting winter weather in the high lonesome, Smoke knew what was coming. It was just a matter of time. The Kid wanted to draw attention to himself, perhaps to add to his self-importance if he got the chance to talk to Ned Buntline, to put another notch on his guns.

To keep young Cal and Pearlie out of the line of fire, he said, “Why don’t you two go out and see to the buggy team and my Palouse. Won’t take but a minute and you’ll be done before the food gets here.“

Pearlie nodded, like he understood. Cal needed no urging to push back his chair for a walk outside. As the pair was leaving, Smoke turned at the waist to look directly at the Arizona Kid and his partners, deciding there was no sense in wasting time when a confrontation was as sure as the snow in high country now. “You boys got a bad case of the goggle eyes,” he said evenly. “Maybe I’m too particular about it, but it sticks in my craw like sand when some gent stares at me. Especially you, the carrot-topped hombre with the mustache, you just gotta learn some manners or somebody’s liable to teach you some.”

The Kid put down his beer mug and rose slowly to his feet, his back to the wall. “Is that so?” he asked, sneering, both hands near the butts of his guns. “Tell you the truth, mister, I don’t see nobody in this room who’s man enough to git that job done.”

Smoke came to a crouch, then rising to his full height, lips drawn into a hard line. “Then look a little closer,” he snarled, as every muscle in his body tensed. “I think it’s time you boys cleared out of here. We’ll take our little disagreement outside. A friend of mine owns this establishment and I’d hate like hell to be responsible for spilling blood all over his nice clean floor, or putting any bullet holes in his walls. Meet me out in the street and we’ll settle this.”

“Like hell!” the Kid bellowed, hands dipping for his pistols as Smoke had anticipated all along.

In the same instant, Otto and the other cowboy were clawing for their guns.

Lightning quick, employing reflexes that had kept him alive in much tougher situations, Smoke came up with both hands filled with iron, Colt .44s, working his thumbs and trigger fingers in well-practiced movements, almost second nature to a man who kept himself alive by wits and weapons.

The Silver Dollar Saloon exploded in a thundering series of deafening blasts, becoming a symphony of noise when Louis Longmont added his gunshots to the concussions swelling inside the establishment’s walls.

The Arizona Kid was driven back against wallpapered planks behind him, his mouth grotesquely distorted when balls of speeding lead shattered his front teeth. His hat went spinning into the air like a child’s top as the back of his skull ruptured in flying masses of tissue, red hair, bone fragments, and brains.

At the same time Otto swirled, balancing on one booted foot while a spurt of blood erupted from the base of his neck above his shirt collar. Another slug entered his right eye, closing it upon impact amid a shower of crimson squirting from a hole below his right ear. Otto appeared to be dancing to an unheard melody for a moment, trying to remain upright on one foot, hopping up and down, dropping his gun to the floor to reach for his throat and eye socket.

The third gunman went backward through a shattering windowpane before his gun ever cleared leather, a .44 caliber bullet splintering his breastbone, puckering the front of his shirt as it sped through his body in the exact spot where Smoke placed it, with as much care as time afforded him.

Amid the roaring gunblasts, someone screamed outside the saloon, but it was the Arizona Kid who held Smoke’s attention now as the gunman slid down the Silver Dollar’s expensively decorated wall, leaving a red smear in his wake as he went to the floor in a heap, what was left of his mouth agape, dribbling blood down the front of his silk shirt, remnants of teeth still clinging to bleeding gums. A plug of his curly red hair was plastered to the wall above him, sticking there for a curiously long time before it dropped soundlessly to the floor beside him.

Otto teetered on one foot, making strangling sounds, blood pumping from his wounds as he somehow managed to remain standing, hopping for no apparent reason, since he had no leg wounds, merely unable to put his left foot down.

Smoke and Louis stopped firing, watching Otto perform his odd dance steps while gunsmoke rose slowly toward the ceiling.

“He’ll fall down in a minute,” Louis said, as though he was discussing the weather, or the felling of a tree. “Or should I put another slug in him and be done with it?”

“Hard to say,” Smoke replied dryly, holstering his pistols, his eyes on Otto. “He does a right nice dance step. Too bad we ain’t got a fiddler.”