William Johnstone - Battle of the Mountain Man

Pearlie was the first to burst out laughing, just as Cal came sputtering to the surface. Smoke chuckled, knowing it was a lesson Cal needed, to watch for a slight rise in a horse’s back before he mounted, a warning that the animal intended to buck as soon as it felt a man’s weight.

“What happened?” Cal cried, scrambling to his feet in the shallow water without his hat, blinking to clear his vision. His hat floated slowly downstream, unnoticed for now.

“You got your young ass bucked off,” Pearlie replied as he held his belly between fits of laughter. “You looked fer all the world like you was tryin’ to fly, young ’un, up there with them sparrows an’ blue jays. When I seen you way up yonder, I thought I’d just laid eyes on the ugliest buzzard on this earth!” He broke into another series of hee-haws, clutching his ribs.

“It ain’t all that funny,” Cal mumbled, staggering across slippery stones in the stream bottom to retrieve his Stetson before it floated away. “I just wasn’t ready, is all it was. That gray’s got a mean streak in him.”

Johnny North was grinning. “Wasn’t that gray’s fault, Cal. You shoulda noticed that hump in his back.”

“Wasn’t no hump there,” Cal insisted, shaking water from his hat, his young cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “It was that damn colt’s nasty disposition, is what it was.” Cal stumbled out of the creek, his boots full of water, unable to look directly at Smoke or Pearlie for the moment, so deep was his humiliation over being thrown.

“Hell, young ’un, you was needin’ a bath anyways,” Pearlie said, again breaking into a guffaw or two. “If I’d had a bar of lye soap, I’d have tossed it up in the air whilst you was testin’ your wings. That way, you coulda scrubbed clean soon as you landed. You done one of the prettiest dives I ever saw in my life just now. Damn near a perfect landin’.”

As Pearlie started laughing again, Smoke swung down from the saddle, exhausted by a long night ride to reach the herd as soon as he could, resting his Palouse more often on the return trip to spare it any bog spavins or other lameness. “It was a right pretty landing, son,” he said to Cal, knowing how the boy must feel with an audience for his mistake.

Pearlie fell quiet all of a sudden. He looked at Smoke for a time. “How did things go in Lincoln?” he asked. “Did you have to shoot Jimmy Dolan? Or was he ready to listen?”

Smoke loosened the cinch on his tired colt, “He didn’t pay all that much attention. I warned him what would happen if one more shot got fired at us. He figures I’m bluffing.”

“Then he don’t know you at all,” Pearlie said, serious now. “If he knowed anythin’ about Smoke Jensen, he’d know you don’t never run no bluff on nobody.”

“I’m expectin’ more trouble,” Smoke told Pearle. “Dolan is the type who thinks his money will get him everything he’s after. He talks big.”

“How come you didn’t kill him?” Pearlie asked, “Or slap him plumb silly with the barrel of a gun?”

“I’m giving him a chance to think it over. It was probably a waste of time talking to him, telling him what I’d do if Evans and his boys come back. I’m betting they will.”

Pearlie shook his head, glancing over to Cal as the boy was pulling off his boots to drain the water out. “Won’t be much sleepin’ fer this crew from now on,” he said. “I can damn near feel it comin’ in my bones, like when a blue norther is headed our way.”

Smoke cast a lingering look at the herd before he spoke again. “I’m of the opinion your bones are telling you the truth this time, Pearlie,” he said, leading his Palouse colt away from the creek to saddle a fresh horse. Thirty-two

He gave his name in broken English as Little Horse, then he pointed to seven young warriors standing behind him, introducing one as Dreamer, another as Sees Far, then the others, all names Jessie quickly forgot. He didn’t care what these Apaches called themselves.

“Can they shoot straight?” Jessie asked Little Horse.

Little Horse nodded once. “Many time kill white-eyes,” he said, balancing a badly worn Spencer carbine in one hand. “We kill more if you pay us money.” He carried a rusted Colt in a sash around his waist, along with a gleaming Bowie knife. This Indian in particular was always in trouble with the soldiers at Fort Stanton for running off from the reservation to steal horses and cattle, scalping white settlers in the process. Litde Horse had just gotten out of jail at the fort, along with the seven men who came with him, when no witnesses could identify them as the killers of six white farmers in the Penasco Valley last year.

“Get the ammunition you need from that store over yonder,” he told the Apache. “Then get mounted an’ follow us.” He gave Jimmy Dolan a sideways look. “That makes eight more. Ten just showed up last night from Mexico, all good pistoleros , accordin’ to Pedro Lopez. He knows most of ’em.“

Dolan frowned. “I hope they’re better than Ignacio Valdez,” he muttered. “You told me Valdez was really good.”

“That Jensen feller probably ambushed him from hidin’ some place or another. It sure as hell wasn’t no fair fight if he got Ignacio.”

“Just make damn sure you get Jensen at all costs,” Dolan said quietly, standing in the road where Jessie and more than thirty mounted men waited, all heavily armed. Townspeople were staring at the gang from all over Lincoln’s main street.

“You can bank on it,” Jessie replied.

Dolan’s expression hardened. “Jensen is a cocksure son of a bitch. He acted like he owned Lincoln County. I wasn’t carrying a gun, and yet he stuck his pistol right in my face when he came barging in the store. I want him dead. Nobody sticks a gun in my face like that.”

“I’ll bring you his head in a tow sack,” Jessie promised as the Apaches went inside the store to get cartridges. “I’ll have forty men with me, includin’ those redskins. There ain’t but seven or eight with that herd, includin’ Jensen. It’ll be over before it gets started.”

“Kill them all,” Dolan whispered, so that citizens of Lincoln standing nearby wouldn’t hear. “Don’t leave a goddamn one of them alive to tell what happened.”

“It’s as good as done,” Jessie said, resting a palm on the butt of his Colt, He grinned and aimed a thumb at Bill Pickett. “I’ve done promised Pickett he can make sure every last one of ’em is dead. He gets a kick out of killin’ with that shotgun of his. I’m sure as hell glad he’s on our payroll.”

“Just get the job done this time,” Dolan snapped. “I’m paying good money to get results, not a bunch of empty promises like the last time.”

“That was on account of Billy Barlow warned ’em. Soon as we get back, I’ll find Barlow an’ kill him myself.”

“Do whatever it takes,” Dolan said, walking away with his hands shoved in his pants pockets.

Jessie mounted his horse, waiting between Pickett and Tom Hill for the Apaches to come out of the store.

“Goddamn Injuns can’t shoot,” Pickett said with heat in his voice. “None of ’em can.”

“Maybe they’ll get lucky,” Jessie replied. “Little Horse, the one who speaks some English, is tough, an’ a dead shot when he’s up close, accordin’ to Colonel Dudley. They’ve been tryin’ to find something to pin on him so they can hang him, only he’s smart. He don’t get caught very often. They had to let him go this time because nobody would testify it was him murdered them farmers.”

“I hate Injuns,” Pickett declared. “After we get done with this Jensen feller, I’ll do the army a favor by blowin’ off that damn Apache’s skullbone.”