William Johnstone - Battle of the Mountain Man

Battle of the

Mountain

Man

William W. Johnstone

One

Smoke Jensen rode his big Palouse, Horse, into Big Rock, Colorado, just as the sun peeked over the mountains to the east. As Horse cantered down dusty streets, Smoke’s eyes flicked back and forth, checking alleyways and shadows for potential trouble. Though his days as one of the West’s most feared gunfighters were behind him, old habits died hard, and old enemies seemed to live longer and outnumber old friends.

As Smoke passed the jail, Sheriff Monte Carson stepped through the door and tipped his hat. “Howdy, Smoke. Gettin’ an early start this mornin’?”

Smoke smiled at his old friend and pointed back over his shoulder at a buckboard following him. “Got to set an example for these young punchers, Monte. Otherwise they’d sleep half the day away.”

Monte grinned and glanced at the wagon. Pearlie, foreman of Smoke’s Sugarloaf ranch, was riding slumped over, his hat pulled down over his eyes, snoring loud enough to be heard over the creaking of wheels and the clopping of horses’ hooves.

Sitting next to Pearlie, leaning against his shoulder, was Cal Woods, Pearlie’s second in command at the ranch. His hat was also down and his eyes were closed.

Though he wasn’t snoring, he was obviously asleep, too.

Monte chuckled. “Good thing those broncs know the way to town, Smoke, or them boys’d be in Denver by now.”

Smoke nodded and reined Horse to a stop in front of the general store next to the jail. He stepped out of his saddle and tried the door, finding it still locked.

He shook his head. Guess everyone but Monte and I are sleeping in this morning , he thought. He climbed back up on Horse and called out, “Cal, Pearlie, wake your lazy butts up and I’ll treat you to some breakfast over at Longmont’s.”

Pearlie opened one eye and peered out from under his Stetson. With a prodigious yawn, he nodded and nudged Cal awake. “C’mon boy. Food’s callin’ an’ the boss is buyin’.”

They left the buckboard in front of the store and ambled over to the Silver Dollar Saloon, following Smoke.

When they brushed through the batwings, the three men found Louis Longmont sitting at his usual table, drinking coffee and smoking a long, black cigar. The ex-gunfighter smiled and waved them over to his table. Even at this early hour, he was, as usual, dressed impeccably in a black suit and a starched white shirt with ruffles on the front, a black silk vest, and a red cravat around his neck.

Louis looked like a dandy, but he was in fact one of the fastest guns in the West. He was a lean, hawk-faced man, with strong, slender hands and long fingers, his nails carefully manicured, his hands clean. He had jet black hair and a black, pencil-thin mustache. He wore low-heeled boots. A pistol hung in tied-down leather on his right side; it was not for show alone. For Louis was snake-quick with a short gun. A feared, deadly gun hand when pushed. Just past forty years of age. He had come to the West as a young boy and made a name for himself first as a gunfighter, then as a skilled gambler. He was well educated and as smart as he was dangerous.

Smoke and Pearlie and Cal pulled up chairs across from Louis, who waved a hand at a young black waiter. “Tell Andre to scramble up some hen’s eggs, burn three steaks, and make a fresh pot of coffee. These punchers look hungry.”

Smoke’s eyes flicked around the room in an unconscious search for danger, automatically noting three men sitting at a corner table on the far side of the room. Though it was barely dawn, two of the men had mugs of beer in front of them and the third a glass of whiskey.

The cowboy drinking whiskey sported a fancy double-rig of hand-tooled holsters containing pearl-handled Colts, and wore a black silk shirt and black pants tucked into knee-high stovepipe black boots. He had red hair and a red handlebar mustache. His hair was slicked down and glistened with pomade, and the corners of his mustache curled up, held in place with wax. His companions both wore pistols hung low and tied down on their thighs with rawhide thongs.

Smoke inclined his head toward the gunmen and said to Louis, “Trouble?”

Louis smiled and tipped cigar smoke from his nostrils. “They think they are. The one with the fancy rig calls himself the Arizona Kid.” He paused to chuckle. “The big one on the left, the one with the shaved head, says his name is Otto, and the other one’s name I didn’t catch.“

Louis paused while the waiter placed three mugs of dark, steaming coffee in front of them.

Pearlie built himself a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, in unconscious imitation of his idol, the famous gunman Joey Wells, whom he had met and fought alongside the previous year.(See "Honor of the Mountain Man")

“They were here drinking all last night,” Louis continued, glancing in the direction of the gunnies who were staring at Smoke and his men. “Said they heard Ned Buntline was in the area and they wanted to talk to him about writing a book about them.”

At the mention of Buntline’s name, Cal came fully awake, his eyes wide. “Mr. Buntline is in Big Rock?” he asked.

Louis smiled, knowing Cal’s addiction to the penny dreadfuls Buntline penned. “He was. He came through here last week, said he was headed into the high lonesome to talk to some of the old mountain men before they all died off. He’s planning on writing a story about how they opened the mountains up to the white man.”

“Wow!” Cal said. “Maybe I can meet him and tell him how much I like his books.”

Louis nodded. “You’ll probably get the chance. He plans to stop by Sugarloaf and talk to Smoke on his way back from the mountains.” He hesitated. “That’s if Smoke will talk to him at all. Smoke isn’t all that long-winded, especially when it comes to talking about himself. If Mr. Ned Buntline intends to get any real information from Smoke Jensen, he’d better be real careful how he asks. Smoke has never been all that inclined to waggle his tongue when it comes to men who live in the high lonesome. There are some things that a man has to learn the hard way, not from some blown-up story in a book full of fancy language. Half of it isn’t true to start with, a piece of some writer’s imagination. I don’t think Smoke will be all that excited about telling Buntline what he wants to know.“ He glanced at Smoke. ”Am I right?“

Smoke seemed momentarily preoccupied with the three men in the corner, in particular the one Louis said called himself the Arizona Kid. “There’s things ought not to be written up in some book,” he said quietly. “A man who takes on high country all by himself learns a trick or two about how to survive. Learning it isn’t easy, and I can show you more’n a handful of graves up in those mountains to prove my point.”

“Like Puma’s,” Pearlie reminded. “That was one tough ol’ hombre, only he put his life on the line an’ his luck jus’ plumb played out.”

Smoke didn’t want to be reminded of his dead friend. “Puma Buck was one of the best, like Preacher. But it wasn’t Puma’s luck that ran out… he went up against long odds, and sooner or later, as any gambler’ll tell you, those odds catch up to a man who takes chances.” He was still watching the Arizona Kid from the corner of his eye, strangely uneasy, feeling a heaviness in the air, the smell of danger.

Louis noticed Smoke’s distraction “I don’t think those boys are dumb enough to make a play,” he said under his breath, his gun hand close to his pistol. “But if they do, I’ll take down the gent who shaves his head. You can have the owlhoot with the double rig. If I’m any judge, he fancies himself as a quick draw, so I’ll give you the pleasure of proving him wrong.”