William Johnstone - Butchery of the Mountain Man

“Yes.”

“Just so we can fill in the gap, I’d be interested in catching up on what you were doing during that time.”

“Besides marrying Sally, you mean?”

“Well, that’s significant, yes. But more specifically, I was wondering if you might tell about Fast Lennie Moore. I’ve only read one account of it, and to be truthful with you, I don’t even know if it really happened, or not.”

“It happened,” Smoke said.

[ On May 25, 1871, Lennie Moore (whose real name may have been Will Bachman) was drinking heavily in Tucson, Arizona, with his friend Larry Wallace, and eight or nine other cowboys. Wallace insulted Moore’s friend Deputy Marshal Billy Baker. Baker ignored Wallace, but Moore took offense and insisted that Wallace accompany him and apologize to Baker. When Wallace refused, Moore threatened to kill him. Wallace complied, but Moore afterward heaped abuse on Wallace, announcing, “You son of a bitch, I think I’ll just kill you anyhow.”

Moore had already demonstrated his speed and skill with a pistol, and Wallace wanted no fight with him, so he left the saloon. Moore followed him. Feeling threatened, Wallace turned and shot Moore, wounding him in the cheek and neck. Marshal Baker arrested Wallace but the court ruled he acted in self-defense.

A Tucson doctor treated Moore, who had not been seriously wounded. When Moore recovered, he called Wallace out and killed him. Later he killed Michael and Isaac Paterson, cousins of Wallace who had come for revenge. Moore’s reputation began to grow after that, and it is believed that he had killed nine men before his fateful encounter with Smoke Jensen in the small town of Perdition, Arizona.—ED. ]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Perdition, Arizona—1872

When Smoke Jensen had ridden into town a few minutes earlier, news of his arrival spread quickly. Even though he was still a young man, his fame had spread, and grandfathers held up their grandsons to point him out as he rode by, so that the young ones could remember this moment, and, many years from now, tell their grandchildren about it.

Smoke had earned this not-always-welcome notoriety, because of his prowess with a Colt. He was in the Rattler’s Cage Saloon now, and had just ordered a beer. Picking it up, he looked around the interior of the saloon. Half a dozen tables, occupied by a dozen or so men filled the room, and tobacco smoke hovered in a noxious cloud just under the ceiling. It was now twilight, and as daylight disappeared, flickering kerosene lanterns combined with the smoke to make the room seem even hazier.

Smoke had come to Perdition because he had heard that his sister, Janey, was here. He and his sister had never been close, not since she ran away from home during the war, leaving a young Smoke to try and run the farm, and deal with their dying mother, all by himself.

He had encountered Janey again, briefly, in the town of Bury, Colorado, just before his showdown with Richards, Potter, and Stratton. Then, he had sent her away. But, at Sally’s urging, he decided to make at least one more effort to find her, and to see if he could patch up things between them.

It had been a false lead though. She wasn’t here and she hadn’t been here, so his trip to Perdition had been a waste of time. He sent a telegram back to Sally, telling her that his search had been fruitless, and he was coming back home.

“Would you be the one they call Smoke Jensen? The famous . . . gunfighter?” It wasn’t a friendly question, or even a question of curiosity. In fact, it was less a question than it was a challenge.

In Smoke’s young life, he had already encountered dozens of men like this: angry, belligerent, challenging. He said nothing in reply to the question, but simply held his beer glass out in sort of a salute.

“You too good to talk?” the challenger asked.

Smoke sighed. “Mister, I’ve ridden a long way on a wild-goose chase. I hope you aren’t going to make any trouble.”

“Make trouble? Make trouble, you say?” the young man replied. He turned to address the others. The saloon had grown deathly still now as the patrons sat quietly, nervously, and yet titillated too, by the life-and-death drama that had suddenly begun to unfold in front of them. “You don’t want me to make any trouble for the great gunfighter, is that it? Do you think I should just shut up and be scared of you because I am in the presence of the great Smoke Jensen?”

Smoke put his beer down with a tired sigh and turned to face his tormentor.

“What’s put the burr under your saddle, mister? Have I killed someone close to you? A brother, perhaps? Or maybe your father or just a friend?”

“No, it ain’t that. It ain’t nothin’ like that, at all,” the young man answered. “I’m just a-thinkin’ that if I killed the great Smoke Jensen in a fair fight, why, folks would be sayin’ my name the way they say yours now.”

“And is that what you want?”

“Oh, yeah,” the man said with a sardonic grin. “That’s what I want.”

“What is your name?”

“The name is Moore. Lennie Moore, though you’ve probably heard of me as Fast Lennie. That’s what most folks call me.”

“Fast Lennie, huh?”

“Yeah. Have you ever heard of me?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” Smoke replied.

Moore’s smile broadened. “So, you’ve heard of me, have you? What have you heard?”

“I’ve heard that you are an ignorant young punk, trying to pass yourself off as a man.”

Moore’s smile quickly turned to an angry snarl. “Draw, Jensen!” he shouted, going for his own gun even before he issued the challenge.

Moore was quick, quicker than anyone else this town had ever seen, and quicker even than anyone Smoke had encountered for some time. But midway through his draw Moore realized that he wasn’t quick enough. The arrogant look of confidence on his face was replaced by the knowledge that he knew he was about to be killed.

The two pistols discharged almost simultaneously, but Smoke had been able to bring his gun to bear whereas Moore had not. Smoke’s bullet plunged into Moore’s chest. The bullet from Moore’s gun smashed the glass that held Smoke’s drink, sending up a shower of beer and tiny shards of glass.

Looking down at himself, Moore put his hand over his wound, then pulled it away and examined the blood that had filled his palm. By the time he looked back at Smoke the fear had been replaced by acceptance, and a little expression of surprise.

“Damn,” he said. “You’re good. I would have bet my life that I could beat you.” Moore tried to chuckle, though the chuckle ended with a cough. “I guess I just did that, didn’t I?” Moore fell on his back, his right arm stretched out, his forefinger still sticking through the trigger guard.

Moore had been wearing a black hat, with a silver band from which protruded a red feather. The hat was upside down on the floor behind him. The eye-burning, acrid smoke of two gunshots hung in a gray-blue cloud just below the ceiling.

Smoke turned back to the bar where all that was left of his drink were pieces of broken glass and a small puddle of beer.

“Damn, he spilled my beer,” Smoke said.

“Yeah, it looks like he did,” the bartender said. Grabbing a new mug, he opened the spigot of the beer barrel, and a golden liquid began climbing the sides of the glass.

The saloon had grown silent in the moments just before the gunfight, but since the gunfight it had become a buzz of excitement as everyone shared with each other what all had just seen. Smoke was only halfway through his drink when the sheriff and one of his deputies arrived.

“What happened here?” the sheriff asked.