Assault of the Mountain Man

  ASSAULT OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with J. A. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A LONE STAR CHRISTMAS

  Copyright Page

  Notes

  PROLOGUE

  Bill Dinkins was thirty-eight years old. Standing five feet ten inches tall with sandy hair and blue eyes, he was a man that women found handsome at first look. But there was something about him, an evil glint in his eye, the curl of a lip that, upon further examination, frightened women away. One fine fall day Dinkins, Loomis Caldwell, Gary Beeman, and Henry Kilpatrick rode into the town of Buffalo, Colorado, and went straight to the bank. While two of the four stayed mounted, Dinkins and Caldwell went inside and asked for five twenty-dollar gold pieces in exchange for a one hundred dollar note.

  While in the bank the two men checked it out, noticing a back door they assumed opened onto the alley. Once they left the bank, the four men rode up and down Decker’s Road a couple times, checking out the lay of the town, then they rode up the alley to see where the bank door opened.

  When the four men first rode into town Glen Davis, the town marshal, thought nothing of it. But when he saw them ride up and down the street twice, then go into one end of the alley and come out the other, he began to get suspicious. “Bobby, let’s you and me go outside,” he said to his deputy.

  The four riders, still unaware that they had attracted attention, rode back into the alley and tied their horses to an empty freight wagon. They split up, with two going into the bank through the front door and two going in through the back door. Three customers and the bank teller were inside.

  “Up against the wall!” Dinkins yelled to the customers. He handed the teller a cloth bag. “Fill the bag with money,” he ordered.

  With shaking hands, the teller began to comply.

  Outside, Marshal Davis and Deputy Mason were approaching the bank with their guns drawn.

  “What’s going on, Marshal?” someone called.

  “Get a gun,” the marshal replied. “I think the bank is being robbed.”

  With that, at least four other townspeople armed themselves and came over to join Davis and Mason.

  “Bill, hurry it up!” Caldwell shouted. “There is a lot of people comin’ toward us, and ever’one of ’em is got a gun!”

  “Give me the bag,” Dinkins ordered.

  “I haven’t finished filling it,” the teller replied.

  “Give me the bag!” Dinkins ordered again. Reaching through the window, he made a grab for the bag, but the teller jerked it back. Angrily, Dinkins shot him. The slug hit the teller between the eyes, and he collapsed on the floor behind the teller’s cage, with the money bag still clutched in his hand, out of Dinkins’ reach.

  “We got to get out of here now!” Beeman yelled.

  Bells were ringing all over town. Dogs were barking and citizens were running, some for cover, and some to find a place from which to shoot.

  “Everyone, out the back door!” Dinkins shouted, and the four men ran out the back door, then down the alley to their horses. Mounting their horses, they saw that wagons had been pushed across the alley at both ends, blocking them off. Their only exit was to ride up the narrow opening between the bank and the shoe store.

  When they reached Decker’s Road, which was the main street, the angry citizens of the town were ready for them. The first person to take a shot at the would-be bank robbers was a clerk who had come outside to stand on the front porch of the general store. Armed with a double-barreled 12-gauge Greener, he let loose. Beeman, his chest opened up by the load of double aught buckshot, was knocked from his horse. Kilpatrick’s horse was killed by someone firing a Winchester rifle, and when Caldwell turned back for him everyone with a gun started shooting at the two men. Kilpatrick and Caldwell’s return fire was effective enough to drive several citizens off the street and provide cover for Dinkins.

  “Bill, come here! Help me get Henry up on Beeman’s horse!”

  Dinkins looked back at the two men, then at the armed citizens, and turned and galloped away.

  “Dinkins! You cowardly son of a bitch!” Caldwell shouted angrily.

  Dinkins didn’t look back, but continued to ride as the shooting was going on behind him. He rode hard, until he realized nobody was giving chase. He could hear the last gunshots being exchanged between the citizens of the town and Caldwell and Kilpatrick. Then the shooting fell silent, and he knew they were either captured or killed. Dinkins had gotten away with his life, but none of the bank’s money except for the five twenty-dollar gold pieces he had gotten in exchange for the one hundred dollar bill.

  When Dinkins reached the town of Snyder, he dismounted, slapped his horse on the rump, and sent it on. He hoped if anyone was following him, they would follow the tracks of his horse.

  He walked the rest of the way into town, then went to the depot to buy a ticket on the next train out. He was pretty sure nobody would be looking for a bank robber on a train. Bank robber. He scoffed at the term. Some bank robber he was. He had not gotten away with one red cent.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Washington, D. C.

  Sally Jensen had been back East for almost six weeks, during which time she had visited her family in Vermont, friends and relatives in Boston and New York, and as the last part of her trip, she was in Washington, D.C. At the moment, she was sitting in the reception room just outside the Presidential Office in the White House. As she waited to meet with the president, she was reading the novel, A Study in Scarlet, written by the English author, Arthur Conan Doyle, in which he introduced a new character, Sherlock Holmes. Sally enjoyed the intellect and deductive reasoning of the Sherlock Holmes character. So engrossed was she in the book that she did not notice Colonel Lamont, the appointments secretary, approaching her.

  “Mrs. Jensen?” Colonel Lamont said.

  Sally looked up from her book. It took her a second to come out of the story and realize exactly where she was.

  “Yes?”

  “The president will see you now.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Sally answered with a broad smile. Slipping a book mark in between the pages, she stood, then followed the secretary into President Cleveland’s office.

  The president was rather rotund, with a high forehead and a bushy moustache. He was wearing a suit, vest, and bowtie, and he was smiling as he walked around the desk with his hand extended. “Mrs. Jensen. How wonderful to see you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. President,” Sally replied.

  President Cleveland pointed to a sitting area over to the
side. “Please, won’t you have a seat? And tell me all about your wonderful West.”

  “As you say, Mr. President, it is wonderful. You really should take a trip out there sometime.”

  “I agree, I must do that. And your husband, Smoke? He is doing well?”

  “He is doing very well, thank you. Right now he and the others are involved in the spring roundup.”

  “The spring roundup,” President Cleveland said. “What exciting images those words evoke.” The president glanced toward the door to make certain no one could overhear him. “Please don’t tease me about it, but from time to time I read novels of the West. I find them a wonderful escape from the tedium of reports, analysis, bills, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, ad naseum.”

  Sally laughed.

  “And how is your family?”

  “They are doing well, thank you. It was my family who insisted that I call upon you before I return home,” Sally said.

  “And rightly so,” President Cleveland replied. “When I was governor of the state of New York, I vetoed the bill that would have reduced the fare to five cents on the elevated trains in New York. That was an extremely unpopular veto, and your father’s support, even though he was not a resident of New York, helped convince several legislators to change their vote and support me when the legislature attempted to override the veto. Had I lost that veto, I believe my political career would have been finished. I do not think it would stretch credulity too far, to suggest that I am occupying the White House partly because of your father’s early, and important, support.”

  Sally laughed. “It wasn’t all altruistic on my father’s part you understand, Mr. President. He had loaned Jay Gould the money to buy the railroad. He was merely looking out for his investment.”

  “Oh!” President Cleveland said, clutching his heart with both hands, and laughing. “And here, I was certain your father’s support was because he thought me to be a brilliant politician and servant of the people.”

  Sally and the president visited for a while longer, then she was invited to have lunch with Frances Cleveland, the president’s young wife. “Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, as I have a prior luncheon engagement with the caucus of Western Senators.”

  “Well, if they are from the West, then by all means you should not break the appointment,” Sally suggested.

  “But if it was a caucus of Eastern Senators?”

  “Then I would fully expect you to join us,” Sally said, and the president laughed with her as he escorted her from the office.

  “Colonel Lamont, would you please telephone my wife and tell her that she will have a guest for lunch,” President Cleveland asked of his private secretary.

  “Mr. President, I have already done so,” Lamont replied. “Mrs. Cleveland is on her way here now.”

  Grover Cleveland was twenty-seven years old when he met his future wife. She had just been born, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a long time close friend of Cleveland’s. When her father died in a buggy accident in 1875 without having written a will, the court appointed Cleveland administrator of the estate. This brought Cleveland closer to Frances, who was eleven at the time.

  She attended Central High School in Buffalo and went on to Wells College in Aurora, New York. Sometime while she was in college, Cleveland’s feelings for her took a romantic turn. He proposed in August 1885, soon after her graduation, and she accepted. Frances became the youngest first lady ever. Despite her age, her charm and natural intelligence made her a very successful hostess, a quality Sally was enjoying.

  “Oh, Sally, have you seen Washington’s monument?” Frances asked during lunch.

  “I saw it some time ago,” Sally said, “but it wasn’t completed then. It was sort of an ugly stob.”

  “Oh you must see it now,” Frances said enthusiastically. “It is all finished, and it is beautiful. If you would like, we’ll drive out there after lunch.”

  “I would love to,” Sally replied, her enthusiasm matching that of the first lady.

  Sugarloaf Ranch

  Even as Sally was touring Washington, D.C., with the first lady, Pearlie, the foreman of the ranch she and Smoke owned, was out on the range with three other cowboys, riding bog.

  It was one of the less glamorous and more difficult jobs pertaining to getting ready for the roundup. While crowding around a small water hole, weaker animals were often knocked down by stronger ones, and they would get bogged down, unable to get up. Getting them out was called bogging.

  It was easy to find them; the hapless creature would start bawling, not a normal call, but a high pitched, frightened, intense bawl.

  “Pearlie!” one of the hands called. “Over here!”

  Pearlie rode in the direction of the call, and saw a steer, belly deep in a pond that was mostly mud. One of the cowboys, a new hand, looped his rope around the steer’s neck.

  “No!” Pearlie called. “Not the neck. Around his horns.”

  It took the cowboy a moment of manipulating his rope until he managed to work it up onto the animal’s horns.

  Pearlie dismounted, then got behind the steer and started pulling on the rope. The idea was to get the animal over on its back, then pull it backward—which was easier than trying to pull it out straight ahead, or sideways.

  A couple of the other cowboys grabbed the rope with Pearlie and they pulled until the steer was free.

  “You boys grab his tail and hold on until I get the rope off,” Pearlie said. “Then one of you run one way and the other run the other way, ’cause this critter is goin’ to turn around and charge. If you go in opposite directions, he might get confused and not chase either one of you.”

  “You said he might get confused. What if he don’t get confused and he chases after me?” one of the cowboys said.

  “In that case run like hell,” Pearlie said, and the others laughed.

  Pearlie remounted, then rode around and took the rope off the steer’s horns.

  “All right, let ’im go!” Pearlie shouted, and the two cowboys started running in opposite directions from each other. The steer took off after one of them, and Pearlie slapped his legs against the side of his horse, urging it into an immediate gallop. He closed on the running steer within a few seconds and forced the steer to turn aside, breaking up his charge.

  The other cowboys were laughing hard as Toby, the cowboy who was being chased, stopped running and bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing hard from his exertion.

  “Damn, Toby,” one said. “I sure didn’t know you could run that fast. Why, you should enter the race at the county fair this summer.”

  Toby was still breathing hard. “Won’t do any good unless I’ve got a steer runnin’ after me,” he said, to the laughter of all.

  “All right, you boys know what to do now, so keep it up, pull out all the cows you find bogged down. I’m going back to get cleaned up, then I’m going into town. Smoke wants me to pick up a few things.”

  “If you want, Pearlie, I’ll go into town for you,” one of the cowboys said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you would,” Pearlie replied with a broad smile. “But like as not you would get drunk and forget what you went to town for.”

  “Ha, Wade, you think Pearlie ain’t got you pegged?” Toby said with a laugh.

  Big Rock, Colorado

  Pearlie took the buckboard into town. He stopped first at Cousins’ General Store to fill the list of food items needed for the chuck wagon while the roundup was ongoing.

  “Hello, Pearlie,” Cousins said, greeting the young cowboy as he came into the store. “Come for your possibles, have you?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Cousins,” Pearlie replied. “We’ll need beans, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, and some dried fruits. It’s all written out.”

  “You got a buckboard outside?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll fill your order and take it out to the buckboard for you. If you have anything else to do in town you can go ahead and take care of it.”

&
nbsp; “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

  Food wasn’t the only thing on Pearlie’s shopping list. From Cousins’ General Store he walked over to the gun shop where he bought several boxes of ammunition in various calibers. From there he went to the post office to pick up the mail. By the time he got back to the store, the food had been loaded onto the buckboard. He touched the brim of his hat, in a salute to Cousins, climbed into the seat, picked up the reins, and clucked to the team.

  Sugarloaf Ranch

  Back at the ranch, Smoke Jensen was standing in an open field by the barn. Twenty-five yards in front of him were three bottles inverted on sticks of varying heights, one as high as a man’s head, one about the height of an average man’s chest, while the third would align with a man’s belly. The sticks were ten feet apart.

  Off to Smoke’s right, but clearly in his vision, Cal was holding his right hand out in front of him, palm down. There was an iron nut on the back of his hand, and beneath his hand, on the ground, was a tin pie plate.

  The full-time hands, the ones who had stayed through the winter, as well as some of the new men, the temporary cowboys who were showing up for the spring roundup, were gathered around in a semicircle to watch the demonstration.

  Cal turned his hand over, and the nut fell. The moment Smoke saw Cal turn his hand, he began his draw. He fired three quick shots, breaking all three bottles before the iron nut clanked against the tin pan.

  The men cheered and clapped.

  “Damndest thing I ever seen!” one of the cowboys said.

  “How can anyone be that fast?”

  “I’ve read books about him, but I always thought they was just made up,” another of the hands said. “I never know’d there could be anyone that could really shoot like that.”

  “Yeah, but this is just trick shooting,” a new cowboy, one who had never worked at Sugarloaf before, said. “Seems to me folks who can do trick shootin’ ain’t always that good when it comes to the real thing.”

  Cal, who was picking up the iron nut and the pie pan, overheard the last remark. “Trust me. When it comes to the real thing, he’s even better.”