Savagery of The Mountain Man

  Savagery of The Mountain Man

  William W. Johnstone

  SAVAGERY OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN

  SAVAGERY OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Contents

  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

  Prologue*

  “No!” Lucy shouted. She jumped in front of Pearlie just as Keno fired, and the bullet struck her in the chest.

  “No!” Pearlie screamed, the guttural shout a cross between an anguished cry and a roar of rage.

  Pearlie’s first shot hit Keno in the arm, causing him to drop his gun. Then Pearlie shot Keno in both knees. Keno went down, screaming in agony.

  Pearlie shot off each of his ears, then pointed the pistol at Keno’s face and fired, putting a hole right between Keno’s eyes. Pearlie pulled the trigger three more times, but the hammer fell on empty cartridges.

  It didn’t matter.

  Keno was dead.

  Pearlie spun around then, and dropped to the ground beside Lucy. With each breath Lucy drew, blood frothed at her mouth. The bullet had hit her in the lungs and she was dying right before Pearlie’s eyes.

  “Lucy, Lucy, why did you jump out like that?” Pearlie asked.

  “He would have killed you,” Lucy said. “I couldn’t let him kill you.”

  “Lucy, oh, my God, Lucy,” Pearlie said. Sitting on the ground beside her, he cradled her head in his lap.

  “I only wish that we could have been married,” Lucy said.

  “You can be,” Sally said. “Smoke, you are a justice of the peace. You can marry them.”

  “Sally, what are you talking about? I’ve never performed a wedding ceremony. Why, I don’t have a Bible, I don’t have a book. I wouldn’t know what to do,” Smoke said.

  “For God’s sake, Smoke, this has to be done, just do it!” Sally said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. “You’ve been married twice now. You know what to say.”

  “Lucy?” Smoke said. “Do you want me to do this?”

  “Yes, please,” Lucy said, taking Pearlie’s hand in hers and squeezing it hard. “Please marry us.”

  “All right,” Smoke said. “Pearlie, do you take this woman, Lucy, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love, hold, and honor, as long—” Smoke paused in mid-sentence, and when he spoke again, his voice broke. “As long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” Pearlie said.

  “Lucy, do you take Pearlie to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, obey, and honor, as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” Lucy replied, her voice so weak that she could barely be heard.

  “By the power vested in me by the state of Colorado, I pronounce you man and wife.”

  “We are married,” Lucy said. She smiled through her pain. “Pearlie, you are my husband.”

  “Yes,” Pearlie said. “And you are my wife.”

  “Kiss me, Pearlie. Kiss me quickly.”

  “Lucy?” Pearlie asked, his voice breaking.

  “Kiss her, Pearlie,” Sally said. “Kiss her before it is too late.”

  Pearlie leaned over and kissed her, holding it for a long moment before he suddenly stiffened, then raised up. He looked into Lucy’s face, which, despite her death agony, wore an expression of rapture. The joy of her marriage was her last conscious thought, because Lucy was dead.

  When Pearlie looked up, tears were streaming down his face. Stepping over to him, Sally knelt beside him, then held him as he wept.

  One month later

  Sugarloaf Ranch

  As Pearlie tightened the cinches on his saddle, Sally came out to see him, carrying a cloth bag. “I baked a few things for you,” she said.

  “Shucks, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know I didn’t. But I wanted to.”

  “I appreciate it,” Pearlie said, tying the bag to his saddle horn. He looked back toward the bunkhouse. “I thought Cal would come tell me good-bye.”

  “Cal’s having a hard time with the fact that you are leaving,” Sally said. “So am I. So is Smoke.”

  “Yeah,” Pearlie said. He ran his hand through his hair. “Truth is, I’m having a hard time leaving.”

  Running his hand through his hair mussed it up a bit, and Sally licked her fingers, then reached up to smooth it out.

  “It’s just that, well, with what happened to Lucy and all, I need myself some time alone.” Pearlie held his hand up. “This is no knock on you and Smoke and Cal,” he said. “Lord, there can’t no man anywhere in the world have any better friends. It’s just that—” He paused in mid-sentence.

  “I know what you mean, Pearlie,” Sally said. “And I understand your need to get away. I just hope it isn’t permanent.”

  “Pearlie!” Cal called, coming from the bunkhouse then.

  Pearlie turned toward his young friend and smiled broadly. “Well, I’m glad you came out to see me. I was beginning to think I might have to leave without saying good-bye.”

  “I want you to have this,” Cal said. He held out his silver hatband. “You can see that I have it all polished up for you. You have to keep it polished. Otherwise, it gets a little tarnished.”

  “Cal, I can’t take this,” Pearlie said, pushing it back.

  “I ain’t givin’ it to you permanent,” Cal said.

  Sally started to correct Cal’s grammar, but she realized that this was a very emotional time for the two young men, so she said nothing.

  “I figure if you’ve got my silver hatband, you’ll come back for sure,” Cal said.

  Pearlie looked at the hatband for a moment, nodded, then slipped it onto his hat. Without another word, he swung into the saddle and rode off.

  Chapter One

  Six weeks later

  Sugarloaf Ranch

  When some of the hands tried to put the saddle on the horse’s back, it broke loose and reared up, pawing at the air with its front hooves. Then it began running around the corral, its hooves throwing up clods of dirt. Those who were sitting on the fence had to move quickly to get out of the way as the horse seemed intent on brushing them off.

  Two riders waited until the horse was at the far end of the corral, then nodded for the gate to be opened. When it was open, they rode inside, swinging lariats overhead. The two cowboys threw their loops at the same time, and both managed to get ropes around the horse’s neck. They stopped the horse from running, then led him over to a pole in the center where they secured him.

  One of the riders looked toward Cal with a wry grin on his face.

  “There he is, Cal, all calmed down for you,” he teased.

  “Yeah, thanks a lot,” Cal said.

  Rubbing his hands together, Cal stood there looking at the horse, which, for the moment, was relatively quiet.

  “Smoke, I don’t think Cal should try to ride him,” Sally said. Sally and Smoke were both sitting on the top rail of the fence, having just returned to their positions as they
had been among those who were forced to flee when the horse began its rampage.

  “The horse has to be broken,” Smoke replied.

  “Yes, but does it have to be Cal? Smoke, he could break his neck.”

  Smoke laughed. “I see. So, what you are saying is, you would rather it be me who breaks his neck?”

  “No,” Sally said. “You know I didn’t mean that. It’s just that—well, Pearlie normally did this.”

  “Pearlie isn’t here now,” Smoke said. “Cal is going to have to start taking over some of Pearlie’s responsibilities.”

  “I know,” Sally said. “But Pearlie is older and a little more experienced. It just frightens me to think of Cal trying to ride that horse.”

  “Sally, I don’t think Cal would stop now even if I ordered him to,” Smoke said. “And I wouldn’t embarrass him by giving that order. Surely you know now that it is a matter of pride with him. You know how Cal is.”

  “I know,” Sally agreed. “I just hope and pray that he doesn’t get hurt.”

  Cal approached the horse, then stepped up to the horse’s head. He grabbed the horse by the ear and pulled its head down, even with his own.

  “I’m going to ride you, horse,” he said. “You ain’t goin’ to like it all that much, but to tell you the truth, you ain’t got no say-so in it ’cause I’m goin’ to do it whether you like it or not. And if you think you can buck me off ’cause I ain’t Pearlie, it ain’t goin’ to gain you nothin’, ’cause I’ll just climb back on and ride you again. You got that?”

  “Cal, wait,” one of the other hands called. He walked out into the corral carrying a blanket. “Let me put this over his head till you get on. Maybe it’ll calm him down a bit—at least until you are mounted.”

  “All right, Jake,” Cal replied.

  Jake put the blanket over the horse’s head, then looked at Cal. Cal climbed into the saddle and grabbed the hack rein.

  The horse made no effort to prevent him from mounting, and Cal smiled.

  “All right,” he said. “Maybe my little talk with him did some good. Untie him and let us go.”

  Jake removed the blanket from the horse’s head and freed him from the hitching post at the same time. Then he moved quickly to get out of the way.

  For another long moment, the horse stood absolutely still, and Cal looked over toward Smoke and Sally.

  “Ha!” he shouted. “Look here! I reckon this horse knows who is boss! I had a little talk with him and—ohhhh!”

  The horse exploded into energy, lifting all four hooves from the ground at the same time. When he came back down, his legs were held straight, providing no spring, so that the shock was transferred up to Cal. Then the horse started running and bucking at the same time. Cal held onto the hack rein with one hand and the night latch, which was a rope tied through the gullet of the saddle, with the other.

  “Hang on, Cal!” Jake shouted.

  “Ride ’im into the ground, don’t let up!” one of the other cowboys yelled.

  The horse began spinning around. Then he reared up on his back legs, came back down, and kicked his back legs high into the air so that Cal was looking straight down at the ground. The horse ran toward the fence, again brushing everyone off, stopped suddenly, then kicked his back legs high into the air again. This time Cal came out of the saddle and slipped forward, managing to stop his fall only by wrapping his legs around the horse’s neck.

  Finally, the horse gave up bucking and began galloping around the corral, running at full speed.

  Cal took his hat off and began waving it. “Yahoo!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  Cal stayed with him for the entire time until the horse stopped running, started trotting, then slowed to a walk. Finally, the horse came to a complete stop and just stood there, in the middle of the corral.

  Cal swung down from the horse, took off the breaking saddle and harness, then resaddled and bridled him. The animal remained as docile as a plow horse. Remounting, Cal rode around the corral, acknowledging the applause of all the ranch hands. He stopped in front of Smoke and Sally, then doffed his hat and bowed.

  “Bravo, Cal, bravo,” Sally said. “That was wonderful.”

  “I wish Pearlie had been here to see it,” Cal said.

  Los Brazos, New Mexico Territory

  It had been over a month since Pearlie left Sugarloaf. In that time, he had maintained a southern drift with no particular destination in mind—only a need to continue to put distance and time between himself and the events that had led to Lucy being killed.

  During his six-week-long sojourn, he had stayed no longer in any one town than he needed to—sometimes taking a part-time job for a couple of days or so just to earn enough money to keep going. Over the last month he had worked in a livery, had loaded and unloaded freight wagons, and had even stood in for a week as a bartender. At one ranch, he had spent a day breaking horses, getting five dollars for each horse he broke. Then, in the little town of Jasper, Colorado, he built on an extra room for a widow who earned her keep by making pies. The widow, whose name was Diane, suggested, both by word and action, that if Pearlie wanted to stay on, she would more than welcome his company. But Pearlie declined the offer as tactfully as he could.

  “That’s all right, cowboy,” Diane, who was no more than a year or two older than Pearlie, replied. “If you ever get tired of seeing what’s just over the next hill, you can always come back.”

  As Pearlie rode off, he wondered if he made a mistake in not taking up the widow’s offer. It wasn’t as if he would have been cheating on Lucy, and the diversion might have helped in the healing process. But even as he considered that, he knew that it would not have been the right thing to do—not for him, and not for Diane.

  After another week of riding, he happened across the little town of Los Brazos, which lay flyblown and dying as it baked in the hot New Mexico sun. The first building he passed was a railroad depot, though there was no railroad serving the town. The age and condition of the depot indicated that it was the past expression of a misplaced optimism—rather than the sign of something to come.

  Feeling the need of a beer to cut the trail dust, Pearlie dismounted in front of the Casa de la Suerte Cantina, which was the only saloon in the small town. Instead of the batwing doors with which Pearlie was more familiar, long strips of rawhide, upon which several wooden beads had been strung, hung down to cover the entrance. The beads clacked as he pushed his way through to the inside.

  The inside was more pleasant than the outside had promised, with a chandelier and a long, polished bar. The bartender was Mexican, and he stood at the far end of the bar, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and a small piece of rawhide dangling from his lips. Seeing Pearlie come in, he reached up, took the rawhide from his mouth, then walked down to stand in front of Pearlie.

  “Tequila, Señor?” he asked.

  “Beer.”

  “Beer, sí.” The bartender drew a mug, then set it in front of Pearlie. Pearlie blew the foam off, then took a deep drink for thirst. The next swallow was to enjoy the taste.

  “Hey!” a loud angry voice yelled. “How come you serve that stranger and you don’t serve me?”

  “Because, Señor Dempster, already, you are drunk I think,” the bartender replied. “And the more borracho—the drunker you get, the meaner you get. Besides, you lied to me when you said you didn’t have to work today. Señor Ben had to make the run to Chama without you.”

  “Since when is it any of your business whether or not I go to work?” the belligerent customer replied.

  “It is none of my business if you do not go to work. But it is my business if I make Señor Montgomery enfadado. This is his place, and he could fire me.”

  “Ha! He ain’t goin’ to fire you for sellin’ me another drink. Hell, that’s what saloons do, ain’t it? Sell drinks to their customers?”

  “Dempster, why don’t you settle down?” one of the other saloon patrons said. “You been
a burr under ever’body’s saddle ever since you come in here.”

  Pearlie continued to stand there with his back to the bar, watching the exchange as he drank his beer.

  “What the hell are you lookin’ at, you pie-faced weasel?” Dempster said to Pearlie.

  Pearlie finished his beer before he replied.

  “Mister, don’t try to draw me into all this. I just stopped in for a beer.”

  “Yeah? Well, you finished it, so get.”

  “Señor Dempster, to my customers like that, you no can talk,” the bartender said.

  “I’ll talk to anyone any damn way I want,” Dempster replied belligerently.

  “Dempster!” a new voice called out angrily.

  Turning toward the door of the saloon, Pearlie saw a gray-haired, gray-bearded man, short, stocky, and angry.

  “What do you want?”

  “Where were you when the stage left this morning?” the gray-haired man asked.

  “There didn’t nobody come to wake me up. If someone had come to wake me up in time, I wouldn’t have missed the stage.”

  “It ain’t nobody else’s job to wake you up in the mornin’,” the gray-haired man said. “If you hadn’t been hungover, you would’ve been able to wake yourself up. And look at you. You’re drunk now.”

  “Come on, Ben, I ain’t that drunk. I’ll be at work tomorrow mornin’, just you wait and see.”

  “No, you won’t be there tomorrow or any other day. You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me. You’re just a stagecoach driver.”

  “I didn’t fire you, I’m just tellin’ you you’re fired. Mr. Montgomery is the one who fired you,” Ben said.

  “Yeah? Well, who are you goin’ to get to ride shotgun with you?”

  “We’ll find somebody before the stage leaves,” Ben said.

  “You’re the one that talked him into firin’ me, aren’t you?”

  “What if I am? You’re supposed to be riding shotgun guard with me. You think I want a drunk sitting beside me?”

  “Montgomery is going to have to find a new shotgun guard and a new driver,” Dempster said. “Cause I aim to shoot you right between the eyes.”