Journey of the Mountain Man Read online

  DEADLY CHALLENGE

  Smoke Jensen slipped out of the house onto the stone-and-wood porch. He knew the chance of his being seen by the outlaws up on the ridges several hundred yards away was practically nonexistent, but he stayed low from force of habit.

  Smoke darted off the porch to a tree in the yard, then over a fence and a footrace to the corral. Just one more stretch of open space before the safety of the bunkhouse, but as he got set for the run, a cold voice spoke behind him.

  “I’ll be known as the man who kilt Smoke Jensen. Die, you meddlin’ bastard!”

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  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  JOURNEY OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.pinnaclebooks.com

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  Table of Contents

  DEADLY CHALLENGE

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  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Copyright Page

  It is only the dead who do not return.

  —Bertrand De Vieuzac

  Dedicated to: James Albert Martin

  One

  “I didn’t think you had any living relatives, except for your sister?”

  “I didn’t either. But then I forgot about Pa’s brother. He was supposed to have gotten killed at Chancellorsville, back in ’63. I guess this letter came from his kids. It would have to be; it’s signed Fae Jensen.”

  “I wonder how they knew where to write?” Sally asked. “Big Rock is not exactly the hub of commerce, culture, and industry.”

  The man laughed at that. The schoolteacher in his wife kept coming out in the way she could put words together.

  It was 1882, in the high-up country of Colorado. The cabin had recently been remodeled: two new rooms added for Louis Arthur and Denise Nicole Jensen. The twins were approaching their first birthday.

  And the man called Smoke was torn between going to the aid of a family member he had never seen and staying at home for the birthday party.

  “You have to go, Smoke,” Sally spoke the words softly.

  “Gibson, in the Montana Territory.” The tall, wide-shouldered and lean-hipped man shook his head. “A long way from home. On what might be a wild goose hunt. Probably is. I don’t even know where Gibson is.”

  Sally once more opened the letter and read it aloud. The handwriting was definitely that of a woman, and a woman who had earned high marks in penmanship.

  Dear Cousin Kirby,

  I read about you in the local paper last year, after that dreadful fight at Dead River. I wanted to write you then, but thought my brother and I could handle the situation ourselves. Time has proven me incorrect. We are in the middle of a war here, and our small ranch lies directly between the warring factions. I did not believe when this range war was started that either Mr. Dooley Hanks or Mr. Cord McCorkle would deliberately harm us, but conditions have worsened to the point where I fear for our lives. Any help you could give us would be greatly appreciated.

  Respectfully, your cousin

  Fae Jensen

  “Have you ever heard of either of those men, Smoke?”

  “McCorkle. He came into that country twenty years or more ago. Started the Circle Double C. He’s a hard man, but I never heard of him riding roughshod over a woman.”

  “How about this Dooley Hanks?”

  Smoke shook his head. “The name sort of rings a bell. But it isn’t ringin’ very loud.”

  “When will you be leaving, honey?”

  He turned his brown eyes on her, eyes that were usually cold and emotionless. Except when he looked at her. “I haven’t said I was going.”

  “I’ll be fine, Smoke. We’ve got some good hands and some good neighbors. You don’t have to worry about me or the babies.” She held up the letter. “They’re blood kin, honey.”

  He slowly nodded his head. “I’ll get things squared away around the Sugarloaf, and probably pull out in about three days.” He smiled. “If you just insist that I go.”

  She poked him in the ribs and ran laughing out of the room.

  “That’s him,” the little boy said to his friend, visiting from the East. “That’s the one ever’body writes about in them penny dreadfuls. That’s Smoke Jensen.”

  Smoke tied his horse to the hitchrail in front of the Big Rock Guardian and went inside to speak with Haywood Arden, owner and editor.

  “He sure is mean-lookin’,” the boy from back East said. “And he really does wear them guns all whopper-jawed, don’t he?”

  The first thing Haywood noticed was Smoke wearing two guns, the left hand .44 worn butt forward for a cross-draw, the right hand .44 low and tied down.

  “Expecting trouble, Smoke?”

  “Not around here. Just getting used to wearing them again. I’ve got to take a trip, Haywood. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Probably most of the spring and part of the summer. I know Sheriff Carson is out of town, so I’d be beholden if you’d ask him to check in with Sally from time to time. I’m not expecting any trouble out there; Preacher Morrow and Bountiful are right over the ridge and my hands would fight a grizzly with a stick. I’d just feel better if Monte would drop by now and then.”

  “I’ll sure do it, Smoke.” He had a dozen questions he’d like to ask, but in the West, a man’s business was his own.

  Smoke stuck out his hand. “See you in a few months, Haywood. Give Dana my best.”

  Haywood watched the tall, broad-shouldered, ruggedly handsome man stroll up the boardwalk toward the general store. Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man. The hero of dozens of dime novels. The fastest gun in the West. A man who never wanted the title of gunfighter, but who at sixteen years of age was taken under the tutelage of an old he-coon named Preacher. The old mountain man had taught the boy well, and the boy had grown into one of the most feared and respected men in the West.

  No one really knew how many outlaws and murderers and gunslingers and highwaymen had fallen under Smoke’s thundering .44’s. Some said fifty, others said two hundred. Smoke himself didn’t really know for sure.

  But Haywood knew one thing for a fact: if Smoke Jensen had strapped on his guns, and was going on a journey, it would darn sure be interesting when he reached his destination.

  Interesting and deadly.

  The next morning Smoke saddled a tough mountain-bred horse named Dagger—the outline of a knife was on the animal’s left rump—checked his canvased and tied-down supplies on the pack horse, and went back into the cabin.

  The twins were still sleeping as their father slipped into their rooms and softly kissed each child’s cheek. He stepped back out into the main room of the cabin—the den, as Sally called it. “Sally, I don’t know what I’m riding into this time. Or how long I’ll be gone.”

  She smiled at him. “Then I’ll see you when you get back.”

  They embraced, kissed, and Smoke stepped out the door, walking to the barn. With the pack horse rope in his left hand, Smoke lifted his right hand in farewell, picked up the reins, and pointed Dagger’s nose toward the north.

  Sally watched him until he was out of sight, then with a sigh, turned and walked into the cabin, quietly closing the door behind her.

  Smoke had dressed warmly, for it was still early spring in the high lonesome, and the early mornings and nights were cold. But as the sun touched the land with its warming rays, he would shed his heavy lined jacket and travel wearing a buckskin jacket, made for him by the squaws of Indian friends.

  He traveled following a route that
kept the Rocky Mountains to his left and the Medicine Bow Mountains to his right. He crossed the Continental Divide and angled slightly west. He knew this country, and loved it. Preacher had first shown this country to him, back in the late sixties, and Smoke had fallen in love with it. The columbine was in early bloom, splashing the countryside in blue and lavender and white and purple.

  Smoke’s father, Emmett Jensen, was buried at Brown’s Hole, up near the Utah line, in the northwest corner of Colorado. Buried lying atop thousands and thousands of dollars in gold. No one except Smoke and Preacher knew that, and neither one of them had any intention of spreading it about.

  Old Preacher was in his early eighties, at least, but it had filled Smoke with joy and love to learn that he was still alive.

  Cantankerous old billy-goat!

  On his third night out, Smoke made camp halfway between Rabbit Ears Pass and Buffalo Pass, in the high-up country of the Rockies. He had caught some trout just before dusk dropped night on the land and was frying them in a dollop of lard when he saw Dagger’s ears come up.

  Smoke set the frying pan away from the flames, on a part of the circle of stones around the flames, and slipped back a few feet from the fire and put a hand on his Winchester .44.

  “Hallo, the fire!” the voice came out of the darkness. “I’m friendly as a little wolf cub but as hongry as a just woke-up bar.”

  Smoke smiled. But his hand did not leave his Winchester. “Then come on in. I’ll turn no hungry man away from a warm fire and a meal.”

  The stranger came out of the brush, keeping one hand in view, the other hand tugging at the lead rope which was attached to a reluctant donkey. “I’m aheadin’ for the tradin’ post on the Illinois,” he said, stripping the gear from the donkey’s back and hobbling the animal so it could graze and stay close. “Ran slap out of food yesterday and ain’t seen no game atall.”

  “I have plenty of fish and fried potatoes and bread,” Smoke told him. “Spread your blanket and sit.” Smoke poured him a tin cup of coffee.

  “Kind of you, stranger. Kind. I’m called Big Foot.” He grinned and held up a booted foot. “Size fourteen. Been up in Montana lookin’ for some color. Got snowed in. Coldest damn place I ever been in my life.” He hooked a piece of bread and went to gnawing.

  “I run a ranch south of here. The Sugarloaf. Name’s Jensen.”

  Big Foot choked on his bread. When he finally got it swallowed, he took a drink of coffee. “Smoke Jensen?” he managed to gasp.

  “Yes.”

  “Aunt Fanny’s drawers!”

  Smoke smiled and slid the skillet back over the flames, dumping in some sliced potatoes and a few bits of some early wild onions for flavor. “Where’bouts in Montana?”

  “All around the Little Belt Mountains. East of the Smith River.”

  “Is that anywhere close to Gibson?”

  “Durn shore is. And that’s a good place to fight shy of, Smoke. Big range war goin’ on. Gonna bust wide open any minute.”

  “Seems to me I heard about that. McCorkle and Hanks, right?”

  “Right on the money. Dooley Hanks has done hired Lanny Ball, and McCorkle put Jason Bright on the payroll. I reckon you’ve heard of them two?”

  “Killers. Two-bit punks who hire their guns.”

  Big Foot shook his head. “You can get away with sayin’ that, but not me. Them two is poison fast, Smoke. They’s talk about that Mex gunhawk, Diego, comin’ in. He’s ’pposed to be bringing in half a dozen with him. Bad ones.”

  “Probably Pablo Gomez is with him. They usually double-team a victim.”

  “Say! You’re right. I heard that. They gonna be workin’ for Hanks.”

  Smoke served up the fish and potatoes and bread and both men fell to it.

  When the edges had been taken off their hunger, Smoke asked, “Town had to be named for somebody ... who’s Gibson?”

  “Well, it really ain’t much of a town. Three, four stores, two saloons, a barber shop, and a smithy. I don’t know who Gibson is, or was, whatever.

  “No school?”

  “Well, sort of. Got a real prissy feller teachin’ there. Say! His name’s Jensen, too. Parnell Jensen. But he ain’t no kin to you, Smoke. Y’all don’t favor atall. Parnell don’t look like nothin’!”

  Parnell was his uncle’s middle name.

  “But Parnell’s sister, now, brother, that is another story.”

  Smoke dropped in more lard and more fish and potatoes. He sopped up the grease in his tin plate with a hunk of bread and waited for Big Foot to continue.

  “Miss Fae would tackle a puma with a short switch. She ain’t no real comely lass, but that ain’t what’s keepin’ the beaux away. It’s that damn temper of her’n. Got her a tongue you could use for a skinnin’ knife. I seen and heared her lash out at that poor brother of her’n one time that was plumb pitiful. Made my old donkey draw all up. He teaches school and she runs the little ranch they got. Durnest mixed-up mess I ever did see. That woman rides astraddle! Plumb embarrassin’!”

  Big Foot ate up everything in sight, then picked up the skillet and sopped it out with a hunk of bread. He poured another cup of coffee and with a sigh of contentment, leaned back and rolled a smoke. “Mighty fine eats, Smoke. Feel human agin.”

  “Where you heading, Big Foot?”

  “Kansas. I’m givin’ ’er up. I been prowlin’ this countryside for twenty-five years, chasin’ color. Never found the motherlode. Barely findin’ enough color to keep body and soul alive. My brother’s been pesterin’ me for years to come hep work his hog farm. So that’s where I’m headin’. Me and Lucy over yonder. Bes’ burro I ever had. I’m gonna retie her; just let ’er eat and get fat. You?”

  “Heading up to Montana to check out some land. I don’t plan on staying long.”

  “You fight shy of Gibson, now, Smoke. They’s something wrong with that town.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “Cain’t hardly put it in words. It’s a feel in the air. And the people is crabby. Oh, most go to church and all that. But it’s ... well, they don’t like each other. Always bickerin’ about this and that and the other thing. The lid’s gonna blow off that whole county one of these days. It’s gonna be unpleasant when it do.”

  “How about the sheriff?”

  “He’s nearabouts a hundred miles away. I never put eyes on him or any of his deputies. Ain’t no town marshal. Just a whole bunch of gunslicks lookin’ hard at one another. When they start grabbin’ iron, it’s gonna be a sight to see.”

  Big Foot drank his coffee and lay back with a grunt. “And I’ll tell you something else: that Fae Jensen woman, her spread is smack in the middle of it all. She’s got the water and the graze, and both sides wants it. Sharp tongue and men’s britches an’ all ... I feel sorry for her.”

  “She have hands?”

  “Had a half a dozen. Down to two now. Both of them old men. Hanks and McCorkle keep runnin’ off anyone she hires. Either that or just outright killin’ them. Drug one young puncher, Hanks s men did. Killed him. But McCorkle is not a really mean person. He just don’t like Hanks. Nothin’ to like. Hanks is evil, Smoke. Just plain evil.”

  Two

  Come the dawning, Smoke gave Big Foot enough food to take him to the trading post. They said their goodbyes and each went their own way: one north, one east.

  Smoke pondered the situation as he rode, trying to work out a plan of action. Since he knew only a smattering of what was going on, he decided to go in unknown and check it out. He took off his pistols and tucked them away in his supplies. He began growing a mustache.

  Just inside Wyoming, Smoke came up on the camp of half a dozen riders. It took him but one glance to know what they were: gunhawks.

  “Light and set,” one offered, his eyes appraising Smoke and deciding he was no danger. He waved toward the fire. “We got beef and beans.”

  “Jist don’t ask where the meat come from,” a young man said with a mean grin.

  “You talk too much, Royce,” another told him. “Shut up and eat.” He looked at Smoke. “Help yourself, stranger.”

  “Thanks.” Smoke filled a plate and squatted down. “Lookin’ for work. Any of you boys know where they’re hirin’?”