Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas Read online

There was another series of loud pops, followed by the high peal of a woman’s laughter, then the sound of a brass band.

  Matt moved over to the window and pulled the curtain to one side as he looked down on the street. The street was full of men and women, and Matt decided he would go down to have breakfast and see what was going on.

  Fifteen minutes later, Matt was in Moe’s Café, eating a sandwich of bacon, egg, and biscuit, when Deputy Prescott came into the café and, seeing Matt, came over to visit him.

  “I haven’t been keeping up with the date,” Matt said. “Is it the Fourth of July?”

  Prescott laughed. “The Fourth of July? No, what makes you think that?”

  “Then why all the fireworks?”

  “Ha!” Prescott replied. “You’re the cause of the fireworks.”

  “Deputy, I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about. How am I the cause of your celebration?”

  “I take it you haven’t gone down to look at the display in front of Ponder’s shop yet,” Prescott said.

  “No.”

  “Go take a look, Mr. Jensen. Then you’ll see what all the celebratin’ is about.”

  Finishing his biscuit, Matt walked down toward the Ponder’s Mortuary. There were several people, men, women and children, standing around, looking at what was displayed there. Just as Matt approached, a pan of phosphorous powder flashed, the result of a photographer taking a picture. He wondered what the picture was of, but when he picked his way through the gathered crowd, he saw the subject of the photography. Mutt Crowley’s body, his skin now a pale blue-white, had been tied to a board and propped up against the front of Ponder’s place of business. Crowley’s right eye was shut, but the left eye, the one with the scar-disfigured eyelid, was open, and opaque. Many of the more daring children would occasionally get close enough to touch the cold, clammy skin.

  “The county sheriff has asked that a picture be taken of the body, so as to prove that Mutt Crowley has actually been kilt,” Prescott explained. “He said without the proof, he can’t rightly tell the Wells Fargo folks that they need to pay the reward.”

  “Look, that’s him!” someone shouted, noticing Matt for the first time.

  “It’s Matt Jensen!”

  “Three cheers for Matt Jensen!” someone else called. “Hip, hip . . .”

  “Hooray!”

  “Hip, hip . . .”

  “Hooray!”

  “Hip, hip . . .”

  “Hooray!”

  Matt held up his hand to silence them, then noticed, for the first time, a hand-lettered sign.

  HERE IS THE BODY OF

  MUTT CROWLEY

  KILLED BY

  MATT JENSEN

  JUST AFTER CROWLEY MURDERED

  MARSHAL DEVRY PRUITT

  “I still don’t understand why all the celebration,” Matt said.

  “It’s simple,” Prescott said. “Pruitt is the fourth marshal we’ve had kilt in the last four months. The man who kilt the marshal was kilt himself, and there he is.” Prescott pointed to Mutt Crowley’s body. “And you’re the one that done it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Pecos

  Prichard Crowley was asleep in the sheriff’s office when someone awakened him.

  “What the hell?” he said, sitting up in the cot. “Who is it? What do you want?”

  “You the sheriff?” a voice asked from the dark.

  “I’m the deputy.”

  “Sheriff or deputy, it don’t matter none. You’ll do just as good.”

  “I’ll do just as good as what?” he asked. He emphasized the incorrect grammar, though he knew that the person wouldn’t catch it.

  “For me to turn in the body for bounty.”

  Prichard walked over to the desk, lit the lantern, then turned it up. In the lantern’s glow he saw the bounty hunter. About five feet nine, the bounty hunter had a hook nose and an upturned chin that looked almost as if they wanted to join. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes were dark beads under dark eyebrows. He was wearing a stained hat.

  “Who have you got?” Prichard asked.

  The bounty hunter pulled a folded and wrinkled wanted poster from his pocket, and spread it out on the desk by the lantern.

  “I’ve got this here feller throwed belly down over his horse outside,” the bounty hunter said. “All I need from you is a receipt sayin’ yeah, this is him. Then you can put in for my reward.”

  “How do you know the man you have is Holder?”

  “Hell, it’s easy. He got part of his ear bit off last time he was in prison. And he’s missin’ two fingers on his left hand,” the bounty hunter said.

  That was what Prichard wanted to hear. Because he was in charge of posting all the wanted posters, he was aware not only of who Holder was, but of his physical description.

  “What’s your name?” Prichard asked.

  “The name is Franken. Harry Franken. There prob’ly ain’t nobody ’round here ever heard of me. I mostly stay ’round San Antone, but I got word that Holder was over here and, sure enough, when I come over here, I found ’im. He was hidin’ out in a cabin, no more’n five miles from here.”

  “So this was the first place you came?” Prichard asked. “What I mean is, nobody else has seen the body?”

  “No, why would I go anywhere else? I told you, I found him in a cabin, not more’n five miles west of here, down in a draw, it was. Why, you could damn near ride right by it, and miss it. But I know’d what I was lookin’ for, you see, and I found it. So what I done is, I took my rifle and laid nearby is some rocks. Where I was, was no more’n fifty yards away from the front door. I waited ’til he come out to take a piss.” Franken laughed. “Then, while he was standin’ there takin’ ’im a piss, why, I shot ’im.” Franken laughed again. “Don’t you know he was some surprised, gettin’ shot right while he was takin’ a piss?”

  “I will have to validate your claim,” Prichard said.

  “You’ll have to what?”

  “I’ll have to see him,” Prichard said.

  “Oh, well, sure, if that’s all. Like I said, I’ve got him throwed over his horse. Come on outside, and I’ll show ’im to you.”

  Franken started toward the door, and Prichard followed along behind. Franken stopped, and looked back. “Won’t you be needin’ the lantern?”

  “Why? I can determine if part of his ear and two fingers are missing without a lantern.”

  Franken chuckled. “Yeah, I reckon you can at that.”

  As the two men started through the door, Prichard, who was following behind, reached over to pick up a piece of wire that was left over from having suspended from the picture rail a photograph of John Ireland, governor of Texas.

  The two men stepped out into the dark night, made even darker by the fact that there was no moon. There were also no streetlamps near the sheriff’s office.

  “I don’t know,” Franken said. “It’s pretty dark. You sure you’ll be able to see enough?”

  “I’m sure.”

  There were two horses tied in front of the sheriff’s office. One of them had a body draped over the saddle, and the other was empty.

  “Grab him by the hair and lift his head up,” Prichard said.

  “All right,” Franken replied. He grabbed Holder’s head by the hair and lifted it up. “It was his left ear that was bit off, and if you look here you can see what I’m tal . . . arrrrrrghhh!”

  Prichard looped the wire around Franken’s neck, then tightened it. Franken struggled, and reached up to try and grab the wire, but by now it was not only strangling him, it was cutting into his neck.

  “This is called a garrote,” Prichard said quietly. “You may be interested in knowing that it was used primarily as a means of execution by the Spanish.”

  Franken continued to make barely audible gurgling sounds.

  “But it is also an excellent weapon for killing quietly, and without too much blood,” Prichard continued, as if conducting a class.

&n
bsp; Franken’s body stretched out in a spasmodic death shudder, and his tongue protruded from his mouth. Within less than a minute he grew limp, and even in the dim light Prichard could see that his face was now discolored and contorted. His tongue was forced out of his mouth.

  Prichard removed the wire, and let Franken’s body fall to the ground. Then, he looked around to make certain no one had seen what just happened. It was a needless precaution because it was two o’clock in the morning, it was pitch dark, and the nearest house was at least one hundred yards away. He was absolutely positive he hadn’t been seen.

  Prichard draped Franken over his own horse and tied him securely. Then he saddled his horse and led the two horses, both bearing bodies, out of town.

  When Prichard had first come to Pecos he’d seen a deep crevice in a nearby draw about eight miles northwest of the town. The crevice was narrow, and several hundred feet deep. Prichard rode up to the edge of the crevice, removed Franken’s body from the back of the horse, and dropped it down into the crevice. He took off the saddle and dropped it down into the crevice as well. After that he gave Franken’s horse a whack on the rump and sent it galloping off. That done, he started back to town with Holder’s body draped across the dead outlaw’s horse.

  It was well after daylight when Prichard returned, and Sheriff Nelson was waiting for him.

  “Where’ve you been?” Sheriff Nelson asked.

  “Didn’t you get my note?”

  “What note?”

  “Well, as you are aware, since you are the one who assigned the task to me, I’ve been processing wanted posters. Because of that I’ve come across considerable information about many of the wanted men and, last night, I saw Barry Holder coming into town. I challenged him, and he turned and galloped off. It took me a couple of minutes to get saddled, so I left you a note to tell you where . . . oh, no wait. That was dumb of me. I wrote the note, but I forgot to leave it.”

  He pulled the note out of his pocket.

  “Anyway, you can read the note. It says that I am going in pursuit of Mr. Holder.” Prichard smiled, broadly. “Which I did, and I’ve got him. He’s draped across his horse, and now the state of Texas owes me twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  Sheriff Nelson chuckled. “Conner, you need to slow down a little. At the rate you’re going, you could wind up having my job after the next election.”

  “Not to worry, Sheriff. I have no intention of standing for sheriff. I am perfectly content to be your deputy.

  “I’ve said it before. You’re a good man.”

  Shady Rest

  “It ain’t right,” Bill Carter said. “It ain’t right at all to have Mutt’s body hung up there like a side of beef for ever’ one to come by and gawk at.”

  “It would be all right if Jensen was standin’ up there alongside him, dead as Mutt is,” Lenny Fletcher said. “We shouldn’t a’ shot at him last night. We should a’ waited till we had a better shot than to try ’n shoot him through the hotel window at night.”

  “They’s only one thing wrong with that idea,” Carter said. “Iffen we’d a’ had a better shot at him, that means he would a’ got a shot at us. You want to go up ag’in him, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  After the unexpected celebration, and the unsolicited and unwanted congratulations, Matt felt the need to get out of town for a while, so he took Spirit out for a ride, just to give him some exercise.

  About an hour’s ride out of town, Matt came across a clear lake. The surface of the lake, as smooth as a mirror, reflected the nearby complex assemblage of thorny and deciduous plants, a blue sky with a few white puffs of clouds, as well as the serrated peaks of the Guadalupe Mountains. Matt dismounted and led Spirit down to the water’s edge. The horse lowered his head into the water and took a long drink.

  “Yeah, I know,” Matt said. “It’s nicer to be out here than to be cooped up in a stall somewhere, isn’t it? Truth is, I like it out here better than I do in town also.”

  Matt picked up a rock and threw it out into the lake. It made a splash, and a hawk came swooping down to investigate.

  “Funny thing is, when we’re on the trail, I get to thinking about how nice a real bed would be, and maybe a meal at a restaurant, and a few beers, and I want to get into to town. Then, when I’m in town, it seems like things start closing in on me, and I want to get out on the trail again.”

  Fifty yards away a doe came out of the woods, stood for a long moment, then looked back to signal her fawn. Doe and fawn came down to the water’s edge to drink.

  “Tell me, Spirit, how does that deer know I’m not going to shoot her? You know she saw me here.”

  Spirit whickered.

  Matt chuckled. “I know, I know, you’ve told me before. You’re a horse, and you can’t talk.” Matt swung back into the saddle. “But I’ll say this for you. You’re a damn good listener.”

  Pecos

  Prichard was sitting behind the desk in the sheriff’s office when a pretty, blond-haired woman came in. She was carrying a package.

  “Yes, ma’am, may I be of assistance?” Prichard asked, standing to greet the woman.

  “Deputy, I don’t know if you remember me—we spoke briefly the other day. I’m Margaret Margrabe.”

  “Oh, indeed I do remember you, Miss Margrabe. You are the schoolteacher.”

  “Yes, I’m flattered that you remember.”

  “How could I not remember someone as lovely as you?”

  Margaret blushed, then reached up self-consciously to adjust her already perfectly coiffed hair.

  “I—that is, some friends and I—wanted to welcome you to our fair city. Especially as you have taken on the dangerous responsibility of the role of deputy sheriff. So we—that is, I, on their behalf—made a batch of cookies for you. I know that it is probably foolish and perhaps even juvenile, but I—that is, we—just wanted to express our appreciation.”

  “Ah, oatmeal cookies,” Prichard said as she opened the package for him.

  “I hope you like them. Some people, I suppose, think of oats only as food for horses.”

  Prichard took a bite of one of the cookies, then smacked his lips in appreciation. “It is said of the oat, Miss Margrabe, that it is a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. But the Scots say that England is noted for the excellence of her horses, while Scotland is known for the excellence of her men.”

  Margaret clapped her hands together, and laughed out loud. “Oh, what a delightful tidbit,” she said.

  “Yes, I perceived that you were of the intelligence and education to enjoy something like that,” Prichard said.

  “Oh, Deputy Conner . . .”

  “Couldn’t you call me Abe?”

  “I, I wouldn’t want to be so forward as to presume,” Margaret said.

  “There is no presumption if the invitation is offered. . . Margaret.”

  “Very well, I shall be happy to call you Abe. You know, Abe, it has been very difficult for me to make . . . gentlemen friends in Pecos.”

  “Oh, now, that is difficult to believe. You are an exceptionally beautiful woman, well mannered, educated, and intelligent.”

  “Yes, and there is the rub. I do hope that you not take this as being conceited, though I confess that it may sound so. The truth is, Abe, I find it difficult to relate to men who are . . .” Margaret stopped in midsentence.

  “Intellectually inferior?” Prichard asked, suggesting a finish to her statement.

  “Oh, dear, you must think me quite the snob.”

  “On the contrary, Margaret. I understand perfectly, for I have had the same difficulty in establishing any type of relationship with a woman. I bore quickly of their talk of quilting, and cooking, and babies, and such. I find myself longing for a discussion that will satisfy my intellectual curiosity.”

  “Oh, we are alike!” Margaret said. “I knew it!”

  “I would appreciate the opportunity to call on you, sometime.�
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  “Yes!” Margaret said; then, quickly, the smile left her face. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m afraid that can’t be.”

  “Why is that?”

  “My contract with the school board. Not only must I remain single, I cannot be seen publicly with a man.”

  “Then, as Romeo and Juliet were forced to keep their love a secret, so too shall we keep our friendship a secret,” Prichard said.

  Margaret started toward the door, then turned and held her hand out toward Prichard. “Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night ’til it be morrow.”

  Prichard smiled, then held his hand out toward her as he replied. “Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast. Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.”

  Margaret, with a self-conscious smile, let herself out.

  Prichard ate another cookie after she left, then chuckled. “Methinks this bird is prime for the plucking,” he said, laughing at the double entendre.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Shady Rest

  Because Matt had to wait for the money to arrive, he wound up spending more time in Shady Rest than he had originally intended. He occupied his time by taking rides in the adjacent countryside, and visiting with newfound friends in the Texas Star. On this particular afternoon he was in the Texas Star Saloon, playing cards with Emerson Culpepper.

  “Since you probably saved my life a few days ago, I shall go easy on you,” Culpepper said as he dealt the hands to the table.

  “No, don’t do that,” Matt said. “I enjoy playing cards with a professional. There is always room to learn.”

  Culpepper smiled. “All right, Mr. Jensen, I’ll do what I can to instruct you.”

  During the poker game, Mayor Trout was conducting a meeting of the city council. And even though Annabelle O’Callahan wasn’t a member of the city council, she was present for the meeting as a “representative of the merchants of Shady Rest.” Deputy Prescott wasn’t a member of the city council either, but he was there as well.