Venom of the Mountain Man Read online

  “I didn’t say they was paper out on you,” Allison replied. “All I said was you was worth five thousand dollars to me iffen I was to kill you.”

  “Who has made that offer?”

  “It ain’t none of your concern who has made that offer, seein’ as you won’t be around to do nothin’ about it.” Alison called to Pearlie, “Hey you, the one drinkin’ the beer.”

  “The name is Pearlie.” He spoke as calmly as if introducing himself at a friendly encounter.

  “Yeah? Well, Pearlie, you done got shot oncet today. Iffen you don’t want to get shot again, you’d better move out of the way.”

  “What do you mean, if I don’t want to get shot?” Pearlie replied. “I thought Smoke is the one you’re getting paid to shoot. Just how is it that I’m going to get shot?”

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? Me ’n Smoke Jensen here is about to have ourselves a little dance. And you bein’ where you are could likely get shot.”

  “Oh, I see what you’re saying, but there’s no problem,” Pearlie said. “Besides, I haven’t finished my drink.”

  “Jensen, you’d better tell your friend here to get out of the way,” Allison said.

  “Oh, I think he’s quite safe,” Smoke replied.

  Allison smiled. “Because you don’t think I’ll miss?”

  “No, the truth is, Allison, you won’t even get a shot off.”

  “The hell I won’t!” Allison yelled as he started toward his gun.

  In a lightning draw, Smoke had his pistol in his hand.

  “No! Wait!” Allison shouted, letting his gun drop back into its holster and raising both arms over his head. “How? How the hell did you do that?”

  The saloon patrons observing the unfolding scene from their vantage points within the room were as shocked as Allison, and the same question he had asked was on many of their lips. How did he get his gun out so fast?

  “Look, I was just funnin’ with you,” Allison said. “I didn’t have no real idea of drawin’ ag’in you. What . . . what are you goin’ to do?”

  “Yes, Smoke, what are you going to do?” Warren Kennedy asked, having just stepped into the saloon that bore his name.

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” Smoke said. “I think I’ll just shoot him.”

  “You ain’t goin’ to shoot me,” Allison said. “It would be murder.”

  “I’ll leave it up to you, Warren,” Smoke said easily. “This is your saloon. Do you want me to kill him? Or should I let him live?”

  “I’m tempted to tell you to go ahead and shoot him.” Kennedy smiled. “You’re quite a well-known figure, Mr. Jensen. Why, if I put a sign on the wall behind the bar that said Smoke Jensen killed Blackjack Allison here, why, I’ve no doubt it would be good for business.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Allison said nervously. “Not after we—”

  “Get out of here, Allison,” Kennedy said with a contemptuous nod of his head toward the door. “And don’t come back into my saloon picking a fight you can’t handle.”

  “Can I put my hands back down?” Allison asked Smoke.

  “Yeah.”

  Allison dropped his hands then turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” Smoke called.

  Allison stopped.

  “Before you leave, shuck out of that gun belt. The pistol stays here,” Smoke said.

  “The hell it does!” Allison replied in one last attempt at bravado.

  “Leave it,” Smoke said coldly.

  “Mister, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to give up my gun.”

  Smoke pulled the hammer back on his pistol, and the deadly metallic click sounded loud in the room. “Oh, I think you will.”

  Allison paused for a moment longer, then, looking at Smoke with an expression of intense anger, unbuckled his gun belt and let it drop to the floor.

  “Now you can go,” Smoke said.

  “When do I get it back?” he asked.

  “Not until my friend and I have left the saloon.”

  Kennedy laughed out loud after Allison left the saloon. “Glen, drinks on the house . . . for everyone,” Kennedy ordered.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Kennedy,” Ethan replied.

  With a happy shout, as much in relief of tension as appreciation for the drinks, all the patrons rushed to the bar with their orders.

  “You son of a bitch!” Allison shouted, stepping back into the barroom, holding a rifle to his shoulder.

  Many were now in Allison’s line of fire. Shouts of surprise and fear erupted as everyone tried to get out of the way. The room filled with the sound of a gunshot . . . and Allison stood there for a moment with a look of shock on his face. “You? You shot me?”

  He dropped the rifle and slapped his hand over a bleeding hole in his chest, standing there only long enough for people to see the blood streaming between his fingers before he pitched forward and landed facedown on the floor.

  Not until then did everyone realize where the shot had come from. They all turned to see Warren Kennedy standing with a smoking pistol in his hand.

  “That’s the second time you’ve saved my life,” Smoke said.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Kennedy replied with a self-assured smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  New York City

  Officer Muldoon stepped up to the front desk at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

  “Yes, Officer, what can I do for you?” the desk clerk asked.

  “Would you be for tellin’ me please in what room I might find a Mr. Cal Wood?”

  The desk clerk ran his fingers down the open pages of the registration book until he found the name. “He is in room four-oh-three. Officer, there is nothing wrong, is there? What I mean is only the most select people stay here, and I wouldn’t want any kind of confrontation that would disturb our guests.”

  “There is nothing wrong, and the lad is in no trouble,” Muldoon said. “All I’ll be doing is talking with him.”

  “You may take the elevator,” the clerk said.

  A few moments later, the elevator operator opened the door onto the fourth floor. “You’ll find four-oh-three that way, Officer. Just down the hall and on the left,” the operator said.

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Cal was lying on his bed with his hands laced behind his head. He had not yet sent a telegram to Smoke, and he was wondering whether or not he should. He knew there was nothing Smoke could do, and he felt that there was no sense in worrying him. If the situation turned worse, he would tell him, but for now, Cal was absorbing all the worry himself. And he was literally sick with it, primarily because he wasn’t doing anything about it.

  A knock on the door jarred him from his melancholy, and remembering that the police lieutenant had promised to inform him of anything they might learn, he leaped up from the bed and hurried to open the door. “Officer Muldoon! Have you any news?”

  “Nothing about your lady yet, but I’ve some news that might be to your liking.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your friends . . . the famous actors?”

  “Yes? What about them?”

  “They’ve gone to see His Honor, the mayor. Would you be for believin’ that Mayor Grace has made you a New York City deputy? You’ll be workin’ on the case with me.”

  “Oh!” Cal said as a huge smile spread across his face. “Oh, Officer Muldoon, that is great!”

  “Come along. We’ll walk my beat together.”

  “Wait for me in the lobby,” Cal said. “I need to change clothes.”

  Cal went down to the lobby a few minutes later dressed as he would be if he had been back in Colorado. He was wearing boots, but no spurs, blue denim trousers, a yellow shirt, and a Stetson hat with a turquoise-studded hatband. He was also wearing a pistol belt, complete with filled bullet loops. His Colt .45 rode conspicuously on his hip.

  “I don’t know about the pistol, lad,” Officer Muldoon said.

  “Remember,
I’m a deputy sheriff for Eagle County, Colorado,” Cal said. “And you said yourself that the mayor issued me a special license to act as a deputy here in New York.”

  Muldoon chuckled. “That’s right, he did. Tell me, Deputy Wood, are you any good with that pistol?”

  “I haven’t shot myself in the leg yet,” Cal replied.

  Muldoon laughed. “Good enough. Come with me. I don’t mind saying that, considerin’ some o’ the brigands we’ll be seein’, ’twill be good to have you along.”

  The first place they visited was Donovan’s Pub, an Irish bar that was just across the street from where Cal and Sally were attacked. It was obvious Muldoon was a frequent visitor. Everyone in the pub gave him a hearty greeting.

  “Who’s the cowboy with you, Muldoon?” one of the customers asked.

  “He is a deputy sheriff from Colorado,” Muldoon said, using the information Cal had provided him, but withholding the fact that he was also a New York deputy. “Deputy Wood, he is.”

  “What’s a deputy from Colorado doin’ here in New York?” another asked.

  “I’m looking for a woman that was taken last night,” Cal said.

  “Taken? Taken where?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out . . . where she was taken.”

  “It happened right across the street, sometime between ten o’clock and eleven o’clock it was. ’Tis wondering, the deputy and I are, whether any of you might have seen somethin’,” Muldoon said.

  “Hey, cowboy,” one of the patrons called out to Cal. “What are you doin’ comin’ into a man’s drinkin’ bar with cow shit on your shoes?”

  “Damn, are you telling me I’ve got cow shit on my boots?” Cal replied, holding one of them up to examine. “And here they are brand new, too.”

  “Ha! Darby, I think the lad has got you,” the bartender said to the man who had challenged Cal.

  “Aye,” one of the other patrons said. “Sure ’n the only shit now is on Darby’s face ’n not on the lad’s shoes.”

  “Think you’re smart, do you, cowboy?” Darby had been leaning against the bar, but when he stepped away from it, Cal saw how large he was—at least six-foot-three, with broad shoulders and powerful arms. He bent both arms at the elbow and made a beckoning sign with his curled fingers. “Here now, ’n why don’t you show us just how smart you be.”

  “Easy enough to show you how smart I am,” Cal replied with an easy smile. “I’m too smart to fight with a giant like you.”

  “Well now lad, this has done gone too far. You’ve got m’ dander up, you have, ’n the only way I’m goin’ to be pacified is if I teach you a little lesson.”

  “Leave the lad be, Darby,” Muldoon said. “You touch ’im ’n you’ll be windin’ up in the Tombs.”

  “Won’t be the first time I’ve been in jail. ’Twill be worth it to teach the cowboy a lesson,” Darby said with a broad smile.

  Cal knew that Darby was about to rush him, and he came up on his toes ready to deal with it.

  With a yell that could almost be a growl, Darby bent over at the waist with his arms stretched out in front of him and charged Cal. Cal deftly stepped aside, drew his pistol, and brought it down as hard as he could on Darby’s head. He put the gun back in its holster so quickly that no more than one or two of the witnesses even knew that a gun was used.

  “Blimey now, ’n did you see that?” someone shouted.

  Darby lay very still and for a moment Cal was afraid that he might have killed him.

  He knelt quickly to check on him and was relieved to find that he was still alive. “Bartender, do you have a pitcher of water?”

  “Aye.” The bartender drew a pitcher of water and handed it to Cal, who poured it over Darby, standing ready in case any fight remained in the Irishman.

  Darby came to, spitting and coughing. He got up on his hands and knees. “Begorra. Would someone be for tellin’ me what I’m doin’ on the floor?”

  “Why, you tripped over yer own feet, you big galoot,” the bartender said.

  “I did?”

  “Aye.” The bartender drew a mug of beer. “Here, have a mug on the house. I can’t be for havin’ m’ customers fall all over the place in the pub now, can I? How would that look for business?”

  “I’ll have a drink with you, Darby,” one of the others said.

  Soon several others made the same offer.

  “What about you, lad?” Darby asked Cal. “Would you be for havin’ a drink with ol’ Darby?”

  “Yes, thank you. I’d like that,” Cal said.

  The bartender drew a mug for Cal, who blew off the foam, then held his beer out toward the others as they all drank.

  * * *

  “You done well in there, Cal,” Muldoon said when they left the pub a short while later. “I was wonderin’ how you would handle it. If you backed away, you woulda lost face that you could never recover. But ’twas for sure ’n certain that you’d be no match for him.”

  “Thanks,” Cal said, feeling good about the policeman’s compliments.

  Five Points, New York City

  The buildings on Baxter Street were festooned with awnings stretched out over the sidewalks and clothes hanging to dry from the windows of the upper floors. Even though night had fallen, the street was well illuminated by corner lamps and the ambient light streaming from the windows of the buildings.

  “I sure wish I had a picture of her,” Cal said. “I think that would help.”

  “No, lad. If they snatched her in the middle of the night, ’tis not likely anyone saw her . . . so a picture would do you no good. ’Tis if someone has heard somethin’ that we’re hopin’ for.”

  “Mickey, if something has happened to her, I’ll not be able to face Smoke.”

  “Smoke?”

  “Smoke is her husband.”

  “His name is Smoke?”

  “His real name is Kirby, but I’ve never actually heard him called that. I’ve never seen two people who cared more about each other than those two. I’ve come close to gettin’ married m’self, but it wasn’t meant to be. If I ever do get married though, I would sure hope to have something like those two have.”

  “Aye, the missus ’n I were like that,” Officer Muldoon said.

  “Were?”

  “Aye. She took the new-monia’n died last year.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Cal said.

  “Sure now, lad. ’Twas not yer fault. You don’t have nothin’ to be sorry for. ’Tis just hopin’, I am, that we can find your friend.”

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “I’m hoping that, too.”

  “We’ve a few more pubs to look into. Maybe something will turn up.”

  “Maybe,” Cal said, but his response was weak.

  The next pub they went into was called Cara.

  “A woman owns this place?” Cal asked.

  “What? No, ’n why would you be for sayin’ such a thing?”

  “It’s got a woman’s name. Cara.”

  Muldoon chuckled. “Here now, ’n that’s nothin’ o’ the sort. The word cara is Gaelic for friends. You might say the place is called Friends.”

  “Friends. Yes, that would be a good name, I think.”

  Muldoon had decided that he might have better results if he spoke to the patrons individually, rather than making a public inquiry. He reasoned that some might be more open to tell what they knew in private, rather than to speak before everyone.

  The individual questioning wasn’t producing any more results, until Cal saw someone in the back of the room who looked familiar. He thought back to the few quick glances he had of the three men who had been following Sally and him and he was almost sure it was one of them.

  “Mickey, that man in the back, the one in the brown jacket,” Cal said. “I think he might have been one of the three men who were following Miz Sally and me.”

  “The one in in the brown jacket, you say?”

  “Yes. I’m certain he was one of them.”

  Muldoon smil
ed. “Well, now, could be that our luck is about to change. His name is O’Leary, ’n he’s of the sort to do such a blackhearted thing.

  “You, O’Leary. I’d like to talk to you,” Cal called out, pointing to the man who had caught his attention.

  “We ain’t got nothin’ to talk about,” O’Leary said.

  “I think I’ve seen you before.”

  “I told you’, I’ve got no wish to be for talkin’ to you.”

  “It’s just a friendly question, is all,” Cal said.

  “No it ain’t. There ain’t nothin’ friendly about it,” O’Leary replied. He turned away for just a moment, and when he turned back he had a gun in his hand.

  “Look out, lad. He’s got a gun!” Muldoon said as he unsnapped the cover to his own holster in an effort to get to his pistol.

  O’Leary fired toward Cal and Muldoon.

  Cal’s mentor in the art of the fast draw was Smoke Jensen, the master, and Cal had his own gun out so quickly there was barely a separation between the two shots. The difference was the first shooter missed and Cal did not.

  Holding the smoking gun in his hand for a moment longer, he ascertained no other imminent threat and put the pistol back in his holster.

  “Damn!” someone said in awe. “Did you see that?”

  “Yeah, Murphy, we all seen it,” another bar patron replied.

  Muldoon had not even gotten his holster open in the time it took for Cal and the shooter to exchange shots. He pulled his hand away sheepishly. “Here now, ’tis damn good with that gun that you be, lad. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve had to do that before.”

  “A few times,” Cal said. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No trouble. For sure ’n certain O’Leary would have killed you. Aye, ’n me, too, I’m thinkin’ . . . if you hadn’t shot him. ’Tis my own life you saved. No, lad, ’tis a medal you deserve, not a charge.”

  “You said you know him.”

  “Aye, Ian Patrick O’Leary. He’s been a troublemaker ever since I started walkin’ this beat.”

  “I am absolutely positive he was one of the three men that followed Miz Sally and me.”