Shootout of the Mountain Man Read online

  “What if you was to get kilt?” Conklin asked. “If that was to happen, we wouldn’t know where to go to get the information so’s we could keep on a’ doin’ this.”

  Clark was glad that Conklin was also showing some curiosity about Dodd’s source of information. That would lessen any suspicion that Dodd might have about Clark’s inquiry.

  “What difference does that make to me?” Dodd asked. “If I get myself kilt, then I don’t care whether you keep on doin’ this or not. Seems like to me, the best thing you could do is just make sure I don’t get kilt.”

  “Ha. I’d call that pretty good insurance,” Clark said. “You got it fixed so that Conklin and I don’t have any choice but to keep you alive.”

  “Yeah,” Dodd said with an evil grin. “That’s exactly the way I got it planned.”

  “Shh!” Conklin hissed. “I think I hear it.”

  The three men fell silent and listened.

  Then they heard the driver’s whistle, followed by the crack of a whip.

  “Hyar, hyar, giddap there, giddap!” the driver shouted at his team. His voice was tinny in the distance.

  “Remember, we don’t do nothin’ till he gets to the top of the grade and stops to give the horses a blow,” Dodd said. “Now, get out of sight.”

  The three men got back off the road, taking concealment behind rocks and low-lying bushes. The coach continued its slow and laborious climb up the long, winding grade, sometimes visible and sometimes not. Finally it made the last switchback, then reached the crest.

  “Whoa!” the driver called to his team. The six horses were breathing hard and the driver set the brake, then called down to his passengers.

  “Folks, we’re goin’ to be here for a few minutes to let the horses get their breath. May as well climb down and stretch your legs a bit, and enjoy the view. ”

  Three men and a boy climbed out of the coach. Since there were no women, two of the men began relieving themselves, one on the front wheel, the other on the back wheel.

  The driver climbed down and began checking the harnesses on his team. The guard left his shotgun up on the seat and he began climbing down as well.

  “What are you doin', Tony?” the driver asked.

  “I’m goin’ take a leak.”

  “We ought not both of us be down at the same time,” the driver said.

  “Hell, Ralph, you can see for yourself there ain’t nobody around,” Tony said. “But if you want me back up there, I’ll—”

  The sound of a gunshot interrupted Tony in mid-sentence. He was at the top of the wheel, nearly ready to get back into the box, when he suddenly threw both arms up, then fell, landing hard on his back.

  “Tony! “ the driver shouted, running over to him.

  Emmett Clark gasped out loud when Dodd shot the guard. Fortunately, his gasp of surprise and disapproval was covered by the sound of the rifle shot.

  My God, he was now a party to murder!

  He hadn’t planned on taking part in a murder.

  What had he planned? He was taking part in a felony, the robbing of a stagecoach. Did he think it would be a walk in the park?

  “All you fellas get your hands up,” Dodd yelled as he, Conklin, and Clark moved quickly out into the road.

  The driver and his passengers complied and five sets of arms went into the air.

  “Can I take a look at my friend?” the driver asked.

  “No, what I want you to do is climb up there and throw down the express pouch.”

  “But he might still be alive,” Andy insisted.

  Dodd walked over to the prostrate form of the stage guard and, at point-blank range, shot him in the head.

  “Tony! “ Ralph shouted in shock and sorrow.

  “He ain’t alive no more,” Dodd said. “Now throw me down that pouch like I asked.”

  Ralph climbed back up into the driver’s box, then leaned over to reach under the seat. Dodd moved closer and pointed his pistol at the driver.

  “Mister, if you have anything in your hand other than what I asked for when you raise up, you are going to be as dead as your friend. ”

  “No, no!” Ralph said, holding up his hands. “I’m just going to get the pouch, that’s all.”

  Ralph got the pouch, then threw it down.

  “That’s a good man,” Dodd said. Dodd walked up to the off-side lead horse, put his gun to the horse’s head, then pulled the trigger. The horse dropped in his traces, and the other horses jerked back and whinnied in fear and confusion.

  “Why did you do that?” Ralph asked angrily. “You had no call to kill an innocent horse.” He climbed back down from the driver’s box, then put his hand out to calm the rest of the team.

  “I did it for your own good,” Dodd said. “By the time you get this horse out of harness, we’ll be well out of here and you won’t have any notion to try and come after me.”

  “Mister, you are a mean man,” the boy shouted.

  Dodd backhanded the boy, sending him careening against the side of the coach. His mouth started bleeding.

  “You son of a bitch!” the boy’s father said. Suddenly and totally unexpectedly, the boy’s father hit Dodd with his fist, knocking the outlaw down. Dodd dropped his pistol and the man started to reach for it, but Clark cocked his own pistol and shoved it in the man’s face.

  “Don’t even think about touching it,” he said. He was trying to make himself as menacing as he could, but in fact what he was doing was saving the man’s life.

  At least, he thought he was. But an angry Dodd regained his feet and recovered his pistol.

  “I’m going to kill you, mister,” Dodd said. “Nobody does that to me and gets away with it.”

  “No!” Clark shouted.

  “What do you mean no? You tellin’ me how to run this operation, are you?” Dodd asked, his voice showing his displeasure over being challenged.

  “I mean no, let me do it,” Clark said.

  “Why would you want to do it? I’m the one he hit.”

  Clark smiled at Dodd. “I’m new with this outfit,” he said. “Maybe I’m just trying to make a good impression on you.”

  Dodd laughed out loud. “All right,” he said. “If you want to kill him, be my guest. ”

  Clark pointed his pistol at the boy’s father. “Come along, you,” he said. “Over here, behind these rocks.”

  “Wait a minute, what are you doing? Where are you going with him?” Dodd asked. “I thought you were going to shoot him.”

  “Oh, I’m going to shoot him, all right,” Clark said. “But I don’t want to do it in front of the boy.”

  “Softhearted, are you? Well, let me tell you somethin'. In this business, it don’t pay to be softhearted. Ever,” Dodd said. “But it don’t bother me none where you do it, as long as you do it, so have it your way. Take him over there and shoot him.”

  “Pa!” the boy shouted. He wrapped his arms around his father’s legs.

  “Better make the boy stay back, or I’ll shoot him too,” Clark said.

  “Stay here, Kenny,” the father said.

  “No!”

  “Stay here, Kenny!” the father said more forcefully this time.

  “Come here, boy, stay with me,” Ralph, the driver, said.

  Clark made a motion with his pistol. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Don’t take all day with it!” Dodd called out.

  Clark led the boy’s father around to the other side of the rocks. Then he pulled his knife.

  “What are you going to do?” the man asked, seeing the knife.

  “Cut your hand, then squeeze out some blood,” Clark replied speaking quietly.

  “What? Why should I do that?”

  “If you want to live, do what I say,” Clark said. “Please,” he added, the tone of his voice more pleading than demanding.

  The expression on the man’s face turned from fear to confusion, then from confusion to a glimmer of hope. He cut his hand, then squeezed the wound to get a lot of bloo
d.

  “Put it on the back of your head,” Clark said.

  The man complied.

  “Turn around, let me see.”

  “You want me to turn around?” Fear returned to the man’s eyes. Had this all been a ruse?

  “Turn around,” Clark said again.

  “Clark! What’s taking you so long?” Dodd shouted.

  “I’m just having a little fun with him is all,” Clark called, looking back toward Dodd.

  “Well, do it and be done with it,” Dodd ordered.

  When Clark turned back toward the stage passenger, he was shocked to see the passenger holding a pistol in his hand.

  “You didn’t know I had this, did you?” he said with a triumphant grin.

  “No, don’t do this!” Clark shouted as he saw the man thumb back the hammer. Clark had no choice but to shoot, his bullet hitting the stage passenger between the eyes.

  “Pa! “ the boy shouted, his shout followed immediately by wailing sobs.

  Clark walked back to join the others. Dodd and Conklin were already mounted, and Conklin was holding the reins to Clark’s horse.

  Without speaking, Dodd rode over to the edge of the rocks, then looked around behind them. Seeing the man lying on his back with a bullet hole between his eyes, Dodd nodded.

  “Good job,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Again the boy cried out, and tried to go to his father, but the driver held him more tightly.

  “You son of a bitch!” the boy shouted at Clark. “I’ll kill you for this some day!”

  “You might at that, boy. You might at that,” Clark said, fighting the bile in his throat over having killed an innocent man.

  Innocent? What is innocent? he wondered. That was certainly no longer a word he could use when thinking of himself. How easily he had slipped over the line onto the outlaw trail. He had started out to do good, to bring evil men to justice. Now, he was as evil as anyone he sought.

  After holding up the stagecoach, Dodd, Conklin, and Clark rode hard for the rest of the day, stopping only occasionally to give the horses a breather. Even then, they didn’t stop, but continued to walk, always putting distance behind them. They did pause briefly just before nightfall in order to eat a few bites of jerky and to take a few swallows of water.

  “Hey, Dodd, don’t you think it’s about time we seen what we took offen the stage?” Conklin asked.

  “Yeah,” Clark said. “Why don’t you cut open that pouch and let’s have a look.”

  “All right,” Dodd agreed. Pulling his knife from its holster he ripped a tear in the canvas, then reached in to pull out several letters, newspapers, flyers, and finally, two packets of money.

  “Two little packages?” Conklin said, obviously disappointed. “That’s all we got is two packages?”

  Dodd divided one of the packages in half, giving half to Conklin and half to Clark. He took the other packet for himself.

  “I thought we divided equally,” Clark said.

  “You thought wrong,” Dodd said. “I get half, everyone else divides what is left. ”

  Clark counted the money in his share. It came to five hundred dollars.

  “Not bad for three minutes of work, is it?” Dodd asked.

  “I guess not,” Clark agreed.

  “We got five thousand off a train oncet,” Conklin said.

  “Five thousand?” Clark said. “Damn, why couldn’t we pull a job like that?”

  “We’ll get another one like that,” Dodd said. “Don’t worry.”

  “When?” Clark asked.

  “Damn, Clark, you just joined up with us. You’re gettin’ a bit anxious, aren’t you?”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Clark said. “I just see no sense in fooling around with little jobs.”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Conklin said. He laughed. “I like that. Where did you hear something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Clark answered. “I’ve always heard it.”

  Conklin was chewing on a piece of leathery jerky. He took a drink of tepid water from his canteen, then spit some out in disgust and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Hell, we might as well be drinkin’ piss as drinkin’ this,” he complained. “And why are we eatin’ jerky? We ought to be eatin’ ham, or pork chops or fried chicken and drinkin’ beer, instead of jerky and water. Ain’t there a town somewhere near here?”

  “What if there is?” Dodd answered.

  “Well, if there is, we could go in an’ get some-thin’ fit to eat an’ decent to drink,” Conklin said. “We got money now. We got lots of money. Leastwise, that’s what I’m a’ thinkin'.”

  “Do me a favor, Conklin, and don’t do no thinkin',” Dodd said. “You ain’t got enough brains to think.”

  “You got no right to talk to me like that, Dodd.”

  “You don’t like ridin’ with me, you can always go out on your own,” Dodd said. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “No, I’m satisfied with the way things is goin'. I was just thinkin’ it would be nice to spend some of this money we’ve got, is all.”

  “We’ll spend it when the time is right. But we can’t spend none of it around here. There’s too many folks that know who we are, and this is too close to where we’ve been workin'.”

  “It just don’t sit well with me, havin’ money and not bein’ able to spend none of it,” Conklin said.

  “Dodd is right,” Clark said. “It would be foolish to get careless now.”

  “What the hell do you have to say about it anyway?” Conklin asked. “You just joined up with us. Hell, I been ridin’ with him for more than a year.”

  “I’d like to ride with him for more than a year too,” Clark said. “But if we do something dumb like going out and spending all this money now, would be the same thing as wearing a sign around our necks that said, ‘We just robbed a stagecoach.'”

  “What? Who would wear a sign like that?” Conklin asked, totally missing the point.

  Dodd laughed out loud. “Conklin, you sure are one dumb son of a bitch, do you know that? I swear, it’s good to have Clark along if for no other reason than to have someone else smart to talk to.”

  “Yeah, well, just remember who your real pard is,” Conklin said, glaring at Clark.

  “We’re still pards, Conklin,” Dodd said. “As long as you do what I tell you to do. And I’m tellin’ you that we ain’t goin’ to be spendin’ any of this money anytime soon.”

  “Yeah, I guess you are right,” Conklin said. “But I don’t mind tellin’ you, it sure don’t set right in my craw knowin’ how much money we got and all, but not bein’ able to even go into town an’ buy us a decent meal.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Clark, Conklin, and Dodd were discussing their take from the stagecoach, Smoke was in the Gold Strike Saloon, just finishing his supper.

  “That was a good meal.” He pushed his empty plate to one side and picked up his cup of coffee.

  “I’ll tell Mrs. Allen,” Minnie said. “She works so hard in the kitchen all the time and she never gets any recognition.”

  “Mrs. Allen, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  Smoke set his cup down, then walked to the door that led to the kitchen and pushed it open. It was very hot in the kitchen, the heat coming from the huge cookstove that sat on the side wall. An older woman was bent over at the waist, looking into the oven. Smoke waited until she closed the oven door, then turned around. Her eyes were tired, and there was a patina of sweat on her face.

  “Mrs. Allen?”

  Mrs. Allen looked up. “Yes, sir?”

  “I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed my supper. The biscuits were so light they nearly floated off my plate. The ham was delicious, and the potatoes were just right.”

  The cook smiled and, for a moment, the tiredness left her eyes. “Why, I thank you, sir,” she said.

  “But if you ever meet my wife, don’t tell her I told you this
. I’m afraid she would be very jealous of you.”

  Mrs. Allen laughed out loud as she pushed an errant fall of white hair back from her forehead. “I hardly think, sir, that your wife could ever be jealous of me.”

  Smoke nodded, then returned to his table.

  “That was nice of you to do that,” Minnie said.

  “It is easy to be nice to nice people,” Smoke replied. He picked up his cup and saw that it had been refreshed with hot coffee.

  “I thought it might get cold while you were talking to Mrs. Allen.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You spoke to Bobby Lee today, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him to be ready.”

  “Be ready for what?”

  “Just be ready,” Smoke said.

  “Tonight?” she asked.

  Smoke took a swallow of his coffee and looked at Minnie over the rim. Girls like Minnie referred to their profession as being “on the line.” Minnie had been on the line for two years, but dissipation had not yet set in, and she was still very pretty. She had long blond hair, deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, and unblemished skin. The clothes she wore while working displayed smooth shoulders and the creamy tops of well-formed breasts.

  She didn’t look anything at all like most of the soiled doves one found working in saloons and cribs across the West. She looked as if she could have been a next-door neighbor back at Sugarloaf Ranch, someone who would visit with Sally and swap recipes or join other women in a quilting bee. She could be any young rancher’s wife, raising children and helping her husband build a life for their family.

  But she wasn’t some young rancher’s wife. Minnie Smith was a whore.

  Smoke wanted to ask her how she ever got into the business in the first place, but he thought the question might offend her, so he held his tongue.

  “It is tonight, isn’t it?” Minnie asked again after the long silence.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Smoke said.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “Minnie, don’t ask me any more questions,” Smoke said. “Get too closely involved, even if it is only by prior knowledge, and you can be charged with complicity.”