Battle of the Mountain Man Read online

  Carson looked at Smoke. “What the hell? I heard all the shootin’ an’ got here quick as I could.”

  “A little misunderstanding,” Smoke replied, settling into his chair. “Two’s dead and the other one’s dying. They went for their guns first.”

  “You didn’t need to explain that part,” Carson said, putting his pistol away. “I’ve known you long enough to know you’d never draw on a man first. Should I send for the doctor to attend to that bald feller?”

  “He’s too far gone for that,” Smoke answered, lifting his cup of cold coffee as a signal for a warm-up. “Two slugs, one through an eye and the other through his throat. He’ll be dead before Doc can get here.”

  Carson looked around momentarily. “Louis told me about these three strangers, how they was askin’ about Ned Buntline an’ drinkin’ a helluva lot of whiskey an’ beer.”

  “They’re done with their drinking now,” Smoke remarked with no trace of emotion, “unless you count the way that big one over yonder is drinking his own blood.”

  Carson took a deep breath. “I reckon I should be used to the fact that sometimes things start happenin’ early in Big Rock now an’ then. Before the last rooster stops crowin’ at daybreak we got three dead men to bury. Maybe we oughta change the name of this town to Dead Man’s Gulch, Damn, what a mess.” He gave Louis a tight grin. “On top of bein’ the undertaker’s best friend, you’ve been mighty good for the glass windowpane business up in Denver.”

  Louis nodded, taking note of the fact that Cal was standing over Otto with a waxy look paling his cheeks. “It’s a necessary expenditure in the whiskey trade, Monte. As a businessman, I have to be prepared for a certain amount of fixed overhead. Windows are a part of that figure.”

  Smoke heard Cal speak softly to Pearlie. “This feller ain’t got but one eye. You can see plumb into his skullbone. I swear I’m gonna be sick. Lookee there, Pearlie… he’s still breathin’ once in awhile. Jeez. I sure as hell ain’t got no appetite now. You can have my steak an’ eggs.”

  “A man dyin’ ain’t never a pretty sight,” Pearlie replied, putting his arm around Cal’s shoulder. “Go on outside fer a spell an’ catch yer wind. You’ll feel better in a little bit.”

  Cal turned and hurried past Smoke’s table without looking at him, embarrassed by the way he felt sick to his stomach, Smoke guessed. Outside the Silver Dollar, curious citizens of Big Rock peered through front windows to see what all the ruckus was about so early in the morning… some were still dressed in nightshirts and long Johns.

  Louis spoke to the bartender as Sheriff Carson stepped over to the doors behind Cal, following him out to fetch the undertaker. “Tell Andre to hurry with that food,” Louis said, as though he knew Smoke and Pearlie would be hungry despite what had just happened.

  A nervous-eyed waiter refilled Smoke’s coffee cup and gave a similar warm-up to Louis’s, then Pearlie’s.

  “Helluva way to start the day,” Smoke said under his breath as he brought the cup to his lips.

  Louis chuckled and sat down. “I’ve had worse and so have you. Sometimes it comes with the territory if a man carries a gun.”

  Smoke thought of something. “I don’t intend to talk to this Buntline. If he asks, tell him I’m not in the habit of talking about old friends, or even old enemies. He’ll have to get his information someplace else.”

  Louis stared thoughtfully into his cup. “I doubt if any of the old-timers up high will talk to him either, if he can find any of them in the first place. I figure Mr. Buntline wasted a trip out here. As you know well, mountain men are a different breed, for the most part. I never knew one who could be called long-winded about what goes on up there.”

  Smoke recalled his introduction to mountain men and their habits. “Preacher wouldn’t talk to other folks about it. Puma could be as talkative as a clam when somebody asked him about the mountains.”

  Louis glanced at him. “Preacher had a tremendous influence on you, didn’t he?”

  For a moment, Smoke closed his eyes, forgetting the killings only minutes ago to think back to his upbringing. “More than anyone will ever know,” he said, “I reckon it was the little things, not just how to survive in the wilds or how to use a gun or a knife or my fists. It was the way he took things in stride that I remember most. No matter how rough things got, no matter how bad any situation turned out to be, Preacher always kept his head. I never saw him scared. He never let his anger show when somebody crossed him. He was a man of damn few words, but when he talked it was a real good idea to listen. Never heard him say things twice, or ask a man but once to do what he wanted done. I learned real early to pay close attention to everything he told me, that there was a reason behind it. Nothing ever surprised him, either, no matter how bad it was. I used to think Preacher expected everything to go wrong, I was nearly grown by the time I understood that was his way of being ready for the worst.”

  Louis was studying Smoke’s face. “I hear tell no one knows if Preacher is still alive. He’d be an old man by now…”

  Smoke remembered his conversation with Puma Buck, asking the same question one night before the battle with Sundance Morgan and his gang.(See "Vengeance of the Mountain Man") “I asked Puma what he thought one night. He said as long as there was beaver to be trapped up high, or grizzlies on the prowl, he didn’t figure it was time for Preacher to cross over. I think that was his way of telling me something he was sworn not to tell, that Preacher is alive up yonder somewhere. Like you say, he’d be getting on up in years by now and maybe it’s his pride that won’t let him come down to show himself after age has robbed him of a few things, maybe some of his eyesight and hearing, some aching joints or an old wound that didn’t heal. I respect him too much to go off looking for him even if he is alive in the emptiest parts of the high lonesome. Knowing Preacher like I do, I know if he wanted to see me or anybody else, he’d come looking for ’em, or send word. I’ve been thinking about it for years now, off and on. A prideful man is too proud to be humbled by old age in front of anyone else. I’ve got it figured he’s still up there, hunting and fishing, exploring the last stretches of wild country. He’s a mountain man all the way through, and his kind don’t need people to enjoy what’s around him.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the subject up,” Louis observed, lighting another cigar with a sputtering lucifer. “I didn’t mean to open pages in a closed book.”

  Smoke shrugged. “The book on Preacher isn’t closed until I get word he’s gone, or find his bones on some high mountain ridge someplace. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still up there, having one hell of a good time living the way he wants.”

  Pearlie walked over, having overheard part of their conversation. “Puma said he’d lay money Preacher was still alive, that night me an’ Cal got took to his cabin.”

  Louis gave Pearlie a stare. “I think the subject ought to be dropped right now, Pearlie.” He looked toward a waiter with a tray laden with steaming plates. “Here comes your breakfast. If you want, I’ll have someone tell Cal his food is ready.”

  “I don’t think the young ’un is up to it just yet.” Pearlie replied, “but I’ll walk outside an’ ask. The boy’s seen a right smart share of killin’ in his short years, but when he got a good look up close at some of them bullet holes, his belly went to doin’ a flip-flop, which ain’t the natural place to put no big passel of food. Like invitin’ a schoolmarm to ride a pitchin’ bronc.”

  Louis laughed, casting a sideways glance in Smoke’s direction. “I know one schoolmarm who’s up to the task. Sally can ride a bucking horse as well as any cowboy in this country.”

  Smoke’s thoughts went to Sally. He’d promised her only this morning that they’d winter up in an old cabin high above Sugarloaf for a spell, so they could spend some time alone and perhaps encounter a few of the wandering mountain men still living in the Rockies northwest of the ranch. “She’s a good hand with a horse,” Smoke agreed. “She’s a right decent hand when it comes
to handling men, like her husband. I’ve never laid claim to being the smartest feller in Colorado Territory, but she can outsmart me damn near any time she takes the notion. When she’s after something she wants, she can-be deadlier than a two-headed rattler. Worst thing is, she lets me think I’m getting my way every time. A time or two I’ve actually believed it.”

  Pearlie shook his head in agreement. “Miz Jensen knows how to handle a man, all right. She’ll come out the door smilin’, like all she wants is to say howdy-do, when what she’s really after is a cord of wood chopped or a load of hay pitchforked in the wagon fer the cows. Every time I see her smile at me I feel like I oughta take off runnin’, ’cause there’s sure as hell some work she wants done.” He grinned when his plate of steak and eggs was put before him. “That’s another thing ’bout Miz Jensen. She ain’t above workin’ a man to death with bribes. She’ll bake up a real sweet peach pie, or fix a batch of them bearclaws with brown sugar, an’ open every window in the house so a man goes plumb crazy over the smell. Sooner or later a hungry feller is jus’ naturally gonna be drawn to the house on account of them wonderful smells, an’ that’s when she springs her trap. She’ll git one of them pretty smiles on her face, and start tellin’ me ’bout them delicious pies or whatever she’s bakin’, an’ I know I’m caught, trapped like a bear in a shallow cave. Then she’ll up an’ invite me an’ Cal to have a little taste of what she’s been cookin’, right after we git a load of wood piled up next to the kitchen door. What’s a starvin’ man supposed to do?”

  It was Smoke’s turn to chuckle over Pearlie’s recollections when it came to Sally, as his own plate was set on the table in front of him. “Pearlie’s right as rain. I’m married to a woman who knows how to get what she wants… one way or another.”

  As he was about to knife into his steak, Caleb Walz came into the saloon. Walz was Big Rock’s part-time undertaker, when he wasn’t in the act of cutting hair at his barber shop. Caleb tipped his derby hat to everyone, glancing at the bodies, a hint of a grin raising the corners of his mouth. “Looks like somebody drummed up a little business for me real early,” he said in his perpetual monotone. “Whoever it was, I’m obliged.”

  Four

  Ned Buntline had grown exceedingly frustrated over the past few weeks in his unsuccessful quest to interview some of the last of the old-time mountain men. Up on the Yellowstone he had finally been able to track down Major Frank North, leader of the famous Pawnee scouts. North had turned him down cold when he asked for an interview, stating flatly he believed dime novels were trash, a pack of lies, refusing to give Ned even a moment of his time other than to tell him to be on his way. A slap in the face, Ned thought, guiding his surefooted mule up a steep ridge roughly forty miles as the crow flies to the northwest of Big Rock in Colorado Territory. North had to know Ned had been responsible for Buffalo Bill Cody’s rise to fame, along with other Wild West characters he’d glorified in his books. It hadn’t been necessary for Major North to be so rude about it.

  Now, in northwestern Colorado, Ned was trying to track down a few genuine mountain men for a series of stories that would set easterners on their ears. From a list given him by the old scout Alvah Dunning, Ned was searching for men with names like Puma Buck and Huggie Charles and Del Rovare, or the deadly gunfighter turned mountain man named Smoke Jensen. And there were others, a legendary figure known only as Preacher who many suspected to be dead of old age by now, one of the most elusive of all the early mountain pioneers, so that little was actually known about him or even what he looked like. Some claimed Preacher was only a figment of lesser men’s imaginations, that he never existed at all except in stories told around mountain campfires, a dark hero of sorts with a penchant for killing anyone who intruded into his high country domain unless they crossed these stretches of the Rockies in peace, without disturbing it. But when it came to mountain men with a penchant for killing, all his sources were in agreement. Smoke Jensen was said to be a killing machine in this part of the West, a man not to be trifled with. If just half the stories Ned had heard about Jensen were true, he could be the man eastern readers would devour. Finding him, Finding Jensen, was relatively easy, Ned was told. Jensen owned a high meadow ranch called Sugarloaf, having come down from the mountains a few, years back to marry a woman from back east and live a quieter life, although as the stories went his existence was anything but quiet. Getting Jensen to talk to him was going to be the trick, according to those who knew about him or had made his acquaintance in the past. Jensen was a man of few words, and words were what Ned needed from him. The proposition promised to be touchy. Difficult.

  Following a map given to him by an elderly Indian scout at a settlement named Glenwood Springs, Ned rode his brown mule slowly into higher altitudes, where it was rumored Puma Buck, Huggie Charles, and Del Rovare hunted and trapped. Perhaps with some sort of personal introduction from one of them to Smoke Jensen, he might just get what he came to Colorado to find… true stories of the exploits of mountain men. He hoped he might even be able to find out if this fellow they called Preacher actually existed, if he might still be alive and willing to talk.

  Still, Ned was haunted by something Major North had told him in those few brief minutes they talked. North had said, “A man’s got to earn his knowledge of the high lonesome, Mr. Buntline. No real mountain man is gonna hand it to you like a piece of cake. If you go lookin’ for a man who knows the mountains, and if you find one, he ain’t likely to tell you a damn thing.”

  Ned wondered if this would turn out to be the truth, making his ride to Colorado Territory a waste of time.

  At the top of the ridge, Ned’s mule stopped suddenly and snorted, pricking its ears forward. On a mountain slope across the valley, he saw a giant brown grizzly ambling slowly among tall ponderosa pines. Ned glanced down at the Henry rifle booted to his saddle… he was an expert marksman and this would be an easy shot… until he recalled what the old scout at Glenwood Springs told him.

  “If you aim to find yourself a mountain man or two you’d best remember a couple of things.”

  “What’s that?” Ned had asked.

  “If they’re close by, they’ll be watchin’ you, to see how you handle yourself. When you come across a wild critter, don’t shoot it ’less you aim to eat it or wear its hide to stay warm. Those critters are as much a part of the high lonesome as them mountains themselves. Don’t kill nothin’ you ain’t gotta kill to stay alive.”

  Ned had digested this bit of news. Hunting only for sport was frowned upon by mountain men. “What’s the other thing? You said there were a couple…”

  The old man had almost laughed. “Learn to sleep with one eye open, son, or you’ll be the one who gets a taste of lead. I done told you where to look for ol’ Puma Buck an’ Huggie Charles an’ some of them others. Could be you won’t be so happy if you was to find ’em. Depends on the mood they’s in, an’ how you go ’bout handlin’ yourself whilst you’re up there. An’ watch yourself real close ’round Smoke Jensen. Be my advice you act real polite. If he don’t care to talk about his high country days, or tell you ’bout Preacher, you’d be well advised to clear out of Sugarloaf as quick as that mule can carry you.”

  Ned watched the grizzly, discarding any notion of shooting it simply for the sake of proving he had good aim.

  “No sense buying into trouble,” he muttered, urging the mule forward with his heels.

  Turning north, Ned had ridden only a quarter mile before he caught sight of a tiny log cabin nestled in a grove of pines that overlooked a ravine choked with brush. Even from a distance he could tell the cabin hadn’t seen much use lately, or any repairs to its mud-chinked logs. But the cabin was a starting place, and he rode toward it. His mule still seemed uneasy even though he had left the grizzly moving in another direction.

  A voice from a stand of pines to his left made his heart stop beating.

  “Them’s mighty fancy duds you’s wearin’ fer a man travelin’ empty spaces!”

&nb
sp; Ned jerked his mule to a halt, looking in the direction of the voice, finding nothing but tree trunks and shadows. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “You scared me. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”

  “Coulda killed you if’n I took the notion.”

  Ned felt fear forming a ball in his belly. “I hope you’re not a killer, whoever you are. My name’s Ned Buntline and I’m looking for a couple of mountain men… men by the name of Puma Buck, Huggie Charles, or Preacher.”

  A dry laugh came from the trees. “Puma’s dead. Got killed nigh onto a year ago. Huggie runs traps east of here. As to the feller you called Preacher, ain’t but one man livin’ who knows where he is, an’ that’s Preacher hisself.”

  “Then Preacher really does exist? He’s not just a campfire tale?”

  A silence followed. Ned was still nervous, wondering if he was in the man’s gunsights now.

  “Maybe he does an’ maybe he don’t,” the voice replied. “You ain’t said what you want with a mountain man.”

  “Just to talk to them. To hear tales about what it’s like to live up here. I’m a writer. I write books for people back in the eastern states who’ll never see this beautiful country. They love reading my stories about the West.”

  Another silence, shorter. “What makes you think Huggie’ll talk to you anyways? He ain’t inclined to use no oversupply of words.”

  “I was only hoping he would. I didn’t think it would hurt to ask him. No one told me Puma Buck was dead. I’d also planned to talk to Smoke Jensen.”

  A laugh. “He’s worse’n Huggie when it comes to waggin’ his tongue. To say he’s quiet would be like sayin’ a beaver’s got fur.”

  “I thought I’d try. I was warned he was dangerous.”

  “Fer a man who claims to make a livin’ with words you sure as hell ain’t been usin’ the right ones. Smoke’s a peaceable man when he ain’t pushed, but he don’t take kindly to gents who try an’ ride roughshod over nobody. There’s men buried all over these here mountains who figured they could take what they wanted from gentler folks who knowed Smoke Jensen.”