Heart of the Mountain Man Read online

  “What did you do when Slaughter didn’t show up?”

  “I heard from some men in a bar that he’d been shot and killed and his band of Marauders was broken up and scattered across the whole territory, so I packed the money in my saddlebags and headed north. I drifted for a while, but never spent any of the money. Finally, I came to work for Tilden Franklin and ended up with you offerin’ me the job as sheriff in Big Rock.”

  “So you still have the money?”

  Monte wagged his head. “You remember, after you offered me the job, I told you I’d need a week or so to think it over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, during that week, I rode over to the U.S. marshal’s office in Denver and traded that money in for a pardon for the robbery. The government was right proud to get the money back, and they knew Slaughter had been behind the whole thing, so they let the little fish, me, go. That way I was free to take the job you’d offered with a clear conscience and not have to live my life lookin’ back over my shoulder at my back trail.”

  Smoke nodded. “And then you met Mary.”

  Monte smiled for the first time since Smoke came into the room. “Yeah, Mary saved me, Smoke. She showed me what life is all about. Fallin’ in love with her and marryin’ her was the rightest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “So, that brings us up to last night. What happened and what does Jim Slaughter have to do with it?”

  Monte cut tortured eyes toward Smoke, eyes that were wet with unshed tears. “I got home late from the office, ’bout eight o’clock. As I rode up to our house, I saw three men sitting on their horses out front . . .”

  * * *

  Monte pulled back on the reins, letting his right hand fall to his side and unhook the hammer-thong on his Colt pistol. “Howdy, gents,” he called. “What can I do for you?”

  As he spoke, he let his eyes flick to his house, trying to see if Mary was in sight, or if the door was shut. There were no lights on in the house, which worried him, for she always left a lantern burning on the porch when he was late getting home.

  “Carson, we came to give you a message from Big Jim Slaughter,” one of the men said. He was tall and skinny, with a beard hanging down to his chest and scraggly hair sticking out from under his hat. He wore two pistols, butts forward, on each hip. They were tied down low, so Monte knew he wasn’t a cowboy but made his living with his guns.

  Monte’s heart beat faster when he heard Slaughter’s name. “I heard he was dead.”

  One of the other men laughed, and then began to choke on his chaw of tobacco. “Pardner, you gonna wish he was dead ’fore all this is over, that’s fer sure,” he finally managed to say.

  “Before what’s over?” Monte asked, his hand drifting down to rest on his thigh next to his pistol.

  The third man heeled his horse closer to Monte and stared at him from under the brim of his hat. “Slaughter wants his money, Carson, the whole fifty thousand.”

  Monte recognized the man. He’d ridden with Slaughter back when Monte had. His name was Boots Malone, and he was as nasty a specimen of humanity as Monte had ever met. He liked to slice up bar girls with his Bowie knife, just for fun, and Monte had seen him gun down women and children for no reason other than they were in his way.

  “What if I tell you, Boots, that I don’t have it?”

  Boots shifted the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other, his dead eyes never leaving Monte’s. “Then I’d say it’s too bad for that pretty little wife of your’n.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Boots leaned back against the cantle of his saddle. “Slaughter took her on over to Robber’s Roost, near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He said to tell you he’d keep her there for four weeks, free from harm, to give you a chance to bring him his money. Then, he’s gonna start handin’ her out to the men there in the hole-in-the-wall area. You know the type, men on the run who ain’t seen a woman in months.”

  “You bastard!”

  Boots started to rein his horse around. “You got thirty days, Carson. Then if you want to see your wife, you’re gonna have to stand in line.”

  Monte’s pistol appeared in his hand as if on its own volition. His first slug took Boots in the chest, knocking him backward off his horse to land spread-eagled on the ground, his eyes wide and surprised until the life slowly winked out in them.

  The second man had his pistol half out of his holster when Monte shot him in the face, the bullet entering his mouth and blowing out the back of his head, showering the third man with hair and brains and blood as he pulled the trigger on Monte.

  Monte felt the bullets tear into him, twisting him sideways in his saddle. As his horse danced and whirled, trying to escape the explosions of gunfire, Monte snapped off a shot at the man as he rode away. The man flinched and leaned over his saddle horn, but Monte couldn’t tell if he’d hit him or he was just ducking.

  Monte tucked his useless left arm into his belt and ran to search the house. Mary was gone . . .

  * * *

  Monte looked up at Smoke, his voice hoarse from the tale. “All I could think of was to get to you, Smoke, and see what you thought I should do.”

  Smoke thought for a moment. “A lot will depend on whether you hit the galoot that was running away, and how hard you hit him. If you planted him forked end down, we’ve got some time to plan what to do. On the other hand, if he made it back to Slaughter and told him you don’t have the money, Mary’s time is a lot shorter than I like to think about.”

  “Yeah. As long as he thinks there is a chance he’ll get the money, he’ll keep her safe. At least until I see her and hand over the payroll.”

  Smoke hesitated. “Monte, you know Slaughter and his reputation better than I do, but I don’t think there’s any way in hell you and Mary are going to be allowed to walk away from this.”

  Monte nodded. “You’re right, Smoke. Even if I had the money, which I don’t, I got to plan some way to get Mary out of there and put an end to Slaughter once and for all.”

  Smoke stood up. “First things first, Monte. Cal and Pearlie and I’ll head out to your place and see if we find two bodies or three. If there’s three men down, I’ll go up into the mountains and talk to some friends of mine about the hole-in-the-wall area, see if there’s some way we can get in without being seen.”

  “What if the man got away?”

  “Then we don’t have time to do it the easy way. I’ll have to get moving right away and work something out on the way to Wyoming.”

  Monte started to get up, struggling to use his bandaged left arm.

  “Hold on, pardner. Doc Spalding says you got at least a week in bed, and then another few days before you’re gonna be able to use that arm.”

  “But I can’t let you and the boys do this alone. It’s my mess and I need to get myself out of it.”

  Sally, who had been standing in the doorway for most of their talk, stepped into the room. “Monte Carson, you sit yourself back down in that bed right now. You’ll be of no use to Mary if you get those wounds to bleeding and end up killing yourself. You let Smoke and Cal and Pearlie do what they need to while you heal. After that, we’ll see what the doc says about how soon you can go to Wyoming. All right?”

  Though she said it as a question, Sally left no room for discussion. Monte knew she was right and he’d have to let his friends do the initial investigation into the happenings out at his ranch.

  He flopped back down on the pillow. “All right, Sally. You win. Smoke, would you let me know what you find out at the ranch?”

  Smoke nodded. “One way or another, Monte, we’ll keep you informed. Now, you rest up and eat whatever Sally brings you, ’cause you got a lot of blood to make up for what you spilled all over the country between here and your place.”

  He turned to Sally. “Keep him down until we get back. We should know something by supper time.”

  Sally stood on tiptoes and kissed Smoke’s lips. “You ride with your guns loose, Smoke Jen
sen. I don’t want to have to call Doc Spalding back out here to patch you up, too.”

  “Yes, dear,” Smoke said as he strapped on his Colt .44.

  3

  As Smoke and Cal and Pearlie approached the Carson house, Smoke pulled his Colt and eared back the hammer.

  “You expectin’ trouble, Smoke?” Pearlie asked, resting his palm on his own pistol butt.

  Smoke shrugged. “You never know. Monte said he may’ve put some lead into the man trying to ride away. He may be wounded and lying around here somewhere just waiting to put a bullet into whoever might come looking.”

  Cal and Pearlie looked at each other and pulled their guns.

  When they got to the house, they found the two dead men right in front of the porch. Both had been killed with clean shots.

  “Jimminy,” Cal said, “I remember you sayin’ Monte was a gun slick ’fore he joined up with you and became sheriff, but he must’ve been pretty doggone good to draw down on three men and get ’em all.”

  Smoke nodded. “There isn’t any back-up in Monte, that’s for sure. And it looks like he hasn’t lost much of his skill with a six-killer either.”

  He pointed at the bullet hole over one man’s heart and the other in the center of his face. “Dead center with both shots,” Smoke said with some admiration.

  Pearlie shook his head. “And then, after gettin’ hit twice, he managed to possibly put some lead in the third man as he was ridin’ off. That takes some cojones, Smoke.”

  Smoke looked at his friend. “I’ve never had any doubts about Monte’s courage, boys. Now let’s spread out and see if we can find the last man.”

  As Cal and Pearlie reined their horses off to opposite sides of the yard surrounding Monte’s house, Smoke got off Joker, his blanket-hipped Palouse stud, and walked bent over, staring at the ground.

  An experienced tracker, he could almost see what had happened from the way the horses’ hooves tore up the sod around the bodies. Once he found the trail of the third man, he began to follow the hoofprints, glancing up frequently so he wouldn’t be caught off guard if the man were still around.

  About thirty yards from the original confrontation, he found spots of dried blood on the ground. “You did hit him, Monte,” Smoke mumbled. He looked back over his shoulder at the distance. “And at thirty yards on the back of a moving horse. That was a hell of a shot, partner,” he said, as he followed the trail of blood toward a copse of trees nearby.

  As he approached the trees, he whistled shrilly through his lips to get Cal and Pearlie’s attention. When they rode into view from opposite directions, he pointed at the grove of trees and held up his gun.

  The men dismounted and approached the trees from different directions, guns drawn and ready.

  All of their precautions were unnecessary. Smoke found the man lying on his stomach, a bullet hole surrounded by dark crimson stains on the back of his shirt. He was still alive, but unconscious.

  “Pearlie, go get a wagon out of Monte’s barn and hitch a couple of his horses to it. We need to get this man to town and see if Doc Spalding can save him.”

  Cal leaned over and spat in the dirt. “Why go to all that trouble to save pond-scum like that, Smoke?”

  Smoke glanced up. “Because if he lives, he can give us important information about Slaughter and how many men he has and where they’re holding Mary.”

  Cal’s face colored. “Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

  “What if he won’t talk, Smoke?” Pearlie asked.

  Smoke looked at him with an expression on his face that made Pearlie glad he was the big man’s friend and not his enemy.

  “Oh, he’ll talk, Pearlie. He’ll talk or he’ll wish he’d never seen either Big Jim Slaughter or Monte Carson.”

  Smoke took a slab of fatback pork out of his saddlebag, placed it over the bullet hole in the man’s back, and tied it in place with a strip of cloth torn from the gunny’s own shirt. When Pearlie brought Monte’s buckboard up next to him, he bent and lifted the man off the ground as if he weighed no more than five pounds, placing him in the back of the wagon.

  “We’re gonna ride for town, Cal. You go on ahead and have Doc Spalding ready to do some cutting on this man. Tell him Mary Carson’s life depends on keeping this snake alive!”

  4

  Big Jim Slaughter pulled his Winchester from its saddle boot and waved it over his head at the sentry standing on a nearby ridge. It was the third such sentry he and his gang had passed in the last few miles as they approached their hideout known only as the “hole-in-the-wall.” It was a natural valley high in the mountains surrounding the small Wyoming town of Jackson Hole. Accessible only by a narrow pass that meandered between several higher peaks, it had been a hiding place for men on the run for longer than anyone could remember. Easily defended, it had simply never been worth the trouble or the many dead men it would take to roust the criminals out of the place.

  Slaughter led a column of twenty men, all hard cases who were wanted by the law across the country for everything from rape to armed robbery and murder. Riding next to him was an attractive woman in her late thirties. She had long brown hair, tied loosely behind her neck with a small, silk ribbon, and was wearing a man’s shirt and trousers. She rode her horse with practiced ease, as if she spent a lot of time on horseback. Her face was serene and composed and she showed no trace of fear or trepidation, a fact that bothered Jim Slaughter.

  As they rode down a dry gulch, cut out of the surrounding mountainside by hundreds of years of seasonal snowmelt runoffs, he glanced at her, his face showing his puzzlement.

  “Mrs. Carson,” he said, his voice neutral, “excuse me, but all the way here from Colorado, you’ve acted like you were out for a ride in the park. Doesn’t the fact that you’ve been kidnapped by a gang of men and taken from your home to a strange place bother you?”

  Mary Carson turned her calm eyes to Slaughter and gave a half smile. “Does it bother me? Yes. Do I fear you? No.”

  Slaughter shook his head. He was beginning to admire this woman more and more. Monte Carson was a lucky man.

  “Why not?” he asked. He’d raped and killed and beaten hundreds of times before, and he’d never failed to see the haunted look that appeared in someone’s eyes the moment they knew for certain they were going to die or be seriously injured, the acknowledgment of defeat and terrible sadness. It was a look he knew well, and he had come in some perverted way to look forward to it and enjoy instilling it in others.

  “Because I know my husband will come for me eventually.”

  Slaughter snorted. “Even assuming he tries, and assuming he is able to make it past the sentries and guards we have set up to discourage visitors, what makes you think you’ll be alive when he gets here? How do you know I won’t just turn you over to this”—he hesitated as he glanced at the scum riding with them, then back at her—“pack of animals ridin’ along with us?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to frighten me, Mr. Slaughter?”

  “No, just wondering why you seem so unconcerned about your fate.”

  Mary looked away from him, her eyes taking in the mountains that surrounded them, the blue sky, and the grass-covered slopes still layered with wildflowers and blooming shrubs. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke. “I’ve lived a good life, Mr. Slaughter. I was married to a fine man for five years, and when he was killed I was lucky enough to find another wonderful man. Out here on the frontier, we learn to accept death as just another part of life, and not necessarily the worst part either. So, if I die . . . if you kill me, then so be it. I’ve had more than my share of goodness, and I’ll die knowing I’ve had more than you’ll ever have if you live to be a hundred years old.”

  Slaughter nodded. There was more than a little truth in what she said. He stared ahead down the trail without answering, thinking back on his life. It’d been a hardscrabble existence ever since he was a kid. After his mother died when he was no more than five or six, his father dove into a
whiskey bottle and lived there until he died, at Jim’s hands, ten years later.

  Daily beatings became a way of life for the young Slaughter, until finally, one day when he was sixteen, he took the razor strap out of his father’s hands, knocked the surprised man down, and beat him to death with an ax handle. Instead of burying him to hide his crime, young Jim threw his dad in the hog pen, figuring they had to eat too, just like worms or buzzards. When he saddled the plow horse and rode off to make his way in the world, he never looked back.

  “All right, Mrs. Carson, you’re right,” he finally said. “I haven’t got anything against you, so you have nothing to fear from me or my men, if your husband does what he’s been told to do.”

  Mary stared at him for a moment, before asking in a low voice, as if she feared the answer more than anything Slaughter could do to her, “What about my husband, Mr. Slaughter? What business do you have with him?”

  Slaughter laughed, a sound many of his men who’d ridden with him for years had never heard. “Old business, Mrs. Carson. A matter of some money he’s owed me for a long time.”

  Mary’s face showed her surprise. “Money? Why would Monte owe you money?”

  “I suspect there’s lots of things about your husband you don’t know, Mrs. Carson.” He pursed his lips, thinking. “Perhaps I’ll let him explain them to you . . . if he’s got the cojones to come after you like you think he does.”

  Mary faced forward and put her heels to her horse’s flanks, causing it to move forward so she wouldn’t be riding next to Slaughter any longer.

  He shook his head, thinking how lucky Carson was to have such a woman, and wondering if he knew it.

  * * *

  Smoke glanced across the operating table at Doc Spalding. “Doc, why don’t you mosey on over to Louis’s place and have a steak, on me?”

  Doc Spalding looked up from where he was washing blood off his hands. He glanced at Smoke, then at the injured man on the table. He’d just taken two bullets out of him. “I take it you want to have a private word with this miscreant, Smoke.”