Ordeal of the Mountain Man Read online

  “Never mind who. The point is he will buy anything we bring him. I want you to take over here for now and wait for word on the horses. I’m going on up to Muddy Gap to see that everything is ready for their arrival.”

  Another branch of the Reno Jim Yurian gang had grown bored waiting for the fabled horse herd to come to them. Like Yancy Osburn’s men, they chose to engage in some casual criminal activity to pass the time. The Bighorn and Laramie Line coach to Muddy Gap lumbered right up to them before the shotgun guard realized they had ridden into trouble.

  “Stand and deliver!” demanded a swaggering, barrel-shaped highwayman with a gaudy ostrich plume in his floppy, chocolate brown hat.

  “Like hell,” roared Rupe, the shotgun guard, as he brought down his 10 gauge L.C. Smith and let go a load of 00 buckshot.

  His shot column took the hat from the arrogant bandit and pulped his face with thirteen of the seventeen pellets. Immediately three of the holdup men leveled their six-guns and slip thumbed through a trio of rounds each, which shot Rupe to doll rags. Beside him, the driver slapped the wheelers’ rumps with his reins to no avail as he took one of the shots intended for Rupe in his left forearm.

  Muscles and tendons, strong and rangy from years of working a six-horse team, contracted and drove the broken ulna bone out of the driver’s arm. He yowled and sat helplessly while two robbers caught the headstalls of the leaders and stopped the coach.

  “Everybody out. Show us what you’ve got.”

  A cawing voice of censure came from inside the coach. “Young man, that’s a disgusting, vulgar thought. Shame on you.”

  Laughing outlaws surrounded the vehicle. “You must have been a schoolmarm, ’m I right?”

  Guffawing, a freckle-faced, redheaded bandit touched the brim of his hat to the descending dowager. “It’s been my experience that schoolmarms are most familiar with that famous challenge of the youngens ma’am. You know? ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ It was a lot of fun doin’ that, as I rec’lect.”

  Examining him with cold, blue marble eyes from above jowls made enormous by excessive, snowy facial powder and carmine rouge, she snapped in tightly controlled outrage. “You are a most disagreeable young man.”

  “I reckon I am. After all, I do rob stages for a livin’. Hardly a recommend to the better element of society, ’m I right?”

  Looking as though she might faint dead away, she fanned herself with a black-gloved hand. “Spare me from such depraved trash.”

  Anger flushed what could be seen of the outlaw’s face. “I ain’t trash. You get that straight, you old bat.”

  To emphasize what he had said, the redheaded bandit stepped in close and popped her in the chops. That proved too much for one of the male passengers. He leaped forward and drove a hard right into the gut of the impudent thug, who bent double and gasped for air. The defender of womanhood followed with a clout behind the ear, which dropped the young highwayman at the feet of the woman he had assaulted. Immediately a shot cracked over the heads of the passengers and the would-be rescuer fell dead on the spot.

  Sobbing, the woman turned away. The bandits worked quickly after that. They relieved the passengers of all valuables and took the strongbox, missing the shipment of bullion the stage carried. Like the Wells Fargo team, the horses were run off when the highwaymen left.

  Two

  A thin, white spiral of smoke came from the chimney of the Iron Kettle, the best eatery in Muddy Gap, Wyoming Territory. That it was the only public eating house in town, outside the hotel, the proud city fathers preferred not to acknowledge. Along the ambitiously wide main street, several prosperous business establishments had hung out their shingles. The raw wooden side walls and fresh paint of the building facades testified to the newness of this thriving community.

  Among them were Harbinson’s General Mercantile, the Territorial Bank of Muddy Gap, the only stone building in town, Walker’s Saddlery, Hope’s Apothecary and Sundries, Thelma Blackmun’s Ladies’ Fashions, Tiemeier’s Butcher Shop, a blacksmith, the feed and grain store, and four saloons. At the north end of town stood a small, white, clapboard church. To the south, an equally miniscule schoolhouse.

  Inside the school, class had been in session since eight that morning. The younger students, with the shorter attention spans, had become restless, eager for recess. The older grades, three through eight, laboriously attacked their assignments. Virginia Parkins, the schoolteacher, was listening to the sixth grade read aloud when the door slammed open against the inner wall and three large, loutish youths swaggered inside. Although she had two fourteen-year-olds and one fifteen in the seventh and eighth grades, Virginia recognized these ruffians as being considerably older, the youngest not under sixteen. She looked on them with a frown of irritation.

  With expressions of blended contempt and disgust, the bullies strutted up the aisle and stopped beside the desk of young James Finch. One of them, a pig-faced boy named Brandon Kelso, spoke from the advantage of his height.

  “Git outta that desk, Jimmy. You ain’t got no business wastin’ yer time here.”

  Eleven-year-old Jimmy Finch cut his eyes away from the imposing figure standing over him. He swallowed hard and spoke in a near whisper. “I gotta read next.”

  “What’s that?” Brandon reached down with a large hand and yanked the slight, big-eyed boy out of his desk. “Your daddy needs you to help work stock. Now get yer butt outta this dump and do as you’re told.”

  Beside Brandon, Willie Finch, Jimmy’s older brother, sniggered. “That’s right, Jimmy-Wimmy, Paw sent me to fetch you. Git yer skinny little ass movin’.”

  Thoroughly frightened, the small boy started moving his feet before Brandon Kelso lowered him to the floor. Outrage at this invasion overrode the usual quiet, nonaggressive demeanor of Virginia Parkins. She came to her feet so abruptly that her tall, backless stool toppled over and the book in her lap hit the floor with a loud bang.

  All eyes turned her way. “Enough of your crude vulgarities, Brandon Kelso. You and these other louts need your mouths washed out with soap. Now, leave the children alone and get out of my classroom.”

  Brandon took a cocky step toward her. “Who’s gonna make us, Teacher?” He sneered the last word.

  Fat, porcine lips curled in contempt, Brandon Kelso studied the outraged young woman before him. She might make a good poke, he thought to himself, though he lacked any experience in such encounters. Couldn’t be much older than himself. Those green eyes and the auburn hair, her wide, pouty-lookin’ mouth, made his groin swell and ache just lookin’ at her. Never thought she had any fire in her.

  He had quit school four years ago, before she had come here. He got tired of doing the sixth grade a third time at the age of thirteen. Now, if she had been here, he might not have quit. She would have given him something to fill his . . . mind . . . with when he was sittin’ in the outhouse. He made kissing motions with his lips. Her unexpected reaction surprised him.

  Virginia turned sharply away and walked directly to one corner by the blackboard. She came back with a stout willow switch about four feet long. Before its purpose registered on Brandon Kelso, she began to lay about the hips and thighs of the three bullies. The limber switch made a nasty whir and sharp smack with each stroke.

  When they all joined in a yelping chorus, she reached out and took the ear of the smallest in a firm grip and gave it a hard twist. Squealing, Danny Collins did a fancy dance step all the way to the door. Driving the others before her with the switch, Virginia hustled all three out onto the low stoop and hurried them down the steps. From the safety of the school yard, Brandon Kelso turned back to throw a final, ominous taunt.

  “You know my father is on the school board. If you want to keep your job, you’d better watch what you do to me an’ my friends.”

  Fists on hips, she called after them. “I’ll risk that. Now, git. And don’t come back.”

  That task completed, she returned to the schoolroom. Her expression calmed
from its earlier outrage, she spoke in a soothing, quiet voice. “You may return to your desk, Jimmy. You will read next.”

  Riding his handsome, chestnut roan, Thoroughbred stallion down the center of the main street of Muddy Gap, Reno Jim Yurian sat tall in the saddle. He looked neither left nor right. With the schooled knees of a trained equestrian, he controlled his mount past the yapping of dogs, the shrill yells of children racing barefoot through the street and the bustle and whirl of wagons, horsemen and pedestrians. A light hand on the reins, he guided Walker’s Kentucky Pride toward the tie rail in front of the Territorial Bank of Muddy Gap.

  There the well-mannered horse stopped primly on a dime and waited without even an ear twitch while Jim Yurian dismounted. He looped the reins over the crossbar and removed his black leather gloves. Reno Jim used them to flick the spots of trail dust from his trouser legs and the sleeves of his immaculate swallowtail morning coat, then stepped regally up onto the boardwalk. Without a glance in the direction of the bank lobby, he walked to an extension of the plank sidewalk that ran along one side of the building into an alley.

  At its end, he began to ascend a flight of stairs that ended on a small platform outside a door that gave access to the second floor. Halfway down the well-scrubbed and highly polished hall, he paused a moment before the frosted glass pane that occupied the upper half of a closed door. Taking a deep breath, he reached out and turned the knob.

  He shouldered past the gilt-edged letters that spelled out in bold face:

  BOYNE KELSO

  GRAIN AND LIVESTOCK BROKER

  He entered and flashed a winning smile at a willowy man in his early twenties, seated at the desk in the outer office.

  “Good morning, Mr. Masters.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Yurian. Mr. Kelso is expecting you. Go right in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Robbie Masters looked after the visitor and sighed deeply. Oh, God, he’s soooo handsome, he thought. Then he quickly busied himself with the stack of papers on his desk. Thus occupied, he did not see the sudden, hard expression of contempt on the face of Jim Yurian. Reno Jim opened the dividing panel and stepped into the sanctum of Boyne Kelso.

  “I have good news, Boyne.” When he closed the door securely behind him, he went on. “That herd of remounts on their way to Fort Custer will soon be ours.”

  Kelso revealed his surprise. “They really exist, then?”

  “Yes. Some of my men watched them cross over from Colorado. Just short of three weeks, they should be on the Crow Reservation. That is, they would be, if we didn’t have other plans for them.”

  Beaming, Kelso rubbed pudgy hands together. “Excellent, excellent. This calls for a mild celebration. I recommend the saloon-bar in the Wilber House Hotel. They pour a fine bourbon.”

  Reno Jim smiled back. “That sounds fine to me.”

  Together, they left the office and strode out onto the main boardwalk. They talked of inconsequentials as they strolled toward the hotel. Every man who passed respectfully touched the brim of his hat in salute to Boyne Kelso. A woman in a wide, gray, voluminous dress and white-edged bonnet of the same material nodded politely.

  “Afternoon, Deacon Kelso.”

  “Good afternoon, Amanda,” Kelso responded grandly.

  Reno Jim smiled behind his hand. He knew that Kelso, born to a Protestant family in the north of Ireland, was considered a pillar of the community. Throughout Wyoming Territory, his rectitude was legend. No one questioned his scales, or the quality of seed grain he sold. Considered a loving husband and father, with charming, well-mannered children, Kelso was frequently held up as a paragon of societal excellence.

  What would those fine, well-meaning people think if they knew the truth of Kelso’s nature? Reno Jim mused.

  Most likely they’d fill their fancy drawers. Well, they needed those well-intentioned souls. Without them, they could never survive in the business of robbing and rustling. Nor could they profit any longer from the land swindles handled by their trusty underling in the land office. When the good folk lost their meekness, terrible things happened. He shivered when he recalled what had occurred recently in Cripple Creek.

  Somehow, the good people of that area had found out they were being bilked, cheated, robbed and even murdered by minions in the employ of Reno Jim Yurian. They had organized a Vigilance Committee. He suppressed a shudder as he visualized eleven of his best men dangling from ropes over the limbs of brooding oak trees, so much gruesome fruit. And his own ignominious route from Cripple Creek, tarred, feathered and slung over a pole. Reno Jim quickly banished the horrible visions as they reached the hotel.

  Inside, seated at a rich cherrywood table, Reno Jim eyed the softly glowing brass lamps and fittings, the dark, lustrous sheen of the mahogany bar, the muted nature of the flocked, red velvet wallpaper, and sighed in contentment. This was the sort of world he preferred to live in. A coatless bartender, in sleeve garters and a blue, pinstripe, collarless shirt, brought them a crystal decanter of premium bourbon and two matching glasses. After he poured and departed, Kelso made quiet inquiry of Reno Jim.

  “How soon will your men be coming here?”

  “Some time next week. Certainly before the horses get here. I want to take them farther north.”

  “Good. I’ll be busy over the weekend with the church council.”

  That brought a low chuckle from Reno Jim. “You had better keep your nose clean if you want to hold on to your fine reputation. But your plans are no problem. I’ll also be busy over the weekend.”

  They talked on for a while. During their third glass of the smoothest, sweetest bourbon Reno Jim had ever tasted, a sudden commotion rose in the street outside. Shouts to the effect the stage had been robbed brought both men to their boots. They shouldered their way through the room and out the batwings into the lobby.

  A crowd had gathered in front of the Bighorn and Laramie Stage Line office by the time Boyne Kelso and Reno Jim Yurian reached there. Men in overalls and flannel shirts, ranch hands in long-sleeved yoke shirts and jeans, merchants and their clerks in wool suit trousers, collarless shirts and aprons shouted questions.

  “How many of ’em was it, Sam?”

  Jaws at work on a cud of cut plug, the driver replied offhandedly. “Reckon there was nigh onto ten of them.”

  Over their entreaties, Boyne Kelso spoke loudly. “How much did they get, Sam? The bank had a shipment on there, you know.”

  Conscious of the need for secrecy in transactions, especially of bullion, Sam glowered at the big broker. “Didn’t touch that. Never mind, Mr. Kelso, that’s between the company and the bank. What’s got me riled is that they killed Rupe.”

  “That’s an outrage,” Kelso thundered. “I certainly hope your company has enough compassion to arrange for some church ladies to go along when his widow is given the news. And I say now that these depredations must cease. To that end, I am offering a reward of five hundred dollars, dead or alive, for those responsible. Any idea who, Sam?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nope. They all wore masks. Didn’t give me a name, like that Black Bart feller out in Californey a while back. Jist took the money, and these folks’ valuables, and rode off. We’d have been in sooner if they hadn’t chased off our horses.”

  Kelso wrung his hands and cut his eyes from one man to another. “This is deplorable. We cannot tolerate this any longer. Where’s the sheriff? Why hasn’t he sent out a posse?” He turned back to the coach. “You folks who were on the stage, let me offer my condolences that this reprehensible deed was done so near to our fine community. If any of you are completely out of pocket, come see me. I have a grain and livestock brokerage above the bank. The name’s Kelso.”

  With that, Kelso turned away and stalked toward the sheriff’s office. Hiding his grin, Reno Jim Yurian went the opposite way to retrieve his horse from in front of the bank. In ten minutes he rode clear of town, headed to meet his gang and see what new profit had been gained in the holdup.

  Acr
oss a dividing ridge, Smoke Jensen decided the time was right to take care of what had been bothering him for the past day and a half. He reined in and motioned Jerry Harkness to take the herd on. He sat his new ’Palouse stallion, Cougar, while the remounts legged their way past. His face set in concentration, Smoke seemed not to notice the dust that boiled up.

  When Luke Britton, riding drag today, ambled by, Smoke gave him a light wave and dropped back down their trail. Near the crest of the ridge, he angled into a craggy gorge and reined up. Five minutes later, three seedy-looking characters, whom Smoke had seen several times trailing them, walked their mounts into view. At once, Smoke rode out and confronted them, Cougar crosswise on the trail.

  Smoke kept his voice level as he addressed them. “I think it’s time you fellers stopped trailin’ us.”

  “Who says?” the one in the middle challenged.

  “I do.”

  Face suddenly flushed with anger, the proddy one spat at Smoke. “That don’t cut no slack with me.”

  Smoke cut his eyes to each in turn. “Then I’ll give you a choice. You can turn around and light a shuck out of here, or you can tell me why you are following us.”

  Through a sneer, the mouthy thug posed a question. “What if I said we was lookin’ for to hire on?”

  Shaking his head as though saddened, Smoke said, “Then I’d have to call you a liar.”

  “That does it, by God. That surely does it,” roared the aroused hard case as he dipped a hand swiftly toward his six-gun.

  He had just cleared the cylinder of his Colt from leather when Smoke’s .45 Peacemaker blasted the stillness of the rolling countryside. A slug spat from the muzzle and smacked solidly into the center of the chest of the saddle trash. His life shattered within him, the hard case reared sharply back against the cantle with enough force to snap the hat from his head. Then he went boneless and flopped onto the rump of his nervous, dancing horse.