Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man Purgatory Read online

  Cummins pulled the trigger and the pistol roared and jumped up in his hand.

  “Oh, shit!” Jackson shouted.

  The little man wearing the bowler hat fell back in the street. Several of the deputies ran out to him.

  There was a small, dark hole in the man’s temple, and a trickle of blood ran down across his ear.

  “Son of a bitch, Marshal, you kilt him!” Jackson said.

  “It was an accident,” Cummins said. “You all seen it. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to shoot him.”

  By now several others from the town had been drawn to the scene and they stood around, looking on in horror and morbid curiosity.

  “What happened?” someone asked.

  “Who is this fella?”

  “Anybody know him?”

  “He just got off the train,” another said. “I saw him get off, but I don’t know who he is.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “I did,” Cummins said.

  “Good heavens, Marshal, why?”

  “I didn’t shoot him on purpose,” Cummins said. “I was—uh—”

  “He was showing me his gun,” Jackson said. “And it went off.”

  “Damn, Marshal, you need to be more careful with that thing.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cummins said.

  An hour later Marshal Cummins stepped into the undertaker’s parlor. The man he shot was lying naked on a lead-covered slab. Beneath the slab was a bucket filled with blood. Hanging from a hook over the slab was a bottle of formaldehyde, and a little tube ran from the bottle through a needle in the arm and into the dead man’s veins.

  “Hello, Prufrock. How are you doing with him?” Cummins asked the undertaker.

  “I’m about finished,” Prufrock replied. “Who’s going to pay me for this? The town?”

  “No,” Cummins said. “I’m the one who killed him, I’ll pay the charges. I didn’t mean to kill him, but I feel like I should pay the charges anyway. Have you found out who he is?”

  “His name is Cornelius Jerome,” Prufrock said. “He’s from New York City.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s a letter in his pocket to Governor John C. Fremont,” Prufrock said.

  “He wrote a letter to the governor?”

  “He didn’t write it, his pa did,” Prufrock said. “Turns out his pa is some bigwig back in New York. You want to read the letter?”

  “Yes,” Cummins answered.

  “It’s over there, on that table.”

  Walking over to the table, Cummins saw, in addition to the letter, the other personal effects belonging to the man: a pipe and a pouch of tobacco, a pair of glasses, and a billfold. Looking in the billfold, Cum-min’s saw over three hundred dollars in cash. He read the letter.

  To The Honorable

  John C. Frémont, Governor of Arizona Territory.

  Governor, I am sure you remember me as one of your most active supporters in your run for the Presidency in 1856. I also served as your adjutant in St. Louis during the Civil War. Although our paths have not crossed since that time, I have followed your fortunes with great interest.

  By this letter, I want to introduce my son, Cornelius Jerome. Actually, this will not be the first time you have met him, for indeed, you often held him on your lap during the exciting days of your election campaign. It is my intention that my son make his fortune, if not in money, then by life experiences, as he sojourns through our great American West. I call upon you as an old friend to make him welcome, and to provide him with the advice you would deem necessary.

  Sincerely, your friend,

  Ronald J. Jerome

  New York, N.Y.

  “He sounds rich, doesn’t he?” Cummins asked.

  “I’d say so.”

  “Who would have thought that about this odd-looking little man?”

  “What do you want me to do with the body?”

  “What do you mean? You’re doing it, aren’t you?”

  “I mean after I’m finished here. What should I do next?”

  “Bury him,” Cummins said.

  “Shouldn’t we send him back home?”

  “How can we do that? We don’t know where he came from,” Cummins said.

  “Sure we do,” Prufrock said. “It’s right there in the letter.”

  Pointedly, Cummins tore up the letter. Then he took the three hundred dollars from the Jerome’s billfold and pressed it into Prufrock’s hands.

  “What letter?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Prufrock replied, stuffing the wad of money down into his pocket. “I didn’t see any letter.”

  By any definition of the term, Cletus Odom was an ugly man. A scar, like a purple flash of lightning, ran from his forehead, through his left eye, and down his cheek to hook in under his nose. As a result of the scar, the eyelid was now a discolored and misshapen puff of flesh. For a while, the eye had been black and swollen as a result of an encounter he’d had three weeks ago in an alley in Wickenburg. Angry over an article that had appeared in the Wickenburg newspaper, Odom had found a couple of men in the saloon there who, for the price of a drink, agreed to help him “teach the newspaper editor a lesson.”

  Odom had not expected anyone to come to Garvey’s aid and was surprised when someone appeared, out of nowhere, to interrupt him.

  “Instead of beating him up, I should have just killed the son of a bitch,” Odom said aloud.

  But enough thinking about that. It was time to move on, and he had a plan in mind that would net him a lot of money. All he needed to implement the plan were a few men who would work with him. And he had already set about recruiting them.

  Odom reached the tiny town of Quigotoa, Arizona, just after nightfall. Quigotoa was a scattering of flyblown and crumbling adobe buildings that were laid out in no particular pattern around a dusty plaza. What made the town attractive to people like Odom was its reputation as a “Robbers’ Roost,” or “Outlaw Haven.”

  The town had no constable or marshal, and visitations by law officers from elsewhere in the territory were strongly discouraged. There was a place in the town cemetery prominently marked as “Lawmen’s Plot.” Here, a deputy, an Arizona Ranger, and a deputy U.S. marshal, all uninvited visitors to the town, lay buried.

  Odom had come to Quigotoa as a first step to set his plan into operation, and stepping into the Casa del Sol Cantina, he spotted someone sitting at a table in the back. He was a big man, with a broken nose that lay flat and misshapen on a round face.

  “Hello, Bates,” Odom said when he stepped up to the table.

  “I thought you was goin’ to get here today,” Bates replied.

  “It is today.”

  “Yeah, I meant earlier.”

  “I’m here now,” Odom said. “Did you get someone?”

  “Yeah. You want to meet him?”

  “Tomorrow,” Odom said. “I had a long ride today.”

  “All right,” Bates said.

  Leaving Bates, Odom bought a bottle of tequila, then picked up a Mexican whore and went with her to her little crib out back, as much for her bed as for her services.

  “Do you think Rosita is pretty, Señor?” the whore asked as she smiled at him.

  “Pretty?” Odom replied. He took a swallow of tequila, drinking straight from the bottle. “What the hell do I care whether you are pretty or not? You are a puta—a whore. And all whores look just alike to me. All I want you to do is shut up, get naked, and get in bed. I’m not in the mood for any of your prattle.”

  The smile left Rosita’s face. “Sí, señor,” she said flatly. Mechanically, she took off her clothes, then crawled in bed beside him. She turned off all feeling as he climbed on top of her.

  Chapter Three

  Even as Odom was settling down for the night in Quigotoa, Matt Jensen had just found a likely place to camp for the night. Dismounting, he took off the saddle and blanket, which caused his horse, Spirit, to whicker and shake his head in appreciation over being reliev
ed of the burden.

  This was Matt’s second horse to be named Spirit; the first was killed by an outlaw who was trying to kill Matt. Spirit One was a bay, given to Matt by Smoke Jensen, Matt’s mentor and friend. Spirit Two was a sorrel. Matt had named him Spirit as well, in part to honor his first horse, but also because he considered Spirit Two to be worthy of the name.

  Matt spread the saddle blanket out on the ground to provide a base for his bedroll, then, using the saddle for a pillow, prepared to spend the night on the range. To the casual observer, the saddle, which was ordinary in every detail, was no different from any other saddle. There was, however, one very extraordinary thing about it. The saddle had a double bottom, which allowed him to secret away more than a thousand dollars in cash, which Matt used as his emergency reserve.

  Nobody who happened to see Matt would ever suspect that he was carrying so much money. In fact, Matt had a lot more money than that in a bank account back in Colorado. He had come by the money honestly, as his part of a gold-panning operation he had entered into with Smoke Jensen, back when he was but an eighteen-year-old boy.

  Smoke and Matt Jensen panned the streams for gold as long as they continued to be productive. For the entire time Matt had been with Smoke, they had buried the gold, each year taking just enough into town to buy goods and supplies for another year. But in the spring of Matt’s nineteenth year, they took everything they had panned over the last six years into town, having to enlist four pack animals to do so. When they cashed it out, it was worth a little over thirty thousand dollars, which was more money than the local bank had on deposit.

  “We can have the money shipped from Denver,” the assayer said.

  “Can you write us a draft that will allow us to go to Denver to get the money ourselves?” Smoke asked.

  “Yes,” the assayer said. “Yes, of course, I can do that. But you don’t have to go to all that trouble. As I say, I can have the money shipped here.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Smoke said. “Denver’s a big city, I think I’d like to have a look around. How about you, Matt?”

  “I’ve never seen a big city. I’d love to go to Denver,” Matt replied enthusiastically.

  “Write out the draft,” Smoke said.

  “Very good, sir. And who shall I make this payable to?”

  “Make it out to both of us. Kirby Jensen and Matt…,” Smoke looked over at Matt. “I’ve never heard you say your last name.”

  “Smoke, just make the draft payable to you,” Matt said.

  “No, what are you talking about? This is your money, too. You helped pan every nugget.”

  “You can pay me my share after you cash the draft.”

  “It might be easier if it is made to just one man,” the assayer said.

  Smoke sighed. “All right,” he said. “Make it payable to Kirby Jensen.”

  The assayer wrote out the draft, blew on it to dry the ink, then handed it to Smoke.

  “Here you are, Mr. Jensen,” he said. “Just present this to the Denver Bank and Trust, and they will pay you the amount so specified.”

  Smoke held the bank draft for a moment and looked at it. “Hard to believe this little piece of paper is worth all that money,” he said.

  In Denver, Matt and Smoke went to the bank, where the teller proudly counted out the money. Smoke divided the money while they were still in the bank, giving Matt fifteen thousand and fifty dollars.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Matt said.

  “Yes, it is,” Smoke agreed. “Most folks don’t make that much money in twenty years of work, and here you are, only eighteen, with fifteen thousand dollars in your pocket. What are you going to do with it?”

  Matt thought for a moment before he answered. “I’ll figure something out,” he said.

  It was getting late in the evening and Smoke and Matt were on their way back, a good ten miles down the road from Denver, when they decided they would start looking for a place to camp for the night. Often, during the ride, Matt had leaned forward to touch the saddlebags that were thrown across his horse. It made him almost dizzy to think that he had so much money. It also made him feel guilty, because he knew this was more money than his father had made in his entire life.

  If Matt’s father had been able to come up with this much money, they would have never left the farm in Missouri, and Matt would just now be beginning to think of his own future.

  Matt had been thinking about his future ever since they left Denver. It wasn’t the first time he had considered such a thing. He knew he would not be able to stay with Smoke forever.

  But now, with this money, the future was no longer frightening, nor even mysterious to him. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

  Matt’s thoughts were interrupted when four men, who had been hiding in the bushes, suddenly stepped out into the road in front of them. All four were holding pistols, and the pistols were pointed at Smoke and Matt. The leader of the group was Kelly Smith, a man with whom Smoke had been playing cards the night before.

  “You boys want to get down from them horses?” Smith asked.

  Slowly, Matt and Smoke dismounted.

  “Well, now,” Smith said. “You didn’t think I was really going to let you get out of town with all that money, did you?”

  “What money?” Smoke asked.

  “Why, the thirty thousand dollars you got at the bank today,” Smith said. “The whole town is talkin’ about it.”

  “Is that a fact?” Smoke asked.

  “Oh, yes, it’s a fact,” Smith said. “You’ve got that money, plus the money you took from me in the card game last night.”

  “Well, now, Mr. Smith, if I had known you were going to be that bad of a loser, I’ll be damned if I would have played poker with you,” Smoke said. “And here you told me you were a professional gambler and all. I guess it just goes to prove that you can’t always believe what people say.”

  Smith laughed, a dry, cackling laugh. “You’re a funny man, Jensen,” he said. “I’ll still be laughin’ when I’m in San Francisco spending your money.”

  “What makes you think you’re going to get my money?”

  “Are you blind?” Smith asked. “There’s four of us here, and we’ve got the drop on you.”

  “Oh, yeah, there is that, isn’t there? I mean, you do have the drop on us,” Smoke said almost nonchalantly. “By the way, Matt, do you remember that little trick I showed you?”

  “I remember,” Matt answered.

  “Now would be a good time to try it out.”

  “Now?”

  “Now,” Smoke replied.

  Even before the word was out of his mouth, Smoke and Matt both drew and each fired two quick shots. Kelly Smith and the three men who were with him were dead before they even realized they were in danger.*

  The mournful wail of a distant coyote calling to his mate brought Matt back to the present, and looking up, he saw a falling star streak across the black velvet sky. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  At dawn the next day, the notches of the eastern hills were touched with the dove gray of early morning. Shortly thereafter, a golden fire spread over the mountaintops, then filled the sky with light and color, waking all the creatures below.

  Matt rolled out of his blanket and started a fire, then began digging through his saddlebags for coffee and tobacco. He would have enjoyed a biscuit with his coffee, but he had no flour. He had no beans either, and was nearly out of salt. He did have a couple of pieces of bacon, and they now lay twitching and snapping in his skillet, alongside his coffeepot.

  After his breakfast of coffee and bacon, he rolled himself a cigarette, lighting it with a burning stick from the fire. Finding a rock to lean against, Matt sat down for a smoke as he contemplated his next move. It was clear that he was going to have to replenish his supplies.

  “Spirit, I think it’s about time we went into town again,” he said.

  Sometimes on the long, lonely trail, Matt felt the need to hear a hum
an voice, even if it was his own. Talking to Spirit satisfied that need, and because he was talking to his horse, it didn’t seem quite as ridiculous as talking to himself.

  Quigotoa

  In the Casa del Sol Cantina the next morning, Odom rolled a tortilla in his fingers and, using it like a spoon, scooped up the last of his breakfast beans. He washed it down with a drink of coffee, then lit a cigar and looked up as Emerson Bates came over to his table.

  “Here’s the man I was tellin’ you about,” Bates said, indicating the man who was with him. “His name is Paco Bustamante.”

  The man with Bates was short, but looked even shorter by comparison with Bates. He had obsidian eyes, a dark, brooding face, and a black mustache that curved down around either side of his mouth. He was wearing an oversized sombrero.

  Odom frowned. “He’s a Mex,” he said. “I don’t work with Mexicans.”

  “Paco’s a good man,” Bates insisted.

  “How do you know?”

  “Me an’ him have done a couple of jobs together,” Bates said. He chuckled. “Besides, you slept with his sister last night.”

  Odom took a puff of his cigar, then squinted through the smoke. “Well, if you come along—Paco—you only get half a share,” he said, setting the Mexican’s name apart from the rest of the sentence.

  Without a word, Paco turned and started to walk away.

  “Wait a minute,” Odom called to him. “Where you goin’?”

  “For half a share, Señor, I don’t do shit,” Paco said. It sounded like “sheet.”

  Odom laughed. “I reckon if you got that much gumption, you might do after all.”

  Paco came back to the table.

  “What will you do for a full share?” Odom asked.

  “Anything you say, Señor,” Paco replied.

  “There might be some killin’,” Odom suggested.

  “I do not want to be the one who is killed,” the Mexican said. “But I do not mind if I am the one doing the killing.”

  “You’re in,” Odom said.