Code of the Mountain Man Read online

  “Never been here before in my life.”

  “You shore look familiar. I seen your pitcher somewhere. Maybe on a wanted poster?”

  Smoke laughed. “Not likely. I ranch up north of here, outside of Big Rock.”

  “That’s Smoke Jensen’s country. He’s kilt a thousand men.”

  “Not quite that many.”

  “You know him?”

  “I know him. You got a marshal in this town?”

  “Yep. Right over there’s his office.” The man pointed. “Name is Bradley.”

  Smoke took his gear and checked in at the hotel. He got the last room available. He registered as Jen Sen.

  “Funny name,” the desk clerk said. Then he looked into the coldest eyes he’d ever seen. “No offense meant, mister.”

  “You been in this country long?” Smoke asked.

  “Just got in from Maryland a few months back.”

  “Then learn this: you belittle a man’s name out here, and you’d best be ready to back it up with guns or fists.”

  “Here, now!” a man said. “There’ll be none of that around me.”

  Smoke turned. A man stood before him with a big badge on his chest that read: “Deputy U. S. Marshal.”

  Smoke took in his hightop lace-up boots and eastern clothes. He wore a pistol in a flap holster. He looked at the other men. They were all dressed much the same.

  “Who in the hell do you think you are?” Smoke said, taking an immediate dislike for the man.

  “United States Marshal Mills Walsdorf.”

  “Come to bring peace to the wilderness?” Smoke said with a smile.

  “I do not find law enforcement a humorous matter, sir. It’s very serious business.”

  “I’d say so. That’s what that woman told me, in so many words, just before I buried her a couple of days ago.”

  “What? What? Where did this take place?”

  “North of here. Gang of scum rode through and shot her husband to ribbons. Then raped the woman and her two children. Same gang of trash that shot up Big Rock.”

  “Did the woman identify the gang?”

  “She did.”

  Mills waited. Tapped his foot impatiently. “Well, speak up, man! Who were they?”

  “Lee Slater’s pack of filth.”

  “Scoundrels!” one of Walsdorfs men muttered darkly.

  “Which direction did they head, man?” Walsdorf demanded in a tone that told Smoke the man was accustomed to getting his way, when he wanted it.

  “South.”

  “Oh, say, now!” another Fed said. “I find that hard to believe. We’ve been here several days and have seen no sign of them.”

  He didn’t exactly call him a liar, so Smoke let the remark slide and leaned against the front desk. “Where are you boys from?”

  “From the Washington, D.C. and Chicago offices,” Walsdorf replied.

  Smoke sized up Mills Walsdorf. About his own age, and about his size, although not as heavily muscled in the arms and shoulders. His hands were big and flat knuckled and looked like he’d used them in fights more than once.

  “You look familiar,” Mills said. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  “I do get around.”

  Mills spun the register book and snorted at Smoke’s name. “Jen Sen. That’s obviously a phony name. Are you running from the authorities?”

  “If you represent the authority, I wouldn’t see any need in it.”

  “I think, sir, that I do not care for your attitude.”

  “I think, sir, that I do not give a damn what you care for.”

  Mills drew himself up and stared Smoke in the eyes. “You need to be taught a lesson in manners, sir.”

  “And you think you’re just the man to do that, huh?”

  “I’ve thrashed better men than you more than once.”

  “Cut your bulldog loose, Walsdorf,” Smoke said easily. “Just anytime you feel lucky.”

  Jen Sen, the desk clerk was musing. Jen Sen. Jensen. Smoke Jensen! “That’s Smoke Jensen, Marshal,” he said softly.

  The color drained out of Walsdorfs face. A sigh passed his lips.

  “Hear me well, Mr. U.S. Marshal,” Smoke said. “Lee Slater and his gang attacked Big Rock about ten days ago. They killed several people, including a little girl. And they wounded my wife, Sally. The former Sally Reynolds. You’ve probably heard the name, since her family owns most of New England. Nobody shoots my wife, Walsdorf, and gets away with it. Nobody. Not Lee Slater’s bunch, not a marshal, not a sheriff, not the President of the United States. There’s a little town up on the Gunnison, where the Taylor River feeds into it. I found three of Slater’s men there. I hope somebody buried them shortly after I rode out ’cause they damn sure smelled bad alive.

  “Now, I’m going to find the rest of that gang, Walsdorf. And I’m going to kill them. All of them. And I don’t need some fancypants U.S. Marshal from back East stumbling around screwing up what trail there is left. You understand me?”

  Mills drew back in astonishment. Nobody, nobody had ever spoken to him in such a manner. He shook his finger in Smoke’s face. “Now, you listen to me, Mr. Smoke Jensen. I realize that you have some reputation, but the West is changing. Your kind is on the way out, and it’s past due in coming. Now I ...”

  “Jensen!” the shout came from the street. “Smoke Jensen! Step out here and die!”

  “Albert,” Mills said, “step out there and see what that man is bellowing about.”

  A man filled the doorway, paused, then stepped inside. He wore a badge pinned to his shirt. He looked at Smoke. “That’s Chris Mathers. He’s a local troublemaker. Pretty good with a gun. Better than I am. You killed his big brother several years ago. He used to ride for a scum named Davidson.”

  “I remember Davidson. Ran an outlaw town. I killed him and his personal bodyguard, man by the name of Dagget. I don’t remember any Mathers.”

  “Smoke Jensen!” the shout came. “You’re a coward, Jensen. A dirty little boot-lickin’ coward.”

  Smoke slipped the hammer thong from his guns.

  “There’ll be none of this!” Mills said.

  “There’s no law against it,” the local marshal shut him up. Momentarily. “This ain’t back East where you kiss every punk’s butt that comes along. So why don’t you just close your mouth and see how we do it in the West.”

  Smoke stepped out onto the boardwalk. “I don’t have any quarrel with you, boy,” he told the young man in the street. “So why don’t you just go on home, and we’ll forget you calling me out.”

  “Big tough man!” Mathers sneered. “I always knowed you was yellow.”

  “He’s givin’ you a chance to live, boy,” the local marshal told him, standing well to one side. “Take it. You’ll never get another one after this day.”

  “You shut up,” Mathers told him, without taking his eyes from Smoke. “Make your play, gunfighter.”

  Smoke just stood and looked at him.

  “I said draw, damn you!” Mathers screamed.

  “I got nothing against you, boy. Far as I know, the marshal has no charges against you. So you’re not wanted. Go get your horse and ride on out of here.”

  “He’s giving him every chance,” Albert said, watching from the hotel lobby’s right front window.

  “Yes, he is,” Mills agreed. “He’s a tough man, but seems to be a fair one.”

  “I’ll kill you where you stand, Jensen!” Mathers shouted. His hands hovered over his guns. “Draw.”

  “I’ll not sign your death certificate, boy,” Smoke told him. “You’ll have to draw on me.”

  “Are you ready to die, Jensen?” Mathers shouted.

  “No man is ever ready to die, boy.”

  Mills grunted, arching an eyebrow at the philosophical uttering from the mouth of the West’s most famous gunhandler. He just didn’t understand these Western men. They could be incredibly crude, then turn about and quote Shakespeare. They could brand cattle and endure the squall
s of pain from the cow, then turn right around and shoot somebody who tried to hurt their pet dog.

  Mills reluctantly concluded that he just might have a lot to learn about the West and the people who lived here.

  “Now!” Mathers yelled, and grabbed for iron.

  Smoke’s right hand Colt seemed to leap into his hand. Mathers felt the slug strike him. His own gun was still in leather. The bullet shattered his breast bone and sent bone splinters into his heart. The young man looked up at the clear blue of the sky. He was on his back and could not understand how he got in that position.

  “Holy Mother of God!” Albert muttered. “He’s fast as a snake.”

  Townspeople began gathering around the fallen young man.

  “I’ll pray for you, young man,” the local minister said, clutching his Bible and leaning over Chris Mathers.

  But he was talking to a corpse.

  Smoke punched out the empty and let it drop to the boardwalk. It bounced and rolled off into the dirt.

  “I didn’t come into your town to cause trouble, Marshal.”

  “I know that. What you probably done was save me a lot of trouble. Mathers was born to it and had a killing coming.”

  Smoke’s smile was a grim one. “A hundred years from now, that very statement will come back into the minds of a lot of good, decent, law-abiding people, Marshal.” He walked back into the hotel.

  Mills Walsdorf had stepped out onto the boardwalk. He cocked his head to one side and had a puzzled expression on his face upon hearing Smoke’s words. “Now . . . what in the world did he mean by that?”

  “I could try to explain it to you, Mills,” the local marshal said. “But people like you never seem to understand until it’s just too damn late.”

  Chapter Three

  Smoke lingered over his coffee after breakfast, pondering his next move. He didn’t want to pull out and have Mills Walsdorf and his Eastern U.S. Marshals tagging along behind him. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why the government would send men from the big cities out West to catch Western born and reared outlaws. It just didn’t make any sense.

  Of course, there were a lot of things the federal government did that didn’t make any sense to Smoke.

  Like sending seven U.S. Marshals out to round up a gang of fifty or sixty outlaws. That wasn’t a dumb move; that was just plain ignorant. Especially when the marshals didn’t know the country, weren’t familiar with Western ways, and rode their horses like a bunch of English lords and dukes out on a fox hunt.

  “May I join you?” Mills broke into his musings.

  Smoke pointed to a chair.

  “I can’t get used to having no menu,” Mills said.

  “It’s on the chalkboard over there,” Smoke replied, cutting his eyes.

  “I know where it is! I’m not blind.” He paused, then said, “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot yesterday afternoon, Mr. Jensen. I should like to make amends and offer you some employment.”

  “The first part is fine with me. Forget the job offer.”

  “You would be doing your country a great service by joining us and helping to bring an end to this reign of terror put upon the land by Lee Slater and his men.”

  “I intend to put an end to it, Mills. Permanently.”

  “The men deserve a fair trial.”

  “They deserve a bullet, and that is what they’re going to get.”

  “You’re going to force me to stop you, Mr. Jensen.”

  Smoke’s eyes were amused as he gazed at the man. “I’d be right interested in knowing how you plan on doing that, Mills.”

  “By arresting you for obstruction of justice, that’s how.”

  Smoke chuckled. “First you better get yourself a federal warrant for my arrest. Nearest telegraph station is south of here, across the San Juan Mountains. The federal judge is in Denver. I know him. You’ll play hell getting him to sign a warrant against me. And if you get another to sign it, I’ll get the judge in Denver to cancel it. But that’s only part of your problem. The biggest problem facing you would be trying to arrest me.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Jensen?”

  “The name is Smoke. And yes, I am. You ever heard of the Silver Camp Shootout?”

  “Yes. That was the setting in one of those Penny Dreadfuls written about you. Pure fiction, of course.”

  “Wrong, Mills. Pure fact. There were fifteen salty outlaws in that town when I went in. There were fifteen dead men when I rode out. I wasn’t much more than a boy—in age. You ever seen a cornered puma, Mills?”

  “No.”

  “You ever try to brace me, Mills, and you’ll see one.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Nope. Just telling you the way it’ll be.”

  “I can have a hundred U.S. Marshals in here in a week, Smoke.”

  “You’ll need them. I was raised by mountain men, Mills. I know areas in this country that still haven’t been viewed by white men. I’ll get you so damn lost you’ll have a beard a foot long before you find your way out. I know where to ride, and where not to ride. And that last part is far more important than the first. And as far as you and your boys taking me in, forget it. You’d have to pay too terrible a price. I’ve had as many as five slugs in me, and stayed on my feet shooting. The men who put those slugs in me are rotting in the grave. I’m sitting here drinking coffee. I’d think about that if I was you.”

  “I don’t think you’d draw on an officer of the law, Smoke.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do it. I surely wouldn’t. Most of them just get out of my way and leave me alone. They know I’m not a criminal; they know I work hard and try to live right. Western lawmen also know that you got to put a rabid animal down. There is no cure for what they’ve got.”

  “Men are not animals, Smoke.”

  “You’re right. Many men aren’t nearly as good as animals. Animals don’t kill for no reason. They kill to protect their mate or their cubs. They fight for territory and food. Only man kills for the fun of it. And there are lots of species of animals who won’t tolerate a rogue animal. One of their kind goes bad, the others will drive it out or kill it.”

  “I can’t make you understand,” Mills said, shaking his head.

  “One of us can’t,” Smoke said. He stood up and walked out of the dining room, climbing the stairs to his room.

  “Keep an eye on his room,” Mills said, after waving one of his men over. “Just sit right there in the lobby. It’s the only way out.”

  Smoke had paid in advance, as was the custom, and in his room, he gathered up his gear, slung the saddlebags over his shoulder, and climbed out the window, swinging up to the roof. He jumped over to the next building, climbed down, and walked through the alley to the livery, entering the back way.

  “Figured you’d be along shortly,” the stableman said, walking back to meet him. “Heard them Eastern lawmen want to capture Lee and his bunch alive for a fair trial and all that.”

  “That’s their plan.” Smoke threw a saddle on Buck and secured his gear.

  The man spat in the dirt. “I’ll go get you a poke of food for the trail.”

  Smoke tried to give him money. The man shook his head. “This one’s on me. I’ll be right back.”

  By the time Mills Walsdorf discovered that Smoke was gone, Smoke was halfway between Gap and Beaver Creek.

  “He’s what?” Mills jumped up.

  “He’s gone,” Winston said glumly. “Liveryman said he pulled out this morning.”

  “How?” Mills yelled.

  “On his damn horse, I suppose!” the marshal said.

  “Oh! . . .” Mills brushed the man aside and ran up the stairs to Smoke’s room. It was empty. “Climbed out the window, up to the roof, and went down into the alley. Damn! Tell the men to provision up and get mounted. We’re pulling out. We have got to see that justice is done. It’s our sworn duty. This lawlessness has got to stop. And by God, I intend to be the one to stop
it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smoke cooked his supper, rested, and then wiped out all signs of his camp before moving on several miles to make his night’s camp. He made a cold camp, not wanting to attract any visitors by building a fire. As he lay rolled up in his blankets, his saddle for a pillow, his thoughts were busy ones.

  Was he wrong for being what many called out of step with the times? Was he too eager to kill? Had he reached that point that many men good with a gun feared: had he stepped over the line and begun to enjoy killing?

  He rolled over on his back and stared at the stars.

  He knew the answer to the last question. No, he did not enjoy killing. He did not enjoy seeing the light fade from a man’s eyes as the soul departed.

  Was he too eager to kill? He didn’t think so, but that might be iffy. He had killed a lot of men since those days when he and his father had left that hardscrabble rocky farm back in Missouri and headed west. But they were men who had pushed him, tried to kill him, or had done him or a loved one harm. What was that line from Thoreau that Sally loved to quote to him? Yes. He recalled it. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

  But is my drummer beating out the right tattoo? he wondered. Am I marching toward the wrong side of the law? What would I really do if Mills Walsdorf tried to arrest me? Would I draw on a badge?

  He drifted off to sleep before an answer came to him.

  He slept soundly and was up before dawn, waiting until the sun broke over the horizon before building a small fire to boil his coffee and fry his bacon. He sopped out the grease with part of a loaf of bread the liveryman had put in his poke and then broke camp.

  He crossed Beaver Creek and would stay to the east of Wolf Creek Pass and Park Creek. This time of the year, early spring, Wolf Creek Pass would be chancy. He was pretty sure Slater and his pack of hyenas would stay clear of Pagosa Springs—which means “Indian healing waters.” The town was not a new one, and was populated by men who would not look kindly upon outlaws coming in and raising hell.