Law of the Mountain Man Read online

  The farmer moved further away from Smoke and if the barkeep pressed any harder against the rear wall he was going to collapse the entire end of the store.

  “I don’t think I like you very much, Jensen,” Sam said, finally realizing he was being insulted.

  “I don’t like you at all, Sam. And I’m not real thrilled with those half-wits with you.”

  Burt pushed back his chair and stood up, his hands at his sides. “You take that back, Jensen! I ain’t no half-wit.”

  Smoke smiled at him. “You’re right, Burt. You’re not a half-wit.”

  Burt relaxed.

  “You’re all the way a fool,” Smoke finished. “The best thing you boys could do is pay for your drinks and ride out of this area of Idaho. Forget about Jud Vale and Walt Burden. And for damn sure, forget about trying to brace me.”

  The third man at the table slowly stood up and walked to another table. He sat down and placed both hands on the table.

  Smoke recognized him. “Smart move, Jackson.”

  “The timin’ ain’t right, Smoke,” the gunhand said “Man, you’re walkin’ around with your tail up in the air, huntin’ trouble. That ain’t like you. What’s got you on the prod?”

  “I don’t like Jud Vale.” Smoke spoke to the man without taking his eyes off of Sam and Burt.

  “Hell, I don’t like him either! But he’s payin’ top wages for fightin’ men.”

  Smoke laughed. “To fight an old man and an old woman? To fight a young woman and her eight-year-old kid? For that, Jud Vale hires two dozen gunnies? He must be a mighty skittish man.”

  “They’s a lot more to this than that, Smoke.”

  “I figure so myself. One of these days somebody’s going to tell me the whole story.”

  “I’m tired of all this jibber-jabber!” Burt shouted, just about scaring the pee out of the barkeep. “I’m a-gonna kill you, Jensen!”

  Smoke stood tall and straight, facing the two men standing by the table. “No, you’re not, Burt. All you’re going to do is get buried. Think about it, man. I’ve faced more than a hundred gunhands, most of them better than you. They’re all dead, Burt. Every last one of them. Pike and Shorty. Haywood and Ackerman and Kid Austin. Canning and Poker and Grisson. Clark and Evans. Felter and Lefty and Nevada Sam. Big Jack and Phillips and Carson. Russell and Joiner and Jeff Siddons. Jerry and Skinny Davis and Cross. You want more names, Burt? All right. Simpson and Martin and Reese. Turkel and Brown and Williams and Rogers. Fenerty and Stratton and Potter and Richards. And a half hundred more whose names I can’t recall or never even knew. They’re all dead and rotting in the ground. But I’m still here.”

  “Listen to him, boys,” Jackson spoke the words softly. “I’m tellin’ you, the timin’ ain’t right just yet. Back off.”

  “You could buy in!” Sam said hoarsely.

  “Not just yet.”

  “Then you jist yellow!”

  “No. But I’ll be alive,” Jackson told him.

  The farmer was on the floor, belly down. The barkeep had slipped down to his knees and was peering around a keg of beer.

  “Make your play, damn you, Jensen!” Sam yelled.

  “Your deal,” Smoke replied. “Bet or fold.”

  Sam and Burt grabbed for iron. Smoke’s guns roared and belched fire and death. Sam stumbled back against the wall, his gun still in leather. Burt was plugged twice in the belly. He fell down on the floor and began squalling as the intense pain reached him. Sam cursed Smoke and managed to clear leather and level the pistol. Smoke shot him in the head. Burt tried to lift his pistol. He managed to cock it and fire, shooting himself in the foot, the slug tearing off his big toe. He dropped his gun to the floor and started yelling in pain.

  Smoke glanced at Jackson. The man’s hands were still on the tabletop, palms down.

  “Holy Hell!” the barkeep hollered.

  The farmer was praying to the Almighty.

  “Can’t say I didn’t warn ’em,” Jackson broke the silence.

  “For a fact,” Smoke replied, punching out empty brass and reloading. “Is there a bounty on my head, Jackson?"

  “Thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t have to ask who put it there.”

  “I ’spect you know.”

  “I imagine the bounty is gong to go up on me after this.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me none.”

  “What about them?” Smoke jerked his head at the dead and dying gunslicks.

  “Don’t ask me, Smoke. Hell, I didn’t take ’em.to raise!”

  “I’ll bury ’em iffen I can have what’s in they pockets!” the barkeep said.

  “Suits me,” Smoke told him. He picked up his beer mug and drained it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He set the mug back on the plank. “Fill it up, barkeep.”

  “Git it yourself! It’s on the house. I ain’t movin’ ’til I know all the lead’s through flyin’!”

  Smoke walked around the bar just as the farmer was getting up off the floor. He looked at him. “You want another beer?”

  “Hell, no!” The farmer hit the air and didn’t look back.

  “I’m gonna stand up now, Smoke,” Jackson said.

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Then I’m gonna walk out the door and get my horse and go.” “See you around, Jackson.”

  “Maybe. I ain’t made up my mind about this job. You showin’ up sorta tipped the balance some.”

  “Whatever pops your corn, Jackson.”

  The gunfighter nodded, turned, and left the smoky barroom. Within ten seconds, the sounds of his horse’s hooves echoed down the short silent street.

  Burt started hollering something awful.

  “Ain’t he gonna die?” the barkeep asked. “I’d lak to have them boots of his.”

  “Sooner or later. Is there any hard candy for sale in the store?”

  “Hard candy!”

  “Yeah. I got some kids working for me. They all probably have a sweet tooth.”

  “Hell, I don’t know!”

  Smoke shrugged and walked into the store area of the building. He was thinking that he’d better buy a couple boxes of .44’s. Way things were going he’d probably need them.

  The news of the gunfight had reached the ranch before Smoke returned. Walt and Cheyenne met him in the barn.

  “Did you run into some trouble, boy?” the old rancher asked.

  “Couple of two-bit gunhands who thought they were better than they really were.” Smoke stripped the saddle off Dagger, hung up the reins, rubbed him down, and began forking hay into his stall.

  Cheyenne and Walt were silent for a time. Walt broke it. “Swenson came by here, all flusterated. Said you cut them boys down faster than the blink of an eye.”

  “Like I said, they weren’t as good as they thought they were.”

  Cheyenne grunted and spat a brown stream onto the barn floor. “I knowed Burt Rolly’s dad. He wasn’t no good neither. Utes kilt him years ago. Died bad. They never sung no songs about him. What was that other hombre’s name?”

  “Sam Teller.”

  The old mountain man and gunfighter shook his head. "Must not have been much to him. I never heared of him.”

  Cheyenne limped off. He still carried a Sioux arrowhead in his hip. Slowed him down when the weather changed.

  “Doreen finally got around to telling me that you two had a little run-in, Smoke.”

  “Not much of one. I would just like to know why everyone is lying to me.”

  The rancher was silent for a time. "You want to explain that remark, Smoke? ’Cause if you don’t, old man or not, I’m goin’ in the house for my six-gun and call you out!”

  Smoke chuckled. “Yeah ... you probably would, too, Walt. But I’m going to let my statement stand. None of you have leveled with me. I’ve seen the quick looks passed between you whenever I touch on certain subjects. What’s going on, Walt?”

  “Doreen is a good girl, Smoke.”

  “I never said she wa
sn’t.”

  “She isn’t married to Clint Perkins.”

  “I didn’t think she was. The boy is a wood’s colt, huh?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Just that, a guess. Is the boy’s father Clint Perkins?”

  “Yes. They went together for a time—on the sly. Then he got her all puffed up and ran out on her. He kept tellin’ Doreen how they was gonna move to California and he was gonna change and ... lies and lies, that’s all they was. He’d climb a telegraph pole for a lie and leave the truth layin’ on the ground.”

  “So Doreen figured that a make-believe outlaw husband was better than no husband at all?”

  “That’s about it. Clint is a no-good, Smoke. He started out doin’ good, I’ll give him that much; he really did do good. Then he turned bad. The young man is not right in the head.”

  “All that about him seeing his parents killed and running off into the timber ...?”

  “Lies. You got to understand something, Smoke. I was the first white man to settle in this part of Idaho. Back in ’38. The first one. I built me a cabin and got settled in and then went back for Alice. When we got here, the Injuns had burned the cabin down. We built again and fought off Injuns until they got to where they’d leave us alone. I prospered. Found some color and panned it. Found some more color and mined that out. I got money, Smoke. Plenty of it. I got money in a half-dozen banks. Hell, I don’t need this ranch or the cattle. I kept on to it for my boy.”

  The old man paused to light his pipe and Smoke waited.

  “But he married into trash. Pure trash. That woman— damn her black heart wherever she is—wasn’t nothin’ but a whore. That’s all she was. Anyways, they had a son. Clint. His name ain’t Perkins, it’s Burden. But she run off with him and changed it.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute! This is getting confusing. Back up. Where is your son?”

  “Dead. Ten years back. He turned into a drunk after that woman run off and left him. Staggered around here drunk and crazy in the head and heart for years. He never hurt nobody. He was just a fool thereat the end. Jud Vale killed him. Shot him for sport one night over at the tradin’ post where you was this day. Made it last a long time. Shot his legs out from under him, then busted his hands and arms with .44’s. It was a awful thing for one human to do to another. Jud and that no-good foreman of his, Jason, just left my boy there in the mud to bleed to death. He ain’t never hired nothing but trash over there at the Bar V. Most of them runnin’ from the law somewheres.”

  “Where does Clint fit into all this?”

  The old man laughed bitterly. “That’s funny, son. Really funny. You see, I hired some fancy detectives to hunt that witch-woman down and bring my grandson back to me. They found her and brung him back. Bad seed, Smoke. He’s just bad. But the more I got to lookin’ at him, the more I began to suspect he wasn’t none of my blood. The day he run off for the last time, he told me. My boy Clint didn’t father him. Jud Vale did.”

  4

  Smoke walked outside the barn with Walt and paused to roll a cigarette. “Does Jud Vale know about Clint being his son?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s why he wants Clint dead and Doreen his so bad. He suspects, and rightly so, that I changed my will leaving everything to Doreen. He don’t want no wood’s colt hanging around, messin’ everything up. And with Doreen his woman, willing or not, he could produce a false weddin’ license and claim it all. At worse, he could tie it up in court for years.”

  “Jud sounds like a real nice fellow.”

  “A regular Prince Charming,” the old man said sourly.

  “I’m glad you told me this, Walt.”

  “Me and the old woman talked about it last night. We agreed that it wasn’t right for you to come in here and lay your life on the line for us, and us not to level with you. I’d have gotten around to tellin’ you, son.”

  “You say you found gold around here?”

  “A small pocket of it. I panned it plumb out. There was enough for me to invest in one thing or the other and become a well set up man. That’s another thing, Smoke. Jud Vale knows about me panning the gold. But I never could convince the hard-headed no-good that there ain’t no more gold. The gold I panned washed in here from God knows where, and the small pocket I mined is gone. Nature is a funny critter, Smoke. She’ll sometimes put precious minerals in a place where they just ain’t supposed to be. And when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. There just ain’t no more.”

  “But Jud Vale doesn’t believe that.” It was not a question.

  Walt sighed. “No. The man’s a fool when it comes to money. Greediest man I ever saw in all my life. Got hisself a regular palace on his spread. And Doreen believes the man is in love with her; obsessed, is the way she put it. He’s finally found something that he can’t have; he can’t buy it or steal it, and he’s furious about it.”

  “He might try to take her by force.”

  “That thought has come to me from time to time.”

  “You going to tell her that you leveled with me?”

  “Yes. Oughta ease the tensions around here.”

  “For a fact. Let’s go all the way with it and then we’ll speak no more of it. How were you getting your food in here?”

  “Shoshone friends of mine. But rations was gettin’ kinda sparse since Jud found the trail they was usin’ and posted guards on it.”

  “Toward the end of this week, once the boys have settled in, we’ll take a ride to the trading post and stock up. I imagine Alice and Doreen would like a little outing.”

  “I reckon so. Ain’t none of us been off this spread in months. And them boys you brung eat like starvin’ animals!”

  The boys settled right in and soon needed very little supervison. They began stringing wire and doing a good job of it. Smoke took Cheyenne and several of the older boys and went looking for Box T cattle. He felt he knew where most of the cattle would be, and his hunch paid off.

  “We been on Bar V range for a time,” Cheyenne pointed out.

  “And seeing more and more of Walt’s cattle. Jamie, you boys start hazing them out and bunching them.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Smoke.”

  They hadn’t gone another half-mile before Jud Vale and half a dozen of his hardcases came galloping up, punishing their horses needlessly. That was another way you could judge a man’s character—by the way he treated his horse. Smoke’s dislike for Jud Vale deepened as he looked at the lathered-up gelding he was riding.

  “What the hell are you doing on my range, Jensen?” Jud demanded.

  “Looking for Box T cattle, Vale. And finding them. You got any objections?”

  Cheyenne had shifted positions so the muzzle of his Winchester was aimed right at a Bar V rider’s belly, and the Bar V man didn’t look a bit happy about it.

  Smoke had pulled his Winchester out of the boot and had his thumb on the hammer. Jud didn’t seem to be too terribly thrilled about that either, since the muzzle was pointed in his general direction.

  “Yeah,” Vale finally replied. “I got objections. I can’t help it if that old coot’s cattle wandered onto my range, eatin up all my grass.”

  “Well, then, you should be glad to see us, Vale. We’re going to take them back to home range and then you won’t have to spend your nights worrying about them. Now we can either do that, or I can wire the territorial governor and ask for range detectives to be sent in here. How do you want it, Vale?”

  The man puffed up like a ’possum and gave Smoke some dark looks. “Well ... git your damn cattle and git the hell off my land then. I’m tired of lookin’ at your damn ugly face, Jensen.”

  “Unless you want us over here every day for a couple of weeks, Vale, why don’t you have your boys assist us? It would move a lot faster.”

  Cheyenne’s leathery old face struggled to hide his grin. Smoke was pushing the big blow hard into a corner and the man couldn’t find a way out.

  Vale blustered and hissed like a spreadin’ adder and shif
ted around in the saddle. “I ain’t helpin’ you do nothin’, Jensen. I don’t give a damn how often you come over here. You just make sure all the beeves you push across the crick are wearin’ Box T brands, or by God, you’ll answer to me.”

  “We can do that now, Vale,” Smoke told him. He booted the Winchester and dropped his right hand to his thigh, close to the butt of that deadly .44.

  Jud didn’t like that idea at all. It was seven against two, for a fact. But it was also a fact that this was a no-win situation. Cheyenne was an old he-coon from ’way back. Jud’s men might take him, but the old man was sure to empty two, maybe three saddles before he went down; and even down the old goat was as dangerous as a cornered grizzly. Even dying, if you got too close to the old bastard, he’d sure likely come up with a knife and cut you from brisket to backbone.

  Smoke Jensen was quite another matter. Everybody knew he’d been raised by Preacher, and Preacher was a legend. Jensen had killed more than a hundred men—and that wasn’t counting Injuns. Jud Vale knew the first thing to happen should he grab for iron, was that Smoke was going to blow him right out of the saddle.

  And there just wasn’t no percentage in dying.

  “Round up your damn cattle and get off my range,” Jud finally backed down. He savagely jerked his horse around and galloped off, his men following him.

  “I hate a man treats a horse like that,” Cheyenne said. “A horse or a dog. You show me a man who’s unkind to animals and I’ll show you a man that just ain’t no damn good.”

  “I’m going to have to kill that man someday, Cheyenne. I can see it coming.”

  “I ’spect, Smoke, they’s a long line of folks ahead of you thinkin’ the same thing.”

  Saturday, they went to the trading post on Mud Lake.

  Walt drove the wagon, with Alice by his side, and Doreen, all prettied up, and Micky sitting on boxes in the back of the wagon.

  Doreen was a looker, no doubt about that, and a flirty thing, too. Smoke did his best to avoid her sliding glances. The heat coming out of her eyes could fry an egg. Although Smoke didn’t think kitchen cooking was what she had on her mind.