Ambush of the Mountain Man Read online

  Jacoby leaned his head back and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, trying to ease the sudden pain there that Macklin was causing. “You’re right, Mac, she’ll never understand,” he said wearily. “She’s like her father. She don’t never forget a slight, and she sure as hell won’t care what I think about Jensen’s character, that’s for sure.”

  “If you’re finished with that steak, maybe we’d better get on over to the telegraph office and wire Angus and see what he wants us to do,” Macklin said, stuffing the last piece of his meat into his mouth, thinking Jacoby was a fool for caring so much about a lady that would never ever give him the time of day.

  Sally Jensen eased out of her seat on the train when it pulled into the station at Pueblo, Colorado. The next stop would be Big Rock, and she wanted to freshen up a little before arriving home. She hadn’t seen Smoke for more than half a year, and she wanted to look her best when he met her at the station. She could already imagine him throwing his arms around her and squeezing her tight against his hard body.

  When she looked into the mirror in the women’s parlor compartment as she applied a light dusting of powder and just a hint of lip rouge, she noticed that the thought of seeing her man again after so long was making her cheeks flush and burn as if they were on fire.

  She grinned, speaking at her image in the looking glass. “Why, Sally Jensen, you’re acting like a hussy instead of an old married woman!”

  “Pardon me?” a young woman who was just entering the compartment asked, raising her eyebrows at the sight of Sally talking to herself in the mirror.

  Sally laughed, her cheeks flushing even more at being seen acting so strangely. “Oh, don’t mind me, miss,” she said, waving a hand at the young girl. “I’m just returning home after a long absence, and the excitement of seeing my husband and home again after so long has me behaving a bit silly.”

  The young woman stepped in front of another mirror across the room and spent a few moments adjusting her hat and dress. Sally thought the girl probably wasn’t used to wearing such nice clothes, the way she picked at the buttons and continually fussed with the ruffled collar on the neckline. And she certainly didn’t know how to wear a frilly hat. She had it at completely the wrong angle.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” Sally said, moving over to smooth out the ruffles in the back of the dress and make it a bit more comfortable for the young woman and to adjust the tilt of the hat to a more rakish angle.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, smiling. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Sarah . . . uh . . . Sarah Johnson,” Sarah MacDougal said, stammering a bit over the false name she’d decided to use on her trip to Big Rock to see what she could do about making Smoke Jensen pay for what he’d done to her little brother.

  “Hello, Sarah,” Sally said, taking her hand and shaking it. “I’m Sally Jensen.”

  Sarah flushed when she heard Sally’s last name, and ducked her head as she tried to think of something to say. She’d had no idea the man might be married, and to such a refined-looking woman as Sally obviously was. If she’d thought about it at all, she would’ve thought a gunman like Smoke Jensen would probably be keeping company with a dance-hall gal or one of the fallen doves in a house of ill repute somewhere.

  Sally, seeing the girl’s discomfort but not knowing what was behind it, asked, “Are you traveling far, Sarah?”

  “Uh . . . just to Big Rock, Mrs. Jensen,” Sarah answered in a hoarse voice with just a trace of a tremor in it.

  “Oh, just call me Sally, Sarah,” Sally said, smiling and returning to her own mirror for a last-minute adjustment. “We’re not very formal in Big Rock, as you’ll find out when we get there.”

  “All right, Sally,” Sarah said, bending to pick up her valise.

  Sally put her arm through Sarah’s as they left the compartment. “Why don’t you sit with me, dear, and you can tell me all about your trip to Big Rock,” she said, leading Sarah to her row of seats.

  After Sarah had stashed her valise on the overhead rack, she sat down next to Sally and they began to talk.

  “Are you visiting friends or family in Big Rock?” Sally asked, wondering to herself what would make a young woman set out all alone on such a trip.

  “Uh, not really, Sally,” Sarah answered. “I just had to get out of Pueblo, and Big Rock seemed like a nice place to move to.”

  Sally’s eyebrows rose at the tone in Sarah’s voice, as if she were in some kind of trouble, and she wondered how Sarah would have heard of Big Rock in the much larger city of Pueblo.

  “I hope I’m not being too nosy, Sarah, but just why do you have to get out of Pueblo?”

  When Sarah hesitated and stared past Sally out the widow as the train began to move out of the station, Sally patted her on the arm. “Never mind, dear,” Sally said, turning and looking forward. “Your reasons are none of my business and I fear I’m intruding on your privacy.”

  Sarah, not wanting to make Sally suspicious, decided to tell her the story she’d made up to account for her moving from Pueblo to Big Rock.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Sally, it’s nothing all that mysterious,” Sarah said, making her voice light and carefree. “It’s just that I was engaged, until recently, to a prominent member of Pueblo society. When we decided to cancel our engagement, people began to talk, and my family thought it best if I moved away, for at least a little while, to let matters settle down,” she finished.

  “Ah,” Sally said, nodding, “an affair of the heart often makes tongues waggle, especially tongues of the gossip mongers who like nothing better than to besmirch someone else’s reputation.” She clucked and shook her head. “Now, even though the people of Big Rock are very nice, Sarah, I wouldn’t be too quick to tell anyone your story. It is after all a small town, and it does have its gossips just like all towns do.”

  “That’s it exactly, Sally. Oh, I knew you’d understand,” Sarah said, blushing in shame at deceiving this woman who was being so kind to her.

  “Of course I understand, dear,” Sally said. “I’m not so old that I cannot remember what it was like when my husband first began courting me, and how the gossip flew hot and heavy around my town at the time.”

  Sarah realized she needed to find out if Sally Jensen’s husband was Smoke Jensen. She figured he was, but Jensen wasn’t all that uncommon a name and she wanted to be sure. After all, she still couldn’t believe someone as nice as Sally seemed to be would be married to a gunfighter like Smoke Jensen, a man who killed defenseless boys.

  “Tell me about your husband, Sally,” Sarah said, leaning back in her chair a bit so she wouldn’t seem too anxious. “What’s his name?”

  Sally laughed. “Well, his name is Kirby, Sarah, but he goes by Smoke, or at least that’s what everyone including me calls him.”

  “Smoke?” Sarah asked, “My, what an unusual name.” It was him. She was married to a monster.

  Sally’s eyes became distant as she thought back to what Smoke had told her of his early days in the wild West . . .

  Sarah stared at Sally, who seemed lost in a pleasant memory for the moment. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Most gunmen, at least all that she’d been acquainted with or told about, didn’t have wives. They were for the most part a sorry lot of drunkards and malcontents who drifted from one place to another, selling their guns and their willingness to kill without reason to the highest bidder. And the women they did take up with, when they weren’t busy killing, were nothing like Sally Jensen. Why, she and I could be friends if things were different, Sarah thought wryly. I just can’t believe she’s married to a man as evil as Smoke Jensen and doesn’t realize how bad he really is.

  After a moment, Sarah reached over and gently touched Sally’s arm. “Mrs. Jensen,” she said tentatively.

  Sally started and seemed to come out of her reverie. “Oh, excuse me, Sarah,” she said, smiling almost sadly. “I fear my long journey has tired me considerably and I was daydreaming for a moment.”

  “No,
that’s all right,” Sarah said, returning the smile. “You seemed to be someplace else for a minute . . . someplace nice.”

  “I was just remembering some tales my husband told me of his first days out here in the wilderness, back when he was no more than a child.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Things were very different then, and Smoke had to learn to use both his wits and his guns at a very young age.” Sally laughed softly. “Thank goodness we’re much more civilized nowadays and things are different.”

  Not so different as you think, Sally, not so different at all, Sarah thought, struggling to keep the hatred she felt for Smoke from showing in her eyes or in her voice.

  FIVE

  Sarah decided it would be best if she could find out all she could about this man she planned to kill, this man who went by the unlikely name Smoke. She didn’t like taking advantage of a nice woman like Sally, but it wasn’t her fault the lady had married a monster and didn’t seem to realize it. Perhaps if she could get her to talk about him, she would find out how best to get close to him and then take him out.

  “Please, Sally,” she said, “if you’re not too tired, tell me some of those tales about your husband’s early days out here and how he got such an unusual name as Smoke.”

  “Well,” Sally said, hesitating, “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

  “Oh, you won’t,” Sarah promised. “My father used to tell my brother and me about how he got started years ago, back when things were very different in Colorado Territory, and his stories always fascinated us.”

  Sally smiled. “We’re a lot alike, Sarah,” she said. “I too have always been interested in the history of the Old West.”

  The only difference is my father is a respectable rancher and your husband is cold-blooded killer and gunman, Sarah thought.

  Sally settled back in her seat and closed her eyes, letting the memories of the stories Smoke had told her come to the front of her mind....

  Smoke was sixteen years old when his father returned to their hardscrabble farm in Missouri from fighting for the Gray in the Civil War. When young Kirby told his father that his mother, Emmett’s wife, had died the previous spring, Emmett put the farm up for sale and he and Kirby moved off headed west.

  They rode westward, edging north for several weeks, moving toward country controlled by the Kiowa and Pawnee Indians. When they arrived at the Santa Fe Trail, they met up with a mountain man who called himself Preacher. He was dressed entirely in buckskins, from his moccasins to his wide-brimmed hat. Young Kirby thought him the dirtiest man he’d ever seen; even his white beard was so stained with tobacco as to be almost black.

  Soon after their meeting, the three men were ambushed by a group of Indians that Preacher said were Pawnees, and took refuge in a buffalo wallow just behind a low ridge.

  Suddenly the meadow around them was filled with screaming, charging Indians. Emmett brought one buck down with a .44 slug through the chest, flinging the Indian backward.

  The air had changed from the peacefulness of summer quiet to a screaming, gun-smoke-filled hell. Preacher looked at Kirby, who was looking at him, his mouth hanging open in shock, fear, and confusion.

  “Don’t look at me, boy!” he yelled. “Keep them eyes in front of you!”

  Kirby jerked his gaze to the small creek and the stand of timber that lay behind it. His eyes were beginning to smart from the acrid powder smoke, and his head was aching from the pounding sound of the Henry .44 and the screaming and yelling. The Spencer rifle Kirby held at the ready was a heavy weapon, and his arms were beginning to ache with the strain.

  His head suddenly came up, eyes alert. He had seen movement on the far side of the creek. Right there! Yes, someone was over there.

  Kirby was thinking to himself that he really didn’t want to shoot anyone when a young brave suddenly sprang from the willows by the creek and lunged into the water, a rifle in his hand.

  As the young brave thrashed through the water toward him, Kirby jacked back the hammer of the Spencer, sighted in on the brave, and pulled the trigger. The .52-caliber pounded his shoulder, bruising it, for there wasn’t much spare meat on Kirby. When the smoke blew away, the young Indian was facedown in the water, his blood staining the stream.

  Kirby stared at what he’d done, then fought back waves of sickness that threatened to spill from his stomach.

  The boy heard a wild screaming and spun around. His father was locked in hand-to-hand combat with two knife-wielding braves. Too close for the rifle, Kirby clawed out the .36-caliber Navy Colt from leather. He shot one brave through the head just as his father buried his Arkansas Toothpick to the hilt in the chest of the other.

  And as abruptly as they came, the Indians were gone, dragging as many of their dead and wounded with them as they could. Two braves lay dead in front of Preacher, two braves lay dead in the shallow ravine with the three men; the boy Kirby had shot lay facedown in the creek, arms outstretched, the waters a deep crimson. The body slowly floated downstream.

  Preacher looked at the dead buck in the creek, then at the brave in the wallow with them . . . the one Kirby had shot. He lifted his eyes to the boy.

  “Got your baptism this day, boy. Did right well, you did.”

  “Saved my life, son,” Emmett said, dumping the bodies of the Indians out of the wallow. “Can’t call you a boy no more, I reckon. You’re a man now.”

  A thin finger of smoke lifted from the barrel of the Navy .36 Colt Kirby held in his hand. Preacher smiled and spit tobacco juice.

  He looked at Kirby’s ash-blond hair. “Yep,” he said. “Smoke’ll suit you just fine. So Smoke hit’ll be.”

  “Sir?” Kirby finally found his voice.

  “Smoke. That’s what I’ll call you now on. Smoke.”1

  Sarah’s face was flushed and she was fanning herself with a small handkerchief as Sally finished her tale of how her husband came to be called Smoke and of his introduction to the Wild West.

  The story had been very exciting, and somehow it reminded Sarah of the stories Cletus and her father had told her as she was growing up, about how they’d had to hold off Indian attacks and bandit attacks while still trying to raise crops and cattle and babies.

  “My, my, Sally,” Sarah said, taking a deep breath. “That was quite a story.”

  Sally smiled as she patted Sarah’s thigh next to her on the seat. “Things were quite different in those days, Sarah. The Indians were still around and hated the intrusion of the white man, and there was no law to call upon when you got in trouble. People had to learn to take matters into their own hands, and they became very tough in the doing.”

  Kind of like me, Sarah thought as she turned her face to stare out of the window. Since the law is unable to do what is right, I’m taking matters into my own hands, and I’m going to kill Smoke Jensen for what he did to my brother.

  After a moment spent composing herself and forcing her face into an expression of friendship, Sarah turned back around and faced Sally. “And did this country make your husband tough, Sally?” she asked, trying to keep the venom out of her voice and her expression pleasant.

  Sally pursed her lips as she thought about the question. She didn’t quite know how to answer it. True, Smoke was as tough a man when provoked as she’d ever met, but with her he was invariably gentle and kind, and she knew that there was no man more loyal to his friends than her husband, or more fearsome to his enemies. So, she guessed Smoke was tough when he needed to be and gentle and kind when he was allowed to be.

  Unable to put all this into words without sounding like a fool, she just shrugged. “I suppose Smoke became as tough as he needed to be to survive in those days, but thankfully, those days are gone now and he has little need for that ability nowadays.” She smiled at Sarah. “Nowadays, he spends his time with me on our ranch just outside of Big Rock, raising cattle and horses and being a boring old homebody.”

  She glanced over Sarah’s shoulder and pointed. “And speaking of Big Rock, I do be
lieve we’re pulling into town right now.”

  Sarah followed Sally’s gaze, hoping her friends already stationed there wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to meet her at the station. She’d told Sally she didn’t know anyone in town, and she didn’t want them to make a liar out of her. She realized if she was to have any chance to get close enough to Smoke Jensen to do him in, she was going to have to have the trust of his wife.

  She sighed. “Well, here I go about to start a new life for myself,” Sarah said. She looked at Sally. “I hope I’ll be able to find a nice place to stay and a good job soon.”

  Sally didn’t hesitate. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” she said. “I know that Ed and Peg Jackson, who own the town’s largest general store, are always looking for someone to help out so that Peg can spend more time at home with the children, and there’s a very nice boardinghouse right on Main Street that caters to young, single women.”

  Sarah forced herself to smile brightly. “Oh, thank you, Sally. I don’t know what I’d have done if we hadn’t met.”

  Sally added, “Of course, if money is tight, you could always stay out at our ranch for a while until you’ve worked long enough to afford your own place.”

  Sarah paused, considering Sally’s offer for a moment. True, that it would give her plenty of access to Smoke Jensen, and would make it much easier when she finally decided to kill him, but she would be severely limited in being able to contact her friends in town or to keep in touch with her father about the details of what was going on. She finally decided against accepting Sally’s offer, but she wanted to leave the door open for visits out to the ranch just in case.

  “Oh, that is so kind of you, Sally, but my father made sure I had plenty of money when he sent me here. I have enough to tide me over until I get a few paydays behind me, but I would appreciate the chance to see your spread and visit with you if I get too lonely.”