Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man Read online

  “Here, hold on, hold on there,” Smoke said. “You’re too weak to be doin’ that.”

  “I’m not goin’ back,” Matt said.

  “All right, if you don’t want to go back, I won’t make you,” Smoke said. “But don’t you think your ma and pa might be worrying about you?”

  “My ma and pa are both dead,” Matt said. “They’ve been dead for three years.”

  “I see,” Smoke said. “So, where is it you don’t want to go back to? Are you living with relatives or something?”

  Matt shook his head and finished the broth. He handed the cup to Smoke. “Is there any more?” he asked.

  “Yes, there’s more,” Smoke replied.

  “And another biscuit, please?”

  Smoke refilled the cup with broth, then handed it and another biscuit to Matt.

  “It’s an orphanage,” Matt said, answering Smoke’s earlier question. “Only it’s called the Home for Wayward Boys and Girls. None of us are really wayward, though. The only thing is we’re all just orphans.”

  “So, if it’s just an orphanage, why did you run away?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Matt said.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” Smoke agreed. “But in the meantime, you can put your mind at ease. I’m not going to make you go back.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden on you, so as soon as I get my strength back, I’ll be going on,” Matt offered. “Just tell me the way to the nearest town so I can find a job somewhere.”

  “The nearest town is a good fifty or more miles from here,” he said. “And even if you knew where it was, you wouldn’t be able to make it. Most of the high passes are filled with snow by now. You wouldn’t be able to get through.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, I’m afraid you are going to have to just stay here with me.”

  “Stay here? Stay here for how long?”

  “Four or five months anyway,” Smoke replied. “Until the high passes are open.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?” Smoke asked.

  “I’m sorry I’m goin’ to have to stay here and put you out.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. In the first place, I could use the company. It gets awfully lonely sometimes, spending a winter in a cabin like this all by yourself. And in the second place, you won’t be puttin’ me out because I aim to see to it that you earn your keep.”

  “Yes, sir,” Matt said. “I’ll do whatever you ask me to do, Mr. Jensen.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Then I’m going to ask you not to call me Mr. Jensen. The name is Smoke. That’s what I’ll be wanting you to call me.”

  “All right—Smoke,” Matt replied with a big grin.

  “First thing we’re going to have to do is build you a bed,” Smoke said. “The bed you’ve been sleeping in for the last two days belongs to me, and I don’t plan on sharing it.”

  “I’ve made my bed, but I don’t think I’ve ever built one before,” Matt said.

  “Matt, during your stay with me you’re going to be doing a lot of things you’ve never done before,” Smoke promised.

  Chapter Nine

  “It doesn’t make the best coffee,” Smoke said as he poured the dark substance into the bottom of a coffeepot. “But if you roast dandelion root, then crush it up and boil it, well, the coffee is passable.”

  “The meat smells good,” Matt said. He was talking about a cut of venison that was cooking in a roaster that was sitting on a rock at the back of the fireplace. Wild carrots and wild leeks surrounded the meat and were now bubbling in the meat juices.

  “The meat, carrots, and cattail roots will make us a fine meal,” Smoke said. “Afterward, we’ll have dessert of wild blueberry pie and coffee.”

  “I had no idea there were so many things you could eat in the wild,” Matt said. “I mean, if you think about it, I nearly starved to death out there and there were all sorts of thing to eat.”

  “Well, don’t feel bad about it,” Smoke said. “I wouldn’t have known about it either if it hadn’t been for Preacher.”

  “Preacher must be quite a fella,” Matt said. “I’d like to meet him someday.”

  “You will,” Smoke promised. “The thing about Preacher is, he likes his time alone.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He’s an old-time mountain man,” Smoke explained. “One of the originals.”

  “You’re a mountain man too.”

  “I am,” Smoke agreed. “But I don’t plan to spend my whole life in the mountains. Truth is, I like civilization too much. One of these days I intend to get myself a ranch and settle down.”

  “Not me,” Matt said.

  “You don’t want to settle down?”

  “No, sir. I want to just wander around from place to place.”

  “I guess you’ll get to see a lot of the country that way,” Smoke said.

  Matt was quiet for a long moment before he spoke. “After I kill some people,” he said.

  Smoke didn’t reply.

  “I reckon you think that’s wrong of me, don’t you? Saying that I’m going to kill some people.”

  “Depends on who you are going to kill, and why you are going to kill them,” Smoke said.

  “I only know the names of two of them,” Matt said. “One is Payson and the other is Garvey.”

  “Are those first names or last?”

  “I don’t know,” Matt said.

  “Well, would you know these people if you saw them?”

  “Yes, I’d know them. Payson has a long, ugly, purple scar on his face and it’s made his eye look funny,” Matt said, using his finger to illustrate the scar. “Garvey only has half an ear.”

  “You said your ma and pa are dead. Did these fellas kill them?”

  “Yes, and my big sister too,” Matt said. “They were also going to—uh—I mean, with my mom and my sister they were going to—uh—don’t know how to say it.”

  “Rape?”

  Matt was quiet for a moment. His eyes brimmed with tears; then they began flowing down his cheeks. He held back his sobs as he brushed the tears away. Finally, he nodded.

  “Yes. One of them was going to rape my mom and sister,” Matt said. “My mom and sis were already dead, but he was going to do it anyway.”

  “You said he was going to,” Smoke noted. “But he didn’t?”

  Matt shook his head. “No.”

  “What stopped him?”

  “I—I did,” Matt said. “When they shot Pa, I grabbed Pa’s rifle and I ran. Like a coward, I ran.”

  Smoke shook his head. “That wasn’t being cowardly, Matt. That was being smart.”

  “I managed to get behind some rocks and I climbed up so I could see. But by the time I got up there, it was too late. Ma and Cassie were already dead, and one of them was standing over my ma, unbuttoning his pants, getting ready to . . .” He paused for a moment before he continued. “To be honest with you, Smoke, I was nine years old then, so I didn’t really know what he was planning to do. I thought maybe he was going to pee on them. So I shot him in the head.”

  “Good for you,” Smoke said.

  “After I shot that one, one of the others tried to come after me, but he got wedged in between a couple of rocks and couldn’t get to me. So I killed him too.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Smoke asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think what you did was wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Matt admitted. “I mean, I know it’s wrong to kill people, but I also know that soldiers kill people. My pa was a soldier in the war. He killed people and I know he wasn’t a bad man.”

  “That is something to think about, Matt,” Smoke said. “If good men can kill good men during a war, then there can’t be anything wrong with a good man killing an evil man.”

  Matt smiled and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but
I think you are right.”

  “It smells like supper is ready,” Smoke said.

  “That’s good. I’m starving.”

  Smoke laughed. “If anyone else told me they were starving, I would figure they didn’t know what they were talking about. But seeing as how you actually were starving when I found you, then I guess you don’t fall into that category.”

  Throughout the long winter, Smoke began teaching his young protégé things he needed to know to get by. In the teaching, he felt almost as if he was doing nature’s bidding, passing along things he had learned from Preacher. And just as it wasn’t a father-son relationship between Smoke and Preacher, neither was this a father-son relationship. But the fact that they didn’t share a familial bond didn’t mean the relationship wasn’t just as strong, nor the continuity as valid as it would have been if they had.

  “Just because we’re livin’ out here in the wilds, doesn’t mean we don’t have laws that we follow,” Smoke said, recalling almost the same conversation he once had with Preacher. “Only out here, it isn’t laws that you find written on paper or in books. And it isn’t laws that have to have sheriffs enforcing, or judges settling.”

  “What kind of laws are they?”

  “You might say they are the laws of decency and good sense,” Smoke explained. “For example, don’t go putting your hands on another man’s wife, don’t steal from him, don’t cheat him, and don’t call him a liar. Do that, and somebody is going to get killed.”

  “Somebody? Don’t you mean the man that’s doing the wrong?” Matt asked.

  Smoke shook his head. “Not always. Sometimes the one who is wronged has no choice but to try and defend those laws. But if the one who wronged him is faster and better with a gun, then the wronged man dies.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “I hope you do see what I mean, Matt, because I’m going to teach you how to use a gun, And by the time I get through with you, there will be few, if any, in the country who will be able to stand up to you. But with that comes the responsibility of knighthood.”

  Matt chuckled. “Knighthood?”

  “You’ve heard about knights, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen pictures. They are the guys who wore the iron suits, right?” Matt asked.

  “Right. Those suits were called armor. The knights were appointed by the king, and he made sure that he only appointed the best men for the job. You see, the knights were so strong they could kill anyone they wanted to. But they didn’t. They took an oath never to use their power to enrich themselves, but always just to help others.”

  “Are you a knight, Smoke?”

  Smoke nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “In a manner of speaking, you might say that I am a knight. I respect the rights of others, and I settle my own accounts without running to the sheriff.”

  “How do you settle accounts?” Matt asked.

  “Say a cougar is sneaking up on my horse,” Smoke suggested. “Do you think I should go to a sheriff or a judge to complain?”

  “No, sir,” Matt replied.

  “What would you do?”

  “I’d shoot the cougar.”

  Smoke nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s the same with a man, Matt. If a man calls you out, you don’t go to the sheriff or a judge, you deal with him, straight and simple.”

  “Like Payson and Garvey?”

  “Like Payson and Garvey,” Smoke agreed.

  As soon as the streams melted and the water began flowing again, Smoke asked Matt to come down to the creek with him.

  “Are we going fishing?” Matt asked.

  Smoke chuckled. “Something like that,” he said. He handed Matt a pan.

  “Hmm. I’ve never fished with a pan before,” Matt said, looking at the pan.

  “That’s because you’ve never fished for gold before.”

  “Gold? You fish for gold?”

  “I do,” Smoke said.

  The walk from the cabin to the creek was about half a mile. There, a wide bed of gravel wound its way through the valley, and in the middle of the bed of gravel was a creek, approximately thirty yards wide. The creek ran cool and clear, except where the whitewater broke over the rocks.

  “It’s very pretty here,” Matt said.

  “Yes, it is,” Smoke agreed.

  “Is this where we are going to fish for gold?”

  “Yes, but it isn’t called fishing, it’s called panning,” Smoke said. “Pay attention.”

  “All right.”

  “The first thing you have to do is look around for the best location to work. Find yourself a spot where the water is at least six inches deep and flowing just fast enough to keep the muddy water from getting into your pan. Also, it’s nice if you can find a rock that will let you sit down.”

  Smoke continued his lesson, demonstrating as he talked.

  “Fill the pan about three-quarters full of gravel, then hold it deep enough so it is just under water. Shake it back and forth and from side to side, but not so hard that you wash anything out of the pan. Keep doing this until everything heavy goes to the bottom of the pan and the lighter stuff comes to the top. Then turn the pan just enough to pour out the lighter rocks,” he said, continuing to demonstrate.

  “After that, you sort of swirl things around in the pan to look at what you have and . . . ha!” he said, reaching down into the pan. “Here is what we are looking for.”

  Smoke held a little rock in his hand, not much bigger than a pea.

  “That’s just a rock,” Matt said.

  Smoke turned it, and Matt saw a quick flash in the sun.

  “Not just a rock,” Smoke replied.

  “It’s gold!” Matt said.

  Smoke nodded.

  “If there’s gold in this creek, why aren’t more people up here doing this?”

  “Right now only three people know about it,” Smoke said. “Preacher, me, and you. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Wow!” Matt said. “This is fun!”

  Smoke chuckled. “I’m glad you think so,” he said. “Because this is what we are going to be doing all summer.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cedar Creek

  There wasn’t much to the little town of Cedar Creek. It was hot, dry, and dusty, out in the middle of nowhere and baking under the blows of the hot September sun. An old yellow dog was asleep under the front porch of the general store, the shade shared by a black-and-white cat.

  School had just started, and on the school grounds a group of Miss Miller’s second-grade students were laughing and playing during their afternoon recess.

  As the children played and the rest of the town went about its business, a drama was taking place inside the Bank of Cedar Creek. Seven men, wearing yellow dusters and brandishing guns, were holding the bank employees and customers at bay. The bank robbers were wearing as masks bandannas tied around their faces. But the leader of the group had a puffy scar, starting above his left eye, disfiguring the eye and streaking down his cheek like a purple flash of lightning, then disappearing under the bandanna.

  Even as Payson and his men were robbing the bank, Jason Feeler was coming up the boardwalk, carrying an envelope. The envelope contained twelve dollars and seventy-five cents, a deposit from the livery stable. Jason, who was seventeen, felt pleased that Mr. Heckemeyer considered him responsible enough to take the overnight receipts to the bank.

  As Jason reached the front of the bank, he looked in through the window, then gasped. Mr. Fitzhugh, the bank president, was standing against the wall with his hands in the air. So were several others. Mr. Boykin was on his knees in front of the safe, twisting the dial, while a masked man was standing beside him, holding a gun against his head. There were six other robbers in the bank.

  Fitzhugh saw Jason, and made a slight motion with his head. Jason understood, nodded, then left the front of the bank. As soon as he was clear of the bank, he started running. A moment later, he pushed open the door to the marshal’s office.

  “The bank
’s bein’ robbed, Marshal Cobb!” Jason shouted breathlessly.

  “What?”

  “They’s some men with guns robbin’ the bank,” Jason said. “They’re in there now!”

  Marshal Cobb pulled a rifle down from the gun rack and tossed it to Jason; then he pulled another one down for himself.

  “Get down to the general store,” the marshal ordered. “Tell anyone you find there to get ready. I’m goin’ to get some help from the saloon.”

  Spurred on by the warning and moving quickly and quietly enough to avoid giving the bank robbers any sign of what they were doing, the men blocked off both escape routes out of town. They pushed wagons across the street to use as barricades; then with rifles, pistols, and shotguns, they took up their positions. Armed and ready, they stared back toward the bank, watching and waiting.

  Inside the bank, unaware of the ambush being set for them outside, the scar-faced man was holding his gun on the bank teller, who was kneeling in front of the vault door, nervously twisting the combination dial.

  “Mister, if you don’t have that lock open in thirty seconds, I’m going to blow your brains all over the front of this safe,” the scar-faced man said menacingly.

  “I’m trying to open it,” the trembling teller replied. “But I’m so scared that I keep makin’ mistakes.”

  The scar-faced man cocked his pistol and pressed the barrel against the teller’s temple. “Yeah? Well, don’t make any more, ’cause the next mistake will be your last one.”

  The teller began again.

  “Garvey, what’s it look like outside?” the leader asked.

  “Damn, Payson, you said my name,” Garvey said.

  “Yeah, and you just said mine,” Payson replied.

  Like Payson, Garvey had a very distinguishing feature. The lobe of his left ear had been shot off, leaving him only half an ear on that side. He moved over to the window and pulled the green curtain aside so he could look out into the street.

  “Never mind, what does it look like?”