Return of the Mountain Man Read online

  “Where else you been lookin’ for this Smoke?” McNeil asked.

  “Name someplace. I thought I had him cornered over near Pagosa Springs, but he gave me the slip. I drifted down into New Mexico Territory after him. But he was always one jump ahead of me. He’s slick.”

  “He’ll screw up,” Long said.

  “When he does I’m gonna be there,” Buck said. And he noticed out of the corner of his eyes that the men seemed to relax. He had passed their test.

  Buck prowled the area about Bury for two days, planting a permanent map in his brain. He would remember the trails and roads and landmarks. They would come in handy when Buck made his move and sought his escape.

  And he learned from the PSR gunhands about the townspeople of Bury. They were a pretty scummy lot, according to the riders. There were men who had skipped out on partners back east: men who were wanted for everything from petty crimes to murder. In exchange for loyalty, the Big Three had offered them sanctuary and a chance to bury their past. After twenty years, the businesses they ran for the Big Three would revert to the shopkeepers. Free and clear.

  So Buck could expect no help from them.

  In a way, that knowledge made it easier.

  The saddlebags handed to Buck by MacGregor were heavy. The canvas and leather saddlebags were flap-secured by padlocks. Buck did not ask what was in the bags; the sour little Scotsman did not volunteer that information.

  “It’s about a sixty-five-mile ride,” Buck was told. “Head out east to the Lemhi River and follow it down. Little mining operation down in the Lemhi Valley. Town ain’t got no name. So it’s called No Name. Be a man there waitin’ for you. Name is Rex. Give the saddlebags to him, wait ’til he checks them out, and he’ll give you a receipt. Come back here.”

  The Scotsman turned away and stumped back to his rolltop desk, leaving Buck with the heavy bags. Buck smiled. “Gimme some expense money, friend.”

  The Scotsman sighed and reached into a tin box, pulling out a thin sheaf of bills. He made Buck sign for them. “Bring back anything that’s left. Not that I think there will be anything left, that is.”

  Buck rode out at nine that morning. He stopped by Sally’s place and found her sitting on the front porch. Drinking that damnable tea. “Be back in about three days.” He smiled. “I’ll bring you back a couple of pounds of coffee.” He wheeled Drifter and was gone.

  Staying close to the timber, with the flats to his left, Buck let Drifter pick his own pace. About ten miles out of town he reined up and sat his horse. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Was that an elf up ahead, sitting on a spotted pony? Buck walked Drifter slowly toward the sight. Sure looked like an elf.

  “Since I care nothing for life in caves or other subterranean dwellings, I can assure you that I am not a troll,” the little man said, when Buck was within earshot.

  “A what?”

  “Never mind, young man. My name is Audie. I, along with others of our vanishing breed, have made our meager camp just to the west of where we are now engaged in this somewhat less than loquacious confabulation.”

  Buck blinked. “Huh?”

  Audie sighed. “Very well.” He took a deep breath. “Me and them there other ol’ boys who was pards with Preacher is a-camped over yonder.” He jerked his thumb.

  “Oh. All right. For a little fellow you got a smart mouth, you know that?”

  Audie jerked out a .44 with the barrel sawed off short. “But I carry a very large friend, do I not?”

  “I’d say so. An’ quick with it, too.”

  “Did you think I might be an elf?” Audie smiled after the question.

  “Well, sir. Ah…yeah!”

  “How quaint,” the remark was very drily given. “But…given the fact that elves are rumored to engage in somewhat capricious interference in human affairs, and are usually represented in diminutive human form, I suppose your first impression might be forgiven. But I cannot, for the life of me, envision Greybull as an elf.”

  “Mister Audie, I don’t even know what it is you just said.”

  “We’re watching you,” Audie plunged onward, undaunted. “We’ll be there when you need us.” He wheeled his pony around and trotted off.

  Buck watched him disappear from view. Buck removed his hat and scratched his head. “I’ve seen the seasons change, the birthing of human life, and been in love. But I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that!”

  At No Name, Buck tied up in front of a building with the name PSR on the false front. Rex Augsman was painted on the door. Buck pushed open the door and stepped inside, pausing for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light.

  “You Rex Augsman?” Buck asked the man who was rising from behind his desk.

  “That’s me.”

  “You got some proof of that?”

  He pointed to a diploma hanging on the wall. Mining engineer. Rex M. Augsman.

  “I’m from PSR headquarters up in Bury.” He held out the saddlebags. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”

  “You look like you might just have some sense,” Rex said. “A definite improvement over the others.” He opened the padlocks and looked inside. He smiled and said, “Welcome to the team. You passed the final test.”

  “What do you mean?” Buck asked.

  The engineer dumped the contents of the heavy saddlebags onto the counter. The bags had been filled with cut-up pieces of newspaper and lots of rocks.

  “The young man is not exactly a paragon of intelligence,” Audie said. “But there is something about him that suggests there might be a glimmer of hope.”

  “Smart as a whip, you dwarf!” Preacher fired at the former schoolteacher. Halfway to the Divide, Preacher had run into a band of friendly Flatheads. Yes, they had been into Bury many times to trade. Yes, they would keep their eyes and ears open and report back to Preacher. Preacher had returned to the base camp.

  “No doubt you speak nonprejudicially,” Audie said.

  “Don’t you cuss me!” Preacher warned. “I’ll rap you upside the head.”

  Audie reached for the sawed-off .44. Preacher reached for his Colt.

  Lobo suddenly growled like a wolf and the two old friends settled down, dropping their hands from the butts of pistols.

  “Sorry ’bout that, little friend,” Preacher said.

  “I, too, offer my sincere apologies, Preacher,” Audie said. “It’s the tension of waiting for the unknown.”

  Dupre grinned and walked to his bedroll. He pulled two clay jugs out of the blankets. “I tink perhaps we have a drink or three,” he said.

  “Right good idee,” Greybull said.

  “I could stand a taste myself,” Matt said. “How ’bout you, Nighthawk?”

  “Ummm.”

  Buck had asked for a receipt for the newspapers and rocks. Back in Bury, he solemnly presented it to MacGregor. The Scotsman looked at Buck, then the receipt, and a sour smile slowly formed on his lips.

  “You’re a damn fool for staying, boy,” MacGregor said. “I told Richards you were an honest man. That impressed him. But honest men won’t last long in a town filled with scalawags and hooligans. Tell him I said it, if you wish—but you won’t. You’ve stepped into a snake pit, young man. There isn’t a handful of people—men and women—in this town and surrounding area that is worth spit. Oh, I know why you’re here, Mr. Kirby Jensen, aka Smoke, aka Buck West. You’re here to avenge your wife, your son, your father, your friend Preacher. You’re so full of hate it’s consuming you, eating you alive. If you let it, boy, it will destroy you.”

  “How many others know who I am?” Buck asked, keeping his voice calm.

  “I think the red-haired gunman, Sam, probably knows. Sam is quite like you. An honest man. The schoolteacher you’ve been sparking about, Sally. She probably suspects. Don’t worry about me, Buck. I am a federal marshal.”

  11

  Buck had asked the Scotsman how he had known about him. MacGregor had shown him a wanted dodger on Smoke. He had cut off the h
air and added a beard. It was eerie; almost like looking into a mirror.

  “Your skill and speed with your guns gave you away, Buck,” MacGregor said. Then he smiled. “What are you planning to do here?”

  “I’m going to kill Potter and Richards and Stratton and then burn this damn town to the ground.”

  “Warn me before you start putting your suicidal plan into action. I need to gather up my evidence and get out of here.”

  Buck had looked at the smaller man, not knowing how to take the man. “But you’re a federal marshal, MacGregor. Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

  “On what charges, Buck? I’m not aware of any federal charges against you. You haven’t committed any acts of treason against the government of the United States. You haven’t robbed any federal mints. You haven’t assaulted any federal agents or destroyed any federal property. Hell, I personally hope you are successful in destroying this cesspool. Good day, Mr. West.”

  Buck stabled Drifter and went back to the hotel for a bath and shave. MacGregor hadn’t told him very much as to the why of a federal marshal being in Bury; just that if he, MacGregor, was successful, another chapter in that regrettable bloody insurrection referred to as the Civil War would be closed. And perhaps a young man would finally be at peace with himself.

  MacGregor had left it at that.

  After cleaning up, Buck walked to Sally’s house carrying a small package wrapped in brown paper. He found her working in the yard, planting flowers. She turned at the sounds of his bootheels and the jingle of his spurs and smiled at him.

  Brushing off her hands, Sally asked, “Did you have a good trip?”

  “Oh, yes.” Buck held out the package. “Brought you something.”

  She waved him onto the porch and they both took chairs. She opened the package and laughed out loud. Two pounds of coffee.

  “I’ll grind these beans and make some coffee right now,” she said. “While it’s perking I’ll clean up. It won’t take me five minutes.”

  They chatted away the remainder of the morning. Sally fixed sandwiches for lunch, then the two went for a stroll around town. While resting on the cool banks of a creek, Buck said, “Sally, I want to tell you something.”

  She glanced at him. “Sounds serious.”

  “Might be. Sally, if I ever come to you and tell you to pack up and get out of town, don’t question it. Just do as I say. If I ever tell you that, it’s because a lot of trouble is about to pop wide open.”

  “If there is an Indian attack, wouldn’t it be safer in town rather than outside of town?”

  “It won’t be Indians, Sally.”

  “There are children in this town, Buck,” she reminded him.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Are you saying the sins of the father are also on the head of the son?”

  “No,” Buck’s reply was given slowly, after much thought. “Why would I think that?”

  She touched his face with her small hand. “Who are you, Buck?”

  And just before his lips touched hers, Buck said, “Smoke Jensen.”

  “Well, this cinches it,” Richards told MacGregor. “I’ve got a man I can trust. You agree?”

  “Oh, most assuredly,” the Scotsman said. “I like the young man.”

  Richards gave his bookkeeper a sharp glance. Damned little sour man had never seemed to like anybody. But if MacGregor gave his OK to Buck West, then Buck was all right.

  “Boss,” Jerry stuck his head into the office. “Some range-rider just reported a group of old mountain men’s gatherin’ south and west of here.”

  “Mountain men?” Richards said. “That’s impossible. All those people are dead.”

  “No, sir,” Jerry respectfully disagreed with his boss. “There’s still a handful of ’um around. They old, but they mean and crotchety and not to be fooled with. Dangerous old men. I’ve run up on ’um time to time. And Benson over to the general store reports that one was in his place ’bout three days back. Bought supplies and sich.”

  “Mountain men,” Richards vocally mused. “Now why would those old characters be hanging around here?”

  Neither Richards nor Jerry noticed the faint smile on MacGregor’s face. The Scotsman now knew what Buck/Smoke was up to. And it amused him. But, he cautioned himself silently, you damn sure don’t want to be around when Buck and his friends lift the lid on Pandora’s Box. Best start making arrangements to pull out. It isn’t going to be long.

  “Don’t know, boss,” Jerry said. “Just thought you’d want to know about it.”

  “Yeah, right, Jerry. Thanks.”

  MacGregor watched the men leave the office. The under-cover federal marshal sat down at his desk and took up his pen, dipping the point into the inkwell. He returned to his company ledger book. But he had a difficult time entering the small, precise figures. His shoulders kept shaking from suppressed laughter.

  “I must keep reminding myself that I’m a lady,” Sally told Buck. But the twinkle in her eyes told Buck that while a lady she might be, there were a lot of hot coals banked within.

  “Aren’t you going to run away, screaming in fear?” Buck asked her. “After all, I’m the murderer, Smoke Jensen.”

  “You took an awful chance, telling me that.”

  “Maybe I have some insight, too.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do. Now tell me about Smoke.”

  She listened attentively for a full ten minutes, not interrupting, letting him tell his painful story, his way. Several times during the telling he lapsed into silence, then with a sigh, he would continue.

  When he had finished, she sat on the cool creek bank, her long skirt a fan of gingham around her, and mentally digested all she had heard.

  Finally she said, “And to think I work for those creatures.” She hurled a small stone into the water. “Well, I shall tender my resignation immediately, of course.”

  Buck’s smile was hard. “Stick around, Sally. The show’s just about to begin.”

  “What would you do if I told you…well, I am quite fond of you, Buck?”

  “What would you want me to do?”

  “Well,” she smiled, “you might kiss me.”

  Just as their lips touched, a voice came from behind them. “Plumb sickenin’. Great big growed-up man a-moonin’ and a-sparkin’ lak some fiddle-footed kid. Disgustin’.”

  Buck spun around, on his feet in a crouch, his hands over the butt of his guns. His mouth dropped open.

  “Shut your mouth, boy,” Preacher said. “Flies is bad this time of year.”

  “Preacher!” Buck croaked, his voice breaking.

  “It damned shore ain’t Jedediah Smith,” the old man said drily. “We lost him back in ’35, I think it was. Either that or he got married. One and the same if’n you’s to ask me.”

  Buck ran toward Preacher and grabbed him in a bear hug, spinning around and around with the old mountain man.

  “Great Gawd Amighty!” Preacher hollered. “Put me down, you ox!”

  Buck dropped the old man to the ground. His big hands on Preacher’s shoulders, Buck said, “I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead!”

  “I damn near was, boy! Took this old body a long time to recover. Now if’n you’re all done a-slobberin’ all over me, we got to make some plans.”

  “How’d you find me, Preacher?”

  “Hell’s fire, boy! I just followed the bodies! Cain’t you keep them guns of yourn in leather?”

  “Come on, Preacher! Tell the truth. I know you’d rather lie, but try real hard.”

  “You see how unrespectful he is, Missy?” Preacher looked at Sally. “Cain’t a purty thang lak you do no better than the laks of this gunslick?”

  “I’m going to change him,” Sally said primly. She was not certain just how to take this disreputable-looking old man, all dressed in buckskins and looking like death warmed over.

  “Uh-huh,” Preacher said. “That’s whut that white wife of mine said, too.”

  “White wif
e!” Buck looked at him. “You never had no wife except squaws!”

  “That’s all you know, you pup. I married up with me a white woman that was purtier than Simone Jules Dumont’s mustache.”

  “Heavens!” Sally muttered.

  Simone Jules Dumont, also known as Madame Mustache, was either from France or a Creole from the Mississippi Delta region—it had never been proven one way or the other. She’d showed up in California during the 1849 gold rush and had soon been named head roulette croupier at the Bella Union in San Francisco. Eventually, Simone had moved on to a livelier occupation: running a gambling saloon/whorehouse at Bannack, Montana. It was there she is rumored to have taught the finer points of card dealing to Calamity Jane. And her mustache continued to grow, as did her reputation. She killed what is thought to be her first husband—a man named Carruthers—after he conned her out of a sizable amount of money. She moved on to Bodie, California, mustache in full bloom, and killed another man there when he and another footpadder tried to rob her one night. She lost most of her money in a card game on the night of September 6, 1879, and passed on through the Pearlies that same night after drinking hydrocyanic acid.

  “Did you have any children from that union, Mister Preacher?” Sally asked.

  “Durned if’n I know, Missy. I lit a shuck out of there one night. Walls was a-closin’ in on me. I heard she took up with a minister and went back east. I teamed up with John Liver-Eatin’ Johnston for a time. He lost his old woman back in ’47 and went plumb crazy for a time. Called him Crow Killer. He kilt about three hundred Crows and et the livers out of ’em.”

  Sally turned a little green around the mouth. Buck had heard the story; he yawned.

  “I didn’t think crows were good to eat, Mister Preacher,” Sally said.

  “Not the bird, Missy,” Preacher corrected. “The Indian tribe. You see, it was a bunch of Crows on the warpath that kilt Johnston’s old woman. John never did lak Crows after that. Et a bunch of ’em.”

  “You mean he was a…cannibal?”

  “Only as fer as the liver went,” Preacher said blandly. “He got to lookin’ at me one night while we’s a-camped in the Bitterroot. Right hongry look in his eyes. I took off. Ain’t seen him since. Last I heard, old Crow Killer was a scout for the U.S. Army, over on the North Plains.”