Guns of the Mountain Man Read online

  Things were getting so hectic with all the new residents that Bob Blanchard had to send for supplies and reopen the general store, as well as the hotel. Lazarus had also ordered a large amount of ammunition and extra weapons, including two small cannons. He figured if he was going to try to tree a town, he needed all the help he could get.

  Mickey O’Donnel, a man small in stature and mean as a snake, had arrived two days ago and was busy trying to drink up the entire supply of whiskey in Fontana all by himself. The more he drank, the meaner he got. Even the other hard cases in town moved across the room when he was in one of his dark moods.

  “Hey, Lazarus,” he shouted just after noon, while most of the men were in the saloon eating lunch.

  “Yes, Mickey. What is it you want?” Lazarus asked, looking up from his beans and enchiladas—about the only things the Mexican cook Blanchard had hired could cook that were worth eating.

  “Tell me again why it is that you’re plannin’ to go up against this entire town when it’s just the one man who’s stoppin’ us from gettin’ our hands on all that gold.”

  Lazarus used the tip of his knife to pick a piece of stringy beef from between his teeth, then looked across the room at Mickey. He noticed the shanty Irishman hadn’t eaten, but had drunk his lunch, as usual.

  “Well, Mickey me boy, it’s like this. First of all, Jensen has quite a reputation as a gunfighter, so he won’t be all that easy to kill. Second, word is he is quite popular in the town, and anyone who does manage to kill him certainly won’t be allowed to hang around mining for gold on his property.”

  “What if several of us could manage to catch him alone someplace? Then, we could hide his body so it’d be some time ’fore anybody even knew he was dead. That ranch of his is a big place, an’ we could be gettin’ the gold off the more isolated parts while his hands were lookin’ for him.”

  Lazarus stroked his goatee and mustache. The man’s idea did make some sense, assuming of course any of the riffraff in this town was good enough to take Jensen, even if they outnumbered him four to one. Still, it was worth a try, and he had nothing to lose except men who were easily replaced should Jensen manage to kill them.

  Lazarus stood up and addressed the room. “Men, Mickey O’Donnel has come up with an idea. While we’re waiting for the rest of our supplies to get here, he thinks a team of four men should try and kill Smoke Jensen. I’ve got five gold twenty dollar pieces for anyone willing to give it a try. That’s more’n a year’s wages for most cowboys.”

  Mickey stepped away from the bar, a pugnacious sneer on his face. “It were my idea, so I’m goin’.”

  Lazarus nodded. “All right, that’s one. I need three more men who’re good with a gun.”

  Two men at a corner table stood up. They were obviously brothers, for they looked alike, both tall, with dark, curly hair and prominent noses on narrow faces. “Tom and me’ll go, Mr. Cain,” said Joe Blakely.

  “Ah, the Blakely brothers,” Lazarus said. “Anyone else?”

  A very young-looking boy of about eighteen years stood up. He was dressed like the gunfighters in the dime novels—with black pants tucked into knee-high, black leather boots, a black leather vest over a white shirt with a black bow tie—and carried Colts on both hips, tied down low on his leg. “How about if one man could get the job done by himself, Cain? Would he get all the money?”

  Lazarus recognized the boy. He called himself the Arizona Kid, and claimed to have bested eleven men in gunfights so far. Lazarus had seen him practicing his draw, and he was cat-quick with a handgun, but was he quick enough to beat Smoke Jensen?

  “No, Arizona. This is too important to risk it that way. The plan is for four men to go.”

  “What if I don’t like your plan, Cain? You fast enough to make me do it your way?” the Kid said, loosening the rawhide hammer thongs on his Colts and squaring off to face Lazarus from across the room.

  Lazarus’s lips curled in a half-smile. He’d known this would happen sooner or later—one of the miscreants he’d summoned would challenge him for leadership of the group. Might as well get this over with.

  Lazarus pulled his coat open and tucked the tail in the back of his pants out of the way, letting his hand hang next to the Colt on his right hip.

  As he squared to face the Arizona Kid, Blackie Jackson and King Johannson stood up, ready to back his play. “Hold on, boys,” Lazarus said. “I’ll handle this young pup alone.”

  “All right, boss,” Blackie said, and he and King sat down.

  “Arizona, have you been saved?” Lazarus asked, his voice low, his eyes hard and black as flint.

  The Kid laughed. “Saved? You mean like in church an’ all?”

  “That’s right. Have you given your soul to God, son?”

  “No, old man. Why?”

  “’Cause in the final reckoning, your soul belongs to God, but your butt belongs to me,” Lazarus said as his hand flashed toward his gun.

  The boy was quick, and he managed to get his pistol out of his holster and cocked before Lazarus’s first shot hit him in the breastbone, shattering it and driving him back against the wall.

  He leaned there, an astonished look on his face, as blood ran down the wall behind him to pool at his feet. “But . . . but . . . I’m the Arizona Kid,” he mumbled, still trying to raise his pistol.

  As he managed to get it waist high, Lazarus casually aimed and let the hammer down on his Colt, putting his slug directly between the Kid’s eyes, blowing brains and bits of scalp and skull all over the wall.

  The Kid hit the floor about the same time Lazarus returned to his meal. “Let me know if anyone else wants to try and take command of this operation,” he said, as he shoveled some beans into his mouth.

  When no one spoke up, he glanced at Mickey O’Donnel. “Mickey, I’m going to let you pick your fourth man. Meet with me later this afternoon and we’ll go over the plan.”

  “What do you want us to do with Arizona, boss?” Blackie Jackson asked.

  Lazarus said around an enchilada he was chewing, “Drag his carcass out back and let the coyotes take care of it.”

  “But it’s gonna stink somethin’ fierce,” said Curly Joe.

  “Good,” Lazarus said. “Every time the men smell it, they’ll be reminded of the consequences of going up against me.”

  12

  Smoke Jensen stood next to the buckboard and tucked in the edges of the quilt covering Cal in the back. “Looks like they got you pretty well set up, Cal,” Smoke said.

  “Yes sir. Pearlie piled enough hay in here to feed half the horses on the Sugarloaf, and then Miz Sally fixed up all these quilts so I feel snug as a bug in a rug.”

  “I may need to add another couple of hosses to this rig, Smoke,” Pearlie said from the driver’s seat of the buckboard. “Cal’s fattened up so much from all this babyin’ we been doin’ to him that I don’t know if only two animals can handle the load.”

  “You think maybe we need a couple of Percheron draft horses?” Smoke asked.

  “Two could probably handle it if’n we was goin’ downhill all the way.”

  “Perhaps we should stop off at the general store and get him some new pants to wear,” Smoke said, grinning.

  Cal raised his head, an indignant look on his face. “Hey, fellows, I ain’t gained all that much weight.”

  “Oh, it must be table muscle then,” Pearlie said sarcastically.

  Just then, Sally appeared from the doctor’s office, carrying a brown bottle in her hands. “Doc Spalding sent this laudanum in case the pain gets too bad on the trip back, Cal.”

  Pearlie rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I swear to goodness, Miz Sally, you’re gonna plumb ruin that boy by spoilin’ him like that. I ain’t never gonna get no work outta him in the future.”

  Cal winked at Smoke and called out, “Yeah, Pearlie, you’re right. The doc told me not to do any heavy liftin’ for at least six months.”

  “What?” Pearlie said, half turning in his se
at, until he saw Smoke and Cal laughing at him.

  “Huh! I’m gonna take pains to remind that boy just who the ramrod is on the Sugarloaf, an’ he won’t never forget again.”

  Smoke helped Sally up onto the seat next to Pearlie.

  “Are you coming with us, Smoke?” she asked.

  “Not just yet. I’m going to go meet with Monte and see if he’s heard anything on the whereabouts of the gang that shot Cal. Then I’ll be coming home.”

  “All right, dear. We’ll see you later,” Sally said.

  After the buckboard was out of sight, Smoke walked along the boardwalk toward Monte Carson’s office. Out of a habit that had been with him so long he no longer noticed it, his eyes flicked back and forth as he walked, analyzing and checking everything he saw for possible danger. Having been a gunfighter and sometimes wanted man for most of his adult life, Smoke had learned the hard way that life was dangerous and the only way to survive it was to be ever vigilant.

  More than once his life had been saved because he’d noticed a shadow where it shouldn’t have been, a furtive movement in an alleyway, or someone’s eyes hastily averted when he looked at them.

  On the way to the sheriff’s office, his habit of watchfulness paid off. He noticed several things that weren’t quite right.

  Down the street, a man was standing next to a pair of horses, and he was wearing a long duster. That struck Smoke as odd because the day was mild and the temperatures were in the low eighties, much too warm for standing around in a duster doing nothing. If the man had been standing in front of the bank, Smoke would have worried about a robbery about to take place. There was a feeling about the scene of the man waiting for something to happen.

  Just as he was about to tell himself he was being foolish and overly suspicious, Smoke noticed something else out of kilter.

  Two other men whose faces he didn’t recognize were climbing up on their horses fifty yards ahead. Both had long guns in their hands, one a short-barreled shotgun and the other a Winchester Yellow Boy, the brass-plated rifle that’d been made a few years before. The funny thing was, Smoke could see empty saddle boots on both animals, so there wasn’t any need for the men to be carrying the long guns unless they expected to be using them shortly.

  When Smoke came to Monte’s office, he went in the door without looking back over his shoulder at the three strangers who were acting suspiciously.

  “Hey, Smoke. What’s up?” Monte asked from his usual position—sitting in his chair with his boots up on the desk and a coffee cup in his hand.

  Smoke walked over to the stove in the corner and took a cup off a peg on the wall. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that had been cooking there as long as he could remember. The thick black liquid looked to be the consistency of syrup as it flowed slowly into Smoke’s cup.

  “Damn, Monte. This stuff’d float a horseshoe,” Smoke said.

  “Remember what your old mountain man friend Puma Buck used to say about makin’ good coffee? It don’t take near as much water as you think it do,” Monte said, raising the pitch of his voice to do a credible imitation of Smoke’s old friend.

  “Well I can tell you didn’t make too many trips to the well for this pot,” Smoke said, grimacing as he took a tentative sip.

  “You come all this way just to gripe about my coffee?”

  “No. I was just wondering if you’d had any answers to your wires asking about Lazarus Cain and his men.”

  “Some. I heard from Earp over at Dodge City. He said Floyd Devers, Walter Blackwell, Tad Younger, and Johnny Sampson all broke jail while he was out of town serving a warrant. He also said to tell you hello, and to let him know if we spotted ’em.”

  Smoke nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it. Several sheriffs and marshals in surrounding towns wired back that they hadn’t seen anything of Cain, but that some other hard cases had passed through their towns over the past couple of weeks.”

  Smoke shrugged. “What’s so strange about that? There are a lot of hard men in this territory, and they often have to move around ’cause no one wants them in their counties.”

  “The strange thing is, they all seemed to be headed in this direction. The sheriffs to the south said the men were headed north, and the ones to the north said the gunslicks were headed south.”

  Smoke looked at Monte over the rim of his cup. “I see what you mean. You think it’s connected somehow with Lazarus Cain?”

  Monte wagged his head. “I don’t know what to think, but I don’t much like the idea that a bunch of men on the edge of the law are on their way in our direction. This is a good town, an’ I don’t want it to change. Hell, I ain’t even had to draw my gun in nigh on two weeks.”

  Smoke edged over to glance out of the window on the front wall of the office, standing to the side so he couldn’t be seen from outside.

  “Well, dust the cobwebs off your Colt, Monte. I have a feeling you’re gonna get to use it before long.”

  “What do you mean?” Monte asked as his feet hit the floor and he came out of his chair in a quick, clean movement, his hand already on the butt of his pistol.

  “Stand off to one side and peek out the window.”

  As Monte looked, Smoke pointed out the three men he’d noticed on his way into the office. “At first I just thought I was being overly suspicious, but they still haven’t moved or changed position. And see how every few minutes they glance over here? I think they’re waiting to ambush someone, either you or me, when we come out of the door.”

  “I know the two men on the horses,” Monte said. “I remember them from my days when I used to hire out my gun.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Tom and Joe Blakely. Tom ain’t so bad, but Joe is mean as a snake, an’ twice as slippery. Tom’s pretty good in a fight, but Joe plumb enjoys killin’, an’ he’s done plenty of it to my certain knowledge.”

  “You know the other galoot, the short man over there with the duster on?”

  “No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before.”

  “Any reason the Blakelys would be after you?”

  “No, not that I know of. We parted on good terms last time I worked with ’em.”

  Smoke glanced at Monte out of the corner of his eye. His friend had been a noted gunman years ago, though he’d never been wanted by the law as far as Smoke knew.

  “I won’t ask about that,” Smoke said, grinning.

  Monte gave a half-smile. “That’s a story for some winter sittin’ around your fireplace up on the Sugarloaf.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” Monte asked, stepping over to the gunrack on the wall and pulling down a double-barreled 10-gauge express gun. He broke open the barrel and shoved two shells in and snapped it shut, adding a handful of shells to his vest pockets.

  “Give me about five minutes to get in position, then come out the front door,” Smoke said. “While their attention is on you, I’ll brace ’em from behind.”

  It was a long five minutes, and by the time the hand on the wall clock had ticked five times Monte was sweating. As brave as Monte was, and as experienced at gunplay, he knew that luck played a big part in who lived and who died when lead started flying. It’d been a lot of years since he’d made his living holding a pistol. He hoped when push came to shove, as he knew it would, he wouldn’t be so rusty that he got himself or his friend Smoke killed.

  Finally, it was time. Monte hitched up his pants, eared back the hammers on the shotgun, and ambled out the door, looking a lot more calm than he was.

  He stepped out on the boardwalk and stretched and yawned, looking around as if he had nothing more on his mind than a stroll through town.

  He glanced across the street and acted as if he’d just noticed Tom and Joe Blakely sitting on their horses.

  He walked casually toward them, the shotgun over his shoulder. “Hey boys, long time no see,” Monte called, a fake grin on his face.

  Tom looked at Jo
e and spoke in a low tone. “Did you know Monte Carson was involved in this?”

  “Naw, but it don’t make no difference, does it?”

  Tom glanced at Monte ambling toward them as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Yeah, it does. Monte was always good to us, an’ he never did us no hurt.”

  “Well, if he keeps his nose outta it he’ll be all right. We’re here to put lead in Smoke Jensen, not Monte.”

  “Hey, Monte,” Tom called, his voice a little shaky with nerves. “What’re you doin’ here?”

  Monte pointed to his left chest, where he had a star pinned to his vest. “I’m the sheriff of Big Rock, boys,” he said, stopping about twenty feet from the two men.

  “That’s a hoot,” Joe Blakely said with a smirk. “The famous Monte Carson a sheriff.”

  Monte smiled a lazy, half-smile. “Yeah, I can see where you’d think that. But boys, I want you to know I take my job very seriously. I don’t allow nobody, even old friends, any slack when it comes to this town.”

  Tom shifted nervously in his saddle, while Joe glared at Monte through narrowed eyes. “Monte, this ain’t no concern of your’n. Why don’t you just go on back in that nice, safe office and tell Jensen he’s got to come out sometime, an’ we’re waitin’ here ’til he does.”

  Monte nodded, his face set, his eyes serious. “Oh, you men waitin’ on Smoke Jensen?”

  “That’s right. We got some business with him,” Joe replied, holding up the rifle in his hand.

  “Well, here I am,” Smoke called from fifteen feet behind the men. He was standing partially hidden in shadows in the alley behind the two men, just off the street.

  As the Blakelys whirled around—Tom trying to bring his shotgun up and Joe thumbing back the hammer on his Winchester as he pointed it—Smoke made a move.

  Both hands suddenly appeared in front of him filled with iron. His Colt .44s fired almost simultaneously, exploding with a deafening roar and belching flame and smoke from the barrels.