Strike of the Mountain Man Read online

  “I bet one,” Hoyt Miller said, sliding a matchstick toward the center of the table. “You know, Templeton’s in there talking to the colonel again. I swear, I don’t what that feller’s job is, but he sure don’t spend much time here. And what time he is here, he is mostly talkin’ to Garneau.”

  Several men working at Long Trek were legitimate cowboys, men who had been punching cows at the ranch back when Munger owned the place. In addition to them, a few others had come over when the ranch where they worked was assimilated into Long Trek.

  In addition to the cowboys who worked, there were ten men who had no apparent job. They had made it known they weren’t cowhands, and would take no part in any of the work required to keep the ranch going. The fact that they were doing no work didn’t mean they weren’t getting paid. They were not only getting paid, they were getting paid more than the cowboys. And, because they weren’t working, they managed to spend a lot of time in town.

  “What I would like to know,” Miller continued, “is just what the hell are all them other men good for? Why does the colonel keep hiring men like that? Has anyone figured that out?”

  “I hear tell they are to protect the herd from cattle rustlers,” Gately said.

  “Cattle rustlers? What cattle rustlers?” Anderson asked. “I ain’t seen no cattle rustlin’. You’d think if there was rustlin’ goin’ on those of us who actually work out on the range would know about it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, well, I’ve tried to tell the boss that I don’t think there’s any real rustling goin’ on,” Calloway said. “But he just says I don’t know what’s goin’ on.”

  “Well, I’m with Andy. I’ve yet to see the first cattle rustler, so I don’t have an idea in hell what he’s got all those extra folks for.”

  “Well, you know that feller, John Noble?” Elmer Gately replied.

  “Yeah, I know ’im,” Miller said. “Fact is, he’s one of the men I’m talkin’ about. I ain’t never seen him do a lick of work.”

  “No, and you ain’t goin’ to, neither. I asked him once what he was doin’ here, and he said he had been hired as a bodyguard. Him and Curtis and Nixon.”

  “Bodyguards?” Anderson said. “Who the hell are they guardin’?”

  “They’re guardin’ Colonel Garneau,” Gately replied. “I mean, him bein’ one of them lords or dukes or somethin’ fancy like that. I expect back in France where he come from, people that’s royalty like he is always has to have guards around ’em.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” Miller said. “I’ve heard folks talk. Did you know there’s some folks that think Colonel Garneau is the one that burned Drexler’s barn?”

  “Only he didn’t do it,” Calloway said. “I know he didn’t do it, because the night that barn got burned down and the Drexler boy got hisself killed, I drove Colonel Garneau into town, ’n he stayed there all night long. He didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, and I know it, ’cause I picked him up the next mornin’ and brung him back home.”

  “That don’t mean that Templeton, or Nixon, or one of them boys that the colonel has hired, didn’t have nothin’ to do with it,” Miller said. “Have you seen the way them boys all wear their guns? They wear ’em like they know how to use ’em. And I ain’t one for wantin’ to find out whether or not it’s all for show.”

  “I can tell you true,” Gately said, “they ain’t wearin’ them guns for show.”

  The cowboys watched Templeton come out of the main house and call Noble, Nixon, and Curtis over to him. The four men then saddled their horses and rode off.

  “Where do you think they’re goin’ now?” Anderson asked.

  “More ’n likely they’re goin’ into town to get drunk and visit the whores,” Miller said.

  Gately laughed. “Well, what else do they have to do?”

  “Burn barns, I reckon,” Anderson said.

  “They ain’t headin’ toward town,” Miller said.

  “Where are they headin’?”

  “Toward the Butrum place.”

  Marvin Butrum wasn’t a rancher. Like Drexler had been, Butrum was a farmer trying to make a living for himself, his wife, and two children on half a section of land, 320 acres. Most of his land was sowed in wheat, but he was also raising corn. The crops were coming along so well that he and his wife Emma were already making plans to add another room to their house. In addition to their cash crops of wheat and corn, they also had a rather sizeable garden. With produce from their garden¸ meat from pigs and chickens, and milk and butter from their cow, they were totally self-sufficient.

  At the moment, Butrum was in the machine shed, thinking about how much better off he was in Colorado than he had been back in Arkansas where he had sharecropped a cotton farm. He was sharpening a plough shear when a shadow fell across him. “What are you doing out here, Clara? I thought your mama had you working inside,” he said without looking up.

  “Mr. Butrum, I wonder if we might have a little talk?”

  Looking up in surprise, Butrum saw a man standing in the door of the machine shed. He recognized him immediately as the man Garneau had hired to run the farmers and small ranchers out of the area.

  “What are you doing here, Templeton?”

  “Now, Mr. Butrum, that isn’t very nice of you. I call you Mister Butrum, and you don’t have the courtesy to call me Mister Templeton? Oh, I’ve brought a few of my associates with me.” Templeton stepped away from the door, and Butrum saw three mounted men. All three had their pistol holsters prominently displayed.

  “I want you to meet Oliver Nixon, Pete Curtis, and John Noble. I’ve never worked with three finer men.”

  “What do you want?” Butrum asked. The presence of four armed men made him uneasy.

  “We want to do a little business with you, Mr. Butrum.”

  “I know what kind of business you want to do. And I’ve told you before, I’m not interested in selling my farm.”

  “Colonel Garneau is willing to pay you fifteen hundred dollars. That’s a fair price.”

  “I can earn that in two years. Why would I be interested in selling my place? Especially this year.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Crop failures, maybe? No drinking water, famine, fire, flood. There are all sorts of reasons a person might want to leave a farm.”

  “Yeah, well none of that is my concern.” Butrum pointed to his well. “I’ve got a well full of water, and this year I expect I’ll have the best crop since I moved out here from Arkansas.”

  “You may have a well full of water, but it’s no good if the water is bad. And your water is bad.”

  “My water is bad? What are you talking about? Why, I’ve got the sweetest water in the entire county, if not the state.”

  “You may have had the sweetest water, but that was before a pig stumbled into your well and died.”

  “Why, no such thing. How would a pig stumble into my well?”

  Templeton smiled, than reached down to pat the neck of his horse. “That’s a good question. And now that I think about it, the pig didn’t stumble. He was thrown in.”

  “What? Good Lord man, help me get him out.”

  “All right, we’ll help you, though it might be too late. It’s already too late to save your wheat crop.”

  “To late to save my wheat crop? What are you talking about?” Butrum stepped out of the machine shed, then looked toward his wheat field where he saw smoke billowing into the sky.

  “My God! The wheat is burning!”

  “Yes, it does appear to be, doesn’t it?” Templeton said.

  “Emma! Get out here, fast!” Butrum called. He ran back into the machine shed where he grabbed several grain sacks.

  “What is it?” Emma asked, stepping onto the back porch, but one look toward the field, and seeing all the smoke roiling into the sky answered the question for her.

  Then she saw Templeton and the other three men. “Who are these men?”

  “Don’t worry about them. We’ve got to dunk these toe sac
ks into the well to get ’em wet so we can use ’em to fight the fire.”

  “Don’t just sit there on your horses,” Emma said. “Come help us!”

  “We’ve come to make your man an offer on the farm,” Templeton said. “We will give you fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “I told you, it’s not for sale!” Butrum said as he lowered the bound sacks down into the well. Emma went over to help him, and when the bags came up, they were not only wet, they were red.

  “What is this? This is blood!” Emma said in shock.

  “Yes, they threw a pig in the water,” Butrum said.

  “They did what?”

  “We’ll talk about it later. Come on, Emma. Help me. If we don’t get the fire put out, we’ll lose our whole crop!”

  Carrying the wet bags out to the field, Butrum started to fight the fire, but he had no more than started, when he knew it was a lost cause. It wasn’t a small accidental fire that could be fought. It was a full-fledged conflagration that spread all the way across the field.

  “Oh, Marvin!” Emma said, the expression in her voice saying it all.

  Butrum put his arm around her, and they stood there, helpless, as the fire consumed an entire year’s work and income.

  Back at the main house, nine-year-old Clara was standing on the back porch, looking at the smoke roiling into the sky. She wasn’t sure what it was, but from the reaction of her mama and daddy, she was sure it wasn’t good. Looking toward the garden, she saw several men pulling up plants and tossing them aside.

  She ran out to the garden. “What are you doing? Mama and Daddy won’t like you pulling up plants like that. You aren’t supposed to be in the garden.”

  “Why, we’re just having a good time,” one of the men said. “You want to come help? It’s lots of fun.”

  “No!” Clara said. “I’m going to tell Mama and Daddy on you, and you will be in trouble!”

  The man laughed. “Yes, you go tell your mama and daddy.”

  Clara ran out to the burning wheat field where her mother and father were standing together, watching the fire. “Mama, Daddy, those men are pulling up our garden!” Clara shouted, pointing back toward the house.

  “Those sons of bitches,” Butrum said angrily, starting back toward the house.

  “Marvin, no!” Emma shouted as she ran after him. “There are four of them. And they are armed!”

  By the time Butrum made it back to the house, the garden was completely destroyed. He saw a couple men playing with five-year-old Mickey. One of them had a ball, and he was pretending to throw it, then jerking it back, and Mickey was laughing.

  “Mickey, go back inside the house,” Butrum ordered.

  Mickey started to turn, then he held his hand out. “Give me my ball.”

  “Sure thing, kid. Here is your ball,” Nixon said.

  Taking the ball, Mickey smiled, then ran into the house.

  “You leave my children alone,” Butrum said angrily.

  “Yeah, well, we were just playing with him. He’s a good kid,” Templeton said. “It’s a shame about your wheat, Butrum. I take it you didn’t get there in time to save it?”

  Butrum glared at Templeton, but knew he was absolutely powerless to do anything.

  “All right,” Butrum said. “You win. I’ll take the fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “You’ll take fifteen hundred dollars? What fifteen hundred dollars would that be?” Templeton asked.

  “What fifteen hundred dollars? You know damn well what fifteen hundred dollars! I’m talking about the fifteen hundred dollars you just offered for my farm.”

  “Oh, but that was when you had water and a crop,” Templeton said easily. “Surely you don’t think it’s worth that now?”

  “What is it worth now?” Butrum asked.

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “Five hundred dollars? Are you crazy?”

  “It’s only worth five hundred dollars now, while you still have a house.”

  “You are out of your mind if you think . . .”

  Emma saw one of the other men moving toward the house. “Marvin, take it,” she pleaded. “For God’s sake, take it!”

  “All right,” Butrum said. “All right, I’ll take it.”

  “That’s very smart of you, Mr. Butrum,” Templeton said. “I will come back tomorrow. If you have your wagon loaded, I’ll give you the five hundred dollars.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Long Trek

  Lucien Garneau poured brandy into a snifter, whirled it around, and lifted it to enjoy its “nose.” He didn’t offer any to Templeton.

  “Tell me, Monsieur Templeton, how many paysans have you convinced to move?”

  “Four, so far. And in every case you were able to buy the land for much less than the property was worth.”

  “What about those men who were killed in town the other day? I’m told they had papers on them, recruiting them to come work for me.”

  “Yes,” Templeton said. “They were coming to join us when they got themselves killed.”

  “They were killed by the keeper of a création potable. A drinking establishment,” he translated. “Monsieur Templeton, if the quality of your recruitment is such that they can’t even deal with the manager of a saloon, how can I have confidence in those we have gathered?”

  “Louis Longmont isn’t your average saloon keeper,” Templeton said. “And he wasn’t alone. Smoke Jensen was with him.”

  “Smoke Jensen, ah yes. Am I right in assuming it is he who is my greatest adversary?”

  “Yeah, he is,” Templeton said. “But I don’t think he will be for much longer. I’ve hired a couple men to solve that little problem for us. Permanently.”

  Two attempts had been made on Smoke Jensen, one unauthorized attempt by three men coming to Long Trek, but who had not yet been hired, and the other by Jake Willard, who Templeton had promised a thousand dollars if he killed Jensen.

  Neither attempt had been successful, so Templeton decided to try again. He was discussing the problem with two men, Crenshaw and Harding.

  “I don’t know as I’d want to go up ag’in Jensen, even if there is the two of us,” Crenshaw said.

  “That’s the beauty of my plan,” Templeton said. “You won’t actually be facing him at all. If you use the plan I’ve got worked out for you, you’ll shoot him from an ambuscade, and he’ll never even see you.”

  “Ha! What you’re sayin’ is, we’ll dry gulch him, right?” Crenshaw asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That don’t hardly seem fair, do it?” Harding asked.

  “Do you have a problem with that, Harding?” Templeton asked.

  Harding giggled. “Hell, no! That’s ’bout the best idea I ever heard.”

  “Then we are in agreement,” Templeton said.

  “Damn right, we’re in agreement,” Crenshaw replied.

  Two days later, Crenshaw and Harding tied their horses off to one side of a line shack at the extreme edge of Smoke’s Sugarloaf Ranch.

  “Shouldn’t we take the horses around back?” Crenshaw asked. “If we leave them tied out here, Jensen will see them, won’t he?”

  “We want him to see them,” Harding explained. “When he sees a couple strange horses tied up at his own line shack, he’ll come to investigate. We’ll be waiting inside, and when he gets close enough, we’ll shoot him right out of the saddle.”

  “Yeah,” Crenshaw said. “How much did Templeton say he would give us?”

  “Five hundred dollars,” Harding said. “That’s two hundred and fifty dollars apiece, which is damn near a year’s wages if you’re punchin’ cows.”

  The two men went into the line shack and had a look around.

  “Damn, I ain’t never seen a line shack this clean before. This looks more like a house downtown than it does a line shack,” Crenshaw said.

  “There’s somethin’ tacked on to cabinet there. A note.” Harding went over to read it.

  “What’s it say?”


  “It says, ‘Stranger, you are welcome to use this shack as shelter for a few days. You’ll find the makin’s of coffee in the cabinet, also a few cans of beans and peaches. Use what you need, but leave some for others if you can. And when you leave, please leave the shack as clean as you found it. Jensen.’”

  Crenshaw chuckled. “Well now, that’s just real nice of him, ain’t it? You almost hate to kill a real nice man like that.”

  “Let’s open us a can of peaches. I like peaches,” Harding said.

  “Yeah, good idea.” Crenshaw took down two cans of peaches and, using his knife, opened both of them.

  For the next few minutes, they ate the peaches out of the can, then Crenshaw tossed the can into the corner, spilling juice onto the floor. “Ha! How’s that for leaving it clean?” he joked.

  “Quiet! There he is,” Harding said, holding his hand out.

  Crenshaw walked over to the window and saw a single rider approaching. Both gunmen jacked a round into the chambers of their rifles and waited.

  Smoke liked to ride around his ranch. He justified it by saying it was good to have a look for several reasons—to make certain no calves were in trouble anywhere, to make certain no cows were stuck in a mud wallow, and to check that there was an adequate flow of water. But the truth was, it was something he enjoyed doing. He had not inherited the ranch. He had built it himself, and was proud of it.

  While making a routine ride around his ranch, he saw two horses tied alongside the line shack. Knowing none of his cowboys were there, he wondered who it might be. It was more a thing of curiosity than concern. He didn’t mind the occasional itinerant using the shack for shelter, as long as it wasn’t abused.

  He rode over to the shack for a visit, to let them know they were welcome, and to see if they needed help of any kind. A hundred yards from the cabin, he saw a couple flashes of light in the window, and heard the report of rifle shots.

  His horse went down and Smoke went with it, hitting the ground hard. The horse fell on his leg and he was pinned beneath it. He needed to be in position to defend himself, and stretched to recover his pistol that had fallen out of the holster when he hit the ground, but it had slid just beyond his grasp.