Betrayal of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Puddin’?”

  “That would be me,” another man said, coming over to shake Smoke’s hand. “Puddin’ Taylor is the name. I’m the driver. You’ll be sittin’ up on the high board with me, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, I figure that’s probably the best place for me,” Smoke said. “Not looking forward to getting that cold,” he said.

  “Ah don’t worry none ’bout gettin’ too cold,” Puddin’ said. “We keep us a really warm buffalo robe up there. Why, you’ll be as warm as the folks down in the box with their wool blankets.”

  “Puddin’,” someone called from the front door. “Your team is hitched up, you’re all ready to go.”

  “Thanks, Charlie,” Puddin’ replied. “All right, folks, let’s get on the stage. I’m ’bout ready to pull out.”

  Smoke went outside with the others and watched as the passengers boarded the coach, then wrapped themselves in blankets to ward off the cold. Smoke climbed up onto the high seat alongside Puddin’, who then released the brake and snapped the ribbons over the team. The coach jerked forward, then moved at a clip faster than a brisk walk through the town and onto the road.

  Dooley stood on a rock and looked down the road.

  “What we stayin’ here for?” Cletus asked. “It’s cold up here.”

  “We’re here because by the time the coach reaches this point, the driver will have to stop his team to give ’em a breather. That’s when we’ll hit them,” Dooley said.

  Cletus, Morgan, and Toomey were sitting on a fallen log about forty yards away from the road. Morgan got up and walked over to a bush to relieve himself. He began to giggle.

  “What are you laughin’ at?” Toomey asked.

  “Lookie here when I pee,” Morgan said. “There’s smoke comin’ from it.”

  “That ain’t smoke, you idiot,” Dooley said. “It’s vapor, same thing as your breath when it’s cold.”

  “That don’t make no sense,” Morgan said. “There ain’t no breath a’comin’ offin’ my pee.”

  “Wait,” Tommey said. “I’m goin’ to see if I can piss smoke too.”

  “Quiet!” Dooley said sharply. “I think I hear somethin’.”

  In the distance, Dooley could hear the whistle and shouts of the driver as he urged his team up the long grade.

  “They’re comin’. Ever’one get ready,” Dooley said, climbing down from the rock.

  “Git up thar, git on with ya’!” Puddin’ shouted, urging the straining team up the grade. He leaned over to spit a chew, and a wad of the expectorated tobacco hit the right front wheel, then rotated down.

  “Will you be stopping at the top of the grade?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah,” Puddin’ answered as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We got to, else the team’ll give out before we reach the next way station.”

  Smoke pulled his pistol and checked the loads.

  “What you doin’ that for?” Puddin’ asked.

  “If I were planning to hold up this stage, this is where I would do it,” Smoke said.

  “Yeah,” Puddin’ said, nodding. “Yeah, you’re prob’ly right.”

  It took another ten minutes before the team reached the crest of the grade.

  “Whoa!” Puddin’ called, pulling back on the reins.

  The team stopped and they sat there for a moment, with the only sound being the heavy breathing of the horses. Vapor came, not only from their breath, but from their skin, as the horses had generated a lot of heat during the long pull up the hill.

  Suddenly three armed men jumped out in front of the stage. One of the men fired and his bullet hit Puddin’ in the arm.

  Even before the echo of that shot had died out, Smoke was returning fire, shooting three times in such rapid succession that all three of the would-be robbers went down.

  “Puddin’, are you all right?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah,” Puddin’ replied, his voice strained with pain.

  “It just hit me in the arm, didn’t do nothin’ to any of my vitals.”

  “What’s happening? What’s going on up there?” someone from inside the coach called. The door to the coach opened.

  “No!” Smoke shouted. “Stay inside!”

  With his pistol at the ready, Smoke climbed down from the driver’s seat, then moved slowly, cautiously toward the three men he had just shot. That was when he heard hoofbeats and looking toward the sound, he saw a rider bending low over the neck of his horse as he kept the horse at a gallop.

  Smoke raised his pistol and started to shoot, but decided that whoever it was offered no immediate danger, so he eased the hammer back down and examined the three men.

  All three were dead, their faces contorted in grimaces of pain and surprise.

  “Did you kill the sons of bitches?” Puddin’ called.

  “Yeah,” Smoke said.

  “Good.”

  “Keep everyone on the stage until I have a look around,” Smoke said.

  Smoke followed the tracks of the three would-be robbers back into the edge of the woods. There, he saw a fallen log. There was also enough disturbed snow around the log that he knew this was where the men had been waiting. He also saw three horses tied to a branch. He walked over to the animals and patted one of them on the neck.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to leave you out here. You didn’t try to hold up the stage.”

  Further examination showed that there had been a fourth horse, and Smoke was satisfied that that was the horse of the man he had seen running away. Nobody else was here, or had been here.

  Smoke came back out of the tree line leading the three horses. He stopped at the bodies of the three outlaws.

  “See anyone else back there?” Puddin’ asked.

  “No, it’s all clear,” Smoke said. He began putting the bodies on the horses, belly down. “Don’t know which one of you belongs to which,” he said to the horses. “But I don’t reckon it matters much now.”

  Puddin’ tied off the team, then climbed down. “You folks can come out now,” he called to his passengers. “If you need to, uh, rest yourselves, well, there’s a pretty good place for the ladies over there,” he said.

  “Let me take a look at your arm,” Smoke said. He tore some of Puddin’s shirt away, then looked at the wound.

  “How’s it look?”

  “It went all the way through. If it doesn’t get festered, you should be all right.” Smoke tore off another piece of the driver’s shirt. “Give me a chaw of tobacco,” he said. “I’ll use it as a poltice.”

  The driver chewed up a wad of tobacco, then spit it into the cloth.

  “Here too. I’ll need it on the entry and exit wound.”

  Puddin’ complied, then Smoke wrapped the bandage around his arm, putting the tobacco over each wound.

  “There was another’n, wasn’t there?” the driver asked as Smoke worked.

  “Yes. But I don’t expect we’ll have any trouble with him.”

  The passengers came back from their rest stop then, and the boy, who was about eleven, walked back to look at the bodies draped over the horses.

  “Timmy, come back here,” the boy’s mother said.

  “Wow,” Timmy said to Puddin’. “There were three of them and just two of you, but you beat ’em.”

  Puddin’ shook his head. “Not two of us, son,” he said. “Just one.” He nodded toward Smoke, who had already climbed back up into the seat. “He did it all by himself.”

  “What kind of man could take down three armed outlaws all by himself?” one of the male passengers asked.

  “Well, a man like Smoke Jensen, I reckon,” Puddin’ replied.

  Dooley rode his horse at a gallop until he feared that the animal would drop dead on him. Then he got off and walked him until the horse’s breathing returned to normal.

  He had told Cletus and his nephews to stay out of sight until he gave the word to confront the stage. He’d had it all planned out, which included staying separ
ated so as to deny the stage guard any opportunity to react.

  But before he knew it, all three jumped up in front of the stage. At first, Dooley couldn’t understand why they would do such a damn fool thing. But as he was riding away from the scene, he began thinking about it, and he was fairly certain that he had figured it out.

  Dooley was convinced that Cletus and his two nephews had planned to rob the stage, then turn on him, keeping all the money for themselves. But it didn’t work out that way for them because the shotgun guard killed all three.

  What sort of man could take on three gunmen and kill all three? Dooley wondered.

  From the moment he had learned of the money shipment, he had begun planning this robbery. He’d even taken a trip on the stage, just to make certain that he knew the route it would travel. That’s how he’d learned about the long grade and the necessity of stopping to rest the horses.

  But the shotgun guard on the trip he took was an old man with the shakes. He wouldn’t have presented any trouble at all. In fact, Dooley even watched the coach depart two more times, and it had been the same guard for each trip. This guard today was new and, as it turned out, deadly.

  Dooley resented the fact that he didn’t get the money, but he was just as glad that Cletus and his nephews got themselves killed. As it turned out, they were nothing but a bunch of double-crossing bastards anyway.

  Chapter Four

  “Folks, can I have your attention please?” Sheriff Carson called.

  At the sheriff’s call, everyone in Longmont’s Saloon grew quiet and turned to see what he had to say.

  Sheriff Carson smiled, then nodded toward a table where Smoke was sitting with Sally, Pearlie, Cal, and Louie Longmont, owner of Longmont’s Saloon.

  “As you all know, our own Smoke Jensen here foiled a robbery last week, and that’s why we’re here celebratin’ with him and Sally.” Sheriff Carson turned toward Smoke, and held up his mug of beer. “Smoke, if those no-’counts had managed to steal the money you were guarding, the folks around here would be in a lot more trouble than we are. I thank you, and the town thanks you.”

  “Hear, hear,” Longmont said, and the others in the saloon applauded.

  “Mr. Longmont, another round of drinks if you please,” Joel Matthews said. “The bank is buying.”

  “All right!” someone shouted, and there was a rush to the bar.

  “I’ll get ours,” Pearlie said, getting up from the table.

  “I’ll have a beer,” Cal said.

  “He’ll have a sarsaparilla,” Sally declared.

  “Miss Sally I . . .” Cal began, but Smoke cut him off with a steely gaze. Cal was about to say that he drank beer all the time when he was out with just Smoke and Pearlie, but he knew that if he told her that now, Smoke would curtail those privileges.

  “May I join you?” Matthews asked, coming over to the table.

  “Yes, please do,” Sally said with an inviting smile.

  Matthews sat down, then pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket.

  “Smoke, the board voted to give you a reward of three hundred dollars, in addition to the one hundred fifty you earned,” Matthews said, handing the envelope to Smoke.

  “Smoke!” Sally said happily. “That will pay our interest, plus allow us to keep the money we were going to use.”

  Smoke nodded. “Thanks, Joel.”

  “I just wish it could be more,” he said. “I wish it could be enough to pay off your entire note.”

  “Well, with the extension this will buy for me, maybe we’ll come up with a way of handling that note,” Smoke said.

  At that moment, Emil Blanton came into the saloon, carrying a large pile of papers. Blanton was publisher of the local newspaper, the Big Rock Vindicator. Smiling, he brought one of the newspapers over to Smoke.

  “Since you are the star of my story, I thought I might give you a free copy,” Blanton said, holding it up for Smoke and the others to see.

  SMOKE JENSEN FOILS ROBBERY ATTEMPT.

  On the 9th instant, the well-known local rancher Smoke Jensen volunteered his services as a shotgun guard for the Sulphur Springs Express Company. The reason for this was a special shipment

  of twenty thousand dollars, said money to be made available at the Bank of Big Rock in order to provide loans for those of the area who have been made desperate by the brutal winter conditions.

  According to Mr. Puddin’ Taylor, who was the driver of the coach, the would-be robbers accosted them just as they reached the top of McDill Pass. Before Taylor could question the intent of the three who had flagged down the coach, the highwaymen presented pistols, and opened fire with mixed effect. Mr. Taylor was wounded, but the other bullets missed. Smoke Jensen fired back, but not until after the robbers had fired first.

  Smoke Jensen, as his reputation so nobly suggests, did not miss. Within scarcely more than the blink of an eye, all three outlaws were sent on their way to eternity, where they will be forced to plead their case before St. Peter and all the angels of heaven.

  This newspaper joins other citizens of the fair city of Big Rock in congratulating Smoke Jensen for his quick thinking and courageous action.

  Ebenezer Dooley was at the Cow Bell Saloon in the small town of Antinito, Colorado. A traveler had left a copy of the Big Rock newspaper in the saloon, and because Dooley had nothing else to do, he picked it up, took it over to an empty table, and began reading it.

  The paper was over two weeks old, but that didn’t matter because it had been several weeks since Dooley had read any news at all. He read about his botched robbery attempt.

  “Smoke Jensen,” Dooley said, scratching his beard as he read the weathered newspaper. “That’s the name of the son of a bitch who stole my money.”

  Dooley folded the newspaper and put it in his pocket. “I’ll be keepin’ that in my memory.”

  “Beg your pardon?” the man at the next table over said.

  “Nothin’,” Dooley said. “I was just talkin’ to myself, is all.”

  The man laughed. “I do that my ownself sometimes,” he replied. “I guess when you’re used to talkin’ to your horse all the time, why, a man will sometimes just wind up talkin’ to hisself.”

  “I guess so,” Dooley said, not that interested in getting into a conversation with the man.

  “You was readin’ about Jensen, wasn’t you? Smoke Jensen.”

  “Yeah,” Dooley said. “Yeah, I was. How did you know?”

  “You spoke his name.”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I did.”

  “You know him?”

  “No, I, uh, ran across him once,” Dooley replied.

  “So you wouldn’t say he’s a friend of yours?”

  Dooley shook his head. “He ain’t no friend. Do you know him?”

  “Well, we ain’t ever actual met, but I know who the son of a bitch is. He kilt my brother.”

  “He killed your brother? Why isn’t he in prison for that?”

  “Well, my brother was rustlin’ some of Jensen’s cattle at the time.”

  “Where were you when that happened?”

  “I was in prison.”

  Suddenly Dooley smiled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I know who you are. You’re Curt Logan, aren’t you?”

  Logan smiled, then picked up his glass and moved over to join Dooley. “I was wonderin’ when you would recognize me. I mean, I recognized you right off. Course, we was in different cell blocks, so we didn’t see each other all that many times. Then I done my time and got out.” Logan looked puzzled. “What are you doin’ out? I thought you was supposed to be doin’ twenty years.”

  “Well, let’s just say that the State of Colorado had its idea of when I should leave, and I had mine,” Dooley said.

  Logan chuckled. “I’ll be damned. You escaped, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. Fact is, you could get five hundred dollars just for turning me in to the law.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “It is,” Dool
ey said. “But I’m not worried about you doin’ that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know somethin’ that would be worth a lot more than five hundred dollars to you. That is, if you are interested.”

  Logan nodded. “I’m interested,” he said.

  “What have you been doin’ since you got out?” Dooley asked.

  “Tryin’ to make a livin’,” Logan said. “I’ve punched some cows, worked at a freight yard, mucked out a few stalls.”

  “Haven’t found anything to your likin’, though, have you?”

  Logan chuckled. “What’s there to like about any of that?”

  “I might have an idea,” Dooley said, “if I can get enough men together.”

  “How many do you need?”

  “Besides the two of us, I’d say about four more.”

  “Six men? Damn, what you plannin’ to do? Rob a bank?”

  Dooley smiled again. “Well, that’s where the money is, ain’t it?”

  Smoke sat in his saddle and watched as his hands dragged the dead cattle into large piles, then burned them. It was the only way to clear away the carnage left from the brutal winter just passed. He and all the cowboys were wearing kerchiefs tied around their noses to help keep out the stench.

  When the pile was large enough, Pearlie and Cal rode around the carcasses, soaking them with coal oil. Their horses, put off by the smell of death, were skittish, and would occasionally break into a quick gallop away. Cal’s horse did that, reacting so quickly that Cal dropped the can of kerosene.

  “Whoa! Hold it, hold it!” Cal shouted, fighting his mount. Cal was an exceptionally skilled rider who sometimes broke horses for fun. Because of that, he generally rode the most spirited horses, and not many of the other riders would have been able to stay seated. Cal rode easily, gracefully, until he got the horse under control again.