Smoke Jensen, the Beginning

by William W. Johnstone

  During the trip upriver the boat had to proceed very cautiously because of shallow water. Three times they had encountered sandbars with the water so shallow that it was necessary to “grasshopper” over them with long heavy spars carried vertically on derricks near the bow. The ends of the spars were dropped to the bottom, tops slanted forward, and with block, tackle, cable, and capstan, lifted and pushed the boat forward as if on crutches while the paddle wheel thrashed furiously. After each splash down, the spars were reset for the next “hop,” until the boat was free.

  At the moment, they seemed to be proceeding upriver at a steady, brisk pace.

  Seventy-one days after the Cora Two left Westport Landing, Janey stood on the hurricane deck and watched the bluffs slide by on the south bank as the boat worked its way up the Missouri River to Ft. Benton.

  Elmer came over to stand beside her. “Well, our long journey is nearly over. The cap’n told me we’d reach Fort Benton today.”

  “Elmer, I can’t thank you enough for helping me out the way you did. I mean, you gave up your job and everything.”

  Elmer chuckled. “Ridin’ shotgun on a stagecoach ain’t that much of a job. It was about time I was movin’ on.”

  The Cora Two beat its way against the current as it approached around a wide, sweeping bend. Smoke was pouring from the twin chimneys and the engine steam-pipe was booming as loudly as if the town were under a cannonading. With the engine clattering and the paddle wheel slapping at the water, it approached the Ft. Benton landing.

  “Deck men, fore and aft, stand by to throw out the lines!” the captain called.

  “Aye, Cap’n, standing by!” the first mate called back as two men rushed to the front of the boat and stood side by side, holding the ropes.

  At the last minute, the engine was reversed, and the paddle started whirling in the opposite direction, causing the water to froth at the action. The reversing paddle wheel held the speed of the boat until the movement through the water was but a slow, gentle glide up to the dock. Waiting stevedores stood ready to receive the lines.

  “Heave out your lines!” the first mate shouted, and both ropes were tossed ashore. One of the men on the boat deck walked his rope back to the stern where he wrapped it securely around a stanchion. The men ashore pulled on the lines—fore and aft—so that the boat was pulled sideways until it was snug up against the dock.

  “Well, missy, we’re here,” Elmer said. “You got ’ny ideas as to what you might do next?”

  Janey smiled. “Don’t worry about me, Elmer. For the next few years, at least for as long as I can keep my looks, I’ll always be able to make a living.”

  Elmer laughed out loud. “I reckon you will.”

  Janey checked into the Grand Mountain Hotel. Once she was in her room she went through her dresses and selected one that left little to the imagination. Donning the dress, she got out her powders and paints, and with an artistry developed over the last few years, she transformed her face, combining subtle eye shadows with bold lashes and mascara. A crimson smear across her lips completed the transformation, and when she walked through the lobby of the hotel a short while later, not one person would have connected her with the woman who had registered as Fannie Webber.

  Exiting the hotel, Janey made her way to the largest and grandest saloon in town, the Gold Strike. She went inside, strode up to the bar, and ordered a drink.

  “What kind of drink?” the bartender asked.

  “I expect, if I’m going to be drinking with men all day, you’d better give me something that doesn’t make me drunk.” Janey fixed him with a penetrating stare.

  “Uh . . . drinking with men?” the bartender asked.

  The well-dressed man sitting at a table close to the bar got up and walked over to stand beside her. “Henry, I do believe this young lady is applying for a job.”

  “I might be,” Janey replied, turning her charm toward the man. “If so, who should I see?”

  “That would be me. The name is Andrew McGhee. And you would be?”

  Janey thought for a moment, wondering if she should use the same name she used when she checked into the hotel. “The name I use will depend upon whether or not I can get a room here in the saloon.”

  McGhee laughed out loud. “For you, my finest room.”

  Janie’s smile broadened, and she stuck out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Andrew. My name is Fannie Webber.”

  CHAPTER 16

  July 1869

  It had been two years since Emmett rode off on his own, and Smoke had not heard anything from him since. He wasn’t surprised by that, given that Emmett had written only two letters the whole time he was away fighting the war.

  Nothing of the boy was left. Smoke was a man, fully grown and hard in body, face, and eyes. The bay he had ridden west hadn’t survived the first year after Emmett left. The horse had fallen on the ice and broken his leg. Smoke had had to put him down, but Preacher found another horse for him, a large, mean-tempered Appaloosa. The Indian had sold him cheap, because he hadn’t been able to break him.

  Strangely, not only to the Indian who sold him, but to other Indians who knew the animal, the horse seemed to bond immediately with Smoke. He was a stallion, and he was mean, his eyes warning any knowledgeable person away. In addition to its distinctive markings—the mottled hide, vertically striped hooves, and pale eyes—the Appaloosa had a perfectly shaped numeral seven between his eyes. And that became his name—Seven.

  “Smoke, I’ve done learned you about as much as I know how to learn anyone,” Preacher said one summer morning. “There ain’t no doubt in my mind, but that you could light in the middle of the mountains some’ers and live as good as me or any other mountain man I ever knowed could.

  “But truth to tell, the time of the mountain man is gone. There warn’t even no Rendezvous this year, ’n I don’t know if they’ll ever be another ’n. Just be glad you got to see one of ’em when you did.”

  “I am glad,” Smoke said. “If I live to be as old a man as you are, I’ll still remember gettin’ to go to that Rendezvous.”

  “Whoa, now! Are you tellin’ me that’s all you’re goin’ to remember? That you ain’t goin’ to ’member nothin’ else I learned you in all this time?”

  Smoke laughed. “I reckon I’ll be rememberin’ that, as well.”

  Shortly after that conversation an old mountain man rode into their camp. “You just as ugly as I remembered, Preacher,” he said in the form of greeting.

  “I didn’t think you was even still alive, Grizzly,” Preacher said. “I heard you got et up by a pack o’ wolves. No, wait. That ain’t right. Now that I think on it, they said you was so old and dried up that the wolves didn’t want nothin’ to do with you.”

  Smoke had already learned that mountain men insulted each other whenever possible. It was their way of showing affection.

  “Can I talk in front of the boy?” Grizzly asked.

  “Anythin’ you can tell me, you can say in front of him,” Preacher replied.

  Smoke poured himself a cup of coffee and waited.

  “A man rode into the Hole about two months ago. All shot up, he was. And ’sides that, he had a bad cough.”

  “Is he still alive?” Smoke blurted.

  The old man turned cold eyes toward him. “Don’t ever interrupt a man when he’s palaverin’. ’Tain’t polite. One thing about Indians, they know manners. They know to allow a man to speak his piece without interrupting.”

  “Sorry,” Smoke said.

  “Accepted. No, he’s dead. Strange man. Dug his own grave. Come the time, I buried him. He’s planted on that their little plain at the base of the high peak east side of the canyon. Zenobia Peak, it’s called. You remember it, Preacher?”

  Preacher nodded.

  The old mountain man reached inside his war bag and pulled out a heavy sack and tossed it to Smoke. “This would be your’n, I reckon. It’s from your pa, a right smart amount of gold.” Again, he dipped into the war bag
and pulled out a rawhide-wrapped flat object. “And this is a piece of paper with words on it. Names, your pa said, of the men who put lead in him. He said you’d know what to do, but for me to tell you, don’t do nothing rash.”

  His business done, the old man rose to his feet. “I done what I give my word I’d do. Now I’ll be goin’ on.”

  Smoke had purposely held off reading the letter until he found his pa’s grave. When he did find it, he used a rock to chisel his pa’s name onto it.

  EMMETT JENSEN

  BORN 1815 DIED 1869

  He wasn’t sure that 1815 was correct, but he figured it was close enough, especially since he was the only relative left who would ever see it, or even care about it. He wasn’t counting Janey.

  With the words chiseled onto the stone, Smoke moved it over to the mound of earth that was the gravesite. The stone was big and hard to move, and he was glad. That meant it would be too heavy for any vandals to mess with it for no reason other than to make mischief.

  Not until the tombstone was put into position, did Smoke turn his attention to the letter. He opened it and read it by the fading light.

  Son,

  I found some of the men who killed your brother Luke and stoled the gold that belonged to the Gray. They was more of them than I first thought. I killed two of them but they got lead in me and I had to hightail it out. Ackerman is the man Luke thought was his best friend, and the one that betrade him. He got away.

  Came here, but not going to make it. Son, you don’t owe nothin’ to the cause of the Gray. So don’t get it in your mind you do.

  I got word that your sis Janey left that gambler. Don’t know where she is now, but I wouldn’t fret much about her. She is mine, but I think she is trash. Don’t know what she got that bad streek from.

  I’m gettin’ tared and seein is hard. I love you Smoke.

  Pa

  “You’re goin’ out after ’em now, ain’t you.” Preacher said. “The fella that kilt your ma, and the ones that kilt your brother and your pa.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Yeah, I am,” Smoke said.

  “Like I said when your pa left, they’s some things a man just has to do.”

  Over the next couple months, Smoke’s justice was thorough and extreme.

  Two names he learned about belonged to men who had been complicit in shooting his brother, stealing the Confederate gold, and ultimately killing his pa. Ted Casey was the fourth man who’d stolen the Confederacy gold with Stratton, Richards, and Potter—the men Emmett had set out to find and kill. Ackerman had ridden with Quantrill. Smoke didn’t know Ackerman’s first name, but he’d learned from someone he met that the Confederate deserter owned a ranch just outside Canon City, Colorado.

  “Sounds like all them boys done right good for themselves,” Preacher said. “They all come out here and commenced ranchin’.”

  “They started ranchin’ on the gold they stole from the South after shootin’ my brother,” Smoke said sourly.

  Casey’s place—TC Ranch—was close by so they headed there first. The shootout was deadly, with the ranch hands putting up quite a fight before they were killed. Casey wasn’t among those killed at the ranch, but Smoke found him, then hung him in front of a sheriff and scores of people from the nearby town. Nobody made any real effort to stop him.

  “Now,” Smoke said. “I’m goin’ to Canon City.”

  “We’re goin’, you mean,” Preacher said.

  “All right, we’re goin’ to Canon City.”

  “Oreodelphia,” Preacher said.

  “What?”

  “That’s what they wanted to name it. Oreodelphia, but there couldn’t nobody hardly even say it, let alone spell it, so they wound up callin’ it Canon City.”

  Smoke frowned, thinking that was more information than he needed to know at the moment. “Do you know how to get there?”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are we standing here jawboning?”

  “Boy, you got to learn patience, you know that?”

  “What is his name?” Ackerman asked.

  “Smoke.”

  “Smoke? Somebody named Smoke killed Casey and all his hands?”

  “His last name is Jensen. I was told that would mean somethin’ to you.”

  Ackerman smiled. “Luke had a brother ’n a sister he used to talk about some. His sister was named Janey. Accordin’ to Luke, she was a real good looker. She must be somethin’ by now. His brother was named Kirby. I ain’t never heard of anyone named Smoke Jensen.”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard, he’s Emmett Jensen’s son.”

  “Damn,” Ackerman said. “Then it has to be the one Luke said was Kirby. Smoke must just be the name he’s took for some reason. And he’s comin’ here, you say?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  “All right. We’ll just take care of ’im when he gets here. Once we kill him, there won’t be nobody left but the sister. An’ she ain’t likely to go out after nobody.”

  For two days, Smoke and Preacher waited and relaxed in Canon City, making a special effort to keep out of trouble. Smoke bathed twice behind the barbershop, and Preacher told him if he didn’t stop that, he was going to come down with some dreadful illness.

  The mountain man and the gunfighter were civil to the men and polite to the ladies. Some of the ladies batted their eyes and swished their bustled fannies as they passed by Smoke, but he paid them no attention.

  “You boys are sure taking your time buying supplies,” the sheriff noted on the second day.

  “We like to think things through before buying,” Preacher told him. “Smoke here is a right cautious man when it comes to partin’ with the greenback. You might even call him tight.”

  The sheriff didn’t find that amusing. “You boys wouldn’t be waiting for Ackerman to make a move, would you?”

  “Ackerman?” Smoke looked at the sheriff. “What is an Ackerman?”

  The sheriff’s smile was grim. “What do you boys do for a living? I have a law on the books about vagrants.”

  “I’m retired,” Preacher told him. “Enjoying the sunset of my years, I am. Smoke here, he runs a string of horses.”

  “Would you like to buy a horse?” Smoke asked. “I’ve got some really nice ones, and bein’ as you are with the law, I can give you a real good deal.”

  “I ought to run you both out of this town.”

  “Why?” Smoke asked. “On what charge? We haven’t caused you any trouble.”

  “Yet.” The sheriff’s back was stiff with anger as he walked away. The man knew a set up when he saw one.

  But his feelings were mixed. Ackerman and his bunch of rowdies were all troublemakers, and he owed them nothing. He swung no wide political loop in this country, and there were persistent rumors that Ackerman had been a thief and a murderer during the war, as well as a deserter. The sheriff could not abide a coward.

  He sighed. If he was right in reading the young man called Smoke, Ackerman’s future looked very bleak.

  A hard ridden horse hammered the street into dust. A cowhand from the Bar X slid to a halt in front of the sheriff’s office. “Ackerman and his bunch is ridin’ in, Sheriff,” the cowhand said, still panting from his ride. “They’re huntin’ bear. He told me to tell you he’s going to kill this kid called Smoke and anyone else that gets in his way.”

  The sheriff’s smile grudgingly filled with admiration. The kid’s patience had paid off. Ackerman had made his boast and his threat, which meant that anything the kid did now could only be called self-defense.

  The sheriff thanked the cowboy and told him to hunt a hole to hide in. He crossed the street and told his deputy to clear the street from the apothecary to the blacksmith shop.

  In five minutes, the main street resembled a ghost town. A yellow dog was the only living thing that had not cleared out. Behind curtains, closed doors, and shuttered windows, men and women watched and waited, anticipating the roar of gunfire from the stre
et.

  At the edge of town, Ackerman, a bull of a man with small, mean eyes, stopped for a moment. With a small wave, he started the five cowhands with him down the street, riding slowly, six abreast.

  Standing on the porch of the hotel with Smoke, Preacher stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco, then they walked out into the street to face the six men.

  “I’ve come for you, kid,” said the big man in the center of the riders.

  “Oh? Who are you?” Smoke asked.

  “You know who I am, kid. I’m Ackerman.”

  “Ah yes!” Smoke said. “I do know that. You’re the man who was supposed to be my brother’s best friend, but you helped kill him by shooting him in the back. Then you stole the gold he was guarding.”

  Inside the hotel, pressed against the wall, the desk clerk listened intently, his mouth open in anticipation of gunfire.

  “You’re a liar. I didn’t shoot your brother. That was Potter and his bunch.”

  “You stood by and watched it. Then you stole the gold.”

  “It was war, kid.”

  “But you were on the same side,” Smoke said. “That not only makes you a killer, it makes you a traitor and a coward.”

  “I’ll kill you for saying that!”

  “You’ll burn in hell a long time before I’m dead,” Smoke told him.

  Ackerman grabbed for his pistol.

  The street exploded in gunfire and black powder fumes. Horses screamed and bucked in fear. One rider was thrown to the dust by his lunging Mustang.

  Smoke took the men on the left, Preacher the men on the right. The battle lasted no more than ten or twelve seconds. When the noise and the gun smoke cleared, five men lay in the street, two of them dead. Two more would die from their wounds. The one shot in the side would live. Ackerman had been shot three times—once in the belly, once in the chest, and one ball had taken him in the side of the face as the muzzle of the .36 had lifted him with each blast. Dead, he still sat in his saddle. The big man finally leaned to one side and toppled from his horse, one booted foot hanging up in the stirrup. The horse shied, then began walking down the dusty street, dragging Ackerman and leaving a bloody trail on the ground behind him.