Deadly Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  Matt never stayed anywhere very long. He was a lone wolf who had worn a deputy’s badge in Abilene, ridden shotgun for a stagecoach out of Lordsburg, scouted for the army in the McDowell Mountains of Arizona, and panned for gold in Idaho. A banker’s daughter in Cheyenne once thought she could make him settle down—a soiled dove in the Territories knew that she couldn’t, but took what he offered.

  He was a wanderer, always wondering what was beyond the next line of hills, just over the horizon. He traveled light, with a bowie knife, a .44 double-action Colt, a Winchester. 44-40 rifle, a rain slicker, an overcoat, two blankets, and a spare shirt, spare socks, spare trousers, and spare underwear.

  It had been two weeks since Matt left Walkback Ranch, and since he had no particular place to go, and no need to be there, he was enjoying going nowhere. He killed a rabbit and spitted it over an open flame to cook for his supper. Then, during supper, he realized he was being watched. Slowly, showing no sign that he even knew that anyone was out there, Matt threw sand on the fire to extinguish it. Then, with the fire out, he spread his bedroll as if he were about to go to bed, being careful to place his boots at the foot of the bedroll and his hat at the top.

  Walking a few steps away from the bedroll, Matt relieved himself, then returned to the bedroll and crawled down into the blanket. He lay there for a moment, then, in the darkness, silently rolled away and slid down into a small gulley that ran nearby. Pulling his pistol, he cocked it as quietly as he could and inched back up to the top of the gulley to stare through the darkness toward the bedroll, using a technique of night vision he had learned from his mentor, Smoke Jensen.

  “Don’t stare right at what you are trying to see,” Smoke had told him. “There’s always a dark spot right in the middle of your eyes when you try to see something at night. But if you will look just to the side of it, you’ll find that you can see it.”

  From here, and using the trick Smoke had taught him, Matt could see that with his boots and hat in position, it looked exactly as if someone were in the blankets, sound asleep. Matt was satisfied. If his campsite looked that way to him, it would look that way to whoever was dogging him.

  He waited.

  Out on the prairie, a coyote howled.

  An owl hooted.

  A falling star flashed across the dark sky. A soft, evening breeze moaned through the mesquite.

  And still he waited.

  It was almost a full hour after Matt had “gone to bed” before the night was lit up by the great flame-pattern produced by the discharge of a shotgun. The roar of the shotgun boomed loudly, and Matt saw dust and bits of cloth fly up from his bedroll where a charge of buckshot tore into it. Had he been there, the impact debris would have been bone and flesh rather than dust and cloth, and he would be a dead man.

  Instantly thereafter, Matt snapped a shot off toward the muzzle flash, though he was just guessing that was where his adversary was as he had no real target.

  “Oh, you son of a bitch! You’re a smart one, you are,” a voice shouted, almost jovially. The voice was not near the muzzle flash, and Matt knew that his would-be assailant must have fired and moved. Whoever this was, he was no amateur and as Matt thought about it, he realized that the assailant could use the flame pattern from his own pistol as a target.

  Matt threw himself to the right, just as the shotgun roared a second time. Though none of the pellets hit him, they dug into the earth where he had been but an instant earlier and sent a spray of stinging sand into his face. Matt fired again, again aiming at the muzzle blast, though by now he knew there would be no one there. A moment later, he heard the sound of retreating hoofbeats and he knew that his attacker was riding away.

  Who was it? Who was after him?

  Matt moved his bedroll for the remainder of the night, but the next morning he returned to his original campsite, then took a look around to see what he could find.

  He found where the assailant had waited, and saw two expended twelve-gauge shotgun shells.

  Then he found something that he had seen before. It was a .50-caliber bullet, around which was wrapped a piece of paper, held in place by a strip of rawhide. Opening the paper, Matt again found the symbol and his name.

  MATT JENSEN

  “I’ll give you this,” Matt said as he held the bullet and paper in his hand. “You are a persistent bastard, aren’t you?”

  Putting the bullet in his pocket, Matt walked back over to Spirit, remounted, and continued on his way. Coming to a road, he saw a little sign pointing to the east. The sign read CUCHARA.

  “Cuchara,” Matt said aloud. “What do you think, Spirit?”

  Matt sometimes talked to his horse, just to hear a human voice—even if it was his own. And somehow, talking to a horse seemed a little saner than talking to himself.

  “It might be good for us to live in town for a while,” he said.

  Spirit accommodated him with a whinny and a dip of his head.

  Chapter Two

  Matt Jensen had been in town for almost two months now, staying in a rented room at Emma Foley’s Boarding House. When Mrs. Foley learned who he was, she was concerned at first, but as she told the Reverend Nathan Sharkey, pastor of the Cuchara Baptist Church, she couldn’t ask for a better guest.

  “He is quiet, never disturbs anyone, and pays his bills on time,” Mrs. Foley said about her famous guest. “And he is always willing to lend a helping hand around the house, even without my asking. I also don’t mind telling you that, though I was sometimes frightened around him at first, now I find it comforting to have someone of his reputation staying with us. I know that nobody would dare to break into the house, not with a man like Matt Jensen around.”

  Matt, who was a tall, broad-shouldered man with ash-blond hair and piercing blue eyes, was well known for his acumen with a gun. What many did not know was that he had learned his deadly skills from the legendary Smoke Jensen, a man whose exploits had been celebrated from coast to coast.

  “How many do you think are faster than I am?” Matt had asked Smoke when Smoke declared that his young protégé had mastered the skills of drawing and shooting a pistol.

  “It doesn’t matter how many are faster,” Smoke answered.

  Matt looked confused. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter how many are faster?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Smoke repeated. “There may be some who are faster; there probably are some who are faster. But you have now reached the point where neither the speed of your draw nor your accuracy in shooting is a consideration.”

  “What is?”

  Smoke sighed, and ran his hand through his hair before he answered.

  “I’ve held this for last, Matt. What I’m about to tell you is the final secret of the gunfighter. And, I’m sorry to say, it is a terrible secret.”

  “What is the secret?”

  “At this level, being fast or accurate is not the differing factor. At this level, everyone is fast and everyone is accurate. But not everyone is willing to kill.”

  “What?”

  “The average man will pause—hesitate for just a heartbeat—before he pulls the trigger for the shot that he knows is going to kill,” Smoke explained. “In a situation like that, the victory goes to the man who will not hesitate.”

  “Yes,” Matt said. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  “I hope you do see,” Smoke said. “Because being able to see and understand that will keep you alive.”

  “How do you overcome it?”

  “You will have to think about it every day. I want you to know that if you have to do it, you can kill a man without a second thought.”

  “All right,” Matt agreed.

  “There’s one more thing I want you to remember,” Smoke said.

  “What is that?”

  “Matt, you now have an awesome power. You have the power of life and death. Only God, and the righteous, should ever have such power.

  “You aren’t God, so that means you must be righteous. Be a knight, M
att. Never abuse this power you now have.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Swear to me, Matt,” Smoke said. “Swear on the graves of your ma and pa that you will be a knight.”

  “I swear to you, Smoke. I will be a knight,” Matt promised.

  It had been a long time now since Matt had that conversation with Smoke. But the essence of it had stayed with him all through the years. Not once, in the many deadly gunfights in which he had engaged, had he been the aggressor. Every man who had fallen before Matt Jensen’s gun had precipitated the event.

  At this moment, Matt was lying on the bed in his room at Mrs. Foley’s Boarding House, with his hands laced behind his head. Then, realizing that it was about supper time, Matt got up from bed, poured water from a pitcher into a basin, washed his face and hands, then went downstairs to the dining room.

  The other guests were just coming into the dining room as well: Mr. and Mrs. Simmons and their eleven year-old boy, Kevin; Clarence Poole, who worked in the dry-goods store; and Amon Withers, a druggist in the town’s only apothecary.

  Mrs. Foley came into the room then, carrying a large platter of biscuits.

  “I hope you folks have an appetite tonight,” she said. “I seem to have gotten carried away. I cooked way more than I should have.”

  “Mrs. Foley, it is impossible to be around anything you cook and not have an appetite,” Matt suggested.

  Mrs. Foley laughed. “You do know how to flatter a woman,” she said as she put the tray of biscuits on the table.

  “Those certainly look good, Mrs. Foley,” Withers said.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Foley replied. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Withers, I got a letter from my son in San Francisco today. He told me to give you his best. He still says he is a doctor because of you.”

  “Nonsense,” Withers said, though it was obvious he was pleased by the comment. “Dr. Foley is a wonderful physician, and would be whether or not he had ever met me.”

  “Still, I think being around all the wonderful medicines, potions, and nostrums that you keep in your store had a great influence on him.”

  “Mr. Jensen, can I ask you a question?” young Kevin Simmons asked.

  “It’s ‘may I,’ dear,” Mrs. Simmons corrected.

  “May I?”

  “Yes, of course,” Matt replied.

  “Is it true you killed your first man when you were my age?”

  “Kevin!” Mrs. Simmons gasped. “What a terrible thing for you to say to Mr. Jensen!”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Simmons, I’ll answer him,” Matt said. “No, Kevin, it isn’t true.”

  “Oh.”

  When Matt went to bed that night, he thought about the question Kevin had asked him. Matt wasn’t eleven when he killed his first man.

  He was ten.

  It was just after the Civil War and Matt, who at the time was only ten years old, had gone West, by wagon, with his father, mother, and older sister. They encountered six men on the trail. When it became evident that the six men intended to rob them, Matt’s father told them to move on.

  “What if we don’t want to ride on?” the leader of the group asked.

  “Then I’d be obliged to make you,” Matt’s father, who was named Martin, said.

  “How you goin’ to do that? There’s only one of you and there are six of us.”

  “You seem to be the one in charge,” Martin said easily. “So you are the one I’ll kill.”

  The leader of the outlaws, a man named Payson, threw his duster to one side and raised a double-barrel shotgun. Matt’s father snaked his own pistol from his holster in a lightning-fast draw. Before Payson could shoot, Matt’s father pulled the trigger. But the hammer made a distinct clicking noise as it misfired.

  Payson pulled the trigger on his shotgun and the blast, at nearly point-blank range, opened up Martin’s chest, cutting his heart to shreds. He fell off the wagons seat, dead before he hit the ground.

  “Martin!” Matt’s mother screamed.

  “Get them two women down here!” Payson ordered. “If they ain’t got no money, then we may as well have us some fun with ’em.”

  “Matt, run!” his mother shouted.

  Earlier, Matt had moved his father’s rifle closer to the edge of the wagon. Now he grabbed the rifle and darted into the rocks alongside the wagon trail.

  “What about the boy?” one of the men shouted.

  “You can have ’im if your taste runs to boys,” Payson said with an evil chortle. “But for me, I’m goin’ to have me one of these women.”

  The others laughed at Payson’s comment. Then they grabbed Matt’s mother and sister and jerked them down from the wagon seat. Mother and daughter fought hard, biting and scratching.

  “Damn you!” Payson said, jerking back from the woman. “Be still!”

  Matt’s mother and sister continued to struggle, putting up such a fight that Payson and the half-eared man, who had taken first dibs, couldn’t get the job done.

  “To hell with it!” Payson said. He took a knife from his belt, then slashed it across the mother’s throat. She began gurgling as blood spilled onto the dirt.

  “Mama!” Matt’s sister shouted.

  “Cut the bitch, Garvey!” Payson said, and the half-eared man silenced the girl.

  Payson stood up then, and looked down at the bodies of the mother and her daughter.

  “Damn,” he said. “Why’d they make us do that? Hell, I don’t want ’em now.”

  “I’ll do it,” one of the other men said.

  “What are you talkin’ about, you’ll do it? They’re both dead,” Payson said.

  “What difference does that make? Hell, all I want is a poke. She don’t have to be alive for me to get a poke. Wasn’t aimin’ to make her fall in love with me.”

  The others laughed nervously.

  “Anyone else goin’ to join in the fun?” the man asked as he began unbuttoning his pants.

  By the time Matt found a place in the rocks that would let him see what was going on, his mother and sister were already dead. Matt was less than twenty-five yards away from the six men who were standing around his mother and sister. He aimed the rifle at the head of the man who was standing over his sister, and pulled the trigger.

  The sudden gunshot startled everyone.

  “What the hell?” Payson shouted, spinning around. Behind him, the man Matt shot was pitching back with blood and brain matter oozing from the top of his head.

  The moment Matt shot, he pulled back from the rock where he had been, and slipped into a very narrow fissure between two large rocks. As a result, Payson didn’t see Matt, but he did see a wisp of gun smoke hanging in the air from where Matt had fired.

  “It’s the kid!” someone shouted. “Somehow he’s got hold of a rifle.”

  “Get him!” Payson ordered.

  “He went in between them rocks.”

  “Lucas, you the smallest one of us. Poke your head through there and see if you can get in and pull him out,” Payson ordered one of his men.

  Nodding, Lucas ran over to the two rocks, then started squeezing through the narrow opening between them.

  “Can you get through?” Payson called.

  “Yeah, it’s tight but I can do it,” Lucas called back as he struggled to work through.

  From his position behind another rock, about ten yards beyond the fissure, Matt watched Lucas working hard to squeeze through. Lucas was in a very contorted position when Matt noticed that, while both arms were through, his waist, and consequently his gun, was not.

  Matt stood up then and stared pointedly at Lucas.

  “Ha!” Lucas called. “Payson, come on! We’ve got his ass now.”

  “No,” Matt said as he raised the rifle to his shoulder. “I’ve got yours.”

  Matt killed Lucas that very day, then managed to get away, but not before making a vow that he would avenge the murder of his family. Years later, Matt did just that.

  Sangre de Cristo Mountains

&n
bsp; It was cold, and the campfire they had used to cook their food and make their coffee was also providing warmth. Seven men were sitting around the fire, eating their supper of beans and staring into the dancing flames. A trapped bubble of gas in one of the burning pieces of wood burst, making a loud popping sound and sending up a shower of sparks.

  Using his hat as a heat pad, Boone Parker reached out over the fire to take the coffeepot from its perch on a little metal frame. He poured himself a cup, put the pot back, then took a swallow.

  He spit the first swallow out. “What the hell!” he sputtered. “What did you make this coffee with, Taylor?”

  “I got the water from a pond back a’ways,” Billy Taylor said. “It might be a little brackish.”

  “Brackish? It tastes like horse piss,” Boone said, even as he took another swallow.

  “Damn, Boone, you’ve drunk a lot of horse piss, have you?” Marcus Strayhorn asked, and the others laughed.

  “Very funny,” Boone replied. “Now, let’s get back to business. Do any of you have any questions?” he asked.

  “We’re going to rob the bank in Cuchara,” Al Hennessey replied. “What’s there to question?”

  “I just want to make certain that everyone understands what they are supposed to do,” Boone said.

  “Come on, Boone, it ain’t like we’re plannin’ some battle or somethin’,” Ed Coleman said.

  “Yes, it is,” Boone insisted. “It’s exactly like plannin’ a battle, and don’t you forget it. Now, you, Strayhorn, Hennessey, and I will go inside the bank. Taylor, you, Teech, and Clay will stay outside, holding the horses.”

  “The hell you say,” Clay replied. “You brought me into this because of my gun.” Rufus Clay was the youngest of the group. He tossed a twig into the fire, then looked up at Boone. “I don’t plan to be no horse holder.”

  Boone sighed. “Use your head, Clay. If there’s goin’ to be any shootin’, it’s more’n likely goin’ to take place outside. If someone gets word of what’s goin’ on, we could have the whole town turnin’ out on us before you know it. You’ve heard about what happened back in Northfield, Minnesota, when the Jameses and the Youngers tried to hold up their bank.”