Louis watched the gunman’s eyes, thinking, This man has stared death in the face on many occasions, and has never known fear. With a slow deliberate motion, his gaze never straying, Louis picked up his china coffee cup with his left hand and drained it to moisten his suddenly dry mouth, wondering just what the stranger had in mind, and whether he had finally met the man who was going to beat him to the draw and put him in the ground.
The pistoleer grabbed his whiskey with his left hand and began to saunter toward Louis, his right hand hanging at his side. As he passed one of the poker tables, a puncher threw his playing cards down and jumped up from the table with a snort of anger. “Goddamned cards just won’t fall for me today,” he said, as he turned abruptly toward the bar, colliding with the stranger.
The cowboy, too much into his whiskey to recognize his danger, peered at the newcomer through bleary, red-rimmed eyes, spoiling for a fight. “Why don’t you watch where yer goin’, shorty?” he growled.
The gunman’s expression never changed, though Louis thought he detected a kind of weary acceptance in his eyes, as if he had been there many times before. In a voice smooth with soft consonants of the South in it, he replied, “I believe ya’ need a lesson in manners, sir.”
The drunken cowboy sneered, “And you think yore man enough to give me that lesson, asshole?”
In less time than it took Louis to blink, the pistoleer’s Colt was drawn and cocked, and the barrel was pressed under the puncher’s chin, pushing his head back. “Unless ya’ want yore brains decoratin’ the ceiling I’d suggest ya’ apologize to the people here fer yore poor upbringin’, and fer yore Mamma not never teachin’ ya’ any better than to jaw at yore betters.”
The room became deathly quiet. One of the other men at the table moved slightly and the stranger said without looking at him, “Friend, ’less ya’ want that arm blown plumb off, I’d haul in yore horns ’til I’m through with this’n.”
Fear-sweat poured off the cowboy’s face and his eyes rolled, trying to see the gun stuck in his throat. “I’m . . . I’m right sorry, sir. It was my fault, and I . . . I apologize fer my remarks.”
The gunman stepped back, holstered his Colt, and glanced at a wet spot on the front of the drunk’s trousers. “Apology accepted, sir.” His eyes cut to the man at the table who had frozen in position, afraid to move a muscle. “Ya’ made a wise choice not ta’ buy chips in this game, friend. It’s a hard life ta’ go through with only one hand.” Without another word, he ambled over to stand next to Louis’s table, his back to the wall where he could observe the room as he talked.
“Ya’ be Mr. Longmont?”
Louis nodded, eyebrows raised. “Yes sir, I am. And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“I be Joseph Wells, ’though most calls me Joey.”
At the mention of his name, the men at the poker table got hastily to their feet and grabbed their friend by his arm and hustled him out the door, looking back over their shoulders at the living legend who had almost curled him up.
Louis didn’t offer his hand, but smiled at Wells. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Wells.” He nodded at an empty chair across the table from him. “Would you care to take a seat and have some food?”
Wells scanned the room again with his snake eyes before he pulled a chair around and sat, his back still to a wall. “Don’t mind if’n I do, thank ye kindly.”
Louis waved a hand and a young black waiter came to his table. “Jeremiah, Mr. Wells would like to order.”
“Yes sir,” the boy replied as he looked inquiringly at Wells.
“I’ll have a beefsteak cooked jest long enough ta’ keep it from crawling off’n my plate, four hen’s eggs scrambled, an’ some tomaters if’n ya’ have any.”
The boy nodded rapidly and turned to leave.
“An’ some cafécito, hot, black, and strong enough to float a horseshoe,” Wells added.
Louis grinned. “I like to see a man with a healthy appetite.” He glanced at a thick layer of trail dust on Wells’s buckskin coat. “You have the look of a man a long time on the trail.”
“That’s a fact. All the way from Mexico. Pretty near a month, now.”
The waiter appeared and placed a coffee mug on the table, filled it with steaming black coffee from a silver server, and added some to Louis’s cup before setting the pot on the table. Wells pulled a cork from his whiskey bottle and poured a dollop of amber liquid into his coffee. He offered the bottle to Louis, who shook his head.
Wells shrugged, blew on his coffee to cool it, and drank the entire cup down in one long draught. He leaned back and took his fixings out and built himself a cigarette. Striking a lucifer on his boot, he lit the cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He left it there while he spoke, squinting one eye against the smoke. “That’s mighty good coffee.” He refilled his cup and again topped it off with a touch of whiskey. “Shore beats that mesquite bean coffee I been drinking fer the last month.”
Louis nodded, reviewing in his mind what he had heard about the famous Joey Wells. Wells had been born in the foothills of Missouri. He was barely in his teens when he fought in the Civil War for the Confederate Army. Riding with a group called The Missouri Volunteers, he became a fearless, vicious killer, eagerly absorbing every trick of guerilla warfare known from the mountain men and hillbillies he fought with. After Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Wells’s group attempted to turn themselves in. They reported to a Union Army outpost and handed over their weapons, expecting to be sent home, as other Confederate soldiers had been. Instead, the entire group was assassinated—all except Wells and a few others who were late getting to the surrender site. From a hill nearby, they watched their unarmed comrades being gunned down. Under the code of the Missouri Feud, they vowed to fight the Union to the death.
After Joey and his men perpetrated several raids upon unsuspecting Union soldiers and camps—killing viciously to fulfill their vow of vengeance—a group of hired killers and thugs known as the Kansas Redlegs were assigned to hunt down the remaining Missouri Volunteers. After several years of raids and counter-raids, Joey was the last surviving member of his renegade group. It took him another year and a half, using every trick he had learned, to track down and kill all of the remaining Redlegs, over a hundred and fifty men. Along the way, he became a legend, a figure mothers used to scare their children into doing their chores, a figure men whispered about around campfires at night. With each telling his legend grew, magnified by penny dreadfuls and dime novels, until there was no place left in America for him to run to.
After the last Redleg lay dead at his feet, Joey was said to have gone to Mexico and set up a ranch there. Rumor had it Texas Rangers had struck a bargain with him, vowing to leave him in peace if he stayed south of the border.
Louis fired up another cigar, sipped his coffee, and wondered what had happened to cause Wells to break his truce and head north to Colorado. Of course, he didn’t ask. In the West, sticking your nose in another’s business was an invitation to have someone shoot it off.
After his food was served, Wells leaned forward and ate with a single-minded concentration, not speaking again until his plate was bare. He filled his empty coffee cup with whiskey, built another cigarette, and leaned back with a contented sigh. Smoke floated from the butt in his mouth and caused him to squint as he stared at Louis from under his hat brim. “A while back, I met some fellahs down Chihuahua way tole me ’bout a couple ’a friends of theirs in Colorado. One was named Longmont.”
Louis motioned to the waiter to bring him some brandy, then nodded, waiting for Wells to continue. “Yep. Said this Longmont dressed like a dandy and talked real fancy, but not to let that fool me. This Longmont was a real bad pistoleer and knew his way around a Colt, and was maybe the second fastest man with a short gun they’d ever seen.”
Louis dipped the butt of his stogie in his brandy, then stuck it in his mouth and puffed, sending a cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling. “These men
say anything else?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
“Uh huh. Said this Longmont would do ta’ ride the river with, and if’n he was yore friend he’d stand toe-ta’-toe with ya’ against the devil hisself if need be.”
Louis threw back his head and laughed. “Well, excusing your friends for engaging in a small amount of hyperbole, I suppose their assessment of my character is basically correct.”
Wells’s lips curled in a small smile. “Like they said, ya’ talk real purty.”
“And who was the other man your friends mentioned?”
“Hombre named Smoke Jensen. They said Jensen was so fast he could snatch a Double-Eagle off’n a rattler’s head and leave change ’fore the snake could strike.”
Louis drowned his quiet smile in coffee. “Your friends have quite a way with words, themselves. Might I ask what their names are?”
“’Couple’a Mex’s named Louis Carbone and Al Martine. Got ’em a little rancho down near Chihuahua.” Wells dropped his cigarette on the floor and ground it out with his boot. “They be pretty fair with short guns theyselves, fer Mex’s.”
Louis nodded, remembering the last time he had seen Carbone and Martine. The pair had hired out their guns to a rotten, no good back-shooter named Lee Slater. Slater bit off more than he could chew when he and his men rode through Big Rock, shooting up the town and raising hell. Problem was, they also wounded and almost killed Sally Jensen, Smoke’s wife. Smoke went after them, and in the end he faced down the gang in the very streets of Big Rock where it all started....
* * *
Lee Slater stepped out of the shadows, his hands wrapped around the butts of Colts, as were Smoke’s. “I’m gonna kill you, Jensen!” he screamed.
A rifle barked, the slug striking Lee in the middle of his back and exiting out the front. The outlaw gang leader lay dead on the hot dusty street.
Sally Jensen stepped back into Louis’s gambling hall and jacked another round into her carbine.
Smoke smiled at her and walked down the boardwalk.
“Looking for me, amigo?” Al Martine spoke from the shadows of a doorway. His guns were in leather.
“Not really. Ride on, Al.”
“Why would you make such an offer to me? I am an outlaw, a killer. I hunted you in the mountains.”
“You have a family, Al?”
“Sí. A father and mother, brothers and sister, all down in Mexico.”
“Why don’t you go pay them a visit? Hang up your guns for a time?”
The Mexican smiled and finished rolling a cigarette. He lit it and held it to Smoke’s lips.
“Thanks, Al.”
“Thank you, Smoke. I shall be in Chihuahua. If you ever need me, send word. Everybody knows where to find me. I will come very quickly.”
“I might do that.”
“Adios, compadre.” Al stepped off the boardwalk and was gone. A few moments later, Sheriff Silva and a posse rode up in a cloud of dust.
“That’s it, Smoke,” the sheriff announced. “It’s all over. You’re a free man, and all these other yahoos are gonna be behind bars.”
“Suits me,” Smoke said, and holstered his guns.
“No it ain’t over!” The scream came from up the street.
Everybody looked. Pecos stood there, his hands over the butts of his fancy engraved .45s.
“Oh crap!” Smoke said.
“Don’t do it, kid!” Louis Carbone called from the boardwalk. “It’s over. He’ll kill you, boy.”
“Hell with you, you greasy son of a bitch!” Pecos yelled.
Carbone stiffened. Cut his eyes to Smoke.
“Man sure shouldn’t have to take a cut like that, Carbone,” Smoke told him.
Carbone stepped out into the street, his big silver spurs jingling. “Kid, you can insult me all day. But you cannot insult my mother.”
Pecos laughed and told him what he thought about Carbone’s sister, too.
Carbone shot him before the kid could even clear leather. The Pecos Kid died in the dusty street of a town that would be gone in ten years. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
“If you hurry, Carbone,” Smoke called, “I think you can catch up with Martine. Me and him smoked a cigarette together a few minutes ago, and he told me he was going back to Chihuahua to visit his folks.”
Carbone grinned and saluted Smoke. A minute later he was riding out of town, heading south. . . .7
* * *
Louis grinned at the memory. Carbone and Martine had been killers who had been given a second chance at life through the generosity of Smoke Jensen. He hoped they had taken advantage of it. “How are Carbone and Martine doing?”
Wells shrugged. “Pretty fair. Ain’t much fer ranchin’, though. Spend most of their time drinkin’ tequila and shaggin’ every señorita within a hundred miles—most of the señoras, too, I s’pect.”
Louis laughed again. “That would certainly be like Al and Louis, all right.”
“They said they owed you and Jensen a debt of honor fer how you all helped them out a while back.” Wells reached into a leather pouch slung over his shoulder on a rawhide thong.
Louis tensed, his hand moving toward his Colt. Wells noticed the motion and shook his head slightly. “Don’t you worry none, Mr. Longmont. I ain’t here to do you or your’n any harm. I’m jest deliverin’ somethin’ fer Carbone and Martine. A token a’ their ’preciation, they called it.”
He opened his pouch and took out a set of silver spurs, with large, pointed star-rowels and hand-tooled leather straps, and a large, shiny Bowie knife with a handle inlaid with silver and turquoise. “The knife’s fer Jensen, the spurs are fer you.”8
When Smoke arrived at the saloon a few moments later, he and Joey had taken to each other as if they’d known each other for years. They had shared so many common experiences, it would have been unusual for them not to become close friends.
17
As Joey dismounted, Pearlie whispered under his breath, “Boy, that’s ’bout the most dangerous-lookin’ man I ever did see.”
Smoke nodded, taking in the scar on the right cheek, the brace of Colt .44s in twin holsters on his hips, and the ever-present Colt Navy .36 in his shoulder holster. Smoke realized Joey hadn’t changed a bit in the couple of years since he’d seen him.
“Hey, old friend,” Smoke said as they shook hands. “Having a passel of babies and becoming a rancher don’t seem to have tamed you any.”
“Not enough so’s you can tell it,” Joey replied with a smile. “Cal, Pearlie,” he said, nodding in greeting.
“Howdy, Mr. Wells,” Cal said, his hero worship showing in his eyes.
“Naw, it’s still just Joey to my friends, Cal. What happened to you to get you all bundled up in that chair?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Joey,” Smoke said. “Come on into the house and tell Sally hello. I suspect she’s got breakfast all ready for you by now.”
“Good. My wife said to tell her hello, and to say she was right. The second young’un’s a whole lot easier to raise than the first.”
Later, Smoke and Cal and Pearlie and Joey sat on the porch, drinking after-breakfast coffee and smoking.
“Now that we got the eatin’ an’ helloin’ behind us, why don’t you tell me what’s stuck in your craw, Smoke?”
Smoke went on to tell Joey about Lazarus Cain and his gang, how they’d shot Cal and were holed up in Fontana, sitting and waiting.
“What do you think they’re waitin’ fer?” Joey asked.
Smoke shook his head. “God only knows, but one thing’s for sure, they’re up to no good.”
“You can make bet on that,” Joey said. “I heared ’bout Cain whilst I was still fightin’ the Redlegs. He was a bastard clear through then, an’ I’m bettin’ he ain’t changed enough so’s you can tell it.”
“That’s what I need your help for, Joey. I need someone Cain will trust to ride on over to Fontana, stay a while, and see if they can find out what his plans are.”
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Joey’s lips curved up in a half-sneer and half-smile. “I think I know someone who’ll be glad to do that fer you, Smoke.”
“It’ll be dangerous. He might talk to someone who’ll know we rode together a few years back.”
Joey shrugged. “So what? I’ve rode with plenty of men I’ve later had to kill. How’ll he know it’d matter to me one way or t’other?”
“You may have to prove yourself to him,” Smoke said.
Another shrug. “No matter. I’ve been doin’ that since I was knee-high to a toad.”
Smoke leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Since it’d be too dangerous for you to come here to report, here’s how we’ll handle it . . .”
* * *
Joey rode into Fontana just before dusk, after circling around to enter from the north instead of the south.
The town was already jumping, with music and shouting and hollering coming from the only saloon in town.
Smoke was right, he thought as he looked in the batwings. There had to be at least forty or fifty hard cases sitting around the place, drinking as if the bartender was giving it away free.
He hitched up his holsters and walked into the room, pausing a moment as he always did to size up the place and get his bearings in case of sudden trouble.
After a moment, the room quieted as the men inside noticed him standing there. One, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall man who’d had too much to drink to sense the danger in Joey’s eyes, walked over to him.
“Hey, mister. We don’ much like strangers ’round here,” the man slurred, his voice thick with too much whiskey.
Joey started to brush past him, saying, “Sit down before I plant you, bigmouth.”
The man grabbed Joey by the shoulder and whirled him around, pulling his arm back with his fingers curled into a fist.
Before anyone could blink, both Joey’s hands were filled with iron. Without a moment’s hesitation, he brought the barrel of one of his big Army .44s crashing down on the man’s skull, dropping him like a sack of flour.
Guns of the Mountain Man Page 12