Rampage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “How could it not be?” Pearlie replied. “There I was, sleepin’ out there in the bunkhouse all peaceful like, when all of a sudden I started smellin’ the most wonderful smells. You doggone right my stomach started growlin’.”

  “So, me’n Pearlie come in here and seen Miz Sally just cookin’ away,” Cal said.

  “So, Miz Sally, ain’t it about ready?” Pearlie asked. “All them smells got me so hungry I can’t hardly stand it.”

  Sally sighed. “Pearlie, I swear, your grammar is so atrocious that it makes me cringe.”

  “Well, yes’m, I mean bein’ as you was a schoolmarm ’n all a’fore you and Smoke married up, well, I reckon it’d be only natural that you wouldn’t think I talk all that good,” Pearlie said.

  Sally put her hands over her ears. “Ahhh!” she said. “Smoke, shoot him! Shoot him right now before he says another word!”

  “No, ma’am!” Pearlie said. “Leastwise, not till I’ve et some of this here breakfast.”

  Sally laughed, and shook her head. “You are incorrigible,” she said.

  “Yes’m, I reckon I am,” Pearlie said. “I’m hungry too.”

  “Go sit at the table, all of you. I’ll bring it to you.”

  After the huge breakfast, when Smoke finished his coffee, Sally jumped up from the table and refilled his cup.

  “You’re being awfully nice, Sally,” Smoke said.

  “Can’t I be nice to my husband if I feel like it?” Sally replied with a sweet smile.

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” Smoke said, returning the smile.

  “I swear, Miz Sally, if this ain’t about the best breakfast I done ever et anywhere,” Pearlie said.

  “Ha!” Cal said. “It’s come to my mind, Pearlie, that anything you eat is the best thing you ever ate.”

  “Well, yeah, I do like to eat, there ain’t no denyin’ that. But this here breakfast is particular good.”

  Cal nodded. “I’ll have to agree with you on that. Why the big feed, Miz Sally?”

  “No particular reason,” Sally answered.

  Smoke stared at his wife over the rim of his coffee cup. Seeing his intense stare, Sally looked away.

  “Another bear claw, darling?” she asked.

  “What is it, Sally?” Smoke asked. “What is going on?”

  “What makes you think something is going on?”

  “Because I know you, Sally. We’re married, remember?”

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” Sally replied.

  Sally poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat back down before she went on.

  “Do you remember the big winter freeze we had a couple of years ago? We lost over eighty percent of our herd. Do you remember that?”

  “Of course I remember that,” Smoke said. “We not only lost our herd, we almost lost Sugarloaf.”

  Sally reached back to the sideboard and got a small book, which she slid across the table to Smoke.

  “What is that?” Smoke asked.

  “It’s the Farmer’s Almanac,” Sally said. “According to the Almanac, this winter is going to be as bad as that one was.”

  “Oh, that’s bad,” Pearlie said. “That’s really bad.”

  “And that’s why the big breakfast?” Smoke asked. “We are celebrating the fact that we are going to have another bad winter?”

  Sally shook her head. “No, we are celebrating the fact that a bad winter isn’t going to be as big a problem for us this year.”

  Smoke drummed his fingers on the table. “What makes you think it won’t be a problem?”

  “After that last big freeze, you built shelter areas, remember?”

  “Of course I remember. But we can only shelter about half of our herd.”

  “That’s all we’ll need to shelter,” Sally said.

  “Sally, it won’t put Sugarloaf in danger like the last freeze-up, but do you have any idea how much money it would cost us to lose three thousand head.”

  “Just over one hundred thousand dollars,” Sally said easily.

  “What?”

  “It would cost us just over one hundred thousand dollars to lose three thousand head. But we won’t lose them if we sell them,” Sally said.

  Smoke shook his head. “You might be right, but if everyone is in the same situation, we won’t be able to sell them.”

  “I know where we can sell them,” Sally said.

  “Where?”

  “We can sell them to Mr. Colin Abernathy.”

  Smoke shook his head in confusion. “I don’t know anyone named Colin Abernathy. He’s not a local rancher. Is he an absentee owner?”

  “Mr. Abernathy is the Indian agent for all the Cheyenne in Wyoming Territory. He needs the beef to get the Indians through the winter.”

  “Wait a minute. Did you say all the Cheyenne in Wyoming?”

  “Yes, and to be honest, that is the fly in the ointment,” Sally said. “Mr. Abernathy will only pay for them when they are delivered to the procurement center. That means we’ll have to drive three thousand head to Sorento, where we will deliver them to Cephus Malone.”

  “I thought you said Colin Abernathy. Who is Cephus Malone?”

  “Malone works for Abernathy.”

  “I see. And where is Sorento?”

  “It’s in Wyoming Territory, near the town of Laramie.”

  “Whoa, that’s almost five hundred miles. You are proposing that we drive three thousand head five hundred miles? Sally, darlin’, I know you mean well, but think about it. It would take us a month to get there, and you say that it is just a fly in the ointment. That’s a pretty big fly, don’t you think?”

  “It is, I suppose,” Sally said. “But when you think about it, we will have a pretty big fly swat.” Sally smiled sweetly at her husband.

  “What do you mean, we’ll have a pretty big fly swat?”

  “Mr. Abernathy is paying thirty-five dollars a head at delivery.”

  “Thirty-five dollars a head?” Smoke said in surprise. “Why, that’s….”

  “That’s one hundred and five thousand dollars,” Sally said, finishing Smoke’s sentence.

  Pearlie dropped his fork and stared across the table at Sally. Cal laughed out loud.

  “Pearlie, that’s the first time I ever seen anything stop you eatin’ in mid-chew,” Cal said.

  “Miz Sally, did you…” Pearlie began, then remembering that his mouth was full, finished chewing and swallowed before he returned to his question. “Did you just say one hunnert’n five thousand dollars?”

  “I did say that,” Sally said. She smiled at Smoke. “That’s why I was able to answer your question as to how much it would cost us to lose three thousand head.”

  “Lord, I’ve never seen that much money. I ain’t never even heard of that much money,” Cal said.

  “You haven’t said anything, Smoke,” Sally said. She took a sip of coffee and stared at her husband over the rim of the cup. “What’s the matter? Has the cat got your tongue?”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Smoke said. “And you are right, that is one big fly swat. Something like that would be worth going all the way to Sorento.”

  “Smoke, do you really think we can drive that many cows all the way to Sorento?” Pearlie asked.

  “Looks like we don’t have any choice,” Smoke said, smiling at Sally. “The boss has spoken.”

  “Lord, just us?” Cal asked.

  Smoke chuckled. “What’s the matter, Cal? Don’t you think we can do it?”

  “I—I reckon so, if you say we can,” Cal said, though it was obvious he was unconvinced.

  Smoke laughed again. “Don’t worry, we’ll get some men to help us: drovers, a blacksmith, a cook.”

  “You won’t need a cook,” Sally said.

  “No cook? Miz Sally, you don’t aim for us to make a drive like that on nothin’ but beef jerky, do you?” Pearlie asked.

  “No, I expect you to make the drive on bacon and beans, biscuits and cornbread, ham and fried potatoes, some
roast beef, steak from time to time, apple pie, and…maybe a few bear claws.”

  “Lord a’mercy, you’re goin’ with us?”

  “No,” Smoke said.

  “Yes,” Sally said at the same time.

  “Sally, this isn’t some picnic in the country,” Smoke said. “I’m not going to let you go.”

  Sally stared at Smoke with here eyes flashing. “Smoke Jensen. Did you just say what I thought you said? Did you say you aren’t going to let me go?”

  “I, uh…” Smoke began, but he stammered to a stop in mid-sentence.

  “Cal, if you would be so kind as to hitch up the team, I’ll take a wagon into town and pick up all the possibles we’re going to need for the drive,” Sally said.

  Cal looked at Smoke.

  Smoke smiled, and shook his head. “Well, do what the lady says,” he said. “Maybe a few bear claws would taste good out on the trail.”

  “Yes, sir!” Cal said with pleasure.

  “I’ll help you with the team,” Pearlie said, following Cal outside.

  “I thought you might see it my way,” Sally said after the two young men were gone.

  “I haven’t seen it your way,” Smoke said.

  “Oh? Kirby Jensen, are you telling me you are going to stop me from going?”

  Sally used Smoke’s real name, a sign that she meant business.

  “No, hold on now,” Smoke said, raising his hands in defense. “I said I haven’t seen it your way. I didn’t say you weren’t going.”

  Sally smiled. “I didn’t think you would actually try to stop me.”

  “I won’t do that,” Smoke said. “But if there comes a gully-gusher and you’re trying to drive the chuck wagon hub-deep through water and mud, I don’t want to hear the slightest complaint from you.”

  Sally leaned into Smoke and looked flirtatiously into his eyes.

  “Why, Smoke, darling,” she said. “Do I ever complain?”

  Chapter Four

  Even as Pearlie and Cal were hitching up the wagon for Sally to drive into town, several hundred miles north, in the little town of Salcedo in Wyoming Territory, Trent Williams was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud knock on his hotel room door.

  “Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams, sir?”

  “Yes?” Williams answered in a voice that was groggy with sleep.

  “It is seven o’clock, Mr. Williams. You left word with the desk that you were to be awakened at seven sharp.”

  “All right, all right, I’m awake,” Williams said. “Quit pounding on the door.”

  “Yes, sir,” the chagrined voice said from outside Williams’s hotel room.

  Trent Williams lived in the hotel. As president of the Bank of Salcedo, Williams could afford to live anywhere he wanted, but he preferred a hotel room to a house or an apartment in a boardinghouse. Life was just simpler living in a hotel.

  A slight morning breeze filled the muslin curtains and lifted them out over the wide-planked floor. Getting out of bed, Williams padded barefoot over to the window and looked down on the town, which was just beginning to awaken. The morning’s enterprise had already begun. Water was being heated behind the laundry and boxes were being stacked behind the grocery store. A team of four big horses pulled a fully loaded freight wagon down the main street.

  From somewhere, Williams could smell bacon frying and his stomach growled, reminding him that he was hungry. He splashed some water in the basin, washed his face and hands, then got dressed and went downstairs. There were a couple of people in the lobby, one napping in one of the chairs, the other reading a newspaper. Neither of them paid any attention to Williams as he left the hotel.

  The morning sun was bright, but not yet hot. The sky was clear and the air was clean, and as he walked toward the café he could hear the sounds of commerce: the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, a carpenter’s saw, and the rattle of working wagons. That was in contrast to last night’s sounds of breaking liquor bottles, out-of-tune pianos, loud laughter, and boisterous conversations. How different the tenor of a town was during the business of morning and the play of evening.

  Several of the town’s citizens doffed their hats in respect to Williams as he passed them on the street. Williams nodded in return, but because of his station in the town, he did not doff his own hat.

  “Good morning, Mr. Williams,” the owner of the café said as Williams stepped inside. Eric Jordan held a folded newspaper out toward Williams. “Your table is ready for you, sir, and the coffee is hot.”

  Williams grunted in reply, then took the paper and walked over to his table. Even as he was sitting down, a waiter appeared and poured the coffee for him.

  “Your usual, Mr. Williams?” the waiter asked.

  “Of course my usual. Bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy,” Williams replied. “Have I ever varied my order?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then don’t waste my time asking foolish questions,” Williams said. “Just get my breakfast out here.”

  “Right away, sir,” the waiter answered.

  Half an hour later, Williams was just finishing his breakfast when a man stepped up to his table. The man needed a shave and a bath. His clothes hung in rags from his body.

  “You are in my light,” Williams said. “Move.”

  Obligingly, the man stepped to one side. “Sorry, Mr. Williams. Didn’t mean no offense,” the man said.

  “What do you want, Percy?”

  Williams asked the question without so much as looking at the man, concentrating instead on his breakfast.

  Percy ran his hand across the stubble of his beard. “Well, sir, Mr. Williams, you said I was to bring you a telegram if it come.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, sir, it’s come,” Percy said. “It come this mornin’.”

  Williams stuck his hand out.

  “Yes, sir, it come this mornin’ and I got it first thing and brung it over to you,” Percy said, making no effort to hand over the telegram.

  Williams grunted, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. He gave it Percy. “Will this compensate you for your trouble?”

  “Yes, sir!” Percy said brightly. “Thank you, Mr. Williams.”

  “The telegram?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Here it is,” Percy said, handing the little envelope to Williams. “You want me to hang around so’s you can answer it?”

  “No,” Williams replied. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “If you need me to run any more errands for you, I’ll be glad to do it, Mr. Williams. Whatever you want, why, you just let me know and I’ll do it for you,” Percy said.

  “What I want is for you to go away, Percy,” Williams said, making a motion with his hand. “You smell and you are disturbing my breakfast.”

  “Yes, sir,” Percy said, turning toward the door. “But if you need any more errands run, well, you know where I’ll be.”

  “Yes, I know where you will be,” Williams replied. “Like as not you’ll be passed out on the floor of Duffy’s saloon.”

  The smile left Percy’s face, to be replaced by an expression of hurt. “There’s no need for you to talk to me like that,” Percy said. “Just ’cause I got no money or no place to live, that don’t mean I ain’t a person.”

  Williams opened the envelope without answering and, realizing that Williams was no longer paying any attention to him, Percy turned and walked away.

  Williams read the telegram.

  PER YOUR INQUIRY INDIAN AGENCY DOES REQUIRE BEEF STOP WILL PAY THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER HEAD PAYABLE ON DELIVERY TO SORENTO STOP

  Williams folded the telegram and put it away, then, smiling, began drumming his fingers on the table.

  “Good news, sir?” the proprietor of the café asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Jordan, it is very good news.”

  “About the bank?”

  “Uh, in a manner of speaking, I suppose you could say that it is about the bank,” Williams said. “Although I do have a life ot
her than as president of the bank,” he added.

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure that you do,” Jordan replied. “But you are a very conscientious man, Mr. Williams. All the stockholders insist that the bank has prospered because of you. The bank is very fortunate to have you. Indeed the town of Salcedo is fortunate to have you.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Jordan,” Williams said. “I appreciate that.”

  “More coffee?”

  “No, I’ll just finish this cup, then be on my way.”

  “Very good, sir,” Jordan said. “Just call me if you need anything.”

  Williams nodded, then took a swallow of his coffee and looked once more at the telegram. Jordan had asked if this news concerned the bank. It did concern a bank, just not this bank. If everything worked out right—and he saw no reason why it would not—he would soon own his own bank.

  When Williams read in the paper that all the Indians had been ordered onto reservations, he realized that feeding them would become the responsibility of the U.S. government. He also realized that that would require a lot of beef, and the moment he realized that, he knew that he had found the way to pay for the bank he wanted to buy. All someone had to do in order to make a lot of money was be in position to make that beef available to the U.S. government.

  Williams was not a rancher, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come up with enough cattle to negotiate a profitable deal with the U.S. government. Last month he had bought a demand mortgage from the bank. That mortgage, for one thousand dollars, was due two weeks from today.

  Twice before, Jason Adams, owner of Backtrail Ranch, had arranged an extension on his loan. No doubt he would attempt to do so again, but this time it would not be the bank he was dealing with. By buying the note, which was a perfectly legitimate business arrangement, Williams would be able to force Adams to deal directly with him.

  What made the deal particularly attractive as far as Williams was concerned was that he would not have to deal with the board of directors. He could, and he would, make his own arrangements with regard to the note. And those arrangements could be quite lucrative.

  Williams had Adams over a barrel. If Adams wanted to save his ranch, he was going to have to pay off the note. And the only way he could pay off the note would be by forfeiting his two thousand head of cattle. Williams chuckled as he did the math. By settling the loan, he would be paying one thousand dollars for two thousand head of cattle. That came out to fifty cents a head. He would then sell those same cows at thirty-five dollars a head. That would be a pure profit of sixty-nine thousand dollars. That was more than enough to buy the Miners Bank. Yes, sir, the arrangements would be quite lucrative indeed.