Rampage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “I think you two boys better come with me,” the deputy said.

  “Come on, Deputy, this here is just a misunderstand-in’, that’s all,” LeRoy said. He reached for his saddle.

  “No, leave the saddle and come with me. Both of you.”

  Pogue waited until the deputy had them halfway to the jail before he stepped outside to retrieve the saddle.

  “Will you lookie there?” LeRoy muttered. “That son of a bitch got my saddle.”

  “It isn’t your saddle until you have satisfied the debt owed against it,” the deputy said.

  Neither Sally, Pearlie, nor Cal were aware of the drama that had just played out at the saddle shop when they rolled into town later that morning. Big Rock was a busy place with two trains at the depot, one passenger and one freight. The passenger train was taking on passengers for its run to the east, and even though the engineer was at rest, the fireman wasn’t. He was working hard, stoking the fire to keep the steam pressure up.

  In contrast to the fireman’s toil, the engineer was leaning out the window of the highly polished green and brass locomotive, smoking a curved-stem pipe as he watched the activity on the depot platform. He was serene in the power and prestige of his position.

  Passenger trains were called “varnish” by railroad people because, unlike the roughly painted freight cars, the passenger cars were generally beautifully finished. The conductor stood beside the string of varnished cars, keeping a close check of the time. The freight train was sitting over on the sidetrack, its hissing relief valve opening and closing as the steam pressure was maintained. The “varnish” had priority over the main line, and not until it departed would the freight be allowed to move back onto the high iron in order to continue its travel west.

  Two stagecoaches and half-a-dozen carriages were also sitting at the depot, either having just delivered or waiting for train passengers. Out in the street behind the depot, a horse-drawn streetcar rumbled by.

  This was what greeted Sally, Pearlie, and Cal as the three came into town to buy supplies. Sally was driving a large wagon and Pearlie and Cal were mounted, but riding slowly to keep pace with the wagon.

  “Whoo-ee, this sure is a busy place this morning,” Cal said as he saw three loaded freight wagons rumbling by.

  “It always gets busy when a train is here,” Sally said.

  “Miz Sally, you know what we ought to do?” Pearlie asked. “We ought to make arrangements with the railroad to carry the cattle up to Sorento. That way we wouldn’t have to drive ’em none.”

  “My goodness, Pearlie, do you have any idea how many cars it would take to move three thousand cattle?” Sally asked.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, if you could get thirty cows to a car, it would take a hundred cars,” Sally said. “That would be at least five trains. And because there is no track direct from here to Sorento, the trains would have to go almost a thousand miles to get there. That means it would take nearly as long to ship them up by train as it would to drive them…and the shipping cost would eat up about a quarter of the gross.”

  “How’d you come up with all that?” Pearlie asked. “You’re awfully smart to figure all that out.”

  Cal laughed. “Maybe if you would think about something other than eatin’ all the time, you would be able to come up with things like that too.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Pearlie replied. “You didn’t know none of that stuff neither.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  Sally stopped the wagon and the two young cowboys halted their horses. They sat in the middle of the street while traffic passed back and forth around them, paying little attention to them.

  “Boys,” Sally said, scolding them. “Would you please stop arguing? I’ve got business to attend to, and you do as well. Remember, Smoke wanted you to find some drovers who are willing to make the drive with us. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  Pearlie and Cal looked at each other for a moment. Pearlie was the first to speak.

  “Yes, ma’am, we understand. It’s just that we were wonderin’…” He let the sentence hang.

  “You were wondering what?” Sally asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Miz Sally, that seems to me like an awful big responsibility for me’n Cal to handle,” Pearlie said. “I mean, they’re goin’ to be workin’ for Smoke. Seems like he should be hirin’ ’em. What if we don’t get the right kind of men?”

  “Pearlie, you are going to be the foreman, and Cal, you are going to be right under him. Everyone we hire will be working for the two of you, just like they are working for Smoke and me. You’ve been around Sugarloaf for a long time now. You know what kind of men will be good for the job.”

  “But…” Pearlie began.

  “But nothing,” Sally said. “Smoke has every confidence in the world in the two of you, and so do I. Now, go hire us some good men. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Pearlie nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am, I reckon we can do that. Right, Cal?”

  Cal nodded solemnly. “Yes,” he agreed. “We’ll get men you’n Smoke will be proud of.”

  “I know you will,” Sally said. She slapped the reins against the backs of the team and the mules strained into the harness, pulling the wagon forward.

  “When you’ve hired the men, come down to the general store,” Sally called back over her shoulder as she drove away. “I should have the wagon loaded by then.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pearlie replied. “Come on, Cal, let’s me’n you go get us some cowboys.”

  “You got ’ny idea where we should start?” Cal asked.

  “Not directly. But town’s a busy place today. I’m sure we’ll run into someone, somewhere,” Pearlie replied.

  Chapter Six

  As the two cowboys rode down to the opposite end of town, they saw a fistfight in progress in the street in front of the livery. One of the combatants was a soldier in uniform. He was wearing sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves.

  The other combatant was a civilian. The civilian was much younger than the soldier, but he was nearly as big, and he was more than holding his own.

  As the cowboys got closer, they saw that the civilian was Mike Kennedy. Kennedy worked for the livery stable as a hostler and as an apprentice blacksmith. Mike was about the same age as Cal, and, in fact, the two were good friends. Mike was younger and smaller than the sergeant, but he was strong and whatever it was that started the fight had filled him with resolve. At first there had been a sly smirk on the sergeant’s face.

  “Boy, I’m goin’ to play with you for a bit,” the sergeant said. “Then I’m going to hurt you, and I’m going to hurt you bad.”

  But Mike was proving to be a little more than the sergeant expected. The sergeant swung hard with a roundhouse right, but Mike, who was quick and agile, ducked under the swing, then countered with a left jab to the sergeant’s nose. It was considerably more than a light jab, because the soldier’s nose went flat, then almost immediately begin to swell. The sergeant let out a bellow of pain as a trickle of blood started down across his mustache.

  “Why, you snot-nosed kid!” the sergeant shouted. “I’m going to knock your block off!” He swung with another roundhouse right, missing again, and this time Mike caught him with a right hook to the chin. The hook rocked the sergeant back, but it didn’t knock him down.

  By now a rather substantial crowd had gathered to watch the fight, and everyone was rooting for their champion. To the surprise of both Cal and Pearlie, there seemed to be about as many soldiers cheering for Mike as there were supporting the soldier.

  Mike scored with two more sharp jabs, and it was now obvious that the sergeant was on his last legs. He was stumbling about, barely able to stay on his feet. Mike had set him up for the finishing blow when one of the soldiers who had been supporting the sergeant suddenly grabbed the boy from behind. With his arms pinned, Mike was an ea
sy target for the roundhouse right that, until now, had missed.

  The sergeant connected and Mike’s knees buckled, but he didn’t go down. Pearlie slid down from his horse and before the sergeant could throw another punch, Pearlie brought the butt of his pistol down on the head of the man who had grabbed Mike. The man collapsed like a sack of potatoes and, though Pearlie and Cal were prepared to have to defend the action if need be, Pearlie found himself cheered by the crowd, civilian and soldier alike.

  With his arms now free, Mike was able to finish the fight with two more blows, setting his man up with a hard left jab, then dropping him with an even harder right cross.

  With the fight over and nothing to hold the spectators’ interest, the crowd broke up. Several of the soldiers dragged their beaten comrade away with them, leaving Mike standing in the middle of the street, breathing hard from the exertion.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Pearlie realized the fight hadn’t been as one-sided as he had thought. Mike had a cut lip and a swollen eye. The boy walked over to the watering trough and dipped his handkerchief into the water.

  “Here, let me do that,” Cal said, taking Mike’s handkerchief and dabbing lightly at his lip.

  “Thanks, Cal,” Mike said.

  “What was the fight about?”

  “The soldier took some oats from Mr. Lambert’s livery. When I told him he had to pay for them, he called me a liar. One thing led to another and the next thing you know, we was fightin’.”

  “Kennedy, you’re fired!” a man said, coming up to them then.

  “Mr. Lambert, that soldier was stealin’ oats from you.”

  “He said he wasn’t,” Lambert said.

  “He was, I seen him do it.”

  Lambert shook his head. “Well, that don’t matter none anyway,” he said. “What’s a nickel’s worth of oats? You get the army mad, we won’t get none of their business. All for a nickel’s worth of oats? It just ain’t good business, boy,” Lambert said. “’Bout the only way I can make up for it now is to fire you.”

  “But Mr. Lambert, I need the job,” Mike said.

  “Sorry, boy, but business is business. Besides, this ain’t the first time you’ve got into a fight. And I told you last time I wasn’t goin’ to put up with no more of it. You’re fired.”

  A couple of the soldiers overheard the conversation, and they came back up to talk to the livery owner.

  “Mr. Lambert, don’t take it out on the boy,” one of the soldiers said. “I don’t know whether Sergeant Caviness stole any oats or not, but I do know that Caviness is a hothead, and he hit the boy first.”

  Lambert waved his hand. “Well, he wouldn’t have hit Kennedy if the boy hadn’t done somethin’ to provoke him. He’s fired, and that’s it.”

  Lambert turned and started striding purposefully back to the livery.

  “I’m sorry,” one of the soldiers said. “It ain’t right that you get fired for somethin’ Caviness done.”

  “Ahh, don’t worry about it,” Mike said. “Truth is, I think Mr. Lambert was lookin’ for an excuse to fire me anyway. I know he’s been complainin’ about how much it costs to keep me on.”

  “Yeah, well at least you taught Sergeant Caviness a lesson,” the other of the two soldiers said. “He’s a bully who hides behind his stripes. He knows that none of the soldiers he picks on can fight back without windin’ up in the stockade. That’s why there was so many of ’em cheerin’ for you.”

  “I welcome the support,” Mike said. “But I still lost the job.”

  “Pearlie, what do you think?” Cal asked.

  Pearlie nodded. “I think yes,” he said.

  “What are you two talking about?” Mike asked.

  “You’re goin’ to be lookin’ for another job, right?” Pearlie asked.

  “Yeah, I reckon I will be,” Mike answered.

  “How’d you like to come work for the Sugarloaf?”

  “What?” Mike asked, brightening considerably at the offer. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  “Do you think Mr. Jensen would hire me?”

  “We’re hirin’ you,” Pearlie said.

  “You?”

  Cal nodded. “We’re fixin’ to drive a herd of cows up to Wyoming,” he said. “Smoke sent us into town to hire some men. If you want the job, it’s yours.”

  “Yes, sir, I want the job!” Mike said excitedly. “You better believe I want it.”

  “Good. Now we just need to find five more men.”

  “Three,” one of the soldiers said.

  “What do you mean I only need three more?” Pearlie asked.

  “My name is Andy Wilson,” the soldier said. He pointed to the other soldier. “This here is Dooley Thomas. We’d be happy to come work for you if you’ll have us.”

  Pearlie shook his head. “Huh-uh,” he said. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Why not? We’re good workers,” Andy replied.

  “You’re also in the army. I ain’t goin’ to hire no deserters, and I know Smoke won’t.”

  Andy smiled broadly. “Well if that’s the only problem, then it ain’t a problem,” he said.

  “And why isn’t it a problem?”

  “’Cause we ain’t deserters,” Andy said. “Get your paper out, Dooley,” Andy said to his friend. As Dooley pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket, Andy did the same. He showed the paper to Pearlie.

  “What is this?”

  “These here is our discharge papers,” Andy said. “Me’n Dooley has done served our time, and we got ourselves mustered out this mornin’. We’re still wearin’ uniforms ’cause we ain’t got us no civilian clothes yet.”

  Pearlie read both papers, then he looked at Andy. “According to this paper you’re from Cincinnati, and Dooley here is from Boston.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “What did you do before you come into the army?” Pearlie asked.

  “Well, sir, I worked down on the river docks, loadin’ and unloadin’ boats,” Andy said.

  “I worked in a factory making bricks,” Dooley said.

  “A dockworker and a brick maker,” Pearlie said. “There won’t be much call for loadin’ boats or makin’ bricks during this drive.”

  “Wasn’t much call for loadin’ boats or makin’ bricks in the army either,” Andy said. “But we both learned to soldier.”

  “I need cowboys. Do either of you know anything about cows?”

  “They give milk,” Dooley said.

  “Horses can give milk,” Cal said.

  “Well, I can tell the difference between a cow and a horse,” Dooley said.

  Pearlie looked surprised for a moment; then he laughed out loud.

  “Well, I’ll give you credit for honesty,” he said. He stroked his chin. “I reckon anyone who can learn how to soldier can learn how to cowboy. All right, you two go with Mike. Mike, get your tack and go down to the general store. Miz Sally is down there getting supplies. You can help her load the wagon.”

  “Who is Miz Sally?” Dooley asked. “How will we recognize her?”

  “She’s the boss’s wife,” Mike said. “And don’t you be worryin’ none about recognizing her. She’ll be about the prettiest woman in town. I know what she looks like.”

  Chapter Seven

  Pearlie and Cal watched as the three men walked down toward the general store.

  “You think they’ll work out all right?” Cal asked.

  “I don’t know why not. Like I said, they learned how to soldier. And I like the way they took up for Mike like that.”

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “I liked that, too.”

  A couple of minutes later, Pearlie and Cal tied their horses off in front of the Longmont Saloon, then stepped inside.

  “Pearlie, Cal,” Louis Longmont called to them from behind the bar. “It’s good to see you boys. Is Smoke with you today?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Longmont, he’s still out at the ranch,” Pearlie answered.
/>   Longmont smiled. “Well, that’s all right. You boys are always welcome, with or without Smoke. What’ll it be?”

  “Two beers,” Pearlie said.

  “And I’ll have the same,” Cal added.

  Longmont chuckled as he drew four mugs, then set them in front of the two boys. “Cal, wasn’t that long ago you wasn’t old enough to drink beer. I remember Miz Sally tellin’ me what she’d do to me if she caught me servin’ you one.”

  “I’m old enough now,” Cal said.

  “Yeah, that’s why I put them in front of you. No way I’d go against Miz Sally otherwise. So, how are things goin’ out at Sugarloaf?”

  “We’re lookin’ to hire three good men,” Pearlie said.

  Longmont looked surprised. “Really? It’s mid-fall. Most ranches lay off at the end of summer. What are you doin’ out at Sugarloaf that you need more men?”

  “We’re drivin’ a herd up into Wyoming,” Cal said.

  “Oh, I see. So you’re lookin’ to hire someone next spring,” Longmont said.

  “No, not in the spring—we want someone now,” Pearlie said.

  “Why would you want someone now? Why not wait until you actually drive the herd?”

  “’Cause we’re driving the herd up now,” Cal said.

  “What? This late in the year? Why, that’s crazy. Why would Smoke do somethin’ like that?”

  “’Cause Miz Sally has got it in her mind that we’re goin’ to have another winter kind’a like that one we had a couple years back when there was that big freeze-out,” Cal said. “So, we’re sellin’ off half the herd to the U.S. government so’s they can provide beef for the Indians. Only, the government won’t pay for the beef until we deliver it to them.”

  Longmont nodded. “Yeah, I guess I can see why you would want to drive a herd north. I guess my question now is, can you do it?”

  “I think we can if we have good men with us,” Pearlie said. “You said a lot of cowboys have been laid off for the winter, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Billy Cantrell? He was riding for the Double Tree. He’s a good man with cattle. I’d like to have him. Do you know if he was laid off?”

  Longmont laughed. “He was laid off all right. But I don’t think he’ll be making any trail drives with you.”