Rampage of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “What was the question?”

  “I asked if you were all right.”

  “Yeah,” Smoke replied. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

  “It was good to see the two of you laughing a moment ago,” Cal said, coming up to them then.

  “Why do you say that?” Smoke asked.

  “No reason in particular,” Cal said. “It’s just that some of the boys was beginnin’ to think that you was so upset over losin’ Hank and LeRoy, and Andy and Dooley, that you wouldn’t be able to keep goin’.”

  “Do the others want to turn back?” Smoke asked.

  Cal shook his head. “No, sir, not a one of us wants to turn back,” he said. “We started out on this here journey, and we aim to see to it that you get your cows through.”

  “Four good men lost their lives to get the cows this far,” Smoke said.

  “Yes, but think about it, Smoke. If we don’t’ go on, then those boys died for nothin’. Besides, it’s farther to go back now than it is to go on ahead. Looks to me like we got no choice.”

  Smoke nodded. “That’s true,” he said. He sighed. “We’ve got no choice. Tell the boys to get a good day’s rest. We’re going on ahead tomorrow.”

  Cal smiled broadly. “Yes, sir!” he said. “I’ll tell ’em just that.”

  Sally looked up at Smoke after Cal left. “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “What was what all about?”

  “You weren’t about to turn back.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Smoke said. “But this way, the men think they have talked me into it. And sometimes it’s good to let a man think he is controlling his own destiny, even if he isn’t.”

  Trent Williams looked up from his desk when Gilbert stepped into his office.

  “Mr. Williams there is a—gentleman—here to see you,” the teller said. The way he set the word “gentleman” apart from the rest of the sentence indicated that he believed the man was anything but a gentleman.

  “Who is it?” Williams asked.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Gilbert replied. “He didn’t give his name, but he said that it had to do with some—cow—business. He said you would understand.”

  “Cow business?” Williams thought for a moment, then realized what it must be. “Very well, show him in.”

  Williams leaned back in his chair waiting, expecting to see Will Staley come through the door.

  It wasn’t Staley.

  “Who are you?” Williams asked.

  “The name is Cord. Trace Cord,” the man said.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Cord? My teller said it had something to do with the cow business.”

  “Yes,” Cord said.

  “What sort of cow business?”

  “The kind of business you hired Will Staley for.”

  “Oh,” Williams said. He drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment or two. “I see. So tell me, Mr. Cord, why didn’t Mr. Staley come to discuss this?”

  “He didn’t come ’cause he’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Williams asked, sitting back in his chair, surprised by the statement.

  “Yeah, him and five others.”

  “What happened?”

  “We ran into a hornets’ nest, that’s what happened.”

  “Am I to understand that you did not get the herd?”

  “You ain’t been listenin’ to nothin’ I’ve said, have you?” Cord asked. “No, we didn’t get the herd. We’re damn lucky they didn’t kill all of us.”

  “I see,” Williams said. “What am I to do now?”

  “I don’t care what you do now. All I care about is gettin’ the money.”

  “What money would that be?”

  “The money Staley was supposed to pay us.”

  Williams’s smile was without mirth. “Why, Mr. Cord, you don’t really think I’m going to pay you for failure, do you?”

  “There wasn’t nothin’ said about failure. Only thing Staley said was that he would pay us to go with him. Besides, you set us up, you son of a bitch. You didn’t tell us we was goin’ to run into an army.”

  “When I pay to have something done, how it is done is none of my business,” Williams said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s just it. I went with him, and now I want my pay.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I’ll go to the sheriff and tell him what you had planned,” Cord said.

  Williams stroked his chin. “You wouldn’t do that. You would be incriminating yourself.”

  “Hell, I don’t care nothin’ about that. I’ve been in prison before, wouldn’t bother me none to go back in. But a highfalutin fella like yourself? You’d have a real hard time in prison.”

  “How much did Staley say he would pay you?”

  “Two hun…uh, five hundred dollars,” Cord said.

  “Five hundred dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Yeah. But that’s what he said he would pay us.”

  “Us?”

  “I’ll be splitting the money with the others.”

  “I see,” Williams said. He nodded. “All right, I suppose what’s right is right. I’ll give you the money.”

  “I thought you might see it my way,” Cord said with a self-satisfied smile.

  Williams opened the middle drawer of his desk, reached his hand in, wrapped his fingers around the butt of a Colt .44, then pulled the gun out.

  “What?” Cord asked, surprised by sudden appearance of the gun. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll not be blackmailed,” Williams said, pulling the trigger.

  The sound of the gunshot was exceptionally loud. The bullet caught Cord in the heart, and though he lived long enough to slap his hand over the wound in his chest, he was dead by the time his body hit the floor.

  “Mr. Gilbert! Mr. Gilbert, come in here quickly!” Williams shouted.

  Gilbert, the teller who had come in earlier, now came running into the room carrying a poker over his head. Williams was standing over Cord’s body, holding a smoking pistol in his hand.

  “Mr. Williams, what happened, sir?” Gilbert asked.

  “I don’t know,” Williams answered, his face registering shock. “This man came in here and threatened to hold up the bank. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was quite obdurate. Then, it all happened so quickly. One minute I was arguing with him and the next minute”—Williams held up the pistol—“I was holding a smoking pistol and he was lying on the floor.”

  “Yes, well, don’t worry, Mr. Williams,” Gilbert said. “You did the right thing. A bank robber like that should be shot.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The sheriff’s inquiry had been fast and nonthreatening. Gilbert testified that Cord had come into the bank and presented himself in a belligerent manner, demanding to see Trent Williams. Gilbert further testified that he was worried about Mr. Williams, and therefore kept a close eye on the door to the bank office. Then, he heard Williams call out, heard a shot, and when he entered the office he saw Cord lying on the floor and Williams standing over him, holding a smoking gun.

  Trent Williams did not dissent from Gilbert’s account. He explained that Cord had come into the office, demanding that Williams empty the safe and give him all the money.

  “Did he have a gun?” Williams was asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Was the gun in his holster, or was he holding it in his hand?”

  “I don’t know,” Williams said.

  “Come on, Sheriff, what are you askin’ Mr. Williams all these questions for?” Gilbert asked. “We’ve already told you what happened.”

  The sheriff nodded. “All right, Mr. Williams, you’re free to go. There will be no charges.”

  “Thank you,” Williams said.

  Williams told himself that shooting Cord had been necessary, but he was unnerved. He wasn’t unnerved because he had had to shoot Cord. He was unnerved because Staley had failed to get the herd for him. Now what was he going to do?

  At this very moment the
answer to Williams’s dilemma was just down the street from the bank, playing a game of solitaire in the saloon. The man was dressed all in black, including his hat, though the starkness was offset by the glitter of the silver and turquoise hatband. This was Quince Pardeen, and though he would have preferred a game of poker, nobody would play with him because everyone was afraid of him. Pardeen’s reputation preceeded him now, even in the smallest towns.

  Pardeen counted out three cards, but couldn’t find a play. The second card of the three was a black seven. There would have been a play had the black seven come up on top, but unfortunately, it was one card down and therefore useless to him. Pardeen glared at it for a moment, then, with a shrug, played it anyway.

  The batwing doors swung open and a cowboy came in and walked over to the bar. He ordered a whiskey, then looked around and saw Pardeen sitting at the table, calmly playing cards.

  “Ain’t you the one they call Pardeen?” the cowboy asked.

  Pardeen didn’t answer.

  “Yeah, that’s who you are, all right,” the cowboy said. “You’re Quince Pardeen.”

  Though the cowboy wasn’t telling the people in the saloon anything they didn’t already know, everyone remained silent. The cowboy’s tone of voice was challenging, and everyone knew that Pardeen was not a man to be challenged.

  “My name is Carl Logan,” the cowboy said. “My brother’s name was John Logan. I reckon you’ve heard that name.”

  Pardeen made no response.

  “John was a sheriff, an honest man whose only job was to protect the people of his town. But you shot him down in cold blood,” the cowboy continued.

  “Mister, do you know who you are talkin’ to?” another man asked.

  The cowboy looked at the questioner. “Yeah,” he replied, “I know who I’m talkin’ to. And I know who you are too, Corbett. You’re the little piece of dung that hangs on Pardeen’s ass all the time. They’s some that says you’re the one that helped Pardeen break out of jail where he was waitin’ to be hung for killin’ my brother.”

  Finally, Pardeen looked up from his cards. The expression on his face was one of boredom, as if he shouldn’t have to deal with people like this belligerent cowboy.

  “You talkin’ to me, friend?”

  “Mister, I’m not your friend.”

  Pardeen smiled coldly. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said. “You see, I generally give my friends some leeway when they make a mistake. But seein’ as you aren’t my friend, then I don’t see much need in cuttin’ you any slack a’tall.”

  “I ain’t askin’ for any slack from you, you low-assed son of a bitch,” the cowboy said.

  The others in the saloon gasped at the audacity of Logan’s words.

  “I’m tryin’ to get you riled enough to fight,” Logan said. He doubled his fists. “Because I aim to beat you to a pulp.”

  Pardeen looked up from the cards again. This time the nonchalance was gone. Instead, his eyes were narrowed menacingly.

  “If you got somethin’ stickin’ in your craw, cowboy, I think maybe you’d better just spit it out,” Pardeen said coldly.

  “I done spit it out,” Logan said. “I told you, I aim to beat you to a pulp; then I’m goin’ to personally turn you over to the sheriff so you can get hung proper.”

  Pardeen looked surprised. “A fistfight?” he asked. “Did I hear you right? You are challenging me to a fistfight?”

  “Yeah,” Logan said. He looked over at Corbett. “I know there’s two of you and one of me. But I’d say that makes the odds about even. Come on, I think I’m goin’ to enjoy this.” He made his hands into fists, then held them out in front of his face, moving his right hand in tiny circles. “Come on,” he said. “I’m goin’ to put the lights out for both of you.”

  Pardeen smiled, a low, evil smile. “Huh-uh,” he said. “If me’n you are goin’ to fight, mister, it’s goin’ to be permanent.”

  “You mean a gunfight? No, I ain’t goin’ to get into no gunfight with the likes of you,” Logan said. “Besides, like I said, there’s two of you. I figure with the two of you, it might just about make a fistfight come out even.”

  “You can keep me out of this one, mister,” Corbett said. “This just between the two of you.” Corbett stood up and walked away, leaving the floor to the two players. Pardeen, in the meantime, stood up and stepped away from the table. He let his arm hang down alongside his pistol and he looked at the cowboy through cold, ruthless eyes.

  “Well, what about it, Mr. Logan?” Pardeen said. “You’re the one that asked me to dance.”

  Logan shook his head. “No, I told you, this ain’t the kind of fight I’m talkin’ about.”

  “I’ll let you draw first,” Pardeen offered.

  “I told you, I ain’t drawin’ on you,” Logan said. He doubled up his fists again. “But if you’d like to come over here and take your beatin’ like a man, I’d be glad to oblige you.”

  “I said draw,” Pardeen repeated in a cold, flat voice.

  The others in the saloon began, quietly but deliberately, to get out of the way of any flying lead.

  Logan shook his head slowly. “I told you, I ain’t goin’ to draw on you,” he said. He smiled. “You might’a noticed that I’m not wearin’ a gun.”

  “I’ll give you time to get yourself heeled,” Pardeen offered.

  “I told you, I ain’t goin’ to get into no gunfight with you.”

  “Somebody give Mr. Logan a gun,” Pardeen said coldly. He pulled his lips into a sinister smile. “He seems to have come to this fight unprepared.”

  “I don’t want a gun,” Peabody said.

  When no one offered Logan their gun, Pardeen pointed to a cowboy who was standing at the far end of the bar. “I see that you are wearing a gun. Give it to him.”

  “He don’t want a gun,” the man said. “I ain’t goin’ to do that. If I give him a gun, you’ll kill him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I don’t want no part of it.”

  “You got no choice, friend. You’ll either give him your gun or you had better be ready to use it yourself,” Pardeen said. He turned three quarters of the way toward the armed cowboy. “Which will it be?”

  The cowboy paused for just a moment longer, then sighed in defeat. “All right, all right. If you put it that way, I reckon I’ll do whatever you want.” He took his gun out of the holster and laid it on the bar. “Sorry, Logan,” he said. He gave the gun a shove and it slid halfway down the bar, knocking two glasses aside, then stopping just beside Logan’s hand. It rocked back and forth for a moment, making a little sound that, in the now-silent bar, seemed amost deafening.

  “Pick it up,” Pardeen said to Logan.

  Logan looked at the pistol, but made no effort to pick it up. A line of perspiration beads broke out on his upper lip.

  “No, I ain’t goin’ to do it.”

  Pardeen drew his pistol and fired. There was a flash of light and a roar of exploding gunpowder. A billowing cloud of acrid, blue smoke rolled from the end of Pardeen’s pistol, then began rising to the ceiling.

  For a moment the entire saloon thought Pardeen had killed Logan, but that impression dissolved when they saw that Logan was still standing. He wasn’t unscathed, though, for he was holding his hand to the side of his head with blood spilling through his fingers. Pardeen had shot off a piece of Logan’s earlobe.

  “Pick up the gun,” Pardeen ordered.

  “No.”

  There was a second shot and Peabody’s right earlobe, like his left, turned into a ragged, bloody piece of flesh.

  “Mister, you better do somethin’,” Corbett said. “Else ole Quince here is goin’ to carve you up like a Christmas turkey.”

  Logan stood there holding his hands over his ears as he stared at Pardeen. Both hands were red with blood.

  “Pick it up!”

  “No!”

  “Are you left-handed or right-handed?” Pardeen asked.

  “What?”
r />   “Left or right.”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “I figure you are probably right-handed,” Pardeen said. “Am I right?”

  “Whether I’m right-handed or left-handed ain’t none of your business,” Logan said.

  “You better hope I’m right,” Pardeen said. He pulled his gun and shot a third time. This time his bullet took one of the fingers off Logan’s left hand.

  Logan cried out in pain, then grabbed his hand. “You’re crazy!” he said.

  “Pick up the gun,” Pardeen said calmly.

  Logan stared at Pardeen through eyes that were wide with fear. Then the fear was replaced by blind rage. Logan reached for the pistol.

  “I’ll send you to hell, you son of a bitch!” Logan yelled.

  Pardeen played with Logan the way a cat will play with a mouse. He waited until Logan had the gun in hand before he drew again. This time his bullet caught Logan in the forehead. Logan fell back against the bar, then slid down, dead before he reached the floor.

  The sound of the gunshot brought two or three outsiders into the saloon, including the sheriff. He saw Logan sitting down against the bar, his eyes open and sightless, his hand clenched tightly around the unfired pistol.

  “Oh, hell,” the sheriff said quietly. He looked over at Pardeen. “Did you do this?”

  “Yeah, I done it,” Pardeen said. “But it was self-defense. Look at the gun in his hand. He was goin’ to shoot me.”

  “Pardeen forced him into it, Sheriff,” the bartender said. “Logan didn’t want to fight but Pardeen egged him on.”

  “Pardeen didn’t have any choice, Sheriff,” a voice from the back of the saloon said. “He had to force a showdown now.”

  The sheriff looked toward the sound of the voice and saw Trent Williams.

  “Mr. Williams, you are taking up for Pardeen?” the sheriff asked, surprised by statement.

  “Believe me, it’s not something I want to do,” Williams said. “But when Mr. Logan spoke to me earlier today, he let it be known that he intended to kill Quince Pardeen. I believe if Pardeen had not forced a showdown here, Logan would have shot him in the back.”

  “Yeah,” Corbett said. “That’s what I think too.”

  “What have you got to say about this, Pardeen?” the sheriff asked.