Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “That whore that’s been missin’? Well, she ain’t missin’ no more. She’s layin’ up there on her bed now, deader ’n hell.”

  “Damn,” Bramley said. “I sort of figured somethin’ like that might have happened. Sumbitch! Here’s the card I was lookin’ for! Ha! I got this game won!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  At that very moment, Carter and Fletcher, unaware that Lila’s body had been discovered, were down at the Texas Star, the saloon that was most distant from the Pig Palace. They were sitting at a table separated from the others in the saloon by mutual choice. They didn’t want to be with any of the other customers, and none of the other customers wanted to be with them. The women who worked at the Texas Star had learned the first time Carter and Fletcher ever came to the saloon that they were not good company. As result, not one bar girl had come anywhere close to them for the whole time they’d been there.

  “You know what I’m thinkin’?” Carter asked, speaking quietly.

  “What?”

  “I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s time we was gettin’ on. If Jensen ever puts it together that we was with Mutt, he’s likely to come after us. And even if he don’t, if that whore come by some wanted posters on us, like as not Durbin will too. And I know that son of a bitch, he’d just as soon kill us as look at us, especially if he thinks there’s some reward money in it for him.”

  “Yeah, and I’d just as soon not be here when they find the whore’s body, either,” Fletcher said.

  “I ain’t worried about that. First of all, by now, I mean what with us not runnin’ ’n all, I don’t think it’s likely they’ll think we done it. Hell, whores is always gettin’ kilt. Besides which, I doubt Bramley, or anyone else down there, cares one way another. It’s them reward posters I’m worried about.

  “Problem is, we ain’t got practically no money left at all.”

  “That’s all right. I plan to do somethin’ about that before we leave.”

  “You mean, hold up the bank?”

  “No, there’s only two of us, and I don’t know that just the two of us could hold up a bank. But if we was to rob some small business, say one that was out on the edge of town so that we could just ride off, it would be an easy way get some money. Not much, but enough to get us out of here.”

  “What business you got in mind?” Fletcher asked.

  “What about the grocery store? It’s the last store in town and there ain’t likely to be anyone there that’s wearin’ a gun, especially if we go when there’s no customers. And because it’s right on the edge of town, we can just grab whatever money there is in the store, then hightail it on out of here.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Fletcher said.

  Fifteen minutes later, after the two men tied their horses up at the hitching rail in front of Rafferty’s Grocery Store, they took a quick look around to see if anyone was watching them, then went inside. The store was redolent with the familiar smells of flour, smoked meat, ground coffee, cinnamon, and other spices. Sixteen-year-old Michael Rafferty, who was the son of the store owner, was sweeping the floor when Carter and Fletcher came in. Michael looked up and smiled.

  “Yes, sir, somethin’ I can do for you?”

  “You runnin’ this store by yourself, are you, boy?” Carter asked.

  “I am right now. Pa’s takin’ care of business downtown. But if you need to buy somethin’, I can help you.”

  “What if I give you a bill that’s bigger’n what the thing costs?” Carter asked. “Would you be able to give me change? I ain’t goin’ to do business with you if you can’t give me change.”

  “Yes, sir, I can give you change. Pa give me the key to the cashbox,” Michael said.

  “Well, that’s good. We’ll just do a little shoppin’ then.”

  Michael walked around behind the counter. “What can I get for you?” he asked.

  “A pound of flour, two pounds of bacon, a pound of coffee, and a couple pounds of beans ought to do it,” Carter said.

  Efficiently, Michael moved back and forth along the shelves behind the counter, making the selections, then bringing them back to the counter. There he wrapped everything in wrapping paper, and tied it off into a couple of neat packages. Then he put the packages into a paper sack.

  “That will be a dollar seventy-five, please,” Michael said with professional courtesy.

  Carter put a dollar on the counter. “I’ll be wantin’ change for this,” he said.

  Michael looked at the dollar, then back at Carter, and laughed. “You’re foolin’ me,” he said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Mister, you’ve only put one dollar here. I’ll be needin’ seventy-five more cents, or, another dollar, then I can give you some change,” he said.

  Carter drew his pistol and aimed it at Michael, pulling the hammer back. “I tell you what,” he said. “I’ll just be keeping this dollar, and I’ll take everything else you have in the cashbox.”

  “What? Mister, are you robbin’ me?” Michael asked, incredulously.

  “What do you think, Lenny? This boy ain’t as dumb as he looks,” Carter said. “Open the cashbox, boy, and give us all your money,” Carter said.

  With shaking hands, Michael emptied the cashbox of thirty-six dollars and fifty-five cents, then handed the money over to Carter.

  “This is it? This is all the money you have?”

  “Yes, sir,” Michael said in a shaky voice. “Pa took the rest of the money to the bank. This here money is only just what he left me for makin’ change.”

  “Come on, Bill, it’ll have to do,” Fletcher said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Carter dropped the money down in the bag with the groceries just as the front door to the store opened and someone came in.

  “Hello, Michael! Can we go fishin’? Or has your pa got you workin’?” the young men who stepped in through the front door called.

  “Kelly! Go get the marshal! I’m bein’ robbed!” Michael shouted.

  Carter and Fletcher both turned toward the man who had just come in, a cowboy who worked at one of the neighboring ranches. Both Carter and Fletcher fired at him, and the cowboy went down. Michael took that opportunity to dash out the back door so that, by the time the two robbers turned back, he was gone.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Fletcher asked.

  “It don’t matter,” Carter said. “Let’s go! We need to get out of here!”

  Clutching the paper sack, the two men dashed out the front door, mounted their horses, and galloped away.

  Michael, who was hiding behind the privy that was between the store and the house, watched the two men ride off to the north. He stayed hidden, not going back into the store until he was certain they were well away.

  Once he was back inside, Michael ran to the downed cowboy, kneeling on the floor beside him to see if he could do anything to help, but the man on the floor was dead. The young cowboy, Kelly Tucker, was a friend of Michael’s, and often came to the store as much to visit with Michael as to buy anything.

  With tears in his eyes, Michael shut and locked the door, hung out the CLOSED sign, then walked down to the marshal’s office to report what had happened.

  Matt dropped Annabelle off at her shop, then took the buckboard and team back to the livery to turn it in. That done, he walked across the street to the Texas Star. Hawkins met him as soon as he stepped inside.

  “We had a robbery while you were gone,” Hawkins said to Matt.

  “What, here? You mean you were robbed?”

  “No, it was Rafferty’s Grocery. All they got was thirty-six dollars, but they killed young Kelly Tucker. Kelly was a cowboy who worked out at the Crooms Ranch. He and young Michael Rafferty were good friends, and Kelly had come to invite Michael to go fishing. Michael said the robbers opened up on him as soon as he stepped in through the front door.”

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “From the description the Rafferty boy gave, it sounds like it might have b
een Bill Carter and Lenny Fletcher. Do those names mean anything to you?”

  Matt shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he said.

  “Well, they came into town about the same time that Mutt Crowley did. You most always saw the three of them together. Carter and Fletcher were in here this morning, but, generally, they hung out down on Plantation Row.”

  “I’m sure our new deputy sheriff is hot on their trail,” Matt said, sarcastically.

  “I believe Durbin’s words were that they were ‘most likely out of the county, by now.’ How the sheriff was ever convinced to give the buffoon a star, I’ll never know. If he’s a lawman, I’m a ballet dancer.”

  Matt laughed at the outlandish comparison.

  Pecos

  Prichard was standing at the bar in the saloon, and had just lifted the beer mug to his mouth when, in the mirror, he saw two familiar faces come into the saloon. What were Carter and Fletcher doing here? And where was Mutt?

  He watched them in the mirror until they found a table; then, carrying his beer with him, he walked over to them.

  “Hello, Prichard,” Fletcher said.

  Prichard’s eyes flashed in anger, and he glanced around quickly to see if anyone had heard Fletcher’s greeting.

  “The name is Conner,” he said. “Deputy Sheriff Abe Conner.”

  “I meant Conner,” Fletcher said, contritely.

  “What are you two boys doin’ here? Where’s Mutt?”

  “He’s dead,” Carter said without prelude.

  Prichard blinked his eyes in shocked surprise. “Dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  Prichard sat down at the table with the two men; then he ran his hand through his hair. “What happened? How did he die? Or was he killed?”

  “He was kilt all right,” Carter said. “He was shot by a man named Matt Jensen. Do you know him?”

  “Indeed I do,” Prichard said. “I have never met him, but I certainly know who he is. He was the reason my brother was facing the hangman’s noose up in Trinidad. Do you know any of the particulars?”

  “Neither one of us seen it,” Fletcher said. “But what we heard was that whenever Jensen seen Mutt, he recognized him, and told the marshal about it. Then Mutt, he kilt the marshal, and Jensen kilt Mutt.”

  “And where is Jensen now?”

  “He’s back in Shady Rest,” Carter said.

  “We tried to kill ’im, we took a shot at ’im, but we missed,” Fletcher said.

  “And you didn’t make another try?”

  “We couldn’t stay around long enough,” Carter said. “We, uh . . .” Carter looked around to see who was close enough to overhear him Then he leaned across the table to speak very quietly. “We kilt us a whore, then we kilt some cowboy while we was robbin’ a grocery store. More’n likely nobody cares about the dead whore, but they’re likely to get upset over the cowboy we kilt.”

  “So we thought we’d better come over here and find you,” Fletcher said. “Bein’ as you’re deputy sheriff, why we figured we’d be safe over here.”

  “Did you know there are reward posters out on the two of you?” Prichard asked.

  “Yeah, we seen ’em. The whore had ’em, but I don’t know where she got ’em.”

  “So that’s why we kilt her,” Fletcher said.

  “And that’s also why we robbed a store ’cause we was near ’bout out of money, and we figured we needed to come over here,” Fletcher said.

  “All we need is a place to hide out for a while,” Carter said

  “All right,” Prichard said. “I tell you what, there’s an old abandoned cabin about a mile north of here. You two go hide out there until I come for you.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I’ve got some money coming. Soon as I collect that, I’ll come get you.”

  “Where will we be a’ goin’, do you think?” Fletcher asked.

  “I don’t think, I know where we are going,” Prichard said. “We’re going to Shady Rest.”

  “Shady Rest? Why the hell would we want to go there? We just left there,” Carter said.

  “Because we’re going to kill Matt Jensen.”

  “Look, I don’t know how much you know about Matt Jensen, but I’m not even sure that the three of us could face him,” Carter said.

  “Tell me about Shady Rest. What kind of law do they have there?”

  “Ha! They don’t have no law at all,” Fletcher said.

  “No law?”

  “No, not since Mutt kilt the marshal. All they got is a deputy marshal, and from what I hear, he don’t want to be the marshal,” Carter said.

  “Don’t forget Durbin,” Fletcher said.

  “Who is Durbin?”

  “Durbin is a deputy sheriff, but he works for Jacob Bramley,” Carter said. “Which means the town don’t have any law, ’cause the law belongs to Bramley.”

  “And who is Jacob Bramley?”

  Bramley sort of runs things on his side of town—you know, the saloons, whores, that sort of thing,” Carter said. “And the other saloon owners and the woman that runs the whorehouse, they all sort of listen to him.”

  Fletcher laughed. “They call that side of town Plantation Row.”

  “Am I to understand that the town of Shady Rest is a town divided?”

  “Yeah,” Carter said. “You could say that. There’s all the people over on Plantation Row, then there are the ‘good’ people.”

  “How do the people on Plantation Row feel about Matt Jensen?” Prichard asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think they think about him one way or the other.”

  “Then we shall have to change that,” Prichard said.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “When can I expect the reward money?” Prichard asked Sheriff Nelson, when he returned to the sheriff’s office.

  “I’ve notified the state,” Nelson replied. “We’ll have to wait until they transfer the funds. Twenty-five hundred dollars is a lot of money. I don’t have that much in sheriff’s funds.”

  “Yes, but how long? The reason I ask, is I think I may be moving on.”

  “So soon?”

  “It may seem soon, but I’ve already stayed here longer than I normally stay anywhere. And as they say, volvens lapidem non congregabo musco.”

  “You want to tell me what the hell you just said?” Sheriff Nelson asked.

  “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? Hell, I’ve heard that expression before.”

  Prichard laughed. “Because that’s not the way Erasmus said it. He said it in Latin.”

  “You are an educated man, aren’t you, Conner?”

  “University of Colorado.”

  “What are you doing, wandering around like you do? With your education, you could be a doctor or a lawyer, or someone important.”

  “Ah, but therein is the rub,” Prichard said. “I have a Bachelor of Arts degree, and for a while, I was an assistant professor of English in a small college. If you want to discuss the great masters of painting, or literature, or poetry—and, as I have just so superciliously demonstrated, if you would like to do so in Latin—then I am your man.”

  “Poetry? Do you know poetry? I mean, do you ever recite it?”

  “Oh yes, I often recite poetry. And there is one by Robert Browning that perfectly fits my wanderlust. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Yes, yes, I would.”

  Striking a pose as if on stage, Prichard began to recite in rolling sonorous tones.

  “Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

  Rescue my Castle, before the hot day

  Brightens the blue from its silvery grey.”

  “Yes,” Sheriff Nelson said. “Yes, I like that. Listen, how about watching the place for me for a while. I’ll go down to the telegraph office and send another wire to Austin to see what the holdup is on your money.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff, I am most appreciative.”

  “I’m glad to do it,” Nelson s
aid with a nod as he put his hat on, then left.

  As Nelson walked away from the sheriff’s office, he wondered if he was crazy for being suspicious of Conner. Conner had been a good deputy—he had been an exceptional deputy as far as that goes. As a case in point, he had recognized the outlaw Holder, chased him down, and brought him to justice. Of course, he had brought him in dead, rather than alive, but at least the bullet hole was in front.

  Conner had also shown his prowess with a pistol when he had a run-in with Teddy Rogers. He’d killed Rogers, but everyone who’d witnessed the fight, and many had, had testified that Conner had been pushed into the fight by Rogers, so that he’d had no choice but to kill him. And truth to tell, Sheriff Nelson had always known that Rogers was a hothead who was going to get himself into deep trouble someday.

  That’s why, when it happened, Nelson had not been shocked, nor had it been hard for him to believe the witnesses who’d testified on Conner’s behalf. Afterward, Conner had even apologized to the Rogers family, and they had accepted the apology.

  So why, now, was there something about Conner that was bothering him? Was it because of his arrogance about his education? All right, Conner was a bit of a puffed-up peckerwood, speaking Latin and such, and Nelson had to admit that he was finding that a little irritating. But there was something else that bothered him. He knew that the young schoolteacher had been an educated woman, and he knew that she had been a little pompous herself, that she wouldn’t have had anything to do with a man whom she’d felt wasn’t her equal in education and intelligence. In Pecos, there were damn few such men who would meet that standard. But Conner, with his education, and the way he talked, would certainly have to be classified as one who would meet her standards.

  And then there was the poetry. Charley Keith had said that the man he saw going in through the back door of Margaret Margrabe’s little house on the night she was killed had recited poetry. Had that man been Conner? Sheriff Nelson knew—or if he didn’t know, he at least had a passing acquaintance with—most of the men who lived in and around Pecos, and Conner was the only one he knew who had even a passing interest in poetry.