Louis looked at him without a trace of fear on his face. “You are either a fool or you are stupid, Mr. Davis. And I wouldn’t care to wager which it is.”
“Why you . . .” Davis shouted, and went for his gun.
Louis drew without standing up. His Colt exploded, spewing smoke and hot lead across the table before Davis could cock his pistol. The slug took him in the right shoulder, spinning him around and throwing him facedown on the floor.
Louis spun his Colt on his finger and deposited it in his holster without showing the slightest trace of emotion. “As I said, I believe it is my deal,” he remarked to the men at the table.
“Uh . . . yes, sir, Mr. Longmont. I believe it is,” said the man on his left.
As Louis dealt the cards, Davis groaned and writhed on the floor. “Perhaps someone should send for a doctor, before poor Mr. Davis bleeds to death,” Louis said, as if it really didn’t matter to him whether they did or didn’t.
* * *
Smoke was standing at the bar in the Cattleman’s Saloon. He was sipping a glass of whiskey and chasing it with beer, drinking slowly so as not to let the liquor cloud his judgment.
He’d spoken with several men, inquiring whether anyone in the area was hiring men who knew how to use a gun. The answer was always the same. The town was full of such men and, since there were no range wars going on at present, no one was actively hiring.
Evidently, word of his inquiries spread, and before long a tall man, broad through the shoulders, with a weathered face and tired eyes, stepped up next to him at the bar. The man wore a Colt low on his hip and a tin star on his vest.
He ordered a beer and after the barman brought it, leaned his elbow on the bar and looked at Smoke.
“Howdy, stranger. I don’t believe I caught your name,” he drawled in a nonchalant manner.
Smoke lit the cigarette he’d built and let smoke trail from his nostrils as he answered, “I don’t believe I threw it.”
The man chuckled. “A gunfighter with a sense of humor. That’s a new one around here. My name’s Pike. Walter Pike, but everyone around here just calls me Sheriff,” Pike said, raising his eyebrows in silent interrogation of Smoke.
“Howdy, Sheriff Pike. I’m Johnny West,” Smoke said, giving a name he’d once used while on the run years before.
“West, huh? Well, Johnny West, I don’t recollect any wanted posters on you at my office, but I’ll be sure and check again, first chance I get.”
Smoke gave Pike a questioning look. “Sheriff, I understood this town was . . . rather open and understanding of men with a reputation. Are you telling me that’s not the case?”
Pike took a deep swig of his beer, sleeving the suds off his mustache with the back of his arm. “No, you heard right, Mr. West. I don’t ordinarily hassle men about what they did or didn’t do ’fore they entered my town. I figure it’s live and let live as long as they don’t do anything to cause a ruckus here. However, I do like to let newcomers know that if they bust a cap in my town, they’re gonna have me to answer to.”
Smoke turned to look at the sheriff. “Are you that good?”
Pike grinned. “Oh, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the fastest gun in town, but I DO maintain an edge.” He inclined his head at the door to the saloon.
Smoke turned and looked. Two men were standing just inside the batwings, both cradling short-barreled shotguns in their arms. Their eyes were fixed on Smoke and their fingers were on the triggers with hammers eared back.
Smoke grinned. “I see what you mean, Sheriff. A sensible precaution in a place known as Robber’s Roost filled with more gunfighters than Dodge City at its prime.”
Doubt showed in Pike’s eyes for the first time since he spoke to Smoke. “You sure don’t talk like your average gun slick, Mr. West. Just what are you doing here in Jackson Hole?”
Smoke shrugged. “Just a man passing through, Sheriff. Looking to pick up some spare change in the only way I know, by hiring my services out if anybody’s interested.”
Pike nodded. “Uh-huh. Well, there’s nothing illegal about that, so far as it goes, Mr. West.” He tipped his hat. “I just thought I’d amble on over and explain the rules of the town to you. You take it easy now, you hear?”
Smoke was about to reply when a man ran into the saloon. “Sheriff, Sheriff Pike. A gambler named Longmont just put some lead in Jack Davis over at the Dog Hole.”
Pike loosened his Colt in its holster and smiled at Smoke. “See, Mr. West? Now I’ve got to go and make sure this Longmont was sufficiently provoked to justify shooting someone in my town.”
“And if he wasn’t?” Smoke asked.
“Then he’ll either leave town of his own accord, or he’ll stay forever in boot hill.” Pike pulled his hat down tight over his forehead and walked out the batwings, his deputies close behind.
Smoke hesitated. He was tempted to follow and find out what had happened with Louis, but he didn’t want to tip his hand by showing too much interest. Besides, he figured, Louis was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He turned back to his whiskey and took a sip, wondering what Cal and Pearlie were doing.
* * *
Cal and Pearlie walked into Schultz’s General Store and Emporium and were surprised to find a large, well-stocked establishment.
“Jimminy, Pearlie,” Cal said, his eyes wide as he stared around at the wealth of supplies in the store. “This place is bigger’n anything we got in Big Rock.”
Pearlie nodded. “Yep, it sure is. I guess it’s because this is the only place for hundreds of miles fer folks to buy supplies an’ such to git through the winter.”
The store was divided into several different parts. On one side was a wall covered with shelves stocked with all manner of foodstuffs—barrels of flour and beans and coffee, row upon row of tinned milk, meat, and fruits, and even cases stuffed with sides of beef and bacon and all manner of fowls.
Another section contained various and sundry mining and trapping equipment from shovels and picks to traps and axes and skinning knives.
The other side of the room was lined with rifles, pistols, cases of ammunition of all calibers alongside small wooden kegs of gunpowder, and cases containing sticks of dynamite and fuses.
A large man wearing an apron over a white shirt, with his sleeves rolled up, approached them with a grin. He was barrel-chested, with a large stomach, dirty blond hair, and ice-blue eyes over a handlebar mustache whose ends hung below ample jowls.
“Howdy, gents. What can I get for you?” he said in a thick German accent. “If I don’t got it, they don’t make it,” he added with a grin.
Pearlie nodded at the section with ammunition and gunpowder. “We came to stock up on some cartridges and blastin’ powder, an’ maybe a few sticks of that dynamite,” he said.
“You came to the right place,” Schultz said. “I can fit you out with anything from musket balls to the latest rimfire cartridges from Colt or Smith and Wesson.”
As the proprietor helped them load up what they needed, Cal cleared his throat. “By the way, Mr. Schultz, we heard tell an old friend of ours sometimes stopped by here ’fore headin’ up into the mountains. His name is Muskrat Calhoon.”
Schultz chuckled. “Well, as you can tell from the absence of any stink, ole’ Muskrat hasn’t been in yet today, but I expect him ’fore too long. He’ll likely be here in the next day or two if he wants to get through the mountain passes ’fore they get all snowed in.”
Pearlie hefted the crate of ammunition onto his shoulder and handed Schultz a stack of bills. “Would you tell him a couple of old friends of his and Bear Tooth are in town? We’re stayin’ over at Aunt Bea’s Boardin’house for the next couple of days.”
“Gonna partake of a little night life ’fore you head on out, huh?”
Cal blushed and grinned as he picked up the kegs of gunpowder and crate of dynamite. “Yes, sir, we shore are.”
“Well, if ole’ Muskrat happens by, an’ he ain’t too drunk to l
isten, I’ll tell him to look you up.”
“Thank you kindly, Mr. Schultz,” Pearlie said, and led Cal out the door.
On the way back to the boardinghouse, Pearlie said, “Jeez, Cal, I sure hope we find that old mountain man, or we ain’t gonna have a prayer of gettin’ to Miss Carson without those bandidos knowin’ we’re comin’.”
Cal nodded. “Well, Mr. Schultz said he ain’t been by yet, so there’s still hope.”
Pearlie raised his nose to the air as they neared Aunt Bea’s. “Smells like Aunt Bea’s cookin’ fried chicken fer dinner.”
Cal stared at Pearlie. “With a nose that good, maybe you could smell out this Muskrat feller.”
Pearlie shook his head. “Only works fer food, Cal, boy, only fer food. If’n it worked fer fellers that needed a bath, it wouldn’t get past you!”
11
After eating supper at different tables in Aunt Bea’s dining room, Smoke and the others met in Smoke’s room to compare notes on what they’d learned during the day.
“From what I can gather, Slaughter has all the men he needs,” Smoke said. “At least he’s not actively looking to hire any new gun hands.”
Louis nodded. “That squares with what I could glean from my compatriots at the gaming tables. The best estimate I can come up with is he has between twenty and thirty hard cases up in the hole-in-the-wall with him. No one knows for sure since they never all come into town at the same time, but usually in groups of three or four, and then only when they need supplies or female companionship.”
“How about you and Cal, Pearlie? What did you find out about Muskrat Calhoon?”
“Well,” Pearlie drawled as he picked fried chicken from between his teeth with a toothpick, “Muskrat hasn’t been in the store to buy his provisions yet, so the proprietor thought it’d be any day now since he’s got to do it soon to beat the snows in the passes.”
“Proprietor’s gonna let him know some old friends of his and Bear Tooth are hankerin’ to meet up with him. We told him we was stayin’ at Aunt Bea’s Boardin’house,” Cal added.
“Did you get the supplies we talked about?” Smoke asked.
“Yes, sir. We got four kegs of gunpowder, a case of dynamite sticks, and twenty boxes of ammunition.”
“Did you remember to get some shells for my Sharps?” Smoke asked, referring to the Sharps Big Fifty long rifle he’d brought.
“Yes, sir,” Pearlie answered, “two boxes of twenty shells each.”
Louis raised his eyebrows. “You planning on doing some long-range shooting, Smoke?”
Smoke nodded. “Yeah. Depending on how close Muskrat can get us to the gang’s camp, I figured a long gun might come in handy to spread a little fear and trepidation among the bandits.”
“Smoke can hit a squirrel in the eye at fifteen hundred yards with that baby,” Pearlie said, pride in his voice.
Just then, they heard a knocking at Pearlie and Cal’s door, which was just down the hall from Smoke’s.
Smoke stepped to the door, pulled his Colt from his holster, and peeked out into the hall. He could see an older man wearing buckskins waiting outside Pearlie’s room.
Smoke holstered his gun and opened his door, stepping into the hallway. “Mr. Muskrat Calhoon?” he called.
The old mountain man whirled, a battered Colt Army revolver appearing in his hand in the wink of an eye.
“Yep, that be me, sonny boy. Who might ye be?”
Smoke held his hands out from his sides, showing he wasn’t a threat. “My name’s Smoke Jensen. Bear Tooth said we should look you up and see if you might be able to do us a favor.”
Muskrat narrowed his eyes and studied Smoke for a moment. “Ye be the Smoke Jensen used to ride with Preacher?”
Smoke smiled. “Yes, sir. One and the same.”
“Don’t be callin’ me sir, boy. Onliest ones ever did that was somebody tryin’ to sell me somethin’.”
“All right, Muskrat. Would you like to join us down here in my room?”
“That depends, young’un. If’n you got a wee mite of whiskey, I could be talked into it.”
Smoke laughed out loud. “Well, then, come on in and we’ll crack open a bottle of Old Kentucky bourbon, if that suits you.”
“If’n it’s got a bite, it’ll suit me jest fine,” the old man answered with a grin, exposing yellow stubs of teeth worn down almost to his gums.
As he passed by Smoke in the doorway, Smoke took a deep breath. Bear Tooth was right, this man was way beyond ripe.
Muskrat walked into the room and leaned his Sharps long rifle against the wall, then turned and looked at the others gathered there.
He pursed his lips. “You boys havin’ a prayer meetin’ or somethin’?”
Smoke introduced Muskrat to everyone in the room. Louis, having heard his request for whiskey, got up, poured a long draft into a water glass, and handed it to the mountain man. As he took a deep drink, Louis stepped over to the window and opened it, hoping it would let some of the odor out of the room lest they all suffocate.
Muskrat smacked his lips and held up the empty glass for a refill. “How’s ol’ Bear Tooth doin’ these days?” he asked.
“Other than a little rheumatiz, he said he was doing all right,” Smoke answered.
Muskrat nodded. “Rheumatiz goes with the territory if’n yo’re gonna live up in the high lonesome durin’ the winter.”
He took another drink of his whiskey. “Course, Bear Tooth is gettin’ on up in years, an’ he ain’t as spry as he used to be. Never could keep up with us younger fellers, even in his better days.”
Muskrat leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, looking from one man to another. “Now, I ain’t no fool an’ I know nobody looks me up jest to give me free whiskey, so jest what is it you young fellers want from ol’ Muskrat?”
Smoke pulled up a chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and told Muskrat the whole story of the kidnapping and transportation of Mary Carson to the hole-in-the-wall.
“We aim to get her back, and put some lead in Big Jim Slaughter for what he did,” Smoke said.
Muskrat nodded. “And you need ol’ Muskrat to show you a back way into the hole-in-the-wall, eh?”
Smoke decided a little flattery was called for. “That’s right. Bear Tooth said no man alive knows the mountains around Jackson Hole better’n you. He said if anyone could get us in there without being seen, it’d be you.”
Muskrat grinned. “You don’t have to shine me on, Smoke, boy. I never believed much in gettin’ involved in other people’s business nor feuds, but I surely don’t like the idee of takin’ a man’s woman fer somethin’ he did. It jest ain’t right to git womenfolk involved in men’s doin’s. No, siree, Bob, it jest ain’t right.”
“Then you’ll help us?” Pearlie asked.
“Damn straight, young man, damn straight.”
Pearlie pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from a sack on the bed. “I got us a map of the surrounding mountains, an’ it shows all the passes on it.”
Muskrat looked at the paper and sneered. “Ain’t never looked at no map in all my born days, young feller. Wouldn’t know the first thing ’bout readin’ one of those. Nope. I’m jest gonna have to take you up there personal-like and show you the way. Idn’t no way I could ’splain to you how to git there.”
“How soon do you think you can be ready to travel?” Smoke asked.
Muskrat cocked one eye at the whiskey bottle on the dresser. “I reckon that there bottle’ll last till dawn. Any time after that’ll be jest fine with me.”
Louis laughed, took the bottle from the dresser, and poured drinks all around, smiling when Cal noticed he’d only been given half as much in his glass as the other men.
Muskrat pulled a long twist of tobacco from his coat pocket, bit off a sizable chunk, and began to chew on it as he sipped his whiskey.
“Whilst we’re waitin’ fer this whiskey to run out, Smoke, ol’ Preacher once told me you and he’d had a little se
t-to up near the Plaza of the Lions back when y’all first rode together. He said it had to do with some galoots that’d kilt your brother.”
Smoke stared into the amber liquid in his glass, thinking back on his early days riding with Preacher . . .
“A group of men shot and killed my brother and stole some Confederate gold he was trying to return to its rightful owners. My father told me the story just before he died, and I promised him I would avenge his death. Preacher and I went after them after we’d buried my father up in the mountains.
“After I shot and killed Pike, his friend, and Haywood, and wounded Pike’s brother, Thompson, Preacher and I took off after the other men who’d been involved in the theft. We rode on over to La Plaza de los Leones, the Plaza of the Lions. It was there we trapped a man named Casey in a line shack with some of his compadres. Preacher and I burnt ’em out and captured Casey, then I took him to the outskirts of the town and hung him.”
Muskrat’s eyebrows shot up. “Just hung ’em? No trial nor nuthin’?”
Smoke began to build himself a cigarette as he talked. “Yeah, Muskrat. I’m sure you remember that’s the way it was done in those days. That town would never have hanged one of their own on the word of Smoke Jensen.” He put a lucifer to his cigarette and took a deep puff. “Like as not they would’ve hanged me and Preacher instead. Anyway, after that, the sheriff there put out a flyer on me, accusing me of murder. Had a ten-thousand-dollar reward on it.”
“Did you and Preacher go into hidin’?” asked Muskrat as he leaned over and spat brown tobacco juice into the room’s trash can.
“No. Preacher advised it, but I told him I had one more call to make. We rode on over to Oreodelphia, looking for a man named Ackerman. We didn’t go after him right at first. Preacher and I sat around doing a whole lot of nothing for two or three days.”
“How come did you do that?” asked Muskrat.
“’Cause I wanted Ackerman to get plenty nervous. He did, and finally came gunning for us with a bunch of men who rode for his brand . . .”
* * *
At the edge of town, Ackerman, a bull of a man, with small, mean eyes and a cruel slit for a mouth, slowed his horse to a walk. Ackerman and his hands rode down the street six abreast.
Heart of the Mountain Man Page 8