Warpath of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Once the water was boiling for the coffee, Smoke added a couple of handfuls of coffee grounds to the mixture, causing a wonderful aroma to percolate into the air.

  He raised his head and said in a loud voice, “If the smell of that coffee doesn’t bring you into camp, nothing will, Bear Tooth.”

  Pearlie and Cal looked up from where they squatted next to the fire.

  “Bear Tooth?” Cal asked. “Is he out there?”

  Smoke grinned. “He’s been dogging our trail for the past two hours. Didn’t you notice?”

  Cal’s face blushed a bright red. “No, sir. I didn’t see nothin’.”

  Pearlie laughed. “I guess we weren’t supposed to, Cal. Like Smoke always said, the only time you’ll see a mountain man is when he wants you to see him.”

  A gruff voice came from the woods off to their right. “You sure you put enough coffee in that mix, young’un?” he said to Smoke.

  “I know,” Smoke replied with a grin. “Good coffee don’t take near as much water as you think it do,” he said, quoting an old mountain man saying.

  A tall, hulking man well over six feet tall walked into the clearing, leading a smallish pinto pony by its reins. He was dressed in buckskins and was wearing a bearskin coat that gave off an odor, as if he hadn’t been too particular about curing it before fashioning it into a coat. He wore a coonskin hat, and was cradling a Sharps Big Fifty in his right arm. His face was covered with a matted, tangled, scraggly black beard, with quite a bit more gray in it than the last time they’d seen him.

  His voice, when he spoke, was husky and rough, as if he didn’t get much practice talking.

  “How do, boys,” he said with a grin to Cal and Pearlie. “I see Smoke’s taught you enough to keep you alive these past few years.”

  “Howdy, Bear Tooth,” both Cal and Pearlie called, happy to see the old mountain man they’d befriended a while back while on the trail of Big Jim Slaughter.4

  The pinto pony balked at the sight of the men around the fire, and pulled back on its reins.

  “Goddamnit, Buck,” Bear Tooth growled, jerking on the reins until the pony moved up closer to the camp.

  “I thought you never gave a name to your horses, ’cause you might have to eat ’em someday,” Pearlie said, his eyebrows raised.

  “I changed my mind after our last meetin’,” Bear Tooth said in his deep voice. “Once you told me Puma Buck had crossed the last mountain, I named this misbegotten beast after him, ’cause he’s just as ornery an’ mean an’ stubborn as ol’ Puma was.”

  “Set and have some cafecito,” Smoke offered, handing Bear Tooth a mug of steaming black coffee.

  “Don’t mind if’n I do, Smoke,” he replied, squatting on his heels and taking the cup in both hands. He breathed deep of the aroma, then took a deep sip.

  He looked up, grinning and showing a mouthful of yellowed stubs of teeth. “I been livin’ on acorn-nut coffee for the past six months. This is right special.”

  “Why don’t you go into Pueblo or Big Rock an’ get some of the real thing?” Cal asked.

  “Too damn many pilgrims for my taste,” Bear Tooth said with disgust. “If’n I did that, they’d probably expect me to bathe first, an’ I ain’t due for my annual bathin’ for another six months.”

  “How’s the trapping this year?” Smoke asked.

  Bear Tooth shrugged as he dipped his head and sampled the coffee again. “Not near as many as last year, or the year before,” he said. “Damn miners run ’em all off with their diggin’ an’ blastin’ an’ such.”

  While Cal stirred the beans and moved the biscuits off the fire, Pearlie unwrapped the sack of chicken and began to hand pieces out to everyone.

  “My God Aw’mighty,” Bear Tooth exclaimed. “Fried chicken!”

  “Enjoy,” Smoke said. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

  “Long as you eat fast, ’fore Pearlie has a chance to eat it all up,” Cal remarked, spooning beans onto plates.

  As they ate, Bear Tooth grunting with satisfaction over the meal, Smoke asked him, “Have you heard from or seen Muskrat Calhoon lately?”

  Bear Tooth nodded. “Yep. He was up this way last year for our annual mountain man gatherin’ at Pagosa Springs.” He grinned again. “He tole us ’bout all the fun you boys had over at Jackson Hole. Said he hadn’t enjoyed hisself so much since that winter he had a squaw share his camp with him.”

  “He doing all right?” Smoke asked.

  Bear Tooth frowned. “Oh, all right, I guess. The rheumatiz’ is startin’ to freeze his joints up a mite, but that happens to all of us livin’ up here in the high country sooner or later.”

  He stared at Smoke for a moment. “The old beavers missed you at this year’s gatherin’, Smoke. You ain’t forgot your roots, have you?”

  Smoke shook his head. “No. I was down in Texas, getting some beeves and horses for my ranch. Got involved in a little fracas down there, and it took me longer to get home than I thought.”

  “Texas, huh?” Bear Tooth said with distaste. “Never cared much for Texas, or Texicans neither for that matter. Place is too damned flat for my taste.”

  He held his mug out for more coffee, and as Smoke filled it, Bear Tooth peered at him from under bushy eyebrows. “What brings up to the high country this time, young’un?”

  Smoke told him of the escape of the outlaws and how they were riding roughshod over the ranches and towns of the area. When he told him about what they’d done to the women on the train, the old mountain man scowled.

  “While I ain’t got much use for womenfolk generally, man that does that ought’a be turned into a steer.”

  “Have you seen any sign of the outlaws, Bear Tooth?” Pearlie asked around a chicken leg bone still in his mouth.

  Smoke chuckled as Bear Tooth bristled. “Have I seen ’em? Course I have, you young beaver. Bear Tooth sees ever’thing that happens up here.”

  “Where’d you see them last?” Smoke asked, leaning back and building himself a cigarette.

  When Cal pulled out his makin’s, Bear Tooth leaned over and stuck out his hand. “It’s only good manners, young’un, to offer to share your tabaccy with a guest.”

  As Cal blushed, Smoke got to his feet. “Wait a minute, Bear Tooth. I brought you something from town.”

  He walked over to their packhorse, dug in the packages on its back for a minute, then brought out a box wrapped in waxed paper. He stepped back to the fire and handed it to Bear Tooth.

  The old man raised his eyebrows. “Is it Christmas already?”

  “That’s for helping us out last time we were up here,” Smoke said.

  Bear Tooth opened the package to find a box of long, black cigars and a two-pound tin of Arbuckle’s coffee.

  He took one of the cigars, bit the end off, and used a burning twig from the fire to light it. “Damn,” he sighed, “a good cigar, real coffee . . . life just don’t get no better than this.”

  “About the outlaws,” Smoke reminded him.

  Bear Tooth nodded. “Yeah, saw ’em yesterday. They attacked a mining camp ’bout four mile from here. Killed seven men an’ took all their gold.”

  “Yesterday?” Smoke asked.

  Bear Tooth nodded. “Took me most of the night to get the bodies all under the ground. I don’t have no love fer miners, but a man’s entitled to a decent buryin’ nevertheless.”

  “You know where the outlaws are camped?” Smoke asked, his jaw tight at the thought of another seven men to add to the list of victims of the outlaw gang.

  “Shore. They’re camped out over at the hot springs.”

  Smoke looked surprised. “The hot springs? But I kind’a thought they’d be someplace where there were some cabins. Nothing over at the springs ’cept those old caves.”

  Bear Tooth shook his head. “Been too long since you been up here to visit, Smoke. Some miners built theyselves some cabins up at the springs two year ago. When the mine played out, they left ’em to rot.”

  Smoke
thought for a moment, letting smoke trickle from his nose. “As I recall, the springs are in a little natural valley between two sheer cliffs that rise to about two hundred feet.”

  Bear Tooth nodded. “Nothin’ wrong with your memory, Smoke.”

  Smoke glanced at Cal and Pearlie. “That’s perfect, boys. And the springs are less than a day’s ride from here.”

  Bear Tooth narrowed his eyes. “You men plannin’ on goin’ after those coyotes?”

  Smoke nodded. “They attacked the Morrow place yesterday, Bear Tooth. Killed the hired hand Hank, and wounded Jim Morrow.”

  “They wounded ol’ Jim?” Bear Tooth asked. “How ’bout Bess? They didn’t mess with her none, did they?”

  “No,” Smoke said. “We got there in time to stop them before they were able to finish what they started.”

  “The Morrows are good people,” Bear Tooth said. “Couple’a year ago I had me a helluva toothache. Bess, Mrs. Morrow, yanked it out with a pair of fence pliers, an’ then made me take some of their supplies to get me through the winter.”

  “They’re special people, all right,” Smoke said. “That’s why I’m going to rid the mountain of those pond scum before they can hurt anyone else up here.”

  Bear Tooth nodded. “There’s a passel of ’em, Smoke, more’n fifteen or so. You want some help?”

  “I’d be obliged, Bear Tooth,” Smoke said. “A man can always use another Sharps in a fracas like this.”

  “I don’t normally get involved in flatlanders’ troubles, but”—he grinned—“like you say, this is my mountain an’ I’m right particular who gets to stay up here. I figure the neighborhood can use a little cleanin’ up.”

  Pearlie grinned and handed Bear Tooth another piece of chicken. “Have another piece, Bear Tooth.”

  “Don’t mind if’n I do, young’un.”

  “And maybe, while we’re riding with you, you can teach these young beavers something about living on the mountain,” Smoke said.

  “You mean, like Preacher did you?” he asked with a smile.

  Smoke nodded. “I figure they need to learn from the best.”

  Bear Tooth’s eyes lit up. “Then that’d be me,” he said with the typical egotism of the confirmed mountain man.

  34

  Ozark Jack Berlin was in the main cabin at the hot springs camp, counting out and weighing the gold they’d stolen from the miners. He was grinning, and the men surrounding him were laughing with delight at the fortune they’d managed to accumulate since their escape from prison.

  “Boys,” he said, a wide smile on his face as he glanced around at the men in the cabin, “we’re gonna live like kings in Mexico on this loot.”

  Jack McGraw, who was standing near the window to the cabin, uttered an oath. “Uh-oh, Boss,” he said in his gravely voice. “You ain’t gonna like this.”

  “What is it, Jack?” Berlin said, frowning. “I’m busy countin’ our money here.”

  “Looks like Blue Owl’s back,” McGraw said. “An’ he’s all by himself.”

  “What?” Berlin said, jumping to his feet and hurrying out the door.

  “Where the hell are the rest of the boys?” he asked, anger deep in his voice at the sight of Blue Owl sitting on his horse alone.

  Blue Owl swung down out of the saddle and handed the reins of the packhorse carrying the supplies from the Morrow ranch to Billy Bartlett.

  “I suspect they’re coyote food by now,” Blue Owl said, his face grim.

  “What the hell happened?” Berlin asked, striding over to stand next to the Indian. “You and five men couldn’t handle a couple of old farts an’ a woman?”

  “I need a drink,” Blue Owl said, walking over to the campfire and pouring some coffee into a mug, to which he added a generous supply of whiskey from a bottle in his vest pocket.

  “Goddamnit! Tell me what happened,” Berlin shouted.

  “We was doing all right,” Blue Owl began after taking a deep swallow of the whiskey and coffee. “Had the hired hand down and had the old man and his wife covered, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, somebody started shooting the men right out of their saddles.”

  “Who?” Berlin asked. “There wasn’t but the three of them at the ranch.”

  Blue Owl shrugged. “Don’t know for certain,” he said, “but it sure looked like that gunslick Smoke Jensen to me.”

  “You let one man shoot up the lot of you?”

  Blue Owl shook his head. “Not one man. He had two other gents with him, and they was right handy with their rifles. Jensen must’ve been six hundred yards or more away when he shot the first two, then those other boys rode down on us hell-bent for leather, shooting as they rode. They took out the rest.”

  “How’d you manage to get away during all this?” Wiley Gottlieb asked suspiciously.

  “I was back in the barn, loading up the pack animal with the supplies we went there for. When I saw the boys dropping like flies, I lit out and never looked back.”

  “And they didn’t come after you?” Berlin asked, his face thoughtful.

  Blue Owl shook his head. “They were too busy with the Morrows, I guess. Like I said, we killed the hired hand and wounded the ranch man. They must’ve stayed behind to take care of them.”

  “And all of the others were killed?” McGraw asked, shaking his head.

  “They sure looked dead to me, unless you can live with a hole in your chest and your head blown off.”

  Berlin took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Well, at least you got the supplies.”

  “Yeah, but it cost us five men to do it,” Gottlieb observed drily.

  Berlin tried to make the best of it. “’Course, that means the gold we got will go further.”

  “What gold?” Blue Owl asked.

  Berlin threw his arm around Blue Owl’s shoulders. “Come on in the cabin and rest up while I tell you about it.”

  “Uh, Jack,” Wiley Gottlieb said, “maybe we ought’a post some guards around the camp, just in case those shooters decide to follow Blue Owl here.”

  “That’s a good idea, Wiley. Why don’t you take care of it while I show Blue Owl our gold?”

  * * *

  Smoke and Cal and Pearlie followed Bear Tooth in single file up the side of the mountain, taking trails that were almost invisible to the naked eye, trails that only a man who lived on the mountain would know about.

  “I’m gonna take you up the back way to the springs,” Bear Tooth called over his shoulder. “That way, if’n they’re smart enough to post lookouts, they won’t see us comin’”

  “There’s no need to hurry,” Smoke replied. “I don’t plan to do anything until after dark anyway.”

  “Moon won’t set till midnight or so,” Bear Tooth said, glancing at the sky, “an’ it appears there’s another storm on the way.”

  Cal and Pearlie looked up, and seeing no clouds in the sky, they looked at Smoke. “How’s he know that?” Pearlie asked. “I don’t see no storm clouds.”

  Smoke smiled. “He can smell it, and so can I. When snow’s on the way, the air has a different smell to it, kind’a damp and stingy to the nose.”

  Cal and Pearlie both sniffed loudly through their noses. “I don’t smell nothin’,” Cal said.

  “You spend enough time up here, you will,” Bear Tooth replied without looking back.

  * * *

  Just after sunset, Bear Tooth reined in his pony. “Whoa, Buck. This looks like a good enough place to make camp.”

  “How much farther?” Cal asked.

  Bear Tooth shook his head. “Not too far, little beaver, but we want to camp on this side of the slope so’s we can make a fire without bein’ seen by those men. That is, unless you wanna make a cold camp?”

  Cal shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “I’m ’bout frozen clear through. I need some hot coffee.”

  “Don’t call me sir nor mister, young’un. Name’s Bear Tooth, or just Bear.”

  “Yes, sir . . . uh, I mean, all right,
Bear,” Cal said, hurrying off his horse and beginning to gather wood for the fire.

  Bear Tooth grinned and winked at Smoke. “They know ’bout not gettin’ no green wood?”

  Smoke nodded. “Yes, they’ve learned that much at least.”

  “Good. Now, I’ll show ’em how to build a fire ’tween some rocks so the smoke don’t go straight up an’ signal our enemies where we are.”

  “While you do that, I’ll get the grub ready,” Smoke said, smiling to himself at the valuable lessons the boys were going to learn from the old mountain man.

  Soon, Bear Tooth had a fire going up next to several boulders where the smoke was funneled in several different directions and couldn’t be seen from more than a dozen yards away.

  “Now, young’uns,” he said, dumping a double handful of coffee grounds into the pot, “as far as makin’ good coffee goes, if it’s not thick enough to float a horseshoe, it’s too weak.”

  “Hell,” Pearlie said, “we won’t need cups for that. We can just spoon it outta the pot.”

  Smoke flipped Bear Tooth something. “Here, Bear Tooth,” he said.

  “What’s that, Smoke?” Cal asked.

  “I saved some egg shells from this morning’s breakfast.”

  “You put ’em in the pot to settle the grounds, boy,” Bear Tooth said to Cal. “What are you, a pilgrim?”

  “Miss Sally says cold water does just as good,” Pearlie observed.

  “Yeah, but that waters down the brew, boys, an’ up here you need coffee strong enough to keep the winter chill off.”

  “You have any secrets for beans?” Cal asked as he stirred the skillet.

  “Only that you can’t cook ’em too long,” Bear Tooth said. “That, an’ a couple’a pieces of fatback, helps give ’em a right nice flavor.”

  “All right,” Cal said, and reached into the saddlebags to get some bacon out. He sliced off a generous chunk and placed it in the skillet with the beans.

  “We’re gonna have you boys eatin’ like mountain men ’fore this trip is over, ain’t we, Smoke?”

  Smoke laughed. “If we do that, it’ll spoil them for any other food,” he said.

  * * *