“Said they’d already done a deal. That’s why Smoke’s gone, he told me.”
“That’s bullshit, Victor,” Monte snapped, his eyes narrowing. “You know Smoke’d never sell the Sugarloaf. Where can I find Early and his hard cases?”
“Don’t know. They come and go. Last I heard, they were off to Rabbit Ears Pass and Steamboat Springs way.” Victor’s face clouded with suppressed anger. “They’ll be back, you can be sure. Told me I could count on it.”
After Victor departed, Monte asked three other angry, obviously disturbed ranchers to hold up a while in his office. He had something to do that couldn’t wait. Alone on the street, not quite sure where he was headed, Monte Carson considered all he had learned in the past three days. Smoke should be made aware of this, that much was obvious. Only Monte didn’t know where to contact Smoke right then. All he had was a destination: Smoke’s father-in-law’s house. Well, it looked important enough; he’d better wire New Hampshire.
Ten
The same morning that brought Monte Carson his problems in Big Rock saw the flood waters of the Illinois River greatly receded. Once more, brakemen served as trackwalkers ahead of the big 0-4-0 American Locomotive Works funnel-stack loco. They took along sledgehammers and tested rails and fish plates with solid whacks. Halfway across the trestle, both men showed considerable agitation and shouted back to those watching from the west end of the bridge.
“Not so good,” Casey O’Banyon summed up for Smoke Jensen. “They’ve found a dozen cross-members broken and two pilings smashed out of place.”
“Will the trestle carry the load?” Smoke asked.
“It should, if there’s not a lot more damage,” O’Banyon opined, then he frowned. It wouldn’t go well for him if this important man, friend of the Denver and Rio Grande, were to plunge to his death in a still restless river. “Though I recommend against it.”
Smoke considered that a moment. “We’ve had enough delays as it is. I say so far as the track isn’t warped out of line, we should give it a try. If I may, I’d like to take the throttle until we cross over.”
O’Banyon didn’t like it, yet he saw a way out of dilemma. “I’m sure we can arrange that. In fact, I’m ready to get under way. A little weight on this end of the trestle should tell them what shape the rest is in. Climb aboard.”
Smoke Jensen swung up into the high cab of the huge locomotive and settled himself comfortably, spraddle-legged, on the corrugated steel plates of the floor in the position occupied by the engineer. O’Banyon pointed out controls with which Smoke was already familiar. Satisfied that his pupil knew the rudiments, he gave a curt nod.
“Sure an’ I’ll lose me job for this.” He sighed heavily. “But best be gettin’ underway.”
Smoke grabbed the wooden handle of the steam whistle and drew down on the chain connected to the valve. Raw steam gushed through the brass pipe and erupted out of the whistle, located between the steam dome and sandbox.
With the brake off and the throttle engaged, the drivers spun and then dug in. Slowly the big 4-6-0 edged forward. Gradually the speed increased. Smoke gave a glance to O’Banyon, who sat on the fold-down seat on the left side of the cab. The engineer gave a nod and Smoke pulled on the whistle chain again.
Immediately the trackwalkers cleared the trestle on the far side. That accomplished, Smoke smoothly increased toward full throttle. Creaks and groans came from the stressed timbers of the trestle as the big loco rolled its pilot trucks onto the western edge. The fireman set to work shoveling more coal into the firebox. Smoke Jensen leaned out the righthand window and gazed over the land. The view was terrific. For all the flatness of this land, the high banks of the Illinois River made a plains version of the spectacular gorges of Smoke’s beloved High Lonesome.
Flood waters had receded to a point midway down the sheer bluffs formed in ancient times when melt water from glaciers had caused the river to run brim full all the time. Smoke looked directly forward in time to see a nervous sway of the cowcatcher as the pilot truck delivered the first of six drivers onto the bridge. Two more crewmen used the grab-irons at the rear of the cowcatcher to swing aboard and moved slowly back to the cab on the catwalks above the spinning drivers of the locomotive. They increased their pace as the traction improved and the forward third of the American Locomotive Works 4-6-0 left solid ground for the tenuous security of the trestle.
“Didja feel her settle when the pilot truck rolled out on the bridge?” O’Banyon asked cheerfully.
Smoke nodded and spoke over the hellfire roar coming from the firebox. “I hadn’t expected something like that so soon.”
“Oh, she settles in even at the best of times. Folks ridin’ back there never feel it. First-timers in the cab tend to get set to jackrabbit out the door,” O’Banyon added with a chuckle.
With the entire weight of the locomotive and tender on the trestle, the creaking and groaning grew loud enough to be heard over the chuff of the pistons and constant noise of the boiler fire. The swaying increased also as the baggage and express car joined the power plant. Smoke had to admit to a certain undefined uneasiness.
Then he recognized it. He was risking not only his own life, but that of his beloved Sally. If the bridge collapsed with all the cars on it, none of them would survive. Visions of Sally perishing in the torrent that raced below them made Smoke regret pushing for the attempt to cross. More of the train eeled onto the trestle. At a nod from O’Banyon, Smoke gave the locomotive full throttle.
Near objects began to blur as the train gained speed. The bridge popped and groaned when the pilot truck rolled onto the weakened center span. They passed the midpoint with a frantic, nerve-straining sway when the last car, the one in which Sally must be fretting over the risk, rolled onto the bridge. O’Banyon broke off his distant stare to the front and produced a relieved smile.
“The hard part’s taken care of. Now all we need to do is reach the far side.”
Smoke Jensen forced the grim expression off his face. “You make it sound damned easy. I’ve faced six armed men in a gunfight with fewer butterflies in my gut.”
“B’God, yer that Jensen, right? Smoke Jensen?” O’Banyon blurted. “I thought there was something familiar about you.”
Smoke had to smile. He had long since become accustomed to his notoriety. People whom he’d never met kept coming up to him and speaking with the familiarity of old friends. After all the years he had put between him and his youthful exploits, he wanted to believe it had died down.
“I admit to it,” Smoke allowed.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Sure an’ it’s a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Smoke Jensen. My grandsons will never believe you rode in the cab with me.”
Smoke made no reply. He had his hands full with the speeding locomotive. Right then, the trestle began to shake like a palsied man. Smoke tried to urge more speed out of the laboring engine. He signaled the fireman to put on more coal. The frightened man shook his head and pointed to the steam pressure gauge. Smoke cut his eyes to the white dial. The needle hovered near to the red danger area.
“Do it anyway, damn it,” he shouted over the tumult of the speeding locomotive.
A quick glance at O’Banyon showed Smoke that the situation had worsened decidedly. The gamecock engineer occupied himself intently with fervent prayer. One by one the cars rattled over the endangered span. At last the signal telegraph over the boiler waggled to indicate the last car had passed the area of greatest risk. Paul Drummond knew his job and did it well, Smoke Jensen thought gratefully. Already Smoke sensed a slight incline as the locomotive raced toward the eastern bank of the rampaging Illinois River. They flashed past the abutments of the trestle. Only a little way to go now.
“Yer doin’ it, bucko, yer doin’ it!” O’Banyon shouted exuberantly.
Smoke Jensen leaned far out the window of the cab, ignoring the rush of air and puffs of steam past his head, and looked back. Only the private car of the D & R G remained on the last span
of the bridge when the middle gave away with a mighty creak and a loud crash of collapsing pilings.
Cross-braces shot into the air in all directions. Smoke kept the throttle open until the entire train cleared the doomed trestle.
Then he hauled back on the control and eased them to a stop. The trackwalkers ran to catch up with the train as it rolled past them. The rumble of collapsing bridge chased them. Casey O’Banyon looked with wild eyes at the spume and shattered wood that fountained upward.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’ll lose me job for this, certain sure.”
“No, you won’t, O’Banyon. We made it, and that’s what counts. Besides, I’ll be glad to square things through Colonel Drew.”
O’Banyon looked embarrassed for a moment, then beamed as he flashed a smile and offered Smoke his hand. “Sure an’ yer every bit the fine gentleman I believed ye to be, Smoke Jensen.”
“I take that as a damned generous compliment, O’Banyon. Now, I had better let you have your train back. We’re due in Chicago in a short while.”
Not yet called the Windy City, Chicago sprawled on the shore of Lake Michigan, a metropolis large enough to win the immediate dislike of Smoke Jensen. These huge, urban centers, which had begun to develop over the past few years, represented for him everything bad about the direction the country had taken of late. The plains tribes, and even most of the eastern, “civilized” Indians, had long ago learned the lessons of close living.
They found it impossible, as all people eventually did, to keep large masses of people living in close proximity peacefully month after month and year after year. Not without an all-powerful central authority that strangled individual freedom and responsibility. When the tribes had grown in population to the point that they could no longer be governed by a single chief, or group of chiefs, units would break off along family lines, with representatives of several clans forming separate bands, to live elsewhere, away from the main body.
It worked well for them. Smoke reasoned. Why couldn’t his own people understand and benefit from that? They made the change of trains in the New York Central yards and departed with only a window's view of the crowded conditions of the working class and most of the smaller merchants. Once clear of the suburban clutter of single houses, Smoke asked Jenkins for champagne.
“We’re celebrating,” he informed Sally.
“What is there to celebrate, outside of not being destroyed in that river?”
“Oh, there’s that, too. I want us to celebrate escaping from Chicago without being drowned in all those people.” A tiny vertical frown creased Sally’s brow. “Smoke, you promised,” she began.
“I can’t help it,” he responded, cutting her off. “But I will keep my promise not to let it get to me when we reach your family.”
Sally brightened at that. “Just think, in another two days, we’ll be in Keene. I certainly hope Father and Mother haven’t gone to too much trouble.”
Smoke produced a rueful grin. “You can be sure they have.”
Chris appeared in the study of his father-in-law’s home in Keene, New Hampshire, shortly after the latest issue of the Keen Guardian came out. Eyes wide with shock, he waved the newspaper before him as he addressed John Reynolds.
“I thought you said Smoke Jensen had mellowed. Father Reynolds,” Chris’s voice broke over the words.
“He has. Sally assured me of that,” John Reynolds said past his thinning gray mustache.
“Then take a look at this.” Chris shoved the newspaper forward.
John Reynolds took the Guardian and quickly found the source of Christopher’s agitation. Bold, black headlines spelled out the latest of Smoke Jensen's encounters with the forces of lawlessness.
NOTORIOUS SMOKE JENSEN
GUNS DOWN WALDRON GANG!
Beneath it, couched in the typically florid prose of eastern yellow journalism, the article gave a colorful, if inaccurate, account of the train robbery in which the Waldron gang had met their end. Near its conclusion came a paragraph that caused icy fingers to clutch the heart of John Reynolds:
No stranger to our fair city. Smoke Jensen is expected
to return within a matter of days. He is scheduled
to participate in the late spring lecture tour of the
New England Lecture Society, speaking as
the 'Mountain Man Philosopher of the Rockies.’ After the bloodbath
he brought to Keene on his first visit, the Guardian
wonders if he should not be heralded as the Philosopher
of the Colt .45.
“And here, see what the Boston Globe has to say,” Chris urged, revealing another newspaper.
Frowning, John Reynolds set his eyes to absorbing the inflammatory expostulations of the Boston reporter. It certainly seemed to him that someone had set his cap for Smoke Jensen. John wondered how the most mercurial of his sons-in-law would react to this.
Probably with a shrug. No doubt Smoke Jensen had seen worse over the years. “Doesn’t appear as though they are set to offer him the key to the city.”
Chris threw his hands in the air in a gesture of hopelessness. “This is terrible publicity, and at the worst possible time. It will simply ruin our tour.”
“Nonsense,” John thundered. As an attorney, he had long ago been made privy to the secrets of public opinion. “What we are doing is promoting an entertainment. And among entertainers, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The more people who see these articles, the better for us. They’ll pack the halls, sellout crowds, standing room only.
They’ll each and every one want to get as close to this ‘dangerous’ man as possible. If only for an hour, they'll want to feel that they have shared his adventures. Although, I daresay, the Guardian could have been a bit less censorious. After all. he is married to a daughter of Keene, and he s my son-in-law.”
Somewhat calmed, Chris considered what John had said. It made sense of a sort, he granted. If only Smoke Jensen could be kept in a peaceful mood while here, it all might go well after all. “I suppose all we can do is hope for the best,” he offered lamely.
“In the case of Smoke Jensen, ‘the best’ can be positively awful,” John Reynolds recalled from experience.
Coarse, black hair, topped by a derby of matching color set at a rakish angle, formed a forelock that just came short of being bangs. The oily strands hung over a low forehead, creased by a perpetual scowl. Beady obsidian eyes sparkled with a shrewdness that spoke of a hard life, lived in the gutters and cruel streets of Boston. They studied the expensively and immaculately dressed man across the rude table in the low tavern on Beal Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Phineas Lathrop had contacted Sean O’Boyle earlier in the day at the offices of the Brotherhood of Stevedores and Longshoremen on Congress Street. Labor unions as yet were far from universally accepted, even among the mass of blue-collar workers along the Atlantic seaboard. Due to the wildcat strike called by O’Boyle and his puppet union officials, a cordon had been erected a block from the headquarters in all directions.
Manned by tough Boston policemen, it kept everyone away, including the rank-and-file of the union. Perhaps, Phineas Lathrop had considered, that was for the best. Militant anti-unionists had been known to toss dynamite bombs through the windows of union offices. Granted, most had been in retaliation for bombs thrown by the more aggressive of union thugs, but once having chosen a position, one had to maintain the perspective of that stand. The implied risk notwithstanding, Lathrop would have preferred to hold this meeting at the musty hall, rather than here.
Even in his most profligate days, Phineas Lathrop would have eschewed association with the likes of Sean O’Boyle. Yet he now found himself drinking a brandy of questionable origin, across the table from O’Boyle, in one of the grimmest dives he had ever encountered. O’Boyle had met him in New York, as ordered, a decision Lathrop had immediately begun to regret. Intrigue and empire building made for strange bedfellows, Lathrop decided. His mood changed, thou
gh, when O’Boyle handed him a creased, grease-stained handbill.
“Like I tole’ you. Mr. Lathrop, they’re plastered up all over town." Sean O'Boyle confided, in what for him came closest to a deferential tone.
Phineas Lathrop glanced up from the flyer he held in his flawlessly manicured hands. “How delightfully ironic!” he exclaimed to O’Boyle’s startled expression. “Here I am, devoting hundreds of man-hours to seeking out our Mr. Jensen, and he obligingly hands himself over to us, complete with advance publicity.”
“Yer—ah—yer really pleased, Mr. Lathrop?” O’Boyle asked doubtfully.
“Why, certainly, Mr. O’Boyle. In fact, I am going to place the entire matter of disposing of Smoke Jensen in your capable hands. Right here in Boston is the ideal place to terminate his interference in our plans. How fitting that the ultimate westerner should meet his end on a rat-infested dock in a teeming eastern city.”
Eleven
Colonel Drew’s private car created quite a stir when it rolled into the depot in Keene, New Hampshire, at the rear of the New England Zephyr. The glittering brass brightwork rivaled even the opulent steam yachts of the wealthy New Englanders. The fact that it brought the notorious Smoke Jensen to town added to the excitement. Troops of small boys materialized out of nowhere and formed gaggles of giggling, wriggling gawkers along the platform edge. They shrilled enthusiastic information and pointed with grubby fingers at the first sign of movement from within.
More restrained, their parents and other adults in Keene held back under the shade of the roof overhang. It didn’t prevent them from gaping every bit as much as the tykes when the lovely Sally Reynolds Jensen and her legendary husband, Smoke Jensen, appeared on the observation platform, light carpetbags in hand.
“I shall arrange for your luggage to be transported to the Reynolds manse, Mr. Jensen,” Jenkins advised from the doorway.
“Thank you, Jenkins. You have arranged a place to bunk down?” Smoke responded.
Rage of the Mountain Man Page 10