Battle of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “This sumbitch is still breathin’,” Pickett said, “only he ain’t gonna be much longer.” Pickett thumbed back one hammer on his ten-gauge Greener and calmly pulled the trigger, as if he was merely swatting a fly. The big gun roared, pulverizing the skull and neck of the wounded Chisum trail hand, splattering blood and hair and flinty pieces of bone across a six-foot circle of dry buffalo grass.

  Pickett grinned. “Pretty sight, ain’t it?” he asked, “like breakin’ an egg, only it’s got blood in it. Sumbitch hadn’t oughta signed on with John Chisum in this war. Folks in Lincoln County better learn whose side to be on.”

  Another gunshot distracted Jessie before he could offer any comment. Upriver, Roy Cooper was down off his horse, his feet spread apart over another body. Jessie thought about how good it was to have men like Pickett and Cooper riding with him. He knew he could count on either one of them in a tight spot.

  “Roy found him one,” Pickett muttered, sounding as if he had wanted the job himself.

  “Let’s get those steers rounded up an’ head ’em for Bosque Redondo so we can change them brands,” Jessie said, reining his horse away from Pickett’s bloody execution spot. Off in the distance he could see Valdez and Barlow trying to gather up one bunch of cattle.

  “I ain’t gettin’ paid to handle no runnin’ iron,” Pickett said as he rode off.

  “We’ve got Mexican vaqueros to do it,” he answered back. “You’re the same as me… I’d rather have blood on my hands than cow dung. Don’t stink near as bad.”

  Eight

  The cow camp at Bosque Redondo was hidden in a pinon forest in an empty section of Lincoln County. Pole corrals held steers being branded, made ready for market, most often with a running iron changing brands belonging to previous owners. Jessie knew few questions were asked by the Territorial militia, since it was merely a police arm of the powerful Santa Fe Ring, as most men called it, a group of crooked politicians headed by Catron and L.G. Murphy. Jimmy Dolan was Murphy’s ramrod in Lincoln County, and in this part of the territory, only John Chisum and a few of his followers were brazen enough to buck the Santa Fe Ring with bids on federal government contracts to feed reservation Apaches. But Chisum was bullheaded about it, refusing to knuckle under or sell to Murphy at a lower price. What was building here was a range war over beef. Folks were beginning to call it the Lincoln County War, and Jessie knew it had only just begun.

  He sat in the shade of a thatched ramada, watching vaqueros work the branding irons, sipping tequila, chewing limes, thinking about yesterday’s fight. Roy Cooper was in one of the huts with a Mexican whore. Bill Pickett, as he so often did, was cleaning his guns; pistols and rifles, and his shotgun, Jessie was about to doze off when he heard someone shout, “Riders comin’!”

  Jessie and Pickett scrambled to their feet, wondering if a party of Chisum riders had come for revenge. But what he saw in a ravine twisting into the camp was only a pair of horsemen, a little man in a battered top hat and a Mexican cowboy. However, both were carrying guns.

  Jessie relaxed against a roof support of the ramada without worrying over the two riders. Two men wouldn’t stand a chance against so many Dolan men, no matter how skillful they might be with pistols or rifles.

  The pair rode up to him and halted sweat-caked horses in a patch of shade from a pinon limb. The man, only a boy by his appearance, spoke.

  “We was told you were hirin’ a few men,” he said, his thin voice almost girlish, lilting.

  “Men is what we’re hirin’,” Jessie replied, “not schoolboys who ain’t old enough to need a razor.”

  “I’m eighteen,” the rider said, his ears sticking out away from his head in an odd fashion. “The name’s William Bonney an’ this here’s Jesus Silva.”

  “Like I said, we ain’t hirin’ no kids,” Jessie replied in an offhanded way. “Come back in a couple of years.”

  “We can shoot,” Bonney said. “I already killed a man over in Fort Grant, an’ that ain’t countin’ Indians or Mexicans.”

  Jessie laughed. “You’re full of lies, boy. Now ride on outa here before I lose my patience. If you’re lookin’ for work, you might try the Chisum outfit. Or there’s this crazy Englishman by the name of John Tunstall who’s hirin’ a few cowboys now an’ then. Ask for Dick Brewer, He’s foreman for Tunstall an’ he ain’t much older’n you. Appears Mr. Tunstall ain’t opposed to changin’ diapers on some of his cowhands.”

  Bonney stared at him, and Jessie felt a strange sensation when he looked into the young man’s green-flecked eyes. He had buck teeth and looked downright ridiculous in an old top hat, but there was something about him…

  “You may be sorry you didn’t offer us any work,” Bonney said as he turned his horse. “We heard you was needin’ good men with guns.”

  Jessie gave him a one-sided grin. “Like I said before, come back in a couple of years, when you’re old enough to grow some chin whiskers.”

  Bonney and Silva rode off, back down the ravine. Jessie watched them go, wondering.

  Pickett had stopped cleaning his Winchester long enough to listen to what was being said. “You might regret that, like the boy said, Jessie,” he remarked, going back to his gun cleaning. “I’ve got a pretty good nose for a man who ain’t got no fear in him. That Bonney boy ain’t scared of nothin’.”

  “Maybe he’s just too young to know to be scared,” Jessie offered.

  Pickett shook his head. “Age ain’t got all that much to do with it. It’s what’s in a man’s backbone that counts. He sure did look plumb silly in that ol’ hat, an’ them’s the worst-lookin’ buck teeth I ever saw. But there may come a time when you wish you’d have let ’em hire on with us. I hope I’m dead wrong about it, that we won’t be wishin’ we had Mr. William Bonney on our side of this fight.”

  Nine

  Smoke’s chest and arms glistened with sweat as he split the last of yet another cord of wood piled beside the cabin. It had been hard at first, to see Puma’s old log dwelling where he and the Ute girl had lived so long ago, until smallpox took her. There were so many memories here for Smoke, and as colorful fall leaves swirled around him, with the coming of winter he couldn’t help a recollection or two, of time he spent with Puma in this aspen forest back when they were younger men, and it saddened him some to think of Puma being gone forever. He told himself that wherever Puma was, there would be mountains and rivers and clear streams.

  On the ride up to the cabin he and Sally talked about their plans for an improved cow herd, the Hereford bulls and what Sally said was sure to be a way to raise crossbred breeding stock for the future. Smoke even told her about another idea he’d been toying with… to buy a Morgan stallion to cross on their mustang and thoroughbred mares, adding strength and muscle and short-distance speed to the offspring. On the way down to New Mexico he planned to inquire about purchasing a Morgan stud. He grinned when he thought about their three-day trip up to Puma’s cabin, how infectious Sally’s enthusiasm was when she talked about the Hereford crosses. She was a rancher at heart, with a natural gift for handling livestock, better than most experienced men who made a living off raising cattle. But Smoke’s grin was far more than amusement over her excitement when she talked about their future plans… it was an unconscious way of showing how much he loved her. He’d decided long ago that Sally had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. She had changed his life and he often wished for the words to tell her how much she truly meant to him.

  Smoke rested the axe against the splitting stump and took a look northward. A line of dark clouds was building along the horizon. At these higher altitudes, a storm would mean snow, the first snowstorm announcing the coming of winter. They’d just barely had time to unpack the packhorses, clean out the abandoned cabin and stretch cured deer hides over the windows and rifle ports, repair rawhide hinges on crude plank doors, and clean out the rock chimney. Sally was inside now, fashioning hanging racks for their heavy winter clothing and other essentials, after putting th
eir food staples away on what was left of the shelves Puma had made near the fireplace. They had plenty of warm blankets and a thick buffalo robe given to Smoke by a Shoshoni warrior years back. Last night, Smoke had held Sally in his arms atop that furry buffalo skin, watching her eyes sparkle in the firelight when he kissed her. He vowed to make this winter with her a special time, away from the day-to-day chores around the ranch which were now being done by Pearlie, Cal, and Johnny North… what little there was to do with no beef cattle on the place, only the horse herd and old Rosie, their Jersey milk cow, to attend to. Smoke knew Sally needed the rest as much as he did, not only from ranch work but away from the troubles that seemed to follow Smoke Jensen no matter how peacefully he tried to live now. Trouble had a way of finding him, and he hoped it wouldn’t track him down here, in a beautiful mountain valley near the headwaters of the White River, roughly eight thousand feet into the Rockies, where few white men had ever traveled, formerly the hunting ground of the Utes until a treaty with Washington moved them farther west. Here, Smoke could be at peace, spending time alone with his beloved Sally.

  Falling aspen leaves showered to the forest floor, a mix of reds, bright yellows, and every shade of brown. Towering ponderosa pines grew thick on the slopes around them. The scent of pine was strong in the air, mingling with the smell of smoke coming from the chimney as Sally prepared their supper. They had plenty of foodstuffs and clothing, and enough firewood for even the most brutal winter, after almost a week of hard labor gathering dead limbs and fallen tree trunks. It had been a wonderful time, as was the ride up with Sally. If it were possible, he loved her more deeply with each passing day.

  He heard light footfalls behind him.

  “You must be getting old, darling,” Sally said, smiling one of her memorable smiles. “I’ve never seen you needing a rest so often. You used to be able to chop wood all day without stopping to catch your breath every five minutes. I may have to look for a younger man, if this keeps up.”

  “A younger man would refuse to take all this punishment from a woman, no matter how pretty she was. I’m only slave labor, in your opinion. That would be just like you, to throw me away for a younger man as soon as I’ve chopped and split all this firewood to keep us warm.”

  “A younger man could have finished this job in half the time and still had something left for me.”

  He turned to her, hard muscles gleaming in the sunlight. “I may have a surprise for you tonight, Mrs. Jensen,” he told her with mock seriousness. “I may be getting a little long in the tooth, but I can still chop wood all day and make love all night. I hope you feel up to it.”

  Her smile only widened. “I think I’m developing a headache just now. Maybe another time. Ask me in the spring.”

  He sauntered over and put his arms around her, staring down into her eyes. “Be careful, pretty lady, or you might force me to tear your clothes off right now and throw you down on a bed of pine needles. I’m not buying any headache stories.”

  She forced a frown, giving a halfhearted attempt to pull away from his embrace. “You’re an animal. I’ve known it for years. You only brought me up here so you could use me, and I won’t stand for it. I’ll scream.”

  He chuckled. “No one will hear you, except for a few grizzlies or an elk or two. Scream your head off, for all I care. I’m taking what’s mine.”

  “You think of me as a piece of property?”

  “My property, and if any younger man lays a hand on you I swear I’ll kill him. You can include older men in that same bunch.” He scowled.

  Sally tried to conceal the beginnings of a grin. “Not only are you an animal, but you’re violent, a savage beast. I should have listened to my mother. She warned me about you.“

  He maintained a stern expression “She did? Exactly what did she say?”

  Now Sally was serious for a moment. “She told me that some men are loners, that they can’t be tamed or tied to one woman or the same piece of ground for very long. She said it was bred in them, and that I’d never change you from being a solitary mountain man or a drifter.”

  “She was wrong,” he whispered, bending down to kiss her gently on the lips. “She didn’t give her daughter enough credit for knowing how to change a man’s ways.”

  She stared deeply into his eyes. “Some things about you will never change, my darling,” she told him softly. “You’ll always be just a push or a shove away from another fight. You are two different people. One is the gentle man I love so dearly who can’t seem to stop showing me or telling me how much he loves me. Then there’s the other Smoke Jensen, the man almost everyone in Colorado Territory fears. It’s hard to describe, how you can change so quickly. One wrong word, a wrong look, a wrong deed, and you become someone I scarcely recognize. It’s not that you can’t control your temper… You always seem calm, in control of yourself. But when you get your mind set to go after another man, or a dozen men, for whatever reason, you can’t be talked out of it. Not even by me, not even when you know how much it frightens me when I think about the possibility of losing you.”

  “You worry too much.”

  “What else can I do when the man I love is putting his life on the line?”

  He thought about it for a time. “You can learn to trust me, to trust my instincts for staying alive. Over the years a hell of a lot of men have tried to kill me, for one reason or another. None of ’em got it done, although I’ve got a nick or two in my hide to show for it. Trust me when I promise you I’ll always come home to you.”

  “It won’t stop me from worrying…”

  He glanced up at the advancing clouds. “There’s a storm coming. Probably means snow, this high, and maybe some rain we need for our pastures down at the ranch.”

  “You changed the subject, Smoke. We were talking about how much it scares me when you go off on one of your manhunts. Like what happened in Big Rock this summer when those three men came to town looking for Ned Buntline. Louis told me what happened. You could have ignored the way they were looking at you. Instead you prodded them into a gun-fight”

  “They were looking for one anyway. I know I’ve got my share of faults, Sally, but when some gent challenges me, it’s just my nature to answer back. Let’s talk about something else, like what we’re having for supper. Whatever it is, it sure does smell good.”

  “Venison and wild onions. I found some wild onions down at the creek when I went for a pail of water. And I’ve got another surprise. The Dutch oven is loaded. I’ve got it banked with a pile of hot coals, so it’ll cook slowly.”

  “What’s in it?” he asked, his mouth already watering.

  “You’ll have to wait and see, Mr. Jensen. I told you it was a surprise.”

  “Those tins of peaches. You made a peach cobbler, didn’t you?”

  Sally pushed away from him playfully. “I’ll never tell, not unless I can find a man who can chop wood without threatening to rip my clothes off.”

  “Don’t tempt me, woman. I may just carry through with that threat.”

  “You’re getting too old to catch me if I decide to run away. Which I just might do. Or I might take my clothes off and lie down naked under a pine tree, if the right man came along. But it would have to be for the right man…”

  He laughed, and came toward her.

  Wind whistled through cracks in the logs. Outside, it was full dark. They sat side-by-side in the soft glow from the fireplace, listening to the wind and the whisper of the first falling snowflakes landing on the sod roof.

  Smoke was so full of venison stew and peach cobbler he was sure he would burst. Sipping coffee, he stared thoughtfully at the flames. “We’ve got enough money in the bank to buy fifteen of those bulls at Chisum’s price, and maybe two hundred head of good longhorn cows. We’ll offer a few of the bulls to some of our neighbors. We’ll need about ten to service that many cows.”

  “Everything I’ve been reading about Herefords makes this seem a sure way to breed cattle with more meat on them,” Sall
y replied in the same thoughtful tone. “They are far better than shorthorns for the type of range we have, and I’ve read that they are resistant to most diseases, although they are susceptible to pinkeye in warm weather.”

  “Crossing ’em on longhorns will take some of that out of the calves. A longhorn don’t hardly ever get sick, and they can take any kind of temperature extremes.”

  “I can’t wait to get started next spring. Of course, I’ll be worried until you get back.”

  “You’re looking for reasons to worry. We talked about that before.”

  “I know you, Smoke. I don’t see any way you can take men all the way down to New Mexico Territory without running into some kind of trouble. Sometimes, I think you look for it.”

  “That’s not true,” he complained, sipping more coffee. “I try to avoid it whenever I can.”

  “I want you to promise me that this spring, you won’t let anything happen. Please?”

  He felt her snuggle against his shoulder. “I’ll promise you I won’t let anything happen to me or our cattle. I’ll swing wide of a fight whenever I can, even if some bastard is lookin’ for one.”

  Sally touched his cheek, turning his face to hers. “I wish I could believe that,” she said, then she kissed him hard before he could insist that he meant every word… just so long as nobody pushed too damn hard.

  Ten

  A layer of light snow blanketed the valley and slopes above the log cabin when dawn came gray and windy to this part of the Rockies. Tiny windblown snowflakes came across the higher ridges in sheets, spiraling downward where mountains protected the land from blustery gusts. Smoke came out before sunrise, when skies were brightening, to feed the horses. The temperature had fallen forty degrees overnight, hovering close to freezing, and as he put corn on the ground inside a pole corral protected from winds by a three-sided lean-to for their four horses, he shivered a bit in the cold and smiled inwardly. This was weather he understood, and he had a fondness for it. Surviving blizzards back when he was with Preacher had been difficult at first, until he’d learned how mountain men kept warm, no matter how cold it got, with layers of clothing and footgear made from tanned animal skins and fur, and how to prepare for weeks of hibernation like a bear when the elements in high country unleashed their fury. Glancing at snow-clad mountains around him now, he allowed himself to think about those times and Preacher, wondering if the old man might possibly be alive up there somewhere after so many years. Preacher would be against sentiment like this. However, Smoke found himself with a longing to hear that familiar deep voice, to see his grizzled face etched by hard times and adversity. Preacher wouldn’t allow it, of course, if he were still alive in his declining years, a man with too much pride to let anyone, even Smoke, see him when age took its toll on him.