As the women continued to cry and moan, Lightning Jack dragged Mrs. Hernandez into a side room, while El Gato grabbed the sixteen-year-old by her hair and pulled her outside to a spot in the yard of the hacienda where the rest of the gang waited.
Soon the night was filled with terrified screams from the women and grunts and howls of animalistic passion from the men.
CHAPTER NINE
The sun was kissing the tops of the western peaks of the Rockies when Pearlie held his hand up and said to Cal, “Well, it’s ’bout time to fix us a camp and let the horses blow. The air’s pretty thin up here and there’s no need to overdo it on our first day.”
Cal shook his head. “Pearlie, we got another hour ’fore full dark yet. We can get another few miles, if’n we keep on goin’.”
Pearlie narrowed his eyes at the youngster. “Cal, you don’t know squat about travelin’ in the high country.” He walked his horse up to the bank of a small mountain stream gurgling in the twilight, leaned back as the horse dipped his head to drink, and crossed his leg over his saddle horn. He tilted his hat back and began to build himself a cigarette as he talked. “First of all, night comes quick in the up-high, a lot faster’n you think. Second, it takes time to get a camp ready and that’s no fun in the dark.”
He scratched a match to flame on his pants leg and lit his cigarette, sighing as he exhaled. “There’s wood for the fire to gather, water to get to boilin’ fer coffee, and since we neglected to take a proper nooning, I’ve got a powerful hunger on.”
“But—”
“No buts, boy. This time of year it’s gonna get might near freezin’ up here, and I don’t intend to turn into no icicle just so’s we kin get to Smoke a little sooner.” He took his hat off and sleeved the trail dust off his forehead. “Now, you wanted to come up here, so you’ll listen to someone who knows just a mite more than you do about travelin’ and campin’ in the mountains.”
He slid off his horse and tied the reins to a small bush near good grass so the horse could graze a while. “You go gather up some wood—dry, not too green—and I’ll arrange a few rocks and build us a campfire that’ll work to cook us some dinner and keep us from freezing tonight.” He scowled and looked around at the heavy woods surrounding their camp area. “Hell, maybe it’ll even keep the grizzlies and wolves from eatin’ us while we sleep.”
After they got the fire burning, and Pearlie sliced and fried some pork fatback and beans and made a pot of coffee and a batch of pan bread, the pair hobbled the horses to stay near camp and settled into their bedrolls in front of the fire.
Pearlie rolled himself a cigarette, then pitched the makings to Cal. “Go ahead and fill you a blanket, after-supper coffee’s a lot better with a cigarette.” He smiled, “Course, a dollop or two of whiskey in it don’t hurt none neither, but I guess we’ll do without that tonight.”
It took Cal a couple of tries, but finally he put together a makeshift cigarette and lit it off a burning twig from the fire. A deep cough, a gasp, and he was into his first cigarette.
“Pearlie . . .”
“Yeah, kid?”
“How much do you know about Smoke’s past?”
Pearlie raised his eyebrows and glanced over at Cal. “Why? You figgerin’ to write one of those penny dreadfuls like those tenderfeet back East are always doin’?”
Cal took another drag on his smoke and coughed and hacked for a while before he could answer. “Naw, nothin’ like that. It’s just that ever since Smoke and Miss Sally took me on as a hand, I’ve been hearin’ stories that’s hard to believe. Things like he’s kilt over two hundred men and all. I’s just wonderin’ how much of that’s true, is all.”
Pearlie chuckled. “Boy, you kin take anythin’ ya’ hear ’bout Smoke Jensen and double it, and you might be close to the truth. That hombre is a full sixteen hands high and that’s no exaggeration.”
“Well, I’m not near sleepy yet. How ’bout you tellin’ me what you know about him?”
Pearlie sighed. “Okay, move that Arbuckles’ off the fire so it don’t git bitter and let me get another butt goin’ and I’ll tell ya what I know.”
Cal grinned. “So it don’t git bitter? Hell, I almost had to cut it outta the cup with my knife to drink it.”
“Boy, that’s real mountain man coffee. If you’re gonna run with the big dogs, ya gotta be prepared to eat ’n drink the way they do.” He held out his cup. “Now pour me another swig or two and settle back in your covers for the damndest tale you ever heared.”
Pearlie lay back against his saddle, lit another cigarette, and blew smoke at the stars as he thought about how to begin. “A few years back, I was in the employ of a man who made the biggest mistake of his life. He decided to go up against Smoke Jensen. After a while, I found I couldn’t stomach the things that man was askin’ me to do, so I switched sides and joined up with Smoke and his friends.”
“You mean Smoke let you come over to his side after you’d been against him?”
“Yep. Matter of fact, t’was Smoke’s idea in the first place. He asked me if’n I was happy workin’ fer a scumbag like Franklin. When I said I wasn’t, he said he always had room on his payroll for a good worker. So I packed my war bag an’ left the same day.”
“What happened then? Was your previous boss mad about you leavin’ and all?”
Pearlie snorted as he refilled his tin cup with coffee. He took another puff off his cigarette and as the smoke trailed from his nostrils he continued his story. “You bet your boots he was plenty pissed at me. He sent a group of the men riding for his brand after me and they shot me up a little bit, then dragged me to hell and back through cactus and rocks and such.”
His eyes narrowed as he recalled how he had to walk almost ten miles with two bullets in him to get to Smoke’s place and help. “Well, Smoke had Doc Spalding yank those lead peas outta my hide, and then put me up in a boardinghouse in Big Rock to give me time to heal.”
The memory of the pain he went through made his voice husky and he took a long drink of the steaming coffee to clear it. “That’s when I first met Louis Longmont, a longtime compadre of Smoke’s.”
“You mean that dandy gamblin’ feller that owns the saloon in Big Rock?”
Pearlie grinned. “One and the same, though he’s no dandy. He’s might near the fastest man with a short-gun I ever seen, ’cept for Smoke, o’course. Anyway, he admired the way I stood up to Franklin and took to visitin’ me every day and we’d kinda get to talkin’, mostly ’bout Smoke.” He took a last drag and flipped the butt into the fire. “Seems he was pretty close friends with Preacher and knew Smoke when he came out West, when he was just a young’un. These stories I’m ’bout to relate to you are the same ones he tole me.”
He shook his head. “Hell, sittin’ here jawin’ has got me so jiggered on all that cafecito that I’m never gonna git to sleep.” He rolled to the side and took a pint of whiskey from his saddlebag, hesitated a moment, then poured a small measure in Cal’s cup and a much larger one in his.
Cal’s eyes got big and he sucked air in his mouth after his drink. “Whew-eee! That’s mighty stout stuff,” he rasped.
Pearlie chuckled. “If’n it ain’t hairy, it’s not worth drinkin’. Now here’s what Longmont tole me about Smoke’s first years here in the high lonesome, and some of the adventures he and that ole’ mountain man, Preacher, had.
“Smoke’s dad, Emmett, came back from the War Between the States in the summer of 1865, when Smoke, who was known as Kirby then, was only about fourteen or fifteen years old. Emmett sold their scratch-dirt farm in Missouri, packed up their belongin’s, and they headed north by northwest.”
“Why’d they do that?”
“That’ll become clear later in the story, but Smoke’s dad didn’t even tell why they were goin’ west at that time. Anyway, long about Wichita, they met up with an old mountain man who called hisself Preacher. Fer some reason, unknown even to the old-timer, he took them under his wing when he saw they was as
green as new apples, and they traveled together for a spell.
“Soon, they was set upon by a band of Pawnee Injuns, an’ Smoke kilt his first couple of men. Longmont says that Preacher tole him he couldn’t hardly believe it when he saw Smoke draw that old Colt. Says he knew right off Smoke was destined to become a legend, if’n he lived long enough, that is. That’s when Preacher gave young Kirby Jensen his nickname, Smoke, from the smoke that came outta that Navy Colt.
“Right after that, Emmett tole Preacher that he had set out lookin’ fer three men who kilt Smoke’s brother and stole some Confederate gold. Their names was Wiley Potter, Josh Richards, and Stratton, I don’t ’member his first name. Emmett went on to tell Preacher that he was goin’ gunnin’ fer those polecats, and if’n he didn’t come back, he wanted Preacher to take care o’ Smoke ’til he was growed up enough to do it fer hisself. Preacher tole Emmett he’d be proud to do that very thing.
“The next day, Emmett took off and left the old cougar to watch after his young’un. They didn’t hear nothin’ fer a couple of years, time Preacher spent teaching the young buck the ways of the West and how to survive where most men wouldn’t. Longmont says Preacher tole him that during that time, though Smoke was about as natural a fast draw and shot as he’d ever seen, the boy spent at least an hour ever day drawing and dry-firin’ those Navy Colts he wore.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Cal. “I thought Smoke only had the one Colt. Where’d he get the other one?”
“Oh, I forgot. That first Pawnee brave he kilt was carryin’ one, and, naturally, Smoke claimed it fer his own. That’s when he started wearin’ two guns in that special way he has, with the left ’un butt-forward and the right ’un, butt-backwards. That’s also where he got that big ole sticker he carries in his belt scabbard.”
Pearlie leaned over and refilled Cal’s cup, then his own. “And quit interruptin’ me if’n you want to hear this story.” He drank half the cup down in one draught, fashioned another cigarette, and lay back to continue his tale.
“’Bout two years later, at Brown’s Hole in Idaho, an old mountain man found Smoke and Preacher and tole Smoke his daddy was dead, that those men he went after kilt him. Smoke packed up an’ he and Preacher went on the prod.
“They got to Pagosa Springs, that’s Injun fer healin’ waters, just west of the Needle Mountains, and stopped to replenish their supplies. They rode into Rico, a rough ’n tumble mining camp that was an outlaw hangout.”
Pearlie took a deep drag of his cigarette, and paused as the smoke rose toward the stars, imagining how it must have been for the young boy and his old friend in those rough and rowdy days ...
* * *
Smoke and Preacher dismounted in front of the combination trading post and saloon. As was his custom, Smoke slipped the thongs from the hammers of his Colts as soon as his boots hit dirt.
They bought their supplies and turned to leave when the hum of conversation suddenly died. Two rough-dressed and unshaven men, both wearing guns, blocked the door.
“Who owns that horse out there?” one demanded, a snarl in his voice, trouble in his manner. “The one with the SJ brand?”
Smoke laid his purchases on the counter. “I do,” he said quietly.
“Which way’d you ride in from?”
Preacher had slipped to his right, his left hand covering the hammer of his Henry, concealing the click as he thumbed it back.
Smoke faced the men, his right hand hanging loose by his side. His left hand was just inches from his lefthand gun. “Who wants to know—and why?”
No one in the building moved or spoke.
“Pike’s my name,” the bigger and uglier of the pair said. “And I say you came through my diggin’s yesterday and stole my dust.”
“And I say you’re a liar,” Smoke told him.
Pike grinned nastily, his right hand hovering near the butt of his pistol. “Why . . . you little pup. I think I’ll shoot your ears off.”
“Why don’t you try? I’m tired of hearing you shoot your mouth off.”
Pike looked puzzled for a few seconds. No one had ever talked to him in this manner. Pike was big, strong, and a bully. “I think I’ll just kill you for that.”
Pike and his partner reached for their guns.
Four shots boomed in the low-ceilinged room, four shots so closely spaced they seemed as one thunderous roar. Dust and bird droppings fell from the ceiling. Pike and his friend were slammed out the open doorway. One fell off the rough porch, dying in the dirt street. Pike, with two holes in his chest, died with his back against a support pole, his eyes still open, unbelieving. Neither had managed to pull a gun more than halfway out of leather.
All eyes in the black powder-filled and dusty, smoky room moved to the young man standing by the bar, a Colt in each hand. “Good God!” a man whispered in awe. “I never even seen him draw.’
Preacher moved the muzzle of his Henry to cover the men at the tables. The bartender put his hands slowly on the bar, indicating he wanted no trouble.
“We’ll be leaving now,” Smoke said, holstering his Colts and picking up his purchases from the counter. He walked out the door slowly.
Smoke stepped over the sprawled, dead legs of Pike and walked past his dead partner.
“What are we ’sposed to do with the bodies?” a man asked Preacher.
“Bury ’em.”
“What’s the kid’s name?”
“Smoke.”
A few days later, in a nearby town, a friend of Preacher’s told Smoke that two men, Haywood and Thompson, who claimed to be Pike’s brother, had tracked him and Preacher and were in town waiting for Smoke.
Smoke walked down the rutted street an hour before sunset, the sun at his back—the way he had planned it. Thompson and Haywood were in a big tent at the end of the street, which served as saloon and café. Preacher had pointed them out earlier and asked if Smoke needed his help. Smoke said no. The refusal came as no surprise.
As he walked down the street a man glanced up, spotted him, then hurried quickly inside.
Smoke felt no animosity toward the men in the tent saloon: no anger, no hatred. But they came here after him, so let the dance begin, he thought.
Smoke stopped fifty feet from the tent. “Haywood! Thompson! You want to see me?”
The two men pushed back the tent flap and stepped out, both angling to get a better look at the man they had tracked. “You the kid called Smoke?” one said.
“I am.”
“Pike was my brother,” the heavier of the pair said. “And Shorty was my pal.”
“You should choose your friends more carefully,” Smoke told him.
“They was just a-funnin’ with you,” Thompson said.
“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”
“You callin’ me a liar?”
“If that’s the way you want to take it.”
Thompson’s face colored with anger, his hand moving closer to the .44 in his belt. “You take that back or make your play.”
“There is no need for this,” Smoke said.
The second man began cursing Smoke as he stood tensely, legs spread wide, body bent at the waist. “You’re a damned thief. You stolt their gold and then kilt ’em.”
“I don’t want to have to kill you,” Smoke said.
“The kid’s yellow!” Haywood yelled. Then he grabbed for his gun.
Haywood touched the butt of his gun just as two loud gunshots blasted in the dusty street. The .36 caliber balls struck Haywood in the chest, one nicking his heart. He dropped to the dirt, dying. Before he closed his eyes and death relieved him of the shocking pain by pulling him into a long sleep, two more shots thundered. He had a dark vision of Thompson spinning in the street. Then Haywood died.
Thompson was on one knee, left hand holding his shattered right elbow. His leg was bloody. Smoke had knocked his gun from his hand, then shot him in the leg.
“Pike was your brother,” Smoke told the man. “So I can u
nderstand why you came after me. But you were wrong. I’ll let you live. But stay with mining. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”
The young man turned, putting his back to the dead and bloody pair. He walked slowly up the street, his high-heeled Spanish riding boots pocking the air with dusty puddles.5
* * *
Cal’s eyebrows went up when Pearlie paused in his story to take another sip of whiskey. “How old was he when this happened?”
“I dunno. ’Bout eighteen or so, I guess.”
“Jiminy Christmas! That’s a couple ’a years older’n me!”
Pearlie grinned in the darkness. “Yeah, only Smoke was eighteen goin’ on thirty, while you’re sixteen goin’ on ten.”
“Aw, Pearlie. That’s not fair. I’m pretty good with my irons—you said so yourself.”
“No offense meant, kid. Just be glad you ain’t never had to kill nobody, it ain’t hardly never nothin’ to be proud of. You heard how Smoke tried to get men to back down? He never goes out lookin’ fer blood, it just seems to find him more’n most people.”
Pearlie turned over, pulled his blanket up over his head, and said, “Now that’s enough stories for one night. Get some shuteye. Dawn’s gonna come earlier than you think, and we got to get on the trail early if’n we’re ever gonna ketch up with Smoke.”
Cal stifled huge yawn. “Okay, but if’n we don’t catch him by tomorrow night, will ya tell me some more ’bout Smoke when he was first startin’ out?”
“Yeah, yeah. Now go to sleep.”
CHAPTER TEN
Smoke smelled a fire long before he could see evidence of it. He figured it was coming from about a mile or so upwind. His horse snorted and shook his head, telling Smoke there was water thereabouts. He stepped out of the saddle and tied his horse and packhorse to a bush where they could graze. Time to get down and dirty, he thought.
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 9