“We split up the take evenly among those that survive, but I’ll personally guarantee you each a hundred dollars a month, and I pay all expenses.”
“Including whiskey and women?”
“All you can stand of both.”
The men looked at each other, thought a moment, then one by one they nodded. “Count us in. Hell, it’s got to be better’n scrabbling on our knees tryin’ to dig gold outta them mountains.”
Sundance gave each of the men two double-eagle gold pieces. “Here’s an advance, boys. We’re gonna leave in the mornin’, so see if you can round up any more men who want a few of these in their pockets and the chance to tree a town and kill a sonofabitch at the same time.”
* * *
The next day, the gang gathered in the saloon. Sundance stood and banged the butt of his Colt on the table for attention. “Men, we’ve got some new partners who have agreed to come along to Big Rock with us.”
He pointed to a table aside from the ones where the original members sat. “The man on the end, with the scalps hangin’ from his belt, is Blackjack Walker.” Sundance looked around the room, “He says he’s not particular, he’ll scalp anybody, red, brown, or black.”
As the men laughed, Sundance said, “The black man next to Walker is Moses Washburn. Moses was a buffalo soldier for the North, but I don’t want that to put your men off, Lightning Jack. He deserted ’fore killin’ any Southerners. He came out here and spent most of the war killin’ Injuns.”
“Next to Moses is Slim Johnson, he’s from over New Mexico way, but says he don’t wanna go back there ’cause there’s more’n one noose waitin’ on him.”
He inclined his head toward two men sitting off by themselves at another table. “Over there we have George Stalking Horse and Jeremiah Gray Wolf. They used to scout for the Army, but had to leave suddenly after killin’ one of their officers. He walked up on ’em while they was enjoyin’ a little white woman lovin’. Seems she wasn’t enjoyin’ it quite as much as they was. They claim to be able to track a sidewinder through a sandstorm.” He smiled, “We’ll see. We might just need some good trackers if Jensen’s forted up in the mountains.”
The gang stood and began to mill around the newcomers, introducing themselves and trading stories about mutual acquaintances. After a little while, Sundance said, “Okay boys, time to dust the trail. Load up on what you like to drink and eat, and let’s saddle our mounts.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As dawn broke and the sun peered over peaks to the east, Cal and Pearlie walked their mounts up a narrow mountain trail. It was little more than a path, winding through dense ponderosa pines, with underbrush and small shrubs tugging at their legs on either side.
The air became thinner and colder the higher they climbed, and occasional small flurries of snow fell and dusted their hats and shoulders and their horses.
Cal sighed deeply, sending clouds of fog from his mouth to stir and mix with early morning ground mist still hanging low around them. “I swear, Pearlie,” he said, “if’n we climb much higher, we’re gonna have to look under rocks and such to find enough air to breathe.”
Pearlie shook his head, flinging small flakes of snow off his hat. “Yeah, and we’re only ’bout halfway to the top. It’s gonna git worse ’fore it gits any better.” He coughed as he shivered in his fur-lined coat. The dampness of the mist caused small beads of moisture to form in his moustache, glistening and sparkling in sunlight.
They rounded a bend, where tall pines thinned out into a small clearing next to a sheer drop-off. Pearlie, who was in the lead, leaned sideways and glanced over the edge at a two-hundred-foot drop straight down. His horse, nervous at being so close to the cliff, whinnied loudly and began to sidestep and dance away into the brush on the right side of the trail. “Whoa boy, easy there!” Pearlie cried, sweat popping out on his forehead as he fought his frightened animal.
When he finally had his mount under control, he swung his leg over the cantle and stepped out of his saddle. He spent a moment rubbing the horse’s neck to calm its fear. “Cal, we’d better walk our mounts through this narrow place. Mine’s actin’ a mite skittish.”
Cal reined up and jumped to the ground, only a few feet from the precipice. “Yep,” he said, “that looks to be one helluva long fall.”
Pearlie grunted. “It ain’t the fall that kills ’ya, kid. It’s the landin’ that messes up your innards.”
They stood there, looking across snowy mountains and enjoying the view. Emerald-green pines and junipers interspersed and mingled with brilliant, sun-brightened white snow on peaks and in the valleys.
Suddenly, without warning, a piece of bark on a nearby pine tree in front of them exploded with a resounding thump, followed seconds later by a booming echo of a gunshot from trees to their right.
“Holy shit!” yelled Pearlie, as he dove beneath the belly of his snorting, rearing horse. He scrabbled on his hands and knees into nearby bushes, followed closely by Cal.
“Jesus, Pearlie! Someone’s shootin’ at us!”
Pearlie crouched in thick weeds and grass and small shrubs, looking around, trying to get a fix on where the bullet had come from. “That sounds like a Sharps Big Fifty.”
“What’s that?” asked Cal, both hands full of Colts.
“It’s a buffalo gun,” Pearlie said. He sprang from cover and jerked his Henry rifle out of his saddle boot, then hurried back into the brush, panting, his chest heaving as he thumbed a shell into the chamber. “I ain’t seen one since Smoke’s mountain men friends came to the ranch two year ago. Those old coots are ’bout the onliest ones who still carry ’em.”
Dirt next to Cal’s boot erupted, spewing a geyser of soil and pine needles into the air, followed again by an explosion that made their ears ring as it reverberated off the mountainside.
A voice called from a distance, “Come on out, boys, or I’ll put the next one up your nose.”
Fear-sweat dripped off Cal’s face and his eyes were wide. “What’ll we do now, Pearlie?”
Pearlie swiveled his head, but could see nothing except trees and forest all around them. “Don’t look like we have much choice, Cal. That Sharps will cut through this brush like a hot knife through lard.” He sighed and laid his Henry on the grass. “Holster them Colts, kid. You can’t hit what you can’t see.”
He stood and raised his hands, stepping into the clearing with the back of his neck tingling. Cal followed, looking around in hopes of catching sight of whoever fired at them.
“Grab some sky, fellers, or I’ll ventilate your ribs,” the voice cried.
As Cal and Pearlie stood there, hands lifted over their heads, a ghost-like figure appeared out of the mist. He was leading a pinto pony and carrying a rifle that looked to be as long as he was tall.
Cal whispered, “Jumpin’ Jiminy.” He had never met one of the special breed called mountain men. The old-timer was clad in buckskin shirt and pants, moccasins, with leggings up to his knees, and wore what appeared to be a beaver-skin hat. His grizzled whiskers were snow white, and his grin revealed yellow stubs of teeth. The barrel of his Sharps ended in a hole that seemed big enough to put a fist in, and it was pointed straight at the two cowboys.
“Howdy gents. Name’s Puma Buck.” The mountain man’s eyes narrowed to slits and his grin faded. “Just what the hell are you two pilgrims doin’ up here in my backyard?”
Pearlie smiled with relief, removed his hat and sleeved sweat off his face.
Puma’s Sharps moved to aim between his eyes. “Why’re you grinnin’ like a she-wolf in heat, boy? You starin’ death plumb in the face.”
“We’re right glad to meet up with you, Mr. Buck. I met you ’bout two years ago at Smoke Jensen’s ranch, when you and the other mountain men came down to Sugarloaf.” He put his hat back on and lowered his hands. “Cal and me work for Smoke, an’ we came up here to see if’n we could find him.” Pearlie paused a moment, hoping the old man hadn’t forgotten the occasion, then continued, “Seems
Smoke’s got hisself a little problem.”
Puma lowered his long rifle and nodded. “I ’member now.” He peered closely at Pearlie. “You be the puncher that eats anythin’ that ain’t tied down.”
Pearlie blushed as Puma chuckled. “Smoke spoke right highly of you, boy. Said you was a lot like him when Preacher took him to raise. Your name be Pearlie, if’n I recollect correctly.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Buck.”
Puma frowned and gave the men an irritated look. “My name be Puma, boy, but only my daddy was called Mr. Buck.” He raised his eyebrows. “So you two pilgrims came traipsin’ up here to see if’n you could help Smoke out, huh?”
“Yes sir.”
Puma smirked, cocking his head. “’Pears you young’uns don’t have much faith that ole Smoke can take care of hisself.”
Cal blurted out, “That’s not it at all, Mr. Puma! It’s jest that there’s thirty or more gunslicks on their way here, settin’ out to kill Smoke.”
Pearlie nodded. “We just figgered a couple more guns wouldn’t do no harm.”
Puma chuckled. “You boys’ve got it all wrong. It ain’t the number of guns you got with ya’ or agin ya’ that counts in a business like this. It be what you got deep inside that makes the difference in who rides out and who gits carried out facedown across a horse.” He rubbed his whiskers and leaned on his Sharps as he looked out over the mountains. “I been knowin’ Smoke since he weren’t nothin’ more’n a tadpole, and I’m here to tell you boys somethin’. He had fire in his belly and steel in his spine even then.”
Puma paused to fire up one of the stogies Smoke had given him. After a few puffs, with smoke trailing out of his nostrils, he continued, “Ole Preacher recognized that fact right off.” The mountain wore a dreamy expression on his face as he remembered his old friend. “Preacher was tough and mean as a coon with rabies, but he had a soft spot in him for young’uns.” He winked at Cal, “’Specially those with bark on ’em. Smoke must have got some of that particular weakness from his ol’ teacher. He tole me the other day he and Sally had taken in a button that would be famouser than him someday.” The old-timer smiled around his cigar. “I guess that’d be you be was talkin’ ’bout, Cal.”
Pearlie smothered a laugh by getting his makings out and rolling a cigarette, while Cal’s face turned red as sunset.
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Puma. I owe Smoke an’ Sally Jensen ’bout everything a body can, and I aim to pay ’em back by putting as much lead in Sundance Morgan’s gang as I’m able.”
Puma put his hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Now, don’t git your fur in a tangle, boy. Everybody was young onc’t upon a time. Ain’t no shame in bein’ green as a new sapling when you’s first startin’ out.” He picked a piece of tobacco off his lip. “Shame is not learnin’ from those that can teach ya’ what ya’ need to know.”
He leaned his head to the side and said, “Come on over here and follow me, both of you.” He walked twenty yards up the trail and squatted, pointing at the ground. “Reason I shot at you boys wasn’t to scare ya’ . . .” he paused a moment, with a twinkle in his faded blue eyes, and said, “leastways, not the onliest reason.”
He wrapped his gnarled, arthritic hand around a branch lying in the dirt, partially covered with leaves and pine boughs. When he raised it, the men could see where the trail had been dug away and the trap had been set.
“If’n your mounts had stepped on this,” he said, looking a few feet away to the edge of the cliff, “you’d be buzzard bait, splattered all over them rocks down there by now.”
Pearlie whistled low under his breath as Puma reset the trap. “I didn’t even see that.” He looked back over his shoulder at the path they had been on. “It don’t look no different from the rest of the trail.”
Puma pinched the fire off his cigar and stuffed the rest into his mouth and began to chew. “Hellfire, boy, that’s the whole idee! Don’t do much good to set a trap fer an animal if’n the critter can see it.”
Cal whispered in a hoarse voice, “That don’t look like no animal trap to me.”
Puma spit tobacco juice into the dirt. “It’s fer the most dangerous and cunnin’ animal there is, boy. The two-legged kind.”
Puma stood up slowly and stretched, as if his old legs had stiffened in the short time he squatted. “Well, I guess if you young’uns are bound and determined to help your friend, the least I can do is make sure you survive long enough to pop a cap or two.” Shaking his head in disgust, he climbed into his saddle. “You damn sure don’t have enough trail-sense to make it on your own.”
He turned his pinto into the woods and trotted off, avoiding the trail, without looking back. He called over his shoulder, “Follow me, boys, if’n you manage it without gittin’ yourselves killed.”
Puma led the men on a tortuous journey up the mountain. He rarely used trails or paths, winding in and out among trees and underbrush in no discernable pattern. When Cal and Pearlie would think they were at a dead end, Puma would pull a branch aside and there would be an opening just big enough for the horses and men to squeeze through.
Cal whispered, “Jiminy, Pearlie, he must know ’bout every tree and rock on this here mountain. I’d have sworn there weren’t no way up this hill ’ceptin’ the trail.”
Pearlie grunted. “Yeah, but that old man’s been roamin’ these mountains since long ’fore either one of us was born. He oughta know his way ’round by now.”
After two hours of climbing, just when the men thought their horses weren’t going to be able to go any longer, Puma led them into a small clearing in front of his cabin. He twisted in his saddle and said, “Here be home, boys. Light and set and I’ll git some cafecito goin’. Looks like you could use some.”
As they stepped off their mounts, Puma disappeared into his lean-to. After a moment, he came out carrying a bag of Arbuckles’ coffee and a pot that looked as old as the mountain man, and as black as if it hadn’t been cleaned since he bought it.
He filled the pot half full of grounds, added a small amount of water, and hung it from a trestle over the campfire coals. Stirring the glowing embers with his moccasin, he threw some dry grass and twigs on top. After a moment, small flames began to flicker and then he added a couple of short logs.
Puma glanced at the sun, dimly visible through the snow-clouds overhead, and said, “Looks close enough to noon fer me to eat. How ’bout you boys?”
Pearlie grinned and rubbed his belly. “Sounds good to me, Mr. Puma. I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”
Cal shook his head. “Boy, Puma sure had you pegged, Pearlie. You’d fight a buzzard fer its leavin’s if’n you ever missed a . . . which you sure as hell haven’t since I’ve knowed ya’ .”
Puma raised his eyebrows. “I’ve got some two-day-old venison in the cabin, which should be okay since it’s been so cold lately, or I can rustle up some quail eggs, fatback, and make some pan bread. It’s your call, men.”
Cal spoke up quickly, “If’n it’s all the same to you, Mr. Puma, I’d like some of that venison.” He glanced over at his friend. “Pearlie’s a fine cook an’ all, but I’m gittin’ a mite tired of fatback and biscuits.”
Pearlie frowned. “You sure as hell didn’t seem to mind when it came time to dish it outta the pan, least not so’s I noticed when ya’ piled it so high it took both your hands to lift your plate.”
Puma chuckled. “You boys make me miss havin’ a woman ’round to jaw at.” He rubbed his whiskers, “Huh, must be goin’ on ten years or more since my last squaw died on me.”
Cal’s forehead wrinkled. “How’d she die, Mr. Puma? Killed by outlaws?”
“Naw, nothin’ like that. Was in the middle of winter, and she got outta the blankets to go an’ heat us up some coffee. One of those high-mountain squalls blew in kinda sudden-like, an’ next thing I knowed, she was froze solid, squattin’ in front of the fire with the coffeepot in her hand.”
Pearlie said, “Jesus, that musta been awful.�
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With a twinkle in his eye, Puma nodded. “Yeah, it was. I had to wait fer the spring thaw to git the coffeepot outta her hand ’fore I could use it.” He grinned, “It’s a long winter without cafecito, let me tell ya’.”
It was only when he laughed and slapped his knee that the men knew he was funning with them. He went into the cabin to get the deer meat, and Pearlie jabbed Cal in the side with his elbow. “I knowed he was havin’ us on all the time.”
Cal laughed, “Sure you did, Pearlie, sure you did.”
The men all pitched in to cook lunch. Cal peeled some wild potatoes and cleaned the dirt off onions Puma had in a burlap sack, and Pearlie poured coffee all around while Puma put the venison on a spit to heat it up.
Cal dumped the potatoes and onions in a pot to boil, then took a drink of coffee Pearlie handed him. After sucking in his breath and swallowing a couple of times, he said, “That’s some bellywash.”
Puma sipped his coffee and sighed. “Just ’bout right, I reckon.” He looked over at Pearlie. “I wouldn’t leave it in the cup too long, boy. It’s liable to eat its way through the tin.”
He drew one of the largest knives Cal and Pearlie had ever seen out of his scabbard and sliced off hunks of steaming meat and piled it on their plates, then speared potatoes and onions and added them to the venison. “Dig in men, ’fore the flies and mosquitoes carry it off.”
As they ate, Cal said, “Mr. Puma, Pearlie’s been tellin’ me some stories ’bout when Smoke was first up here, when he was with Preacher.”
Puma nodded. “Those were the good days. The only law up here then was the law a man carried in his holster or in his saddle boot. The rivers was full of beaver, the woods was full of wolves an’ grizzlies, and the plains was full of Injuns. Hell, if’n I saw another white man more’n twice a year, I’d move ’cause the area was gittin’ too civilized.”
Pearlie spoke up. “I was tellin’ Cal ’bout how Smoke went after Potter, Stratton, and Richards, the men who killed his brother and stole the Confederates’ gold.”
Vengeance of the Mountain Man Page 16