Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “Not at the moment,” Matt answered.

  “But you are lookin’ for somethin’, right?”

  “Yes, I’m looking for a town.”

  “Hell, mister, Slick Rock is a town,” the miner said. The others laughed.

  At that moment, Sue returned carrying a mug of beer and a small glass. It looked like whiskey in the glass, but Matt would have been willing to bet that it was tea. He didn’t care; he knew that Sue’s job was getting customers to buy drinks. If she could drink tea rather than whiskey, it would keep her sober, and it would be more profitable.

  “What’s the name of the town you are lookin’ for?” one of the miners asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Matt replied.

  Again, the miners laughed. “Well, mister, if you don’t even know the name of the town, you are going to have one hell of a time finding it.”

  “Yeah,” Matt answered. “It seems to be working out that way. The thing is I’ve heard three names for the town. I’ve heard Gehenna, Purgatory, and Perdition. I just don’t know which one is right.”

  “I’ve heard of that place,” one of the miners said. “From what I hear, it’s filled with nothing but bad characters.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m looking for,” Matt replied.

  “The town is called Gehenna,” the miner said. “But it’s an outlaw town. Are you what folks would call an outlaw, mister?”

  “I reckon that depends on who is doing the telling,” Matt replied.

  “Are you a bounty hunter?”

  “ No.”

  “Then why would you want to go to a place like that?”

  “I’ve got business with a couple of people I was told might be there,” Matt said.

  “Who would they be?”

  “Clyde Payson and Garvey Laird,” Matt said, speaking loudly and clearly.

  There was almost an audible gasp in response to the names.

  “I’ve never heard of either one of them,” the talkative miner said, the tone of his voice changing drastically.

  “Me neither,” one of the others said.

  “That’s funny,” Matt said.

  “What’s funny?”

  “When I said the names, a couple of you acted as if you had heard them before.”

  “Well, whatever, it ain’t none of our business,” the talkative miner said. “And if you’re smart, you’ll quit looking for them. They’re dangerous characters, both of them.”

  “Oh? I thought you said you had never heard of either of them.”

  “I haven’t,” the miner said. “But if they are hanging out in a place like Gehenna, you don’t want to find them.”

  “I thank you for your concern,” Matt said. “But I have a score to settle with the two of them, so I do intend to find them.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Matt noticed that the other three men in the saloon got up and left.

  “Those three didn’t even talk to me,” he said to Sue. “They must not be very friendly.”

  “Don’t worry none about them,” Sue said. “They’re drifters, all three of them. In and out of here all the time. They say they are cowboys, but there ain’t nobody ever seen ’em work anywhere. But now me, I can be very friendly, if you know what I mean. I’ve got a room upstairs just in case you’d like to see how friendly I can be. It wouldn’t cost you too much.”

  Matt looked at her. Tamara was six months ago, and there had been very few others since. Most of the experiences had been temporarily satisfying, but in almost every case it left him with an empty feeling that he couldn’t quite explain. He knew that it would probably be like that until he found one woman to settle down with. But he knew also that he would not be fit for any one woman until the thing that drove him was taken care of. Still, the idea of putting down the search, maybe for a short time, did hold some appeal for him.

  Sue knew men and could read them the way Matt could read a trail. When she saw the flicker of interest in Matt’s eyes, she smiled seductively. The effect of her smile was instantaneous. Now her features weren’t quite as hard as he thought, and her eyes were not nearly as old.

  “So, how about it?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Matt said. “It seems a little early in the day to . . .”

  Sue put her hand on his. “I promise you, you won’t be sorry,” she said.

  There was something in the expression on her face and in the tone of her voice that made Matt think that she was talking about more than just sex.

  “All right,” he said. He drank the rest of his beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where do we go?”

  “Like I said, I have a room upstairs.”

  Matt was sitting in a chair, pulling on his boots. Sue was still in bed, with the cover pulled up to her chin.

  “If all men were like you, I wouldn’t mind this job,” Sue said.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you say that to everyone,” Matt teased.

  “No,” Sue said seriously. “No, I don’t. You are different. You were more . . .”

  “Don’t say I was more skilled,” Matt said, waving his hand. “To tell the truth, I barely knew what I was doing.”

  “No, I wasn’t going to say you were more skilled. I was going to say something that is much better than skill. You have a tenderness about you, a feeling for others. With most men, I’m just here to be ridden, like a horse or something. I’m a tool. But you not only knew that I was here, you acted as if you really cared about what I felt.”

  “It seemed like the thing to do,” Matt replied.

  “You have known people like me before, haven’t you?”

  “You mean other women?”

  “No. I mean whores. You have known a whore, not just as a whore, but as a person.”

  Matt thought of Tamara, and nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Did you love her?”

  Matt started to say no, but he hesitated. He was not “in love with” Tamara. But she was a part of his youth, and he couldn’t deny that he loved her.

  “Yes,” Matt said. “I love her.”

  “I knew it,” Sue said, smiling broadly. She reached across the bed to touch him, and as she did so, the sheet fell down, exposing her bare breast. “You are a good man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Mr. Jensen?”

  Matt chuckled. “How close do we have to get before you call me Matt?”

  “Matt,” Sue said. “Do you remember those three men who left the saloon while you were talking with the miners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look out for them.”

  “Look out for them?”

  “They are from Gehenna, and they know Clyde Payson.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They’ve been here before,” Sue said. “I’ve heard them talking.”

  “Do you know where Gehenna is?”

  Sue shook her head. “No, I don’t, but it can’t be too terribly far from here.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Matt replied.

  “Matt, I mean it when I say be careful of them. You are looking for Payson, which means that all these men would have to do to get on Payson’s good side is to kill you.”

  “I’ll be on the lookout,” Matt promised. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “I wish I could talk you into giving up your hunt for Payson. It would be a lot safer.”

  “I’m sure it would,” Matt agreed. “But I’m afraid I can’t just put this down.”

  “I know,” Sue said. “But I had to try and talk you out of it. I had to try.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Leaving The Pickax Saloon, Matt walked across the street to have his lunch in the Palace Café. After that, he visited the other saloons in town trying to find out if anyone had any information he could use. He discovered a long time ago that he could get more information in casual conversation than by direct questioning.

  Matt had learned a lot about Payson during his search. He’d learned that Payson was a cold
-blooded killer. But then, he already knew that because he had witnessed it firsthand. He’ll learned also that Payson had built up a network of support, partly because people were afraid of him, and partly because he paid people to protect him.

  Matt was standing at the bar in a saloon called the Brown Dirt Cowboy when the sheriff came up to talk to him.

  “Would you be Matt Jensen?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes,” Matt answered. “But there’s no paper on me, Sheriff. If this is about that fracas back in Soda Creek, it was ruled justifiable homicide.”

  The sheriff smiled. “No, this isn’t anything about that. I’ve got a letter for you. Come on down to my office.”

  Matt looked confused. “You have a letter for me? That’s impossible. Who would know that I’m here? Are you sure it’s for me?”

  “I guess that depends on whether or not you know a fella named Smoke Jensen,” the sheriff replied.

  A big smile spread across Matt’s face. “What? Yes! Yes, I know him!” he said. “What about him?”

  “He’s the one who sent you the letter.”

  “But I don’t understand. How did you get the letter?”

  “My name is Tate Casey,” the sheriff said. “Smoke and I are friends.” He stuck his hand out and Matt took it. “He sent the letter to you inside a letter he sent me. In my letter, he said he had a feeling you might show up. Come on down to my office. I’ll give it to you.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said.

  A deputy was sitting at a desk in the sheriff ’s office when Matt and Casey went in.

  “Johnny, take a round for me, would you?” Casey asked.

  “Sure thing, Tate,” Johnny answered, getting up and taking his hat down from a peg. There were three jail cells in the back of the building. Only one was occupied and its occupant was on the cot, snoring loudly.

  “Who’ve you got back there?” asked Casey. “Mr. Fitzsimmons?”

  “Yes, sir. He was passed out drunk in front of the millinery. He should be wakin’ up soon.”

  “Poor man,” Casey said to Matt. “His wife had just bought a new hat and was coming out of the millinery when a runaway team and wagon ran over her, killing her. Fitzsimmons took it hard, and has been a drunk ever since. Two or three times a week, we find him passed out right where his wife was killed.”

  “And you lock him up?”

  “For his own safety,” Casey said. “Soon as he sleeps it off, we feed him a meal, then we let him go.”

  Matt nodded. “Makes sense,” he said.

  Sheriff Casey opened the middle drawer of his desk, then pulled out an unopened envelope and handed it to Matt.

  “Here is your letter, and as you can see, I haven’t read it,” he said. “Although, technically I could have read it, I suppose, without breakin’ any laws, since this was in a letter that was sent to me. But I didn’t figure it would be right to read another man’s mail.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” Matt said as he opened the envelope. “I appreciate that.”

  Pulling the letter from the envelope, Matt unfolded it and began to read.

  Dear Matt,

  After you left, I joined up with Preacher again to help him move a herd of half-broken mustangs and Appaloosa. We took them south into the wild country, crossing the Colorado River and keeping west of the Uncompahgre Plateau.

  That was when we first picked up the scent. There is no other smell like that of charred flesh, so we had us a notion of what we were about to run into before we actually saw them.

  Then we saw them. One man was tied by his ankles, hanging from a limb over a fire. His head and shoulders were blackened cooked meat. The bodies of the others were pretty well hacked up, one was tied to the wheel of a wagon. All of them had died hard.

  Then we found a young woman hiding in the bushes. Somehow, she’d managed to get away from the Indians. Her name is Nicole, and it turns out that I’ve taken her for my wife.

  Here, Matt looked up in surprise. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Smoke has got himself married!”

  Sheriff Casey chuckled. “Yeah, he told me that too. Surprised the hell out of me, I have to tell you.”

  Matt went back to the letter.

  Anyhow, the main purpose of this letter was to tell you I got myself married to about the prettiest thing you ever saw. But also, to tell you about Sheriff Casey.

  If you are reading this letter, Matt, then I reckon you are sitting in the sheriff’s office right now. He’s a good man, but I know something about him that not many people do know. I know he used to ride the outlaw trail. Now I tell you this, not to say anything bad about the sheriff, but so you might understand that someone like Casey, who has been on the outlaw trail, might be just the man to help you find Payson.

  Ask him to tell you what he knows. Say it would be a personal favor to Smoke Jensen. Tell him if he is able to help you, I’ll figure that the Spring Hill matter is all squared away. He’ll know what you’re talking about.

  Your friend,

  Smoke

  Matt folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

  “Thanks for giving me the letter,” he said.

  “Well, I’m glad you came through Slick Rock so I could give it to you. I’ve had the letter for six weeks or so. I wasn’t sure you would show up, but Smoke says you are looking for the people who killed your parents.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I hope you find them.”

  “Smoke seems to think you can help,” Matt said.

  Casey looked surprised. “He thinks I can help find the people who killed your parents? How would I do that?”

  “He also said to tell you that if you do help me, the Spring Hill matter would be closed.”

  “Oh, he said that, did he?”

  “Yes. What is the Spring Hill incident?”

  Casey ran his hand through his hair and looked at Matt for a long moment. Then he took a deep breath.

  “I was young,” he said. “About your age, I reckon. I had been raised on a farm back in Missouri and figured there had to be more to life than plowing fields behind a mule. So I came West, and no sooner got here than I met a fella by the name of Amos Meeker.

  “Well, sir, it turns out that Amos Meeker was the lead dog of a bunch of what I thought at the time to be really fun people to be with. Like me, they were young, restless, and obviously looking for something more out of life than they were getting. Fact is, I figured we were all riding the same-color horse.”

  Casey walked over to the stove, where a blue-steel coffeepot sat. Using a folded cloth to protect his hands from the heat, he poured two cups of coffee. He handed one cup to Matt before he continued his story.

  “Then one day, they asked me if I would like to come along on a real adventure with them. Here, all this time, I thought we were having real adventures, hunting, fishing, sparking the ladies, that sort of thing. But Meeker scoffed at it, said what we had been doing was nothing. According to Meeker, if I wanted some real adventure, I should come along with them while we robbed a stagecoach.”

  Casey took a swallow of his coffee and grew silent for a moment.

  “So, did you hold up a stagecoach?”

  Casey nodded. “Yes, I am ashamed to say that I did. In fact, I reckon we must’ve hit ten or twelve stagecoaches over the next couple of months. And we were beginning to get pretty well known for it too. To be honest with you, it was sort of exciting. I thought, what was the harm? Nobody was getting hurt, and we always had enough money for whiskey, beer, and women.

  “Then came Spring Hill. That was when Meeker decided we were wasting time robbing stagecoaches. He said we should rob a bank because that was where the real money was. So that’s what we did—or rather, that’s what we set out to do.”

  Casey continued with the story, telling it in such vivid and dramatic detail that it wasn’t hard for Matt to believe he was there, watching the drama unfold, rather than listening to it.

  There were two tellers and six customers in the ba
nk when Meeker, Casey, and four other would-be bank robbers stepped in with guns drawn.

  “Oh, my God! It’s a holdup!” one of the tellers shouted in fear.

  “That’s right, mister, this is a holdup,” Meeker said. Meeker waved his gun. “Now, open your safe and give me all the money you have.”

  The teller shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean you can’t do that?”

  “That money doesn’t belong to the bank. It belongs to the good people of Spring Hill. I won’t give it to you.”

  Without another word, Meeker shot the teller. There were two women in the bank, an older woman and her eighteen-year-old daughter. They both screamed.

  “Now, you,” Meeker said, pointing the gun at the other teller. “Are you going to open that safe for us? Or do I have to kill you too?”

  The teller was shaking so hard that he could scarcely speak. “No, no, please don’t kill me,” he pleaded. Then, thinking of a possible way out of his situation, the teller smiled, almost triumphantly.

  “You can’t kill me,” he pointed out. “If you kill me, there won’t be anyone left that knows the combination,” the teller said. “Then what would you do?”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Meeker said, glaring angrily at the teller. Then, inexplicably, he smiled and pointed his gun at the young woman. “But I’ve got me another idea,” Meeker said. “If you don’t open that safe in one minute, I’ll kill her.”

  “Meeker, no, I won’t let you do it!” Casey shouted, jumping toward him and wrestling for his gun.

  “Get away!” Meeker shouted.

  The two men struggled over the gun until it discharged. Casey went down with a bullet in his hip.

  Casey’s attempt to take Meeker’s gun failed in its original objective, but had an unexpected effect when it so distracted everyone that two of the male customers in the bank were able to draw their own guns.

  “Meeker! Them two has drawed on us!” one of the bank robbers called out in panic.

  Guns roared and smoke filled the room as men and women shouted and cursed in fear and anger. When the smoke cleared, three of the bank robbers were lying dead on the floor and a fourth was wounded. In addition, the bank teller, a man named Foster, was dead.