Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “You son of a bitch! You was holdin’ that card out!” someone shouted angrily from one of the tables where a card game was in progress.

  “Are you calling me a cheat?”

  “Yes, you double-dealing bastard, I’m calling you a cheat!”

  The accusation was followed almost immediately by the sound of a gunshot as the man who had been called a cheat drilled the other player through the chest.

  The man who did the shooting was wearing a suit and vest, and no holster rig. But he was holding a smoking .41-caliber derringer in his hand. The man who had challenged him was wearing two pistols, neither of which did him any good as both were still in their holsters.

  The sudden shooting interrupted the flow of conversation and laughter for but a moment. Then, when everyone realized that the excitement was over, they returned to the business at hand, leaving the dead man sprawled out on the floor.

  “You was right to shoot ’im, Pippin,” one of the other players said. “You wasn’t cheatin’. It’s sons of bitches like Miller there who cause trouble for ever’one else. Hell, if they don’t know the rules, they got no business comin’ to Gehenna.”

  “Hey, Willie, get us a new bottle of whiskey,” Pippin called to the bartender.

  Willie put the bottle on the bar. “Annie, take this to him,” he said, calling to one of the bar girls.

  Annie came over to retrieve the bottle.

  “Now, mister, what can I do for you?” Willie asked, running a soiled rag over the bar just in front of where Matt was standing. There was a sour smell to the rag.

  “Beer,” Matt said.

  “Twenty-five cents.”

  “Damn expensive, isn’t it?”

  “Find a cheaper beer in town,” Willie said, and some of the others laughed.

  “I’ll take this one,” Matt said, putting a quarter on the bar.

  Willie drew a mug of beer and set it in front of him.

  “You on the run, boy?” one of the men standing at the bar asked.

  “Mister, I don’t figure that’s any of your business,” Matt answered.

  “Oh, it’s my business all right,” the man said, turning to face Matt. “You see, there’s only two kinds of people come to a place like Gehenna. Those who are on the run, and bounty hunters. Now which are you?”

  “I don’t know,” Matt replied. “I guess it depends on how much you are worth.”

  “What?” the man at the bar replied, surprised by Matt’s answer.

  “I could always use a little extra money,” Matt said. “If you’re worth enough, I might be tempted to do a little bounty hunting.”

  By now, several others in the bar had overheard Matt and the man at the bar, and they stopped their own conversations to see where this was going.

  “Nah,” Matt said dismissively. “Somebody like you couldn’t be worth more than twenty-five dollars or so. You aren’t worth it.”

  “Ha! He’s got your number, Aimes!” someone said, and several others in the bar laughed.

  “Why, you snot-nosed punk! I’m going to wipe up the floor with you!” Aimes said, rushing down the bar toward Matt.

  Aimes was bigger and heavier than Matt, and figured to use his size and experience. But that same size and experience made him overconfident and as he charged Matt, Matt just stood there until the last second. Then, like a matador avoiding a charging bull, Matt stepped to one side. As Aimes rushed by him, Matt stuck out his foot and tripped Aimes, helping him along by an open-handed blow to the back of Aimes’s head.

  Aimes went down, crashing into a nearby chair. He got up on his hands and knees, shook his head, then stood up and looked back at Matt. He smiled at him, then raised his fists.

  “Sonny, I was just going to play with you a bit,” he said. “But now I’m going to hurt you, and I’m going to hurt you really bad.”

  Aimes rushed toward Matt trying to catch him with a powerful swing of his right hand. Matt leaned back at the waist avoiding the blow, then counterpunched with a hard, straight left jab. He scored well, but Aimes shook it off and swung again.

  By now, people had come in from the street to watch the fight. Nobody had a favorite, nobody cared who won; they just wanted the entertainment of watching it.

  The fight was one-sided in that Matt seemed able to score anytime he wanted, but so far, Aimes was brushing Matt’s blows off as if they were totally ineffectual.

  Then Matt hit Aimes on the nose, and he felt it go under his hand. The nose began bleeding, but even that didn’t stop Aimes. He continued to smile as he swung at Matt, his teeth now red with blood. Aimes finally connected with a punch, and though Matt managed to deflect most of it, it still retained enough force to knock him down.

  With a triumphant yell, Aimes picked up a chair and raised it over his head, preparing to crash it down on Matt.

  Quickly, Matt rolled out of the way, then kicked out with his right foot, catching Aimes on the side of his knee. With a yell of pain and surprise, Aimes went down, then lay on the floor, groveling and grabbing his knee.

  Matt stood up, looked down at him, then walked over to the bar to resume drinking his beer.

  “You son of a bitch! I’m going to kill you!” Aimes yelled.

  Turning, Matt saw Aimes clawing for his gun. Matt threw the beer mug and hit Aimes right between the eyes. He went out like a light.

  “You should’a killed him,” Willie said.

  “No need to kill him now,” Matt said. “I can kill him anytime I want.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Matt recognized Poke Lawson and Syl Richards the moment they came into the saloon. He didn’t know their names, but he remembered their faces. Poke and Syl had been with Clyde Payson on the day Payson killed his parents and his sister. He stared at them, holding the stare until Poke became aware.

  He looked over at Matt.

  “You starin’ at me, mister?” Poke asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like bein’ stared at.”

  Matt didn’t respond, but neither did he look away.

  “Did you hear me? I said I don’t like you starin’ at me.”

  Matt still didn’t respond.

  “You got somethin’ stuck in your craw, boy?” Poke asked, growing more frustrated.

  “Poke, what’s got you all riled?” Syl asked.

  “What do you mean what has me riled?” Poke asked. “Look at him, Syl. The son of a bitch just keeps starin’ at us.”

  Now Syl turned away from the bar as well so that both he and Poke were facing Matt.

  “Why are you starin’ at us?” Syl asked.

  “You were with him that day, weren’t you?” Matt said. “Both of you were.”

  “We was with who? Boy, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about,” Syl said.

  “You were with Clyde Payson and Garvey Laird.”

  “You are gettin’ me riled, boy,” Poke said. “What about Clyde Payson and Garvey Laird?”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “Yeah, I know where they are. What’s that to you?”

  “I intend to kill them,” Matt said. “Both of them.”

  Both Poke and Syl laughed. “You?” Poke said, pointing at Matt. “You are going to kill Payson and Laird?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What makes you think you can kill them?” Syl asked. “Why, you’re so young you still got snot runnin’ out of your nose.”

  “How old do you have to be to kill someone?” Matt asked.

  “What do you mean how old do you have to be to kill someone?” Poke asked. “That question don’t make sense.”

  “Say you are nine years old,” Matt said. “Say you are nine years old and a group of low-life, yellow-bellied bastards come up on your wagon, and they kill your ma, your pa, and your sister.”

  A hint of recognition began to flicker across the faces of Poke and Syl.

  “And say you grab your pa’s rifle and get into the rocks, then kill two of the basta
rds who killed your family. Is nine years old too young to kill?”

  “Son of a bitch!” Poke shouted, suddenly realizing what Matt was talking about. “You’re that brat!”

  “That’s right. I’m that brat,” Matt confirmed.

  Both Poke and Syl made desperate grabs for their guns. Matt waited patiently until Poke and Syl had cleared the holsters with their guns.

  Seeing that they had the jump on Matt before he even started his draw, Poke and Syl smiled in triumph.

  The smile was short-lived, however, because before they could bring their guns to bear, Matt had his pistol out and fired twice.

  The smiles were replaced by looks of shock as the two men realized that they had been shot. Poke tumbled forward, Syl fell backward. Both men were dead before they hit the floor.

  Matt held the smoking pistol in his hand for a moment, then looked around the room to see if anyone else was about to challenge him.

  “Son of a bitch!” Willie said, pouring himself a whiskey. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that.”

  “You’re as fast as Angus Boone,” one of the others said.

  “Ain’t nobody as fast as Angus Boone,” one of the others said.

  “I believe this fella is.”

  “Better not let the Gravedigger hear you saying that.”

  “Where is Clyde Payson?” Matt asked the bartender.

  “I . . . I don’t know!” Willie answered. “I admit that he does come in here from time to time, but I ain’t seen him in a couple of weeks now.”

  Matt put his pistol in his holster, then turned his back to the bar and faced the others who were in the saloon. All were wearing looks of amazement over the shooting demonstration they had just seen.

  “My name is Matt Jensen and I’m looking for Clyde Payson and Garvey Laird,” Matt said.

  “Mister, maybe you didn’t notice, but we don’t welcome the law in Gehenna. And we don’t help ’em out none either.”

  Matt smiled. “I’m not the law,” he said. “This is personal.”

  “Even if we know’d where he was, ain’t nobody goin’ to be dumb enough to tell you where to find him. I figure if he wants to get hisself found, he’ll let you know where he is.”

  Clem Tyson and Bart Ebersole had seen the whole thing. They were sitting at a table in the back of the room when it started, and Clem started to get involved, but Bart reached out to stop him.

  “This here ain’t our fight,” Bart said. “This is about somethin’ that happened before we ever joined up with Payson.”

  “Yes, but don’t we owe . . . ?” Clem began, but Bart interrupted him.

  “We don’t owe anybody nothin’.”

  A moment later, seeing the ease with which Matt put down both Poke and Syl, Clem was glad that Bart had stopped him.

  “What do we do now?” Clem asked.

  “Now we go see Payson and tell him this young punk is after him,” Bart replied.

  “I thought you said this wasn’t our fight.”

  “If Payson is willin’ to pay us to take a hand in it, then it will be our fight,” Bart said.

  Salcedo

  Clyde Payson stuck his hand up under the skirt of a passing bar girl, grabbed the cheek of her butt, and squeezed.

  The bar girl squealed, then laughed out loud. “Now, honey, it’s not nice to get a girl all hot and bothered like that unless you intend to do something about it,” she said.

  “Ha, Payson, what do you think? Damn if I don’t think she’s in love with you,” Garvey said.

  “She’s not in love with me,” Payson said. “She’s in love with the two dollars it would cost to take her up to her room.”

  Garvey and a couple of others who were nearby laughed out loud. They were still laughing when Clem Tyson and Bart Ebersole pushed through the front door. The two men came directly for Payson’s table.

  “Damn, boys, look at you,” Payson said. “You look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”

  “They’s someone after you, Payson,” Bart said.

  Payson laughed. “I expect there’s a lot of people after me. There is a reward out, you know.” He pointed to Bart and Clem. “Only, it isn’t just me. The reward is for you two, Garvey, and Poke and Syl.”

  Clem shook his head. “It ain’t for Poke and Syl,” he said.

  “What do you mean, it ain’t for Poke and Syl? They were in Cedar Creek same as the rest of us.”

  “This don’t have nothin’ to do with Cedar Creek,” Clem said. “This has somethin’ to do with a wagon you’n Poke and Syl come across some years back, afore me’n Bart joined up with you.”

  Payson shook his head. “A wagon? What wagon? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Yeah, well, the man that’s lookin’ for you knows what he is talkin’ about. And Poke and Syl know’d too, just before they was killed.”

  “Killed? Wait a minute, are you sayin’ Poke and Syl are dead?”

  “Deader’n a cow turd in the sun,” Bart said.

  “Who killed them? Did you get a name?”

  “Yeah, his name was Jensen. Matt Jensen. And according to what Poke and Syl said just before they was killed, this here fella was at some wagon you all jumped afore me’n Clem joined up with you.”

  Payson shook his head. “Jensen? Jensen? No, I don’t remember jumpin’ no one named Jensen.”

  “From the way they was talkin’, this fella was nine years old. He grabbed a rifle and run into the rocks, then killed two of your men.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Payson said, striking his open palm with a closed fist. “It’s the brat! He’s still alive! But his name is Cavanaugh. What’s he callin’ hisself Jensen for?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he was adopted and changed his name. Whatever it is, he’s alive, and he wants to kill you.”

  “Oh, he wants to kill me, does he?” Payson replied. He pulled his pistol and rotated the cylinder, checking each chamber. “Well, we’ll just see about that.”

  “He’s good, Payson,” Bart said.

  “Yeah? How good?”

  “Fastest I ever seen,” Bart said. “Except for maybe Boone.”

  “He’s faster’n Boone,” Clem said.

  “What makes you say that?” Payson asked.

  “Well, for one thing, he waited till both Poke and Syl had their guns drawed before he even started to draw his own gun,” Clem said.

  “Yeah,” Bart said. “This fella just stood there, calm as you please, while Poke and Syl went for their guns. He waited till they had them both drawed before he pulled his own gun.”

  “Like this,” Clem said, using his hand, but without a gun, to demonstrate. “Only it was about three times faster.”

  “All right, boys, you’ve made your point. He’s fast. What am I supposed to do about it? You think I should run?”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Clem said.

  “Ain’t no way I’m going to run,” Payson replied.

  “There’s something you got to consider,” Bart said.

  “What’s that?”

  “This fella has seen you before. He knows what you look like. He could be right up on you before you even know’d you was in danger.”

  “I’ve seen him before too,” Payson said.

  “Yeah, when he was nine years old. I didn’t see him then, but I’m pretty sure he don’t look the same. As fast as he is, and you not knowin’ what he looks like and all, I reckon he can kill you just about anytime he wants.”

  Payson poured himself a drink. With shaking hands, he lifted the glass to his lips. “Then what the hell am I supposed to do about it?” he asked.

  “There is a way,” Bart suggested.

  Payson tossed the drink down. “What is the way?” he asked.

  “You could offer money to anyone who found him for you.”

  “Well, now, that don’t make a hell of a lot of sense, does it? I mean, I don’t want the son of a bitch to find me, so why would I pay someone to find him?”


  Bart smiled. “Well, not find him exactly. What I meant was, maybe you could pay somebody to kill him for you.”

  “If he is as fast as you say he is, where’m I goin’ to find someone who is willin’ to do that?”

  “Me’n Clem will do it,” Bart said.

  “I thought you was tellin’ me how fast he is. How are you and Clem goin’ to go up against him if he’s as fast as you say he is?”

  “He is fast,” Bart said. “But me’n Clem got an advantage over you, because we know what he looks like. And while he knows what you look like, he don’t know us from Adam. He won’t be lookin’ out for us.”

  Payson smiled. “Yeah,” he said. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s right, ain’t it? All right, I’ll give you hunnert dollars to kill him.”

  “Apiece,” Bart said. “There’s two of us.”

  “No, one hundred dollars for the two of you. How you divide it up between you is up to you.”

  “A hunnert dollars apiece, or you can handle him yourself,” Bart said.

  Payson sighed, then ran his hand through his hair. “All right, a hunnert dollars apiece,” he said. He pointed his finger at Bart. “But do it quick. I don’t like the idea of thinkin’ about that son of a bitch lurking around somewhere.”

  “He’ll be dead within the week,” Bart promised.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Cobb’s Station

  Matt rode up to the hitching rail in front of the saloon, dismounted, looped the reins around the hitching rail, and went inside.

  The shadowed interior of the saloon gave the illusion of coolness, though it was an illusion only. The air inside was hot, still, and redolent with the sour smells of beer and whiskey and the stench of a dozen sweating, unwashed bodies.

  Matt walked over to the bar and put a nickel down.

  “Beer,” he said.

  “You just passin’ through?” the bartender asked as he set the beer on the bar.

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of ?”

  “I’m lookin’ for someone.”

  “You’re lookin’ for someone, huh? Are you the law? Or are you a bounty hunter? If you are the law, I’ll tell you what I know. If you are a bounty hunter, you’ll get no information from me,” the bartender said.