But none of the men really liked wire, even though all could see the reasons—most of the time—behind the erecting of barbed wire fences.
They did not seek out others as they rode toward the east and faraway New Hampshire. Every third or fourth day, late in the afternoon, if a town was handy, they would check into a hotel and seek out a shave and a bath. If not, they would bathe in a handy stream and go unshaven until a town dotted the vast prairie.
“Ever been to this New Hamp-shire, Louis?” York asked the gambler.
“Never have, my friend. But it is an old and very settled state. One of the original thirteen to ratify the Constitution. The first settlement—I can’t recall the name—was back in 1623. But I can assure you both, if we ride in like this, armed to the teeth and looking like buccaneers on horseback, we are,” he smiled, “going to raise some eyebrows.”
“How’s that?” York asked. “We don’t look no different than anybody else?”
Louis laughed pleasantly and knowingly. “Ah, but my young friend, we are much different from the folks you are about to meet in a few weeks. Their streets are well-lighted with gas lamps. A few might have telephones—marvelous devices. The towns you will see will be old and settled towns. No one carries a gun of any type; many villages and towns have long banned their public display except for officers of the law. And thank you, Smoke, for commissioning us; this way we can carry firearms openly.
“No, York, the world you are only days away from viewing is one that you have never seen before. Smoke, my suggestion would be that we ride the trains well into Massachusetts and then head north on horseback from our jumping-off place. I would suggest Springfield. And get ready for some very strange looks, gentlemen.”
“I’m beginnin’ not to like these folks and I ain’t even met none of ’em yet,” York groused. “Don’t tote no gun! What do they do if somebody tries to mess with ’em?”
“They are civilized people,” Louis said, with more than a touch of sarcasm in his statement. “They let the law take care of it.”
“Do tell,” York said. “In other words, they ain’t got the sand to fight their own fights?”
“That is one way of putting it, York,” the gambler said with a smile. “My, but this is going to be a stimulating and informative journey.”
Louis cantered on ahead.
“Smoke?” York asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s a telephone?”
18
“They’re in Salina,” Sally read from the wire. “Smoke, York and Louis Longmont.”
“The millionaire?” John sat straighter in his chair. “Mr. Longmont is coming east by horseback!”
Sally put eyes on her father. She loved him dearly, but sometimes he could be a pompous ass. “Father, Louis is an adventurer. He is also one of the most famous gunfighters in all the West. He’s killed a dozen men on the Continent, in duels. With sword and pistol. He’s killed—oh, I don’t know, twenty or thirty or maybe fifty men out west, with guns. He’s such a gentleman, so refined. I’ll be glad to see him again.”
John wiped his face with a handkerchief. In one breath, his daughter spoke of Louis killing fifty men. In the next breath, she spoke of him being so refined.
Not normally a profane man, John thought: What kind of goddamned people are going to be staying in my house!
Louis lay on his blankets and watched Smoke unroll a warbag from the pack animal. He laughed aloud when he saw what his friend was unpacking: a buckskin jacket, one that had been bleached a gray-white and trimmed ornately by a squaw.
“You have a touch of the theatrical in you, my friend,” Louis observed.
“I got to thinking we might as well give the folks a show. I had it stored in Denver.”
“Going to be interesting,” Louis smiled, pouring another cup of coffee and turning the venison steaks.
York returned from his bath in the creek, his trousers on but shirtless. For the first time, Smoke and Louis noticed the old bullet scars that pocked the young man’s hide.
“You’ve picked up a few here and there,” Louis noted.
“Yeah.” York slipped into his shirt. “Me and another ranger, name of McCoy, got all tangled up with some bad ones down in the Dos Cabezas mountains; I hadn’t been with the Rangers long when it happened. McCoy got hit so bad he had to retire from the business. Started him up a little general store up near Prescott. But we buried them ol’ boys where they fell. I was laid up for near’bouts a month. ’Nother time I was trackin’ a bank robber up near Carson Mesa. He ambushed me; got lead in me. But I managed to stay in the saddle and rode on up into Utah after him. I nailed him up near Vermillion Cliffs. Picked up a few other scratches here and there.”
And Louis knew then what Smoke had already learned: York was a man to ride the river with. There was no backup in the Arizona Ranger.
York looked up from the cooking steaks. “Where you plannin’ on us pickin’ up the steam cars, Smoke?”
“I’ll wire Sally from Kansas City and see how she’s doing. If she’s doin’ all right and doesn’t feel like the baby’s due any day, we’ll ride on to St. Louis and catch the train there.”
The three waited in Kansas City for two days. Sally felt fine and the baby was not due for a month. She urged him to take his time.
Smoke, York, and Louis rode out of Kansas City the next morning, riding into Missouri. It would be days later, when the trio rode into St. Louis and Smoke wired Keene, that he would learn Sally had been taken to the hospital the day after his wire from Kansas City. Sally and babies were doing fine.
“Babies!” Smoke shouted, almost scaring the telegraph operator out of his seat.
“Babies?” Louis exclaimed.
“More ’un one?” York asked.
“Boys,” the stationmaster urged, “don’t shoot no holes in the ceiling. We just got ’er fixed last month.”
They arranged bookings for their horses and themselves, and chugged out of St. Louis the next morning. It was the first time Smoke or York had ever seen a sleeping car, and both were amazed at the luxury of the dining cars and at the quality of the food that was served.
When the finger bowl was brought around, Louis had to leave his seat to keep from laughing when York rolled up his sleeves and washed his elbows in it.
“Ain’t you got no soap to go with this thing?” York asked the colored man.
The Negro rolled his eyes and looked heavenward, maintaining his composure despite the situation.
The train stopped in Ohio and the three got off to change trains. It was an overnighter, so they could exercise their horses, get their ground-legs back, and take a genuine bath in a proper tub. All were getting just a little bit gamey. The three big men, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with their boots and spurs and western hats, twin six-shooters tied down low, drew many an anxious look from a lot of men and more than curious looks from a lot of ladies.
“Shore are a lot of fine-lookin’ gals around these parts,” York observed. “But kinda pale, don’t y’all think?”
Smoke and York stood on the shores of Lake Erie and marveled at the sight of it.
“Never seen so damn much water in all my life!” York said, undisguised awe in his voice. “And would you just look at them big boats!”
“Ships,” Louis corrected. He pointed to one flying an odd-looking flag. “That one just came down the St. Lawrence. That’s a German flag.”
“How’d it git here?” York asked.
“Across the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Lord have mercy!”
When they stomped and jingled back into the fancy hotel, a platoon of cops were waiting for them.
A captain of the police approached them, caution in his eyes and his step. “Lads, I can see that you’re U.S. Marshals, but are ye after someone in our city?”
The cop was Irish through and through. “No,” Smoke said. “But neither have we bothered anyone here.” He looked at the mass of cops and smiled. “Kinda reminds m
e of that time I took on ’bout twenty-five guns at that silver camp.”
“You fought twenty-five desperados all by yourself?” the captain asked.
“Yep.”
“How did it turn out?”
“I killed them all.”
“You…killed them all!”
“Yep.”
Several news reporters and one photographer had gathered around, for real cowboys and western gunslingers were rare in Cleveland.
“Might I ask your name, sir?” the captain inquired.
“Smoke Jensen.”
Pandemonium set in.
Smoke, Louis, and York were given the keys to the city. All three answered an almost endless barrage of questions and endured dozens of cameras popping and clicking at them. A hasty parade was called, and the men rode up and down the city’s streets in an open carriage.
“Goddamnedest thing I ever heard of,” York muttered. “What the hell have we done to deserve something this grand?”
“You’re an Arizona Ranger, York,” Louis leaned over and told him. “And a gunfighter, just like Smoke and myself.”
“If you say so,” York told him. “Seems like a whole bunch to do about nothin’ if you ask me.”
“Shakespeare felt the same way,” the gambler told him, smiling.
“No kiddin’? Seems to me I heard of him. Ain’t he from down around El Paso?”
They chugged east the next morning, Smoke and York glad to be out of the hustle and bustle of it all. Louis waved good-bye to a dark-haired young woman who smiled and blushed as the train moved out of the station.
Louis settled back in his seat. “Ah, boys, the freshness and vitality of youth never ceases to amaze me.”
Smoke grinned. “I noticed you left the party very early last night, Louis. She certainly is lovely.”
But Louis would only smile in reply to questions.
They rolled on through the day and night, across Pennsylvania and into New York. In New York’s massive and confusing station, they were met by a large contingent of New York’s finest and personally escorted to the train heading to Springfield, with numerous stops along the way.
“It ain’t that we don’t respect fellow officers, boys,” the commander of the police unit said. “It’s just that your reputations precede you.” He looked at Smoke. “Especially yours, son.”
“Yes,” a fresh-fashed cop said. “Were it up to me, I would insist you remove those guns.”
Smoke stopped, halting the parade. He turned to face the helmeted cop. “And if refused?…”
The young cop was not in the least intimidated. “Then I would surely have to use force, laddy.”
Louis and York joined Smoke in a knowing smile. Smoke said, “You have a pencil in your pocket, officer. I can see it. Would you jerk it out as quickly as you can?”
The older and more wiser of the cops—and that was just about all of them—backed up, with many of them holding their hands out from their sides, smiles on their faces. A half-dozen reporters had gathered around and were scribbling furiously. Photographers were taking pictures.
“So we’re going to play games, eh, gunfighter?” the young cop asked.
“No. I’m going to show you how easy it is for a loud-mouth to get killed where I come from.”
The young officer flushed, and placed his thumb and forefinger on the end of the pencil, and jerked it out.
Smoke swept back his beaded buckskin jacket, exposing his guns. He slipped the hammer-thong of his right hand .44. “Want to try it again?”
The young officer got exactly half of the pencil out of his pocket before he was looking down the muzzle of Smoke’s .44.
“Do you get my point, officer?”
“Ah…’deed, I do, sir! As one fellow officer to another, might I say, sir, that you are awfully quick with that weapon.”
Smoke holstered. It was unlike him to play games with weapons, but he felt he might have saved the young man’s life with an object lesson. He held out his hand, and the cop smiled and shook it.
The rest of the walk to their car was an easy one, with chatter among men who found they all had something in common after all.
It was growing late when they finally detrained in Springfield. They stabled their horses and found a small hotel for the night.
The weeks on the road had honed away any city fat that might have built up on Louis and had burned his already dark complexion to that of a gypsy. They were big men, all over six feet, with a natural heavy musculature; they were the kind of men that bring out the hostility in a certain type of man, usually the bully.
And with the knowledge that Sally and the babies—twins, Smoke had discovered when he wired during a train refueling stop—were now in danger, none of the men were in any mood for taking any lip from some loudmouth.
They elected to have their supper in the hotel’s dining room to further avoid any trouble. As had been their custom, they wore their guns, and to hell with local laws. None of them knew when they might run into Davidson or Dagget or their ilk.
Louis had bought York a couple of suits in St. Louis, and Smoke had brought a suit with him. Longmont was never without a proper change of clothes; if he didn’t have one handy, he would buy one.
When the men entered the dining room, conversation ceased and all eyes were on them as they walked to their table, led by a very nervous waiter. With their spurs jingling and their guns tied down low, all three managed to look as out of place as a saddle on a tiger.
The three of them ignored several comments from some so-called “gentlemen”—comments that might have led to a fight anywhere west of the Mississippi—and were seated without incident.
Louis frowned at the rather skimpy selections on the menu, sighed, and decided to order a steak. The others did the same.
“Sorry we don’t have no buffalo here for you range-riders,” a man blurted from the table next to them. His friend laughed, and the women with them, hennaed and painted up and half drunk, also thought fat boy’s comments to be hysterically amusing.
Louis ignored the man, as did Smoke and York. “A drink before ordering, gentlemen?” a waiter magically appeared.
“I’m sure they’ll want rye, George,” the fat boy blurted. “That’s what I read that all cowboys drink. Before they take their semi-yearly bath, that is.”
His table erupted with laughter.
“I could move you to another table, gentlemen,” the waiter suggested. “That”—he cut his eyes to the man seated with fat boy and the woman—“is Bull Everton.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to us?” Smoke asked.
“He’s quite the bully,” the waiter whispered, leaning close. “He’s never been whipped.”
“That he’s admitted,” Louis commented dryly. “If he can’t fight any better than he can choose women, he must have never fought a man.”
Smoke and York both laughed at that.
“We’ll have Scotch,” Louis ordered.
“Yes, sir,” The waiter was glad to get away from the scene of what he presumed would soon be disaster for the western men.
“You take them damn guns off,” the voice rumbled to the men, “and I’ll show you what a real man can do.”
Smoke lifted his eyes to the source of the voice. Bull Everton. He surveyed the man. Even sitting, Smoke could see that the man was massive, with heavy shoulders and huge wrists and hands. But that old wildness sprang up within Smoke. Smoke had never liked a bully. He smiled at the scowling hulk.
“I’ll take them off anytime you’re ready, donkey-face,” he threw down the challenge and insult.
Bull stood up and he was big. “How about right now, cowboy? Outside.”
“Suits me, tub-butt.” Smoke stood up and unbuckled and utied, handing his guns to a waiter.
The waiter looked as though he’d just been handed a pair of rattlesnakes.
“Where is this brief contest to take place?” Louis asked Bull.
“Brief, is right,” Bu
ll laughed. “Out back of the hotel will do.”
“After you,” Smoke told him.
When the back door closed and Bull turned around, Smoke hit him flush in the mouth with a hard right and followed that with a vicious left to the wind. Before Bull could gather his senses, Smoke had hit him two more times, once to the nose and another hook to the body.
With blood dripping from his lips and nose, Bull hollered and charged. Smoke tripped him and hit him once on the way down, then kicked him in the stomach while he was down.
Smoke was only dimly aware of the small crowd that had gathered, several of the spectators dressed in the blue uniform of police officers. He did not hear one of the cops say to Louis, “I’ve been waiting to see Everton get his due for a long time, boys. Don’t worry. There will be no interference from us.”
Smoke backed up and allowed Bull to crawl to his feet. There was a light of fury and panic in the man’s eyes.
Bull lifted his hands in the classic boxer’s stance: left fist held almost straight out, right fist close to his jaw.
Smoke whirled and kicked the bully on his knee. Bull screamed in pain and Smoke hit him a combination of blows, to the belly, the face, the kidneys. Smoke trip-hammered his fists, brutalizing the bigger man, knocking him down, hauling him back up, and knocking him down again.
Bull grabbed Smoke’s knees and brought him down to the dirt of the alley. Pulling one leg free, Smoke savagely kicked the bully in the face. Teeth flew, glistening in the night.
Smoke pulled Bull to his feet and leaned him up against the rear wall, then went to work on the man’s belly and sides. Only after he had felt and heard several ribs break did he let the man fall unconscious to the ground.
“Drag Bull to the paddy wagon, boys,” the cop in charge ordered. “We’ll take him to the hospital. I can tell by looking that his jaw is broken, and I’ll wager half a dozen ribs are broken as well.” He looked at Smoke. “You don’t even look angry, young man.”
Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man) Page 41