Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man Savage Territory

by William W. Johnstone

  “Why should I keep her?” Delshay replied “She is of no value to me.”

  “She took my medicine,” Nalyudi said. “You cannot let her go without allowing me to recover my medicine.”

  “And how would you do this?”

  Nalyudi looked at Matt. “I will fight the white man for her. If I defeat him, she will become my woman. If he defeats me, she leaves with him.”

  “You would do this thing?” Delshay asked Nalyudi, speaking in English now.

  “Yes,” Nalyudi replied, also in English. “If the white man is not a coward.”

  Matt realized then that they were talking about him, but the realization didn’t surprise him. He had surmised as much during their conversation, even though he not understood one word.

  “Mountain Lion Woman called you Jensen,” Delshay said. “Is that your name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jensen, Nalyudi wishes to fight you,” Delshay said, indicating the big Indian. “If he wins, Mountain Lion Woman will be his woman. If you win, she will be your woman.”

  Matt looked at Nalyudi, who was glaring at him. This wasn’t going to be a mere sporting exhibition. In all likelihood, this was going to be a fight to the death because Nalyudi was filled with hatred, though Matt had no idea why. However, if this was the only way he would be able to rescue Cynthia Bixby, then so be it.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll fight him.”

  Nalyudi explained the rules of the fight. They would each be armed with a war club. They would both have to keep one end of a strip of rawhide, five feet long, in their mouths at all times. This would insure that they maintained close contact during the fight. If one of them let the rawhide strip out of his mouth, he would be required to lay down his club.

  Matt nodded his agreement and Delshay presented each of them with a war club, then a long piece of rawhide. The two men put the ends of the rawhide strip in their mouths, then jumped apart to the maximum separation the length of rawhide would allow.

  Nalyudi moved in first. He held the club over his head with both hands and as he approached, he brought it down sharply.

  Matt barely managed to leap to one side as the war club came down. The miss left Nalyudi exposed, but because Matt had to move so quickly to get out of the way, he was unable to take advantage of the situation. Instantly, both men separated again.

  Nalyudi swung again, and this time Matt was ready for him. He blocked Nalyudi’s war club with his own. The clash of clubs echoed from the nearby bluffs. Recovering quickly, Matt swung at Nalyudi, but the big Indian was much quicker, and more agile than Matt would have thought. Matt’s swing found only thin air. Nalyudi swung in response, and his club connected with Matt’s, jerking it out of his hand. Matt suddenly found himself unarmed!

  With a victorious smile, Nalyudi began taunting Matt. He made a couple of jabs with his war club, catching Matt in the face with one of his thrusts. That prod opened up a three-corner tear and blood began streaming down Matt’s cheek.

  Nalyudi could have ended the fight by closing in on him and bringing the war club down to crush Matt’s skull. But he was enjoying himself too much, and confidently, tauntingly, he began tossing his own war club from hand to hand.

  That was where Nalyudi made his biggest mistake. The hand that could so quickly draw a pistol had no difficulty in reaching out to snatch the war club in mid-toss. It happened so fast that those who were watching, even Nalyudi, were unaware of the sudden change in fortune. Now it was Nalyudi who was unarmed.

  Matt jabbed the war club into Nalyudi’s solar plexus. That had the effect of knocking the breath out of Nalyudi, and folding both his hands across his stomach, he bent over in an agonized attempt to breathe. At that point, all Matt would have had to do to kill him would be to bring the war club down on Nalyudi’s head, for the big Indian was totally defenseless.

  Matt started the swing, but stopped it just short of hitting him. Instead, he touched Nalyudi’s head as if counting coups. Then he spat out the end of the rawhide strip, tossed the war club aside, and motioned toward Cynthia.

  “Come, Mrs. Bixby, I’ll take you home,” he said.

  Gratefully, Cynthia ran to him. Just before she reached him, though, she turned back to Chandeisi.

  “Good-bye, Chandeisi, my friend,” she called. “Thank you for protecting me.”

  “Good-bye, Cynthia Bixby,” Chandeisi replied.

  Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and looking around, Matt saw Delshay holding his hand over a wound in his chest. Nalyudi was holding a smoking rifle, and with an evil smile, he pointed it at Matt.

  Three more shots rang out, and Nalyudi went down, felled by bullets from the rifles of Chandeisi, Cochinay, and Nopoloto. Matt realized then that the three Indians had saved his life. Their action was too late, however, to save Delshay, who lay dead where he had fallen.

  “Go now,” Nopoloto said. “You will not be harmed.”

  “Come along, Mrs. Bixby. We’re going to have to ride double, I’m afraid,” Matt said. “But Spirit is a good strong horse, he’ll be able to handle it.”

  “I have a horse,” Cynthia said.

  “You have a horse?”

  “It is one I have been riding,” Cynthia said. “It is my horse, is it not?” she asked Chandeisi.

  Chandeisi nodded. “It is your horse,” he said.

  “I told you the son of a bitch would find her,” Willis said when he saw Matt and Cynthia on the road returning to Phoenix. With him were two of the men who had been a part of his posse, Karl Lathum and Angus Pugh. “All we have to do now is kill Jensen and take the girl.”

  “What good will that do us?” Lathum asked. “Bixby said he wasn’t goin’ to pay no reward. You heard that same as I did.”

  “We ain’t takin’ her for no reward,” Willis said. “We’re takin’ her for ransom. All we got to do is tell Bixby that if he wants to ever see her alive again, he’s goin’ to have to come up with that ten thousand dollars.”

  “Where are we going to hit Jensen?” Pugh asked.

  “At Weaver’s Needle,” Willis answered.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Matt knew what it was as soon as he heard it—the whizzing sound of a bullet frying the air but inches away from his head. That sound was followed immediately by the bark of a rifle.

  “What was that?” Cynthia said.

  Matt didn’t answer. Instead, he leaped from Spirit and, in the same motion, grabbed Cynthia, pulling her from her horse. With one hand, he slapped the rumps of the two horses to get them out of danger, and with his other, he pushed the protesting Cynthia behind a rocky ledge. Two more bullets whipped by, one of them hitting a rock, then singing loudly as it ricocheted out into the desert.

  By now, Cynthia realized what was going on, and she neither fought nor protested his action.

  “Who is shooting at us?” Cynthia asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Matt said.

  He raised up to take a look and, just as he did, he saw the white puff of smoke from two rifles. Both bullets came uncomfortably close.

  “Stay here and stay down,” Matt said. “No matter what you see, or think you see, don’t move.”

  “All right,” Cynthia agreed.

  Matt got up, then ran across an open area toward a ridgeline that was closer to the spot where the firing was coming from. As he expected them to, the assailants fired again; this time three shots were fired.

  “Uhnn!” Matt grunted, grabbing his stomach as he went down. Cynthia screamed.

  “Mr. Jensen, no!” she cried.

  Willis, Lathum, and Pugh stared at Matt’s motionless body.

  “We got ’im,” Lathum said.

  “Maybe,” Willis replied.

  “What do you mean maybe?” Lathum said. “You seen ’im go down same as I did. Besides, I had a perfect bead on him. I know I hit him. He’s deader’n shit, if you ask me.”

  “I hit him, too,” Pugh said.

  “Well, I’m glad I�
��m with two excellent shots,” Willis said.

  “Hell, Willis, we don’t mean nothin’ by that,” Lathum said. “It’s just that we both know the son of a bitch is dead, and we don’t know why we’re waitin’ around up here. Let’s go down there and get the woman, then take her in town and get the money.”

  “Yeah,” Pugh said.

  “All right, go down there and check him out,” Willis said. “If he’s dead, we’ll get the girl and take her back, then get the money.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Lathum said with a broad grin.

  Carefully, the two men climbed down from their perch a short way up the wall behind Weaver’s Needle. Then, with pistols at the ready, they started across the rocky valley floor toward Matt’s prostrate form.

  “Be careful now,” Pugh said.

  “What’s there to be careful about?” Lathum replied. “You seen him go down, same as I did. Hell, he ain’t even twitched in the last five minutes. There can’t nobody lie that long without at least twitching if he ain’t dead.”

  Matt heard the sound of boots on rock as the two men approached him. He had hoped his ruse would bring out all three, but if it brought only two, that would at least even up the odds between him and whoever else was shooting at him.

  “Wait right here,” Lathum said.

  “Wait for what?”

  “Let’s put a bullet in his head, just to make sure.”

  Matt heard the hammers come back on the two pistols, and he waited but an instant before he suddenly threw himself into a roll to his right.

  His timing had been perfect—both Lathum and Pugh fired at the same instant he had rolled. The two bullets plowed into the rocky ground where he had been but an instant before. Matt fired twice, the shots coming so close together that it sounded as if there had been only one shot.

  Lathum and Pugh went down, both of them dead before they hit the ground.

  “Matt!” Cynthia called out, relieved to see that he had not been killed.

  “Cynthia, stay where you are!” Matt shouted back. He hoped to get a shot at the third assailant, but the sound of retreating hoofbeats told him that whoever it was was running away.

  The sun was setting and the shadows were long when Matt and Cynthia rode down Central Street in Phoenix. They were recognized as soon as they rode into town, and by the time they reached the hotel, nearly one hundred people had turned out to welcome her back.

  Bixby and Hendel were standing in front of the hotel, and the expressions on their faces could not have possibly been further apart. Hendel’s expression was of absolute joy. Bixby wore an expression of disgust.

  “I hope you don’t think you are going to get a reward for this,” Bixby said. He smiled, a humorless smile. “Remember, you are the one who asked me to withdraw the reward.”

  “I did not bring her back for the reward,” Matt replied.

  “Why did you bring her back at all?”

  “What? Bixby, what are you saying?” Hendel gasped.

  “Look at her, dressed like an Indian and filthy,” Bixby said. “She is soiled goods. If she had any sense of self-respect, she would have killed herself before she let those filthy Indians touch her.”

  Matt was about to tell Bixby that the Indians didn’t touch her, but Cynthia held her hand out to stop him. “Is that what you truly think, Jay?” she asked. “Do you think that just because I was with the Indians, I am soiled goods?”

  “Indeed I do,” Bixby said coldly. “I want nothing more to do with you. When we return to New York, I will have my lawyer draw up a bill of divorcement.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Bixby,” Ken Hendel said in a calm and resolute voice.

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “I would remind you, Mr. Bixby, that the money you have been so freely spending is in fact Cynthia’s money.”

  “Cynthia’s money?” Bixby replied. He chuckled. “For an accountant, you have a lot to learn. Once we were married, the money became mine.”

  Hendel shook his head. “I am afraid you are wrong, sir. By arrangement with her late father, I constructed the estate in such a way as to fully protect Mrs. Bixby. If you divorce her, you will lose everything.”

  “Well, I didn’t really mean to divorce her, I was just expressing my displeasure over—” Bixby started to say, but he was unable to finish the sentence because a dark hole suddenly appeared in his forehead and he fell back, dead from a bullet to his brain.

  “Jensen, you son of a bitch!” Pogue Willis shouted from the far end of the street. “That was meant for you!”

  “Cynthia, Hendel, get down!” Matt shouted, drawing his pistol.

  Hendel pushed Cynthia down, then lay on top of her, protecting her body with his as more bullets flew by.

  Cynthia and Hendel weren’t the only ones to get out of danger. Those who had gathered on the street to welcome Cynthia back from the Indians suddenly found themselves in the middle of a gun battle, and with curses and screams, they hurried to either side of the street to get out of the way.

  Once the street was cleared, only Matt and Willis remained, and they found themselves facing each other about twenty-five yards apart. Both had their pistols in their hands, but Willis held up his left hand.

  “Put your gun in your holster, Jensen,” Willis said. “If we’re goin’ to do this, let’s do it right. I know damn well I can beat you.” Willis holstered his own gun.

  “What good would it do you if you do beat me?” Matt asked, putting his pistol in his holster. “The entire town just saw you murder Bixby. I’m either going to kill you, or you’re going to hang, one or the other.”

  “Yeah, that’s just it,” Willis said. “I ain’t goin’ to hang.” Without a call, Willis dipped his hand toward his pistol. Because he hadn’t called it, he had a moment’s advantage over Matt, and his gun was in his hand as quickly as was Matt’s.

  They fired simultaneously.

  Willis allowed a satisfied smile to play across his face. “You weren’t all that fast,” he said.

  The smile left his face, to be replaced by an expression of pain. Then he fell forward, facedown in the dirt.

  “No, but I was more accurate,” Matt said as he slipped the pistol back into the holster.

  Two days later

  The westbound train was sitting at the Maricopa depot, venting steam. As Matt walked through a cloud of steam, he saw Cynthia standing alone.

  “Mr. Jensen, oh, how wonderful, you did come to tell us good-bye,” Cynthia said. “I knew you would.”

  “Where is Ken?”

  “He’s with Mr. Prufrock,” Cynthia said. “We have had Jay embalmed. We are taking him back to New York.”

  “Here he comes,” Matt said.

  Hendel came up to join them then and, unabashedly, he put his arm around Cynthia.

  “Is everything taken care of, darling?” Cynthia asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Prufrock has been invaluable,” Hendel said. “He has made arrangements to ship the body all the way through back to New York.”

  “I see that there has been a change in your relationship,” Matt said, indicating the fact that they were standing together with Hendel’s arm around Cynthia.

  “A change in the relationship,” Hendel said, “but not a change in the way we feel about each other. It turns out that my love for Cynthia was not unrequited.”

  “I felt trapped in the marriage with Jay,” Cynthia said. “I was only able to survive by knowing that Ken was always there by my side. I feel just awful about poor Jay getting killed, but—”

  “Life must go on,” Matt said.

  Ken nodded. “Yes, life must go on,” he said. “We will wait a respectable length of time. Then we will be married.”

  “Board!” the conductor shouted.

  “We must go,” Cynthia said. She turned toward the train, then turned back and hugged Matt. “Thank you, Mr. Jensen,” she said. “I don’t know what would have become of us if it hadn’t been for you. If you are ever
in New York, please know that you will be welcome.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Board!” the conductor called again, and Ken and Cynthia stepped up onto the train. Ken glanced back one more time and waved at Matt.

  Matt waited in the station until the train left. Then he mounted Spirit and headed north. He had no particular destination in mind, but it was late fall, and he wanted to get on the trail before an early winter snow closed the passes.

  Cotton Pickens Is Back!

  The reluctant hero of William W. Johnstone’s classic Blood Valley is back in an all-new adventure!

  SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY

  by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone Coming in May 2009

  Be sure to look for these other upcoming Johnstone Westerns:

  THE LAST GUNFIGHTER: SLAUGHTER Coming in March 2009!

  BLOOD BOND: DEADLY ROAD TO Y UMA Coming in April 2009!

  Chapter One

  Them shots across the mountain valley kind of interested me. There was a crackle of shots, and then an answering boom from some heavier artillery. But that boom wasn’t on the breeze much, compared to all that crackle and snap.

  Curiosity got the best of me. That’s my weakness. I turned Critter, my ornery nag, toward the ruckus, thinking I’d at least find out who’s shooting at what. Me, I’m a sucker for that stuff and I didn’t have much to do. Maybe I’d get to drill a few rounds myself.

  But I sort of doubted it. I was thinkin’ it was another claim-jumping. This here valley had seen some pretty fancy claim-jumping last few months. That was all anyone talked about at Swamp Creek, the little mining town maybe fifty miles south of Butte that was the heart of this gold mining district.

  “Critter,” I says, “that’s a bunch of lead flying around, and it sounds like a dozen’s ganged up on one, from the way the noise is coming at me.”

  Critter, he farted. He never did give me much credit for being smart.

  I sort of wrestled with myself as I headed that direction. What was some cowboy doing getting into a mining war? But I hadn’t been practicing cowmanship for a while now, and thought maybe there might be a job ahead, forty dollars and found, so I proceeded. It was a right peaceful valley, full of sunlight and pine scent on the wind. These here were the Pioneer Mountains, and there were more little gold mines being sunk in the rock hereabouts than I could count. Swamp Creek, the town, sort of mushroomed into a canvas-and-rough plank place overnight, and now all sorts of entertaining types were digging in there, mostly to mine the miners.