Code of the Mountain Man (12 page)

“You put that gun up, and I'll do that.” The voice was closer, and coming from a different location each time.

Damn, Slim thought. The man moves like a ghost. And I know that voice from somewheres. “Deal.” Slim holstered his gun, thinking that if the man was planning to kill him, he'd have done so already.

“Turn around.” The voice came from behind him.

Slim turned, and felt his stomach do a slow roll-over. He was facing Smoke Jensen. “Hello, Smoke. It's been a long time. Years.”

“You should have stayed home, Slim,” Smoke told him.

“Man's got to make a livin', Smoke.”

“You know damn well those warrants out on me are bogus. You're a man-hunter, Slim. Out for the money. I got no use for scum like you.”

“You ain't got no call to talk to me like that, Smoke. This ain't nothin' personal 'tween us. You've kilt more'un your share of men. You ain't no better than I am.”

“We'll let God be the judge of that, Slim. You came looking for me, now you've found me. Make your play.”

Slim began to sweat. He hadn't planned on this. He'd planned on back-shootin' Smoke. His tongue snaked out to wet dry lips. “We can deal, Jensen. I can just ride on out of here and not look back.”

“That's the same deal you made with the breed, Cloudwalker. Then you shot him in the back, all the time knowing he was an innocent man.”

“Hell, Smoke, he was a damn Injun!”

“He was an innocent man. I've stayed with Crows and Utes and Sioux and Cheyenne. I have a lot of good Indian friends. It doesn't make any difference to me if a man is red, white, Negro, or Oriental.”

“Don't preach to me, Jensen!” Slim got his dander up. “I don't need no goddamn gunslick sermonizin' to me.”

“Draw, Slim!”

Slim grabbed for iron. Smoke's .44 slug caught him dead center in his chest and knocked him back against a tree. He finally managed to pull iron, and Smoke's second shot tore into his belly.

Slim screamed as the .44 slug ripped through his innards like a white-hot branding iron. His .44 dropped from dying fingers. He slumped to the cool ground.

“You gonna bury me proper, ain't you, Jensen?” he gasped the question.

“I'll toss some branches and rocks over you, Slim. I don't have a shovel.”

“I hate you, Jensen!”

“I don't understand that, Slim. What did I ever do to you to cause you to hate me?”

“Jist ... bein' . . . you!” Slim closed his eyes and died.

Smoke went through Slim's pockets before he piled branches and rocks over the body to discourage smaller animals, all the while knowing that a bear could, and probably would, rip it apart in seconds. He would give the money to some needy family. There was no indication that Slim had a family. Smoke shoved one of Slim's .44s behind his gunbelt and kept the other one in leather, hanging on his saddle horn. He inspected the late Slim's Winchester .44-.40. It was in excellent condition, and this one had an extra rear sight, located several inches behind the hammer, for greater accuracy. He found three boxes of .44-.40s in the saddlebags. Slim also had a nice poke of food: some bacon and bread and biscuits and three cans of beans that would come in handy on the trail.

Smoke hesitated, then carved Slim's name on the tree that towered over the man. He put the date below the name and mounted up and pulled out, knowing that shots carry far in the high thin air of the lonesome.

He stopped once, looking back at Slim Williams' final resting place. “You should have picked another line of work, Slim. That's about the best I can say for you. God's gonna have the final word anyway”

“Them was shots,” Crocker said. “Come from over yonder.” He pointed. “Let's go!”

“That's Horton's assigned area,” Graham said.

“Hell with Horton,” Crocker blew away the myth about honor among thieves. “Don't you want that money? Man, that's five thousand apiece if we cut it up.”

“What'd you mean: if we cut it up?” Causey asked.

“All right, when we cut it up. Does that make you feel better?”

“Let's ride!” Woody said. “Damn all this jibber-jabber. Smoke'll be in the next county 'fore we get done talkin'.”

They found where Smoke had carved Slim's date of death in the tree.

“Knowed him,” Dale said. “He was good with a gun.”

“Not good enough,” Haynes summed it up. “Let's drag him out and go through his pockets.”

The men tore away the rocks and branches and searched the stiffening form of Slim. They found nothing of value. Woody did take the man's boots, putting them on and throwing his worn-out boots by the body. They left Slim sprawled on the ground, one big toe sticking out of the hole in his dirty sock.

A bear came lumbering out of the timber and sniffed the dead man. He dragged Slim off a few hundred yards and covered him up with branches. When Slim ripened some he would be back for a meal.

* * *

“Hey, old man!” the young man called out to Charlie Starr, as Charlie sipped his whiskey prior to hitting the saddle for the high lonesome.

Charlie ignored him.

“I'm talkin' to you, old shaggy-haired thing you!”

Most of the men in the crowded saloon were chance-takers and gamblers and gun-hands and bounty hunters. None of them knew the gray-haired man with the tied down guns, the wooden handles worn smooth, but they could sense danger all around him.

Charlie took a small sip of his whiskey—holding the glass in his left hand—and decided to wait it out. He'd been around for a long time, and knew there was a chance—albeit a small one—that he could avoid having to deal with this young smart-mouth. Maybe his friends would sit him down. Maybe.

“Damn!” the young gunslick yelled. “His hair's so shaggy it's blockin' his ears. Maybe we ought to give him a haircut.”

We! Charlie thought. More than one. But maybe his friends will stay out of it. Maybe.

“Bobby ...” a young man said, pulling at the young smart-mouth's arm.

“Shut up!” Bobby said. “You don't have the balls for this, stay out of it.”

Charlie sipped his drink. The whiskey tasted good after the dust of the road. He'd been a hard-drinkin' man in his younger days. Now he enjoyed just an occasional drink, liked to linger over it. In peace. Young Bobby was pushing. Hard. Just a few more words and he would step over the line. Charlie hoped the young man would just sit down and shut up.

“Goddamn mangy old fart!” Bobby yelled. “You wear them two guns like you think you're hot stuff. Turn around and prove it!”

There it was, Charlie thought. He would have liked to just finish his drink and walk out the door. But the code demanded that he do otherwise.

No, Charlie corrected that. It wasn't just the code. It was much more than that. It came with manhood. It was part of maintaining one's self-respect. It ...

Larry Tibbson walked down the rickety stairs and stepped into the barroom.

. . . was just something that a man had to do. Right or wrong, and Charlie had thoughts about that, it just had to be.

“I called for hot water!” Larry said.

“Shut up and git out of the way,” the bartender told him.

“You goddamn old turd!” Bobby hollered. “Turn around and face me.”

“What on earth is taking place here?” Larry asked, looking around him. “And where is my hot water. I want to take a bath.”

The barkeep reached over the bar and pulled Larry to the far end of the long bar. “Shet your trap, boy,” he told Larry. “Lead's a-fixin' to fly.”

Charlie finished his drink and slowly set the glass on the bar. He turned around, his hands by his side. “Go home, boy,” he told Bobby. “I ain't lookin' for trouble.”

“Well, you got it!” Bobby told him.

“Why?” Charlie asked. “I don't know you. I never seen you before in my life. Why me?”

“ 'Cause I think you maybe believe you're a gunhawk, that's why.”

“Son, I was handlin' guns years before you were born. Now why don't you just sit down and finish yur drink, and I'll just walk out the bats?”

“Yellow!” Bobby sneered at him. “The old man's yellow. He's afraid of Bobby Zones.”

Charlie smiled. “I never heard of you, Bobby. Are you lookin' for a reputation? Is that it?”

“I got a rep!”

“I ain't never seen none of your graveyards, boy.”

“You just ain't looked in the right place. As far as that goes, where's your graveyards?”

“All over the land, son. From Canada to Mexico. From Missouri to California.”

“You say!”

“That's right, son. I say.”

Earl Sutcliffe pushed open the batwings and stood there, sizing up the situation. “What's the trouble here?”

“Stay out of this, marshal,” Bobby said. “This is between me and this old goat here.”

“You know who that old goat is?” Earl asked.

“Don't make no difference to me. I don't like this old coot's looks, and I told him so. He's afraid of me.

Earl laughed. “Boy, that man is not afraid of anything. That's Charlie Starr.”

Bobby looked like a horse just kicked him in the belly. His face turned white and sweat popped out on his forehead. But he had made his bed—or in this case, dug his grave—and now he would be forced to lie in it. Unless he backed down.

“Give it up, son,” Earl told him. “Sit down and live.”

Bobby's hands hovered over the pearl handles of his brand new matching .45s. Those raggedly-looking guns of Charlie's looked to Bobby like they was so old they probably wouldn't even fire. Looked like they'd been converted from cap and ball to handle brass cartridges.

Bobby stepped down into the damp, chilly grave he'd just dug for himself. “You're yellow, old man!” he shouted. “Charlie Starr's done turned yellow. You're standin' on your reputation, and I'm gonna be the man who jerks it out from under you.”

Charlie straightened up, his mouth tight and his face grim. Earl knew it was nearly over. A man can only take so much, and Charlie had given the young punk more than ample opportunity to back down. “Enough talk,” Charlie said. “Make your play, you stupid little snot.”

“Here now!” Larry said. “This has gone entirely too far. You there,” he said to Charlie. “You stop picking on that boy.”

“Shut up,” Earl told him.

Louis Longmont, Johnny North, and Cotton Pickens had walked into the saloon, standing on either side of Earl. “Fifty dollars says the kid never clears leather,” Louis offered up a wager.

“You're on,” a young man at the table where Bobby should have stayed seated said. “That there's Bobby Jones. He's faster than Smoke Jensen.”

“He couldn't lick Smoke's boots,” Charlie said.

“What!” Bobby screamed. “Draw, you old fart!”

“After you, boy,” Charlie told him. “I don't ever want it said that I took advantage of a young punk.”

“I ain't no punk!”

“Then show that you're a man by sittin' down and lettin' me buy you a drink. That's my final offer, son.

“You mean, that's your final statement. 'Cause I'm gonna kill you, Starr.”

“That's it,” Louis muttered. He knew, as did everyone else in the bar, that those words, once spoken, were justification to kill.

Charlie shot him. His draw was so smooth, so practiced, so fast, so professional, that it was a blur to witness. Flame shot out the muzzle of his old long-barreled .44. Gray smoke belched forth, obscuring vision. Bobby was jarred back as the slug ripped his belly and wandered around his guts, leaving a path of pain wherever it traveled.

He imagined himself jacking the hammer back on his .45 and pulling the trigger. He actually did just that. But his guns were still in leather. He leaned against a support post and finally dragged iron.

Charlie let him cock his .45 before he put another slug in the punk's guts. Bobby yelled and slumped toward the floor, sliding down the post and sitting down heavily. He pulled the trigger and blew off several of his own toes. He screamed in pain and tried to lift the .45. It was just too heavy.

The .45 clattered to the littered floor.

“By God,” one of Bobby's friends declared. “That'll not go unavenged.” He stood up, a pistol in his hand.

Charlie drilled him in the brisket and doubled the young man over like the closing of a fan. The young man fell, landing on Bobby.

Bobby screamed in pain.

“You still owe me fifty dollars,” Louis reminded the gut-shot punk who'd wanted revenge for Bobby.

“Help me!” the second punk bellered. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy, my belly's on fire.”

“My God!” Larry yelled. “Somebody get a doctor and call the police.”

He was ignored.

Bobby's other friends sat quite still at the table, their faces a sickly shade of green.

“Gimme a drink and one of them eggs over yonder,” Charlie told the bartender. “Shootin' always makes me hungry.”

“You barbarian!” Larry yelled at him.

Charlie noticed the man wasn't wearing a gun, so he did the next best thing. He walked over to him and slapped Larry across the mouth, knocking him down.

“I'll sue you!” Larry hollered.

Bobby broke wind and died.

His friend yelled, “Help me!”

Charlie punched out his empties, loaded up full, holstered his gun, and began peeling the egg.

“Somebody run fetch that new undertaker feller that just set up business down the street,” the barkeep suggested. “I wanna see that shiny black hearse and them fancy-steppin' horses.”

“You're all mad!” Larry said, getting to his shoes. “Somebody get a doctor for that poor boy.”

“Ain't no doctor,” a man told him. “Go get the barber.”

“The barber!” Larry exclaimed in horror.

“There's a Ute medicine man down on the La Jara. But that young pup'll done be swelled up and stinkin' something awful time he gets here. That old Ute's pretty good, but I ain't never heard of him raisin' the dead.”

“Halp!” the second punk yelled.

His voice was getting weaker.

“Won't be long now,” Earl said, bending over the gut-shot young man. “Where's your next of kin, lad?”

“I don't wanna die!”

“Then you should have chosen your companions with a bit more care. Next of kin?”

“I got a sister up in Denver. But she threw me out a couple of years ago.”

The batwings flapped open, and a man dressed all in black stood in the space. “I heard shooting!”

“My, but your hearing is quite keen,” Earl commented drily.

“I am the Reverend Silas Muckelmort. A minister of the gospel. I have come to this town to bring the word of God to the sinners who lust for blood money. Has that young man passed?” He pointed to Bobby.

“Cold as a hammer,” Cotton told him.

“Then it is my duty to tend to his needs,” the Rev. Muckelmort said.

“You keep your shit-snatchers off my body!” a small man dressed in a dark suit said, stepping into the barroom. “I'm the undertaker in town.”

“His spiritual needs, you jackass!” Silas thundered.

“Pass the salt and pepper,” Charlie told the barkeep. “I can't eat an egg without salt and pepper.”

* * *

Smoke holed up in the most inhospitable place he could find, very near the timber line, knowing the outlaws would, most likely, find the most comfortable spot they could to bed down for the night. He had already found a spot he would use to leave his horses, in an area so remote it would be pure chance if anyone stumbled upon them. Tomorrow he would ride there and leave them, packing on his back what he felt he would need in his fight against the bounty hunters and the Lee Slater gang.

Smoke rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. The next several days were going to be busy ones.

He was up and riding before dawn, having committed to memory the trail to the cul-de-sac where he would leave the horses. He was there by mid-morning. He transplanted several bushes over to the small opening and carefully watered them. To get to the opening, he had to ride behind a thick stand of timber, then angle around a huge boulder, and finally take a left into the lush little valley of about ten acres with a small pool next to a sheer rock wall. The grass was belly high in places; ample feed for the horses for some time. If he did not return, they could easily find their way out.

Smoke put together a pack whose weight would have staggered the average man. He picked it up with his left hand.

He sat for a time eating a cold ... what was it Sally called a mid-morning meal? Brunch, yeah, that was it, and wishing he had a potful of hot, strong, black coffee. But he couldn't chance that. He would hike a few miles and then have a hot dinner—lunch, Sally called it—and drink a whole a pot of strong cowboy coffee. He wanted the scum and crud to see that smoke. He wanted them to come right to that spot. By the time they got there, he would have a few surprises laid out for them.

He walked over and spoke with Buck for a few moments. Rubbing his muzzle and talking gently to the big horse. Buck seemed to understand, but then, everybody thinks that of their pets and their riding horses. Shotgun, the pack animal, and Buck watched Smoke pick up his heavy pack and leave. When he was out of sight, they returned to their grazing.