Trail of the Mountain Man (17 page)

The sharp odor of sweat mingled with blood and gunsmoke filled the summer air as four men stepped out into the death-street.

Richards, Potter, and Stratton stood at one end of the block. A tall, bloody figure stood at the other. All guns were in leather.

“You son of a bitch!” Stratton lost his cool and screamed, his voice as high-pitched as an hysterical girl's. “You ruined it all!” He clawed for his .44.

Smoke drew, cocked, and fired before Stratton's pistol could clear leather.

Screaming his outrage, Potter jerked out his pistol. Smoke shot him dead with his left-hand Colt. Holstering both Colts, Smoke faced Richards and waited.

Richard had not moved. He stood with a faint smile on his lips, staring at Smoke.

“You ready to die?” Smoke asked him.

“As ready as I'll ever be.” There was no fear in his voice that Smoke could detect. Richards was good with a short gun, and Smoke kept that in mind. Richards's hands were steady. “Janey gone?”

“Took your money and pulled out.”

Richards laughed. “Well, it's been a long run, hasn't it Smoke?”

“It's just about over.”

“What happens to all our — ” He looked down at his dead partners. “ —
my
holdings?”

“I don't care what happens to the mines. The miners can have them. I'm giving all your stock to decent honest punchers and homesteaders.”

A puzzled look crawked over Richards's face. “I don't understand. You mean, you did all ...
this!”
He waved his left hand. “For nothing?”

Someone moaned, the sound painfully inching up the bloody, dusty, gunsmoke-filled street.

“I did it for my pa, my brother, my wife, and my baby son. You, or your hired guns, killed them all.”

“But it won't bring them back!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I wish I had never heard the name of Jensen.”

“After this day, Richards, you'll never hear it again.”

“One way to find out,” he replied with a smile, and went for his Colt. He cleared leather fast and fired. He was snake-quick, but he hurried his shot, the lead digging up dirt at Smoke's feet.

Smoke shot him in the right shoulder, spinning the man around. Richards drew his left-hand gun and Smoke fired again, the slug striking the man in the left side of his chest. He struggled to bring up his Colt. He managed to cock it before Smoke's third shot struck him in the belly. Richards sat down in the street, the pistol slipping from suddenly numbed fingers.

He opened his mouth to speak, and tasted blood on his tongue. The light began to fade around him. “You'll ... meet ...”

Smoke never found out, that day, who he was supposed to meet. Richards toppled over on his side and died.

Smoke looked up at the ridge where the Mountain Men had gathered.

They were gone, leaving as silently as the wind.

And to this day, he had never seen or heard from any of them again.

“You been gone a time, boy,” Marshal Mitchell said.

Smoke sighed. “Just a few years. Bloody ones, though.”

He told the marshal about that day in the ghost town.

“I never knew the straight of it, Smoke. But you did play hell back then. That person Richards told you you'd meet?”

“Yeah?”

“He was talkin' about the man who will be faster than you. We who live by the gun all have them in our future.”

Smoke nodded his head. “Yeah, I know. And yeah, I know who would pay to see me dead.”

“Oh?”

“My sister. Janey.”

“Your own sister would pay to have you killed!” Bountiful said, appalled at just the thought. “How dreadful. What kind of person is she?”

Ralph and Bountiful were having supper with Smoke and Sally. “She must have a lot of hate in her heart,” Ralph said.

“I reckon,” Smoke said. “Well, I'll just have to be more careful and keep looking over my shoulder from now on.” He smiled. “That's something I'm used to doing.”

Then he remembered Utah Slim. The man had aligned with no side in the mountain country war. No, Smoke thought, he didn't have to. He already had a job.

U.S. Marshal Mitchell had told Smoke that his office had received word that a gunslick had been paid to kill Jensen. But none of their usual sources could, or would, shed any light on who that gunslick might be.

Or why.

Smoke felt he knew the answer to both questions.

Utah Slim.

“You've got a funny look in your eyes, Smoke,” Sally said, looking at her husband.

“I'm not going to sit around and wait for a bullet, Sally. I just made up my mind on that.”

“I felt that was coming too.”

“What are you two talking about?” Bountiful asked.

“A showdown,” Smoke told her, buttering a biscuit. He chewed slowly, then said, “Might as well brace him in the morning and get it over with.”

Ralph and Bountiful stopped eating and sat staring at the young gunfighter. Ralph said, “You're discussing this with no more emotion than if you were talking about planting beets!”

“No point in gettin' all worked up about it, Ralph. If I try to avoid it, it just prolongs the matter, and maybe some innocent person gets caught up in it and gets hurt. I told you and your friends a time back that we do things differently out here. And I'm not so sure that it isn't the best way.”

“In the morning?”

“In the morning.”

“I'll go in with you,” the minister-turned-farmer said. His tone indicated the matter was not up for debate.

“All right, Ralph.”

 

 

Ralph was a surprisingly good horseman, and Smoke said as much.

“I was raised on a farm,” he said. “And I'm also a very good rifle shot.”

“I noticed you putting the Henry in the boot this morning.”

The morning was very clear and very bright as the two men rode toward Fontana. As they worked their way out of the mountains and toward the long valley where Fontana was located, the temperature grew warmer.

“Ever shot a man, Ralph?”

“No.”

“Could you?”

“Don't ever doubt it.”

Smoke smiled faintly. He didn't doubt it for a minute.

The town of Fontana seemed to both men to be a bit smaller. Ralph commented on that.

“The easy pickings have been found and taken out, Ralph. For however long this vein will last, it's going to be hard work, dirty work, and dangerous work. Look yonder. One whole section of Fontana is gone. Half a dozen bars have pulled out.”

“Why...” Ralph's eyes swept the visibly shrinking town that lay below them. “At this rate, there will be nothing left of Fontana by the end of summer.”

“If that long,” Smoke said, a note of satisfaction in his statement. “If we all can just settle the matter of Tilden Franklin, then we can all get on with the business of living.”

“And it will have to be settled by guns.” Ralph's remark was not put in question form. The man was rapidly learning about the unwritten code of the West.

“Yes.”

Smoke reined up in front of Sheriff Monte Carson's office. The men dismounted and walked toward the bullet-scarred stone building. As they entered, Monte smiled and greeted them.

His smile faded as he noted the hard look in Smoke's eyes.

“I've had that same look a few times myself, Smoke,” Monte said. “Gonna be a shootin'?”

“Looks that way, Monte. I'd rather not have it in town if I can help it.”

“I'd appreciate that, Smoke. But sometimes it can't be helped. I got to thinkin' after talkin' with that marshal. It's Utah Slim, ain't it?”

“Yeah.” Smoke poured a tin cup of coffee and sat down. “I got a strong hunch my sister hired him to gun me.”

“Your ...
sister?”

Smoke told him the story of Janey. Or at least as much as he knew about her life since she'd taken off from that hard-scrabble, rocky, worthless farm in the hills of Missouri. Back when Smoke was just a boy, after their ma had died, when their pa was off fighting in the War Between the States. And Smoke had had to shoulder the responsibilities of a boy forced into early manhood.

It was a story all too common among those who drifted West.

It sounded all too painfully familiar to Monte Carson, almost paralleling his own life.

“I seen Utah early this mornin', sittin' on the hotel porch.” He smiled. “The only hotel we got left here in Fontana, that is.”

“Won't be long now,” Smoke told him. “How many businesses are you losing a day?”

“Half a dozen. As you know, up there in Big Rock, the stage is runnin' twice a day now, carryin' people out of here.”

“Seen some TF riders in town as we rode in,” Smoke said. “And didn't see any of those flyers the Judge had printed up. What happened?”

“Some state man was on the stage three, four days ago, from the governor's office. He looked at the charges I had agin Tilden and his men and told me to take them dodgers down. They wasn't legal.” He shrugged. “I took 'em down.”

Smoke grinned. “It was fun while it lasted, though, wasn't it?”

“Damn shore was.”

Conversation became a bit forced, as both Monte and Smoke, both gunfighters, knew the clock was ticking toward a showdown in the streets of Fontana. Stonewall and Joel came into the office.

“Git the people off the boardwalks,” Monte told his deputies. “And have either of you seen Utah Slim?”

“He's standin' down by the corral, leanin' up agin a post,” Joel said. “He's got a half dozen of them punk gunslingers with him. They lookin' at Utah like he's some sort of god.”

“Run 'em off,” Monte ordered. “I'll not have no mismatched gunfight in this town.”

The deputies left, both carrying sawed-off express guns.

Monte looked at Smoke after the office door had closed. “Utah is fast, Smoke. He's damn good. I'd rate him with the best.”

“Better than Valentine?”

“He don't blow his first shot like Valentine, but he's just as fast.”

Ralph looked out a barred window. “Streets are clear,” he announced. “Nobody moving on the boardwalks.”

Smoke stood up. “It's time.” He slipped the leather thongs from the hammers of his Colts and put his hat on his head. “I'd like to talk to Utah first, find out something about my sister. Hell, I don't even know if she's the one behind this. I'll give it a try.”

Smoke walked out onto the shaded boardwalks outside the sheriffs office. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes and eased his Colts half out of leather a few times, letting them fall back naturally into the oiled leather. He stepped out into the street and turned toward the corral.

As he walked down the center of the street, his spurs jingling and his boots kicking up little pockets of dust, he was conscious of many unseen eyes on him, and even a few he could associate with a body.

Stonewall and Joel were on opposite sides of the broad street, both still carrying shotguns. The duded-up dandies who fancied themselves gunslingers had gathered as close to the corral as the deputies would allow them. Smoke saw the young punk Luke had made eat crow that day. Lester Morgan, Sundance. He had himself some new Colts. And that kid who called himself The Silver Dollar Kid was there, along with a few other no-names who wanted to be gunfighters.

Smoke wondered how they got along; where did they get eating money? Petty thievery, probably.

Louis Longmont had stepped out of his gaming tent. “How many you facing, Smoke?” he asked, as Smoke walked by.

“Just one that I know of. Utah Slim. I think my sis, Janey, sent him after me.”

Louis paced Smoke, but staying on the boardwalk. “Yes, it would be like her.”

“Where is she, Louis?”

“Tombstone, last I heard. Runnin' a red-light place. She's worth a lot of money. Richards's money, I presume.”

“Yeah. Richards ain't got no use for it. I never heard of no Wells Fargo armored stage followin' no hearse.”

Louis laughed quietly. “I'll watch your back, Smoke.”

“Thanks.”

Smoke kept on walking. He knew Louis had fallen back slightly, to keep an eye on Smoke's back trail.

Then the corral loomed up, Utah Slim standing by the corral. Smoke's eyes flicked upward to the loft of the barn. Billy was staring wide-eyed out of the loft door.

“Billy!” Smoke raised his voice. “You get your butt outta that loft and across the street. Right now, boy — move!”

“Yes, sir!” Billy hollered, and slipped down the hay rope to the street. He darted across the expanse and got behind a water trough.

“That there's a good kid,” Utah said. “Funny the other week when he shot Tilden in the ass.”

“Yeah, I'd like to have seen that myself.”

“I ain't got nothin' personal agin you, Jensen. I want you to know that.”

“Just another job, right, Utah?”

“That's the way it is,” the killer said brightly.

“My sister hire you?”

“Damned if'n I know. Some woman named Janey, down in Tombstone paid me a lot of money, up front.” He squinted at Smoke. “Come to think of it, y'all do favor some.”

“That's my darlin' sister.”

“Make's me proud I ain't got no sister.”

“Why don't you just get on your horse and ride on out, Utah. I don't want to have to kill you.”

The killer looked startled. “Why, boy! You ain't gonna kill me.”

“You want to wager on that?” Louis called.

“Yeah.” Utah smiled. “I'll bet a hundred.”

“Taken,” Louis told him.

“How much did she pay you, Utah?” Smoke asked the man.

“Several big ones, boy.” He grinned nastily. “She's a whoor, you know.”

“So I heard.” Smoke knew the killer was trying to anger him, throw him off, make him lose his composure.

“Yeah, she is,” Utah said, still grinning. “I tole her, as part of the payment, I'd have to have me a taste of it.”

“Is that right?”

“Shore is. Right good, too.”

“I hope you enjoyed it.”

“I did for a fact.” This wasn't working out the way Utah had planned it. “Why do you ask?”

Smoke drew, cocked, and fired twice. Once with his right-hand Colt, that slug taking Utah in the chest and staggering him backward. The second slug coming from his left-hand gun and striking the gunslick in the stomach, dropping the killer to his knees, his left arm looped around the center railing of the corral.

Smoke holstered his left-hand Colt and waited for Utah. The killer managed to drag his Colt out of leather and cock it. That seemed to take all his strength. He pulled the trigger. The slug tore up the dirt at his knees.

Utah dropped the Colt. He lifted his eyes to Smoke. Just as the darkness began to fade his world, he managed to gasp, “How come you axed me if I enjoyed it?”

“ 'Cause you damn sure ain't gonna get no more, Utah.”

Utah died hanging onto the corral railing. He died with his eyes open, staring at emptiness.

Smoke holstered his pistol and walked away.