Cruel Winter of the Mountain Man

“So there I was, surrounded by twenty of the mangiest, surliest, bloodthirstiest gun-wolves you’d ever hope to see . . . or hope not to see, I reckon I ought to say . . . and ever’ one of ’em filled his hand at the same time. Them guns made such a racket when they went off that it was like a thunderstorm there in that saloon, and the bullets was flyin’ around me so close I couldn’t even blink without one o’ those slugs cuttin’ off an eyelash.”

“Good Lord! How’d you ever survive such a thing as that, Pearlie?”

“I didn’t. Those varmints shot me plumb to doll rags. There wasn’t a piece o’ me left that was big enough to bother buryin’.”

Wes “Pearlie” Fontaine sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair with a big grin on his rugged face.

Calvin Woods stared at his best friend in confusion for a moment, then scowled.

“You were just funnin’ me,” he accused. “You made up the whole blamed thing. I thought you were gonna tell me you shot your way out of there, like . . . like Smoke would’ve!”

“Smoke might’ve done something like that, all right,” Pearlie allowed. “I’m a fair hand with a gun, I won’t deny it, but when Smoke goes to shootin’, sometimes it seems plumb supernatural-like.”

Both men were sitting at a table in Louis Longmont’s restaurant and saloon, one of the best places to eat and certainly the best place to drink in Big Rock. At another table in the rear of the room, their employer, Smoke Jensen, sat with his wife Sally and Louis Longmont himself, the gambler and former gunman who owned this establishment.

Pearlie was the foreman on the Sugarloaf, the Jensen ranch located seven miles west of the settlement. A man who had made his living by hiring out his gun, a few years earlier he had found himself on the wrong side of a clash with Smoke. It hadn’t taken Pearlie long to realize that he was on the wrong side in more ways than one. He had thrown in with Smoke to help defeat that threat to peace in this beautiful valley, and they had been staunch friends ever since.

Cal had come along a few years later, just a kid, and, as he freely admitted now, a pretty dumb one at that. Broke, starving, and desperate, he had tried to rob Sally Jensen. It had been a stroke of luck for Cal that he hadn’t wound up dead. It was even more fortunate for him that Sally had extended her sympathy to him and gotten him a job on the Sugarloaf.

Given the opportunity, Cal had turned into a top hand and was second only to Pearlie among the Sugarloaf crew these days. Pearlie had let it be known that he was already preparing Cal to take over as foreman one of these days . . . although that would still be a long time in the future.

They had ridden into Big Rock with Smoke this morning, the three of them following the buckboard being driven by Sally. At the moment, the buckboard was parked in front of Goldstein’s Mercantile, where the supplies Sally had ordered would be loaded as soon as they were ready.

In the meantime, Smoke and Sally had walked up the street to Longmont’s to get some coffee and visit with their friend. Cal and Pearlie had headed for the Brown Dirt Cowboy Saloon, which most of the punchers in the area patronized when they were in town. The Brown Dirt Cowboy wasn’t fancy, but the beer was cold.

Today, however, when they got there, they found the place closed. That was almost unheard of. Emmett Brown, the owner, wasn’t the sort of man to pass up any chance to make a profit.

A man passing by in the street had noticed the two cowboys from the Sugarloaf standing in front of the saloon, looking confused. He had chuckled and said, “I reckon you boys haven’t heard.”

“Heard what?” Pearlie asked. Then, with a look of alarm on his face, he added, “Ol’ Brown ain’t closed the place down for good, has he?”

“No, no,” the townsman replied. “There was a big brawl in there last night. Place got busted up so bad that Emmett decided to just go ahead and close while repairs are being done. The carpenters are supposed to get started later today, from what I’ve heard.”

“Well, that’s a relief, I suppose.”

Cal said, “I don’t know that I’d care that much, one way or the other. Longmont’s is a lot nicer place.”

“That’s just it. Longmont’s is nice, so a fella’s got to be on his best behavior there. Even proper, respectable ladies like Miss Sally go there. Sometimes you want to go somewhere you can just cut loose your wolf, you know what I mean?”

“I suppose. But I’m not an old lobo like you, Pearlie.”

That had put a grin on Pearlie’s face. He clapped a hand on Cal’s shoulder and said, “Come on. We’ll go get some of that Cajun coffee Louis serves.”

Now as they sat in Longmont’s, where Pearlie had spun the yarn about being cornered by twenty of his enemies at once, both men were sort of glad the Brown Dirt Cowboy had been closed. This was nice.

Which meant, Pearlie reflected later, that something—or somebody—was bound to come along and ruin it.

* * *

Sally was laughing at something Longmont had said, when the double front doors swung open and three men walked in. Most of the customers didn’t pay any attention to them, since folks came in and went out of Longmont’s all the time and, at first glance, there was nothing unusual about these three.

Smoke sat up a little straighter in his chair, though, and Louis did the same thing. The instincts of both men, honed to sharp edges by the dangerous lives they’d led, had warned them that the newcomers might be trouble on the hoof.

Then Louis muttered something in French under his breath and added, “My apologies, Sally. I forgot momentarily that you speak the language.”

“That’s all right, Louis,” she said. “I assume something must be wrong, or you wouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“You know those fellas?” Smoke drawled.

Louis nodded. “One of them. And the other two appear to be cut from the same cloth.”

One of the men was slightly ahead of the other two. He was whipcord lean, with a hawkish face, dark eyes, and a narrow mustache. His gaze reached across the room and landed on Louis. He stiffened, and even though a tiny smile tugged at the corners of the mouth, the expression didn’t reach his eyes or do anything to relieve the grim cast of his face.

He started toward the table where Smoke, Sally, and Louis sat. The other two were close behind him.

“Sally, honey,” Smoke said, “why don’t you go sit with Pearlie and Cal?”

She didn’t move. “If there’s a chance of trouble, don’t you think it’ll be less likely to break out if I stay? I mean, nobody’s going to start anything with a woman sitting here, right?”

Louis said, “Normally, I might agree with you, Sally, but in this case, I concur with Smoke. I’d very much appreciate it if you’d move over there.”

Sally looked back and forth between her husband and their friend and then said, “All right.” She got to her feet and, without hurrying, walked over to the table where Pearlie and Cal sat.

The two cowboys stood up hurriedly but respectfully, and Cal held one of the empty chairs for Sally as she sat down. Pearlie leaned forward and said something to her. Smoke figured he was asking her what it was all about. Sally’s eloquent shrug was all the answer she could give.

The three men came to a stop not far from the table where Smoke and Louis sat. Louis regarded the leader coolly and said, “Hello, Stockard.”

“Longmont,” the man returned, his tone equally chilly. “I’ll wager you never thought you’d see me again.”

“To be honest, I never even gave the question any thought.” The words held a not-so-subtle undertone of contempt.

The eyes of the man called Stockard cut over to Smoke for a second. “Who’s your friend?”

“You got that right,” Smoke said. “Just a friend. Nobody important.”

Stockard’s lips curled in a sneer under the mustache. “Then you should stand up and move away from here . . . friend. Carefully. My business is with Longmont, nobody else.”

“I don’t believe we actually have any business,” Louis said.

“Damn right we do. I’m here to talk about the way you ran out on me up in the Dakota Territory, eight years ago.”

“No one ran out on you,” Louis responded sharply. “It was your own choice to turn back. You knew Crowder’s men weren’t far behind us and you might be caught.”

The sneer on Stockard’s face turned into a snarl. “I had to turn back. I had to go back for Jill. Wouldn’t you have risked getting caught for a woman you loved?”

“First of all, that woman was married and wanted nothing to do with you. You were the one obsessed with her. She’d made it plain she wanted you to leave her alone.”

Stockard slashed the air with his left hand. “That was just an act! She just wanted to get me more interested. You know how women are.”

“Indeed, I do,” Longmont murmured. “That’s why I’ve never had to force myself on one. After word got around of what happened with Jill, you didn’t have a friend west of the Mississippi, Stockard. No one cared whether or not Crowder’s men strung you up.” His shoulders, elegant in the expensive suit coat, rose and fell slightly. “I certainly didn’t, when I heard that’s what took place. That’s why, as I said, I never bothered thinking about you again.”

“They came close to hanging me,” Stockard rasped. “I reckon plenty hoped that they had. But not quite. You’re wrong, Longmont. I still had a few friends. They helped me get away at the last minute. We lit out for California, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

Longmont sighed. “Why couldn’t you have stayed there?”

“Because it’s been eating away at me, gnawing on my insides, the way you betrayed me. We rode together, Longmont. You should have sided me.”

“We took money from the same employer and the job was over. That’s all. We were never partners.”

“Maybe not.” Stockard moved his coat back a little on the right side, exposing the walnut butt of the holstered Colt he wore on that hip. “But I still have a score to settle with you.”

The hubbub of talk and laughter inside the restaurant and saloon had died away gradually as more and more people took notice of the confrontation at the table in the rear corner. Now a tense silence hung over the whole room.

One of Longmont’s regular bartenders, a man called Poke, dropped his right hand out of sight behind the bar. Smoke knew there was a sawed-off shotgun on a shelf under there. Smoke caught Poke’s eye and gave a tiny shake of his head. The bartender didn’t need to cut loose with that gut-shredder. Too many innocent folks might get in the way of the buckshot if he did.

“You know,” Smoke said, “holding a grudge like that is bad for your health, mister. It sours the stomach and angri-fies the blood. Makes a man prone to apoplexy.”

Stockard didn’t take his eyes off Longmont as he growled, “Are you still here, you damned fool?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Smoke’s voice hardened. “And you should know, if you push this much farther, I’ll have to kill those two hombres you brought along with you, while Louis is busy killing you.”

For the first time, one of the other men spoke. “Just who the hell do you think you are, mister?”

“Name’s Jensen.”

“Smoke Jensen,” Louis added.

Each of the men with Stockard took a step back.

“Jensen,” one of them repeated nervously. “You never said nothin’ about any damned Smoke Jensen, Stockard.”

“What does it matter?” Stockard snapped. “There are two of you, aren’t there?”

“Yeah,” the other man said, “but he’s Smoke Jensen. I heard tell that he killed twenty men in one fight up in Idaho a while back!”

“If I’m remembering right, it was only nineteen,” Smoke said. He paused, then added, “Details like that tend to slip a man’s mind after a while.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Stockard said. “He’s just trying to spook you!”

“Forget it, Stockard,” the second man said. “We’re out.”

“I paid you—”

“Not enough.”

The two men looked at each other, angled their heads toward the doors, and then turned and headed in that direction, their spurs jingling in the silence as they crossed the room.

Stockard glanced briefly after them, then returned his hate-filled glare to Louis Longmont.

“Let those filthy cowards run out on me,” he said. “That doesn’t make any difference. Just like when you ran out on me, Longmont. You were a filthy coward, too.”

Longmont rose slowly to his feet. “I’ll not be talked to like that in my own establishment,” he said. “Nor anywhere else, for that matter. I hoped to avoid this, but you leave me no choice.”

“What about you, Jensen?” Stockard snapped. “Are you taking cards in this hand?”

“This is Louis’s game,” Smoke said. “I wouldn’t think about horning in.”

“All right, then. I guess we’ll just—”

Stockard’s hand flashed to his gun. If he’d hoped to take Longmont by surprise by making his move in mid-sentence like that, he was sadly disappointed. Longmont’s gun came out of its holster in a blur.

Stockard was fairly fast, but no match for Louis Longmont. He cleared leather, but his gun hadn’t come level when Longmont’s Colt roared. Flame lanced from the barrel. Stockard rocked back, put his left hand to his chest, and struggled to raise his arm so he could get one shot off, at least.

At that moment, the doors crashed open and the two men who had come with Stockard to Big Rock charged through the entrance with guns in their fists. They opened fire on the table in the back corner of the room.

Smoke rose smoothly to his feet. He had drawn his Colt too swiftly for the eye to follow. The gun appeared in his hand as if by magic. It blasted twice, both slugs pounding into the chest of the attacker on the left, who went over backward.

Longmont turned slightly and triggered his gun. The bullet ripped into the other man and turned him half around. His legs got tangled with each other and he lost his balance, falling onto a table where a poker game had been going on. Cards, chips, and money flew wildly in the air as the table legs gave way and collapsed under the impact.

Stockard finally fired while Louis was distracted. Louis took a step back as the bullet struck him, but he stayed on his feet, swung his Colt back toward Stockard, and slammed another bullet into the vengeful gunman.

Smoke threw a shot at Stockard at the same time. The two reports came so close together that they sounded like one. Stockard went down, his gun slipping from nerveless fingers. His bloody chest rose and fell several times, raggedly, and then stilled forever.

“How bad are you hit?” Smoke said to Louis.

The gambler was a little pale but composed. He opened his coat and vest and looked at the bloodstain spreading on the left side of his white shirt.

“I’ve cut myself worse shaving,” he said dismissively.

Smoke grinned. He looked over at the other table and saw that Pearlie and Cal were both on their feet, guns in hands if needed, standing so that their bodies completely shielded Sally. Either of them would have gladly taken a bullet for her.

“You’d better sit down,” Smoke said to Louis. “I know you’re not hurt bad, but you’re bleeding. You might get dizzy.”

Longmont made a scoffing sound at that, but he lowered himself onto one of the chairs.

“Somebody go fetch the doc,” Smoke said to the room at large as he walked over to the two men who had tried to launch a sneak attack. He kicked their fallen guns out of reach before checking to make sure both were dead. They were.

From where he was sitting, Longmont said, “They thought they would make their try while you were distracted by Stockard’s fight with me. If they succeeded, they would have been known far and wide as the men who killed Smoke Jensen.” Louis let out a contemptuous snort. “That mistake cost them their lives.” He made a face. “Stockard never would have winged me if I hadn’t been busy shooting one of those other scoundrels.”

“That was the last bit of luck he had, though,” Smoke said, “or ever will again.”

Several of the customers hurried out of the saloon. Smoke figured at least one of them would run down the street to the doctor’s office. The others were probably looking for friends so they could boast about witnessing the shootout in Longmont’s.

A man coming in from the boardwalk outside had to wait until the rush let up. He holstered the gun he held in his right hand. An envelope of some sort was in his left. A badge pinned to his vest showed under the lapel of his coat.

With his now-free right hand, the newcomer thumbed back his hat and shook his head as he looked at the trio of sprawled, bloody bodies.

“When I heard shooting, I figured you’d be mixed up in this, Smoke,” Sheriff Monte Carson said. “I saw you and Sally coming in here earlier.”

Smoke chuckled. “Don’t blame me for this one, Monte. This was one of Louis’s old enemies who decided to look him up and say howdy with a bullet. I was just sort of along for the ride, you might say.”

“Louis, are you all right?” Monte asked with a worried frown. “You look a mite peaked, the way you’re just sitting there like that.”

“I’m fine. It’s just a crease.”

“Doctor should be on his way by now,” Smoke added.

“All right, then. Since everything appears to be under control, I reckon I’ll go ahead and give you this.”

Monte held out the envelope.

“What is it?” Smoke asked.

“Letter for you. I happened to be in the post office a few minutes ago, and when I said something about seeing you come into town, the postmaster asked me to tell you he had a special delivery for you and that you should come by to pick it up. Since I knew where you were, I offered to bring it to you.” Monte smiled. “Special delivery, just like the man said.”

Sally came over to join them as Smoke opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded the paper, read the words printed on it in a blocky hand, and the look that appeared on his face prompted Sally to ask with a worried frown, “What is it, Smoke?”

“News from an old friend,” he said. “And it’s not good.”