11
After eating supper at different tables in Aunt Bea's dining room, Smoke and the others met in Smoke's room to compare notes on what they'd learned during the day.
“From what I can gather, Slaughter has all the men he needs,” Smoke said. “At least he's not actively looking to hire any new gun hands.”
Louis nodded. “That squares with what I could glean from my compatriots at the gaming tables. The best estimate I can come up with is he has between twenty and thirty hard cases up in the hole-in-the-wall with him. No one knows for sure since they never all come into town at the same time, but usually in groups of three or four, and then only when they need supplies or female companionship.”
“How about you and Cal, Pearlie? What did you find out about Muskrat Calhoon?”
“Well,” Pearlie drawled as he picked fried chicken from between his teeth with a toothpick, “Muskrat hasn't been in the store to buy his provisions yet, so the proprietor thought it'd be any day now since he's got to do it soon to beat the snows in the passes.”
“Proprietor's gonna let him know some old friends of his and Bear Tooth are hankerin' to meet up with him. We told him we was stayin' at Aunt Bea's Boardin'house,” Cal added.
“Did you get the supplies we talked about?” Smoke asked.
“Yes, sir. We got four kegs of gunpowder, a case of dynamite sticks, and twenty boxes of ammunition.”
“Did you remember to get some shells for my Sharps?” Smoke asked, referring to the Sharps Big Fifty long rifle he'd brought.
“Yes, sir,” Pearlie answered, “two boxes of twenty shells each.”
Louis raised his eyebrows. “You planning on doing some long-range shooting, Smoke?”
Smoke nodded. “Yeah. Depending on how close Muskrat can get us to the gang's camp, I figured a long gun might come in handy to spread a little fear and trepidation among the bandits.”
“Smoke can hit a squirrel in the eye at fifteen hundred yards with that baby,” Pearlie said, pride in his voice.
Just then, they heard a knocking at Pearlie and Cal's door, which was just down the hall from Smoke's.
Smoke stepped to the door, pulled his Colt from his holster, and peeked out into the hall. He could see an older man wearing buckskins waiting outside Pearlie's room.
Smoke holstered his gun and opened his door, stepping into the hallway. “Mr. Muskrat Calhoon?” he called.
The old mountain man whirled, a battered Colt Army revolver appearing in his hand in the wink of an eye.
“Yep, that be me, sonny boy. Who might ye be?”
Smoke held his hands out from his sides, showing he wasn't a threat. “My name's Smoke Jensen. Bear Tooth said we should look you up and see if you might be able to do us a favor.”
Muskrat narrowed his eyes and studied Smoke for a moment. “Ye be the Smoke Jensen used to ride with Preacher?”
Smoke smiled. “Yes, sir. One and the same.”
“Don't be callin' me sir, boy. Onliest ones ever did that was somebody tryin' to sell me somethin'.”
“All right, Muskrat. Would you like to join us down here in my room?”
“That depends, young'un. If'n you got a wee mite of whiskey, I could be talked into it.”
Smoke laughed out loud. “Well, then, come on in and we'll crack open a bottle of Old Kentucky bourbon, if that suits you.”
“If'n it's got a bite, it'll suit me jest fine,” the old man answered with a grin, exposing yellow stubs of teeth worn down almost to his gums.
As he passed by Smoke in the doorway, Smoke took a deep breath. Bear Tooth was right, this man was way beyond ripe.
Muskrat walked into the room and leaned his Sharps long rifle against the wall, then turned and looked at the others gathered there.
He pursed his lips. “You boys havin' a prayer meetin' or somethin'?”
Smoke introduced Muskrat to everyone in the room. Louis, having heard his request for whiskey, got up, poured a long draft into a water glass, and handed it to the mountain man. As he took a deep drink, Louis stepped over to the window and opened it, hoping it would let some of the odor out of the room lest they all suffocate.
Muskrat smacked his lips and held up the empty glass for a refill. “How's ol' Bear Tooth doin' these days?” he asked.
“Other than a little rheumatiz, he said he was doing all right,” Smoke answered.
Muskrat nodded. “Rheumatiz goes with the territory if'n yo're gonna live up in the high lonesome durin' the winter.”
He took another drink of his whiskey. “Course, Bear Tooth is gettin' on up in years, an' he ain't as spry as he used to be. Never could keep up with us younger fellers, even in his better days.”
Muskrat leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, looking from one man to another. “Now, I ain't no fool an' I know nobody looks me up jest to give me free whiskey, so jest what is it you young fellers want from ol' Muskrat?”
Smoke pulled up a chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and told Muskrat the whole story of the kidnapping and transportation of Mary Carson to the hole-in-the-wall.
“We aim to get her back, and put some lead in Big Jim Slaughter for what he did,” Smoke said.
Muskrat nodded. “And you need ol' Muskrat to show you a back way into the hole-in-the-wall, eh?”
Smoke decided a little flattery was called for. “That's right. Bear Tooth said no man alive knows the mountains around Jackson Hole better'n you. He said if anyone could get us in there without being seen, it'd be you.”
Muskrat grinned. “You don't have to shine me on, Smoke, boy. I never believed much in gettin' involved in other people's business nor feuds, but I surely don't like the idee of takin' a man's woman fer somethin' he did. It jest ain't right to git womenfolk involved in men's doin's. No, siree, Bob, it jest ain't right.”
“Then you'll help us?” Pearlie asked.
“Damn straight, young man, damn straight.”
Pearlie pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from a sack on the bed. “I got us a map of the surrounding mountains, an' it shows all the passes on it.”
Muskrat looked at the paper and sneered. “Ain't never looked at no map in all my born days, young feller. Wouldn't know the first thing 'bout readin' one of those. Nope. I'm jest gonna have to take you up there personal-like and show you the way. Idn't no way I could 'splain to you how to git there.”
“How soon do you think you can be ready to travel?” Smoke asked.
Muskrat cocked one eye at the whiskey bottle on the dresser. “I reckon that there bottle'll last till dawn. Any time after that'll be jest fine with me.”
Louis laughed, took the bottle from the dresser, and poured drinks all around, smiling when Cal noticed he'd only been given half as much in his glass as the other men.
Muskrat pulled a long twist of tobacco from his coat pocket, bit off a sizable chunk, and began to chew on it as he sipped his whiskey.
“Whilst we're waitin' fer this whiskey to run out, Smoke, ol' Preacher once told me you and he'd had a little set-to up near the Plaza of the Lions back when y'all first rode together. He said it had to do with some galoots that'd kilt your brother.”
Smoke stared into the amber liquid in his glass, thinking back on his early days riding with Preacher . . .
“A group of men shot and killed my brother and stole some Confederate gold he was trying to return to its rightful owners. My father told me the story just before he died, and I promised him I would avenge his death. Preacher and I went after them after we'd buried my father up in the mountains.
“After I shot and killed Pike, his friend, and Haywood, and wounded Pike's brother, Thompson, Preacher and I took off after the other men who'd been involved in the theft. We rode on over to La Plaza de los Leones, the Plaza of the Lions. It was there we trapped a man named Casey in a line shack with some of his
compadres
. Preacher and I burnt 'em out and captured Casey, then I took him to the outskirts of the town and hung him.”
Muskrat's eyebrows shot up. “Just hung 'em? No trial nor nuthin'?”
Smoke began to build himself a cigarette as he talked. “Yeah, Muskrat. I'm sure you remember that's the way it was done in those days. That town would never have hanged one of their own on the word of Smoke Jensen.” He put a lucifer to his cigarette and took a deep puff. “Like as not they would've hanged me and Preacher instead. Anyway, after that, the sheriff there put out a flyer on me, accusing me of murder. Had a ten-thousand-dollar reward on it.”
“Did you and Preacher go into hidin'?” asked Muskrat as he leaned over and spat brown tobacco juice into the room's trash can.
“No. Preacher advised it, but I told him I had one more call to make. We rode on over to Oreodelphia, looking for a man named Ackerman. We didn't go after him right at first. Preacher and I sat around doing a whole lot of nothing for two or three days.”
“How come did you do that?” asked Muskrat.
“'Cause I wanted Ackerman to get plenty nervous. He did, and finally came gunning for us with a bunch of men who rode for his brand . . .”
* * *
At the edge of town, Ackerman, a bull of a man, with small, mean eyes and a cruel slit for a mouth, slowed his horse to a walk. Ackerman and his hands rode down the street six abreast.
Preacher and Smoke were on their feet. Preacher stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco. Both men had slipped the thongs from the hammers of their Colts. Preacher wore two Colts, .44s. One in a holster, the other stuck behind his belt. Mountain man and young gunfighter stood six feet apart on the boardwalk.
The sheriff closed his office door and walked into the empty cell area. He sat down and began a game of checkers with his deputy.
Ackerman and his men wheeled their horses to face the men on the boardwalk. “I hear tell you boys is lookin' for me. If so, here I am.”
“News to me,” Smoke said. “What's your name?”
“You know who I am, kid. Ackerman.”
“Oh, yeah!” Smoke grinned. “You're the man who helped kill my brother by shooting him in the back. Then you stole the gold he was guarding.”
Inside the hotel, pressed against the wall, the desk clerk listened intently, his mouth open in anticipation of gunfire.
“You're a liar. I didn't shoot your brother; that was Potter and his bunch.”
“You stood and watched it. Then you stole the gold.”
“It was war, kid.”
“But you were on the same side,” Smoke said. “So that not only makes you a killer, it makes you a traitor and a coward.”
“I'll kill you for sayin' that!”
“You'll burn in Hell a long time before I'm dead,” Smoke told him.
Ackerman grabbed for his pistol. The street exploded in gunfire and black powder fumes. Horses screamed and bucked in fear. One rider was thrown to the dust by his lunging mustang. Smoke took the men on the left, Preacher the men on the right side. The battle lasted no more than ten to twelve seconds. When the noise and the gunsmoke cleared, five men lay in the street, two of them dead. Two more would die from their wounds. One was shot in the sideâhe would live. Ackerman had been shot three times: once in the belly, once in the chest, and one ball had taken him in the side of the face as the muzzle of the .36 had lifted with each blast. Still, Ackerman sat in his saddle, dead. The big man finally leaned to one side and toppled from his horse, one boot hung in the stirrup. The horse shied, then began walking down the dusty street, dragging Ackerman, leaving a bloody trail.
Preacher spat into the street. “Damn near swallowed my chaw.”
“I never seen a draw that fast,” a man said from his storefront. “It was a blur.”
The editor of the paper walked up to stand by the sheriff. He watched the old man and the young gunfighter walk down the street. He truly had seen it all. The old man had killed one man, wounded another. The young man had killed four men, as calmly as picking his teeth.
“What's that young man's name?” the editor asked the sheriff, taking out a pad of paper and a pencil to record the day's events for his newspaper.
“Smoke Jensen. But he's a devil . . .”
5
* * *
“What'd you fellers do next?” asked Muskrat.
“Well, we both had some minor wounds, and there was a price on my head, so we took off to the mountains to lay up for a while and lick our wounds and let the heat die down.”
Smoke took a last puff on his cigarette and stubbed it out on the sole of his boot. “Except it didn't work out exactly that way. We chanced upon the remains of a wagon train that'd been burned out by Indians, and rescued a young woman. Nicole was her name. She was the lone survivor of the attack. There wasn't nothing else we could do, so we took her up into the mountains with us where we planned to winter.”
“And whatever happened to that girl?” Muskrat asked, his eyes sparkling with interest.
“And,” Smoke said, glancing at the almost-empty whiskey bottle, “that's a story for another night and another bottle of whiskey.”