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Synopsis
Rocky Mountain Showdown
Big Max Higgins ran the outlaw town of Hell's Creek up in the north Montana Rockies . . . and he decided to include the nearby town of Barlow in his cutthroat operation. What he didn't know was that Smoke Jensen was there with his wife, visiting relatives.
It didn't take Smoke long to rout out the lot of them with angry fists and blazing guns . . . but Smoke didn't count on Big Max doing something as daring, desperate, and stupid as kidnapping his wife—and demanding the town of Barlow itself as ransom.
Soon Big Max Higgins would look up and see the last mountain man riding down the middle of the street with reins in his teeth and both hands filled with .44s. Big Max had always wanted to make a name for himself, and he was going to get it, too—carved on his gravestone.
Contains mature themes.
Release date: June 6, 2013
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Print pages: 256
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War of the Mountain Man
William W. Johnstone
“I don’t like the idea of the kids on the ocean,” Smoke said. “By God, I just don’t.”
Sally faced him from across the table in the house in the high-up country of Colorado. “Smoke, there is a new treatment available in France, and Louis Arthur has got to have it. We’ve been to the finest doctors on this continent. They all say the same thing.”
“Sally, I’m not arguing that. I want what is best for Baby Arthur. But why do all the children have to go? My God, they’ll be gone for more than a year.”
She smiled at him. Smoke Jensen and Sally never had the hard, deadly quarrels that so many couples suffered. They were both reasonable people of high intelligence, and each loved the other. “The exposure to a more genteel climate—and I’m not talking about the weather—will be good for the older children. They need to broaden their horizons.”
Smoke laughed as he picked up his coffee mug, holding it in one big, flat-knuckled hand. The laughter was full of good humor and did not contain a bit of anger or scorn. He stuck out his little finger. “They gonna learn how to hold a coffee cup dainty-like, with their little pinkies all poked out to one side?”
Sally laughed at him. “Yes. You heathen.”
Smoke chuckled and rose from the table, picking up Sally’s cup as well as his own. He walked to the stove, a big man, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, huge, heavily muscled arms, and a lean waist. He walked like a cat. His presence in a room, any room, usually brought the crowd to silence. His eyes were brown and could turn as cold as the Arctic. He was a ruggedly handsome man, turning the heads of ladies wherever he traveled.
He was Smoke Jensen. The man some called the last mountain man.
Smoke was the hero in dozens of dime novels. Plays had been written and were still being performed about his exploits. Smoke, himself, had never seen one. He was, without dispute, the fastest gun in the West. He had never wanted the title of gunfighter; but he had it.
There was no accurate count of how many would-be toughs, punks, thugs, thieves, and killers had fallen under the .44’s of Smoke Jensen. Some say fifty; others said it was closer to two hundred. Smoke didn’t know. As a young man, scarcely out of his teens, he had ridden into a mining camp taken over by the men who had killed his wife and baby son and had wiped it out to the last man.
His reputation had then been carved in solid granite. Smoke had become a living legend.
He had met Sally, who was working as a schoolteacher, and they had fallen in love. Together, working side by side—even though she was enormously wealthy, something Smoke didn’t find out until well after they were married—they carved out a ranch in Colorado and named it the Sugarloaf.
For three years Smoke dropped out of sight, living a normal, peaceful life. Then he had to surface and once more strap on his guns in a fight for survival. He stayed surfaced. He would not hunt out a fight, but God help those who came to him trouble-hunting. As the western saying goes: Smoke could point out dozens of his graveyards.
Their coffee mugs refilled, Smoke sat back down at the table and they both sugared and stirred. Sally laid her hand on his. “Roundup is all over and the cattle sold, right, honey?”
“Yes. And it was a good one. We made money. Now we’re rebuilding the herds, introducing a stronger breed, mixing in some Herefords. What’d you have on your mind, Sally?”
“I’d like to go with the children....” She put a finger on his lips to stop his protests before they got started. “But I’m not. I know what the doctors said. And I’m never going to set foot on a ship again. But if we stay here, rattling around in this house, we’ll both go crazy with worry. Let’s wait until we receive the wire that the ship has steamed out, and then take a trip. Just the two of us.”
“That’s a good idea. The boys can run the spread; no worries there. You got some special place in mind?”
“Yes. It’s a friend I went to college with. She and her husband just moved to Montana. They live near a small town about thirty miles from Kalispell. She’s married to a doctor and they have a small ranch. I’d like to see her. She was my best friend.”
“Suits me. We’ll take a trip up there. It’ll do us both good to get away, see some country, and meet new people. We’ll take the train as far as it goes and then catch a stage.”
“No,” Sally shook her head. “Let’s put the horses in a car and ride in, Smoke. It’ll be worth it to see the expressions on their faces when we ride in.”
“Sidesaddle?” he kidded her, knowing better.
“You have to be kidding!”
Smoke was with her. “All right, honey. But we’re going to be heading into some rough country. I’ve been there. Cousin Fae lives not too far from there. We can take the train probably to Butte. That’s wild country, Sally. Some ol’boys up there still have the bark on. And that’s Big Max Huggins’s country.”
She smiled, but the curving of her pretty lips held no humor. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going, Smoke.”
He laughed. “I was wondering if you were going to get around to leveling with me.”
“You know this Max Huggins?”
“Only by name. We’ve never crossed trails.”
She stared into her coffee cup.
“Sally, this town your friends have settled near . . . it wouldn’t be Hell’s Creek, would it?”
“Yes.”
Smoke sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then they didn’t show a lot of sense. Hell’s Creek is owned—lock, stock, and outhouse—by Big Max Huggins. It’s filled with gunfighters, whores, gamblers, killers.... You name it bad, and you’ll find it there. Why did they settle there?”
“Robert—that’s Vicky’s husband—befriended an old man who took sick while visiting back east. Robert was just setting up his practice. Years later, he got a letter from an attorney telling him the old man had died and left him his ranch.”
“And Big Max wanted the ranch?”
“Yes. But mostly he wants Victoria.”
The next morning, Smoke rode into town and checked with Sheriff Monte Carson.
“What can you get me on Hell’s Creek and a man named Big Max Huggins?”
Monte snorted. “I can tell you all about Big Max, Smoke. We got lead in each other about ten years ago.”
“Over near the Bitterroot?”
Monte nodded his head.
“I remember that shoot-out. Is there any kind of law in Hell’s Creek?”
“Only what Big Max says. Oh, there’s a sheriff up there. But he’s crooked as a snake’s track and so are his deputies. I hear the governor keeps threatening to send men in to clean up the town, but he hasn’t done it yet. Why the interest in Hell’s Creek?”
“Sally has some friends who live near there. We’re going to visit them. I’d sort of like to know what I’m riding into.”
“You’re riding into trouble, Smoke. Hell’s Creek is a haven for outlaw gangs. In addition to Big Max’s gang—and he’s got forty or fifty men who ride for him—there’s Alex Bell and his boys. Dave Poe, Warner Frigo, and Val Singer all run outlaw gangs out of Hell’s Creek. The only way that town is ever going to be cleaned up is for the Army to go in and do it.”
“Damn, Monte, it’s 1883. The wild West is supposed to be calming down.”
Monte shifted his chaw. “But you and me, Smoke, we know better, don’t we?”
Smoke nodded his head. “Yeah. There’ll be pockets of crud in the West for years to come, I reckon.”
“Any way you can talk your missus out of takin’this trip?”
Smoke just looked at him.
“I do know the feelin’,” Monte said. “Women get a notion in their heads, and a man’s in trouble, for a fact. When are you and Sally pullin’ out?”
“Probably in about a week. Who else do you know for sure is up there?”
“Ben Webster, Nelson Barlow, Vic Young, Dave Hall, Frank Norton, Lew Brooks, Sid Yorke, Pete Akins, and Larry Gayle. Is that enough?”
“Good God!” Smoke said, standing up. “You just named some of the randiest ol’boys in the country.”
“Yeah. And believe you me, Smoke, they’ll be plenty more up there just as good as them boys I just named. You’re gonna be steppin’ into a rattler’s den.”
“They do sell .44’s up there, don’t they?” Smoke asked dryly.
“Probably not to you.” Monte’s reply was just as dry.
That night, lying in bed, Sally said, “We don’t have to go up there, Smoke. I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you in any way. Because I’m not.”
“You think a lot of this friend of yours, don’t you?”
“Like a sister, Smoke. She’s had a lot of grief in her life and I’d like for her to have some happiness. She’s overdue.”
“Want to explain that?”
“She lost two brothers in the Civil War. Her mother died when she was in high school. Then in her second year of college, her father died. She worked terribly hard to finish school. Took in ironing, mended clothes, worked as a maid; anything to put food in her mouth and clothes on her back. I’d help whenever I could, but Vicky is an awfully proud girl. She and Robert had one child . . . that lived. Two others died. She can’t have any more. Their daughter Lisa is ten.”
Smoke waited for a moment, his eyes on the dark ceiling. “Finish it, honey. Tell it all.”
“This Max Huggins trash has threatened Lisa several times, to get to Vicky.”
Smoke thought about that. For about five seconds. He turned his head, his gaze meeting Sally’s eyes. “We’ll start packing up some things in the morning.”
On the day they received the telegram from Sally’s father, informing them of the steamer’s departure, Smoke rode around their ranch, checking things out and speaking to the hands. His crew was a well-paid and tough bunch, who to a man would die for the brand. Some of them had been outlaws, riding the hoot-owl trail for a time. Some were gunfighters who sought relative peace and found it at the Sugarloaf. All were cowboys, hardworking and loyal.
“I still think you ought to take some of the boys with you, Smoke,” his foreman grumbled. “Them’s a hard bunch up yonder.”
Smoke rolled a cigarette and handed the makings to his foreman. “You boys are needed here. There are still lots of folks who would just love to burn me out if they got the chance.”
“They won’t,” the foreman said quietly.
“You boys take care of the place. You know where I’ll be and how to reach me. We’ll see you when we get back.”
Smoke and Sally pulled out the next morning, Smoke riding a midnight-black gelding he called Star, and Sally on a fancy-stepping mountain-bred mare who could go all day and still have bottom left. Smoke led a packhorse with their few pieces of luggage and supplies.
They headed east, toward Denver, where they would catch the train. Sally had much experience with trains; Smoke had ridden only a few of them, preferring to travel in the saddle.
The beautiful woman and the handsome man turned heads when they boarded in Denver. And the whisper went from car to car: “That’s Smoke Jensen! See them guns? He’s killed a thousand men.”
Smoke signed a half-dozen books about him and patiently answered the many questions that were asked of him, mostly by newcomers to the West, men and women making their first trip from the East.
One mouthy preacher lipped off one time too many about violent men who lived by the gun. Smoke finally told him to shut his mouth and mind his own business. The preacher’s mouth opened and closed silently a few times, like a fish out of water. Then he sat back down and shut up.
They changed trains in Cheyenne and headed northwest, and Smoke had to endure yet another new bunch of pilgrims with a thousand questions.
“My, my,” Sally said during a lull in the verbal bombardment. There was a twinkle in her eyes. “I didn’t realize I was married to such a famous man.”
“Bear it in mind,” Smoke said with a straight face. “And the next time I ask for a cup of coffee, you quick step and fetch it.”
Sally leaned over, putting her lips close to his ear, and whispered a terribly vulgar suggestion.
Smoke had to put his hat over his face to keep from busting out laughing. Sally was every bit the lady, but like so many western women, she could be quite blunt at times.
A fat drummer twisted in his seat and asked Smoke, “Will we see any Indians this trip? I’ve never seen an Indian.”
“We might see a few,” Smoke told him, aware that everyone within hearing range had their ears perked up. “But the tribes have pretty well been corralled. What we’ll more than likely encounter—if anything—is outlaws working the trains.”
“Outlaws!” a woman hollered. “You mean like . . . highwaymen?”
“Yes, ma’am. Once we cross over into Montana Territory, the odds of outlaws hitting trains really pick up. Especially this train,” he added.
“What’s so special about this train?” the lippy preacher asked.
“We’re carrying gold.”
“Now, how would someone such as you know that?” the preacher demanded.
Smoke ignored the scarcely concealed slur upon his character. “I saw them loading it, that’s why.”
“Well,” the preacher huffed. “I’m certain the railroad has adequate security.”
“They got an old man with a shotgun sitting in the car, if that’s what you mean.”
The preacher turned away and lifted his newspaper.
“Are we carrying gold, Smoke?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. And a lot of it. And not just gold. We’re carrying several payrolls, too. For the miners.”
“What are the chances of our getting held up?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. If I had to take a guess, I’d say we’re carrying about a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll—all combined—and maybe twice that in gold. Be a juicy haul for those so inclined.”
“They wouldn’t dare attack this train,” she kidded him. “Not with the famous Smoke Jensen on board.” She punched him in the ribs.
“Your faith in me is touching.” He rubbed the spot where she had punched him. “In more ways than one.”
The day melted into dusk and then full dark, the train chugging on uneventfully through the night. The passengers slept fitfully, swaying back and forth in their seats to the rhythm of the drivers on the tracks.
Smoke sensed the train slowing and opened his eyes. Being careful not to rouse Sally, he stood up and stepped out into the aisle, making his weaving way to the door. He stepped outside and stretched, getting the kinks out of his muscles. On instinct, he slipped the leather thongs from the hammers of his six-guns.
Smoke leaned over the side and saw the skeletal form of the water tower ahead, faintly illuminated by the dim light of a nearly cloud-covered moon.
Through the odor of smoke pouring from the stack of the locomotive, Jensen could almost taste the wetness in the air. A storm was brewing, and from the build-up of clouds, it was going to be a bad one.
He looked back at the lantern-lit interior of the car, the lamps turned down very low. The passengers, including Sally, were still sleeping.
The train gradually slowed and came to a gentle halt, something most experienced engineers tried to do late at night so the paying passengers wouldn’t be disturbed.
Smoke caught the furtive movement out of the corner of his eyes. Men on the water tower. With rifles.
One big hand closed around the butt of a .44. He hesitated. Were they railroad men, posted there in case of a robbery attempt? He didn’t think so. But he wasn’t going to shoot until he knew for sure.
He saw the brakeman coming up the side of the coaches and Smoke called to him softly just as he dropped to the shoulder. “My name’s Jensen, brakeman. Smoke Jensen. There are armed men on the water tower.”
The man’s head jerked up. “They damn sure ain’t railroad men, Smoke. And we’re carryin’ a lot of gold and cash money.”
“That’s all I need to know,” Smoke said. He leveled a .44 and knocked a leg out from under one gunman crouching on the water tower. The man fell, screaming, to the rocky ground.
Another gunman, hidden in the rocks alongside the tracks, opened fire, the slugs howling off the sides of the cars.
Smoke yelled, “Get these pilgrims down on the floor, Sally.” To the brakeman, who had hauled out a pistol and was trying to find a target, he called, “How far to the next water stop?”
“Too far,” the man said. “We got to water and fuel here or we don’t make it.”
“We’ll make it,” Smoke told him, pulling out his second .44 and jacking back the hammer.
One outlaw tried to run from the darkness to the locomotive. Either the engineer or the fireman shot him dead.
“How far is this payroll going?” Smoke asked, crouching down.
“All the way to the end of the line, up in Montana.”
He knew the end of the line, at that time, was near Gold Creek. They would change trains before then. Smoke plugged a running outlaw and knocked him sprawling; but it wasn’t a killing shot. The man jumped up and limped off. “Why in the hell doesn’t the railroad put guards on these payroll shipments?”
“Beats me, Smoke. But I’m damn sure glad you decided to ride my train for this trip.”
The pounding of horses’hooves punctuated the night. The outlaws had decided to give it up.
“Let’s see what we got,” Smoke said, shoving out empties and reloading as he walked over to the man he’d knocked off the water tower.
The man was dead. He’d landed on his head and broken his neck. He walked over to the man the engineer had shot. He was also dead. The third man Smoke had dropped was gut-shot and in bad shape, the slug blowing out his left side, taking part of the kidney with it. He looked up at Smoke.
“You played hell, mister. What’s your name? I’d like to know who done me in.”
“Smoke Jensen.”
The man cussed. “Val sure picked the wrong train this time.”
“Val Singer?” Smoke asked.
“Yeah. You know him?”
“I know him. Me and him . . .” Smoke broke it off as he looked down at the man. He was dead, his eyes wide open, staring at the cloudy sky. He looked over at the brakeman. “I winged another. Let’s see if we can find him.”
But he was gone. Smoke tracked a blood trail to where the outlaws had tied their horses. “He made the saddle. But as bad as he’s bleeding, he won’t last long. I must have hit the big vein in his leg.”
The fireman walked up, his face all dark with soot. “Lem, you wanna toss them bodies in the baggage car and keep on haulin’?”
“I ain’t having that crud in with me,” the guard to the gold shipment said, walking up. He had not taken part in the fight because in case of an attempted robbery, he was under orders not to open the doors to anyone. “Toss ’em in with the wood and tote ’em that way.”
Smoke shrugged his shoulders and helped wrap the men in blankets and carry them to the wood car. Back in his seat, Sally asked, “You suppose we’ll have any more trouble?”
Smoke pulled his hat brim down over his eyes and settled down for a nap. “Not from that bunch,” he said.
They changed trains in southern Idaho, staying with the Union Pacific line. This run would head straight north. End of track would put them about a hundred and fifty miles south of their destination.
The news had spread up and down the line that Smoke Jensen was on the train, and crowds gathered at every stop, hoping to get a glimpse of the West’s most famous gunfighter. Smoke stayed in the car while the train was in station. He had never sought publicity and didn’t want it now.
No more attempts were made to rob the train during the long pull north.
At end of track, Smoke off-loaded their horses while Sally changed from dress to jeans.
Packhorse loaded, they rode into the small town and purchased a side of bacon and some bread, a gaggle of kids and dogs right at their heels all the way.
“Right pleased to have you in town,” the shopkeeper told them. “Sorry you can’t stay longer. Things liven up quite a bit when you’re around, I’d guess, Mr. Jensen. Be good for business.”
“It usually is for the undertaker,” Smoke told him, and that shut him up.
Smoke signed his name to a half-dozen penny dreadfuls, then he and Sally hit the trail, pointing their horses’ noses north.
A young would-be tough, two guns tied down low, stepped out of the saloon and watched the Jensens ride out of town. He pulled his hat brim low, hitched at his guns, and said, “Huh! He don’t look so tough to me. It’s a good thing he didn’t get in my way. I’d a called him out and left him in the street.”
The town marshal looked at the kid, disgust in his eyes, then shoved the punk into a horse trough, guns and all, and walked away, leaving the big-mouth sputtering and cussing.
Smoke and Sally made their first camp alongside a fast-running and very clear and cold little creek. It didn’t take either one of them very long to bathe. They knew it was time to exit the creek when they began turning blue.
They were up before dawn. After bacon and bread and coffee, Sally strapped on her short-barreled .44, and then they were in the saddle and heading north.
They were both ready for a hot bath and food they didn’t have to cook over a campfire when they topped a ridge and looked down on a little town just south of Flathead Lake.
“Well,” Sally said, straightening her back. “It has a hotel.”
“Yeah,” Smoke said with a grin. “And I’ll bet they change the sheets at least once a month.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll bet they chan. . .
Sally faced him from across the table in the house in the high-up country of Colorado. “Smoke, there is a new treatment available in France, and Louis Arthur has got to have it. We’ve been to the finest doctors on this continent. They all say the same thing.”
“Sally, I’m not arguing that. I want what is best for Baby Arthur. But why do all the children have to go? My God, they’ll be gone for more than a year.”
She smiled at him. Smoke Jensen and Sally never had the hard, deadly quarrels that so many couples suffered. They were both reasonable people of high intelligence, and each loved the other. “The exposure to a more genteel climate—and I’m not talking about the weather—will be good for the older children. They need to broaden their horizons.”
Smoke laughed as he picked up his coffee mug, holding it in one big, flat-knuckled hand. The laughter was full of good humor and did not contain a bit of anger or scorn. He stuck out his little finger. “They gonna learn how to hold a coffee cup dainty-like, with their little pinkies all poked out to one side?”
Sally laughed at him. “Yes. You heathen.”
Smoke chuckled and rose from the table, picking up Sally’s cup as well as his own. He walked to the stove, a big man, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, huge, heavily muscled arms, and a lean waist. He walked like a cat. His presence in a room, any room, usually brought the crowd to silence. His eyes were brown and could turn as cold as the Arctic. He was a ruggedly handsome man, turning the heads of ladies wherever he traveled.
He was Smoke Jensen. The man some called the last mountain man.
Smoke was the hero in dozens of dime novels. Plays had been written and were still being performed about his exploits. Smoke, himself, had never seen one. He was, without dispute, the fastest gun in the West. He had never wanted the title of gunfighter; but he had it.
There was no accurate count of how many would-be toughs, punks, thugs, thieves, and killers had fallen under the .44’s of Smoke Jensen. Some say fifty; others said it was closer to two hundred. Smoke didn’t know. As a young man, scarcely out of his teens, he had ridden into a mining camp taken over by the men who had killed his wife and baby son and had wiped it out to the last man.
His reputation had then been carved in solid granite. Smoke had become a living legend.
He had met Sally, who was working as a schoolteacher, and they had fallen in love. Together, working side by side—even though she was enormously wealthy, something Smoke didn’t find out until well after they were married—they carved out a ranch in Colorado and named it the Sugarloaf.
For three years Smoke dropped out of sight, living a normal, peaceful life. Then he had to surface and once more strap on his guns in a fight for survival. He stayed surfaced. He would not hunt out a fight, but God help those who came to him trouble-hunting. As the western saying goes: Smoke could point out dozens of his graveyards.
Their coffee mugs refilled, Smoke sat back down at the table and they both sugared and stirred. Sally laid her hand on his. “Roundup is all over and the cattle sold, right, honey?”
“Yes. And it was a good one. We made money. Now we’re rebuilding the herds, introducing a stronger breed, mixing in some Herefords. What’d you have on your mind, Sally?”
“I’d like to go with the children....” She put a finger on his lips to stop his protests before they got started. “But I’m not. I know what the doctors said. And I’m never going to set foot on a ship again. But if we stay here, rattling around in this house, we’ll both go crazy with worry. Let’s wait until we receive the wire that the ship has steamed out, and then take a trip. Just the two of us.”
“That’s a good idea. The boys can run the spread; no worries there. You got some special place in mind?”
“Yes. It’s a friend I went to college with. She and her husband just moved to Montana. They live near a small town about thirty miles from Kalispell. She’s married to a doctor and they have a small ranch. I’d like to see her. She was my best friend.”
“Suits me. We’ll take a trip up there. It’ll do us both good to get away, see some country, and meet new people. We’ll take the train as far as it goes and then catch a stage.”
“No,” Sally shook her head. “Let’s put the horses in a car and ride in, Smoke. It’ll be worth it to see the expressions on their faces when we ride in.”
“Sidesaddle?” he kidded her, knowing better.
“You have to be kidding!”
Smoke was with her. “All right, honey. But we’re going to be heading into some rough country. I’ve been there. Cousin Fae lives not too far from there. We can take the train probably to Butte. That’s wild country, Sally. Some ol’boys up there still have the bark on. And that’s Big Max Huggins’s country.”
She smiled, but the curving of her pretty lips held no humor. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going, Smoke.”
He laughed. “I was wondering if you were going to get around to leveling with me.”
“You know this Max Huggins?”
“Only by name. We’ve never crossed trails.”
She stared into her coffee cup.
“Sally, this town your friends have settled near . . . it wouldn’t be Hell’s Creek, would it?”
“Yes.”
Smoke sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Then they didn’t show a lot of sense. Hell’s Creek is owned—lock, stock, and outhouse—by Big Max Huggins. It’s filled with gunfighters, whores, gamblers, killers.... You name it bad, and you’ll find it there. Why did they settle there?”
“Robert—that’s Vicky’s husband—befriended an old man who took sick while visiting back east. Robert was just setting up his practice. Years later, he got a letter from an attorney telling him the old man had died and left him his ranch.”
“And Big Max wanted the ranch?”
“Yes. But mostly he wants Victoria.”
The next morning, Smoke rode into town and checked with Sheriff Monte Carson.
“What can you get me on Hell’s Creek and a man named Big Max Huggins?”
Monte snorted. “I can tell you all about Big Max, Smoke. We got lead in each other about ten years ago.”
“Over near the Bitterroot?”
Monte nodded his head.
“I remember that shoot-out. Is there any kind of law in Hell’s Creek?”
“Only what Big Max says. Oh, there’s a sheriff up there. But he’s crooked as a snake’s track and so are his deputies. I hear the governor keeps threatening to send men in to clean up the town, but he hasn’t done it yet. Why the interest in Hell’s Creek?”
“Sally has some friends who live near there. We’re going to visit them. I’d sort of like to know what I’m riding into.”
“You’re riding into trouble, Smoke. Hell’s Creek is a haven for outlaw gangs. In addition to Big Max’s gang—and he’s got forty or fifty men who ride for him—there’s Alex Bell and his boys. Dave Poe, Warner Frigo, and Val Singer all run outlaw gangs out of Hell’s Creek. The only way that town is ever going to be cleaned up is for the Army to go in and do it.”
“Damn, Monte, it’s 1883. The wild West is supposed to be calming down.”
Monte shifted his chaw. “But you and me, Smoke, we know better, don’t we?”
Smoke nodded his head. “Yeah. There’ll be pockets of crud in the West for years to come, I reckon.”
“Any way you can talk your missus out of takin’this trip?”
Smoke just looked at him.
“I do know the feelin’,” Monte said. “Women get a notion in their heads, and a man’s in trouble, for a fact. When are you and Sally pullin’ out?”
“Probably in about a week. Who else do you know for sure is up there?”
“Ben Webster, Nelson Barlow, Vic Young, Dave Hall, Frank Norton, Lew Brooks, Sid Yorke, Pete Akins, and Larry Gayle. Is that enough?”
“Good God!” Smoke said, standing up. “You just named some of the randiest ol’boys in the country.”
“Yeah. And believe you me, Smoke, they’ll be plenty more up there just as good as them boys I just named. You’re gonna be steppin’ into a rattler’s den.”
“They do sell .44’s up there, don’t they?” Smoke asked dryly.
“Probably not to you.” Monte’s reply was just as dry.
That night, lying in bed, Sally said, “We don’t have to go up there, Smoke. I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you in any way. Because I’m not.”
“You think a lot of this friend of yours, don’t you?”
“Like a sister, Smoke. She’s had a lot of grief in her life and I’d like for her to have some happiness. She’s overdue.”
“Want to explain that?”
“She lost two brothers in the Civil War. Her mother died when she was in high school. Then in her second year of college, her father died. She worked terribly hard to finish school. Took in ironing, mended clothes, worked as a maid; anything to put food in her mouth and clothes on her back. I’d help whenever I could, but Vicky is an awfully proud girl. She and Robert had one child . . . that lived. Two others died. She can’t have any more. Their daughter Lisa is ten.”
Smoke waited for a moment, his eyes on the dark ceiling. “Finish it, honey. Tell it all.”
“This Max Huggins trash has threatened Lisa several times, to get to Vicky.”
Smoke thought about that. For about five seconds. He turned his head, his gaze meeting Sally’s eyes. “We’ll start packing up some things in the morning.”
On the day they received the telegram from Sally’s father, informing them of the steamer’s departure, Smoke rode around their ranch, checking things out and speaking to the hands. His crew was a well-paid and tough bunch, who to a man would die for the brand. Some of them had been outlaws, riding the hoot-owl trail for a time. Some were gunfighters who sought relative peace and found it at the Sugarloaf. All were cowboys, hardworking and loyal.
“I still think you ought to take some of the boys with you, Smoke,” his foreman grumbled. “Them’s a hard bunch up yonder.”
Smoke rolled a cigarette and handed the makings to his foreman. “You boys are needed here. There are still lots of folks who would just love to burn me out if they got the chance.”
“They won’t,” the foreman said quietly.
“You boys take care of the place. You know where I’ll be and how to reach me. We’ll see you when we get back.”
Smoke and Sally pulled out the next morning, Smoke riding a midnight-black gelding he called Star, and Sally on a fancy-stepping mountain-bred mare who could go all day and still have bottom left. Smoke led a packhorse with their few pieces of luggage and supplies.
They headed east, toward Denver, where they would catch the train. Sally had much experience with trains; Smoke had ridden only a few of them, preferring to travel in the saddle.
The beautiful woman and the handsome man turned heads when they boarded in Denver. And the whisper went from car to car: “That’s Smoke Jensen! See them guns? He’s killed a thousand men.”
Smoke signed a half-dozen books about him and patiently answered the many questions that were asked of him, mostly by newcomers to the West, men and women making their first trip from the East.
One mouthy preacher lipped off one time too many about violent men who lived by the gun. Smoke finally told him to shut his mouth and mind his own business. The preacher’s mouth opened and closed silently a few times, like a fish out of water. Then he sat back down and shut up.
They changed trains in Cheyenne and headed northwest, and Smoke had to endure yet another new bunch of pilgrims with a thousand questions.
“My, my,” Sally said during a lull in the verbal bombardment. There was a twinkle in her eyes. “I didn’t realize I was married to such a famous man.”
“Bear it in mind,” Smoke said with a straight face. “And the next time I ask for a cup of coffee, you quick step and fetch it.”
Sally leaned over, putting her lips close to his ear, and whispered a terribly vulgar suggestion.
Smoke had to put his hat over his face to keep from busting out laughing. Sally was every bit the lady, but like so many western women, she could be quite blunt at times.
A fat drummer twisted in his seat and asked Smoke, “Will we see any Indians this trip? I’ve never seen an Indian.”
“We might see a few,” Smoke told him, aware that everyone within hearing range had their ears perked up. “But the tribes have pretty well been corralled. What we’ll more than likely encounter—if anything—is outlaws working the trains.”
“Outlaws!” a woman hollered. “You mean like . . . highwaymen?”
“Yes, ma’am. Once we cross over into Montana Territory, the odds of outlaws hitting trains really pick up. Especially this train,” he added.
“What’s so special about this train?” the lippy preacher asked.
“We’re carrying gold.”
“Now, how would someone such as you know that?” the preacher demanded.
Smoke ignored the scarcely concealed slur upon his character. “I saw them loading it, that’s why.”
“Well,” the preacher huffed. “I’m certain the railroad has adequate security.”
“They got an old man with a shotgun sitting in the car, if that’s what you mean.”
The preacher turned away and lifted his newspaper.
“Are we carrying gold, Smoke?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. And a lot of it. And not just gold. We’re carrying several payrolls, too. For the miners.”
“What are the chances of our getting held up?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. If I had to take a guess, I’d say we’re carrying about a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll—all combined—and maybe twice that in gold. Be a juicy haul for those so inclined.”
“They wouldn’t dare attack this train,” she kidded him. “Not with the famous Smoke Jensen on board.” She punched him in the ribs.
“Your faith in me is touching.” He rubbed the spot where she had punched him. “In more ways than one.”
The day melted into dusk and then full dark, the train chugging on uneventfully through the night. The passengers slept fitfully, swaying back and forth in their seats to the rhythm of the drivers on the tracks.
Smoke sensed the train slowing and opened his eyes. Being careful not to rouse Sally, he stood up and stepped out into the aisle, making his weaving way to the door. He stepped outside and stretched, getting the kinks out of his muscles. On instinct, he slipped the leather thongs from the hammers of his six-guns.
Smoke leaned over the side and saw the skeletal form of the water tower ahead, faintly illuminated by the dim light of a nearly cloud-covered moon.
Through the odor of smoke pouring from the stack of the locomotive, Jensen could almost taste the wetness in the air. A storm was brewing, and from the build-up of clouds, it was going to be a bad one.
He looked back at the lantern-lit interior of the car, the lamps turned down very low. The passengers, including Sally, were still sleeping.
The train gradually slowed and came to a gentle halt, something most experienced engineers tried to do late at night so the paying passengers wouldn’t be disturbed.
Smoke caught the furtive movement out of the corner of his eyes. Men on the water tower. With rifles.
One big hand closed around the butt of a .44. He hesitated. Were they railroad men, posted there in case of a robbery attempt? He didn’t think so. But he wasn’t going to shoot until he knew for sure.
He saw the brakeman coming up the side of the coaches and Smoke called to him softly just as he dropped to the shoulder. “My name’s Jensen, brakeman. Smoke Jensen. There are armed men on the water tower.”
The man’s head jerked up. “They damn sure ain’t railroad men, Smoke. And we’re carryin’ a lot of gold and cash money.”
“That’s all I need to know,” Smoke said. He leveled a .44 and knocked a leg out from under one gunman crouching on the water tower. The man fell, screaming, to the rocky ground.
Another gunman, hidden in the rocks alongside the tracks, opened fire, the slugs howling off the sides of the cars.
Smoke yelled, “Get these pilgrims down on the floor, Sally.” To the brakeman, who had hauled out a pistol and was trying to find a target, he called, “How far to the next water stop?”
“Too far,” the man said. “We got to water and fuel here or we don’t make it.”
“We’ll make it,” Smoke told him, pulling out his second .44 and jacking back the hammer.
One outlaw tried to run from the darkness to the locomotive. Either the engineer or the fireman shot him dead.
“How far is this payroll going?” Smoke asked, crouching down.
“All the way to the end of the line, up in Montana.”
He knew the end of the line, at that time, was near Gold Creek. They would change trains before then. Smoke plugged a running outlaw and knocked him sprawling; but it wasn’t a killing shot. The man jumped up and limped off. “Why in the hell doesn’t the railroad put guards on these payroll shipments?”
“Beats me, Smoke. But I’m damn sure glad you decided to ride my train for this trip.”
The pounding of horses’hooves punctuated the night. The outlaws had decided to give it up.
“Let’s see what we got,” Smoke said, shoving out empties and reloading as he walked over to the man he’d knocked off the water tower.
The man was dead. He’d landed on his head and broken his neck. He walked over to the man the engineer had shot. He was also dead. The third man Smoke had dropped was gut-shot and in bad shape, the slug blowing out his left side, taking part of the kidney with it. He looked up at Smoke.
“You played hell, mister. What’s your name? I’d like to know who done me in.”
“Smoke Jensen.”
The man cussed. “Val sure picked the wrong train this time.”
“Val Singer?” Smoke asked.
“Yeah. You know him?”
“I know him. Me and him . . .” Smoke broke it off as he looked down at the man. He was dead, his eyes wide open, staring at the cloudy sky. He looked over at the brakeman. “I winged another. Let’s see if we can find him.”
But he was gone. Smoke tracked a blood trail to where the outlaws had tied their horses. “He made the saddle. But as bad as he’s bleeding, he won’t last long. I must have hit the big vein in his leg.”
The fireman walked up, his face all dark with soot. “Lem, you wanna toss them bodies in the baggage car and keep on haulin’?”
“I ain’t having that crud in with me,” the guard to the gold shipment said, walking up. He had not taken part in the fight because in case of an attempted robbery, he was under orders not to open the doors to anyone. “Toss ’em in with the wood and tote ’em that way.”
Smoke shrugged his shoulders and helped wrap the men in blankets and carry them to the wood car. Back in his seat, Sally asked, “You suppose we’ll have any more trouble?”
Smoke pulled his hat brim down over his eyes and settled down for a nap. “Not from that bunch,” he said.
They changed trains in southern Idaho, staying with the Union Pacific line. This run would head straight north. End of track would put them about a hundred and fifty miles south of their destination.
The news had spread up and down the line that Smoke Jensen was on the train, and crowds gathered at every stop, hoping to get a glimpse of the West’s most famous gunfighter. Smoke stayed in the car while the train was in station. He had never sought publicity and didn’t want it now.
No more attempts were made to rob the train during the long pull north.
At end of track, Smoke off-loaded their horses while Sally changed from dress to jeans.
Packhorse loaded, they rode into the small town and purchased a side of bacon and some bread, a gaggle of kids and dogs right at their heels all the way.
“Right pleased to have you in town,” the shopkeeper told them. “Sorry you can’t stay longer. Things liven up quite a bit when you’re around, I’d guess, Mr. Jensen. Be good for business.”
“It usually is for the undertaker,” Smoke told him, and that shut him up.
Smoke signed his name to a half-dozen penny dreadfuls, then he and Sally hit the trail, pointing their horses’ noses north.
A young would-be tough, two guns tied down low, stepped out of the saloon and watched the Jensens ride out of town. He pulled his hat brim low, hitched at his guns, and said, “Huh! He don’t look so tough to me. It’s a good thing he didn’t get in my way. I’d a called him out and left him in the street.”
The town marshal looked at the kid, disgust in his eyes, then shoved the punk into a horse trough, guns and all, and walked away, leaving the big-mouth sputtering and cussing.
Smoke and Sally made their first camp alongside a fast-running and very clear and cold little creek. It didn’t take either one of them very long to bathe. They knew it was time to exit the creek when they began turning blue.
They were up before dawn. After bacon and bread and coffee, Sally strapped on her short-barreled .44, and then they were in the saddle and heading north.
They were both ready for a hot bath and food they didn’t have to cook over a campfire when they topped a ridge and looked down on a little town just south of Flathead Lake.
“Well,” Sally said, straightening her back. “It has a hotel.”
“Yeah,” Smoke said with a grin. “And I’ll bet they change the sheets at least once a month.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll bet they chan. . .
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War of the Mountain Man
William W. Johnstone
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