Blood of the Mountain Man (11 page)

“I do!” Sally yelled from the batwings. She stepped inside, followed by Clementine Feathers and half a dozen other Soiled Doves from the Golden Cherry. “That’s my husband, and a better man you’ll not find anywhere!”

“Cover yourself with proper attire for a lady” Violet yelled at the jeans-clad Sally. “You shameless hussy!”

“Oh, hell,” Smoke muttered.

“Somebody get me a doctor!” a wounded gunhand moaned weakly.

Doc White came pushing and shoving through the crowd, followed by Major Cosgrove, Jack Biggers, and the mayor of the town, Fat Fosburn.

The band started up again, a sort of ragged rendition of “A Mighty Fortress.” “Sing it with vigor!” Preacher Lester shouted.

A dozen voices lifted in song.

Smoke looked at Van Horn. He was holding his glass of rye in one hand and leading the choir with the other, humming along.

Another badly wounded gunhand lifted himself up on one elbow and pointed a shaking finger at Cosgrove. “You said . . . you said it would be . . He fell back and died, his statement unfinished.

“I hope you didn’t tell him it would be easy,” Van Horn said, over the singing of the choir.

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Cosgrove snapped. “I never saw that man before in my life.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Barrie said. “He surely mistook you for someone else.”

“Yeah,” Van Horn said. “Maybe he thought you was some sort of an angel.”

“Jeff,” Madam Clementine Feathers said, “get the swampers in here and clean this place up.” “Yes, ma’am.”

Cosgrove cut his eyes and found the eyes of Smoke Jensen hard on him. It was not a particularly enjoyable sensation. Major turned abruptly and left the saloon.

“Knock off this damn singin’!” Sheriff Bowers hollered. “This ain’t no church. Brandt, Reed, get these people out of here. Where the hell is the undertaker?”

Violet Laymon huffed past Sally, still standing near the batwings, and hissed, “Hussy!”

Sally replied with a smile. Her reply sounded similar to “hitch”

“Well!” Violet threw back her head and marched out, her husband, the choir, and the band right behind them. Oom-pah-pah, toot, boom!

“What the hell happened in here?” Club Bowers asked, when the place had quieted down.

“We’ll never know from this side,” Doc White remarked, standing up. “The last one just died.”

At the Golden Cherry, Smoke and Sally sat in the comfortable    and spacious kitchen and    drank coffee and ate pie. Van Horn and Barrie sat in one of the “receiving” rooms, talking with a group of Soiled Doves.

“Some of the girls don’t do anything more than talk to the men,” Clemmie said. Clementine was too formal, she told Smoke and Sally. “A lot of these miners are happily married, with families hundreds of miles away, and they just want to talk to a woman. But those girls still get tarred with the same brush as the others, unfortunately.”

Sally had quickly gone over the carefully kept books and found that the Golden Cherry and the Golden Plum did a fantastic business. Jenny was a very well fixed young lady.

“I’m known from ’Frisco to St. Louie,” Clemmie said with a smile. “And I’m known for running the cleanest and the most honest places to be found anywhere. No shanghaiing allowed. No foot-padders allowed. No rough stuff with the girls. You seen Moses? Believe me, not even Mule Jackson wants to mess with Moses. Nobody gets rolled in any of my places. And nobody gets cheated. The wheels at the Plum are honest, and so are the dealers. I find out they aren’t, they’re gone.”

“How much of a cut does Sheriff Bowers get?” Smoke asked.

Clemmie smiled. “He gets his share.”

“Not anymore. Divide what you used to give him among the girls and yourself here, and among the employees at the Golden Plum,” Smoke told her. “All payoffs have ceased. You ladies stay here and chat. I’ll go tell Bowers personally.”

Van Horn and Barrie tagged along.

Smoke saw Jack Biggers and Major Cosgrove leave the sheriffs office, both men walking with their backs stiff with anger. Cosgrove’s shadow, Mule Jackson, looked back and spotted Smoke. Major and Jack stopped and turned around. They watched as Smoke entered the sheriffs office, while Van Horn and Barrie waited outside.

Club and his four deputies were sitting around the office. Smoke was met with very unfriendly glances from the five men. “All payoffs to you from Jenny’s estate have now ceased,” Smoke told the man. “Try to shut down the businesses and I’ll kill you. Try to force more money from Clemmie and I’ll kill you. If the establishments mysteriously burn down, I’ll kill you. If the employees are hassled by you or your men, I’ll kill you. Do you understand all that, Club?”

Club Bowers was so mad he could not speak. He and his men were salting away a good bit of protection money each week from the Golden Cherry and the Golden Plum. Now all that was over.

Brandt stood up, his face mottled with fury. “Why, you goddamn . . .”

Smoke took two steps forward and hit him. The blow took the crooked deputy right on the side of the jaw and the man dropped like an anvil. Brandt lay motionless on the floor, a slight trickle of blood coming from his mouth.

Club Bowers sat behind his desk and stared hate at Smoke. But he was wise enough to keep his hands in plain sight and his mouth free of threats or cussing.

The other deputies, Reed, Junior, and Modoc, sat quietly. They were not afraid of Smoke. They knew that if they all pulled iron together, some of their bullets would nail Jensen. But they also knew that the odds of any of them coming out of it unscathed were very, very slight. At best, two or three of them would die under Smoke’s lead. At this range, the carnage would be terrible.

Club Bowers, beneath all his anger, knew that Jensen could not stay in this area forever. Even if all the imported gunfighters that were here and still on their way did not kill the man, he had to leave sometime. He and his wife both had businesses to run back in Colorado. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Bowers slowly nodded his head.

“That was just common business practice, Jensen,” the sheriff said. “It goes on from New York City to San Francisco. But if you want it stopped, it’s stopped.”

“Fine,” Smoke said, then turned his back to the men and stepped out onto the boardwalk. Biggers and Cosgrove were still standing on the boardwalk, Mule Jackson a few feet from the men. Fat Fosburn had joined them. Smoke walked up to the men.

“The payoffs to the sheriff and his men from the Cherry and the Plum have just stopped,” Smoke informed the men. “One of them had something to say about that. He’s still out on the floor. Do any of you have objections to that?”

“I do,” Mule said. “I just flat don’t like you, Jensen. And I think I’ll tear your meathouse down right now.” He stepped forward, and for a big man, he was surprisingly swift.

But of all the men present on the boardwalk, Smoke had suspected Mule would be the one to offer up a fight. Smoke sidestepped, then stuck out a boot, and Mule, tripped. A little shove from Smoke and the huge man fell off the boardwalk and landed face-first in the mud of the street.

Smoke unbuckled and untied, handing his guns to Van Horn. He pulled leather riding gloves from his back pocket and slipped them on while Mule was cussing and spitting out mud and dirt and getting to his feet. Mule was spewing and spitting out just what he was going to do to Smoke. None of it was pleasant.

“You watch that brute,” Van Horn cautioned. “He’s killed men with those fists.”

“So have I,” Smoke replied.

Clemmie and Sally came at a run, as did most of the town’s citizens, many of them climbing onto awnings and running up to second-floor landings to get a glimpse of the upcoming fight. Mule Jackson had never been bested in a fight, and while Smoke Jensen was a known gunfighter, and a very well-put-together man, most believed he stood no chance at all against a wicked brawler like Mule.

“Five hundred dollars on Mule!” Fat Fosburn hollered.

“I’ll take that bet,” Clemmie Feathers shouted.

“Fifty dollars on Smoke,” Van Horn said.

“You’re on,” Club said.

The betting became hot and heavy.

Violet and her band of followers raced up, pushing and shoving through the crowd. “This is disgraceful!” Violet shrieked, while her husband was jumping up and down, trying to see what was going on. He finally perched on top of a water barrel by the corner of a building.

Store owners locked their doors and hung CLOSED signs on the doorknobs. No one wanted to miss this fight.

“One thousand dollars on Mule Jackson!” Major Cosgrove shouted above the din.

“I’ll take that bet!” Sally yelled. “And go five times more. Five thousand dollars on Smoke. You want to put your money where your big fat mouth is, Cosgrove?”

Major’s face flushed a deep crimson as his eyes met Sally’s. She and Clemmie and a couple of the Golden Cherry’s soiled doves were standing in the bed of a wagon.

“I’ll take that bet, Little Lady,” Major yelled.

Sally nodded her head. “I’m a lady most of the time,” she said to Clemmie. “But I can be just about as mean as my husband when I choose to be.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second, honey,” Clemmie replied.

“Come on, you lard-butt!” Smoke yelled to Mule, still slipping and sliding in the mud of the street. “Are you going to fight or dance all day?”

With a roar of rage, Mule charged.

Mule slopped up onto the boardwalk, muddy and wet to the skin and mad to the bone. Before he could get set, Smoke hit him flush in the mouth with a straight right that snapped the man’s head back and bloodied his lips. Mule stood for a couple of seconds, shaking his big head. Before he could clear out all the little chirping birdies and ringing bells, Smoke crossed a left that landed on the side of the man’s jaw and buckled his knees. Mule covered up and took a staggering step back. The bully knew at that moment he was in for the fight of his life. Smoke Jensen was no ordinary man, and he could punch like a sledgehammer! There was a roaring pain in his head that Mule had not experienced since childhood. He was going to have to end this brutally and quickly, and he knew he was going to have to kill Smoke Jensen. He could not let the man beat him. His reputation would be ruined and he’d be a laughingstock. He couldn’t let that happen. All that went through his mind in the course of two seconds. When the third second ticked past, Smoke followed him in and hit him twice in the stomach with a left and right that hurt.

Smoke pressed and clubbed the man on the neck with a balled fist, then stepped back, out of reach of Mule’s powerful arms.

Deputy Modoc stuck one boot out to trip Jensen. He felt the muzzle of a pistol jam into his ribs and he pulled back his boot and cut his eyes. He was staring into the cold eyes of the town tamer, Barrie. “Do that again,” Barrie said, “and I’ll kill you.”

Club Bowers looked over at Sally. She had taken a rifle from someone’s saddle boot and was holding it, hammer back. He sighed and shook his head. He’d never before met a man like Smoke or a woman like Sally. They were made for each other.

Mule screamed like an angry bull and ran at Smoke in an attempt to lock his arms around the man and crush the life from him. And Smoke knew the man was capable of doing just that. Smoke stepped to one side and smashed a right into Mule’s face, flattening the man’s nose and sending blood spurting. Mule stopped as if hit with an iron stake, his boots flying out from under him. He landed on his back on the boardwalk, the breath momentarily knocked from him.

“Stomp him, Smoke!” someone in the crowd yelled. “He’d do it to you.”

“You shut your damn mouth!” Major yelled, his eyes searching the crowd for the citizen.

‘You go to hell, Cosgrove,” the citizen yelled.

Smoke let Mule slowly lumber to his muddy, low-heeled lace-up boots. Mule could not believe this was happening to him. He had yet to land a punch on Smoke Jensen. The damn man just stood there waiting.

“Stand still and fight!” Mule said, blood leaking from his mouth and nose.

“Well, come on,” Smoke told him. “I’m right here.” Smoke was under no illusions. He knew he had been awfully lucky so far in this fight, and that just might be subject to change at any time if he got careless.

Mule lifted his big fists and came at Smoke slowly.

The man had seen the error of his ways and realized that brute strength alone would not win this fight. Smoke had hammered him some terrible blows, and those blows had taken some of the steam out of Mule. He could not recall ever getting hit as hard and as many times as he’d been hit this day.

Mule had never had to rely on fighting skills to win fights. He could take a punch with the best of them, and if he ever got his hands on a man, the fight was over. Mule liked to crush bones, to hurt men, cripple them. He’d killed a dozen men with his hands over the years, and made cripples out of twice that number. And he had no doubts about the outcome of this fight.

But he should have.

Mule flipped a left at Smoke and Smoke ducked it and went under, driving his right fist into Mule’s belly, about two inches above his belt buckle. The air
whooshed
out of the man and Smoke followed that with a jarring left to the side of Mule’s jaw that damn near crossed Mule’s eyes. Smoke smashed a left and a right to Mule’s ribs and then slammed a big right fist over Mule’s heart.

Mule staggered back, hurt.

Major Cosgrove cut his eyes to Sally. She was looking straight at him, smiling.

Damn the woman! Major thought. Damn her! She’d never had a doubt about who would win the fight. And damn Smoke Jensen, too.

Club Bowers watched the fight and thought: Mule is finished. Smoke is going to maul him, humiliate him, and maybe bust him up real bad.

Those citizens who supported the power structure in Red Light had fallen silent. They all knew that some professional fighter could probably whip Mule, someone like Jem Mace or that new up-and-comer John Sullivan. They could have beaten Mule, fighting by the rules. But to have some gunfighter come in and do it . . . that was, up to this point, unthinkable.

“Give it up, Mule,” Smoke told the man. “Just give it up. I don’t want to have to kill you.”