Trail of the Mountain Man (16 page)

The houseboy heard the thundering of hooves long before he saw them. He did not know what they meant, other than a lot of riders were in a big hurry. He shifted his heavy satchel to his other hand and trudged on, walking along the side of the rutted dirt road. As the thunder grew louder, he turned around, fear and panic on his face.

“Ride the insubordinate bastard down!” he heard Tilden Franklin scream, his voice just carrying over the steel-shod thunder.

The houseboy tried to run. He dropped his belongings and leaped to one side. He was too slow.

The rushing shoulder of a horse hit him in the back, tossing him to the road. Pain filled him as he heard his bones break. He looked up in time to see Tilden's crazed face and his stallion rear up, the hooves flashing in the hard sunlight.

The houseboy screamed.

His screaming was cut off as the steel hooves came down on his face, crushing his skull. The riders galloped on, leaving the houseboy lying in the road, his blood staining and dampening the dust.

They were fifty-odd strong, drunk not with alcohol, but with the power given them by Tilden Franklin. Raw, unbridled, killing power. He was paying them good money, and offering them immunity and total impunity.

From the law. None of them was taking Smoke Jensen into consideration as any form of punishment. They should have.

One deputy saw them coming hard and ran for his horse. He hauled his ashes, leaving everything he owned behind him in Fontana. If it ever calmed down, he might be back. If not, to hell with it!

Yet another deputy, nicknamed Stonewall, saw the riders coming and ran across the street to the sheriffs office. “Monte!” he hollered, jumping into the office and running to the shotgun rack. “Tilden and his gunhawks comin' fast. Get ready.”

A third deputy ran inside the office-jail just as gunfire ripped the street. Like Monte and Stonewall, he grabbed a Greener from off the rack and stuffed his pockets full of shells.

“Take the back, Dave,” Monte said, his voice calm. “Where are the others?”

“I seen Slim haulin' his ashes outta here,” Dave told him. “I think Joel is out in the county somewheres servin' a notice from Judge Proctor.”

“Stay calm,” Monte told his men. “We got some food, and we got a pump for water. Tilden wanted this place built of stone for strength, so that's gonna work agin him. It'd take a cannon to bring these walls down.”

“Hey!” a miner back in lockup hollered. “What about me?”

“Turn him loose and give him a shotgun,” Monte ordered. “If he tried to get of here, those gunnies would cut him to rags.”

The miner looked out at the angry group of heavily armed riders. “Who the hell is all them people?”

“That's your buddy, Tilden Franklin, and his gunhands,” Stonewall told him. “Would you like to go out and kiss him hello?”

“Would you like to kiss another part of me?” the miner challenged.

Stonewall laughed and handed the man a sawed-off shotgun and a sack of shells.

Monte called out through an open but barred window. “As Sheriff I am ordering you to break this up and leave this town or you'll all under arrest.”

“That's gonna be a good trick,” Dave muttered.

A TF gunhand made the mistake of firing into the jail. Monte lifted his express gun and blew the rider clear out of the saddle.

The street erupted in gunfire, the hard exchange returned from those in the fortlike jail.

Blood dropped onto the dusty street as the shotguns cleared half a dozen saddles of living flesh, depositing dead, dying, and badly wounded men into the dirt.

Monte reloaded his express gun and lined up a gunhand he knew only as Blackie. He gave Blackie both barrels full of buckshot. The double charge lifted the gunhand out of the saddle, a hole in his chest so large it would take a hat to cover it.

The screaming of frightened and bucking horses filled the gunsmoke air. The riders were hard pressed to control their mounts, much less do any fighting.

Louis Longmont stepped out of his gaming tent, a Colt in each hand. As calmly as in a seconded duel, Louis lifted first one Colt and then the other, firing coolly and with much deliberation. He emptied two saddles and then paused, not wanting to shoot a horse.

The man who owned and cooked at the Good Eats Cafe stepped out of his place with a Sharps .50. The man, a Civil War veteran with four hard years of fighting as a Union cavalryman, lifted the Sharps and emptied yet another saddle.

Big Mama ran out of her place and literally jerked one gunhand off his horse. She began smashing his face with big, hard fists, beating the man into bloody unconsciousness.

Billy, up in the loft of the stable with his newly bought .22 caliber rifle, grinned as he took careful aim at the big man on the big horse. Gently he squeezed the trigger.

And shot Tilden Franklin smack in one cheek of his ass.

With a roar of rage, Tilden wheeled his horse around and took off at a gallop, out of town, the gunhands following closely.

 

 

Nobody treed a Western town in the 1870's. Nobody. Nearly every man in every town was a combat veteran of some war, whether it be against Indians, outlaws, the Union Blue, or the Rebel Gray. But nobody treed a Western town.

Two years prior to the formation of Fontana, back in September of 1876, Jesse James and his outlaw gang had tried to collar Northfield, Minnesota. They were shot to rags by the townspeople.

 

 

The dust settled slowly, and a quiet settled over Fontana. Only the moaning of the badly wounded TF gunslicks could be heard. Doctor Spalding came wheeling up in his buggy, sliding to a halt in the street. His unbelieving eyes took in the carnage before him. He began counting. He stopped at ten, knowing there were several more scattered about in the dirt and dust.

Monte and his deputies stepped out of the jail building. “Get ‘em patched up, Doc,” he said. “Them that is able, bunk 'em in yonder.” He jerked his thumb toward the jail. “You!” His eyes found a man lounging about. “Git the undertaker on down here.”

The photographer was coming at an awkward run, his tripod-and-hood camera-and-flash container a cumbersome burden. He set up and began taking pictures.

“Sheriff!” Doc Spalding called. “Most of these men are dead. Several more are not going to make it much longer.”

“Good,” Monte said. “Saves the town the expense of a trial.”

 

 

Tilden Franklin lay on his belly, in bed, while the old camp cook probed and poked at his buttock, finally cutting out the small .22 slug. He dropped the bloody pellet into a pan.

“Somebody was a-funnin' you with that thing,” the cook observed.

Tilden swore, loud and long.

 

 

News of the attempted collaring of Fontana was quick to reach Big Rock and the small spreads scattered out from it. When Smoke took the news to Ralph, the minister sat down on a log he was hewing and laughed.

“Billy shot Tilden Franklin in the ass!” he hollered, then started laughing again.

Bountiful came on the run, sure something was wrong with her husband. Sally was with her. The ladies had been working, making a list of prospective members for the Big Rock Women for Equal Rights Club.

“What's wrong?” Bountiful asked.

“Billy shot Tilden Franklin in his big ass!” Ralph again hollered, then bent over with laughter.

The laughter was infectious; soon they were all howling and wiping their eyes.

 

 

Judge Proctor was furious. Since he had begun his program of alcohol abstention, he had realized he was supposed to help maintain law and order, not make a mockery of it by drunken antics.

The judge signed arrest warrants for Tilden Franklin and as many of the TF gunslicks that people on the street could recall being present during the shooting spree.

Louis Longmont put up five thousand dollars reward for the arrest and conviction of Tilden Franklin, and the judge had Haywood's printing press cranking out wanted posters for Tilden Franklin. He then had them posted throughout the county.

Louis thought it all hysterically amusing.

Now everybody, or most everybody, knew that no one was really going to try to arrest Tilden Franklin. Or, for that matter, any of the TF gunhawks. But it did keep them out of Fontana and Big Rock and, for the most part, confined to the TF ranges. Punching cattle. Which pissed off the gunslicks mightily.

 

 

“You got no choice,” Tilden said to his new foreman, Luis Chamba. Tilden was unshaven, and sitting on a pillow. “Not if you want to stay alive. All them damned old gunslingers have ringed my range. They're just waiting for you or me or some of the others to step off of this range. Anyway, what are you boys bitching about? You're all drawing top wages for sitting around really doing nothing.” Tilden did manage a rueful smile. “Except herdin' beeves, that is.”

Luis did not see the humor in it. He stalked out of the great house. But Luis was no fool. He knew that, for the time being, he was stuck. Herding cattle.

 

 

And then two things happened that would forever alter the histories of Fontana and Big Rock and the lives of most of those who called them home.

Belle Colby, accompanied by Johnny North and Lawyer Hunt Brook, claimed her ten percent of the TF.

And Utah Slim finally made his move, setting out to do what he had been paid to do.

Kill Smoke Jensen.

“Riders coming, Boss!” Luis Chamba hollered through an open window of the large home.

“Who are they?” Tilden shouted returning the holler. He was sitting in his study, drinking whiskey. The interior of the home was as nasty as Tilden Franklin's unwashed body and unshaven face.

“Can't tell yet,” the gunslinger called. “But there's a woman in a buckboard, I can tell that much.”

Tilden heaved himself up and out of his chair. For a moment, the big man swayed unsteadily on his booted feet. He stumbled to a water basin and washed his face. Lifting his dripping face, he stared into a mirror. He was shocked at his appearance. A very prideful man, Tilden had always been a neat dresser and almost fastidious when it came to washing his body.

He could smell his own body odors wafting up to assail his nostrils. With a grimace, he called to Luis.

“Tell them I'll be out in fifteen minutes, Luis.”

“Si, Boss.”

Hurriedly, Tilden washed himself best he could out back of the great house and toweled himself dry. He had water on the stove heating for shaving. He shaved, very carefully, noting his shaking hands. Somehow, he managed not to nick his face.

For some reason, his crazed mind felt that the woman in the buckboard was Sally Jensen, coming to see him.

Tilden splashed Bay Rum on his face and sprinkled some on his body, then dressed in clean clothes. He was shocked when he stepped out onto the porch and saw it was not Sally Jensen.

The woman was Belle Colby. With her was Johnny North, the lawyer Hunt Brook, Sheriff Monte Carson, and someone Tilden had never seen before. A man dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and string tie. His face was tanned and his eyes were hard. A drooping moustache.

He cleared up who he was in a hurry. “My name is Mitchell,” he said. “United States Marshal. I don't know who started the war in this part of the country, Franklin, and I don't much care. But I'm delivering two messages today. One to you, another to Smoke Jensen. The war is over. If I have to come back in here, I'll bring the Army with me and declare a state of martial law. You understand all that?”

“Yes ... sir,” Tilden said, the words bitter on his tongue. He glared at Carson.

“Fine,” Mitchell said. “Now then, Lawyer Brook is here representing Mrs. Colby. Me and Sheriff Carson will just sit here and see that the lady gets her due.”

“Her ... due?” Tilden questioned.

Briefly, Hunt Brook explained. He further explained that the papers given Belle Colby were now part of court records.

“I want to see your books, Mister Franklin,” Hunt told Tilden. “When that is done, I shall determine how much is owed Mrs. Colby. She has confided in me that she is willing to sell her ten percent back to you. Once a fair price is determined. By me. Shall we get to it, Mister Franklin?”

Speaking through an almost blind rage, Tilden started to choke out his reply. Then some small bit of reason crept into his mind. He did not want these people inside his smelly house. That would not look good, and the word would get around.

“I'll get my books. We'll go over them on the porch. All right?”

“Fine, Mister Franklin,” the lawyer said.

Luis Chamba had discreetly disappeared into the bunk house. He had known who Mitchell was at first sighting. And while the Mexican gunfighter felt he could best him, no one in their right mind killed a federal marshal. He told his men to stay low and out of sight.

Chamba felt, along with many of the other gunhands, that Tilden Franklin had just about come to the end of his string. But as long as he could pay the money, they would stay. Anyways, Luis wanted his chance at Smoke Jensen. Now that the elusive gunfighter had finally surfaced, a lot of gunslicks wanted to try their skills against his.

Tilden was seething as the lawyer went over his books. As far as the money went, the money to buy out Belle Colby, Tilden had that much in his safe inside the house. It wasn't the money. It was the fact that Clint had given his percentage to this trashy nester woman. Husband not even cold in the grave and she was probably hunchin' and bumpin' the gunslinger Johnny North. Trash, that's all she was.

Tilden listened as the lawyer quoted an absurdly high figure. But Tilden wasn't going to quibble about it. He just wanted his holdings intact, and this hard-eyed U. S. marshal out of the area. Mitchell was damn sure wrong on one count, though: the war was not over. Not by a long shot.

“All right,” Tilden said, agreeing to the figure.

The lawyer reached into his case and handed Tilden what the man knew was a binding note. He signed it, Belle signed it, and then Mitchell and North both witnessed it. Belle Colby was now a woman of some means.

Tilden Franklin sat in a chair and watched them leave. Slowly, the gunfighters began to once more gather around the porch.

“Play it close to the vest for a time,” Tilden said. “Let that damned marshal get clear of this area. Then you'll all start earning your wages. I don't care who you have to kill in order to get to him, but I want Smoke Jensen dead. Dead, goddamnit ...
dead
!”

 

 

U.S. Marshal Mitchell looked at the legendary gunfighter Smoke Jensen. He was even younger than Mitchell had been led to believe. The man was still a ways from thirty.

“If I tried real hard, Jensen, I probably could come up with half a dozen arrest warrants for you. You know that, don't you?”

Smoke grinned boyishly. “But findin' people to stand up in court, look me in the eyes, and testify against me might give you some problems.”

Smart too, Mitchell thought. The marshal returned Smoke's smile. “There is always that to consider, yes.”

“The war is not over, Marshal. You must know that.”

“I mean what I say, Jensen. If I have to, I'll bring the Army in here. The Governor of the State of Colorado is tired of hearing about this place. In terms of blood.”

“Tilden Franklin is a crazy man, Marshal. I don't know why he hates me, but he does. He will never rest until one of us is dead.”

“I know that,” Mitchell said. “But don't sell him short, Jensen. Not even Luis Chamba is as fast as Tilden Franklin. He's poison with a short gun.”

“He thought he was poison with his fists too,” Smoke replied, again with that boyish grin.

“So I heard.” The marshal's reply was very dry. “That beating you gave him didn't help matters very much.”

“It gave me a great deal of satisfaction.”

“I really hope I never see you again, Jensen. But somehow I feel I will.”

“I didn't start this, Marshal. But if it comes down to it, I'll damn sure finish it.”

The marshal looked at Smoke for a moment. “Other than Tilden Franklin, you know anyone else who might pay a lot of money to have you killed?”

Smoke thought about that for a moment. Then he shook his head. “No, not right off hand.”

Time took him winging back more than three years, back to the ghost town of Slate, where Smoke had met the men who had killed his brother and his father, then raped and killed his wife Nicole, and then killed Nicole and Smoke's son Arthur.

Mitchell, as if sensing what was taking place in Smoke's mind, stood motionless, waiting.

 

 

“Them old mountain men is pushin' us toward Slate,” a gunhand said.

The one of the Big Three who had ordered all the killing, Richards, smiled at Smoke's choice of a showdown spot. A lot of us are going to be ghosts in a very short time, he thought.

As the old ghost town loomed up stark and foreboding on the horizon, located on the flats between the Lemhi River and the Beaverhead Range, a gunslick reined up and pointed. “The goddamn place is full of people.”

“Miners,” another of the nineteen men who rode to kill Smoke said. “Just like it was over at the camp on the Uncompahgre.”

The men checked their weapons and stuffed their pockets full of extra shells and cartridges.

They moved out in a line toward the ghost town and toward the young gunfighter named Smoke.

“There he is,” Britt said, looking up the hill toward a falling-down store.

Smoke stood alone on the old curled-up and rotted boardwalk. The men could just see the twin .44's belted around his waist. He held a Henry repeating rifle in his right hand, a double-barreled express gun in his left hand. Suddenly, Smoke ducked into the building, leaving only a slight bit of dust to signal where he once stood.

“Two groups of six,” Richards said. “One group of three, one group of four. Move out.”

Smoke had removed his spurs, hanging them on the saddlehorn of Drifter. As soon as he'd ducked out of sight, he had run from the store down the hill, staying in the alley. He stashed the express gun on one side of the street in an old store, his rifle across the weed-grown street.

He met the gunslick called Skinny Davis in the gloom of what had once been a saloon.

“Draw!” Skinny hissed.

Smoke put two holes in his chest before Davis could cock his .44's.

“In the saloon!” someone yelled.

Williams jumped through an open, glassless window of the saloon. Just as his boots hit the old warped boards, Smoke shot him, the .44 slug stopping him and twisting the gunhawk back out the window to the boardwalk. Williams was hurt, but not out of it. He crawled along the side of the building, one arm broken and dangling, useless.

“Smoke Jensen!” the gunnie called Cross called. “You ain't got the sand to face me.”

“That's one way of putting it,” Smoke muttered. He took careful aim and shot the man in the stomach, doubling him over and dropping him to the dirty street.

The miners had hightailed it to the ridges surrounding the old town. There they sat, drinking and betting and cheering. The old Mountain Men, Preacher among them, watched expressionless.

The young man called Smoke, far too young to have been one of that rare and select breed of adventuring pioneers called Mountain Men, had, nonetheless, been raised, at least in part, by Preacher, so that made Smoke one of them. Indeed, the last of the Mountain Men.

A bullet dug a trench along the old, rotting wood, sending splinters flying, a few of them striking Smoke in the face, stinging and bringing a few drops of blood.

Smoke ran out the back, coming face to face with Simpson, the outlaw gunfighter having both his dirty hands filled with .44's.

Smoke pulled the trigger on his own .44's, the double hammer-blows of lead taking Simpson in the lower chest, knocking him dying to the ground.

Smoke reloaded, then grabbed up Simpson's guns and tucked them behind his belt. He ran down the alley. A gunslick stepped out of a gaping doorway just as Smoke cut to his right, jumping through a windowless opening. A bullet burned his shoulder. Spinning, he fired both Colts, one slug taking Martin in the throat, the second striking the outlaw just above the nose, almost removing the upper part of the man's face.

Smoke caught a glimpse of someone running. He dropped to one knee and fired. His slug shattered the hip of Rogers, sending the big man sprawling in the dirt, howling and cussing. Another gunslick spurred his horse and charged the building where Smoke was crouched. He smashed his horse's shoulder against the old door and came thundering inside. The animal, wild-eyed and scared, lost its footing and fell, pinning the outlaw to the floor, crushing the man's stomach and chest. The outlaw, Reese, cried in agony as blood filled his mouth and darkness clouded his eyes.

Smoke slipped out the side door.

“Get him, Turkel!” a hired gun yelled.

Smoke glanced up roof-level high; he ducked as a rifle bullet flattened against the building. Smoke snapped off a shot and got lucky, the slug hitting Turkel in the chest. He crashed through an awning, bringing down the rotting awning. The hired gun did not move.

A bullet removed a small part of Smoke's right ear; blood poured down the side of his face. He ran to where he had stashed the shotgun, grabbing it up and cocking it, leveling the barrels just as the doorway filled with gunslicks.

Smoke pulled both triggers, fighting the recoil of the 12-gauge. The blast cleared the doorway of all living things.

“Goddamn you, Jensen,” a hired gun yelled, his voice filled with rage and frustration. He stepped out into the street.

Smoke dropped the shotgun and picked up a rifle, shooting the gunhand in the gut.

It was white-hot heat and gunsmoke for the next few minutes. Smoke was hit in the side, twisting him into the open doorway of a rotting building where a dead man lay. Smoke picked up the man's bloody shotgun and stumbled into the darkness of the building just as spurs jingled in the alley. Smoke jacked back both hammers and waited.

The spurs came closer. Smoke could hear the man's heavy breathing. He lifted the shotgun and pulled both triggers, blowing a bullet-sized hole in the rotting pine wall.

The gunslick stumbled backward, and slammed into an outhouse. The outhouse collapsed, dumping the dying gunhand into the shit-pit.

Smoke checked his wounds. He would live. He reloaded his own Colts and the guns taken from the dead gunnie. He listened as Fenerty called for his buddies.

There was no response.

Fenerty was the last gunslick left.

He called again and Smoke pinpointed his voice. Picking up a Henry, Smoke emptied the rifle into the storefront. Fenerty came staggering out, stumbled on the rotting steps, and pitched face-forward into the street. There, he died.

Smoke laid down the challenge to Richards, Potter, and Stratton. “All right, you bastards!” he yelled. “Face me in the street if you've got the balls!”