Trail Of The Mountain Man/revenge Of The Mountain Man (The Last Mountain Man)

They clinked glasses and sipped.

Louis smiled. “Shall we adjourn to what laughingly passes for a veranda and watch the show, boys?”

“Sure going to be one,” Smoke agreed, moving toward the door.

Luke Nations had broken off from the others and was walking toward the knot of would-be gunslicks, walking directly toward the duded-up punk with the fat mouth. Luke stopped about twenty-five feet from him. He stood with the leather thongs off the hammers of his Colts. He stood with his feet slightly spread. He was big and bent and old and mean-looking. And the look in his eyes would have warned off a puma.

“You made a comment a minute or so ago, kid,” Luke said, his voice flat and hard. “Well, now is your chance to back up your mouth. Either that…or tuck your fancy tail between your legs and carry your ass!”

His name was Lester. But he called himself Sundance. At this moment, he felt more like Lester than Sundance.

The Silver Dollar Kid had backed up against a wall. Unlike Lester, he wasn’t afraid; he just wanted to see if the old men still had it in them. When he had studied them, then he would make his move.

“Goddamn you, boy!” Luke’s voice was so sharp, it hurt. “Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Sundance surfaced, pushing Lester out of the way.

Monte Carson had come on the run when he heard the news of the impending shoot-out. He came to an abrupt halt, almost falling as his high-heeled boots dug into the dirt of the street. One of his deputies ran into him, and they both almost fell.

“What the hell?” the deputy said.

“Shut up and look around you!” Monte whispered hoarsely.

The Apache Kid was just across the street, standing alone, both hands to his sides, the palms very close to the butts of his Colts.

The deputy cut his eyes. Old Sunset was standing behind them, about thirty feet away.

Bill Foley stood just to their right, poised and ready for anything that might come his way.

“Ssshhittt!” Monte hissed, the breath whistling between his slightly gapped front teeth. He was looking eyeball to eyeball with Silver Jim, his long white duster brushed back, exposing the butts of the Colts, the leather hammer thongs off.

Back of them, facing Tilden Franklin and Clint, stood Moody. Moody said, “You boys come to watch or get dealt in?”

Tilden chewed his cigar soggy in a matter of a heartbeat. He felt no fear, for there was no fear in him. But he had grown up hearing stories about these old gunfighters. And at this distance, everybody was going to get lead in them. And there was something else too. Tilden knew, from hard experience, that when dealing with ballsy old men you’d best walk lightly. With their best years behind them, they had nothing to lose. Old men did not fight fair. Tilden had learned that the hard way too.

Clint cut his eyes. Louis Longmont, his tailored jacket brushed back over the butts of his guns, stood to Clint’s right. Smoke was facing Tilden’s other hands, and the other hands were looking a little green around the mouth.

And the gunslinger Johnny North had finally made his appearance. The blond-haired Nevada gunhand stood in the street, facing Luis Chamba and his two sidekicks. Johnny was smiling. And those that knew Johnny knew Johnny was not the smiling type.

All in all, as the Fontana Sunburst would later say in a column by its editor, it was a most exhilarating and tense moment. These legends of the Wild West, captivating an entire town with their bigger- than-life presence. A moment from the fading past that would be forever etched in the minds of all who had the opportunity to witness this fortuitous encounter of the last of the Bad Men.

Haywood did, on occasion, get a tad bit carried away with his writing.

But since the written word was scarce in the West, folks would read and enjoy nearabout anything. They might not understand what the hell they were reading, but read it they would.

“Do it, punk!” Luke shouted. He began walking toward the dandy. Luke had felt all along the dandy didn’t have the cold nerve to pull iron. When he reached the young man, who was beginning to sweat, he balled his left hand into a hard fist and knocked the loud-mouth to the dirt. Lester-Sundance fell hard. He lay on the dirt, looking up at Luke through wide, scared eyes.

Luke reached down and plucked the pearl-handled Colts from the young man’s holsters. He stepped to one side and wedged one barrel between a support block and the boardwalk. With a swift jerk, he broke off first one barrel, and then the other. He tossed the ruined pistols to Lester-Sundance.

“I’ll tell you something, boy,” Luke said. “I wish somebody had done something like that to me when I was your age. I might have amounted to something.”

Luke Nations turned his back to the sobbing, humiliated young man and walked away.

“I’ll kill him for that,” Lester-Sundance sobbed, but not loud enough for Luke to hear. “You just wait and see. I’ll get him for that.”

The Silver Dollar Kid walked across the street, in the direction Luke had taken.

“Well, boys!” Louis said. “How about the drinks on me? What say you all?”

Smoke looked at Tilden Franklin. “That includes you too, Franklin. Join us?”

His face flushed with rage and hate, Tilden turned his back on the invitation and stomped back up the street, Clint following like a dog behind him.

The TF puppies followed Clint.

Louis watched Tilden wheel around and stalk off. The man is obviously of low degree,” the gambler said.