Shootout of the Mountain Man

“I don’t think that is mere coincidence.”

“You think Sheriff Wallace is mixed up with Frank Dodd?” Smoke asked.

“I don’t have any real reason to think that, so I’m not sayin’ it. At least, not officially,” Sheriff Jacobs said. “But if I were you, I would sort of watch out for him.”

“Sheriff, if you would do me a favor?”

“Sure, just ask.”

“Don’t put out the word that I had anything to do with foiling the train holdup.”

“I’ll have to do that if you want to claim the reward,” Sheriff Wallace said. “I think there’s at least a hundred dollars reward apiece on Phillips and Garrison. And we don’t know who the other’n is yet, but once we find out, I wouldn’t be surprised but what the reward on him is even bigger. ”

“Give the reward to the volunteer firemen’s fund or something,” Smoke said.

“Really? Damn, that’s right decent of you, Smoke.”

The conversation continued through breakfast. Then, excusing himself, Smoke stood up.

“I’d better get going. I don’t want to miss the train.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you ain’t goin’ to miss it.” Sheriff Jacobs stood up, opened a biscuit, and slid in a piece of ham. “I gave strict orders that the train was not to leave until I got there.” He pointed to the pistol that Smoke was now wearing. “And you won’t have a problem hanging onto your gun for the rest of the trip either. I’ve already had a talk with Jenkins, the new conductor. Come on, I’ll walk down to the depot with you.”

The sheriff took a bite of his biscuit sandwich as he started toward the door.

When they approached the depot, they saw an open coffin standing up against one of the support posts on the roofed depot platform. Inside the coffin was the body of the third train robber. The undertaker had cleaned up his head wound, and crossed his arms across his chest. He was holding a pistol in his right hand. His eyes were open and glazed. On the top of the coffin was a sign that read:

DOES ANYONE KNOW THIS MAN?

At the bottom of the coffin was another sign.

WARNING TO TRAIN ROBBERS THIS COULD BE YOU

Sheriff Jacobs walked with Smoke to the train, then shook his hand just before he boarded.

“Come back any time, Mr. Jensen,” he said. “You will always be welcome.”

“Thanks,” Smoke said.

The train whistle blew and with a final wave, Smoke stepped up into the car.

As Emmett Clark drew closer to Desolation, he passed through a canyon, on the left side of which rose a high bluff. After passing the bluff, he looked back, and about halfway up the side of the canyon wall, a column could be seen jutting out in front of the bluff, crowned with what looked like the feathers of a war bonnet. This gave the canyon its name, War Bonnet.

Clark was coming to Desolation because he had overheard some saloon conversation back in Geneva that Desolation was not a place anyone would want to visit because of its lack of law.

“I reckon you could find just about any outlaw in Nevada there if you cared to go look for him,” one of the speakers suggested.

“If that’s so, why don’t the law ever go there to catch ‘em?” another asked.

“Ha! They ain’t no law ever goes there but what they don’t wind up getting themselves kilt,” the first one answered. “They got themselves a boot hill there that ain’t for nothin’ but law what’s come after one or another of them.”

Clark wasn’t the law per se, but then his occupation of hunting down wanted men and turning them in for the reward wouldn’t likely be one that would be welcomed either. He decided, therefore, to pass himself off as someone who was on the dodge from the law.

Black thunderclouds rumbled ominously in the northwest, but held off long enough for Clark to reach the little town of Desolation.

Desolation was laid out along one long street. In the middle of the street on the west side was a railroad depot, complete with a small white sign with the name of the town, and the altitude neatly painted in black letters:

Desolation

ELEVATION: 4,135 FT.

Clark found the presence of a railroad depot to be rather unusual, since there was obviously no railroad. Railroad Avenue continued on as a wagon trail running north and south out of town.

He saw at least two dozen people in town, mostly in little clusters of two or three men. He saw no women and no children, which he took as a good indication that this was the kind of town that had been described to him—an outlaw town.

At intervals all up and down Railroad Avenue, there were boards stretched across the dirt streets to allow people to cross when the roads were full of mud. There were obviously no street cleaners nor any kind of city sanitation workers for, unlike those towns where the horse droppings were picked up on a regular basis, this street was covered with manure and the stench was almost unbearable.

Clark stopped in front of a saloon that, in keeping with the theme of the town, was called the Railroad Saloon. Dismounting, he tied off his horse, then went inside.

There were several people inside the saloon and here, for the first time, Clark saw women. They were all wearing brightly colored ruffled skirts that came no lower than their knees. Under the bell-shaped skirts could be seen colorfully hued petticoats that barely reached their kid boots, which were adorned with tassels. Their arms and shoulders were bare, their bodices cut low over their bosoms, and their dresses decorated with sequins and fringe. One of them, seeing Clark come in, smiled and came toward him.

“My, what a handsome young man you are,” she said flirtatiously. “You don’t look anything at all like an