Battle of the Mountain Man

“It isn’t that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done,” Ned replied, as some feeling returned to his fingers and feet. “I was only curious as to who you were, and why you’d help me.”

“Felt sorry for you, Tenderfoot. I been watchin’ you fer a couple of days. You ain’t got the know-how to be up here, so take some advice afore your next fool mistake gets you froze till the spring thaw. Get back to the flatlands where you come from an’ don’t come back.”

Ned wasn’t quite sure what to say, or if he should say anything. “I’m a writer,” he said, to explain. “I was looking for a mountain man they call Preacher, I intend to write a series of books about the real pioneer mountain men. Alvah Dunning told me about this Preacher fellow, and so did Major Frank North of the Pawnee scouts. Everyone seems to know about Preacher, only there are some who say he’s dead now.”

“Maybe he is.”

“Did you know him?”

“Ain’t none of your affair.”

“Please don’t be offended. My readers back east would love to know more about this famous mountain pioneer.”

“You can write about some of the others.”

“Not many of them will tell me anything. I found out one of the last of the early pioneers, Puma Buck, is dead. I was hoping he would tell me a few tales.”

“He wouldn’t, even if he was alive.”

“You knew him?”

“Ain’t none of your affair.”

Ned looked down at his boots, wondering who the man was in the white robe… He couldn’t see his face, “My last hope, if I can’t find this Preacher fellow, is a man named Smoke Jensen. I was told he used to be a mountain man before he took up ranching close to Big Rock, and that he knew Preacher better than any of the others.”

A silence followed, long enough to be meaningful, but what did it mean and how could he find out? “Would you care for a cup of coffee? I have some Arbuckles in my pack.”

“Nope. You ask too damn many questions to be good company over a cup of coffee.” Now the white-robed stranger stirred, swinging off the rock. He stood for a moment looking at Ned, even though Ned couldn’t see his eyes. He seemed bent as if with old age, stooped over, although it was hard to tell because his robe was bulky, touching the ground so even his feet and legs were hidden. “Boil your coffee an’ head back where you come from quick as you can, mister, afore somebody, or these mountains, up an’ kills you.”

Before Ned could ask for his name again, the man whirled and walked away into the darkness beneath the pine canopy shadowing both sides of the stream.

“Thanks again, mister!” he called out.

There was nothing but silence and the soft crackle of flames for an answer. Ned knew he would always wonder who the benevolent stranger in the albino buffalo robe was… He owed the man his life.Thirteen

Jessie Evans liked all six of the Mexican pistoleros: Pedro Lopez, Jorge Diaz, Carlos and Victor Bustamante, a half-breed by the name of Raul Jones, and a fat Yaqui Indian simply called Tomo. All six were experienced gunmen and Jessie needed every good gun he could hire, since word had come that Big John Chisum was looking for men who could handle themselves. What was being called the Lincoln County War was now shaping up to be a deadly fight, if things continued the way they were. Cattle were being stolen on both sides. Jessie was ready to teach a few more Chisum riders a permanent lesson, while the territorial governor turned his head at the request of Catron and Murphy. Dolan said they might even burn down John Tunstall’s store some night, to teach him to keep his nose out of the cattle contract business. Jimmy Dolan knew how to fight a war, how to win at any cost, and he had Murphy’s money behind him to get the job done.

Jessie turned to Bill Pickett as sundown came to their camp at Bosque Redondo. “Let’s test those new Mexican boys tonight. We’ll ride over to Chisum’s cow camp on the Ruidoso River. If we gather up about fifty head of steers, an’ kill a few cowboys while we’re at it, Dolan’s liable to give us all a pay raise. We’ll tell those pistoleros to shoot as many men as they can.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pickett replied, tipping a bottle of tequila into his mouth. “I was gettin’ bored, sittin’ ’round here, freezin’ our asses off, waitin’ fer somethin’ to happen. I say we make somethin’ happen ourselves. There’s another thing I been thinkin’ about. That goddamn high an’ mighty Englishman, John Tunstall, has been hirin’ more men. Mostly green kids, or so I hear tell. Wouldn’t be nothin’ wrong with shootin’ that Englishman, if you ask me. He ain’t connected to nobody important in this territory. Killin’ him oughta throw a scare into Chisum an’ everybody else in Lincoln County.”

“I’ll ask Dolan about it. All he said was, maybe we oughta burn down his store. Tell those Mexicans to saddle up. You an’ me an’ Cooper will ride with ’em.”

Pickett eased his weight off a bull hide stool on the front porch of the cow camp bunkhouse. “Suits the hell outa me. We ain’t spilled no blood since winter started. Time we turned some of this snow red. It gets tiresome, seem’ everything white all the damn time.”

The mighty roar of a shotgun from the darkness ended with a shrill scream. Loose horses and cattle bedded down for the night took off in every direction. A lantern brightened behind a cabin window as men in long Johns carrying rifles raced out the door in the pale moonlight, shouting to each other.

Another withering blast of shotgun fire erupted from a spot behind a split rail fence, lifting a hatless cowboy off his feet in mid run, bending him at the waist with the force of speeding lead pellets entering his chest and belly.

A rifle cracked from the corner of a hay shed, dropping a Chisum ranch hand in his tracks, groaning, landing in fresh snow with his feet thrashing as though he meant to keep running while he lay on his back.

More guns roared from a loose circle around the cabin, and more men fell in the snow, yelling, crying out for help or lying still, dead before they went down.

Jessie leaned against the fence in the dark without firing a shot, watching Pickett, Cooper, and his Mexican