I’m getting my way every time. A time or two I’ve actually believed it.”
Pearlie shook his head in agreement. “Miz Jensen knows how to handle a man, all right. She’ll come out the door smilin’, like all she wants is to say howdy-do, when what she’s really after is a cord of wood chopped or a load of hay pitchforked in the wagon fer the cows. Every time I see her smile at me I feel like I oughta take off runnin’, ’cause there’s sure as hell some work she wants done.” He grinned when his plate of steak and eggs was put before him. “That’s another thing ’bout Miz Jensen. She ain’t above workin’ a man to death with bribes. She’ll bake up a real sweet peach pie, or fix a batch of them bearclaws with brown sugar, an’ open every window in the house so a man goes plumb crazy over the smell. Sooner or later a hungry feller is jus’ naturally gonna be drawn to the house on account of them wonderful smells, an’ that’s when she springs her trap. She’ll git one of them pretty smiles on her face, and start tellin’ me ’bout them delicious pies or whatever she’s bakin’, an’ I know I’m caught, trapped like a bear in a shallow cave. Then she’ll up an’ invite me an’ Cal to have a little taste of what she’s been cookin’, right after we git a load of wood piled up next to the kitchen door. What’s a starvin’ man supposed to do?”
It was Smoke’s turn to chuckle over Pearlie’s recollections when it came to Sally, as his own plate was set on the table in front of him. “Pearlie’s right as rain. I’m married to a woman who knows how to get what she wants… one way or another.”
As he was about to knife into his steak, Caleb Walz came into the saloon. Walz was Big Rock’s part-time undertaker, when he wasn’t in the act of cutting hair at his barber shop. Caleb tipped his derby hat to everyone, glancing at the bodies, a hint of a grin raising the corners of his mouth. “Looks like somebody drummed up a little business for me real early,” he said in his perpetual monotone. “Whoever it was, I’m obliged.”Four
Ned Buntline had grown exceedingly frustrated over the past few weeks in his unsuccessful quest to interview some of the last of the old-time mountain men. Up on the Yellowstone he had finally been able to track down Major Frank North, leader of the famous Pawnee scouts. North had turned him down cold when he asked for an interview, stating flatly he believed dime novels were trash, a pack of lies, refusing to give Ned even a moment of his time other than to tell him to be on his way. A slap in the face, Ned thought, guiding his surefooted mule up a steep ridge roughly forty miles as the crow flies to the northwest of Big Rock in Colorado Territory. North had to know Ned had been responsible for Buffalo Bill Cody’s rise to fame, along with other Wild West characters he’d glorified in his books. It hadn’t been necessary for Major North to be so rude about it.
Now, in northwestern Colorado, Ned was trying to track down a few genuine mountain men for a series of stories that would set easterners on their ears. From a list given him by the old scout Alvah Dunning, Ned was searching for men with names like Puma Buck and Huggie Charles and Del Rovare, or the deadly gunfighter turned mountain man named Smoke Jensen. And there were others, a legendary figure known only as Preacher who many suspected to be dead of old age by now, one of the most elusive of all the early mountain pioneers, so that little was actually known about him or even what he looked like. Some claimed Preacher was only a figment of lesser men’s imaginations, that he never existed at all except in stories told around mountain campfires, a dark hero of sorts with a penchant for killing anyone who intruded into his high country domain unless they crossed these stretches of the Rockies in peace, without disturbing it. But when it came to mountain men with a penchant for killing, all his sources were in agreement. Smoke Jensen was said to be a killing machine in this part of the West, a man not to be trifled with. If just half the stories Ned had heard about Jensen were true, he could be the man eastern readers would devour. Finding him, Finding Jensen, was relatively easy, Ned was told. Jensen owned a high meadow ranch called Sugarloaf, having come down from the mountains a few, years back to marry a woman from back east and live a quieter life, although as the stories went his existence was anything but quiet. Getting Jensen to talk to him was going to be the trick, according to those who knew about him or had made his acquaintance in the past. Jensen was a man of few words, and words were what Ned needed from him. The proposition promised to be touchy. Difficult.
Following a map given to him by an elderly Indian scout at a settlement named Glenwood Springs, Ned rode his brown mule slowly into higher altitudes, where it was rumored Puma Buck, Huggie Charles, and Del Rovare hunted and trapped. Perhaps with some sort of personal introduction from one of them to Smoke Jensen, he might just get what he came to Colorado to find… true stories of the exploits of mountain men. He hoped he might even be able to find out if this fellow they called Preacher actually existed, if he might still be alive and willing to talk.
Still, Ned was haunted by something Major North had told him in those few brief minutes they talked. North had said, “A man’s got to
Ned wondered if this would turn out to be the truth, making his ride to Colorado Territory a waste of time.
At the top of the ridge, Ned’s mule stopped suddenly and snorted, pricking its ears forward. On a mountain slope across the valley, he saw a giant brown grizzly ambling slowly among tall ponderosa pines. Ned glanced down at the Henry rifle booted to his saddle… he was an expert marksman and this would be an easy shot… until he recalled what the old scout at Glenwood Springs told him.
“If you aim to find yourself a mountain man or two you’d best remember a couple of things.”
“What’s that?” Ned had asked.
“If they’re close by, they’ll be watchin’ you, to see how you handle yourself. When you come across a wild critter, don’t shoot it ’less you aim to eat it or wear its hide to stay warm. Those critters are as much a part of the high lonesome as them mountains themselves. Don’t kill nothin’ you ain’t gotta kill to stay alive.”
Ned had digested this bit of news. Hunting only for sport was frowned upon by mountain men. “What’s the other thing? You said there were a couple…”
The old man had almost laughed. “Learn to sleep with one eye open, son, or you’ll be the one who gets a taste of lead. I done told you where to look for ol’ Puma Buck an’ Huggie Charles an’ some of them others. Could be you won’t be so happy if you was to find ’em. Depends on the mood they’s in, an’ how you go ’bout handlin’ yourself whilst you’re up there. An’ watch yourself real close ’round Smoke Jensen. Be my advice you act real polite. If he don’t care to talk about his high country days, or tell you ’bout Preacher, you’d be well advised to clear out of Sugarloaf as quick as that mule can carry you.”
Ned watched the grizzly, discarding any notion of shooting it simply for the sake of proving he had good aim.
“No sense buying into trouble,” he muttered, urging the mule forward with his heels.
Turning north, Ned had ridden only a quarter mile before he caught sight of a tiny log cabin nestled in a grove of pines that overlooked a ravine choked with brush. Even from a distance he could tell the cabin hadn’t seen much use lately, or any repairs to its mud-chinked logs. But the cabin was a starting place, and he rode toward it. His mule still seemed uneasy even though he had left the grizzly moving in another direction.
A voice from a stand of pines to his left made his heart stop beating.
