MATT JENSEN: THE LAST MOUNTAIN MAN PURGATORY
MATT JENSEN: THE LAST MOUNTAIN MAN PURGATORY
William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter One
The rain that had been threatening for the day started shortly after nightfall. In the distance, lightning flashed and thunder roared and the rain beat down heavily upon the small Arizona town, cascading off the eaves before drumming onto the roof of the porch just below the second-story window of the Morning Star Hotel.
Matt Jensen was standing at the window of his hotel room, looking down on the street of the town. There were few people outside, and when someone did go outside, they would dart quickly through the rain until they found a welcome door to slip through. The town was dark, the rain having extinguished all outside lamps, and the lanterns that were inside provided only the dullest gleam through rain-shrouded windows. The meager illumination did little or nothing to push away the gloom of the night.
The room behind Matt glowed with a soft, golden light, for he had lit the lantern and it was burning very low. Though Matt was used to the outdoors, and had spent many a night sleeping on the prairie in such conditions, this was one of those nights where he appreciated being under a roof.
Matt Jensen was just a bit over six feet tall with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He was a young man in years, but his pale blue eyes bespoke of experiences that most would not see in three lifetimes. He was a lone wolf who had worn a deputy’s badge in Abilene, ridden shotgun for a stagecoach out of Lordsburg, scouted for the army in the McDowell Mountains of Arizona, and panned for gold in Idaho. A banker’s daughter in Cheyenne once thought she could make him settle down—a soiled dove in The Territories knew that she couldn’t, but took what he offered.
Matt was a wanderer, always wondering what was beyond the next line of hills, just over the horizon. He traveled light, with a bowie knife, a .44 double-action Colt, a Winchester .44-40 rifle, a rain slicker, an overcoat, two blankets, and a spare shirt and spare socks, trousers, and underwear.
He called Colorado his home, though he had actually started life in Kansas. Colorado was home only because it was where he had reached his maturity, and Smoke Jensen, the closest thing Matt had to a family, lived there. In truth, though, he spent no more time in Colorado than he did in Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, or Arizona. He was in Wickenburg, Arizona, now, having arrived just ahead of the rain and just before dark.
He had no reason to be in Wickenburg—but then, as he liked to remind himself, he had no reason not to be in Wickenburg. He had arrived here in a restless drift that neither proposed a particular destination nor had a sense of purpose.
He was about to turn away from the window when, in a flash of lightning, he saw two men holding one man while a third was hitting him. When the lightning went away, he could see nothing except the darkness of the alley, and for a moment, Matt wasn’t sure that he had seen anything. It might have been a trick of shadows and light.
Another lightning flash, this one prolonged for a full second, revealed the scene again. It was no trick of lighting—three men were attacking a fourth. Matt had no idea who the man being held was, nor did he know who
