Authors: William W. Johnstone

Destiny Of The Mountain Man (10 page)

BOOK: Destiny Of The Mountain Man

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Now, the son of a bitch was here, had shot Pugh, and was receiving accolades from those who attended the inquest.

As Preston listened in on the conversation, he learned that Smoke Jensen intended to help Richard King. And if that was the case, this was information that Major Brandt would need to know.

Once again, Preston checked in on Manning and Waco Jones, intending to tell them that they needed to get back to Concepcion, but they were both still passed out in the alley behind the Gold Strike.

“Manning, Waco, get up,” he said, kicking on the sole of Manning's boot.

“Manning, wake up!” He kicked again.

Manning growled, and turned over. “Go away,” he said.

“Waco. Get up,” Preston said. “We've got to go back now.”

“I want another drink,” Waco mumbled.

Sighing, Preston stared down at them for a moment longer, then shrugged.

“You two are worthless as tits on a boar hog,” he said.

He didn't have time to wait on them. This was news he had to get back to Major Brandt right away. Preston went back into the saloon, and when the bartender came over to him, he bought a beer to drink before he started his long ride back.

“Bartender, do me a favor,” Preston said. He nodded toward the back. “When my two friends wake up, tell them I went back.”

The bartender didn't answer, but he nodded affirmatively as he wiped the bar off with a towel.

As Preston rode out of town, he passed a big sign spread across the road that read:

CATTLEMEN'S DANCE TONIGHT
ALL WELCOME

C
HAPTER
T
EN

Since Captain King and the others would not be starting back to the ranch until the following day, all decided to attend the dance that night. By dusk, the excitement that had been growing for the entire day was full-blown. The sound of the practicing musicians could be heard all up and down Shoreline Street. Children gathered around the glowing, yellow windows on the ground floor of the hotel and peered inside. The ballroom floor was cleared of all tables and chairs, and the musicians had been installed on the platform at the front of the room.

The band started with several numbersâ“Buffalo Gals,” “The Gandy Dancers' Ball,” and “Little Joe the Wrangler” being the post popular. Horses and buckboards began arriving, and soon every hitching rail on Shoreline Street, and even up Star Street all the way to Mesquite Street, was full. Men and women streamed along the boardwalks toward the hotel, the women in colorful ginghams, the men in clean, blue denims and brightly decorated vests.

Cal and Pearlie were in their room on the third floor of the hotel, getting ready to go downstairs to the dance. Actually, Cal was ready, and he was standing at the open window, looking down at those who were arriving. From there, he could hear the high skirling of the fiddle. Behind him, Pearlie was still shaving.

“Will you hurry up?” Cal asked. “By the time you get finished primping, the dance will be over.”

“Just because you are too young to shave doesn't mean I don't have to,” Pearlie said as he wiped off the last of the lather.

“Ha! I have to shave.”

“Yes, but with you, it's not an art yet,” Pearlie said. He started to reach for his gun belt.

“You aren't going to take your gun, are you?”

Pearlie snickered. “No, I reckon not,” he said. “I'm not likely to need a gun at a dance now, am I?”

Leaving their room, they knocked on the door to Smoke's room.

“Smoke,” Pearlie called. “You and Miss Sally comin', or what?”

“We'll be there,” Smoke's muffled voice replied from inside. “Go on down.”

“Let's go,” Pearlie said.

“If you're waitin' on me, you're backin' up,” Cal said as he started clomping down the stairs.

Pearlie joined him and when the two reached the ground floor, they hurried toward the sound of the music and laughter.

Once they were inside, the excitement was all it promised to be. Several young women were gathered on one side of the room, giggling and turning their heads in embarrassment as young men, just as embarrassed, made awkward attempts to flirt with them. At the back of the dance floor there was a large punch bowl on a table and Cal saw one of the cowboys look around to make certain he wasn't being seen, then pour whiskey into the punch bowl from a bottle he had concealed beneath his vest. A moment later, another cowboy did the same thing, and Cal laughed.

“What is it?” Pearlie asked.

“Nothin',” Cal replied. “I think I'll just get me some punch.” Pearlie watched Cal walk around the edge of the dance floor to the punch bowl, then looked toward the area where the men and women who were with each other were waiting. Bob Kleberg and Alice King, who had come down before them, were with this group. Alice waved at Pearlie as he stood watching.

Cal came back with two cups of punch and handed one to Pearlie, just as Smoke and Sally arrived. Sally reached for Cal's cup and smelled it, then poured it out into a potted plant.

“Aw, Miss Sally,” Cal protested.

“Not until you are a little older,” Sally insisted.

“Choose up your squares!” the caller shouted through his megaphone, and several couples, including Smoke and Sally and Kleberg and Alice, hurried to their positions within one of the squares. Pearlie and Cal joined the cowboys who were advancing toward the unattached girls, and when a couple of pretty red-haired girls accepted their invitation to dance, they made up the final two sets for the square that had Smoke and Sally and Bob and Alice.

The music began then, with the fiddles loud and clear, the guitars carrying the rhythm, the accordion providing the counterpoint, and the Dobro singing over everything. The caller began to shout, and he clapped his hands and stomped his feet and danced around on the platform in compliance with his own calls, bowing and whirling as if he had a girl and was in one of the squares himself. The dancers moved and swirled to the caller's commands.

“Swing your partner round and round,
Turn your corner upside down.
Hang on tight like swingin' on a gate,
Meet your partner for a grand chain eight,
Chew some 'backy and dip some snuff,
Grab your honey and strut your stuff.”

Around the dance floor sat those who were without partners, looking on wistfully, those who were too old holding back those who were too young. At the punch bowl table, cowboys continued to add their own ingredients, and though many drank from the punch bowl, the contents of the bowl never seemed to diminish.

Two men lay behind the Gold Strike Saloon. That they were lying in the offal and refuse of the saloon, including the place where the spittoons were emptied, didn't seem to matter to them. A dog cocked his leg and peed on Manning's face.

Manning wiped at his face, then blinked his eyes a couple of times. Looking around, he saw that it was dark and that he was lying on the ground behind a building. Waco was with him. He sat up, then reached over to nudge Waco's shoulder.

“Hey,” Manning said. “Waco.”

Waco didn't respond, and Manning nudged him again. “Waco, you alive or dead?”

“Hrmmph,” Waco grunted.

“Get up,” Manning said.

Waco sat up and smacked his lips a few times, looking around him.

“Damn, I feel like shit,” Waco said.

“No wonder. We're lyin' out here in the alley like some damn drunk or somethin',” Manning said.

“Where the hell are we?” Waco asked.

“I don't know exactly. But if I was to guess, I'd say we're out in the alley behind some saloon.”

“Which saloon?”

“The one we was drinkin' in, I guess.”

“Where's Preston?”

“I don't know. I ain't seen him since he went to the depot to meet that fella we were here to meet.”

“You mean Pugh?” Waco asked.

“Yeah, Pugh. Dingus Pugh.”

“Wonder if he got 'im.”

“Prob'ly,” Manning said. “What I'm wonderin' is if maybe Preston ain't the son of a bitch put us out here.”

Groaning, Manning stood up and looked around for his hat, then finding it, put it on. “Come on, get up,” he said. “Unless you want to spend the night out here. You're actin' like you ain't never been passed out drunk before.”

“Don't know as I have,” Waco replied. “Leastwise, I ain't never been passed out in no alley before.”

Waco got to his feet. He had been lying in the residue of several emptied spittoons, and he spent a moment brushing bits and pieces of tobacco from his clothes. He was unable to do anything about the brown stains.

“What do we do now?” Waco asked.

“I don't know. Try and find Preston and Pugh, I reckon. But I don't have an idea in hell as to where to start.”

Manning and Waco Jones went back into the Gold Strike Saloon. They were surprised to see so few people inside. When they stepped up to the bar, the bartender slid down toward them.

“I see you fellas got sobered up. Back for another go-around, are you?”

“Yeah,” Waco said. “Hey, how'd we wind up sleepin' in the alley anyhow?”

“I had you carried out there,” the bartender said.

“You are the one who done that?” Waco asked angrily.

“Yes, but you don't need to thank me,” the bartender answered. “I mean, you was both passed out on the table. I figured you'd be more comfortable layin' down than all slumped over like that. You was, wasn't you?”

“Was what?” Waco asked, confused by the fact that, instead of being defensive about it, the bartender was taking in pride in telling about it.

“You was more comfortable layin' down than slumped over the table,” he said. “Leastwise, you looked like you was. I checked on you a couple of times just to make sure you was all right. You was both sleepin' like babies.”

“Uh, yeah,” Waco said, his anger defused. “Yeah, I guess we was more comfortable.”

“Lots of barkeeps would just leave you at the table, but not me. No, sir. For me, it's a matter of pride that I take care of my customers as best I can. And I don't expect no tip nor nothin' neither.”

“Well, that's good, 'cause you ain't goin' to get no tip from us,” Manning said.

“That's all right. Like I said, I ain't expectin' one. So, what can I do for you gents now that you have rejoined the land of the living?”

“Whiskey,” Waco said.

“Same,” Manning added.

The bartender pulled the cork on a bottle and filled two glasses.

“What happened to them other two fingers?” the bartender asked, looking at the three fingers on Manning's left hand.

“They got bit off in a fight,” Manning said.

“Damn.”

Manning chuckled. “That's okay. I bit off his ear.”

“It's a wonder you didn't kill each other.”

“He was my brother or I would'a killed the sum bitch,” Manning said.

The two men took their glasses, then turned their backs to the bar and looked out over the nearly empty room. There were no bar girls working the place and nobody was playing the piano. There were only four customers in the saloon, one standing alone at the far end of the bar and three more sitting at a table.

“Oh,” the bartender said. “Your friend told me to tell you that he was going to go on back without you.”

“Our friend? You mean Preston?”

“Didn't give me his name. He just asked me to tell you that he was goin' on back without you, which is what I just done.”

“Both of 'em?” Manning asked.

“Both of 'em?” the bartender replied. He shook his head. “There was only one that I saw.”

“I thought Preston come to pick up . . . what was that fella's name again?” Waco asked.

“Pugh,” Manning replied. “Dingus Pugh.”

“Yeah, Dingus Pugh. Well, maybe he didn't make the train and that's why Preston went on back.”

“What was that name you just said?” the bartender asked. “Did you say Dingus Pugh?”

“Yeah. We was supposed to meet him here. If he made the train, that is.”

“Oh, he made the train, all right,” the bartender said.

“You've seen him then?”

“I've seen 'im,” the bartender answered. “You can too, if you walk down the street and look in through the window down to the hardware store.”

“What are you talkin' about?”

“If you two boys hadn't been passed out drunk in the alley all day, you would know that a fella by the name of Dingus Pugh got hisself shot,” the customer standing at the end of the bar said, joining the conversation then. “He's laid out in the front window of the hardware store, all dressed up as pretty as you please.”

“The hell you say.”

“Go down there and check it out, if you don't believe me.”

“Son of a bitch,” Waco said. “I wonder if Preston shot him.”

“Nope,” the talkative customer said. “He was shot by a fella name of Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”

“Smoke Jensen, you say?” Waco asked, perking up at the mention of the name.

“Yep.”

“Who is Smoke Jensen?” Manning asked. “I've never heard of him.”

“Then you're a fool,” Waco said.

“Say what?”

“Smoke Jensen is just about the most famous gunfighter there is,” Waco said. Almost without any awareness of what he was doing, Waco loosened the pistol in his holster. “But there ain't never been a man that couldn't be beat, and someday, somebody's goin' to put him down. I'll say this. Whoever kills Smoke Jensen is goin' to get hisself quite a name.”

“Ha,” the man at the end of the bar said. “Well, it sure as hell ain't goin' to be you, sonny.”

Waco's face grew cold, and he turned to face the man at the end of the bar.

BOOK: Destiny Of The Mountain Man

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