Blood of the Mountain Man Read Online Free Page A

tellin’ the truth. He didn’t do nothin’ ’cept come in here and ask for supplies”
    “I think you better ride,” the rancher facing Smoke said.
    “Is that an order?”
    The rancher’s smile was thin. “Just a suggestion, Mister Jensen.”
    Smoke nodded his head. “Sack up my supplies,” he told the man behind the bar. “And total up my bill. I’ll be moving along.”
    “Just like I said,” Shorty popped off. “Yeller.”
    The ranchers stepped out of the way. That was the final straw and they both knew it. No man would stand for that.
    Luke sat down.
    Smoke looked at Shorty. The man was scared and sweating. He had worked himself into a corner and didn’t know how to get out of it. Shorty was probably a pretty decent sort; it was not a crime to be young. Smoke took a chance and took a step toward the puncher.
    Shorty looked confused and stood a step back, bumping into a table. Smoke kept walking toward him.
    “Are you crazy?” Shorty said, a shrill sound to his words. “Hold up, man.”
    Smoke kept walking.
    The others in the room wondered what in hell Jensen was up to.
    Smoke walked right up to Shorty and jerked his six-shooter from leather. He tossed the gun to a puncher seated at a table. The puncher caught the .45 and held it like he was holding a lighted stick of dynamite.
    “Sit down, Shorty,” Smoke said. “And I’ll buy you a drink. The trouble is over.”
    Shorty sat, then looked up at the man. “That took guts, Mister Jensen. I acted the fool.”
    “We all do from time to time. You sure don’t hold a corner on the market.”
    Smoke walked the room, introducing himself and shaking hands with all the men. Whatever friction might have been between the punchers had vanished. The men had gotten Dixie to his boots and the man wobbled over to the table and sat down. Turned out his jaw wasn’t broken, but it damn sure was badly bent.
    “I had a mule kick me one time wasn’t that hard,” Dixie mush-mouthed.
    The ranchers sent their men back to home range and they sat and had coffee with Smoke.
    “So Jake Bonner finally got himself six feet,” Three Star said. “It’s overdue.”
    Lazy J said, “You lookin’ for land up this way, Smoke?”
    “No. I’m heading for a place called Red Light. Can you tell me anything about it?”
    “It’s a damn good place to stay away from,” Three Star replied. “It’s a den of snakes and they’re all poison.”
    “It’s a hard four-day ride from here,” the other
    rancher said. “Figure on six unless you want to wear your horse out. But,” he added with a smile, “if that’s your buckskin out yonder, it don’t look like he ever gets tired.”
    “He’s a good one,” Smoke acknowledged. “And the best bodyguard I ever had.”
    “I can believe that. He gave me a look that caused me to give him a wide berth,” the rancher said. “Thanks for givin’ Shorty a break. He’s a good boy, but hot-headed. This might cool him down some.”
    The men chatted for a time, the ranchers telling Smoke the best way up to the rip-roaring mining town of Red Light, and then Smoke packed his supplies and rode north.
    “I always figured Smoke Jensen for a much older man,” one rancher said.
    The other one bit off a chew and replied, “Killed his first man when he was about fourteen. Then he dropped out of sight for a few years. Raised by mountain men. Ol’ Preacher took him under his wing. When Jensen surfaced a few years later, he was pure hell on wheels with a gun. Nice feller once you get to know him.”

    The West was being settled and tamed slowly, but it was getting there. Smoke avoided the many little towns and settlements that were cropping up all over the place. Most would be gone in a few years, some would prosper and grow.
    At the end of the third day, Smoke was beginning to feel a little gamy and wanted a hot bath, a bed with clean sheets, and a meal that someone else had cooked. He topped a ridge and looked down at a small six-store town,