War Of The Mountain Man

“Just what I said.”

“You sayin’ I ain’t decent?”

“You said that, not me. Now hush up. I’m tryin’to eat, not jaw with you.”

Murtaugh gave him a dirty look. “Maybe you think you’re hoss enough to shut me up?”

“Just as soon as I finish eatin’, mister.”

“Anybody busts up furniture, they pay for it,” Smith said.

“They started this war of words,” Smoke pointed out. “All we did was come in for a drink and some food.”

“That’s right,” Jim said, spooning stew into his mouth. “Sad state of affairs when a man can’t even eat without havin’ to listen to all sorts of jibber-jabber from lunkheads.”

“Now, I ain’t puttin’ up with no saddle-bum callin’ me a lunkhead!” Murtaugh stood up. He walked across the room. “I better hear some apologies comin’ out of that mouth of yourn, cowboy,” he said to Jim.

Jim grinned up at him. His right hand was holding a spoon, his left hand out of sight.

Jim belched loudly. “There’s your apology, big-mouth. Catch it and carry it back acrost the room with you.”

Murtaugh cursed and swung a big fist at Jim’s head. But Jim anticipated the punch and ducked it, coming out of the chair and driving his fist into the bigger man’s stomach. Murtaugh bent over, gagging. Jim grabbed the man by his hair and slammed his forehead onto the tabletop. Turning the stunned Murtaugh around, and grabbing him by the collar and the seat of his britches, Jim propelled him across the room, dumping him onto the table he had just exited.

“You boys best look after him,” Jim told Murtaugh’s buddies. “He can’t seem to take care of hisself atall.”

Sonny looked around him. Smith was holding the Greener, hammers back, pointed at him.

Jim walked bak to his table and looked at the spilled stew. “Get the money for this from Murtaugh,” he told Smith. “It was his head that spilt it.”

“I’ll be damned!” Murtaugh said, and charged across the room at Jim, both fists whipping the air.

Jim picked up a chair and hit the rampaging Murtaugh in the face with it. The firebug hit the floor, on his back, and did not move. His face was bloody and several teeth had departed his mouth to take up residence on the floor.

“That does it,” Sonny said, rising from his chair. He looked at Smith. “You gonna take a side in this?”

Smoke stood up, brushing back his coat, exposing his .44’s. “Stay out of it, Smith. We’re deputy sheriffs from down Barlow way. These men are wanted for arson and destruction of livestock. Any damage to your place will be taken care of.”

“That’s fair. I know Jim and you look familiar to me. Who you be, mister?”

“Smoke Jensen.”

Sonny suddenly looked sick. And so did the other four with him.

“Have mercy!” Smith said.

“We ain’t done nothin’ to nobody and we ain’t destroyed no livestock,” Sonny said.

Murtaugh groaned on the floor and sat up. He blinked a couple of times and wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”

“You’re under arrest,” Jim told him.

“Your aunt’s drawers, I am!” Murtaugh’s hand dropped to the butt of his gun at just about the same time Jim kicked him in the face. Murtaugh hit the floor again and this time he was out for the count.

Sonny grabbed for his gun and Smoke shot him in the belly. The outlaw stumbled backward and sat down hard on the floor, both hands holding his .44-caliber-punctured belly. He started hollering.

One of his buddies jerked iron and Jim took him out of the game with a slug to the shoulder.

The trading post erupted in gunsmoke and lead. The booming of .44’s and .45’s rattled the windows and shook the glasses behind the bar. Things really got lively when Smith leveled his Greener and blew one outlaw clear out of the barroom, the charge of rusty nails, ball bearings, tacks, and whatever else Smith could find to load his shells nearly tearing the man in two, picking him off his boots, and tossing him out a window.

One outlaw, gut-shot and screaming in pain, dropped his pistols and went staggering out into the other room. He died underneath the table holding five-cent bottles of Dr. Farrigut’s elixir for the remedying of paralysis, softening of the brain, and mental imbecility.

When the dust and bird-droppings from the ceiling and gunsmoke began to clear the room, three arsonists were dead, one was not long for this world, and Murtaugh was again trying to sit up, blood from his broken nose streaming down his chin. The punk Jim had shot through the shoulder was leaning up against a wall, moaning in pain.

“My, my,” Smith said, picking out the empties from his Greener and loading up. “I ain’t seen such a sight in two ... three years. Things was gettin’ plumb borin’ around here. Them no-goods really burn some folks out?”

“Five families,” Smoke told him, punching out his empty brass and reloading. “All good people. I suspect Big Max Huggins paid them to do it.”

“111 talk,” the shoulder-shot outlaw hollered. “It was Big Max who paid us to do it. III testify in court. I’ll tell ...”

Murtaugh palmed a hide-out gun and shot the man between the eyes, closing his mouth forever.