War Of The Mountain Man

Smoke got up and closed the door to the cell block.

“Have the others had anything to say?” he asked Sal.

“They’ve all been boastin’ about us not keepin’ them for very long. I been doin’ some thinkin’ about that. I think someone’s gonna spring them after they’ve been sentenced.”

“From the jail, you think?” Smoke asked.

Sal shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d guess so. Max or Red ain’t gonna take a chance of bustin’ them away from the prison wagon when they come to haul them off to the territorial prison. That’d bring too much heat on Max, and he don’t want that. So, yeah. I’d say they’ll make their try just after these hard cases are sentenced.”

“We have until Thursday to make some plans. The judge has requested extra security, so he thinks something is in the works, too.”

Pete Akins hitched at his gunbelt. “Max could have at least seventy-five men ready to ride in ten minutes. He could pull fifty more in here in two ... three days. The folks in this town are good people, and I mean that; I never did none of them no harm and they know it. They’ve accepted me. But they aint gunhands, Smoke. If you’know what I mean.”

Smoke knew what he meant. Most of the men were good shots with a rifle. But few of them had ever killed a man close up. They had fought in the war; but that was, for the most part, a very impersonal thing.

Smoke tossed the question out, “How many men does Red Malone have on the payroll?”

“Thirty,” Jim answered it. “He pays them all fightin’ wages. And there ain’t no backup in none of them. They ride for the brand and that’s it.”

“So we’re conceivably looking at anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and fifty men.”

“Or more,” Pete added.

Smoke paced the office in silence, deep in thought. Finally, he stopped and faced his deputies. “He’s got to try to destroy the town. That’s his only option. Killing me alone won’t stop the movement now. He can’t let Sally’s people start up this proposed bank. That would bring the state and, in some cases, the federal government into it ... if anything were to happen to it.”

“Maybe there’s another way to look at that, Smoke,” Sal pointed out. “Maybe Max wants the bank to start up. Rob the bank, destroy the town, and haul his ashes out of the area and start up somewheres else. You can bet that he has someone in this town feedin’ him information.”

“Who?” Jim asked.

Sal shook his head. “That I don’t know. It could be anybody. The swamper over at the saloon. The bartender, a store clerk ... anybody who’s hard up for money.”

“Hell, that could be any one of a hundred people,” Pete said. “Lemme tell you about Max. He’s sneaky. He has one ear to the ground all the time. He hears about somebody seein’ somebody else’s wife, he holds that over their head. He finds out about somebody bein’ wanted, say, back in Ohio, he uses that for leverage. Max can be smooth. He might have loaned someone in this town money when he first come here. Money’s tight right now. M aybe they couldn’t repay him like they said they would. Man, he could have half-a-dozen people in this town feedin’ him information.”

Smoke turned and looked out the window. It might be Jerry at the saddle shop. Lucy at the hotel. The boy down at the stable. One of the farmers scattered around this end of the county. One of Joe Walsh’s hands. Then it came to Smoke; but he kept his suspicions to himself, hoping they would not prove true.

He left the office and walked over to the hotel. He sat with Sally for a long time in their suite, talking, exchanging ideas. At first she tought his suspicions to be perfectly horrible. Then, gradually, she began to agree. When Smoke left, both he and Sally wore long faces.

Smoke walked the streets, looking hard into the face of every man and women he passed. Had to be, he thought. I didn’t see it at first because I wasn’t looking for it. But as he spoke and waved to another citizen, heading out of town, the family resemblance was just too strong to ignore.

There it was, staring him right in the face and saying good morning to him.

“You have to be joking!” Judge Garrison said, recoiling back in his chair.

“No. I’m ninety-nine percent certain. It has to be, Judge. Look at the person.”

The judge drummed his fingertips on his desk. He shook his head and sighed. “Now that you mention it, I can see it. My God. I would have never put it together. It was all a sham on this person’s part.”

“It had to be, Judge. Looking back, it all went down too smoothly, with no arguments.”

“And you propose to do what about it at this time?”

“I don’t know. From all I’ve learned by association, this individual does not appear to be a bad person. Rather likable, actually. Let’s just sit on this for the time being, Judge. See what develops.”

“Just between us?”

“You, me, and Sally are the only three in town who know or who suspect.”

“You think it’s just this one person?”

Smoke sighed. “I hope so. But how can we be sure?”

“We can’t.”