War Of The Mountain Man

Jensen didn’t give him much chance to do that. Smoke waded in, both big fists working. He busted Dek in the belly and connected with a left to the man’s ear that guaranteed him a cauliflower for a long time ... not to mention impairing his hearing for the rest of his life.

Dek connected with a punch that bruised Smoke’s cheek and seemed only to make him stronger.

Dek suddenly realized that Smoke was going to cripple him; was going to forever end his days as a gunfighter, and was going to do it with his fists, not his guns. He looked for a way out. But several hundred people had formed a wide circle around them. There was no way out. He was trapped.

“Gimme a break, Jensen,” he panted the plea. “I ain’t never done nothin’ to you to deserve this.”

Smoke almost laughed at him. The man had been hired to kill him and was now asking for a break. Dek Phillips had killed women and children and brought untold grief and suffering to many, many others. And he was asking for a break.

Smoke gave him a break. He stepped in close and with one powerful fist broke several of Dek’s ribs.

Dek yelped in pain and involuntarily lowered his guard. Smoke knocked him down with a left to the jaw.

Smoke stood over him and said, “You know what I’m going to do, Dek. Are you going to lay there like a whipped coward while I kick you to death, or get up and fight?”

Dek slowly got to his boots. “You’re a devil, Jensen,” he panted, blood dripping from his face. “You got to come from hell.” He flicked a fake at Smoke but Jensen wasn’t buying it. Dek swung a looping right that Smoke ducked under and danced away.

“Stand still, damn you, Jensen!”

Smoke’s reply was a right to the jaw. Even those in the rear of the crowd heard Dek’s jaw break.

Smoke began to deliberately and methodically ruin the man. He gave him his overdue punishment for all the good lives he had taken over the years, and for all the misery and heartbreak he had caused.

The crowd no longer cheered. They stood in silence and watched with satisfaction in their eyes as Max Huggins’s man was beaten half to death in front of their eyes. Vicky Turner stood in silence, shocked by the brutality taking place in front of her eyes. Sally Jensen stood beside her. The wife of Smoke Jensen knew fully well what her husband was doing, and she approved of it. Men like Dek Phillips could not understand compassion because they possessed none. They understood only one thing: brute force. That was the only thing they could relate to. And Smoke was giving Dek a lesson in it that he would never forget.

When Dek Phillips finally measured his length in the dirt and did not get up, Smoke walked to a horse trough and bathed his face and hands. He straightened up and said to Pete, “Tie him across his saddle and take him to the edge of Hell’s Creek.”

“The man is injured!” Robert Turner shouted. “He needs medical attention.”

“Shut up, boy!” Joe Walsh spoke from the edge of the crowd. He had ridden up unnoticed and sat his saddle during the final minutes of the fight. “Dek Phillips just got all the attention his kind deserve.” The crowd muttered their agreement with that.

Sal said, “This ain’t back east, Doctor. The laws are still few out here. You’re a nice fellow, I’ll give you that, but you got some adjustin’ to do if you’re gonna make it out here. You might feel sorry for a rabid dog, but you don’t try to comfort it. You just kill it. You best learn that.”

His face stiff with anger, Dr. Robert Turner took Victoria’s hand and left the street, walking back to his office.

Pete rode out, leading the horse with Dek Phillips tied across the saddle.

Joe Walsh told several of his hands to accompany Pete, to act as guards in case some of the scum at Hells’Creek tried to waylay him.

Smoke walked back to the hotel to bathe the sweat and grime from him and change into fresh clothing.

Henry Draper, editor of the Barlow Bugle, headed back to his office to write the story of how the mighty hired gunfighter Dek Phillips had fallen under the fists of Marshal Smoke Jensen. He knew he could sell the story to dozens of newspapers back east. The reading public loved it.

The crowds broke up into small groups, talking over and rehashing the fight. With each victory they were stronger as a town, becoming closer-knit. The advance party from back east was due in the next day, and soon they would have a bank. Max Huggins would continue trying to destroy them—they all knew that—but they all sensed he would fail. And they owed it all to one man: Smoke Jensen.

Max Huggins had just come from the bedside of Dek Phillips. The horse doctor who had attended the gunfighter had said the man would probably live, but he would be marked forever. His jaw was broken, his ribs were cracked, one arm was broken, a lot of his teeth had been knocked out. And worse, the horse doctor said, Dek Phillips’s spirit appeared to be broken.