Journey of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online

.45 slugs and before he died still kill several of the men he was facing.
    Cord sat on the front porch of his ranch house and looked around him. He wanted for nothing. He had everything a man could want. It had sickened him when Dooley had OK’d the dragging of that young Box T puncher. Scattering someone’s cattle was one thing. Murder was another. He was glad that Jensen had come along. But he didn’t believe anyone could ever talk sense into Hanks.
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    Smoke, Ring, and Beans sat their horses on the knoll overlooking the ranch house of Fae and Parnell Jensen. Fae might well be a bad-mouthed woman with a double-edged tongue, but she kept a neat place. Flowers surrounded the house, the lawn was freshly cut, and the place itself was attractive.
    Even at this distance, a good mile off, Smoke could see two men, with what he guessed was rifles in their hands, take up positions around the bunkhouse and barn. A woman—he guessed it was a woman, she was dressed in britches—came out onto the porch. She also carried a rifle. Smoke waved at her and waited for her to give them some signal to ride on in.
    Finally the woman stepped off the porch and motioned for them to come on.
    The men walked their horses down to the house, stopping at the hitchrail but not dismounting. The woman looked at Smoke. Finally she smiled.
    â€œI saw a tintype of your daddy once. You look like him. You’d be Kirby Jensen.”
    â€œAnd you’d be Cousin Fae. I got your letter. I picked up these galoots along the way.” He introduced Beans and Ring.
    â€œPut your horses in the barn, boys, and come on into the house. It’s about dinnertime. I got fresh doughnuts; ‘bear-sign’ as you call them out here.”
    Fae Jensen was more than a comely lass; she was really quite pretty and shapely. But unlike most women of the time, her face and arms were tanned from hours in the sun, doing a man’s work. And her hands were calloused.
    Smoke had met Fae’s two remaining ranch hands, Spring and Pat. Both men in their early sixties, he guessed. But still leather-tough. They both gave him a good eyeballing, passed him through inspection, and returned to their jobs.
    Over dinner—Salty called it lunch—Smoke began asking his questions while Beans skipped the regular food and began attacking a platter of bear-sign, washed down with hot strong western coffee.
    How many head of cattle?
    Started out with a thousand. Probably down to less than five hundred now, due to Hanks and McCorkle’s boys running them off.
    Would she have any objections to Smoke getting her cattle back?
    She looked hard at him. Finally shook her head. No objections at all.
    â€œRing will stay here at the ranch and start doing some much needed repair work,” Smoke told her. “Beans and me will start working the cattle, moving them closer in. Then we’ll get your other beeves back. Tell me the boundaries of this spread.”
    She produced a map and pointed out her spread, and it was not a little one. It had good graze and excellent water. The brand was the Box T; she had not changed it since taking over several years back.
    â€œIf you’ll pack us some food,” Smoke said, “me and Beans will head out right now; get the lay of the land. We’ll stay out a couple of days—maybe longer. This situation is shaping up to be a bad one. The lid could blow off at any moment. Beans, shake out your rope and pick us out a couple of fresh horses. Let’s give ours a few days’ rest. They’ve earned it.”
    â€œI’ll start putting together some food,” Fae said. She looked at Smoke. “I appreciate this. More than you know.”
    â€œSorry family that don’t stick together.”
    They rode out an hour later, Smoke on a buckskin a good seventeen hands high that looked as though it could go all day and all night and still want to travel.
    The old man who had given the spread to