Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page A

battered man came at Smoke with a knife.
     
     
    Bert Fowler had never been given such a humiliation in his entire life. Always big for his age, he had bullied and brow-beaten even children older than himself. As he grew, he had filled out, both in muscle and in flab. Bert loved to eat. Six eggs, two pork chops, a couple of slabs of cornmeal mush, and a half dozen biscuits he considered a light breakfast. He routinely ate a whole chicken when he sat down to be serious about it. That came with the better part of a serving bowl of mashed potatoes, a quart of gravy, and more biscuits to mop up the run-over. Bert liked his run-overs.
    By the time he was a man full-grown, he stood an inch over six feet and weighed 257 pounds. When Smoke Jensen lifted him off his wagon, he had increased that to an even 300. Now, bruised, cut, and bleeding, his ribs and gut aching pools of fire, Bert got set on revenge. From his boot top he retrieved a long, thin-bladed dagger and pushed himself upright. Wiping blood out of his right eye, he went directly for the back of the man who had assaulted him so viciously.
    Smoke heard the rush of boot soles at the last moment. He jumped to one side and slapped instinctively at the hand that held the knife. Bert Fowler staggered a bit off course, but whirled in time to confront his enemy. Smoke Jensen saw no reason to kill this lout. Even though faced with the danger of a knife, he eschewed the use of his trusty .45 Colt Peacemaker. In the fleeting instant when both men stood in locked study of one another, he decided to give the errant teamster a taste of his own medicine.
    Cat-quick, Smoke bent at the knees and recovered the handle of Fowler’s whip. He came up with the lash seething through the air in a backward motion beside his ear. He sensed when it reached its maximum extension and brought his arm forward. Fowler screamed when the nasty little lead tip he had affixed to his bullwhip bit into the flesh of his right shoulder.
    He retained his grasp on the knife regardless, and lunged forward with the tip extended toward the heart of Smoke Jensen. Smoke cracked the whip again. This time he cut through the front of Fowler’s shirt and left a long, red welt on pallid flesh. Fowler howled with pain. He took two more staggering steps toward his hated opponent.
    Smoke met him with another rapid, three cut criss-cross that opened the entire front of his assailant’s shirt. Blood ran from the rent flesh. Fowler reversed the knife and made to throw it. Smoke Jensen sliced the dagger from his hand. Relentlessly the flogging went on.
    Smoke moved from side to side, the strap cut into the bulging shoulders of Bert Fowler, tore away the remains of his shirt and began to checker his back. He bent double, intent now on merely protecting his face. Smoke had no intention of marking him there, and laid on the flail with unemotional exactness. The trousers came next.
    Long gaps in the trouser legs showed equally white human legs beneath, albeit stout as beer kegs. They did not remain so for long. By the time Smoke Jensen had cut the cloth away at mid-thigh, in the manner sometimes worn by small boys, those legs had become rivers of blood. This would be one beating Smoke determined the man would never forget. Fowler went to his knees, howled pitifully, then finally cringed into a whimpering mass of cut and bleeding flesh. Smoke Jensen relented.
    Stalking over to the badly mauled teamster, Smoke tossed the bloody whip into the wagon box and stared down at the product of his efforts. “Tell me,” he asked politely, “did you enjoy feeling like your mules must have?” Then he turned away, remounted Thunder and rode off down the street.
     
     
    Smoke Jensen tied off Thunder outside the telegraph office at the railroad depot in Big Rock. His boots rang on the thick two by six planks of the platform as he crossed to the door. Inside, the telegrapher sat in his bay window that overlooked the tracks. Coatless, he had