Rage of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone Page A

darkened Priscilla’s tearstained face. “Sure as God made billy goats, it wasn’t your high-blown ideals that saved me from a fate worse than death. It was Smoke Jensen and his ‘terribly wicked’ guns.” She glanced at Sally, who had risen, her .38 Lightning still in hand. “And, of course, Sally and that cute little gun of hers.”
    Cute? Smoke thought he’d been caught in a flashback. Did every woman think like Sally about that lady’s hand-cannon? He cut his eyes to his wife, who smirked like a cream-fed pussycat. Priscilla, it seemed, had only begun to warm to her topic.
    Arctic ice filled her tone and her reddened eyes. “You’ve shown me a side of you I never suspected. Frankly, Thomas, I’m shocked and disappointed.”
    Wounded, Thomas made a poor choice of means to plead his case. “How can you say that? Surely you cannot advocate such wanton taking of human life? Surely those men . . . these men,” he corrected with a weak wave at the sprawled bodies, “could have been reasoned into surrender.”
    Priscilla laughed at him, a harsh, bitter note. “There’s not a one of them that would have meekly given up. What were Smoke and Sally to have done? Stand there babbling sweet reason to them while these sons of bitches gunned them down?”
    Thomas turned an even paler shade of white. Scandalized, he blurted, “ Priscilla! In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you use such coarse language. A legacy from your father, no doubt.”
    “Yes, I got it from my father. Also my shooting skills,” Priscilla snapped.
    Thomas appeared ready to swoon. He put a delicate hand to the area of his heart. “I can’t imagine you putting your hand on one of those obscene instruments of violence.” “You can be sure that I did. And enjoyed it to the fullest. I was five when my father taught me to shoot. Mother had died the winter before and he was pushing the D & R G south toward Pueblo. He took me along. That summer I learned to ride and to shoot a gun. That year, and the next seven, were the happiest of my life.”
    Shocked to the depths of his most tender sensibilities, Thomas collapsed, rubber-kneed, into the nearest chair. “What have I done? I can’t accept that I’ve married a gunslinger. Mother—Father—they’ll never understand.” 
    Something snapped in Priscilla. Her detestation of this husband who had become a stranger turned to pitying contempt. “They won’t have to,” she said softly, her voice vibrant with regret at her sudden decision. “I thought I knew you. I find I do not. Thomas, no matter how much this pains me, how much it might hurt you, I am entirely serious about this. I want an annulment.”
    Thomas groaned wretchedly. “Please, not that. Think of your future, your reputation, if not of mine.”
    Priscilla studied on that for a while. Her expression lost its harshness and a sublime serenity eased the taut lines around her eyes and mouth. At last she came to her feet, head cocked to one side.
    “Frankly, Thomas, I don’t really give a damn.”
    At first, Smoke Jensen had listened to her tirade with a sense of embarrassment. When she waxed most eloquent in her defense of western custom, he began to smile. Her arrival at this unexpected conclusion set off chuckles. After Priscilla departed in haughty isolation, he laughed even louder, until the tears began to roll. For her part, Sally looked at him as though he had lost his mind, then hurried off to commiserate with Priscilla.

    Liam Quincannon turned away from the meeting of crewmen and spoke to Smoke Jensen. “We have a portable key. With it we can send for a track crew to replace the ties and rails. It will take some time, I fear. The nearest gandy dancers are at the division point in Fort Hays. We’ll also have to report the robbery attempt.”
    Smoke frowned about that. “I’d be obliged if you kept my name out of it.”
    “Why? Yer a famous man as it is. Another victory over the bad ones can’t possibly do