Quest of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke laughed. Bear Tooth was famous among the mountain men for never going near water. He was known to say if God had intended men to bathe, he would’ve given them fins like fish.

  Smoke glanced at the men tied to the trees nearby. “Poachers?” he asked.

  Bear Tooth glared at the men. “Yeah, seems they wanted some skins to sell and were too lazy or too dumb to trap their own.”

  Louis knelt next to Red and used his knife to cut away the buckskin over his wound. He looked up at Smoke. “Looks like the bullet went all the way through. Doesn’t appear to have hit the bone and the blood’s oozing and not spurting.”

  Smoke nodded. That was good news, for a broken bone was almost always fatal up here in the mountains, and the slow bleeding meant no artery had been hit.

  Red gritted his teeth and pulled out a long, wide-bladed knife from a scabbard on his belt. He leaned over and stuck the blade in the coals of the fire. After a moment, when the blade was glowing red, he looked at Louis. “You want to do the honors, mister?”

  “Do you want me to pour some whiskey on it first?” Louis asked as he reached for the knife.

  “Waste good whiskey on a little scratch like this?” Red asked. “No, sir, but if’n you have some, a little nip’d do me nicely.”

  Smoke laughed and nodded at Pearlie, who pulled a small bottle of red-eye from his saddlebags and handed it to Red.

  Red looked at the bottle and shook his head. “When I said a little nip, son, I was speaking figuratively, not meaning to be taken so seriously.” Without another word, he upended the pint bottle and drained it as Louis picked up the knife from the fire.

  When Louis put the red-hot blade to each of the bullet holes, Red’s face paled and his jaw muscles bulged, but he didn’t make a sound as his flesh sizzled and smoked under the knife.

  After Louis was finished, Red took a deep breath and said, “Now, if you happen to have another bottle of that there firewater, stranger, I’d be much obliged for another taste.”

  Bear Tooth snorted. “A taste, he says. That means he’ll drink the whole danged thing if’n you’re not careful.”

  He hesitated, and then he added, “Now me, on the other hand, I’m a gentleman. I’d only take a small dollop of a man’s whiskey, just to be sociable-like.”

  5

  While Red Bingham was drinking his whiskey, Bear Tooth dumped a couple of handfuls of coffee into a blackened pot that sat next to the fire, and added some water from his canteen before pushing the pot onto the coals.

  Smoke looked over at Bill Van Horne. “Bill, you’re in for a real treat now. You’re gonna get to sample some mountain-man coffee.”

  Bill glanced at the pot. “I noticed he put quite a bit of coffee into the pot.”

  Bear Tooth nodded. “As they say, the thing ’bout makin’ good coffee is it don’t take near as much water as you think it do.”

  “Yeah,” Pearlie said, grinning. “Like Puma Buck used to say, if it won’t float a horseshoe, it ain’t near strong enough.”

  At the mention of Puma Buck, Bear Tooth looked over at Pearlie. “So, you knew Puma?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Pearlie answered, his face sober at the thought of the old mountain man who’d given his life to save Smoke and Cal and Pearlie in a fracas a few years back.

  Bear Tooth looked down at the fire, his eyes suspiciously wet and shining. “I miss that ol’ beaver something fierce,” he said in a low voice.

  Smoke nodded. “Like a lot of our old friends, he’s gone on to better things,” he said.

  While the coffee was cooking, Red Bingham struggled to his feet, his left arm held close against his side. He bent over and picked his knife up off the ground, and walked slowly toward the men tied to trees off to the side of the camp.

  The men, sullen-faced and angry, suddenly looked apprehensive when they saw the way Red was holding the knife. One of them, in a strong French accent, asked, “Hey, what the hell are you planning on doing with that knife?”

  Bill looked at Smoke, his eyebrows raised in question, but Smoke just winked and stood watching Red with folded arms.

  Red knelt next to the dead man with a hole in his chest and grabbed a handful of his hair. He lifted the head up and quick as a wink sliced the scalp off, and held the bloody mop of hair up in the air, crimson strings of blood running down his hand and onto his arm.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Bill, who had a sick expression on his face. “This one’s your’n, mister. You want it?”

  As Bill quickly shook his head, one of the French poachers leaned over and vomited in the snow, while the other two just watched with horrified expressions on their faces.

  Red carried the bloody scalp over to the body of the other dead man, the one Smoke had shot in the forehead. He poked at the head with the toe of his boot and looked over at Smoke. “I think you just about ruined this one, Smoke. The back of it’s all blowed away where the bullet came out.”

  Smoke gave a tight smile. “Sorry about that, Red. I was aiming for his chest, but he must’ve ducked.”

  “Well, no matter,” Red said as he sliced the torn scalp from the head and held it up with the other one. “It’ll still do to hang from my lodge pole.”

  He stood up and moved toward the men where they sat tied to trees, grinning as they cringed back as far as they could.

  One of the men hollered at the men around the fire, “You ain’t gonna let this crazy old bastard scalp us, are you?”

  “He’s not really going to do it, is he, Smoke?” Bill asked in a low voice, his face pale.

  Smoke again shrugged. “According to mountain-man ways, Bill, it’s his right. These men tried to kill him and his partner, and they would’ve taken everything they worked all winter for in the process. If he wants to take their hair, I’m sure as hell not going to try and tell him not to.” He glanced at Van Horne. “This is part of the ways out here in the High Lonesome, Bill. There aren’t any sheriffs or marshals to call when someone does you wrong, so you take care of it yourself, or you don’t live to see too many winters.”

  Bear Tooth, who was in the process of pouring mugs of coffee for everyone, looked over at Red. “Hey, Red, we done got enough scalps already. You’re gonna plumb stink up the place if you take three more.”

  Red stood over the men, blood from the scalps dripping off his knife and hand. “1 guess you’re right, Bear Tooth. Maybe I’ll just take their balls. We ain’t eaten no mountain oysters fer months now.”

  As the French men’s faces blanched, Bill hiccupped and put his hand over his mouth to keep from throwing up.

  “I’ve got a better idea, Red,” Smoke said, moving over to stand next to the mountain man.

  “What’s that, Smoke?” he asked, smiling grimly though his eyes, which had a characteristic twinkle in them.

  “Let’s take their guns and boots and set them loose on the mountain without any horses. It’ll be interesting to see how long they can go before they end up eating each other to stay alive”

  Red pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s a good idee, Smoke. After a day or two, if they live that long, they’ll he sleepin’ with one eye open watchin’ each other to see who’s gonna be the next meal.”

  Bill looked at Louis, who was watching the proceedings with wry amusement. “Louis, you can’t let them do that. It’s barbaric.”

  “Bill, like Smoke said, this isn’t a town where you can turn men like that over to the law,” Louis explained as he pulled a long, black cigar from his coat pocket and lit it with a twig from the fire. “Justice out here in the mountains is not always pretty, but it is fast and efficient. If these men are allowed to live, sooner or later they’ll try to kill some other trapper and steal his skins.” He smiled grimly. “At least this way, they have a chance to live, if they’re willing to live the rest of their lives knowing they turned to cannibalism to survive.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Van Horne,” Pearlie said as he sipped his coffee. “The Indians would’ve just hun
g ‘em upside down over a bed of coals and cooked their brains whilst makin’ bets on who’d die first.”

  “Of course, they would sing songs in tribute to the man who died showing the most courage,” Bear Tooth added.

  “That’s an honor I think I can live without achieving,” Van Horne said, still looking sick.

  As Red cut the ropes holding the men against the trees, he asked Smoke, “Should I let ’em keep their knives and flints?”

  “Sure,” Smoke answered, his eyes flat and hard. “We want them to be able to make a fire and not freeze to death. That would be too easy on them.”

  “Yeah,” Bear Tooth added, again smiling wickedly. “And human flesh tastes better if’n it’s been cooked a little.” He hesitated, and then he added with a wink at Bill, “At least, that’s what I’ve been told, never having partaken of it myself of course.”

  Red stepped back and pointed at the men’s feet. “Throw them boots over here and get the hell outta my camp, you bastards, ’fore I change my mind ’bout your scalps”

  “You can’t let him do this to us, mister,” one of the men said to Smoke as he took off his boots. “It ain’t right.”

  Smoke shrugged and turned away, saying, “Well, I suppose you got a choice, just like you had when you decided to kill him. You can take your chances on foot, or you can let him gut you and scalp you and end it all right now.”

  While the men were taking their boots off, Red went over to their horses, took their flints and striking stones out of their saddlebags, and threw them on the ground in front of them.

  “You boys better get a move on. You only got ’bout five more hours of daylight an’ then it’s gonna get really cold.”

  “I figger it’ll take you ’bout four days to walk down the mountain to where it’s warmer,” Bear Tooth called to the Frenchmen. “After two days, if’ n you live that long, your stomachs will be growlin’ enough to keep you awake, which is good, ’cause long about then your partners are gonna be lookin’ at you like steak on the hoof.”

  After the Frenchmen slunk off down the mountain, Bear Tooth pulled a slab of elk meat out of their lean-to and sliced some thick steaks off it with his skinning knife. He threw them into a cast-iron skillet, added some wild onions for flavor and a piece of fatback for grease, and put the skillet on the coals. While the steaks were cooking, he put some water in a kettle hanging from a trestle over the fire and poured in several handfuls of pinto beans.

  “Reckon it’s ’bout time to eat,” he said as he took a squat next to the fire and used his knife to cut a chunk off a large square of chewing tobacco.

  As the men sat around the fire, drinking coffee and waiting for the meal to cook, Red glanced over at Smoke. “You gonna introduce us to your partners or not, Smoke?”

  Smoke laughed and introduced everyone to the mountain men, who didn’t offer to shake hands but merely nodded, as was the mountain-man way.

  “Been a long time since we seen you up here in the High Lonesome, Smoke,” Bear Tooth observed, speaking around a large wad of tobacco in his cheek. “You up here to do some trappin’ or huntin’?”

  Smoke shook his head. “No, Bear Tooth, as a matter of fact, we came up here looking for you.”

  “Me?” Bear Tooth asked, surprised at the answer.

  “You and some of the other old beavers that are still up here trapping,” Smoke said.

  “Not too many of us old-timers left anymore, Smoke,” Red said, his eyes sad as he stared into the fire. “It’s just not the same anymore. Time was, you could go all winter an’ not see nary another white man, ’ceptin’ your partner.” He glanced off in the direction the French poachers had taken. “Now, you got pond scum like those men crawlin’ all over the place.” He looked at Smoke. “Hell, it’s getting plumb crowded un here now.”

  Bear Tooth nodded. “He’s right, Smoke. A lot of the men been here for years have headed up north, ’cross the border into Canada, where civilization ain’t ruined everthing yet.”

  Smoke looked over at Bill. “That’s the reason we’re up here, Bear Tooth. Mr. Van Horne, Bill, is planning on building a railroad across Canada, from Winnipeg to the West Coast over near Vancouver Island, and he needs some experienced mountain men to help with the surveying of the route across the Canadian mountains.”

  Bear Tooth leaned to the side and spat a stream of brown tobacco juice into the fire, making it hiss and sizzle. “That so?” he asked, his eyes moving to fix on Bill.

  Bill nodded, leaning forward. “That’s right, Bear Tooth. We’re going to cross twenty-five thousand square miles of the most desolate and wildest country in the world, making trails through land that hasn’t seen more than a handful of white men in the last hundred years. I’m going to need men like Smoke and you and Red to find us a way through mountains that may not even have any passes in them. It’s going to be a big job, one of the biggest ever undertaken.”

  “When you plannin’ on doing all this, Bill?” Red asked as he stroked his beard.

  “As soon as we can get up there. I’ve got several thousand men waiting in Winnipeg for us right now to get the surveying done so they can start to lay tracks.”

  “T’aint possible,” Bear Tooth said as he got to his feet and flipped the elk steaks over to brown.

  “Why not?” Bill asked.

  “’Cause even if we left now, it’d be the middle of next winter ’fore we could get up there on horseback, an’ winter in the mountains is no time to be doin’ no surveyin’.”

  “That’s right, Bill,” Red added. “You’d have snow up over the horses’ heads.” He shook his head. “Can’t be done ’fore next spring at the earliest.”

  “Yes, it can, gentlemen,” Bill said. “I’ve got a train waiting for us down in Pueblo, just a few days ride from here. I figure the trip from Pueblo to Winnipeg will take only about a week, give or take a couple of days depending on how deep the snow is in the passes.”

  Bear Tooth and Red both looked aghast at the suggestion. “You mean you want Red and me to ride on one of them iron-horse contraptions?” Bear Tooth asked incredulously.

  “Why, yes,” Bill answered. “I have my own special cars on the train for us to ride in. I promise you you’ll be quite comfortable.”

  Red stared at Bill through narrowed eyes. “I hear them things go so fast that the wind’ll flat tear the skin offen your face if you hang it out the window.”

  Bill had to bite his lips to keep from laughing. “No, I assure you, Red, riding on a train is quite safe. People do it all the time.”

  “What ’bout our hosses?” Bear Tooth asked. “I don’t plan on ridin’ through no mountains on a hoss I don’t know.”

  “There are special cars on the train for your animals,” Bill said. “You can take as many of them along as you wish.”

  Bear Tooth got to his feet and began to serve steaks and beans to everyone on tin plates. “How many of us old coots you plannin’ on takin’ up there?” he asked.

  Bill looked at Smoke, who said, “I’d like at least two more in addition to you and Red.”

  Bear Tooth and Red were silent for a few moments as everyone got started eating, and then Bear Tooth looked over at Red. “I heard Rattlesnake Bob Guthrie an’ his ridin’ partner, Bobcat Bill Johnson, was a couple’a peaks over to the south, toward Pueblo, last month. Maybe they’d be willin’ to go along.”

  “Maybe,” Red said as he chewed his steak. “Last time I saw Bobcat, he was complainin’ ’bout how crowded it was getting up here, so maybe he’d be ready to try some new stompin’ grounds.”

  “You haven’t asked me what the job pays,” Bill said, smiling at the wonderful flavor of the elk steak.

  Bear Tooth shrugged. “Don’t matter much,” he said. “We ain’t exactly up here in the High Lonesome to get rich.”

  Red nodded his agreement. “That’s right. It might be fun to go somewhere’s where we ain’t steppin’ on other men’s toes ever time we go for a ride.”

  “Do you think
you can find Rattlesnake and Bobcat?” Smoke asked.

  Red looked down his nose at Smoke as if he’d just been insulted. “If’n they’re still alive, we can shore as hell find ’em.”

  Bear Tooth laughed. “That’s right, Smoke. Red can track a snake across granite if’n he has a mind to. If they’re up here an’ still wearin’ they scalps, we’ll find ’em.”

  “Then, you’re saying you’ll go with us?” Bill asked, excitement in his voice.

  “Shore,” Bear Tooth said as he cut a chunk of elk steak and stuck it in his mouth. “If’n we don’t, ol’ Smoke there’s liable to get you lost, since he’s become so civilized lately.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Smoke said, laughing.

  6

  The next two days were an arduous mixture of slogging through deep snow on the sides of mountain peaks and then, when they proceeded lower on the mountainsides, wading through mud and melted snow in the valleys, where spring was already producing myriads of wildflowers and green grass for the horses to munch on.

  Van Horne glanced around at the beautiful scenery and said to Smoke, “This country reminds me a lot of Canada.”

  Smoke nodded. “Sometimes, when I’ve been away too long down in the flatlands, I forget just how beautiful it is up here.”

  Bear Tooth harrumphed. “Beautiful? This ain’t nothin’, men. You should see it ’bout two or three weeks from now when spring is full on an’ the snow is all gone. The colors will damn near take your breath away.”

  Red Bingham slapped at his neck and snorted. “Yeah, an’ most of these damned black flies will be gone by then, thank God.”

  Smoke and Cal and Pearlie were riding the Palouse horses from Smoke’s remuda, while the mountain men road pinto ponies like the Indians used. Van Horne was on a Morgan, one of the few horses large enough to carry his 250 pounds up and down the mountainsides without tiring. The group used the horses left behind by the French poachers as additional pack animals, tying them with dally ropes to the packhorses they already had.