The Last Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Kirby looked around him. The day was pleasant, but cool. “How can you tell that this early?”

  “Leaves on the aspen. Whenever they start turnin’ gold this early in the fall, the winter’s gonna be a bitch-kitty. Bet on it. But we’ll have things to do, Smoke. Hunt, run traps, chop wood, and,” he said grinning, “stay alive. That there is the mainest thing.”

  “Sometimes I get the feeling we’re the first white men to see this country, Preacher.”

  “Know the feelin’ well. But they’s mountain men through here ’fore I was born. And not too many years ago an army man, named Gunnison, Captain Gunnison, as I recall, came through here. That was back in ’52 or ’53. He was chartin’ the land.”

  “For what?”

  “Railroad, I heared.” He spat his contempt on the ground.

  “When they gonna build it?”

  “Not in my lifetime, I hope. I don’t wanna see this here country all tore up. Pilgrims comin’ in with their plows, a-draggin’ they wimmin and squallin’ kids with ’em.” He shuddered. “Damn nuisance. Makes my skin crawl.”

  Kirby grinned. “That could be fleas, Preacher.”

  “Watch your mouth, boy—don’t sass an old man.”

  Kirby laughed with his friend. “Some people might call the railroad progress, Preacher.”

  “Some people might paint wings on a pig and try to make it fly, too. No, sir. Land oughta be left the way God made it. Already folk in here pokin’ holes in the ground, lookin’ for gold and silver. They scarin’ off the game, makin’ the Injuns mad at ever’body. It’s a damn shame and a dis-grace.”

  “Preacher?”

  “Yep, Smoke.”

  “What happened back at the fort? Bent’s Fort, I mean. Did the Indians destroy it?”

  “Nope. Old Bent blew it up hisself. That was back in … oh . . .’52, I think.”

  They stopped, allowing their horses to drink and blow.

  “Blew up his own fort? That’s crazy. Why would he do that?”

  Preacher chuckled. “Old Bill Bent was probably one of the finest men I ever knowed. I guess he just got discouraged when the fur trade kind of petered out. That’us back about ’50. He tried to sell the fort to the government, but they fiddle-faddled around for two years tryin’ to make up they minds. Far as I’m concerned, ain’t been nobody in government had a mind since Crockett. Anyways, ol’ Bill just blowed the damn thing up, loaded his goods on wagons, and moved down the Arkansas to Short Timber Crick. He set up two-three more places, but they weren’t none of ’em nearabouts as grand as the first.”

  Kirby had gotten lost in the big hotel in Springfield; that was grand. He couldn’t imagine anything to match that out here.

  “Yes, sir, Smoke, Bent’s Fort had nice livin’ quarters, a bar, and a billiard room. That there bar served up a drink called Taos Lightning. And let me tell you, it were ever’thing it was cracked up to be. Struck your stomach like a fulminate cap to powder.”

  The old man and the young man rode on, climbing higher, the air cool as it pulled at their lungs. They rode for an hour without speaking, content to be surrounded by God’s handiwork.

  “Where is Mr. Bent now, Preacher?”

  “Don’t rightly know, Smoke. He were married two times—that I know of. Both times to Injun wimmin. First wife died . . . can’t ’member her name. Then old Bill hitched up with her sister, Yellow Woman. Last I heard, he was livin’ with one of his kids, on the Purgatoire River.”

  “Is he a legend?”

  “Damn shore is. Just like you will be, Smoke. Someday.”

  The young man laughed. “I’ll never be a legend, Preacher.”

  “Yeah, you will.” Preacher’s reply was solemn. “I can see it all around you, in ever’thing you do.”

  “Well, I guess only time will prove that, Preacher.”

  “As much time as the Good Lord gives you, Smoke.”

  5

  That winter of 1865/66 was a brutal one, with days of snow that sometimes piled up to the shuttered windows of the cabin along the banks of the North Fork.

  With time on his hands, Kirby read and reread, many times, the McGuffey’s reader his father had bought for him. And he found, much to his surprise, that Preacher had a dozen or so thick volumes, including the selected works of a man called Shakespeare.

  “I didn’t know you read, Preacher,” Kirby said, the howl of the winter winds muffled inside the small, snug cabin.

  “Don’t. Can’t read airy word. But I wintered once with a feller who, as it turned out, had been a school teacher back East. Them books belonged to him.”

  “Belonged?”

  “Thought hisself quite a ladies’ man, that feller did. ’Bout twenty year ago—give or take some—he took a shinin’ to a squaw over the mountain east of here. Only problem was that there squaw already had herself a buck, and that Injun didn’t much cotton to that school teacher makin’ eyes at his woman. He caught ’em together one afternoon. They was . . . ah . . .”

  Kirby got his hopes up. At last!

  “. . . kissin’ and things.”

  Damn! “What things?”

  “Things. Don’t interrupt. That buck killed the school teacher, cut off the woman’s nose, and kicked ’er out. I got left with the books and the body. Buried the body. Didn’t know what to do with the books, so I kept ’em. Used to be more’un them there. Rats et ’em over the years.”

  “Cut off her nose!”

  “Injun way of divorce, you might call it. It varies from tribe to tribe.”

  “What happens to the man if he’s unfaithful to the woman?”

  “Some tribes, the woman can kick him and his goods right out of the wickiup, and he ain’t got no say in the matter—none a-tall.”

  “Seems fair,” the young man observed.

  “Some bucks might not agree with you,” Preacher said with a smile. “’Pecially this time of year.”

  * * *

  The Chinook winds blew once in the late winter of ’66, melting the snow and creating a false illusion of spring, confusing the vegetation and the animals. The warm winds also brought a stirring within the boy/man called Smoke.

  “It ain’t gonna last,” Preacher told Kirby, now in his seventeeth year. “Likely be a blizzard tomorrow. Relax, Smoke, spring’ll be here ’fore you know it.” The mountain man smiled knowingly. “You act like you got the juices runnin’ in you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Preacher cocked an eye at him. “Girls, boy. You know.”

  Kirby shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t know nothin’ about girls.”

  Preacher paled.

  “I figured you’d tell me about females.”

  “Lord Gawd!”

  “You mean I have to ask Him!”

  “Don’t blaspheme, young man,” Preacher said sternly. “Come a time—and this ain’t the time,” he was quick to add, “you’ll learn all there is for a man to know ’bout females.” He grimaced. “And a bunch you don’t want to know. Most aggravatin’ creatures God ever put on this here earth. Can’t live with ’em, can’t do without ’em.”

  “That’s what my father used to say. But he’d always grin at Ma when he said it.”

  “He better grin,” Preacher replied.

  Kirby read for a time while Preacher slept by the fire. When Preacher awoke, Kirby asked, “What do we do when spring does get here?” His thoughts were suddenly flung far, to his father, wondering where he was, if he was still alive.

  “I start learnin’ you good. And you start bein’ a man.”

  “I wonder where my Pa is?”

  “He’s either on the way to doin’ what he set out to do; he’s already done ’er, or he’s doin’ it.”

  “Or he’s dead,” Kirby added.

  “Mayhaps,” Preacher’s words were soft. “We all get to see the elephant someday.”

  “I don’t know the whole story, Preacher. Pa said you’d tell me when it was time. I reckon it ain’t time just yet.”

>   “That’s so, Smoke.”

  “All right. But I’ll tell you this, Preacher: If those men he went after killed him, I’ll track them down, one by one, and I’ll kill them. And anyone who gets in my way.” His words did not come from the lips of a boy; but a man grown in many ways.

  Preacher had a sudden flash of precognition, the foreseeing coming hard, chilling the old mountain man.

  “Yep,” he said. “I reckon you will, Smoke.”

  * * *

  The warm winds once again blew, and this time they were the real advance guard of spring. First to show their appreciation of the cycle of renewal were the peonies, bursting forth in a cacophony of color. The columbine, which would one day be the official flower of the yet-tobe-admitted state of Colorado, cast forth its contribution to spring, in colors of blue and lavender and purple and white. The valleys and foothills, the plains and mountains exploded in a holiday of technicolor.

  And on that day, Preacher packed his gear and told his young friend to do the same. “Walls closin’ in. Time to get movin’. Time for you to start learnin’.”

  With their Henry repeating rifles across their saddles, the pair rode out, heading northeast from the North Fork, into the timber and the mountains. Still, one hour each day, the boy called Smoke practiced with his deadly Colts, perfecting what some would later write was not only the first fast draw, but the fastest draw.

  Those few who would get to know the man called Smoke would say he was even faster than the legendary Texas gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin; possessing more cold nerve than Wild Bill; meaner than Curly Bill; and as much a hand with the ladies as Sundance. But for now, Kirby was learning, and the mountain man taught him well.

  Still spry as a cat and tougher than wang-leather, Preacher taught Kirby fistfighting and boxing and Indian wrestling. But more importantly, he taught him to win in a fight—and taught him that it didn’t make a damn how you won. Just win. He taught him to kick, gouge, throw, and bite.

  “Long as you right, Smoke, it don’t make no difference how you win. Just be sure you in the right.”

  * * *

  “Not knowin’ the land and the animals can get a body dead,” Preacher told him. “I’ll start like you don’t know nothin’. Which is not that far from the truth. Snakes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Snakes. Tell me what you know ’bout ’em.”

  “I know to leave some of them alone.”

  “Wise, but not near enough.”

  “Well . . . I know a poisonous snake’s got to coil before they strike.”

  “Wrong. A rattler can short-strike at you with just the power of his neck. You ’member that. And this, too: Rattler meat is good to eat. I’ve et a poke of it. Right tasty. But be damn shore the critter is dead ’fore you start to skin it. They get right hostile ifn you’s to jerk the hide off ’fore they’s dead.”

  Kirby smiled. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Preacher laughed. “’Spect so. Injuns was gonna skin me alive one time, up on the Platte. That’s how I got my name, Preacher. I preached to them heathens for hours. Didn’t think I knowed so many words. Even made me up a language that day and night. Called it the unknown tongue. But I made believers out of them savages. I reckon they thought I was crazy. Injuns won’t harm a crazy man—most of ’em, that is. They think he’s kind of a God. Finally that chief just put his hands over his ears and told his bucks to turn me a-loose. Said I’s a hurtin’ his ears something fierce. I got my pelts and rode out of there without lookin’ back.” He chuckled at the long-ago memory.

  “And you’ve been called Preacher ever since.”

  “Yep.”

  * * *

  Preacher had blindfolded the young man and spun him around like a top. Removing the sash, Preacher asked, “Which direction you facin’, Smoke?”

  Kirby shook his head, looking around him. “North.”

  “Wrong. You looked at that moss on yonder tree, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That kind of thinkin’ can get you kilt. Moss, ifn there’s light and water enough, can grow all the way ’round a tree. Man can wander ’round in circles and die believin’ that moss only grows to the north.”

  “Then—”

  Preacher answered the unspoken question. “Sun, stars, lay of the land, and a feel for them all. Come a time, Smoke, you’ll just know. It won’t take long.”

  The days passed into weeks, and Kirby’s education grew, and so did he, gaining weight, filling out with hard muscle.

  The young man pointed his finger at a bush full of berries. “I know about them—we got them in Missouri. Don’t eat them, they’re poison.”

  Preacher grinned. “But some birds do.”

  “Yes. But you said not to believe that old story that anything a bird eats a man can eat.”

  “That’s right. See them flowers over yonder. Right purty and lots of birds eat ’em. But they can kill a man, or else make him so sick he’ll wish he was dead. Oak tree yonder. I’ve knowed folk to boil the bark and make a bitter-tastin’ tonic. Never cared for the stuff myself.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause it tastes like pisen water. And I just don’t care to drink no pisen water.”

  As they traveled, they would occasionally encounter roaming bands of Indians, most of them friendly to Preacher. Once, after they had palavered with a band of Cheyenne, Kirby looked back in time to see one of the braves making a circling motion at his temple with a forefinger. He told Preacher.

  “Sure. Sign for a crazy person. Let ’em keep believin’ it. We’ll keep our hair.”

  “Why do Indians think a crazy person is a God?”

  “Well, they believe he’s possessed by gods—nearabout the same thing to them. And the Injuns don’t want no bad medicine with no God.

  “They don’t worship like we do, Smoke. Injun worships the sun, the stars, the trees, the moon, the rivers. Nearabouts ever’thing. Least the Injuns I know does. They can’t rightly tell you why they think a man crazy is thataway. I’ve heared twelve different versions from twelve different medicine men. Don’t none of ’em make no sense to me.”

  During their wanderings, they met trappers and hunters, a few of whom rode from the west. Kirby would always ask about Emmett. But no one had seen him or heard about him. It was as if the man had dropped off the face of the earth.

  “Idaho is wild, Smoke,” Preacher told him. “Only a few places settled. We ain’t heard nothin’ by next spring, we’ll strike out for the Hole.”

  1867

  The pair spent the winter of 1866/67 in an old cabin on the banks of the Colorado River, with the northern slopes of Castle Peak far to the south, but visible on most days. Here, the pair ran traps, hunted, and on the bitter cold days and nights, stayed snug in the cabin built some forty years earlier by a long dead friend of Preacher’s.

  “What happened to the man who built this cabin?”

  “He got tied up with a mountain lion one afternoon,” Preacher said. “The puma won.”

  In the spring of ’67, they sold their pelts at a post and rode out for the northwest.

  “Show you where we used to rendezvous, Smoke. Back ’bout ’30, I think it were. Worst damn place I ever been in my life. We called it Fort Misery. First time I ever et dog. Warn’t too bad as I recall.”

  Kirby shuddered. “You’ve eaten dog since?”

  “Shore. Many times. And so will you. That’s why Injuns keep so many dogs ’round they camp. Come winter, food gets scarce, they cook up dog. It’s right good.”

  Kirby hoped he would never eat dog. “This Brown’s Hole—that where we’re headin’?”

  “Yep. On the Utah side of Brown’s Hole, just west of Wild Canyon. Quiet there. I told your Pa ’bout it. Said ifn he could, he’d meet us there—somehow.”

  Kirby didn’t like the sound of—somehow.

  * * *

  They had taken their time, riding through the Flat Tops Primitive area, past Sleepy Cat Peak, and into the Da
nforth Hills. They made camp at the confluence of the Little Snake and Yampa Rivers—and they stayed put for three weeks.

  “What are we waiting for?” Kirby asked impatiently, the youth in him overriding his near manhood.

  “Somebody’ll be along directly.” Preacher calmed him. “They always is. So you just hold your water, Smoke—we got time.”

  At the end of the third week, a mountain man rode in. He looked, at least to Kirby, to be as old as God.

  “You just as ugly as I ’membered, Preacher,” he said, in a form of greeting.

  Kirby had learned that mountain men insulted each other whenever possible. It was their way of showing affection.

  “You should talk, Grizzly,” Preacher retorted. “I ’member what Elk Man told you thirty year ago: You could hire out your face to scare little children.”

  A pained look crossed the old man’s face. “Hell, Preacher,” he said in mock indignation, “I didn’t ride seventy mile to get insulted.”

  “’Course you did. I’m one of the few that can stand to look at you. Light and sit, we got grub.”

  “You cook it?”

  “Hell, yes, I cooked it!”

  “That’s even a worse insult,” Grizzly said. But he dismounted, dropped the reins on the ground, and filled a plate with food.

  After his second helping, piling his plate high with venison, wild potatoes mixed with wild onions, and gravy, the old mountain man wiped his tin plate clean with a piece of Kirby’s panbread, then poured a third cup of coffee. He belched contentedly and patted his stomach. “Bread was good, anyways. Boy must have made that.”

  Preacher glared at him. “I’d druther have to buy your traps than feed you for any length of time. You eat like a hog.”

  Preacher and Grizzly insulted one another for a full half hour, each one trying to outdo the other. Kirby had never heard such tall tales and wild insults. The men finally agreed it was a draw.

  Grizzly said, “Do I talk in front of the boy?”

  “He ain’t no boy. He’s a growed man.”

  Kirby poured himself a cup of coffee and waited.

  “Man rode into the Hole ’bout two months ago. All shot up. Had a bad cough. He—”