The First Mountain Man (14 page)

“You figure on handlin' that team of mules all day, by yourself, do you?”

“I'm going to try. We had mules back in Missouri. Big reds. Just like the ones I'll be driving here.” He frowned. “The ladies don't know how to drive a team. I never heard of anything as silly as that. But Misters Richard and Edmond said they would spell me from time to time.”

“That's right considerate of them. What are they goin' to be doin'?”

“Riding their mounts, sir. I believe they said something about assisting you.”

Preached choked on his 'baccy and coughed for a spell. He spat and said, “They's plannin' on doin'
what?
”

“Assisting you, sir.”

“Ass-istin' me doin' what?”

“Scouting, sir, I suppose.”

Preacher looked at the lad, blinked a couple of times, and walked off, muttering “Sweet Baby Jesus. Them two couldn't find their ass-ends if they britches was on fire.”

He spied Melody heading his way and ducked between wagons. Preacher sighed. It was hard to believe that about six weeks back, he was headin' down to rendezvous without a care in the world. Now he was saddled with a wagon train load of pilgrims, with more coming in, a gang of outlaws on his trail, and dodging a love-struck female who could raise the temperature of a room by ten degrees just by walking into it.

He had even offered Greybull two of his gold nuggets to take the train westward.

“Not for that whole en-tar poke of yourn,” the big mountain man told him. “And I'm sorry 'cause I'll prob'ly never see you no more after you pull out.”

“What are you talkin' about, you big ox?”

“Why, hell's far, that blue-eyed, honey-haired missionary lady's got marriage on her mind. And you're the man she plans on hitchin' up with. She's gonna have you out hoein' gardens and pluck in' petunias, and totin' her little bag whilst she shops and the like.”

“Have you lost your mind? I ain't gonna marry nobody, you mule-brained, goat-headed giant!”

“Yep. I can see it now,” Greybull said somberly and sorrowfully, but with a definite twinkle in his eyes. “You clerkin' in some store, strainin' your eyes sortin' ribbons and socks and drawers and the like. You be goin' home to the little lady after work—only by this time she'll prob'ly weigh about as much as a buffalo, and have seven or eight kids a crawlin' around on the floor, a-squallin' and a-dirtyin' their diapers and a-hollerin' for their daddy and—”

The pioneers stood in shocked silence, wondering what was going on as Preacher chased a laughing Greybull around the fort, the smaller man waving a tomahawk and cussing at the top of his lungs.

14

Preacher had done everything he knew to do to make the wagon train ready for the trail. Oddly enough, he felt good about what he had done. Even Greybull and another trapper, Jim, had noticed the subtle change in the mountain man.

“You've changed, Preacher,” Jim pointed out. “I can't put no finger on it. But they's something different about ye.”

Greybull smiled. “I think it's 'cause he knows they's love at the end of the trail.”

Preacher sighed and held his tongue.

Even though several weeks had passed since the pox had struck the Blackfeet and their bodies had been burned, the smell of death still hung faintly over the area, for not all bodies had been found and burned.

“The patrol that just come in says the second train is 'bout five days out.” Greybull wisely changed the subject, not wanting to be again chased around the fort by a tomahawk-wielding Preacher. “Twenty-five or thirty wagons. With them three wagons that rattled in last week, you'll have near 'bouts sixty wagons to guide through the wilderness.”

“The soldier boys say anything about the guide and the wagonmaster?” Preacher inquired.

“Only that they picked the guide up in St. Louie and the wagonmaster is original from back East somewheres.”

“Wonderful,” Preacher muttered. “More pilgrims a-comin' to the promised land.”

Maxwell-Smith walked up in time to hear the last couple of comments. “This train started out with more than forty wagons,” the officer said. “They survived half a dozen major engagements with hostiles along the way. That tells me that they are at least trail-wise.”

Preacher nodded. “Mules or oxen?”

“More ox than mules,” Greybull said. “That means they won't be totin' no heavy supply of grain.”

“But they'll be slower,” Preacher countered. “On the other hand, Injuns don't steal oxen as a rule. I reckon it'll all balance out. Mainest thing is gettin' these pilgrims through with their hair.”

Preacher turned to Maxwell-Smith. “You had any word on Red Hand?”

“Nothing,” the British officer replied. “And I was specifically warned about that renegade.”

“That worries me,” Preacher admitted.

“You think Bum may have hooked up with him?” Greybull asked.

“He's done it before,” Trapper Jim answered for Preacher. “I'd like to see the end of both of them. And soon.”

But Preacher's thoughts had again shifted to the monumental task that lay before him. He said, “Best you can expect from ox is twelve to fifteen miles a day. Mules can give you eighteen to twenty. We're lookin' at near 'bouts the end of summer 'fore we reach Fort Vancouver. Is losin' ten percent of these people along the way off the mark, 'Bull?”

“I wouldn't think so. Prob'ly more'n that 'fore it's all said and done.”

“Twenty percent of 'em,” Trapper Jim said.

“I want the post surgeon to check these new people over good,” Preacher told Maxwell-Smith. “My bunch is clean of cholera and I want it to stay that way. Has he got enough laudanum to give us a goodly stock?”

“Yes. Since the trains started coming this way, he's tripled his orders from the Company.” He held out several pages. “And this is not going to help matters any.”

“What's all them words say?” Greybull asked.

“A financial panic has struck the people back East,” Maxwell-Smith said. “Newspapers are calling it the panic of '37. And according to this newsletter, thousands of people are making plans to come westward.”

“Shit!” Preacher summed up his feelings with that one bitter word.

“There is more,” the British officer said, “and none of it is good. Andrew Jackson has retired from office and nearly all the major New York City banks have closed their doors. A massive financial depression has enveloped the land. Farmers can't sell their agricultural products, farm surpluses are clogging the markets and farmers are being forced off the land because they have no money. A massive movement is on for the free lands of the Pacific.”

“That's the end for us,” Greybull said. “Folks that ain't got no money shore can't buy pelts. You was right in what you said two year ago, Preacher. You said the end was in sight and we'd all better brace for it. Them that laughed at you is eatin' mighty bitter words now.”

“Bein' right don't make me feel good, though,” Preacher said. He looked at Maxwell-Smith. “What else is writ on them pages? I know that ain't all. Your jaw is hangin' low enough to touch your boots. So let's have it all.”

“Sickness. Back East there are epidemics of typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and malaria. New Orleans is very nearly quarantined. Cholera is being brought over from Europe and is trekking westward with the human movement.”

“Ain't they nothin' good a-tall in them pages?” Preacher asked.

“I'm afraid not, Preacher.”

Someone among the wagons started singing, the voice liltingly Irish.

“I've tried to tell these folks about this northwest trail,” Preacher said. “Tried to talk some sense into they heads. But they don't wanna listen. Ol' Joe Walker blazed one trail back in '32 or '33. I went over it with him. That one was hell, boys, pure hell. This one is only slightly better.”

“Fools and dreamers,” Greybull said quietly. “But, hell, wasn't we the same when we pushed out here, Preacher? I was at Pierre's Hole back in '32 when one of the first bunch of colonizers came a-staggerin' in. John Wyeth was one of them. But he tried again and I was tole he made it. You'll get them through, Preacher. I kinda wish I was goin' along.”

“Please feel free to take my place,” Preacher said dryly.

Preacher laid around the fort for the next several days, waiting for the second train to roll in. Then he would carefully inspect the wagons and give the people a good eyeballin'. 'Sides, them folks would be trail-worn and sufferin' bad from the wearies. They'd need some rest.

He didn't have to work at avoiding Melody now. She'd changed her tactics and had latched onto Lieutenant Maxwell-Smith, hoping to make Preacher jealous. The lieutenant squired her about, with her hangin' on his arm, shakin' her bustle and battin' her eyes at him.

Preacher only made matters worse by tipping his hat at them every time they met and saying, “Mighty handsome couple you are. Yes, siree. You shore do complement each other. Mighty handsome couple.” Then he would go away chuckling.

“You tryin' to get the lou-tenant kilt?” Trapper Jim asked one afternoon, after Preacher had tipped his hat and Melody had bared her teeth at him like a mad puma.

“The boy needs some excitement in his life.” Preacher jerked his head toward a man over by the company store. “You know that hombre over there?”

“Cain't say that I do. He drifted in last evenin'. Name's Luke.”

“Trapper?”

“No traps or pelts on his pack horse. I don't much cotton to him, Preacher. He's a tad shifty-eyed to suit me.”

“What's he ridin'?”

“Big gray with a reworked brand. 'Course, that don't mean nothin'. As many folks that's been kilt tryin' to come west, that horse could have belonged to anybody.”

“Yeah,” Preacher said, but he was unconvinced. After Jim had wandered off, Preacher walked over to the store to eyeball the man called Luke. He stood on the rough-hewn log porch and stared at the young man.

Luke smiled at Preacher. He did not receive a returning smile. “You want something?” Luke asked in a nervous voice. Preacher was known from the Big Muddy to the blue waters as a man a body had best not mess with.

Preacher didn't immediately reply. He was busy studying the clothes the young man had on. He had a feeling he'd seen that jacket somewheres before. Yeah, he knew he had. But where? Then it came to him. At the ruins of the ambushed wagon train. He'd tried that jacket on himself and found it too tight across the shoulders.

'Course that didn't mean the feller had done anything wrong. Preacher had taken clothes there himself. Only a damn fool leaves useable clothing to rot in the weather if he is able to put them to use—but not to sell or barter. A man had to draw a line somewheres.

Luke's right hand drifted to the pistol tucked down behind his belt, a movement that did not escape the eyes of Preacher.

Then something else returned to Preacher. Edmond had knowed the man who owned that coat. He had found his body and put the coat on over his tortoured flesh before they dragged off the bodies and caved the earth over them.

That meant ...

“Goddamn grave robber,” Preacher told the young man.

“What'd you mean, Preacher?”

“How'd you know who I was?” Preacher demanded.

“Uh ... I asked and somebody told me.”

“Who?”

“I ... ah, disremember 'xactly.”

“You're a damn liar!”

Lieutenant Maxwell-Smith and Melody came strolling by about that time. They both was gonna have to buy new shoes if that second wagon train didn't soon get here and they all could get gone.

“Here, now!” Maxwell-Smith said. “What's going on here?”

“Look close, Melody,” Preacher said. “You recognize the jacket this grave-robbin' scum is wearin?”

“Why ...” She peered at the frightened Luke. “That's the suit coat we buried poor Mister McNally in! Edmond put it on the poor man himself.”

“That's right,” Preacher said grimly.

Luke grabbed for his pistol and Preacher kicked the young man on the knee, knocking him off balance. Preacher stepped forward and busted Luke on the side of the jaw with a big hard fist. Luke went down, addled to his toes.

Preacher jerked the pistol out of the man's britches and looked at it. The name Blaylock was carved in the butt, along with Boston, Mass., 1832.

Greybull had come at a running lumber and jerked the now very badly frightened Luke to his feet, holding him by his neck with a huge hand.

“Where'd you steal this, boy?” Preacher said, holding up the pistol.

“I ain't stole nothin'. It's mine. My pa give it to me.”

“What's your pa's name?”

“Wilbur Mason.”

“From where?”

“Mary-land.”

Preacher smiled, “Do you know what's carved here, boy?” He traced the words with a blunt finger.

“Yeah! My pa's name.”

“Where was your pa back in '32?”

“In the ground dead. Fever got him and my sister.”

“Then how come this pistol's got the name Blaylock carved on it? Along with Boston, Mass., 1832.”

“I ...” Luke shut his mouth and shook his head.

“I thought you told me you couldn't read words?” Melody asked the mountain man.

“I lie on occasion,” Preacher told her. “And I didn't say I couldn't read. I said it'd been a long time since I had, that's all.”

“What else have you lied about?” she pressed him.

“This ain't the time to go into that.” Preacher looked at Luke. “You ride with Bum and his trash, don't you? You come in here to spy for him, didn't you?”

“I don't know no one named Bum Kel ...” Luke's eyes darted from person to person like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar as he realized he had, more than likely, just stuck his head into a hangman's noose. He knew the British had issued death warrants against Bum and anyone who rode with him.

“Then how did you know his last name?” Maxwell-Smith asked.

“I heared it one time,” Luke told them. “But I don't ride with no gang. I ain't done nothin' wrong 'ceptin' take this here coat offen a dead man. Critters had pulled him out from under the cave-in and the brush and had been eatin' on him. I took his coat 'cause I needed it and then I buried him proper. Took me the better part of an hour to dig the hole. I even spoke words over the grave.”

“You're a lyin' son!” Trapper Jim said, walking up and eyeballing the young man. “I know you. You're Luke Chatfield. You're wanted for murder back in the Ohio Territory.”

“It's a state now,” Melody said. “Admitted and recognized in 1803, I believe! How long have you been out here?”

“I was borned here,” Jim said. “My daddy was half grizzly and half wild tornader and my momma was a Pawnee.”

Preacher looked at him. “Wagh! Pawnee!” Preacher grinned. “I knowed there was something I didn't like about you.”

* * *

Luke was tossed into the post stockade and would be taken—sooner or later—to the northern territories for trial. Bum was a gutsy outlaw, but all suspected he was smart enough not to attack a fort under the protection of the Crown. Not for someone as unimportant and blatantly worthless as Luke Chatfield.

Luke had given up protesting his innocence the same day he was tossed in the stockade. Now he was offering to make a deal in return for his neck.

“What do you think?” Maxwell-Smith asked Preacher.

Preacher shrugged. “He's gonna tell you that Bum has hooked up with Red Hand and they's gonna ambush the wagon train somewheres between here and Fort Vancouver. Big deal. As far as him takin' us to where they's camped, forget it. When he don't return on time, they'll know he's either dead or captured and shift camp. But it would be nice to know the size of Bum's gang and how many renegades Red Hand has with him.”