The First Mountain Man (15 page)

“And what do we offer him in return for that information?”

“We don't hang him.”

15

Luke took the offer without hesitation. “Bum's got about twenty men, and he's lookin' for more. Bum wants the gold them missionaries is carryin' and he wants the white women. Red Hand's got near'bouts forty bucks with him.”

“'Way more'n enough to give us hell out yonder on the trail,” Preacher said after they left the stockade building. “Red Hand's people would hay-rass us at night, stealin' and killin' stock and cripplin' the wagons. They'll try to drag us down slow and then move in for the kill.”

“And your plan is ... ?” Maxwell-Smith asked.

By now this had become a challenge to the mountain man. “I'm takin' the wagon train through to Oregon Territory. To hell with Bum Kelley and Red Hand.”

“I really wish I could let you have some men, Preacher. But I don't have the authority to do so.”

“I'll get them through. They'll be some that don't make it. I'll lose some to accidents, some will probably fall to diseases, and Bum and Red Hand will get some more. But most of them will get through. Or I'll be buried along the trail with them.”

Preacher fixed up one wagon and with Lieutenant Maxwell-Smith's permission, commissioned Trapper Jim to drive it through. The wagon would be filled with gee-gaws to trade with the Injuns they would encounter along the way. Preacher stocked the wagon with bolts of calico and Hudson's Bay blankets. He laid in a stock of metal knives and a trunk filled with three-pound carrots of tobacco. He put in several dozen one-pound metal kettles and lots of cheap but flashy trinkets.

The second wagon train finally rumbled up to the walls of the fort and Preacher stood and watched as more kids than he'd seen in many a year poured out of the wagons. Seemed like they never would stop coming, all of them yelling and shouting and giggling and runnin' around like a bunch of idiots.

“I sure hope some of them is midgets,” he said to Greybull.

The huge mountain man slapped Preacher on the back. “I got to go a-scoutin' ol' son. We'll say our hail and farewells now, I reckon.”

“You be careful out there, you moose,” Preacher said, shaking hands with the man. “Stay with your hair now, you hear?”

“You ride easy in the saddle, Preacher. And try not to get hitched up with that honey-haired filly.”

The men grinned at each other and Greybull was gone, walking to his horse to begin his lonely and dangerous job. Preacher stood in the open gates of the fort and watched him until he was swallowed up by the wilderness.

He wondered if he would ever see the man again.

He'd wondered those thoughts many times. He wondered them when Jed Smith went off on his last adventure back in '30. Commanches got him.

Preacher shook such thoughts from his head and set about locating and acquainting himself with the guide and wagon master of the train.

“There appears to be a small problem,” Maxwell-Smith said, stopping Preacher along the way.

“Well, hell, when ain't there been?” Preacher said. “What's wrong now?”

“The guide just quit. Said he was going back to St. Louis.”

Preacher dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “I don't need no second opinion in gettin' this train acrost the wilderness. How about the wagon master?”

“He seems to be a good, solid man. He's staying on.”

“Let's go meet him.”

He introduced himself as Swift and Preacher immediately sized him up as a man who would brook no nonsense from anyone. Swift was a well-built man of middle age with quick intelligent eyes. Preacher knew that he was also being sized up by the wagon master.

“You've been over the trail?” Swift asked.

“More'n once.”

“How bad is it from this point on?”

“You ever been to hell?”

“Can't say that I have.”

“You're about to get a goodly taste of it. You got any sickness with you?”

“No. At least nothing more serious than blisters and sore muscles. My bunch are all in good shape. I insisted that all people be scratched before we left.”

Preacher's first impression of the man had been correct. Swift knew his business.

“We've got sheep, goats, milk cows, and extra mules and oxen,” Swift said. “We hooked up with a small train three days ago. We are thirty-one wagons and more than a hundred and twenty people.”

“Most of them kids,” Preacher remarked.

Swift smiled. “Correct, sir. But I've found them to be well-behaved and they've become trail-wise. You'll find none of them dashing off to become lost in the woods. One did, back in Wyoming. We never found him. That settled the rest of them down.”

“It usual takes something like that to do it, so I been told. Sorry you had to lose the kid. I got things to say, and I be honest with you, Swift. I been a mountain man for all my life—since I was twelve year old. I come out to this land—this land—fifteen year after Mackenzie. I wasn't the first. But them that was first, they left. I stayed. Blackfeet probably wouldn't hate the white man so much if Lewis hadn't shot one he caught stealin' rifles ...”

A crowd of people from the fort and both wagon trains had gathered around, listening to this buckskin-clad, shaggy-haired, wild-looking man of the mountains.

“... But they ain't nobody blamin' Lewis. He done what he had to do. But the Blackfeet still tell the story about how, not too long after that, one of Lewis' own party accidental shot him in the ass. Lewis had to be toted around on a litter for some time. Blackfeet still get a big laugh when they tell that story.

“Now I'm gettin' to what it was I was original gonna tell you, Swift. I know the trail. I been over it and back. But I ain't never guided no wagon train filled with females and squallin' kids. I ain't got no patience with young'uns. So I'll stay shut of the train as much as possible.

“One more thing and then I'm done. Don't cross me when I tell you something to do. If I tell you to gather the wagons, you give that order right then and there. If I tell you we're stoppin' early in the day—I got a reason for it. And I warn you now that we got a bad bunch of outlaws on our trail and they've hooked up with some renegade Injuns who's headed by a Blackfoot called Red Hand. And so's I won't have to answer a bunch of gawddamn foolish questions, Red Hand was named cause they's a big birthmark on his hand that's red.” Preacher caught Penelope's eyes and said, “Kinda like them two dogs I was tellin' y'all about.”

“Well!” Penelope tossed her curls and marched off.

“I beg your pardon?” Swift leaned forward. “Did I miss something?”

“Naw. Where was I? Oh. That's about it, I reckon. You folks have put some hard miles behind you, and you've got some hard ones ahead of you. You folks get busy checkin' out your wagons and the like. We'll start whenever you people have rested and resupplied. Until then, don't bother me. I don't have the patience for a bunch of damn fool questions from a pack of pilgrims that shoulda stayed to home in the first place.”

Preacher nodded his head at Swift, then wheeled about and stalked off without another word.

“What an ill-tempered, sharp-tongued, savage man!” one woman observed of the mountain man.

Maxwell-Smith smiled and said, “Be thankful you have him to guide you, madam. There is no more qualified man in all the western lands. However, he does take some getting accustomed to.”

Melody looked at the young lieutenant and rolled her eyes at what had to be the understatement of the year.

* * *

Preacher squatted on his heels and with a stick, drew a crude map in the dirt for Swift and a handful of men from the newly arrived wagon train.

“We're here, on the Snake. Once we leave here, we'll dip south just a mite, then start anglin' some north and west. What's left of the Blackfoot is north of us. Also north of us, but that don't mean a whole lot, 'cause Injuns is roamers—they apt to pop up anywheres so don't never take nothin' for granted—also is the Nez Perce, the Flatheads, and some Crow and Shoshone. Over here,” he jabbed the stick, “is the Bannocks and here is where you'll find the Paiutes. The Yakimas is all over this area here.

“Don't worry about the Paiutes. They's pretty peaceful Injuns. War ain't very high up their list of things to do. In their society there ain't no glory or honor in fightin' and killin'. When a Paiute hears a bunch of whites is comin', they been known to hide their kids in brushpiles or run off in a panic.

“Shoshone ain't quite that kind to the white man. I get along with them alright, though. I ain't never had no problem with the Washos neither. Tell the truth, I ain't expectin' much in the way of Injun troubles. This is probably gonna be the largest wagon train most Injuns west of here has ever seen. Injuns ain't foolish; they ain't gonna attack nothin' that they think is gonna beat them back or cause a lot of deaths and injuries. Them that attacked us here at the fort did so out of rage and desperation. It's Bum Kelley and Red Hand that's gonna be causin' us the problems.”

“My people will be ready to go in two days,” Swift said.

Preacher stood up. “That's when we'll stretch 'em out, then.”

* * *

On the morning of the pull-out, Preacher rolled out of his blankets while the stars were still bright overhead. He saddled Hammer and rigged up his light-loaded pack horse—most of his things were in the wagon—and tied the reins to the back of the wagon driven by Jim.

Richard and Edmond had made their appearance in their new trail gear the day before. Preacher had been wondering about those two, so he was not surprised when they showed up all in buckskin. They'd arranged for one of the Flathead women who'd returned to the fort to make the skins.

Damnest lookin' sight Preacher believed he'd ever seen in all his days.

Melody and Penelope had come up with sidesaddles—only God knew where—and they had announced that they would be mounted at least part of the way.

“Don't make no difference to me if you ride a camel,” Preacher told them.

“You don't have to be rude,” Melody told him.

“I ain't,” Preacher replied. “Just truthful.”

“Don't you think the new attire of Richard and Edmond makes them look quite dashing?” Penelope asked.

“I can say truthful that I ain't never seen nothin' to compare it with.”

“Oh, good!” Melody clasped her pretty little hands together. “They were afraid you might laugh at them.”

“Cry might be a better word,” Preacher muttered.

“Beg pardon?” Melody asked.

“Nothin'.”

Melody found Preacher as he was squatting down drinking coffee and chewing on a biscuit filled with salted fatback. It was still dark and the morning was pleasant.

He looked up at her. Both women had been doing a lot of sewing and each had put together several fashionable riding outfits. She sat down beside him.

“I'm so excited I could just fairly burst!”

“Yeah, me too.”

A very large, muscular, and smart-aleck teenage boy about fifteen or sixteen that Preacher had taken an immediate dislike to let out a wild yell of excitement.

“Idiot,” Preacher muttered. “If he does that on the trail somebody's gonna shoot him. And it might be me.”

“Avery is just full of himself, that's all. He's been flirting with all the girls. Why, he even made eyes at Penelope.”

“Better watch him around the sheep, then,” Preacher muttered.

“Beg pardon?”

“I said did you get enough sleep?”

“Oh, yes. How far is it, Preacher?”

“In miles, I ain't got no idea. We'll be weeks on the trail. We'll do good to average, ten or twelve miles a day over much of this country. They'll be days we'll push fifteen, days we'll do four or five. They'll be days we'll never leave camp 'cause of the weather.”

“You always look on the gloomy side of things, Preacher.”

He cut his eyes to look at her. “I look at the way things is, Melody. Not the way I want them to be.” He tossed the dregs of the coffee to the ground and stood up in one smooth, effortless movement. “Get your kit together. We'll be pullin' out at first light.” He turned to leave.

“Preacher?”

He stopped and looked back at her.

“Why do you dislike me?”

Preacher stared at her in the semi-gloom. Many campfires were now being lighted, the pioneers stirring from their blankets, ready to begin the second phase of their long journey to the promised land. The smell of coffee brewing filled the early morning air. “I don't dislike you, Melody,” Preacher spoke the words softly. “Matter of fact, I like you more'n I have any woman 'fore in my life. And mayhaps that's the problem. This is my world, Melody. The mountains and the valleys and the plains and the wild things. Yours is all different. I don't fit in your world, and you don't fit into mine. So there ain't no point in startin' nothin' that neither of us can finish. It's not that I won't change. I can't change. I'm as much a part of this land as the mountains I live in and the winds that blow through the passes. This is where I'll die. You folks back East, you read all about the carryin's-on of Kit Carson. Melody, I was out here years 'fore that squirt showed up.

“I was the
first
white man to see much of this country. It was me that opened up many of the trails that folks are now usin'. I wasn't alone in doin' it, but I was there. I can't leave this country for no length of time. It just keeps pullin' me back. It calls to me, Melody. Sings to me. It's a part of me and I'm a part of it. I can go for weeks without hearin' the sound of a human voice. And I love it, Melody. I love it. I don't need people the way you do. Hell, I don't even
like
most people. They want ever'thing that I don't see no need for and ain't got no use for. I got my good horses, a fine saddle, my guns, and a good knife. What else do I need? Nothin'. Not a thing. You desire a roof over your head. Woman, I can't hardly sleep under no damn roof. Not for no length of time. It hems me in. Makes me nervous when I can't look up at the stars.