The First Mountain Man (2 page)

“Amen,” the mouthy man said. “It's not only the savages to whom we must introduce God.”

Preacher chuckled and shook his head. “For shore I drank the whiskey. As to the second part, no. Let's go. When we make camp I'll fix up a poultice for one-ear there. You ain't hurt bad, mister. But you're gonna be tiltin' your hat to the other side of your head for the rest of your life. Now, all of you, move, goddammit!”

2

They were in trouble and Preacher knew that for a hard fact. The Arapaho bucks back yonder had been wearing read streaks on their faces. To an Arapaho, the color red could mean three things: earth, man, or blood. In this case, Preacher pretty well knew it meant blood, and they weren't in the best of positions, either. They were caught with the Shoshoni just to the west of them, the Blackfoot to the north, the Crow to the east, and the Arapaho and the Cheyenne to the south and everywhere in the immediate surroundings.

All in all, it was not a good place to be. Preacher, traveling alone, never gave it much worrying time. He knew how to stay alive in hostile country. But with four pilgrims—that was quite another matter.

And two of them females, no less. That only added to the problem.

“Git up on them horses,” Preacher told them.

“We don't have the proper saddles for the ladies,” the mouthy man said. “And by the way, my name is Edmond. You know Melody and Richard. This is Penelope.”

“Well, I am just thrilled beyond words. Now, get up on them damn horses!”

Nobody moved.

With a snort of disgust, Preacher climbed up the gently sloping bank, slid down the other side, and fetched his own animals, leading them around to the others. They still hadn't made a move toward the ponies.

He swung into the saddle and led an Indian pony over to the group. He looked at Melody. “Mount up, sister. I'll get you outta here. Move, woman!”

Melody didn't hesitate. She stepped up on a log, hiked up her skirts, and swung onto the horse's back. Preacher handed her the reins. “Let's go.”

“What about us?” Penelope shrieked.

“Keep your voice down, woman!” Preacher said. “You'd but a hog-caller to shame. If you wanna come with us, put your butt on that pony's back and come on.”

“Barbarous cretin!” Edmond said. “Youd leave us, wouldn't you?”

“You see my back, don't you?” Preacher called over his shoulder. “That tell you anything?”

“Are you really going to leave them?” Melody whispered.

“Naw,” Preacher returned the whisper. “But they don't know that.”

She grinned at him. Preacher winked at her.

“I'm a worker in the house of the Lord, sir,” she reminded him.

“You're a woman first,” he told her. “And a hell of a woman, at that.”

She blushed and tried to adjust her bonnet, pushing some blonde hair back under the brim and almost fell off the pony.

“Hang on, sister,” Preacher told her. “You're all lucky them Injuns took saddles from the dead pilgrims for their ponies. You'd be plumb uncomfortable if you was ridin' bareback.”

“I can just imagine,” Melody muttered.

“I bet you cain't, neither. Here come the others. I figured I'd get them movin'.” He looked with approving eyes at the way the men sat their saddles. They could ride. Penelope, on the other hand, was bouncing up and down like a little boat on a great big lake in the middle of a storm. “Grab ahold of that saddle horn, sister,” Preacher said. “And hang on. The damn thing ain't for tootin', you know.”

She gave him a dark look and muttered something under her breath.

“Must you use profanity?” Edmond said.

“Will if I want to, and I want to, so hush up and stay in line. And don't get lost. Which way's what's left of the wagon train?”

“On the Oregon Trail,” Richard said.

Preacher whoaed up and twisted in the saddle. “Somebody's been playin' games with you folks. The Oregon Trail is 'way, 'way south of here. People, you was
lost!”

“As a goose,” Melody said. “I knew that, but nobody would listen to me.”

Richard and Edmond both looked embarrassed. Richard said, “I suspected our guide didn't know what he was doing. He drank a lot.”

“I know lots of guides who drink a lot,” Preacher said. “That ain't got nothin' to do with it. Where'd you folks outfit and jump off from?”

“Missouri,” Melody told him. “Our guide told us we would bypass Fort Hall because he knew a better route.”

“Damn fool,” Preacher muttered. “All right. How far north is the train?”

“I would say about fifteen miles,” Edmond said. “No more than that, I'm sure.”

“Probably not that far,” Preacher said. “Injuns wouldn't travel that distance in these mountains 'fore torturin' and rapin'. If that's what they had in mind.”

“Perhaps you could take us on to Oregon?” Edmond suggested.

“I'll take you somewheres,” Preacher said, and pointed his horse's nose north.

Night draped the mountains before they could reach the site of the wagon train. Preacher killed a couple of rabbits with a sling and stopped before dark to build a small fire. While the meat was cooking, he said, “We'll eat, then move on a couple of miles and make camp for the night. It's gonna be cold, so you folks use your saddle blankets for warmth.”

“But they
smell!”
Penelope complained.

“You will too 'fore you get where you're goin',” Preacher told her. “Like a bunch of polecats—but you'll be alive. So shut up.”

Preacher let the others eat the rabbits while he chewed on jerky and ate a handful of some berries he'd picked. He was used to lean times. These pilgrims looked like they'd never missed a meal in their lives.

He carefully put out the fire and moved them north a couple of miles for a cold camp. Melody was the only one who didn't complain, even though she was just as uncomfortable as the others.

She'll do,
Preacher thought.
She's tough.

Their eyes met in the darkness through the dim light of the quarter moon. She blinked first, then laid her head on the saddle. Preacher grinned and rolled up in his blankets.

Across the small clearing, Edmond had watched the silent exchange through hot eyes, and bristled in anger.

* * *

They all saw the buzzards long before they reached the site of the ambush and massacre. Those carrion birds who had not yet feasted on dead flesh soared and circled and wheeled and waited their turn in the sky, while the others staggered around on the ground, too full and heavy to lift off.

“It ain't gonna be pretty,” Preacher warned. “I've seen it before. When you puke, don't get none on me. Where are you folks from anyway?”

“Philadelphia,” Richard said.

“Shoulda stayed there. This country's too crowded as it is. Can't ride for five days without seeing some damn body.”

“It's called progress,” Edmond said.

“It's a damn nuisance, is what it is,” Preacher retorted.

“Must
you swear constantly?” Melody asked.

“Yeah, I must. I'm gettin' in practice for our rendezvous down south. Although it don't look like I'm gonna make it.”

“I've read about those affairs,” Richard said. “Then you're a real mountain man.”

“I am.”

“What drove you to this horrible existence?” Edmond asked.

Preacher turned to look at the city man.
“Horrible?
What's so horrible about it? I'm as free as an eagle, wild as a grizzly, mean as a wolverine, tough as a cornered wolf, and quick as a puma. I can out drink, out cuss, out fight, out dance, out sing, ride farther and faster than any man, and tell more lies than any ten men. And I'm good-lookin', too.”

Melody laughed at his words.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Edmond admonished him.

“Why?” Preacher asked. “For bein' what the good Lord intended me to be? You are what you are, I am what I am. It's just as simple as that.” He reined up and let the horses drink. “This here's what we call Shine Crick. I know what your guide was up too, now, but he was flat out wrong. He'd been listenin'to lies about a trail through the wilderness just to the west of us. There ain't no wagon trail through there. You'd have to go north over a hundred miles and then cut west. But even then, that would be a tough pull. Windin' way. Get caught there in the winter, and you'd die. You people were listenin' to a fool. What happened to him anyways?”

“When the savages attacked, he ran away,” Melody said. “I watched him leave.”

“You know his name?”

“Jack Harris,” Edmond said. “I did not like him. He was a lot like you.”

“Jack Harris ain't nothing like me,” Preacher told him. “Jack's a back-shooter and a coward. Brags a lot about how brave he is, but when it comes down to the nut-cuttin', he ain't nowheres to be found.”

“He claimed to be a mountain man,” Melody said.

Preacher snorted. “He's a hanger-arounder, is what he is. He tell you about the time I whupped him down at Bent's Fort? No, he wouldn't mention that. I whupped him to a fare-thee-well, I did. He ain't liked me to this day.”

“What was the fight about?” Richard asked. Although the man was in considerable pain, he'd come up in Preacher's eyes by not complaining about his missing ear and by pulling his weight.

“He insulted my mother. Now, you can insult me all day long—if you do it in a friendly manner—and I'll just insult you back. But leave my dear sainted mother out of it. Or get ready to get bloody.”

The wind shifted and brought a horrible stench with it, wrinkling the noses of the missionaries.

“That's ... the wagon train?” Melody asked, getting a little green around the mouth.

“Yep,” Preacher said. “What's left of the bodies, that is. Buzzards'll try for the soft parts first. Belly and kidneys. It ain't a real pretty sight. I've seen yards and yard of guts all strung out like rope. Why, I recollect one time, I come up on this Pawnee village that'd been hit by a band of Injuns that didn't like 'em very much—nobody likes the Pawnee. And I seen ...” Preacher went into great long gory detail until the sounds of retching stopped him. Penelope and Edmond were off their ponies, kneeling down in the trail.

“What's the matter with you two?” he asked, with a very definite twinkle in his eyes. “Something you ate don't agree with you, maybe?”

* * *

Richard and Melody dropped off their ponies and headed for the bushes when they approached the wagon train. It was evident that the Indians had spent several hours torturing some of the survivors, and many Indian tribes could be very inventive when it came to torture.

“Savages!” Edmond blurted. “They need the word of God even more than I thought.”

“Is that right?” Preacher asked with an odd smile. “Savages, huh? 'Ppears to me I read where they was still cuttin' off folks' heads in France and drawin' and quarterin' folks over in England. Big public spectacle. Ain't them religious countries? Would you call that civilized?”

Melody and Richard returned from their hurried trip to the bushes, both of them pale. The stench from the bodies was horrible. Articles of clothing and broken pieces of furniture were scattered all over the area, along with what remained of tortured men and women and older kids.

“Where are the young children?” Penelope asked, her voice no more than a whisper and her face very pale under her bonnet. “There were a dozen or more boys and girls.”

“Injuns took them to raise,” Preacher said. “They do that sometimes. If the child behaves, they'll live. Some tribes won't harm a child at all. Others will kill them outright. Injuns are notional. Just like white folks, you might say.”

“I don't know any white person who would harm a child!” Edmond said.

“Then you don't know many of your own kind,” Preacher told him shortly. “You folks start gatherin' up clothing you think might fit you and what food and powder and shot that might be found. Get yourselves some warm clothing.”

“Stealing from the dead!” Penelope said.

Preacher turned slowly and looked at her. “Lady, you are beginnin' to wear on me. Do you—any of you—know the trouble you're in? I don't think so. We're smack in the middle of hostile Injun country, and from the paint on them dead bucks, they're on the warpath. Somethin's stirred them up. And it's reasonable to think that they ain't the only tribe that's took up their war axes.” Preacher knelt down and began drawing in the dirt. The others leaned over to watch him.

“Now pay attention,” Preacher said. “We're here. Dry Crick is behind us here. The South Fork of the Shoshone is to our west. The Oregon Trail is 'way to hell down here. 'Way I see it is like this: we got hostiles on the warpath all around us. We'd be damn fools to try to make it south to the wagon trail.” He looked at all of them for a moment, then sighed. “I reckon I'm stuck with you. I can't in no good conscience leave you. Hell, you'd all die. Don't none of you seem to know north from south or what's up or down.”

“Now, see here!” Edmond protested.

“Shut your fly-trap,” Preacher told him. “And don't argue with me. I been makin' it in these mountains for years. You're just a helpless baby in the wilderness. And folks, if you think this is wild, you ain't seen nothin' yet. We couldn't make it with wagons where I'm thinkin' of carryin' you, but on horseback...” He shrugged his shoulders. “... We got a chance. We're goin' into the Big Titties . . .”

“The
what?
” Penelope blurted, high color springing onto her cheeks.

“Mountain range that was named Les Grand Tetones by a French trapper 'cause they reminded him of big tits,” Preacher said, ducking his head to hide his grin. The grin did not escape Melody. “It's wild, people. It's the most beautiful and wildest thing you'll ever see. And it's slow goin'. But it's the safest way. We might run into some Bannocks in yonder; but I get on well with the. Likewise the Nez Perce further on west and north. Good people. It's our only shot, folks, and we got to take it. Now look around for a bottle of whiskey.”