Johnstone, W.: Last Mountain Man

They plodded on for another mile before the father again spoke. “I seen men layin’ side by side, some on stretchers, some on blankets, some just layin’ on the cold ground — all of them wounded, lot of them dyin’. The line was five or six deep and it stretched for more’n three miles along the railroad track. You just can’t imagine that, boy … not until you see it with your own eyes. Maybe one doctor for ever’ five hundred men. No medicine, no food, no nothing. Men cryin’ out for just the touch of a woman’s hand before they died. Toward the end of the war there wasn’t even no hope. We knew we was beat, but still we fought on like crazy men.”

“Why, Pa?”

“Ask a hundred men, boy, and they’d give you a hundred different answers. They was some men that fought ’cause they really hated the nigras. Some fought ’cause they was losin’ a way of life that was all they’d ever known. Some didn’t fight at all till they seen the Yankees come through burnin’ and lootin’ and robbin’ and rapin’. And some of them did that, too, boy, don’t never let nobody ever tell you no different.”

Kirby got a funny feeling in the area just below his belly at the thought of rapin’. He shifted in the saddle.

“I ain’t sayin’ the Gray didn’t have its share of scallywags and white trash, ’cause we did. But nothing to compare with the Yankees.”

“Maybe that had something to do with the fact that the Blues had more men, Pa.”

Emmett looked at his boy, thinking: boy’s got some smarts about him. “Maybe so, son.”

They rode on, across the seemingly endless plains of tall grass and sudden breaks in the earth, cleverly disguised by nature. A pile of rocks, not arranged by nature, came into view. Kirby pointed them out.

They pulled up. “That’s what I been lookin’ for,” Emmett said. “That’s a sign tellin’ travelers that this here is the Santa Fe trail. North and west of here’ll be Fort Larned. North of that’ll be the Pawnee Rock.”

“What’s that, Pa?”

“A landmark, pilgrim,” the voice came from behind the man and his son.

Before Kirby could blink, his pa had wheeled his roan and had a pistol in his hand, hammer back. It was the fastest draw Kirby had ever seen — not that he had seen that many. Just the time the town marshal back in Missouri had tried a fast draw and shot himself in the foot.

“Whoa!” the man said. “You some swift, pilgrim.”

“I ain’t no pilgrim,” Emmett said, low menace in his tone.

Kirby looked at his father; looked at a very new side of the man.

“Reckon you ain’t, at that.”

Kirby had wheeled his bay and now sat his saddle, staring at the dirtiest man he had ever seen. The man was dressed entirely in buckskin, from the moccasins on his feet to his wide-brimmed leather hat. A white, tobacco-stained beard covered his face. His nose was red and his eyes twinkled with mischief. He looked like a skinny, dirty version of Santa Claus. He sat on a funny-spotted pony, two pack animals with him.

“Where’d you come from?” Emmett asked.

“Been watchin’ you two pilgrims from that ravine yonder,” he said with a jerk of his head. “Ya’ll don’t know much ’bout travelin’ in Injun country, do you? Best to stay off the ridges. You two been standin’ out like a third titty.”

He shifted his gaze to Kirby. “What are you starin’ at, boy?”

The boy leaned forward in his saddle. “Be durned if I rightly know,” he said. And as usual, his reply was an honest one.

The old man laughed. “You got sand to your bottom, all right.” He looked at Emmett. “He yourn?”

“My son.”

“I’ll trade for him,” he said, the old eyes sparkling. “Injuns pay right smart for a strong boy like him.”

“My son is not for trade, old-timer.”

“Tell you what. I won’t call you pilgrim, you don’t call me old-timer. Deal?”

Emmett lowered his pistol, returning it to leather. “Deal.”

“You pil … folk know where you are?”

“West of the state of Missouri, east of the Pacific Ocean.”

“In other words, you lost as a lizard.”

Emmett sighed, more a painful wheezing. “Back south of us is a tradin’ post and a few cabins some folks begun callin’ Wichita. You heard me say where Fort Larned was.”

“Maybe you ain’t lost. You two got names?”

“I’m Emmett, this is my son, Kirby.”

“Pleasure. I’m called Preacher.”

Kirby laughed out loud.

“Don’t scoff, boy. It ain’t nice to scoff at a man’s name. Ifn I wasn’t a gentle-type man, I might let the hairs on my neck get stiff.”

Kirby grinned. “Preacher can’t be your real name.”

The old man returned the grin. “Well, no, you right. But I been called that for so long, I nearabouts forgot my Christian name. So, Preacher it’ll be. That or nothin’.”

“You the one left all them dead buffalo we seen a ways back?” Kirby asked.

“I might have shot one or two. Maybe so, maybe not.”

“Seems like a waste to me.”

“Did me, too.”

“That mean you ain’t gonna kill no more?”

“Didn’t say that, now, did I?”

Emmett waved Kirby still. “We’ll be ridin’ on, now, Preacher. Maybe we’ll see you again.”

Preacher’s eyes had shifted to the northwest, then narrowed, his lips tightening. “Yep,” he said smiling. “I reckon you will.”

Emmett wheeled his horse and pointed its nose west-northwest. Kirby reluctantly followed. He would have liked to stay and talk with the old man.

When they were out of earshot, Kirby said, “Pa, that old man was so dirty he smelted. ”

“Mountain man. He’s a ways from home base, I’m figuring. Tryin’ to get back. Cantankerous old boys. Some of them mean as snakes. I think they get together once a year and bathe.”

“But you said you soldiered with some mountain men.”

“Did. But they got out in time. ’Fore the high lonesome got to them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They stay up in the high country for years. Don’t do nothin’ but trap and such. Maybe they won’t see a white man once ever’ two years — except maybe another mountain man. Sometimes when they do meet, they don’t speak. All they’ve got is their hosses and guns and the whistlin’ wind and the silence of the mountains. They’re alone. It does something to them. They get notional … funny-actin’.”

“You mean they go crazy?”

“In a way, I’m thinkin’. I don’t know much about them — nobody does, I reckon. But I think maybe they didn’t much like people to begin with. They crave the lonesomeness of space. The mountain men I was with, now, they were some different. They told me ’bout that old man’s kind. They’re brave men, son, don’t never doubt that — probably the bravest men in the world. Got to be to live like they do. And what they’ve done will …” He thought for a moment. “… con tri bute to this country now that we fought the war and can put the nation back together.”

“That’s a real pretty speech, Pa.”

Emmett reddened around the neck.

“What’s con tri bute?”

“Means they done good.”

Kirby looked behind them. “Pa?”

“Son.”

“That old man is following us, and he’s shucked his rifle out of his boot.”

Two

Preacher galloped up to the pair, his rifle in his hand. “Don’t get nervous,” he told them. “It ain’t me you got to fear. We fixin’ to get ambushed … shortly. This here country is famous for that.”

“Ambushed by who?” Emmett asked, not trusting the old man.

“Kiowa, I think. But they could be Pawnee. My eyes ain’t as sharp as they used to be. I seen one of ’em stick a head up out of a wash over yonder, while I was jawin’ with you. He’s young, or he wouldn’t have done that. But that don’t mean the others with him is young.”