Johnstone, W. - Last Mountain Man

“Thank you,” he said to Preacher. He reloaded the empty cylinders.

Preacher scalped the Pawnee, then tossed the bloody scalp locks to Kirby. “They yourn, Smoke. Put ’em in that war bag I give you. They worth four dollars to you. Go on … four dollars ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.”

With his father watching him through eyes that had seen much, Kirby picked up the bloody hair and placed them in a beaded pouch Preacher had given him.

Emmett, who had ridden with the great Confederate Ranger J. S. Mosby for a year, was the furthest from being a stranger to guns and gunplay. Although Kirby would not learn of it for years, his father had been with Mosby when they rode into the middle of a Union Army camp at Fairfax, Virginia one night. They had asked their way to headquarters and there, Mosby awakened the Yankee general, Stoughton, by rudely and ungentlemanly slapping the man on his butt.

“Have you ever heard of J. S. Mosby?” the Confederate guerrilla asked in a whisper.

Angry, the general replied, “Of course! Have you captured him?”

“No,” Mosby said with a smile. “He’s captured you.”

The Confederate Rangers then kidnapped the Union general from under the noses of the general’s own men.

“You’re smooth and quick,” Emmett complimented his son. “And I have seen some men who were smooth and quick.”

“Thank you. Pa,” Kirby said. He was just a little bit sick and embarrassed by what he’d done and all the attention he was receiving. The scalp locks in his war bag were not helping his stomach any.

“Be careful how you use your newfound talent, son,” the father cautioned. “Use it for good, and not for evil. Temper your talent.”

Then the man coughed and thought of his own mission westward. He wondered how and when he should tell his son.

“Yes, Pa. I will.”

Preacher looked at the boy and wondered.

The trio rode for several days without encountering any more hostiles. They saw smoke, often, and knew they were being watched and discussed, but they rode through without further incident from the Pawnee. Three of them had killed more than twelve Pawnee, wounding several more in two quick fights. The Indian may have been a savage — to the white man’s way of reasoning — but he was not a fool, and he was a first-class fighting man, many of the tribes the greatest guerrilla fighters the world would ever know. Part of that is knowing when to fight and when to back off. This was definitely one of the back-off times.

“This here is the Cimarron Cutoff,” Preacher said. They had pulled up and sat their horses, the man and boy looking where he pointed. “The southern route to Santa Fe. Better for wagons and women, but the water is scarce. The northern route is best for water and graze, but it’s tough. Lord, it’s tough.”

“Why?” Emmett asked.

“Mountains. Rocky Mountains. Make them mountains where I’s born look like pimples.”

“Where is that, Preacher?” Kirby asked.

“East Tennysee. Long time ago.” His eyes clouded briefly with memories of a home he had not seen in more than half a century. At first the man had planned to return for a visit, but as the years rolled by, those plans dimmed, never becoming reality. Then he realized his Ma and Pa would be dead — long dead — and there was no point in going back.

The price many men paid for forging westward, opening up new trails for the thousands that would follow.

“I run off when I were twelve,” Preacher said, looking at father and son. “That were, best I can recall, fifty-two year ago, 1813, I believe it was. I’ve spent the better part of fifty year in the mountains. And I reckon I’ve known ever’ mountain man worth his salt in that time, and some that thought they was tough, but weren’t.”

“What happened to them that wasn’t?” Kirby asked.

“I helped bury some of ’em,” Preacher said quietly.

“You must know your way around this country, then,” Emmett said.

“Do for a fact. I helped open up this here Santa Fe Trail, and I’ve ridden the Mormon Trail more’un once. Boys, I been up the mountain, over the hill, and ’crost the river. And I’ve seen the varmit.” He looked hard at Kirby. “But Smoke, I swear I ain’t never seen the likes of you when it comes to handlin’ a short gun. It’s like you was born with a Colt in your hands. Unnatural.”

The old mountain man was silent for a time, his eyes on the deep ruts in the ground that signified the Santa Fe Trail. “I don’t know where you two is goin’. Probably you don’t neither. You may be just a-wanderin’, that’s all. Lookin’. That’s dandy. Good for folk to see the country. So I’ll tag along here and there, catch up ever’ now and then see how you’re a-makin’ it. I usually don’t much take to folk. Like to be alone. Must be a sign of my ad -vanced age, my kinda takin’ a likin’ to you two. ’Specially Smoke, there. I got a feelin’ ’bout him. He’s gonna make a name for hisself. I want to see that; be there when he do.”

“We’re heading, in a roundabout way,” Emmett said, “to a place called I-dee-ho.”

“Rugged and beautiful,” Preacher said. “Been there lots of times. But were I you — ’course I ain’t — I’d see Colorado first. Tell you what: I got me a cache of fur not too far from here. Last year’s trappin’. Ya’ll mosey around, take it easy, and keep on headin’ northwest. From here, more north than west. Ya’ll will cut the northern trail of the Santa Fe in a few days. Stay with it till you come to the ruins of Bent’s Fort. I’ll meet you there. See you.” He wheeled his horses and rode off without looking back, pack horses in tow.

Emmett looked at his son. Preacher liked the boy. And if he would agree to see to him through the waning months of his boyhood … well, Emmett’s mission could wait. The men he hunted would still be there. But for now, he wanted to spend some time with his son.

“How about it, Kirby — I mean, Smoke. Want to see Colorado?”

The boy-rapidly-turning-man grinned. “Sure, Pa.”

Long before 1865, Bent’s Fort lay in ruins. But from 1834 to 1850, the post ruled the fur trade in the southern Rockies. By 1865, the mountain men were almost no more. Time had caught up with them, and in most cases, passed them by. Civilization had raised its sometimes dubious head and pushed the mountain men into history. Those that remained were men, for the most part, advanced in years (for their time), heading for the sunset of their lives. But they were still a rough breed, tough and salty, not to be taken lightly or talked down to. For these men had spent their youth, their best years, and the midpoint of their lives, in the elements, where one careless move could have meant either sudden death or slow torture from hostiles. Mountain men were not easily impressed.

But the gathering of mountain men stood and watched as Kirby and his father rode slowly into the ruins of the old post, rifles across their saddles, pack animals trailing.

Kirby and his father did not know Preacher had spread the word about the boy called Smoke.

Kirby, as did many boys of that hard era, looked older than his years. His face was deeply tanned, and he was rawboned, just beginning to fill out for his adult life. His shoulders and arms were lean, but hard with muscle, and they would grow much harder and powerful in the months ahead.

“He don’t look like much to me,” an aging mountain man said to a friend.

“Neither did Kit,” his friend replied. “Warn’t but four inches over five feet. But he were a hell of a man.”

The mountain man nodded. “That he were.” His eyes were on Kirby. “Funny way to wear a brace of short guns.”

“Faster than a snake, Preacher says.”