Johnstone, W. - Last Mountain Man

The mountain man cocked an eye at his friend. “Preacher’s been known to tell a lie ever’ now and then.”

“Not this time, I wager. That there kid’s got a mean look to his eyes. Mayhaps he don’t know it yet, but he do. Give him two-three years, I’d think long ’fore tanglin’ with him.”

That got him an astonished look. “Hell-fire, Calico. You fit a grizzly once!”

“Won, too,” the old man said. “But I’m thinkin’ that kid’s part bear, part puma, part rattler. I’ll go ’long with Preacher on this one.”

“Does have a certain set to that squared-off jaw, don’t he?”

“Yep. Big hands on him.”

Kirby and Emmett sat their horses and stared. Neither had ever seen anything like this colorful assemblage. The men (only a few squaws were in attendance and they stayed to themselves), all of them sixty-plus in years, were dressed in wild, bright colors: in buckskin breeches and shirt, with beaded leggings, wide red or blue or yellow sashes about their waists. Some wore whipcord trousers, with silk shirts shining in a cacophony of colors. All were beaded and booted and bearded. Some held long muzzle-loading Kentucky rifles, or Plains’ rifles, with colorfully dyed rawhide dangling from the barrel, the shot and powder bags decorated with beads.

This was to be the last great gathering of the magnificent breed of men called Mountain Man. Many of them, after this final rendezvous in the twilight of their years, would drift back into the great mountains they loved, never to be heard from or seen again, to die as they had lived — alone. Their graves the earth they explored, their monuments the mountains they loved, tombstones rearing above them forever. They were a breed of man that flourished but briefly, whose courage and light helped to open the way west.

When Emmett and Kirby spotted Preacher, they could not believe their eyes. They sat their horses and stared.

Preacher was clean, his beard trimmed. He wore new buckskins, new leggings, a red sash around his waist, and a light they had never seen sparkled from his eyes. “Howdy!” he called. “Ya’ll light and sit, boys.”

“I don’t believe it,” Emmett said. “His face is clean.”

“Water to wash in over there,” Preacher said, pointing. “Good strong soap, too. But you’d best dump what’s in the barrel, though. It’s got fleas in with the ticks.”

When Emmett and son walked out into the final rendezvous of the mountain men, on this, their first day at the old post, they were greeted warmly, if with a bit of constraint.

“Gonna have us a feast,” a one-eyed, grizzled old man told them. “Come on. Got buffalo hump, antelope, and puma. Preacher’s gonna give up the message. Let’s don’t be late.”

“Puma?” Kirby questioned.

“Mountain lion,” the man told him. “Best, sweetest meat you ever did taste.” He smacked his lips. “This is the first big rendezvous I’ve been to in more’un twenty year. Guess this will be the last one for many of us,” he added, sadness in his voice.

“Why?” Kirby asked.

“Fur trade’s damn near gone; pilgrims pourin’ in over the trails me and all the others opened up. Hate to see it. Why, I seen five white people just last month. Five! Gettin’ so’s a body can’t even be alone no more.”

“When was your last rendezvous?” Emmett asked. Even he had never seen anything to compare with this gathering.

The mountain man stopped and scratched his head. “Let me ponder on that. Oh, back ’bout ’40, I reckon.”

“But this is 1865!” Kirby said.

“It is! Well, damn me. Time shore do get away from a body, don’t it?”

“They’ll be many more people behind us,” Emmett said.

“Yep. I reckon there will be. Be a plumb ruination to the country, too.” He shook his head and walked away to join a small group of aging mountain men gathered around several smoking pits just outside of what was left of the fort.

The fort, built in a sheltered bend of the Arkansas River, had been for years a welcome sight to trappers, traders, and the few travelers, representing a bit of safe haven for man and horse.

Sad, Kirby thought, his eyes taking in all the sights and sounds and good smells of cooking. It’s sad. These men opened up this country, and now they’re old, and nobody wants them around.

And that just did not seem right nor fair to the tall young man.

As if on silent cue, the men gathered in a circle. Preacher walked to the center of the circle, and the babble of voices fell silent.

“Well, boys,” he said in a somber voice. “I reckon this here rendezvous is ’bout gonna do it for most of us. Our time is past. We got to move over, make way for civilized folk: ranches and farms and plows and wire and pilgrims and the like.

“But boys, we can always ’member this: We saw it first and them few that come ’fore us. We seen it when it was glory. Untouched. We rode the mountains and the rivers, we made the trails for the pilgrims to foller, and we buried our friends — when we could find enuff of ’em to bury. Some of us was the first white man an eagle or bear or Injun ever seen. Now it’s nearabouts time for some of us to see the elephant. But that’s got to be all right. We done, I believe, what we was put on this here earth to do, and we can all be right proud we done it.

“Streams trapped out, purt-near. Fools comin’ in a-killin’ all the buffalo. In some parts they’s stringin’ wire all over God’s creation. A-hemmin’ us in.”

He slowly turned, his eyes touching the gaze of all present.

“But where can we go?” Preacher asked.

No one could answer the question.

“We never married nobody ‘ceptin’ squaws. Got no white kin to go back to. Even if we did, they wouldn’t have us. Can you see us livin’ in a town? All cooped up like a wild animal? No, sir. Not me. Not for none of you, I’m thinkin’.

“For me, I’m gonna see to it that this here boy, Smoke,” he cut his eyes to Kirby, “learns the true way of the wilderness. Might take me awhile, him being no more than a child. But … I reckon he’s as old as we was when we come out here, green as a gourd and wet behind the ears.

“And when that’s done, I’m gonna fork my horses and ride out to see this here much-talked about elephant.

“But, ’fore that happens, we all gonna eat, tell lies to one ’nother, and whoop and holler and dance. Then we just gonna ride out without lookin’ back. ’cause boys, it’s all over for men like us, and for some of us, real soonlike, we got just one more trail to ride.”

Kirby looked around him, seeing tears in some eyes of the mountain men. For they knew the words they were hearing were true.

Preacher took a deep breath. “Now, boys, bow your blasphemous old heads, ’cause I’m a-gonna talk to the Lord ’fore we feast.

“Oh, Lord,” his voice was strong, carrying far beyond the circle of men, “thanks for this grub we ’bout to partake of. We’ll enjoy, I’m sure, ’cause them smells is startin’ my mouth to salavatin’. But ’fore we start a-gummin’ and a-gnawin’ on this sweet meat, there’s something I got to ask You. Do You ever think You maybe made a mistake in the way You set a man up to go down his final trail? Give it some thought, Lord. Here we are, old men past our prime, juices all dried up. Couldn’t do nothin’ with a woman ’cept think about it and some of us forgot what it was we could even think of. But we’re a-smellin’ all the good smells of cookin’. Point I’m makin’. Lord, is this: If You ever want to do it again, do this: When a man gets our age, take his balls and give him back his teeth!

“Amen — let’s eat.”

Four

Two days later, when Kirby awakened at dawn and kicked off his blankets, a curious silence surrounded him. A feeling of aloneness. Pulling on pants and boots over his long-handles, he looked around the ruins of the old post. Nothing. The mountain men were gone, having pulled out as silently as they had learned to live. He shook his father awake and told him what had happened.