William Johnstone - Battle of the Mountain Man

Johnny hadn’t said a word during supper, but he spoke up now, after mention was made of the soldiers. “Don’t know &’bout the rest of you, but I was plenty scared last night… bullets flyin’ all over the place, knockin’ holes in the side of that barn where I was hidin’. I couldn’t go back to sleep after it was over. I was thinkin’ how glad I was to be alive.”

Cal was quick to agree, looking at Smoke when he said, “I was feelin’ might’ near the same way. Not that I ever doubted you’d git us out of that fix, Mr. Jensen, but them slugs sure was comin’ close a few times.”

Smoke understood both boys’ concerns. They were young and inexperienced in the ways of battle. “Leave Evans and his gunslicks to me. The main thing you’re supposed to worry about is those cattle, come tomorrow. Just make sure you keep ’em bunched if there’s any trouble. Don’t let anybody close to those bulls, no matter what happens.”

Now Pearlie was eyeing Smoke. “You expect Evans an’ his boys to come after our cattle, don’t you?”

“It’s a strong possibility. I’ve never met Jessie Evans, but I know his kind. Some men can’t learn a lesson but one way, and that’s to teach it permanent.”

“You aim to kill him, don’t you?” Johnny asked quietly.

“Only if he comes at us again. I won’t go lookin’ for him, if that’s what you mean.”

It was Pearlie who said, grinning, “He’s done come at us once already, which only proves you’ve gone an’ mellowed some in my opinion. If that’d happened a few years back, you’d have gone lookin’ fer Mr. Evans by now.”

“We came here to buy Hereford bulls and cattle,” Smoke reminded Pearlie.

“So we did,” Pearlie agreed, as Maria brought a tray filled with cups of caramel-coated custard into the dining room, which signaled an end to all further conversation as far as Pearlie was concerned.

John Chisum had a small fire going in the fireplace due to a night chill, the house being without most of its windowpanes after the shooting. He had given Smoke a bill of sale for the cows and turned down the lantern while they shared glasses of whiskey while the men went to the bunkhouse.

“I’m also interested in buyin’ a good Morgan stud to cross on my mares,” Smoke said, enjoying his drink, and the peace and quiet.

Chisum wagged his head. “This isn’t good horse country yet, not by a long shot, however I have a friend in Saint Louis who raises purebred Morgans, and you can trust him. His name is Penn Wheelis. I’ll give you his address and you can say I recommended him to you. He’ll quote you a fair price, and even arrange for delivery by railroad car as far west as Denver. Wheelis is an honest man, and he’ll send you exactly what you’re paying for if you do business with him.”

“I’d sorta made up my mind to look at one before I paid for it, but if you say this Penn Wheelis is honest, that’ll be good enough for me. With those Herefords and cows to tend to this summer, I won’t have time to travel to Saint Louis.”

Chisum sipped his drink thoughtfully. “A Morgan is a good horse for adding muscle to a common mare. The crosses make good cow horses, I’m told.”

“I’ll take that address in Saint Louis, I reckon.”

Chisum got up and went to a rolltop desk, fumbling through a sheaf of papers until he found what he wanted. He wrote down a name and address and handed it to Smoke. “You won’t regret doing business with Wheelis. He’ll send you a good horse. You’ve got my word on that.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Smoke replied, tucking the paper into his waistband.

Chisum took his chair again… There was something else on his mind. “I can send Buck Andrews or Curly Tully along with you for part of the way,” he offered. “Both of them have made a name for themselves with a gun.”

“No thanks, but I’m obliged for the offer. I handle most of my own problems without any help.”

“I can see that,” Chisum said. “I’m curious about a couple of things. Where did you learn to fight like that? An ordinary man can’t kill almost a dozen men the way you did single-handedly without getting a scratch.”

Smoke thought about Preacher a moment. “I had a real good teacher, an old mountain man up in Colorado. If I had to try to explain it, I suppose I’d say he had a born instinct for taking care of himself in any situation. He lived alone in the wildest part of the Rockies. He never depended on anyone else. He survived in a place where all odds said he couldn’t, goin’ up against Indians like the Crows, Blackfeet, the Utes, and the Shoshoni back when the Indian wars were at their worst. After a spell, most tribes got to where they respected him… even made friends with him. Some of the Crow medicine men believed he was a medicine man himself, even though his skin was white and his eyes were the wrong color. He earned their respect as a fighting man, and they left him alone to hunt an’ run his traps.”

“It sounds to me like you were very close to him, whoever he was.”

Smoke felt a slight twinge when the old memories came back. “I reckon we were real close, if that’s the right word. He went by Preacher. He told me the last time I saw him his first name was Arthur. I never knew his last name.”

“Is he… gone now?”

Smoke downed the last of his drink, not wanting to discuss Preacher any longer. “Can’t say for sure. He’d be close to ninety by now, if he’s still alive. When I left him, it was at his request. He’d been wounded mighty bad and looked for all the world like he was gonna die. He asked me to dress him in his best buckskins an’ a sash, which is the way old-time mountain men want to be buried. Then he ordered me to leave that high country for good, to get clear of the trouble brewin’ there, He rode off on his favorite mare. That’s the last I ever saw of him, an’ I believe it was the way he wanted it, so I wouldn’t know if he’d lived or died. Preacher had a hell of a lot of pride, an’ I’m sure this was his way of sparing me from seeing him pass on, or as mountain men say, cross over.“(See "The Last Mountain Man")

“Haven’t you ever wondered what became of him?”

Smoke stood up, stretching his legs. “I owe him too much not to respect his wishes.”

Chisum got up, a puzzled expression on his face. “What an unusual story,” he said, following Smoke over to the front door to show him out.

“G’night, Mr. Chisum,” Smoke said, to end any further talk about Preacher or Smoke’s beginnings. “We’ll be up before first light to get that herd started.”

“My men will help you get them started north,” Chisum said as Smoke started for the bunkhouse.

“We’ll be grateful,” he said without turning around, lost in an unwanted memory, of the day Preacher was dressed in his best beaded buckskins, badly wounded from a scrape with men who had tracked him into the Needle Mountains, putting a rifle ball all the way through his hip, a wound that was badly festered by the time he found Smoke.

Smoke glanced up at the stars, hoping that somewhere those same stars were shining down on Preacher, perhaps at the high mountain pass Ned Buntline told Cal and Pearlie about. Was the man dressed in an albino buffalo robe truly Preacher?

Smoke knew he would never know, and that was the way Preacher had wanted it. Twenty-eight

Driving half-wild longhorns away from their home range could be tricky business, Smoke knew from experience, and as they put a few lead heifers in motion northward, some tried to turn back. A cowboy had to ride up at just the right time in order to get the animals moving in the right direction.

The young Herefords were another matter. Gentled by being around men feeding them in corrals, they plodded along at the back of the herd quietly.