The First Mountain Man Read online

  Preacher found Swift. “Get the folks out of their blankets,” he told him. “We’re a-fixin’ to get hit by Injuns.”

  The wagonmaster cocked his head and listened for a moment. “But I don’t hear a thing, Preacher.”

  “That’s right, Swift. You don’t hear nothin’. Now think about that.”

  The two men stared at one another for a moment. Swift nodded his head. “I’m learning,” he told Preacher. “Takes me awhile, but I’ll get there.”

  Preacher clasped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Now get them movers up and ready.”

  “I see something out there,” a woman told Preacher as he walked by her wagon. “Several somethings. They’re not trying to hide.”

  Preached angled over to her and stood gazing out into the night. He called out in Snake.

  “One third of your horses and mules,” the harsh voice came back to him, speaking in English, “And one third of all your supplies. Then you may pass through.”

  “Forget it,” Preacher returned the shout. “And don’t tell me you’re hungry. They’s game aplenty out there this summer. We ain’t botherin’ you, so there ain’t gonna be no tribute paid.”

  “You will die then. All of you.”

  “Sing your death songs.”

  The Indians shouted out some very uncomplimentary and very uncomfortable suggestions to Preacher.

  Preacher heard Beartooth’s laugh. “Your horse wouldn’t like that either, Preacher.”

  “You have that stinking cowardly Crow puke Nighthawk with you?” the Indian shouted.

  That prompted a long stream of invectives from Nighthawk. He told the Snake where to put his bow and arrows, his horse, his wife, his kids, his mother, his father, and all his friends.

  “Wagh!” Dupre said. “Talk about a tight fit.”

  A bow string twanged and the arrow thudded into the bed of a wagon near Preacher.

  The shapes that the woman had seen had long disappeared as the Snakes prepared to attack.

  “Only cowards attack women and children!” Beartooth shouted. “None of you are fit to be called braves. I say you is all stinking coyote vomit.”

  “Bear-Killer will not die well, I am thinking,” the Snake’s words came out of the darkness.

  Preacher had hunkered down. His eyes had found a shape on the ground that was unnatural to the terrain. He lifted his Hawken and sighted it in, squeezing the trigger. The powerful rifle boomed and the shape lifted itself off the ground for a few seconds, then collapsed, shot through and through.

  Preacher quickly reloaded as arrows filled the night air. One mover screamed as an arrow embedded in his thigh. A child began crying and its mother tried to soothe the child into silence with calming words.

  Nighthawk’s rifle crashed and another Snake went down, shot through the stomach. The brave began screaming in pain as he rolled on the ground, his innards ruined.

  “If we can get three or four more,” Preacher told the man who crouched beside a wagon wheel, “them bucks will break it off. I don’t think they’s many of them out there.”

  Preacher was thoughtful for a moment. “Pass the word: everyone with two rifles get ready to stand and deliver. We’ll all fire at once. Injuns is notional. That much firepower all at once might change their minds. Keep your second rifle at hand in case it just makes ’em mad and they charge.”

  The mover looked at Preacher.

  Preacher shrugged his shoulders. “Life’s full of chances.”

  Within two minutes time, all the men were ready. “Now!” Preacher shouted, and the night roared and flashed with fire and smoke and lead balls.

  The movers were lucky this night. Their blind fire had hit several warriors. The Indians, never with enough ball or powder, figured that any group with so much shot and powder that they could waste it made their medicine very bad. Shouting threats and insults, they pulled back into the night.

  Nighthawk laid on the ground, his ear to the earth and listened. “They’re riding away,” he finally said, standing up. “Heading south. That bunch is through for this night.”

  Preacher walked over to the man with an arrowhead sunk more than halfway through his thigh. “You got any drinkin’ whiskey?” he asked.

  “In the wagon,” the mover said through gritted teeth.

  “Get it,” Preacher told the man’s wife.

  The woman returned quickly with a jug of rye and handed it to Preacher. “Thankee kindly, ma’am,” he said. Preacher took him a long pull and then handed the jug to the wounded man. “I could say that this is gonna hurt me worser than it does you, but I’d be lyin’. You take you three or four good swallers and tell me when you’re ready.”

  The mover’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed the raw brew. “I’m ready.”

  Preacher nodded at Dupre and Beartooth and the mountain men grabbed the mover’s arms. Preacher got him a good grip on the shaft of the arrow and pushed hard. The man screamed as the arrow tore out the back of his leg. Preacher quickly broke off the shaft and pulled it out, then reached behind the man’s leg and jerked out what remained.

  The mover had passed out.

  Preacher poured some whiskey on the wound, front and back, and told the woman, “Nighthawk’ll take over now. Let him fix his potions and poultices and don’t interfere. Injuns been usin’ things like marigold and goldenseal and dandelion and nipbone and others for centuries. And they work.”

  “What do you suggest for a bruise?” Edmond asked, pulling up his sleeve and showing a badly bruised arm.

  “I won’t ask how you got it. You pick you some bruisewort in the mornin’. That’ll fix you right up.”

  “Some what?”

  Preacher smiled. “Daisy flowers. Crush ’em up and lay ’em on the bruise. Works, ol’ son.”

  “Pickin’ handfuls of daisies on the banks of the Snake,” Beartooth sang and did a little dance. “This’un I don’t like, that’un I’ll take.”

  Dupre looked at him. “I swear you too young to be getting senile. But you shore been actin’ goofly here of late. Did you fall off your horse and bang your head?”

  “Nope. I just feel good, that’s all. And you best feel good too. ’Cause when we cross the Snake in a week or so, and start headin’ north, feel-good time is gonna be over.”

  “I allow as to how you may be right.” The two men linked arms and went off singing, “Pickin’ daisies on the banks of the Snake . . . This’un I don’t like, that’un I’ll take ...”

  Then the two mountain men did a little dance step and made up some lines that caused several of the women to squeal and cover their faces with their aprons.

  Nighthawk sighed and shook his head.

  7

  Preacher halted the train about a mile from Rocky Creek and he and Dupre, Nighthawk, and Beartooth rode up to the crossing. No Indians were in sight, but the four of them knew that accounted for nothing in this country.

  “Quiet,” Preacher observed. “But a peaceful kind of quiet.”

  “Right,” Dupre said dryly. “Like that bird singin’ yonder that ain’t no bird.”

  “I gleaned that right off,” Beartooth said. “So they’re waitin’ for us in them rocks over yonder crost the crick. Now, I consider that to be downright nasty, sneaky, unfriendly, and not a-tall to my likin’.”

  “Yeah,” Preacher said with a grin. “Not nothin’ like any of us would do.”

  “You got you an idee,” Beartooth said. ’Ever’ time you grin like ’at, I know you got something sneaky wigglin’ around inside you headbone.”

  “I do for a fact. Let’s ride on back and get things set up. We’ll give them renegades something them that live through can tell their grandkids.”

  “Real easy like and not in no hurry,” Preacher told Swift, “I want you to pick out twelve of the best shots in the train and get them ready to load up, six in each wagon. Three to a side. I want them to have at least three rifles loaded up and pistols at the ready. Beartooth and Nighthawk is on t
he south right now checkin’ to see if we’re bein’ spied on. Rig the canvas so’s it can be jerked up from the inside. Have Jim drive one wagon, and a damn good man on the seat of the other. We’re gonna turn this ambush around.”

  The warbling of a bird reached them. Preacher smiled. “That’s Nighthawk tellin’ me it’s clear. When you get your men picked out, load ever’body up on the south side of the wagons so’s the Injuns won’t see what’s goin’ on.”

  “Where will you be?” Swift asked.

  “Me and Beartooth will be in front. Dupre and Nighthawk to the rear. What we’ll do, you and me, is have a big argument on the banks with me yellin’ that we can only take two wagons acrost at a time. Then we’ll move ’em out.”

  Swift looked doubtful. “I hope this works,” he finally said, with a shake of his head.

  Preacher grinned at him. “Me and Beartooth’s gonna be in the front. What are you complainin’ about?”

  Preacher walked back to where the two wagons were being prepared. With only the flaps facing southward lowered, men busied themselves off-loading the wagons’ contents, making room for the marksmen. The mountain men double-shotted their pistols and checked their rifles.

  “Me and Nighthawk found signs that show some lazy-butt Diggers has joined this bunch,” Beartooth said. “This bunch mostly is tribal castouts. For a Digger to throw somebody out of the tribe means they really must have done something awful.”

  “I ain’t never heard of a digger ever throwin’ nobody out,” Dupre said. “Most of ’em’s too damn lazy to take the time for a meetin’.”

  Preacher told Swift, “Make your people ready for an attack. We can’t circle here, so keep everybody in the wagons, or right near them. Guns ready.”

  “We’re ready,” Trapper Jim called.

  “Come on, Swift,” Preacher said. “Let’s us walk down to the bank and have a quarrel.”

  The two men stood on the banks and shouted at each other for several minutes, with a lot of finger-pointing at the other side of the creek. Finally, the wagon master threw up his hands and stalked off.

  “Bring ’em on,” Preacher shouted. “Beartooth, bring my horse down here, will you?”

  “You think they bought it?” Beartooth asked, when Preacher had swung into the saddle.

  “I hope so.” He cocked his Hawken and Beartooth did the same. “We’re gonna have to fire these things like pistols,” he told the big mountain man with a grin. “So get a good grip on yourn. I’d hate for you to lose it and you have to go wadin’in the crick after it. Your feet’s so dirty the water’d be ruint for miles downstream.”

  “Wagh!” Beartooth said. “You ain’t token a bath in so long even the fleas is a-leavin’ you. I oughtta shove you offen your horse so the poor animal could take a decent breath. It’s a wonder he ain’t dropped stone dead from havin’ to smell you.”

  They insulted each other while the wagons were lumbering down the trail to the creek.

  “I reckon we’ll play this here game out like we see it oncest we’re crost,” Beartooth said. “Watch your top-knot ifn you have the leave the saddle, ol’ son.”

  “Same to you, Bear-Killer. Here they are. So here we go.”

  They stepped their horses into the creek and began the crossing, staying close to the first wagon, driven by Trapper Jim. They felt the attack would begin as soon as the second wagon was fully out of the creek and past the top of the embankment. The renegade Indians would, in all likelihood, be content with slaughtering those in the two wagons rather than face defeat or taking heavy losses by waiting until the entire train was over.

  “In the rocks left and right,” Beartooth whispered. “Unless a rock has taken to growin’ a hand.”

  “Yep. That’s a careless Injun. Tell you what, just as soon as the last wagons crost, we kick these hammerheds into a gallop and get past them boulders. I’ll swing left and you swing right—that’s the side your furthest leg is on,” he added with grin, “and we’ll come up ’hind ’em.”

  “I would tell you to keep low in the saddle,” Beartooth responded with a smile, “but you so damn scrawny and poor as it is, if an Injun gets an arrow in you it’ll be pure luck. Never seen a man afore that has to stand in the same spot twicest to make a shadder.”

  “Don’t worry none ’bout takin’ no arrow-points, Beartooth. They’s so much lard and blubber on you it won’t do no damage to amount to much.”

  They stepped their horses onto the bank and started up the slight incline.

  “The only place Beartooth might take an arrey is in his butt,” Trapper Jim called. “Way it hangs out over the sides of that saddle makes a right temptin’ target.”

  “I don’t know why I ’ssociate with the likes of you people,” Beartooth said. “Way you continue to heap insults upon the poor head of this humble child of God.”

  “Wagh!” Preacher said, then spat. “You bring it all on yourself. Any man who’d winter with a squaw as ugly as that female you took up with back in ’31 is beyond redemption. I thought you’d took up with a bear first time I come up on you two. What was her name? She Who Frightens The Sun?”

  Beartooth grinned. “She cooked good and was right cosy in the robes, though.”

  “I ’spect she were that. ’Course you had to kill nine deer to get enough skins for her dress. First time that woman reared up in front of me I jumped ten feet in the air. I thought I done come up on a Sasquatch.”

  “I allow as to how she were a queen compared to that Assiniboin you took for a bride back in ’28.”

  “I had to marry up with her,” Preacher said. “It was either that or they was gonna kill me. I’m tellin’ you, her father was desperate to get shut of that girl. He didn’t name her Squalls a Lot for nothin’. First time she hollered at me the whole damn tipi fell down.”

  The second wagon reached the crest of the bank and Preacher let out a wild whoop and Hammer took off like he’d been shot out of a cannon.

  Preacher cut left and Beartooth cut to the right just as the rocks on both sides of the trail were suddenly swarming with rogue Indians.

  The canvas on the wagons was jerked off and the riflemen inside leveled their weapons and cut loose with a volley. These Indians never had a chance. Taken completely by surprise, they were cut down and their blood began staining the rocks and boulders by the creek.

  Preacher left his horse and slammed into a buck, knocking him to the ground. He sprang to his feet with a knife in one hand an a pistol in the other. Preacher shot him at nearly point-blank range with the Hawken and the ball passed right through him, the impact knocking the brave off his moccasins. Preacher used his rifle like a club, cracking the skull of a buck who came screaming at him.

  Dropping the Hawken, Preacher jerked out two pistols—double-shotted as usual—and took two more out with them, the balls doing fearful damage to the braves.

  A brave jumped at Beartooth and the huge man grabbed him by the neck and hurled him against a boulder, breaking the warrior’s back with a horrible cracking sound.

  Nighthawk turned as a renegade Sauk—identified by his distinctive necklace of grizzly bear claws—cursed Nighthawk for a mangy Crow dog. Many of his tribe had been pushed west by the ever-moving and encroaching whites. Nighthawk lifted a pistol and drilled the Sauk through the heart, then ran to help his friend, Dupre, who was struggling with two Indians who wore Sioux markings.

  Nighthawk clubbed one with the butt of his pistol, smashing the man’s skull. Dupre threw the other one to the ground and shot him in the head.

  Trapper Jim had left his wagon seat, a pistol in each hand, and two dead Indians lay at his feet.

  “It’s over!” Preacher shouted. “Stop firin’. It’s over.”

  Men coughed nervously and rubbed at eyes that watered and smarted from the thick gray smoke from their black powder weapons. The mountain men went about the grisly task of finishing off those warriors who were badly wounded.

  “Stay in the wagons,” Preacher told the movers
. “This ain’t nothin’ you need to get involved in. It’s just something that has to be done. Reload all your weapons. That’ll give you something to do.” He shook his head, but he was proud of the movers. They had conducted themselves well.

  Nighthawk knelt down beside a badly wounded, gut-shot Cayuse and spoke in his own language. “You are dying. Do you want me to hasten death?”

  “I want you to do nothing, Crow puke,” the defiant warrior told him. “Except leave so I do not have to look upon your stupid, ugly face. I do not want that to be the last thing I see in this life.”

  Nighthawk rose. “Then I shall certainly abide by your wishes, Cayuse vulture shit.”

  He walked away, leaving the buck to die alone.

  “You ever see so damn any tribes in one spot?” Dupre asked, as the mountain men met back on the trail. “I counted eight tribes. They’s a dead Cree over yonder.”

  “Worries me,” Preacher admitted, as Swift yelled from the other side.

  “When do we cross?” the wagonmaster yelled.

  “Bring ’em on over!” Trapper Jim shouted, waving at the man. He climbed back on the seat and pulled his wagon on ahead, the second wagon following.

  “Worries you?” Nighthawk said, pointing to a dead Indian. “That’s a Crow over there. I knew him as a good man. It’s hard for me to believe that a Crow would join up with such a band of puke and maggots.”

  The men gathered their horses and got off the trail as the wagon train began its crossing of the creek. No one asked if the mountain men were going to bury the dead Indians. By now, they knew they would not. But they did help drag them out of sight so the womenfolk wouldn’t have to look at the mangled and bloody bodies.

  The wagons lumbered across slowly, the creek crossing going well until a wheel came off and dumped some of the wagon’s contents into the now muddy water.

  “Don’t try to drive them wagons around it,” Preacher hollered out the warning. “They’s rocks on one side and a drop-off on the other.”