The Last Mountain Man Read online

  Emmett laid the Sharps aside and hurriedly unwrapped the canvas, exposing an ugly weapon, with a potbellied, slab-sided receiver. Emmett glanced up at Preacher, who was grinning at him.

  “What the hell are you grinnin’ about, man?”

  “Just wanted to see what you had all wrapped up, partner. Figured I had you beat with what’s in my pack.”

  “We’ll see,” Emmett muttered. He pulled out a thin tube from the tin box and inserted it into the butt plate, chambering a round. In the tin box were a dozen or more tubes, each containing seven rounds, .52 caliber. Emmett leveled the rifle, sighted it, and fired all seven rounds in a thunderous barrage of black smoke. The Indians whooped and yelled. Emmett’s firing had not dropped a single brave, but the Indians scattered for cover, disappearing, horses and all, behind a ridge.

  “Scared ’em,” Preacher opined. “They ain’t used to repeaters; all they know is single shots. Let me get something outta my pack. I’ll show you a thing or two.”

  Preacher went to one of his pack animals, untied one of the side packs and let it fall to the ground. He pulled out the most beautiful rifle Kirby had ever seen.

  “Damn!” Emmett softly swore. “The blue-bellies had some of those toward the end of the war. But I never could get my hands on one.”

  Preacher smiled and pulled another Henry repeating rifle from his pack. Unpredictable as mountain men were, he tossed the second Henry to Emmett, along with a sack of cartridges.

  “Now we be friends,” Preacher said. He laughed, exposing tobacco-stained stubs of teeth.

  “I’ll pay you for this,” Emmett said, running his hands over the sleek barrel.

  “Ain’t necessary,” Preacher replied. “I won both of ’em in a contest outside Westport Landing. Kansas City to you. ’Sides, somebody’s got to look out for the two of you. Ya’ll liable to wander ’round out here and get hurt. ’Pears to me don’t neither of you know tit from tat ’bout stayin’ alive in Injun country.”

  “You may be right,” Emmett admitted. He loaded the Henry. “So thank you kindly.”

  Preacher looked at Kirby. “Boy, you heeled—so you gonna get in this fight, or not?”

  “Sir?”

  “Heeled. Means you carryin’ a gun, so that makes you a man. Ain’t you got no rifle ’cept that muzzle loader?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Take your daddy’s Sharps, then. You seen him load it, you know how. Take that tin box of tubes, too. You watch out for our backs. Them Pawnees—and they is Pawnees—likely to come ’crost that crick. You in wild country, boy . . . you may as well get bloodied.”

  “Do it, Kirby,” his father said. “And watch yourself. Don’t hesitate a second to shoot. Those savages won’t show you any mercy, so you do the same to them.”

  Kirby, a little pale around the mouth, took up the heavy Sharps and the box of tubes, reloaded the rifle, and made himself as comfortable as possible on the rear slope of the slight incline, overlooking the creek.

  “Not there, boy.” Preacher corrected Kirby’s position. “Your back is open to the front line of fire. Get behind that tree ’twixt us and you. That way, you won’t catch no lead or arrow in the back.”

  The boy did as he was told, feeling a bit foolish that he had not thought about his back. Hadn’t he read enough dime novels to know that? he chastised himself. Nervous sweat dripped from his forehead as he waited.

  He had to go to the bathroom something awful.

  A half hour passed, the only action the always moving Kansas winds chasing tumbleweeds, the southward moving waters of the creek, and an occasional slap of a fish.

  “What are they waiting for?” Emmett asked the question without taking his eyes from the ridge.

  “For us to get careless,” Preacher said. “Don’t you fret none . . . they still out there. I been livin’ in and ’round Injuns the better part of fifty years. I know ’em better—or at least as good—as any livin’ white man. They’ll try to wait us out. They got nothing but time, boys.”

  “No way we can talk to them?” Emmett asked, and immediately regretted saying it as Preacher laughed.

  “Why, shore, Emmett,” the mountain man said. “You just stand up, put your hands in the air, and tell ’em you want to palaver some. They’ll probably let you walk right up to ’em. Odds are, they’ll even let you speak your piece; they polite like that. A white man can ride right into nearabouts any Injun village. They’ll feed you, sign-talk to you, and give you a place to sleep. Course . . . gettin’ out is the problem.

  “They ain’t like us, Emmett. They don’t come close to thinkin’ like us. What is fun to them is torture to us. They call it testin’ a man’s bravery. Ifn a man dies good—that is, don’t holler a lot—they make it last as long as possible. Then they’ll sing songs about you, praise you for dyin’ good. Lots of white folks condemn ’em for that, but it’s just they way of life.

  “They got all sorts of ways to test a man’s bravery and strength. They might—dependin’ on the tribe—strip you, stake you out over a big anthill, then pour honey over you. Then they’ll squat back and watch, see how well you die.”

  Kirby felt sick at his stomach.

  “Or they might bury you up to your neck in the ground, slit your eyelids so you can’t close ’em, and let the sun blind you. Then, after your eyes is burnt blind, they’ll dig you up and turn you loose naked out in the wild . . . trail you for days, seein’ how well you die.”

  Kirby positioned himself better behind the tree and quietly went to the bathroom. If a bean is a bean, the boy thought, what’s a pea? A relief.

  Preacher just wouldn’t shut up about it. “Out in the deserts, now, them Injuns get downright mean with they fun. They’ll cut out your eyes, cut off your privates, then slit the tendons in your ankles so’s you can’t do nothin’ but flop around on the sand. They get a big laugh out of that. Or they might hang you upside down over a little fire. The ’Paches like to see hair burn. They a little strange ’bout that.

  “Or, if they like you, they might put you through what they call the run of the arrow. I lived through that . . . once. But I was some younger. Damned ifn I want to do it again at my age. Want me to tell you ’bout that little game?”

  “No!” Emmett said quickly, “I get your point.”

  “Figured you would. Point is, don’t let ’em ever take you alive. Kirby, now, they’d probably keep for work or trade. But that’s chancy, he being nearabout a man growed.” The mountain man tensed a bit, then said, “Look alive, boy, and stay that way. Here they come.” He winked at Kirby.

  “How do you know that, Preacher?” Kirby asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Wind just shifted. Smelled ’em They close, been easin’ up through the grass. Get ready.”

  Kirby wondered how the old man could smell anything over the fumes from his own body.

  Emmett, a veteran of four years of continuous war, could not believe an enemy could slip up on him in open daylight. At the sound of Preacher jacking back the hammer of his Henry .44, Emmett shifted his eyes from his perimeter for just a second. When he again looked back at his field of fire, a big, painted-up buck was almost on top of him. Then the open meadow was filled with screaming, charging Indians.

  Emmett brought the buck down with a .44 slug through the chest, flinging the Indian backward, the yelling abruptly cut off in his throat.

  The air had changed from the peacefulness of summer quiet to a screaming, gunsmoke-filled hell. Preacher looked at Kirby, who was looking at him, his mouth hanging open in shock, fear, and confusion. “Don’t look at me, boy!” he yelled. “Keep them eyes in front of you.”

  Kirby jerked his gaze to the small creek and the stand of timber that lay behind it. His eyes were beginning to smart from the acrid powder smoke, and his head was aching from the pounding of the Henry .44 and the screaming and yelling. The Spencer Kirby held at the ready was a heavy weapon, and his arms were beginning to ache from the strain.

  His head sudde
nly came up, eyes alert. He had seen movement on the far side of the creek. Right there! Yes, someone, or something was over there.

  I don’t want to shoot anyone, the boy thought. Why can’t we be friends with these people? And that thought was still throbbing in his brain when a young Indian suddenly sprang from the willows by the creek and lunged into the water, a rifle in his hand.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Kirby watched the young brave, a boy about his own age, leap and thrash through the water. Kirby jacked back the hammer of the Spencer, sighted in the brave, and pulled the trigger. The .52 caliber pounded his shoulder, bruising it, for there wasn’t much spare meat on Kirby. When the smoke blew away, the young Indian was face down in the water, his blood staining the stream.

  Kirby stared at what he’d done, then fought back waves of sickness that threatened to spill from his stomach.

  The boy heard a wild screaming and spun around. His father was locked in hand-to-hand combat with two knife-wielding braves. Too close for the rifle, Kirby clawed his Navy Colt from leather, vowing he would cut that stupid flap from his holster after this was over. He shot one brave through the head just as his father buried his Arkansas Toothpick to the hilt in the chest of the other.

  And as abruptly as they came, the Indians were gone, dragging as many of their dead and wounded with them as they could. Two braves lay dead in front of Preacher; two braves lay dead in the shallow ravine with the three men; the boy Kirby had shot lay in the creek, arms outstretched, the waters a deep crimson. The body slowly floated downstream.

  Preacher looked at the dead buck in the creek, then at the brave in the wallow with them . . . the one Kirby had shot. He lifted his eyes to the boy.

  “Got your baptism this day, boy. Did right well, you did.”

  “Saved my life, son,” Emmett said, dumping the bodies of the Indians out of the wallow. “Can’t call you boy no more, I reckon. You be a man, now.”

  A thin finger of smoke lifted from the barrel of the Navy .36 Kirby held in his hand. Preacher smiled and spat tobacco juice.

  He looked at Kirby’s ash-blond hair. “Yep,” he said. “Smoke’ll suit you just fine. So Smoke it’ll be.”

  “Sir?” Kirby finally found his voice.

  “Smoke. That’s what I’ll call you now on. Smoke.”

  3

  Preacher hopped out of the wallow and walked to a dead buck. He bent down and removed something from the dead Indian’s belt. A Navy .36. He tossed the pistol to Kirby, along with a sack of shot and powder.

  “Here, Smoke. Now you got two of ’em.”

  Kirby felt more than a little foolish with his new nickname. He did not feel at all like a man called Smoke should feel. Tough and brave and gallant and all that. But he smiled, secretly liking his new name.

  Off another dead Indian, Preacher took a long-bladed knife, in a bead-adorned sheath. He tossed that to Kirby. “Man’s gotta have a good knife, too.”

  Then he pulled his own knife and began scalping the dead bucks.

  “Good God, man!” Emmett protested. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  “Takin’ hair,” Preacher said. “I know a tradin’ post that pays a dollar for ever’ scalp lock a man can bring in. Fifty cents for a squaw’s hair. But I don’t hold with scalpin’ wimmin. I won’t do this to a Ute or a Crow—lived with ’em too long, I reckon—but I just purely can’t abide a Pawnee.”

  Emmett grimaced at the bloody sight but kept his mouth shut. He had heard that Indians had not been the originators of scalping, but the white man. Now he believed the story.

  Kirby looked on as Preacher took the Indian’s hair. He was both horrified and fascinated.

  Neither Emmett nor his son had ever seen a warlike Indian. There had been a few down-at-the-heels Quapaw Indians in Missouri when Emmett was growing up—and were still a few around—but they were not warlike. Father and son moved closer to take a look at their recent enemy.

  Preacher had finished his grisly work. Surprisingly, to Kirby, at least, there was little blood from the close haircut.

  “They don’t look so mean to me . . . not now, anyways,” Kirby said. “They just look . . . kinda poor.”

  “They ain’t poor,” Preacher contradicted. “Don’t you believe that for a second. Most of the time they eat right well. Buffalo steak’s nearabouts the best meat in the world, I reckon. And pemmican.” He rolled his eyes and Kirby laughed at the old man’s antics. “Well, you ever get a chance to eat some pemmican, you see what I mean. Tasty. Indian goes hungry, it’s his own fault. They won’t grow no gardens. They think that’s beneath ’em. Warriors and hunters, not farmers. So to hell with ’em.”

  “Do you grow a garden, Preacher?” Kirby asked.

  “I been known to from time to time. But I ain’t no gawddamned sodbuster, if that’s what you mean.”

  “See, Pa.” Kirby looked at his father. “He can cuss. Why can’t I?”

  “Hush up, Kirby.”

  “What’s that about cussin’?” Preacher asked.

  “Never mind,” Emmett said.

  Kirby was growing accustomed to the dead braves. They did not bother him now. His stomach had ceased its growling. “What’d you call that food? Pem . . . what?”

  “Buffalo meat, usually. Indians cut it into strips, dry it. That’s called jerky. They take the jerky, crumble it, then beat hell out of it. Then they mix it with fleece—”

  “With what?”

  “Fat. Boilin’ fat. Then you drop in a few berries, make it up in a brick, and wrap it. Best eatin’ you ever put in your mouth. Don’t spoil. Lasts for months. Shore do.” He put his bloody scalps into a pouch on his wide belt and closed the flap.

  “Won’t those stink?” Kirby asked.

  “They do get right ripe,” the mountain man admitted.

  “Do we bury these Indians?” Emmett inquired.

  “Hell no!” Preacher looked horrified. “Plains’ Injuns don’t plant they dead like we do. ’Sides, they be back for ’em, don’t you fret about that. Right now, I ’spect we better git from here. Put some country ’twixt us and them live Injuns. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The trio rode at a steady gallop for several miles, then walked their horses, resting them as best they could. They repeated this several times, putting miles between them and the battle site by the creek. Late afternoon, they pulled up by a tiny stream and made a short camp.

  “We’ll make the fire small,” Preacher said. “Use them dry buffalo chips we picked up. They don’t hardly make no smoke. We’ll have us coffee and beans, then douse the fire and make camp ’bout two-three miles from here. Place I ’member. We’ll post guards this night, boys, and ever’ night from here on in.” He glanced at Kirby. “This is hostile country, Smoke.”

  Kirby sighed. He guessed it was going to be Smoke for the rest of his life. Or at least until Preacher left them. He looked at his Pa. Emmett was smiling.

  Kirby said nothing until the fire was glowing faintly and the coffee boiling. The beans cooked, he sliced bacon into a blackened skillet then looked at Preacher.

  “Why Smoke, Preacher?”

  “All famous men got to have good-soundin’ nicknames—impressive ones. Smoke sounds good to me. And believe me, Smoke, I have known some right famous men in my time.”

  “I’m not famous,” Kirby said, a confused look on his face. Already a nice-looking boy, he would be a handsome man.

  “You will be, I’m thinkin’,” the mountain man said, stretching out on the ground. “You will be.” And he would say no more about it.

  They ate an early supper, then doused the fire, carefully checking for any live coals that might touch off a prairie fire, something as feared as any Indian attack, for a racing fire could outrun a galloping horse. They moved on, riding for an hour before pulling into a small stand of timber to make camp. Preacher spread his blankets, used his saddle for a pillow, and promptly closed his eyes.

  Emmett said, “I’ll stand the first watch . . . Smo
ke,” and he grinned. “Then wake Preacher for the second, and you can take the last watch, from two till daylight. Best you go on to sleep now, you’ll need it.”

  Just as Kirby was drifting off to sleep, Emmett said, “If you don’t like that nickname, son, we can change it.”

  “It’s all right, Pa,” the boy murmured, warmed by the wool of the blanket. “Pa? I kinda like Preacher.”

  “So do I, son.”

  “That makes both of you good judges of character,” the mountain man spoke from his blankets. “Now why don’t you two quit all that jawin’ and let an old man get some rest?”

  “Night, Pa—Preacher.”

  “Night, Smoke,” they both replied.

  * * *

  Preacher rolled the boy out of his blankets at two in the morning, into the summer coolness on the Plains. The night was hung with the brilliance of a million stars.

  “Stay sharp, now, Smoke,” Preacher cautioned. “Injun don’t usually attack at night; bad medicine for them. Brave gets kilt at night, his spirit wanders forever, don’t never get to the Hereafter in peace. But Injuns is notional, and not all tribes believe the same. Never can tell what they’re gonna do. More’un likely, if they’re out there, they’ll hit us at first light—but you don’t never know for shore.” He rolled into his blankets and was soon snoring.

  The boy poured a tin cup full of scalding, hot coffee, strong enough to support a horseshoe, then replaced the pot on the rock grate. Preacher had showed him how to build the fire, surrounded by rocks, larger rocks in the center to support a pan or pot, the fire hot, but no bigger than a hand. The air opening lay at the rear, facing the camp. The fire was fueled by buffalo chips, hot and smokeless, and the fire could not be seen from ten feet away.