The First Mountain Man Read online

  Bum shook his head. “No, Luke, I done told you a tale. Preacher’s smart, he’s mean, he’s tough, and he’s quick. And when we catch him—and we will catch up to him and them folks—he won’t go down easy. We’ll lose some people. Bridger and Broken Hand Fitzpatrick and Carson and Beckwourth all speak highly of the man. Them boys don’t give praise lightly. Bear that in mind.”

  “Two women out there,” another thug said, pulling at himself. “White women. Been a long time since I had me a taste of white women.”

  “Hell, Slug,” another man said. “I ain’t even seen a white woman in more’un two year.”

  “Jack Harris was leadin’ them pilgrims straight to us,” Bum mused aloud. “How the hell was I supposed to know a bunch of Arapaho was waitin’ in ambush?” He cussed and kicked at a rotten branch and it flew into a hundred pieces. “Damn the luck, anyways.”

  “And where the hell did Jack get off to?” another questioned.

  “Runnin’ for his life, probably,” Bum said. “He’s probably settled down and huntin’ our trail now. He’ll be along. Come on, let’s fan out and try to pick up Preacher’s trail.”

  “South?” one of his gang questioned, looking down the little creek.

  Bum shook his head. “No. By now, Preacher knows we’re trackin’ him. He ain’t gonna do this the easy way. George, you take a few boys and head south aways just to make sure. Beckman, you take the west side of the crick, Moses, you take the east side. You both work north. Rest of us will wait here so’s not to crap up any sign. Take off. Adam, you build us a fire and we’ll boil some coffee.” He bit off a chew from a twist and looked up the crick. “White women,” he muttered. “And them men with ’em is totin’ gold, too. I got a good feelin’ about this. A real good feelin’.”

  * * *

  Several miles from his destination, Preacher halted the short column and once more sacked the horses’ hooves. He then led the group up a gently sloping hill to a jumble of rocks on a ledge. A towering mountain loomed high above them, snow-capped all year round.

  “It gets right close in here, folks,” Preacher told them. “So mind your feet and knees.”

  He led them into a narrow twisting passageway that was just wide enough for them to pass with not three inches to spare on either side. There was just enough light filtering in from the crack high above them to illuminate their way.

  “Eerie,” Melody muttered.

  With the sacking still on their horses’ hooves, the party made very little noise as they moved along. The narrow fissure suddenly opened up into a high, huge, cathedral-like cavern with a bubbling stream running right through it. About a hundred feet long and several times that in width, the other end opened up into a beautiful little valley, about twenty-five or thirty acres of lush grass and a winding little creek.

  “I don’t think anybody else knows about this place,” Preacher said. “Them drawin’s on the walls was done hundreds of years ago, I reckon. Lord knows, I ain’t never seen no beasties that look like some of them animals yonder. If you was to talk to an Injun about this place, he’d tell you it was the People Who Came Before who done this. Sounds reasonable to me.”

  “Is the way we came in the only way in?” Richard asked.

  “Nope. They’s another way. See that waterfall over ’crost the valley? They’s another cave under that, leads into a blow-down on the other side.”

  “A what?” Edmond asked.

  “Long time ago, years, must have been a terrible storm struck here. Tore up several hundred acres. Huge trees tore up by the roots and tossed every whichaway. Piled on top of one another and flang willy-nilly about. The cave comes out direct into all that mess. Them chasin’ us might look a little ways into that blow-down; but they ain’t gonna give it no good looksee. Too wild a place. Now in here where we is, the smoke filters up through them cracks in the ceilin’ and disappears somewheres else. I built me a roarin’, smokin’ fire in here one winter’s morning and spent the rest of the day outside. I never seen no smoke nor smelled none. We’re as safe as I can make us. Now what I want you folks to do is this: strip the horses and put them out to pasture. I’m gonna take my bow, go out into that blow-down, and kill us a deer or two so’s we’ll have some meat to go along with the beans and bread that you ladies is gonna make from the flour we salvaged back at the ambush site. They’s fish in that stream in the valley that’s mighty good eatin’. I’m gonna be gone the rest of the day and maybe the night. Don’t worry. I’ll be back if a rattler don’t bite me, a bear don’t tree me, a puma don’t jump on me and claw me to death, and Injun don’t kill me, or I don’t die from phewmona after gettin’ soakin’ wet duckin’ under that waterfall yonder.”

  “I hate to be macabre,” Edmond said.

  “Whatever that means,” Preacher said.

  “But, what happens if you don’t return?”

  “You sit tight until your supplies is just about gone. By that time, if you don’t eat all the damn day long, Bum and his boys will have given up and gone. Then you head west. That’s the direction the sun sets. If you come to a great big body of water, that’s the Pacific Ocean. You’ll either be in California or Oregon country.”

  “You don’t have to be insulting,” Penelope said.

  Preacher stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. He was muttering as he got his bow and quiver of arrows and left the cave and headed out into the meadow, walking toward the waterfall.

  Melody stood in the mouth of the cave and watched him until he ducked behind the cascading water and was gone from sight. Penelope was lying down, exhausted from the travels, and Edmond was seeing to the horses.

  “He’s quite a man, Melody,” Richard said softly. “But not the man for you.”

  She turned slowly and faced him. “Whatever in the world do you mean, Richard?”

  “It’s easy to see that you’re quite smitten with him, Melody. We’ve all commented on it. But I urge you to think about what you’re doing and to try and curb your emotions. The man is a wanderer, a will of the wisp. He’ll only break your heart.”

  “It’s purely platonic, Richard,” she lied. “Nothing more. I enjoy his company, that’s all. He’s a fascinating man who has packed ten average lifetimes into one.”

  “Melody, I don’t want to appear ungrateful for all he’s done for us. He saved our lives and continues to do so hourly. But the man is only a cut above a savage. I doubt he’s had a fork in his hand in ten years. He eats with his fingers. The two of you come from different worlds.”

  She smiled and patted his arm. “You worry needlessly, Richard. Come, let me change the dressing on your ear. In years to come, no matter where we might be, we’ll look back on this episode and enjoy a good laugh.”

  * * *

  Preacher got his first deer within moments of entering the blow-down. He quickly but carefully skinned and butchered it, leaving the waste parts for critters of the forest to eat. There would be no trace of the animal come the morning. He put the eatable parts in the hide and using a length of rope he’d brought, he hung the meat high from a limb to protect it. It took him an hour to find, stalk, and bring down the second deer. He heard a rustling in the dense brush and knew that wolves had caught the blood scent and were closing. Three big gray wolves, a male and two females. Preacher tossed them liver, intestines, and other scrap parts, shouldered his load and headed back toward the valley. Lots of folks feared wolves, but most of that fear was groundless. Preacher had never known of a healthy, full-grown wolf ever, unprovoked, attacking a human being. But a starving or hurt wolf was quite another matter. And when any animal is eating a kill or hiding the carcass for a later snack, you best leave that animal alone. And they also get might protective when it comes to their young.

  He left the wolves snarling in mock anger and tearing at the meat parts. “Enjoy, brothers,” he said.

  Preacher rather like wolves. He’d had several as companions from time to time. They had not been pets, for a wolf cannot be domesticate
d like a dog. And if you’re going to be around them, you got to know their ways. They don’t conform to human ways; a man’s got to conform to their ways. Once that’s settled, a man can be fairly comfortable around wolves. You just can’t never let them get the upper hand. For once they do, it takes a fight for dominance to regain it. And you ain’t likely to come out in too good a shape fightin’ no two-hundred-pound buffalo wolf.

  Preacher figured he was packing close to a hundred and fifty pounds of raw meat, for the deer had both been sleek and fat. It had been an early spring, with lots to eat. But he’d carried more than that for longer periods of time.

  He was back in the cave by nightfall and had some steaks sizzling moments later. “We’ll smoke and jerk the rest of it,” he told them. “Tomorrow, I’ll pick some berries and we’ll make pemmican.”

  “What in the world is that?” Richard asked.

  “After the meat’s dried, that’s what we call jerky, I’ll pound it into a powder and mix it with pulped and whole berries and the fat I saved from the venison after I cook it down. You mix all that up and it keeps for a longtime. I got some over there in my parfleche. Try some. It’s good.”

  “What is a parfleche?” Melody asked.

  “Rawhide case yonder. Hand it here.” Preacher stuffed some pemmican into his mouth and smiled. “I ain’t kiddin’ y’all. It’s really good.”

  He passed the parfleche around and the others reluctantly tried some of the concoction. They all smiled as they chewed. “It really is good!” Edmond said.

  “Y’all gonna bring Jesus to the savages,” Preacher said, “I reckon now is a good time to start your learnin’. You got to know something about these folks.”

  “We were to be instructed in Oregon,” Richard said.

  “Wagh!” Preacher said in disgust. “Them’s coast Injuns. Klamath and Tillamook and Chinook and Spokan and Pomo and Chumash and the like. Hell, they all ’bout either civilized or whupped down by now. I’m talkin’ Injuns, folks. Scalp-hunters and warriors and the finest horsemen on the face of the earth. Comanche, Pawnee, Ute, Shoshoni, Apache, Blackfoot, Arapaho, Crow, Kiowa, Flathead, Assiniboin, Dakota—that’s Sioux to you—and Nez Perce. They’s more, but them’s the important ones you’ll be seein’, I ’magine. Most of the ones I just named is hunters and warriors. Only ones I know of that’ll grow anything to eat to amount to anything is your Hidatsa, Navajo, Pima, Pueblo, and Papago. Most of them is down in the Southwest. Except for the Hidatsa, and what’s left of them is scattered along the northern borders. Mandan and Pawnee will raise a few crops, mostly corn, beans, squash and pumpkin. They trade a lot with other tribes. You watch a Pawnee when you’re tradin’. They’re slick. Blackfoot, Crow and Comanche won’t eat fish. It’s taboo to them. Your desert tribes roast snake and insects.

  “Richard, you asked me couple of days back about how Injuns cook and what they eat. You’d be surprised. I’ve lived with Injuns that could whup up a buffalo stew that’d leave you smackin’ your lips for days. Injuns ain’t like white folks in that they don’t waste nothin’. And I mean nothin’. They break the bones and boil the marrow or just suck it out. They clean and scrape out the guts and make sausage cases out of ’em, stuffin’ ’em with seasoned meat. They’re good with nature’s own wild things. They season with sage and wild onions and milkweed buds and rose hips. They peel the prickly pear cactus and add that to stews and soups. It was Injuns that taught me to peel fresh sweet thistle stalks and eat it. Tastes kinda like nuts.

  “Injuns ain’t got pots like we use, so when they make a stew, they use the linin’ from a buffalo stomach. You get you four poles, secure the ends of the linin’, dump in some meat and stuff like prairie turnips and wild peas. To make the water boil, the women drop in hot rocks. The pouch will last three/four days until it gets soggy, then you eat the linin’. They don’t waste nothin’.

  “Injuns use ever’ part of the animal they can. The thick pelt from a buffalo’s neck can be made into a shield. Animals killed in winter has a special use cause the hair is long and thick. They use ’em for blankets and robes. Rawhide is made into strings and ropes. Buffalo hair is woven into ropes. Buffalo horns is used for everything from spoons to gourds. Injuns used to make knifes out of buffalo bones. Injuns use buffalo hides to make their tipis. And a tipi is not only a home, it’s a sacred place to the Injun. The floor means the earth that they live on. The walls, which is peaked, is the sky. They round ’cause that is the sacred life circle, which ain’t got no beginnin’ or no end. Get it? A circle. And Injuns will always burn something that smells good in their tipis. Sage or sweet grass. It’s an altar to them. That’s where they pray to their gods.”

  An inference that none of the missionaries missed.

  Preacher took one of the deer steaks out of the pan and fell to eating. With his knife and fingers. Around a mouthful of meat, Preacher said, “The tipi belongs to the Injun women of the plains, and don’t ever let nobody tell you no different. The women make ’em, they put ’em up, they take ’em down, they haul ’em around. A man lives there only if the woman wants him to. She can chuck his possessions outside and the marriage is over. And he damn well better scat.”

  “How many hides does it take to make a tipi?” Melody asked.

  “Anywhere from seven to thirty. Depends on the size of the lodge. It’s a social thing for the women. Kind of like a barn raisin’ to you folks. Say a Cheyenne needs a new lodge, the word goes out and the women gather, among them, one woman who is the official lodge-maker. After the woman who’s needin’ a new lodge feeds them all good, they start sewin’ the skins together, usually startin’ early in the mornin’. They they’ll eat again, and it’s back to sewin’ and gossipin’ and gigglin’ and singin’ and carryin’ on. Takes a day and a new lodge is up.”

  “Then they have order in their societies?” Edmond asked.

  “In a way. The Plains Injuns don’t much cotton to someone tellin’ ’em what to do.” Preacher stuffed the last of his meat into his mouth, chewed for a moment, swallowed, then belched loudly. “You got to belch after a meal. Means the grub was good. If you don’t belch, your host might be offended ’cause he’ll think you didn’t like his woman’s cookin’. Always belch after a meal with the Injuns. ’Least the ones I been around.

  “Injuns is pretty much free to come and go as they please in the tribe. Contrary to what you probably been taught, the Plains Injuns ain’t got no elected nor passed-down leadership. Even a chief ain’t got the power to punish nobody. To get to be a chief means that the rest of the tribe respects that man’s wisdom, his courage, or even how well he can talk. Every male is a member of the council, and every man has the right to state his opinions. And they all do. It can go on for days!

  “I reckon tradition might be the glue that keeps tribes together. I don’t know what else could do it. All the tribes is different, but yet they’re strangely alike in a lot of ways. When the white man finally gets up a head of steam and starts comin’ thisaway, and they will, they’s gonna be a lot of blood spilt. On both sides. At first it’s gonna be mostly white people who die. But that won’t last long. From what I’ve been able to pick up durin’ the past few years, east of the Big Muddy is fairly overflowin’ with people. They got to come west. The Injuns ain’t gonna adopt the white ways, and the whites ain’t gonna adopt the Injun ways. So what we’re gonna have—to my way of thinkin’—is a great big bloody mess that’s gonna go on for years.”

  “Then the savages have to be convinced that they cannot stand in the way of progress,” Edmond said. “That’s where people like us can help.”

  Preacher looked at him in the dancing light of the fire. He smiled rather sadly. “White man’s way is the only way, huh?” He shook his head and poured a cup of coffee. “We shore take a lot upon ourselves, don’t we?”

  “Civilization and progress must continue if we, as a nation, are to survive,” Richard said. “That’s the way it’s always been, and must continue to be.”

  “
Says who?” Preacher challenged.

  “This discussion is silly” Edmond said. “You obviously are not prepared to meet the challenge of a changing world. You miss the point of it all.”

  “Oh, I get the point,” the mountain man said. “And lots of other folks will, too. The point of an arrow.”

  5

  Preacher spent the next morning backtracking the way they entered the cave, carefully erasing all signs of anyone ever having come that way. He spent a couple of hours inspecting the sides of the narrow passageway, picking off hair the horses left as they rubbed the sides here and there. When he was satisfied he could do no more to insure their safety, Preacher rejoined the group in the cave.

  “Any sign of them?” Edmond inquired, lifting his eyes from the bible he’d been reading.

  “No. But they’ll be along. White women’s too grand a prize for them to give up on. And they probably figure you’re carryin’ gold.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Richard said.

  “Really? Them money belts y’all totin’ don’t fit too well. They pooch out from time to time.”

  Richard and Edmond automatically put hands to their bellies.

  “Yep,” Preacher said, pouring coffee. “Gold and women. Many a man has died for that combination. How much you boys carryin?’”

  “That is none of your affair,” Edmond bluntly stated.

  “You’re right,” Preacher replied easily. “It ain’t. But if I’m to put my life on the line for you folks, I figure I at least ought to know what I’m dyin’ for.”