The First Mountain Man Read online

“This money,” Richard said, patting his belly, “must get to our new mission in Oregon. It isn’t ours. This is money raised by our organization back East. Contributors’ money. This is money that will be used to further God’s work.

  “You ain’t got no poor folks back in Philadelphia could use a helpin’ hand? Must be quite a prosperous place,” Preacher said sarcastically. “Rich folks aboundin’ ever’where. I shore wouldn’t fit in.”

  Richard sighed heavily and Melody laughed at the expression on her friend’s face.

  “And didn’t nobody ever tell y’all that it ain’t fittin’ for unmarried young men and women to go traispin’ off unchaperoned? What does you girls’ mommas and daddies think about this trip?”

  “We left with their blessings,” Penelope said. “They know that we are both very trustworthy and level-headed women.” She looked at Melody. “One of us is, anyway.”

  Melody reached over and patted the young woman on the leg. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll look after you. I did promise your mother.”

  * * *

  Bum Kelley and his boys patiently searched and, as Preacher had predicted, found the trail after Preacher had left the rocks of the creek.

  “He’s headin’ into the wilderness,” Beckman said, just a touch of awe in his voice. “You know that country, Bum?”

  Bum shook his head. “Can’t say as I do. I’ve skirted it a time or two taking the south route. But that damn Preacher seems to know every rock between the borders and between the Big Muddy and the ocean. And he turned north, right into the Tetons. Damn his eyes.”

  The outlaws stood on the fringe of the mountain range and gazed at the towering peaks that stood silently before them.

  “How old a man is this feller, anyways?” a man called Keyes asked.

  “Thirty-five or so, I reckon. He came out here, so the stories go, back when he was about twelve or thirteen years old, and he ain’t never stopped explorin’. So he’s got twenty or so years of experience behind his belt. And he’s as tricky as they come.”

  “He know you, Bum?” Bobby asked.

  “He knows me. And he don’t like me.”

  “Hey!” Slug shouted. “Here comes Jack Harris. I knowed he’d catch up with us.”

  Jack swung down from the saddle wearily. His clothing was in rags and he looked gaunt. “Put some grub on, boys,” Jack said. “I ain’t et in days.”

  A fire was hurriedly built and a thick deer steak jammed on a pointed stick. A blackened coffee pot filled with creek water was soon boiling and the coffee dumped in.

  Jack was so worn out he could hardly keep his eyes open. A cup of thick strong coffee perked him up enough to talk, while the cooking steak caused drool to appear on the man’s lips.

  “What happened back yonder at the wagon train, Jack?” Bum asked.

  “Them Injuns came out of nowhere, I tell you. I didn’t have a clue they was there. I jumped off the flat and hit the timber at the first yell ’cause I could see we didn’t have a chance. The outriders went down first. I don’t know what happened after that. I was too busy floggin’ my good horse gettin’ away from there. I waited two days, I think it was, and went back lookin’ for food. But I couldn’t find nothin’ ’ceptin’ some bloody bandages and shod tracks headin’ west. You boys’ and somebody else’s. I just started followin’ along.”

  “Preacher,” Bum said. “I recognized that big gray of his through my spy glass. He’s got them gospel shouters and the women with him. He knows we’re on his trail and he’s wary.”

  Jack was instantly alert. “Preacher! What the hell’s he doin’ up here? He’s supposed to be down on the Popo Agie at the rendezvous.”

  “Well, he ain’t. And he’s tooken them folks into the wilderness.” He pointed. “Yonder.”

  “In there?” Jack said with horror in his voice. “Northwest to the talkin’ smoke?”

  “I don’t think so. I think he’s got him a hidey hole in the lonesome yonder and he’s all tucked away, thinkin’ he’s safe.”

  “He’s pretty damn safe in there, Bum. I don’t know that country. Hell, don’t nobody really know that country. Well, a few does. And Preacher’s one of them.”

  Bum looked hard at the man. “You want to give up?”

  Jack jerked the half-raw steak from the stick and went to gnawing. He finally shook his head and wiped the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand. “No. Them two men was carryin’ heavy with gold.” He belched and farted and tore off another hunk of bloody meat. “And them women, boys, I swear I ain’t never seen nothin’ so fine in all my days.”

  “How fine?” a thug named Leo asked, leaning closer to Jack, his thick lips slick with spittle.

  “Fine enough to fight a grizzly for.”

  “Bet they smell good, too,” Bull said. “I just cain’t hardly wait!”

  * * *

  The ladies had gone down to the waterfall to bathe and wash clothes, using soap they had salvaged from the ruins of the wagon train. Preacher sat on the outside of the cave exit, overlooking the valley. He had carefully cleaned his weapons and placed them at the ready. He knew it was only a matter of time before they would be found. No one is good enough to obliterate all signs of their passing, not if there is a good tracker behind them. And while Bum’s people were no-goods, they had survived in the mountains for years, so that made them professional in anybody’s book.

  Preacher doubted that Bum’s boys would have the patience to explore the blow-down, so the rear entrance was reasonably secure. But one or two of them would be brave enough or curious enough to follow the twisting passageway once it was located—and it would be located, he felt sure of that. So let them come on. They would die in that twisting maze and the silent rock walls would be their coffins.

  Preacher had spent that morning rigging dead-falls and other traps in the darkness of the twisting entranceway. He had warned the others not to enter there. To make his point, he had showed them on of his traps, and how lethal it was.

  “Hideous,” Edmond had said.

  “Awful,” Penelope whispered.

  “Such a terrible thing to do to a person,” Richard said.

  “I just hope it works,” Melody said.

  It’ll work, Preacher thought, as he honed his already sharp knife to a razor’s edge. The first one to hit the traps will make the others awful cautious. But they’ll press on. The second trap will stop them cold; maybe for a day. By that time, we’ll be far away and pushing hard.

  “You didn’t just stop here for safety’s sake, did you, Preacher?” Richard asked, breaking into the mountain man’s thoughts.

  “What else you think I had on my mind?” Preacher looked at him.

  “You knew we needed several days of rest,” the missionary said, and pegged it right. “My wound needed to heal and we all needed to lay about and eat and regain strength. But you, alone, would have been a hundred miles away by now. You’re risking your life for people you hardly know. You’re a very brave and complex man, Mister ... what is your Christian name?”

  “Preacher’ll do. Yeah, they’s some truth in me wantin’ to get you folks rested some. When we leave here, we’re gonna be pushin’ hard, with not much time to rest. They’s a small fort down near Massacre Rocks on the Snake. Fort Hall, I believe it’s called. Few soldier boys down yonder. But it’s gonna be hell gettin’ there. If I can get y’ all to the fort, that’ll put you back on the Oregon Trail and it bein’ springtime and all, chances are good a wagon train is there or one will be along shortly.”

  “And you’ll leave us there?” Edmond asked.

  “Why should I stay any longer?”

  “Melody, if I may speak frankly,” Edmond said.

  “Fine-lookin’ woman. Good woman, too, I believe. Got stayin’ power to her. I like her. I’ll say that in front of God and ever’body. And it’s both an uncomfortable and yet nice feelin’. Been a long time since I experienced anything like it. But our worlds is different. Too far apart. I don’t fit in hers a
nd she shore as hell don’t fit into mine. So relax, pilgrim. You won’t see me again. This is my word, the mountains, the wilderness, the open sky. I plan on dyin’ out here. My good horse will stumble, or an Injun’s arrow or war axe will find me. I might get concerned by a bear, and we’ll have us a high ol’ time, a-roarin’ and a-yellin’ and a-clawed and a-bitin’ and a-stobbin’ ’til one of us is down.” He smiled, showing amazingly good teeth and softened his facial features. “She don’t fit in them plans.”

  Richard smiled. “I believe she might have something to say about that.”

  “She might think she do. But she don’t. Oh, I know the signs, all right. I can see ’em on her face and in her eyes. But once I leave the lot of you at Fort Hall, I’m gone like the wind. I got mountains to climb and rivers to ford. I got valleys to cross where the grass is so lush and high it brushes the belly of my horse. I got to see country I ain’t never seen before. I can’t do that with no woman taggin’ along. Not unless it’s a squaw who’s used to the hard ways of the trail.” Preacher stood up. “You boys stay put. And when the women gets back, y’all start gettin’ your possiblies together. I’m fixin’ to move some things close to that blow-down hole.”

  “You think those hooligans are close?” Edmond asked.

  “I think they’re right outside.”

  Preacher scrambled up the sloping sides of the valley and stepped into a maze of virgin brush and timber. The bench that encircled the little valley was about three hundred yards deep. He made his way carefully to the outer edge and was not surprised to see Bum and several of his gang moving slowly toward the rock face, a tracker on foot, carefully studying the ground. Preacher backed off and silently made his way back to the cave.

  “No talkin’,” he whispered. “They’re outside now. Get your gear together and get gone to the waterfall. You’ll see a natural lean-to on the north side of the falls. It’s big enough for all of you and the horses. Take my packhorse with you. There’s my gear. No fires. Get gone. Like right now.”

  The men were gone in ten minutes, gathering up their gear and heading out toward the horses. Preacher quickly packed up what he would carry out and set the pack by the mouth of the cave. Then he drank what coffee was left in the pot, packed the pot away, and carefully put out the fire. He went outside and saddled his horse, then sat back and waited, his. 54 caliber Hawken at the ready.

  He knew it was only a matter of time now, and probably not that much time. He had lied to the others about how safe they would be in the cave in order to give them some comfort and let them relax. It had worked and all of them, even Richard, were back up to snuff and ready for the trail.

  Preacher knew that a good tracker would find the cave opening. Whether or not they would search the entire twisting, turning passageway was up for grabs. Preacher had, years back, but he’d also been wary of running into a bear or a mountain lion. He hoped the men out there now would be twice as wary as he was, but they had women and gold on their minds.

  He heard a very faint scraping sound and slowly rose, moving silently toward the entrance to the passageway. They had found the opening.

  He had rigged the first dead-fall in such a manner that as dark as it was in that narrow passage, they would probably think it was just an accident.

  The second trap would be a hell of a lot more obvious to anyone that it was man-made.

  “Dark in there,” Bull said, his words not reaching Preacher, who was crouched near the opening, waiting.

  “What the hell did you think it would be?” Beckman asked. “A lamp-lit roadhouse? Can you see anything at all?”

  “Nothing. Narrow trail, is all. Don’t look wide enough for no horse to get through.”

  Jack Harris shouldered his way into the passage. “It’s wide enough. Dirt’s too smooth for my likin’. It looks like it’s been smoothed out by a branch to me.”

  “Maybe,” Bull said. “There damn sure ain’t no puma or bear tracks in the dirt.”

  “There ain’t nothin’ on that dirt. See that openin’ high up?” He pointed upward to the tiny crack. “It’s rained lately here. Drops would have cut the groove in the dirt. He had to hide his tracks, but Preacher was hopin’ we wouldn’t notice that. I noticed. They’s in yonder somewheres, boys.”

  “Knowin’ Preacher is a-layin’ in wait in that dark don’t make me feel real good, Jack,” Beckman said. “You know damn well he ain’t no pilgrim.”

  “He ain’t but one man,” Jack replied. “Move. Let’s search this place. See where it leads.”

  Preacher had heard only the murmur of voices. He had not been able to make out any of the words. He really didn’t need to; he figured they were coming on in.

  Bull was the first to inch forward into the dimness of the passageway, moving in a crouch, and advancing very carefully. He was a thug and a murderer, but not an idiot. He knew perfectly well that if Preacher was at the end of this winding, twisting passageway, it would mean a fight to the death.

  His fingers touched a rock about the size of a human head. He pushed it aside. That released a tight rawhide thong that whipped out and up, disappearing out of sight and releasing about a dozen other large rocks.

  “Slide!” Jack hollered, jumping back as he heard the sound.

  Bull jerked back, but not fast enough to avoid getting conked on the head by a rock. The impact laid him out cold on the ground, a swelling knot on his noggin.

  “Pull him out of there,” Jack said, and he and Beckman tugged at the limp Bull and dragged him out of the passageway, back out into the light.

  “Is he daid?” Leo asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Beckman said. “But he’s shore gonna have him a headache.”

  “I think he moved a rock and that triggered the slide,” Jack said. “It was a trap.”

  “You think Preacher done it?” Bum asked.

  “Yeah. I do. And they’s probably more traps in yonder.”

  “And Preacher and them others could be long gone,” Keyes pointed out.

  “Could be,” Bum said. “But I don’t think so. I think they holed up in yonder for rest. One of ’em’s hurt; we’ve all seen the bloody bandages. The size of ’em tells me it’s either a thigh or head wound. Moses, fetch us some long poles to push along ahead of us and wave in the air. That’ll set off any traps Preacher might have laid.”

  All but the last one.

  Preacher had taken a small keg of powder salvaged from the wagon train and rigged up a fuse. He had placed the keg between a large rock and the face of the stone wall. When it blew, he felt there would be enough force behind the blast to bring the boulder down and block the passageway.

  Preacher could now hear the sounds of sticks whapping the sides of the passageway.

  Smart, he thought. I ain’t dealin’with idiots. I’ll have to remember that.

  Preacher grinned as the sounds of the sticks striking the earth and the rock walls drew closer. He cocked one of his pistols and let it bang. The sound was enormous in the cave. And he got what he was hoping for.

  “Oh, my God!” Beckman hollered in pain, as the wildly ricochetting lead struck him in the leg. “I caught me a ball. Oh, God, it tore up my leg. Get out of there. Git me outta here.”

  Preacher let bang another ball. He could hear the ugly sound of the ball as it howled from wall to wall, bouncing and careening, looking for a place to strike.

  “Get back!” Jack hollered. “Drag Beckman outta there. We got to come up with another plan. It’s a death trap in yonder.”

  “I cain’t walk!” Beckman bellered. “Oh, my leg’s tore up bad, y’all.”

  Preacher was reloading as fast as he could, with ball, patch, powder, and ram. He capped his pistols and waited.

  “Preacher!” Bum yelled. “You give us the women and the gold and you can walk free. That’s a promise, man.”

  “Go to hell!” Preacher shouted.

  “Don’t be a fool, Preacher. You’re trapped in yonder. Think about it. All we got to do is wait a
nd starve you out. We got the time and you ain’t. Them pilgrims ain’t worth your dyin’ for, man. Give it some thought.”

  “Ask him if he’s got some whiskey to pour on this leg,” Beckman said.

  Bum gave the man a disgusted look.

  Preacher waited.

  “One way or the other, we’re gonna get you, Preacher,” Bum yelled, his words echoing around the twisting passageway. “All you got to do is walk out of there and you’re a free man.”

  “In a pig’s eye,” Preacher muttered. He knew they’d kill him on sight.

  Preacher settled down for a long wait.

  6

  “So who’s got a plan?” Jack asked.

  The gang was sitting well away and to the side of the opening in the mountain. They had dug the flattened ball out of Beckman’s leg and he lay moaning in pain while Moses rambled around in the woods, gathering up various leaves with which to make a poultice.

  “Why not smoke ’em out?” Leo suggested. “It’s a cave, ain’t it?”

  “That ain’t a bad idea,” Bum said. “As a matter of fact, it’s a damn good idea. Let’s start gatherin’ up all the wood we can tote.” He thought for a moment. “No. I got a better idea. We’ll build us a shield outta small branches. Lash half a dozen good-sized branches together and stay behind it while we advance. That’ll protect us from ricochets and we can get right up on Preacher. When we get close enough we can get right up on Preacher. When we get close enough we can toss burning pitch over into the cave proper and really smoke ’em out.”

  The thugs all agreed that Bum had come up with a fine plan. The first log shield they lashed together was too wide and got hung up in the first turn in the passageway. Preacher sat back in the cave and listened to them cuss and holler. He chewed on jerky and waited.

  When they finally got the right size shield lashed together, it didn’t take them long to get close. Preacher had bellied down on the dirt, his .50 caliber pistols in hand. When the men rounded the long curve that would lead them to the cave, Preacher smiled at the sight. The men were holding the shield about six inches off the passageway floor. Preacher fired both pistols, keeping the muzzles about three inches off the ground. Two of the thugs started squalling in pain as the balls tore into one’s foot and the other’s ankle, shattering bone.