The Last Mountain Man Page 7

  “Is he still alive?” Kirby blurted.

  Grizzly turned cold eyes on the young man. “Don’t never ’rupt a man when he’s a-palaverin’. Tain’t polite. One thing ’bout Injuns, they know manners. They gonna ’low a man to speak his piece without ’ruptin’. ’Course they might skin you alive the minute you finished, but they ain’t gonna ’rupt you while you’s talkin’.”

  “Sorry.” Kirby said.

  “’Cepted. No, he’s dead. Strange man. Dug his own grave. Come the time, I buried him. He’s planted on that there little plain on the base of the high peak, east side of the canyon. You ’member it, Preacher?”

  Preacher nodded.

  Grizzly reached inside his war bag and pulled out a heavy sack. He tossed the sack to Kirby. “This be yourn, from your Pa. Right smart ’mount of gold.” Again, he dipped into the buckskin and beaded bag, pulling out a rawhide-wrapped flat object. “This here is a piece of paper with words on it. Names, your Pa said, of the men who put lead in him. He said you’d know what to do, but for me to tell you don’t do nothin’ rash.” Grizzly rose to his feet. “I done what I gave my word I’d do. Now I’ll be goin’. Thankee both for the grub.”

  Without another word, the old mountain man mounted his pony, gathered his pack horses, and rode off east. He did not look back.

  “Ain’t no point in movin’ now,” Preacher said. “Be dark in three hours. We’ll pull out at first light.”

  * * *

  At eighteen, Kirby had achieved his full growth: six feet, two inches tall, packing a hundred and eighty pounds of bone and muscle. His shoulders, arms, and hands were powerful, his legs long, his waist lean. His hair was long and ash-blond. His hands and face were deeply tanned. His eyes were an unreadable brown.

  The bay his father had given him had not survived the first winter, slipping on ice and breaking a leg, forcing Kirby to shoot the animal. He now rode a tough mountain horse he had traded from an Indian, a huge Appaloosa, much larger than most of that breed. The Indian had ridden away chuckling, thinking he had gotten the better of the deal, for the Appaloosa would allow no one to ride it, refusing to be broken. But Kirby had slow-gentled the animal, bringing it along slowly and carefully, step by step. Now, no one but Kirby could put a saddle on the animal, much less ride him. He was a stallion, and he was mean, his eyes warning any knowledgeable person away. The Appaloosa had, in addition to its distinctive markings, the mottled hide, vertically striped hoofs, and pale eyes, a perfectly shaped seven between his eyes. And that became his name. Seven.

  Gone was the McClellen saddle, replaced by a western rig, slightly heavier, but much more comfortable.

  Smoke and Seven.

  * * *

  Emmett’s horses had been picketed close to the base of Zenobia Peak. His gear was by his grave, covered with a ground sheet and secured with rocks. There were several more horses than Emmett had left with.

  “You read them words on that paper your Pa left you?” Preacher asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll go set up camp at the Hole. I reckon you’ll be along directly.”

  “Tomorrow. ’Bout noon.”

  “See you then.” Preacher headed north. He would cross Vermillion Creek, then cut west into the Hole. Smoke would find him when he felt ready for human company. But for now, the young man needed to be alone with his Pa.

  Kirby unsaddled Seven, allowing him to roll. He stripped the gear from the pack animals, setting them grazing. He picketed only the pack animals, for Seven would not stray far from him.

  Taking a small hammer and a miner’s spike from his gear, Kirby began the job of chiseling his father’s name into a large, flat rock. He could not remember exactly when his Pa was born, but thought it was about 1815.

  Headstone in place, secured by heavy rocks, Kirby built his small fire, put coffee on to boil in the blackened pot, then sat down to read the letter from his Pa.

  Son,

  I found some of the men who killed your brother, Luke, and stolt the gold that belonged to the Gray. Theys more of them than I first thought. I killed two of the men work for them, but they got led in me and I had to hitail it out. Came here. Not goin to make it. Son, you dont owe nuttin to the Cause of the Gray. So don’t get it in your mind you do. Make yoursalf a good life and look to my restin place if you need help.

  Preacher kin tell you some of what happen, but not all. Remember: look to my grave if you need help.

  I allso got word that your sis, Janey, leff that gambler and has took up with an outlaw down in Airy-zona. Place called Tooson. I woodn fret much about her. She is mine, but I think she is trash. Dont know where she got that streek from.

  I am gettin tared and seein is hard. Lite fadin. I love you Kirby-Smoke.

  Pa.

  Kirby reread the letter. Look to my grave. He could not understand that part. He pulled up his knees and his head on them, feeling he ought to cry, or something. But no tears came.

  Now he was alone. He had no other kin, and he did not count his sister as kin. He had his guns, his horses, a bit of gold, and his friend, Preacher.

  He was eighteen years old.

  6

  1869

  Having been born and reared on a farm, the earth was naturally a part of Kirby. So on the Utah side of the Hole, the tall young man planted several gardens: corn, beans, greens, potatoes. All carefully irrigated from a small stream. Preacher had scoffed at this, saying, “I’d be gawddamned ifn I’d bust any sod!” But Kirby noticed the old man ate up the vegetables on his plate, and usually helped himself to seconds, sometimes thirds.

  Kirby had caught up with a band of wild horses, mustangs with some Appaloosa mixed in, and started raising horses. He now had a respectable herd.

  Kirby no longer practiced with his Colts. He did not need to practice. He was a crack shot and blindingly fast.

  Preacher, now pushing hard into his sixty-eighth year, was just as spry as when Kirby had first laid eyes on him—and just as cantankerous and ornery.

  Kirby laid claim to all the land between Vermillion Creek to the east, and about two sections past the still ill-defined Utah state line to the west. All the land from Diamond Peak to the north, down to and including Brown’s Hole. He rode once to a small town about a hundred and fifty miles from the Hole and filed on his claim. But the town died out a year later, becoming yet another ghost town on the western landscape, and Kirby’s claim was never recognized in the years ahead. It was illegal from the outset, since he was claiming far too much land, but Kirby figured—and figured correctly—that since the land was so desolate and in some instances, downright barren, no one else would want it.

  Tucked away in the far reaches of the northwestern part of Colorado, Kirby and Preacher lived alone—and became something of a mystery, much as the hermit, Pat Lynch, would someday become. Pat, who later lived in the canyon with a pet mountain lion named Jenny Lind. Kirby and Preacher were not talkative men, sometimes going for days without speaking.

  A wild and raging canyon cut down from the Hole: the Green River. It would later be named Lodore Canyon, by an army major, a geologist who was fond of quoting the poet Southey’s “How the Waters Come Down At Lodore,” as he shot the rapids.

  Emmett Jensen’s grave was now covered with a profusion of wild flowers, clinging stubbornly to the rocky soil. Kirby visited the grave weekly, sometimes standing for hours by the site. He spoke silently to his Pa, wishing he knew what to do. He always left with a mild feeling of discontent, as if he should be doing something about the men who killed his Pa.

  At first, Preacher had told him, “You just too young yet to do much of anything ’bout them men who kilt your Pa. You got all the makin’s, but you still need some seasonin’. Give it time, Smoke. Them folk be there when you ready to make your move.”

  But as the months marched into a year, then two, Preacher knew the boy was gone, and in its place, a man grown. He knew, too, from his half century and more on the trail, that the young man called Smok
e was a potentially dangerous man: big and solid and steady and strong as a bear. A man whose draw with those old Navy Colts was so fast as to be a blur. And he never missed. Never.

  The old mountain man knew little of the emotion called love. He had liked the squaws he had wintered with, sharing their buffalo robes—liked them all. He had enjoyed playing with his children. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he held a memory of his mother: a faded, timeworn retention of the woman, but without a clear face. He knew he must have loved her as a child. But the call of the open plains, the wilderness, the unknown, the high lonesome, the untraveled hills and mountains and trails, had been too much; overpowering love.

  But with the man he called Smoke, the mountain man knew what he felt must be love, for in Smoke was everything the old man would want in a son: strength, daring, courage, eagerness to face the unknown, willingness to learn, to pit himself against the wilderness. Then, finally, the old man admitted the truth: He did not want Smoke to face the men on that list—for fear of losing him. He had been deliberately holding him back.

  And that ain’t right, he concluded. The man is twenty year old, Preacher thought. Time to cut loose the tie-string and let him taste the world of people. He ain’t gonna like it—just like me—but he got to see for hisself.

  The rattle of sabers and the pounding of hooves broke into Preacher’s ruminations.

  “Men comin’!” he called.

  The young man known but to a few white men as Smoke stepped out of the cabin. His guns, as always, belted around his waist, the right hand Colt hanging lower than the butt-forward left gun. Had there been a woman with the detachment of cavalry, she would have called the young man handsome, and her heart might have beat just a bit faster, for he was striking-looking.

  “Hello!” the officer in charge called. “I was not aware this area was inhabited by white men.”

  “You is now,” Preacher said shortly.

  “My name is Major John Wesley Powell, United States Army.”

  “I’m Preacher. This here is Smoke. An’ now that we know each other, why don’t you leave?”

  The major laughed good-naturedly. “Why, sir, we’ve come to do a bit of exploring.”

  His good humor was not returned by either man. “What do you want to know ’bout this country?” Preacher asked. “Just name it, and I’ll tell you—save you a mess of trouble. Then you can leave.”

  “May we dismount?”

  “Dismount, sit, squat, stand, or kick your heels up in the air. It don’t make no difference to me.”

  Major Powell laughed openly, heartily, then dismounted, telling his sergeant to have the men dismount and stand easy. “You old mountain men never cease to amaze me. And I mean that as a compliment,” he added. His eyes turned to Kirby. “But you’re far too young to have been a mountain man. Are you men related?”

  “I’m his son,” Preacher said with a straight face. “He fell in the Fountain of Youth a few years back, but he bumped his head doin’ it and now he can’t recall where it is. I’m waitin’.”

  Preacher glanced at the old scout with the army and then looked away.

  “I got things to tell you, Preacher,” the scout said.

  “All right.”

  “Well,” the major said with a smile. He cleared his throat. “Tell me, what do either of you men know about the river that flows through the canyon?”

  “It’s wet,” Kirby said.

  “And it ain’t no place for a pilgrim,” Preacher added.

  “Then I take it that both of you have traversed the Green River?”

  Preacher looked at Kirby for translation.

  “Been down it,” Kirby said.

  “Hell yes, I been down it,” Preacher said. “I been down it, up it, through it, crost it, and one time, back in ’39, over it.”

  “The only man to ever shoot those rapids,” a young lieutenant contradicted, “was General Ashley, back in ’23 and ’24.”

  “Yeah,” Kirby said. “His name’s still on the rock on the eastern side of the canyon wall. And don’t never again call Preacher a liar.”

  The young officer stirred until the major called him softly down. “Stand easy, Robert.” In a lower voice, heard only by a sergeant and the young officer, he said, “This is your first tour of duty out here, Bob—you know nothing of western men. Until you learn more abut the customs here, it would behoove you to curb your tongue. Calling a man a liar, or merely implying he is one, is a shooting matter west of the Mississippi. This is not Philadelphia, so just be quiet.” He looked at Kirby. “He meant no offense, Mr. Smoke.”

  “Not mister—just Smoke.”

  “Unusual name,” the major remarked.

  “I give it to him,” Preacher said. “After he kilt his first two men. I think he was fifteen, thereabouts.”

  The young lieutenant paled slightly.

  The major said, “We saw a grave coming in. The name was Jensen.”

  “My father.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Not nearly as sorry as the men who killed him will be.”

  Preacher looked at him. “You make your mind up?”

  “About a half an hour ago.”

  “We goin’ after ’em?”

  “Yep.”

  “Figures.”

  Major stood quietly, not knowing what was going on. “I gather you men live here?”

  “I own it,” Kirby said.

  “Own it? How much of it?”

  Kirby told him.

  “Why . . . that’s hundreds of square miles!”

  “We like lots of room.”

  “You have papers on this?”

  “I filed on it, yeah. But I have no objections to you and your men staying here. Just don’t trample my gardens or take my horses.”

  The major had stepped closer, standing by a large, flat rock. “I assure you, sir, we will leave the—”

  No one saw the young man draw, cock, and pull the trigger of his right hand Colt. It was done as fast as a man could blink. The major looked down: A headless rattlesnake writhed at his boots.

  “Sweet Molly!” a young cavalryman said. “I never even seen him draw.”

  Major Powell was a cool one; he had not moved. He kicked the squirming snake out of the way and said, “That was the most impressive shooting with a handgun I believe I’ve ever seen. I thank you, Smoke.”

  “Man can’t be too careful out here,” Preacher said, a bored look on his bearded face. “I take it upon myself to tell all pilgrims that.”

  The major smiled at this quiet slur. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a man draw, cock, and fire a pistol that quickly. I’m sure I haven’t. But I’m told the outlaw, Jesse James, is also quite proficient with a handgun.”

  “Who?” Kirby was startled.

  “Jesse James. The Missouri bank robber and outlaw. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve met him.” Kirby drew his right hand Colt and tossed the weapon to the major.

  The cavalryman inspected the pistol, noting the initials J. J. carved into the handles. Powell tossed the pistol back to Kirby. “I see,” he said quietly, not quite certain where he now stood, for emotions concerning the James Gang ran both hot and cold, depending upon which side of the fence one stood. “And where are you from originally, Smoke?”

  “That ain’t a polite question to ask out here,” Preacher informed him.

  “I know,” the major said. “I shouldn’t have asked it. I withdraw it.”

  “It’s all right,” Kirby said. “I’m from the southwestern part of Missouri.”

  “Did you fight in the Civil War?”

  “My Pa fought in the War Between the States,” Kirby said with a smile.

  “Ah . . . yes.” The major returned the smile. He would say no more about James. He mounted, ordering his men to do the same. “We shan’t disturb you, gentlemen. We’ll bivouac on the other side of the canyon. Perhaps we’ll see each other again.”

  “I doubt it,” Kirby said.
<
br />   “Oh?”

  “Me and Preacher got things to do and places to go. Any horse you see around here with the SJ brand belongs to us. If you need a horse, take your pick of the mustangs and geldings, leave the mares alone. Just leave the money—what you think they’re worth—in the cave at the Hole.”

  “Thank you,” the major said. “You are a trusting man, Smoke.”

  “Not really. I just believe you don’t want to cheat me.”

  Major Powell sensed in the young man a heavy, almost tangible aura of danger. The dark eyes gave no hint of what lay behind them.

  “No,” the army officer said. “I don’t believe I want to do that.”

  The cavalrymen were gone in a cloud of dust, all but the old buckskin-clad scout who had guided them to this old post. He had not dismounted. He looked at Preacher.

  “Thought you’s dead,” he finally said.

  Preacher glared at him. “Yeah? That’s what you get for tryin’ to stir up that mess between your ears.”

  The scout grunted. “Walked right into that, I reckon.” He shifted his gaze to Kirby. “Met a man who knowed your Pa in the war. One of Mosby’s people. All stove up now—livin’ over to the hot springs on the San Juan Valley there. He heared ’bout your Pa gettin’ lead in him west of here. His name is Gaultier. Don’t ask me to spell it. He might know something that you wanna know. Told him I’d tell you ifn I saw you. I seen you. I told you. Good seein’ you agin, Preacher.”

  “Right nice seein’ you, Rio.”

  The scout wheeled his horse and was gone.

  “Friend of yours?” Kirby asked.

  “Not so’s you’d know it. We fought over the same squaw back in ’49. He lost. We ain’t had much to do with each other since then. He’s a sore loser.”

  “Can we trust him?”

  “Oh, yeah. We don’t cotton to one another, but you can trust him.”

  “Want to take a ride to the springs?”

  “What do you think?”

  * * *

  Pagosa Springs, which translated means Indian healing waters, lies at the bottom of the state, not far from the New Mexico line, in what would someday become the San Juan National Forest. Several hundred miles, as the crow flies, from Brown’s Hole, through some of the roughest and most beautiful country in the state. Late summer when the two men reached the hot springs. Preacher had groused and bitched the entire way.