The First Mountain Man Read online

  He hit a horse right in the head and the animal dropped, creating the biggest pile-up Preacher had seen in many a year. “Sorry, hoss,” Preacher muttered. “I musta lost the rhythm.”

  He turned around in the saddle, but not before he saw a dozen or more Injuns all crippled up and sprawled around both sides of the trail after their mounts piled up.

  “The fort!” he heard Edmond shout, after a couple of miles of hard riding.

  Preacher put the reins in his teeth and pulled out both .50 caliber pistols and let them bang to warn those in the fort that trouble was coming hard on the hoof.

  The gates swung open and they were inside.

  “Yee-haw!” Preacher heard the call just as he was jumping from his horse. He grinned and turned around to face a grizzled mountain man, looking to be much older than he was.

  A huge bear-like man, dressed all in skins and fur, lumbered toward Preacher. “Preacher, you old hoss, you! You bring all this trouble down on us?”

  The defenders of the fort—more civilians than soldiers—were on the ramparts, blasting away at the attacking Indians. Most of the Indians were armed only with bows and arrows and the guns of the defenders were swiftly driving them back. But all knew that come the night, it would be a much different story, for the Indian was a master at stealth.

  “Wagh!” Preacher shouted. “Greybull, you old bear, you. How come you ain’t down on the Popo Agie?”

  The two men bear-hugged each other while the pilgrims looked on. The battle raged around them and these two were behaving as if nothing were happening.

  Greybull held Preacher at arm’s length. “Did you find these poor lost children in the woods?” he asked, glancing at the four missionaries.

  “Wagon train attack over crost the Tetons,” Preacher said. “The Good Lord delivered them into my hands.”

  Greybull glanced at the nattily dressed men. “You shoulda throwed ’em back. What are they?”

  “We are under attack, gentlemen!” an Army officer shouted at the men. “We must defend this post.”

  “Aw, keep your britches on,” Greybull told the young man. “This ain’t nothin’. Wait ’til the night comes. Then you’ll see trouble lookin’ you in the face.”

  “Wild Indians do not attack at night,” the young officer said.

  Greybull and Preacher grinned at each other. “He’s new out here,” Greybull explained. “He knows ever’thing there is to know ’bout Injuns. Just ask him. He gradeeated from Sandhurst.”

  “Do tell. What’s a Sandhurst?”

  “Some fancy soldier school. Teach ’em how to walk nice and give orders in a military manner.”

  “I say, sir,” Richard butted in. “My companions and I survived an attack on our wagon train. We—”

  “What happened to your ear, sir?” the officer asked.

  “Injuns cut it off,” Preacher told him. “He was defenden’ the honor of these ladies here.”

  “Oh, I say now,” the officer beamed. “That was gallant of you, sir. I’ll have the post surgeon take a look at it.”

  “No need,” Preacher told him. “It’s all healed up now. I fixed it good.”

  “Indians are breaking off, sir!” a soldier yelled from a lookout tower. “They’re fleeing.”

  “Fleein’?” Greybull asked.

  “They’ll be back come the night,” Preacher told the young officer. “Mighty young soldiers boys,” he remarked, looking all around him. “Why, there ain’t a one of them dry behind the ears.”

  “The Injuns are fleein’?” Greybull muttered.

  Penelope batted her eyes at the young officer and he about melted down into his boots.

  “Where’s the regular Army?” Preacher asked. “Hell, these ain’t nothin’ but kids!”

  “We are British troops, sir,” the officer said. “And I am in command. Lieutenant Jefferson Maxwell-Smith at your service. The troops who were garrisoned here were transferred west to Oregon Territory.”

  “Any of you even been in a war?” Preacher asked.

  “Only a few minor skirmishes like the one we just repelled, sir.”

  “You didn’t re-pell nothin’, boy. Them Injuns’ll be back come the night. You best double the guards and keep a sharp eye out, or they’ll be comin’ over these walls.”

  “Indians do not attack at night, sir.” Jefferson Maxwell-Smith stood his ground.

  “You in for a big damn surprise, boy,” Preacher told him. “Whether they attack at night depends on en-tarly on how they feel their medicine is workin’. If they medicine is good, they’ll attack.”

  “You are wrong, sir.”

  “They flee-ed,” Greybull said. “The Injuns flee-ed. I got to ’member that. Tell Dupre about how the Injuns flee-ed.”

  “Incredible!” Maxwell-Smith said, looking at the huge mountain man.

  “They gonna be fleein’ back here in about three, four hours,” Preacher said. “Come on, Greybull, let’s us flee over yonder to the sutler’s store for a drink of whiskey.”

  “Shore won’t be time for drinkin’ tonight,” Greybull said. “Not once them Injuns flee back at us.”

  “Come, ladies,” the lieutenant said to Penelope and Melody. “Let’s see about making your comfortable in quarters. I assure you, you are quite safe here. The savages have gone and will not return.”

  “They flee-ed,” Greybull said.

  “Yeah,” Preacher said. “Right over that damn hill yonder to make more medicine.”

  10

  At the sulter’s store, a dark and crowded low-beamed building, the men each ordered a cup of whiskey and settled down at a table.

  “So how you been, Preacher?” Greybull asked. “I ain’t put eyes on you ... how long? Two years?”

  “Sounds about right. I think it was over on the Powder, wasn’t it?”

  “I believe so. ’Bout the time Lazy Bob got scalped by them renegades of Red Hand.”

  Preacher drank his whiskey down and chuckled. “They jerked Lazy Bob’s hair off his head so fast they didn’t even check to see if he was dead. He run into Red Hand ’bout a year later and scared that Injun so bad Red Hand turned around and run screamin’ off into the woods.”

  Preacher got Greybull another cup of snake-head whiskey and sipped on his first one. “Bring me up to date on the Injuns’ uprisin’.”

  “Don’t nobody seem to know what kicked it off, but the Blackfeet is damn shore on the warpath. We got three wagon trains backed up here and the wagon masters done quit on two of them. The one bossin’ the third one is about to quit. One train already tried to get through this spring. Didn’t none of them make it. I led the party out to what was left of it. Turrible sight to see.”

  “You scoutin’ for the Army now?”

  Greybull shrugged his massive shoulders. “Got to do somethin’. Beaver’s about gone. I noticed your packhorse ain’t carryin’ no heavy load of pelts.”

  “Shore ain’t,” Preacher said morosely, looking down into his cup. “You like scout work?”

  “It beats starvin’ to death.”

  “I reckon.”

  “What you plannin’ on doin’, Preacher?”

  “I ain’t made up my mind. But I ain’t gonna work for that damn kid lieutenant bossin’ this garrison. Greybull, that youngster ain’t got no sense.”

  “He’s got some growin’ up to do, fer a fact. And out here, he’ll either do it quick, or get dead.”

  “Yeah. But how many others is gonna get kilt with him?”

  * * *

  There were a lot of Flathead Indians and some Mandans living close to the fort, but they had long since been tamed and posed no threat to anyone. The Methodist church had sent missionaries several years back, in April of ’34, with Nat Wyeth’s second expedition. The mission of the church was to find the Flathead Indians and to live with them and wrest the heathen nation from the clutches of Satan. It had proved to be a major undertaking.

  Preacher knew several of the Flatheads and squatted down to palave
r with them about the Blackfoot uprising. Both the Flatheads and the Nez Perce were, for the most part, friendly to the white man, and neither tribe cared for the warlike Blackfeet.

  “It will be very bad before it is better,” a Flathead told Preacher. “The young man directing the soldiers is brave, but foolish.”

  “We agree on that,” Preacher told him.

  “The Blackfoot say they are going to drive the Bostons out of this area.”

  Both the Nez Perce and the Flatheads called the trappers and mountain men Bostons, since many of the pelts were sold to Boston-based companies.

  “They ain’t done it yet.”

  Preacher walked the sturdy walls of the fort, and they were stoutly constructed. That was due to the efforts of one Nathaniel J. Wyeth, who back in ’34, after being treated very rudely by Fitzpatrick and Sublette (of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company), moved on to the Snake River Bottom and walled in what is called Fort Hall. The timbers were cottonwood, very close set, and stood fifteen feet high. He built bastions, a log storehouse, and many cabins. That troops were here was a surprise, for the garrisoning of troops at company forts, while not rare, was not customary.

  Well, even green troops were better than nothing. Although not by much, in Preacher’s mind.

  He walked outside in the waning light and shook his head at the slap-doodle manner in which the wagons were placed. “Idiots,” he said. “You can’t tell a pilgrim nothin’.” He stalked around the wagons until he found the one remaining wagonmaster and confronted the man. “Tell them pilgrims of yourn if they wanna live through the night, they’ll circle their wagons, stock inside the circle, and keep weapons at the ready and a sharp lookout this night. You ought to have had sense enough to know that. How many wagon trains you ramrodded?”

  “This is my first,” the man said stiffly.

  Preacher spat on the ground. “Then whoever hired you was a goddamned fool!” He walked back inside the fort.

  He found the young lieutenant and the young man’s manner had changed noticeably toward Preacher, probably due to talking with Richard and Edmond.

  Preacher put a hand on the young officer’s shoulder. “Son,” he said, even though he was probably no more than ten or twelve years older, “I got to say this to you. You might feel hard towards me afterward, but I still got to do it. What you know about Injuns is mighty thin; ’bout as thin as frog hair. You’ll learn. But that ain’t helpin’ you none now. Them Blackfeet’s gonna be back. If their medicine is good to them, it’ll be tonight. Forget all that ’bout Injuns not fightin’ at night. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t You’re thinkin’ war as a white man. Injuns don’t think like us. Injuns think like Injuns.”

  “I’m ... beginning to understand, sir. I feel rather like a fool, not listening to Greybull from the start. I’m afraid my behavior has been boorish to say the least.”

  “I don’t know what that means. But I do know this: we got to get ready for an attack. And we ain’t got a whole lot of time to get set.”

  “Tell me what you want done, and it shall be done.”

  “Fine. This is what we’ll do . . .”

  Preacher left the lieutenant readying his troops, while he and Greybull concentrated on the outside, where both of them intended to be when the attack came. And both of them felt an attack was not far off.

  They helped hitch the teams and pull the wagons into a box, with the rear of the box against the walls of the fort. “Fill all your buckets and barrels,” Preacher told the pilgrims. The Injuns will be sure to use fire arrows to set the canvas ablaze.”

  “Our children?” a woman asked.

  “Inside the fort, if they’ll go. If not, under the wagons we got in the center of this box. I can’t believe y’all come all the way from the Big Muddy to here without no Injun fights.”

  “The wagonmasters all said we were very lucky,” a pioneer stated.

  Greybull shook his shaggy head. “Damn sure was that,” he muttered.

  Like Preacher, the mountain man was loaded down with weapons, and after the wagons were in place, he and Preacher went off into the gathering gloom of evening to find a good spot from which to fight and to check their weapons.

  “The lieutenant’s took a likin’ to you, Preacher,” Greybull said, once the two had settled down near a wall. “I bet he’d hire you on if you’d ask.”

  “I ain’t made up my mind,” Preacher said. “I ain’t never worked for nobody but me in all my life. I don’t know how I’d be taken’ orders from fresh-faced kids.”

  “It ain’t so bad. The lieutenant the kid replaced was a real horse’s butt, though. You’d a-killed him, for a fact. I damn near did.”

  “What was his problem?”

  “I just told you. He was a horse’s butt.”

  “Oh.”

  “I say, gentlemen,” Lieutenant Maxwell-Smith said from above them.

  The mountain men looked up. The young officer was standing on the rampart looking down at them.

  “Git down, Smith,” Preacher told him. “Your noggin makes a dandy target all stuck up there. In case you ain’t noticed, they’s timber all around us. Speak through the gun slits.”

  “Oh. Yes. Quite right.” He ducked down out of sight. “The missionaries you rescued speak highly of you, sir. But I must fill out a report concerning the wagon train attack and those ruffians following you. What is your Christian name?”

  “I ain’t got one. Preacher’ll do just fine.”

  “But are you a man of the cloth?”

  Greybull started giggling. “Not likely, Lou-tenant. I been knowin’ him over twenty years and never knowed him to go to church yet.” He scratched his head and frowned. “’Course, they ain’t been no churches out here ’til recent. That might have something to do with it.”

  Jefferson Maxwell-Smith walked away, muttering under his breath.

  “You didn’t say nothin’ ’bout no one followin’ you, Preacher,” Greybull said.

  “Bum Kelley and his gang. Jack Harris has hooked up with ’em, too.”

  “Wagh! That no-count.”

  “That ain’t all,” Preacher told Greybull about his suspicions of Jack deliberately leading the train north so Bum and his gang could ambush it.

  Greybull was thoughtful for a time. “That’d be a low thing for any man to do, Preacher. But Harris is that low, I reckon. Reckon, hell, I know he is. Yeah. It has to be like you say. Ain’t no way even a fool like Jack Harris could get that far north of the trail.”

  Then, as night touched the wilderness around the fort and the wagons, Preacher set Greybull to chuckling when he told him about the antics in the cave.

  “He’s got to kill you, Preacher. Bum and all the rest of them bad apples. It’s a matter of honor now. They’ll never give up. And I hope you ain’t forgot that Bum has been in cahoots with Red Hand and his renegades more’n one time in the past.”

  Preacher bit off a chew of twist he’d bought at the store. “I ain’t forgot.”

  Both men tensed, then glanced at one another as the unnatural sound of silence settled around the fort. Nothing moved in the forest. No birds called.

  “Here we go,” Greybull muttered.

  “I’ll warn the pilgrims to get ready,” Preacher said. “See if you can get some soldier boy’s attention and tell them to pass the word and get set.”

  “Will do.”

  Preacher found the wagon master. “Get your people in place. The Injuns will be along shortly.”

  “I’ve never been in an Indian attack before,” he admitted.

  Preacher studied him closely in the faint light. The man was scared and showed it. “Where in the hell did you ever get the experience to be called a wagon master?”

  The man sulled up and stuck his chin out. “I drove a freight wagon out of Pittsburgh,” he said defensively. “I traveled all over Pennsylvania and Ohio. It’s plenty wild back there, mister.”

  “Oh, I know it is,” Preacher said. “I can just imagine. Injuns on th
e warpath at every turn of the road. Get your people ready to fight.”

  He got back to Greybull and made himself comfortable on the ground. “How many men’s the kid got under his command?”

  “Forty. All green ’ceptin’ the senior sergeant. Just got to the coast by ship not six months ago. I think they come the long way around. Some of ’em still look sick.”

  They watched as several dark shapes flitted from stump to tree several hundred yards out.

  “Workin’ in close and then they’ll jump us. You reckon they’ll try to breech the walls?”

  “That’s the word I get. They gonna try to burn it down. They want the fort and the soldiers and the Bostons gone from this country. And all these wagon trains comin’ in sudden really got em mad.”

  “Well, they better get over it. Them holy-shouters I brought in told me folks was fixin’ to pour into this country like ants to honey.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “I do. Thousands of people.” He shuddered at the thought. “Gonna be a lot of folks killed, too. I just can’t understand how these folks come all the way from the Muddy and didn’t get set upon by Injuns.”

  A fire arrow lit the night as it soared up and then came down, missing a wagon by only a few feet. Several men jumped up and started to move to the flames.

  “Let it burn out! Get down!” Preacher called. “Don’t show yourselves. And save your powder and lead.”

  “Was we that stupid when we come out here, Preacher?” Greybull asked, never taking his eyes from the area in front of their position.

  “No. ’Cause times was still wild where we come from. We growed up more cautious than these pilgrims. And do you know what else I learned from them soul-savers?”

  “What?”

  “They’s people in the big cities back east puttin’ crappers in their houses!”

  “You mean like a chamber pot?”

  “No. I mean like a regular room where they go to take care of business.”

  Greybull blinked. “You mean to tell me they shit in their house?”

  “Right next to where they sleep.”

  “I can’t believe it!”