Last Mountain Man

by Johnstone, William W.

  Kirby did not yet know it, but that was the highest compliment a mountain man could give another man.

  “Thank you,” he said to Preacher. He reloaded the empty cylinders.

  Preacher scalped the Pawnee, then tossed the bloody scalp locks to Kirby. “They yourn, Smoke. Put ’em in that war bag I give you. They worth four dollars to you. Go on … four dollars ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at.”

  With his father watching him through eyes that had seen much, Kirby picked up the bloody hair and placed them in a beaded pouch Preacher had given him.

  Emmett, who had ridden with the great Confederate Ranger J. S. Mosby for a year, was the furthest from being a stranger to guns and gunplay. Although Kirby would not learn of it for years, his father had been with Mosby when they rode into the middle of a Union Army camp at Fairfax, Virginia one night. They had asked their way to headquarters and there, Mosby awakened the Yankee general, Stoughton, by rudely and ungentlemanly slapping the man on his butt.

  “Have you ever heard of J. S. Mosby?” the Confederate guerrilla asked in a whisper.

  Angry, the general replied, “Of course! Have you captured him?”

  “No,” Mosby said with a smile. “He’s captured you.”

  The Confederate Rangers then kidnapped the Union general from under the noses of the general’s own men.

  “You’re smooth and quick,” Emmett complimented his son. “And I have seen some men who were smooth and quick.”

  “Thank you. Pa,” Kirby said. He was just a little bit sick and embarrassed by what he’d done and all the attention he was receiving. The scalp locks in his war bag were not helping his stomach any.

  “Be careful how you use your newfound talent, son,” the father cautioned. “Use it for good, and not for evil. Temper your talent.”

  Then the man coughed and thought of his own mission westward. He wondered how and when he should tell his son.

  “Yes, Pa. I will.”

  Preacher looked at the boy and wondered.

  The trio rode for several days without encountering any more hostiles. They saw smoke, often, and knew they were being watched and discussed, but they rode through without further incident from the Pawnee. Three of them had killed more than twelve Pawnee, wounding several more in two quick fights. The Indian may have been a savage — to the white man’s way of reasoning — but he was not a fool, and he was a first-class fighting man, many of the tribes the greatest guerrilla fighters the world would ever know. Part of that is knowing when to fight and when to back off. This was definitely one of the back-off times.

  “This here is the Cimarron Cutoff,” Preacher said. They had pulled up and sat their horses, the man and boy looking where he pointed. “The southern route to Santa Fe. Better for wagons and women, but the water is scarce. The northern route is best for water and graze, but it’s tough. Lord, it’s tough.”

  “Why?” Emmett asked.

  “Mountains. Rocky Mountains. Make them mountains where I’s born look like pimples.”

  “Where is that, Preacher?” Kirby asked.

  “East Tennysee. Long time ago.” His eyes clouded briefly with memories of a home he had not seen in more than half a century. At first the man had planned to return for a visit, but as the years rolled by, those plans dimmed, never becoming reality. Then he realized his Ma and Pa would be dead — long dead — and there was no point in going back.

  The price many men paid for forging westward, opening up new trails for the thousands that would follow.

  “I run off when I were twelve,” Preacher said, looking at father and son. “That were, best I can recall, fifty-two year ago, 1813, I believe it was. I’ve spent the better part of fifty year in the mountains. And I reckon I’ve known ever’ mountain man worth his salt in that time, and some that thought they was tough, but weren’t.”

  “What happened to them that wasn’t?” Kirby asked.

  “I helped bury some of ’em,” Preacher said quietly.

  “You must know your way around this country, then,” Emmett said.

  “Do for a fact. I helped open up this here Santa Fe Trail, and I’ve ridden the Mormon Trail more’un once. Boys, I been up the mountain, over the hill, and ’crost the river. And I’ve seen the varmit.” He looked hard at Kirby. “But Smoke, I swear I ain’t never seen the likes of you when it comes to handlin’ a short gun. It’s like you was born with a Colt in your hands. Unnatural.”

  The old mountain man was silent for a time, his eyes on the deep ruts in the ground that signified the Santa Fe Trail. “I don’t know where you two is goin’. Probably you don’t neither. You may be just a-wanderin’, that’s all. Lookin’. That’s dandy. Good for folk to see the country. So I’ll tag along here and there, catch up ever’ now and then see how you’re a-makin’ it. I usually don’t much take to folk. Like to be alone. Must be a sign of my ad-vanced age, my kinda takin’ a likin’ to you two. ’Specially Smoke, there. I got a feelin’ ’bout him. He’s gonna make a name for hisself. I want to see that; be there when he do.”

  “We’re heading, in a roundabout way,” Emmett said, “to a place called I-dee-ho.”

  “Rugged and beautiful,” Preacher said. “Been there lots of times. But were I you — ’course I ain’t — I’d see Colorado first. Tell you what: I got me a cache of fur not too far from here. Last year’s trappin’. Ya’ll mosey around, take it easy, and keep on headin’ northwest. From here, more north than west. Ya’ll will cut the northern trail of the Santa Fe in a few days. Stay with it till you come to the ruins of Bent’s Fort. I’ll meet you there. See you.” He wheeled his horses and rode off without looking back, pack horses in tow.

  Emmett looked at his son. Preacher liked the boy. And if he would agree to see to him through the waning months of his boyhood … well, Emmett’s mission could wait. The men he hunted would still be there. But for now, he wanted to spend some time with his son.

  “How about it, Kirby — I mean, Smoke. Want to see Colorado?”

  The boy-rapidly-turning-man grinned. “Sure, Pa.”

  Long before 1865, Bent’s Fort lay in ruins. But from 1834 to 1850, the post ruled the fur trade in the southern Rockies. By 1865, the mountain men were almost no more. Time had caught up with them, and in most cases, passed them by. Civilization had raised its sometimes dubious head and pushed the mountain men into history. Those that remained were men, for the most part, advanced in years (for their time), heading for the sunset of their lives. But they were still a rough breed, tough and salty, not to be taken lightly or talked down to. For these men had spent their youth, their best years, and the midpoint of their lives, in the elements, where one careless move could have meant either sudden death or slow torture from hostiles. Mountain men were not easily impressed.

  But the gathering of mountain men stood and watched as Kirby and his father rode slowly into the ruins of the old post, rifles across their saddles, pack animals trailing.

  Kirby and his father did not know Preacher had spread the word about the boy called Smoke.

  Kirby, as did many boys of that hard era, looked older than his years. His face was deeply tanned, and he was rawboned, just beginning to fill out for his adult life. His shoulders and arms were lean, but hard with muscle, and they would grow much harder and powerful in the months ahead.

  “He don’t look like much to me,” an aging mountain man said to a friend.

  “Neither did Kit,” his friend replied. “Warn’t but four inches over five feet. But he were a hell of a man.”

  The mountain man nodded. “That he were.” His eyes were on Kirby. “Funny way to wear a brace of short guns.”

  “Faster than a snake, Preacher says.”

  The mountain man cocked an eye at his friend. “Preacher’s been known to tell a lie ever’ now and then.”

  “Not this time, I wager. That there kid’s got a mean look to his eyes. Mayhaps he don’t know it yet, but he do. Give him two-three years, I’d think long ’fore tanglin’ with him.”
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br />   That got him an astonished look. “Hell-fire, Calico. You fit a grizzly once!”

  “Won, too,” the old man said. “But I’m thinkin’ that kid’s part bear, part puma, part rattler. I’ll go ’long with Preacher on this one.”

  “Does have a certain set to that squared-off jaw, don’t he?”

  “Yep. Big hands on him.”

  Kirby and Emmett sat their horses and stared. Neither had ever seen anything like this colorful assemblage. The men (only a few squaws were in attendance and they stayed to themselves), all of them sixty-plus in years, were dressed in wild, bright colors: in buckskin breeches and shirt, with beaded leggings, wide red or blue or yellow sashes about their waists. Some wore whipcord trousers, with silk shirts shining in a cacophony of colors. All were beaded and booted and bearded. Some held long muzzle-loading Kentucky rifles, or Plains’ rifles, with colorfully dyed rawhide dangling from the barrel, the shot and powder bags decorated with beads.

  This was to be the last great gathering of the magnificent breed of men called Mountain Man. Many of them, after this final rendezvous in the twilight of their years, would drift back into the great mountains they loved, never to be heard from or seen again, to die as they had lived — alone. Their graves the earth they explored, their monuments the mountains they loved, tombstones rearing above them forever. They were a breed of man that flourished but briefly, whose courage and light helped to open the way west.

  When Emmett and Kirby spotted Preacher, they could not believe their eyes. They sat their horses and stared.

  Preacher was clean, his beard trimmed. He wore new buckskins, new leggings, a red sash around his waist, and a light they had never seen sparkled from his eyes. “Howdy!” he called. “Ya’ll light and sit, boys.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Emmett said. “His face is clean.”

  “Water to wash in over there,” Preacher said, pointing. “Good strong soap, too. But you’d best dump what’s in the barrel, though. It’s got fleas in with the ticks.”

  When Emmett and son walked out into the final rendezvous of the mountain men, on this, their first day at the old post, they were greeted warmly, if with a bit of constraint.

  “Gonna have us a feast,” a one-eyed, grizzled old man told them. “Come on. Got buffalo hump, antelope, and puma. Preacher’s gonna give up the message. Let’s don’t be late.”

  “Puma?” Kirby questioned.

  “Mountain lion,” the man told him. “Best, sweetest meat you ever did taste.” He smacked his lips. “This is the first big rendezvous I’ve been to in more’un twenty year. Guess this will be the last one for many of us,” he added, sadness in his voice.

  “Why?” Kirby asked.

  “Fur trade’s damn near gone; pilgrims pourin’ in over the trails me and all the others opened up. Hate to see it. Why, I seen five white people just last month. Five! Gettin’ so’s a body can’t even be alone no more.”

  “When was your last rendezvous?” Emmett asked. Even he had never seen anything to compare with this gathering.

  The mountain man stopped and scratched his head. “Let me ponder on that. Oh, back ’bout ’40, I reckon.”

  “But this is 1865!” Kirby said.

  “It is! Well, damn me. Time shore do get away from a body, don’t it?”

  “They’ll be many more people behind us,” Emmett said.

  “Yep. I reckon there will be. Be a plumb ruination to the country, too.” He shook his head and walked away to join a small group of aging mountain men gathered around several smoking pits just outside of what was left of the fort.

  The fort, built in a sheltered bend of the Arkansas River, had been for years a welcome sight to trappers, traders, and the few travelers, representing a bit of safe haven for man and horse.

  Sad, Kirby thought, his eyes taking in all the sights and sounds and good smells of cooking. It’s sad. These men opened up this country, and now they’re old, and nobody wants them around.

  And that just did not seem right nor fair to the tall young man.

  As if on silent cue, the men gathered in a circle. Preacher walked to the center of the circle, and the babble of voices fell silent.

  “Well, boys,” he said in a somber voice. “I reckon this here rendezvous is ’bout gonna do it for most of us. Our time is past. We got to move over, make way for civilized folk: ranches and farms and plows and wire and pilgrims and the like.

  “But boys, we can always ’member this: We saw it first and them few that come ’fore us. We seen it when it was glory. Untouched. We rode the mountains and the rivers, we made the trails for the pilgrims to foller, and we buried our friends — when we could find enuff of ’em to bury. Some of us was the first white man an eagle or bear or Injun ever seen. Now it’s nearabouts time for some of us to see the elephant. But that’s got to be all right. We done, I believe, what we was put on this here earth to do, and we can all be right proud we done it.

  “Streams trapped out, purt-near. Fools comin’ in a-killin’ all the buffalo. In some parts they’s stringin’ wire all over God’s creation. A-hemmin’ us in.”

  He slowly turned, his eyes touching the gaze of all present.

  “But where can we go?” Preacher asked.

  No one could answer the question.

  “We never married nobody ‘ceptin’ squaws. Got no white kin to go back to. Even if we did, they wouldn’t have us. Can you see us livin’ in a town? All cooped up like a wild animal? No, sir. Not me. Not for none of you, I’m thinkin’.

  “For me, I’m gonna see to it that this here boy, Smoke,” he cut his eyes to Kirby, “learns the true way of the wilderness. Might take me awhile, him being no more than a child. But … I reckon he’s as old as we was when we come out here, green as a gourd and wet behind the ears.

  “And when that’s done, I’m gonna fork my horses and ride out to see this here much-talked about elephant.

  “But, ’fore that happens, we all gonna eat, tell lies to one ’nother, and whoop and holler and dance. Then we just gonna ride out without lookin’ back. ’cause boys, it’s all over for men like us, and for some of us, real soonlike, we got just one more trail to ride.”

  Kirby looked around him, seeing tears in some eyes of the mountain men. For they knew the words they were hearing were true.

  Preacher took a deep breath. “Now, boys, bow your blasphemous old heads, ’cause I’m a-gonna talk to the Lord ’fore we feast.

  “Oh, Lord,” his voice was strong, carrying far beyond the circle of men, “thanks for this grub we ’bout to partake of. We’ll enjoy, I’m sure, ’cause them smells is startin’ my mouth to salavatin’. But ’fore we start a-gummin’ and a-gnawin’ on this sweet meat, there’s something I got to ask You. Do You ever think You maybe made a mistake in the way You set a man up to go down his final trail? Give it some thought, Lord. Here we are, old men past our prime, juices all dried up. Couldn’t do nothin’ with a woman ’cept think about it and some of us forgot what it was we could even think of. But we’re a-smellin’ all the good smells of cookin’. Point I’m makin’. Lord, is this: If You ever want to do it again, do this: When a man gets our age, take his balls and give him back his teeth!

  “Amen — let’s eat.”

  Four

  Two days later, when Kirby awakened at dawn and kicked off his blankets, a curious silence surrounded him. A feeling of aloneness. Pulling on pants and boots over his long-handles, he looked around the ruins of the old post. Nothing. The mountain men were gone, having pulled out as silently as they had learned to live. He shook his father awake and told him what had happened.

  On his feet, his father pointed. “Over there.”

  Preacher stood on the banks of the Arkansas, his face to the high mountains.

  “What’s he doin’, Pa?”

  “Sayin’ goodbye, Kirby. In his own way.” He glanced at his son. “That old man likes you, son. Listen to him, and he’ll teach you things you’ll need to stay alive in this country.”


  The son met the father’s eyes. “I will, Pa.”

  The father patted the boy’s shoulder and then coughed.

  The three of them rode out the next morning. They headed for the tall, shining mountains.

  “Where will your friends go, Preacher?” Kirby asked. The day the mountain men had left, Preacher had spent to himself, speaking to no one. But on this day he was his usual garrulous self.

  “They’ll scatter, Smoke. Most of ’em will head back into the mountains, find ’em a lonely valley, and they’ll never come out again. A few still got people back East, and they’ll head there. But they won’t stay, ’less they die there. It’ll be too tame for ’em. And they own people won’t want ’em around more’un four-five days. Then they’ll want to get shut of ’em.”

  “That’s sad. Why won’t they want them?”

  “Back East, Smoke, they got written laws a body’s got to live by. Ain’t none of us followed no law ’cept our own for more’un fifty years. Law of common sense. You don’t put hands on ’nother man; don’t steal from him; don’t cheat him; don’t call him a liar. Do, and you gonna get killed. Out here, Smoke, man purty well respects the rights of the other feller, and don’t none of us need no gawddamned lawyer to tell us how to do that. It’ll be that way out here for a while longer, till the fancy people get all het up and mess it all up. The worse is yet to come, Smoke. You wait and see. Thank Gawd I won’t be around to see it. I’d have to puke.”

  “How do you mean: Mess it all up?”

  “Lawyers readin’ meanins into words that ain’t ’posed to be there. A-messin’ up what should be left up to common sense. Hell’s fire, Smoke. Rattlesnake crawls into your blankets with you, you don’t ask him ifn he’s gonna bite you. You kick him out and shoot him or stomp him. Same with man. Man does you a deliberate wrong — and don’t never let no smooth-talkin’ lawyer man tell you no different, Smoke, ever’body knows right from wrong — you go after that man; you settle up your way. To hell with lawyers — damn ever’ one of ’em.”