Quest of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Louis and the boys headed for the cook tent, while Smoke made his way over to the tent where injured workers were kept until they healed enough to be put back on the line. Knowles had elected to stay there rather than in town so he could better supervise his few remaining men in their guard duties, and to be on site when the replacement agents he’d sent for arrived in Winnipeg.

  Smoke pulled back the tent flaps and walked down the aisle between the rows of beds, amazed at how many men were in the tent recovering from injuries suffered while laying track or blasting rocks from the rail bed. “This must be a hard life for these men,” he muttered to himself. “And they sure as hell don’t get paid enough for the dangers they face every day.”

  When he got to the end of the aisle, he saw Albert Knowles, his broken left leg propped up on a wooden device that kept it elevated so the swelling would stay down while he healed. Most of his burns were scabbed over, and Smoke was glad to see there was no sign of infection, the thing that killed most men with bad burns.

  “Hey, Albert,” Smoke called, giving the man a nod of his head.

  “Why, Smoke. When did you get back?” Knowles asked, putting an extra pillow behind his back so he could sit up and talk better.

  “Just a little while ago,” Smoke answered.

  “Did you catch those sons of bitches that killed my men?” Knowles asked, his smile fading.

  Smoke nodded. “Yes. We had to kill a few, but the rest are in custody in Noyes, Minnesota.”

  “Noyes?” Knowles asked. “Why the hell did they head down that way?”

  Smoke shrugged. “I don’t really know, unless they were trying to get across the border thinking we wouldn’t be able to go after them there.”

  “But you fooled ’em, huh?”

  Smoke smiled. “Yeah. Anyway, the sheriff and judge down there promised to hold them for at least a month, until you’re well enough to go down there and make a positive identification of the leader, a man named Hammerick.”

  “So that’s the bastard’s name, huh?”

  “Yes, and he’s as hard a case as I’ve ever come across,” Smoke said. “It won’t be any loss when you identify him and he and his men are hanged.”

  Knowles patted his broken leg. “Good. The doc says another two or three weeks and I’ll be able to travel. I’ll see if Van Horne will arrange for me to go part of the way down there by train, so I should be able to be there within a month if there are no complications.”

  Smoke reached over and shook his hand. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, Albert. You take care of yourself, and let me know what happens at the trial.”

  “I will, Smoke, and thanks for what you did for my men and me.”

  “Think nothing of it. Those men deserve what they’re going to get. I just wish I could be there to see it happen when they hit the end of their ropes.”

  Smoke turned and went to the cook tent, hoping he’d have time to eat before the train got ready.

  As it turned out, Smoke had just finished his meal when the station man came into the cook tent and told them the train was loaded and ready to leave. Just as he’d promised, their horses and supplies were loaded in a boxcar that’d been added to the train.

  As they boarded the short train, Pearlie looked at the almost empty passenger car. “Good, there’s plenty of empty seats,” he said. “I think I’ll take me a short nap to help me digest my food.”

  “When did you ever need any help digestin’ your food, Pearlie?” Cal asked, grinning.

  “Well, I don’t often get steaks as thick and as good as the railroad cook fixed us,” Pearlie said defensively. “Especially if you’re doin’ the cookin’, Cal.”

  “Huh, I never heard you complain when I cooked,” Cal said. “You always had your mouth too full to even speak, let alone complain.”

  “That’s ’cause the bellyaches always came later,” Pearlie rejoined, “when you weren’t around.”

  “A nap sounds good to mc too,” Louis said, interrupting the argument between Cal and Pearlie.

  “Yeah, it might be good if we all got some sleep,” Smoke said. “I have a feeling once we join up with Tom Wilson and the mountain men, we’re gonna be working from daylight to dark most every day.”

  “That’s right,” Louis said. “And the country we’re going to he surveying is among the wildest in North America, from what I heard around the rail yard.”

  “It’s hard to believe it’s any wilder than the High Lonesome north of Colorado,” Pearlie said, covering a wide yawn with the back of his hand.

  “Well,” Smoke said, “the country’s about the same, but since the Rocky Mountains in Canada are so much farther north, the weather is even worse than in Colorado.”

  “I find that hard to imagine,” Cal said, remembering some of the winters they’d spent up in the mountains with Smoke in the past.

  As the train pulled out of the station on its two- or three-hour journey, the four men stretched out on seats in the car, pulled their hats down over their eyes, and dropped off to sleep before the train got up to full speed.

  23

  The men were so tired that they had to be woken up when the train finally reached the end of the tracks. Van Horne himself performed the task, standing in the front of the car and banging a knife against the side of a bottle of fine brandy.

  When the bell-like tones brought the men to their feet, he had a Chinese boy pour generous drinks into brandy snifters for them all, then sat among them, demanding to be told in detail of their exploits on the trail of the train robbers.

  Smoke left the telling of the tale to Louis, who was much the better speaker, and he had Van Horne in stitches laughing at how Smoke had blown up the outlaws’ supplies and then killed them by dropping shotgun shells into their campfire.

  His expression sobered when he heard how the sheriff and judge had acted as if Smoke and the rest of them were the criminals instead of the outlaws.

  “Those dumb sons of bitches,” Van Horne exclaimed. “Just wait until I get back to camp. I’m going to wire the governor of Minnesota, who by the way is a personal friend of mine, as well as the United States marshals’ office in Grand Forks, and see if I can’t light a fire under those boys.”

  He sniffed and adjusted his vest. “They’ll be sorry they ever messed with William Cornelius Van Horne before I’m done with them.”

  Smoke and the others had to laugh at Van Horne’s expressions of rage, and soon they had him laughing too, and pouring more brandy into their glasses.

  “Whoa there, partner,” Smoke said after the second glass, when Van Horne tried to fill his glass for the third time. “You keep that up and we won’t be able to sit a saddle when we head on up ahead to join Tom Wilson and his crew.”

  “Nonsense,” Van Horne said, continuing to pour. “You’ll spend the night here with me, of course. I’ve got my private rail car at the head of the tracks. You boys have been on the trail almost continuously. It’s time you had a good night’s sleep and some decent food.”

  “Did you say food?” Pearlie asked, even though it had been a mere three hours since his last meal back in Winnipeg.

  Van Horne laughed. He’d forgotten Pearlie’s penchant for fine food, and lots of it. “Yes, Pearlie. In addition to bringing my private car with me whenever I’m out laying track, I also bring my own private chef along as well.”

  He reached down and patted his more-than-ample stomach. “As you can well see, I believe in living as well as one can, no matter the circumstances or the geography.”

  “How about them copper bathtubs?” Cal asked. He looked at Pearlie and sniffed elaborately. “Some of us could use a bath and another go-round with that brush and soap we used on the way up here.”

  Van Horne nodded, smiling. “Yes, I think hot baths and a good shave will make all of you feel better,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation, added with a grin, “as well as making those who sit near you more comfortable as well.”

  When they got out of the passen
ger car and walked up the tracks toward Van Horne’s private cars, Smoke was amazed at the number of men he saw working alongside the tracks up ahead. He figured there must have been several thousand men stretched for almost a mile on either side of the tracks, emptying fist-sized chunks of gravel from a rail car onto the ground to be a base for the tracks.

  Two other cars contained large wooden ties, which Van Horne said were being cut a few miles over and brought to the building site by wagons, and iron rails. Up ahead of these men were even more men cutting down trees, blasting boulders and rocks into fist-sized pieces, and generally transforming a heavily wooded area into a flat road upon which the men behind would lay the tracks.

  Van Horne followed Smoke’s gaze, saying proudly, “We can make between three and five miles a day, weather permitting, if the terrain isn’t too hilly and we don’t have to cross too many rivers.”

  “Damn,” Pearlie said, his eyes wide, “I’ll bet Wilson and his men don’t do much more than that.”

  Van Horne grinned. “You’re correct, Pearlie,” he said. “In fact, we usually manage to stay just a few miles behind him.”

  “That’s amazing,” Louis said.

  “Well, of course, he’s doing the really hard work of finding a suitable path for the tracks, and sometimes he’ll have to backtrack for miles if he comes to an area that cannot be tunneled through or swung around, and I’ve got the benefit of thousands of men, each doing one particular job, so we can move very fast indeed.”

  After an evening of fine conversation with Van Horne, wherein he told them of some of his exploits building other railroads in the past, and an even finer dinner, the boys were treated to steaming hot baths, and finally, exhausted, they went to sleep in his sleeping car.

  Just before he fell asleep, Pearlie asked the Chinese attendant to put more wood in the potbellied stove at the end of the car. “I’ve been cold for so long, I don’t hardly remember what it’s like to feel warm,” he mumbled as his eyes closed.

  * * *

  They awoke the next morning to a sumptuous breakfast of eggs, bacon, thinly sliced fried steak, flp-jacks, and, with Smoke wondering where in the world Van Horne got it at this time of year, freshly squeezed orange juice.

  As he finished his third cup of coffee topped off with a cigarette, Smoke thanked Van Horne for being such a gracious host, and he and the men prepared to leave.

  Van Horne escorted them out to their horses, and showed them how Wilson was marking the trail he was leaving for Van Horne’s tracklayers to follow.

  “See how he not only blazes the trees to either side of the trail,” Van Horne said. “He also has several rolls of bright red cloth that he ties high up in trees on either side, so the trail will be easy to find.”

  “Thanks, Bill,” Smoke said. “We shouldn’t have too much trouble locating him.”

  “Just be sure to give him a signal when you get close,” Van Horne said. “Tom’s been out here in the wilderness many times, and he’s been known to shoot first and ask questions later if he feels his men are being threatened.”

  “Will do,” Smoke said, and after they’d all shook Van Horne’s hand, he and his friends hit the trail.

  24

  Much refreshed by their rest with Van Horne, Smoke and his men set off along the trail ahead of the tracks that had been blazed by Tom Wilson and his crew. Even though the air was chilly and carried a hint of frost, the sky was clear and there were no signs of any spring storms in the offing.

  As Van Horne had said, it was remarkably easy to follow the blaze marks and the swatches of red cloth tied to nearby trees along the way. As they rode, Smoke would occasionally check his compass, and he found they were heading generally north by north-west, along the route discovered and advocated by Fleming back in 1877. Of course, Fleming wasn’t trying to find a level course a train could follow, so they occasionally had to deviate from his path due to natural obstructions he had ignored on his journey.

  Soon, they came to the edge of a large lake, and Smoke consulted the rather crude map Wilson had given him weeks before. “This must be Lake Manitoba,” Smoke said.

  “I don’t understand it,” Louis said as he rode his horse to the very edge of the lake. “The blaze marks lead right up to the water’s edge.”

  “You don’t suppose he means for Van Horne to build a bridge across this lake, do you?” Pearlie asked.

  “I suppose so, but it looks like an awfully long way for a bridge to be built,” Smoke answered, scratching his head. “And I just can’t imagine how men could stand to work in water that’s just a few degrees above freezing.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Cal called from off to the left. “Here’s a note under this red cloth on this tree. You want me to pull it out and read it?”

  Smoke nodded, and Cal stretched up in his stirrups and pulled out the paper, which was encased in waxed paper to prevent it from getting wet in case of rain. He unfolded the paper and read to himself for a moment, his lips moving as he scanned the letter. “Oh,” he said, refolding the letter. “Wilson is giving Van Horne a choice, it says here.”

  “Well, go on, Cal boy, tell us what it says,” Pearlie said impatiently.

  “Wilson says it’s only about a mile across the lake and it’s not very deep, and that it’s another fifteen miles to go southwest and cut around the lake. I guess he’s leaving it up to Van Horne whether to build the bridge or to detour around the lake the longer way.”

  Cal stuck the note back under the red cloth and turned back to Smoke. “What do you want to do, Smoke?”

  “Well,” Smoke said, grinning, “unless you want these horses to swim us a mile across a lake where there’s almost more ice than water, I guess we’ll take the route around the lake.”

  As they turned their horses to the southwest, Pearlie said, “If it’s really fifteen miles around the lake, that’s gonna take us another day or two to catch up with Wilson and the others.”

  Smoke glanced at the terrain they’d be going though, which was fairly heavily wooded, though, thankfully, flat without much slope. “Yes, I think you’re right, Pearlie.” He looked up at the clear sky overhead. “However, with the moon out tonight, if it doesn’t cloud in, we may be able to ride pretty late and make up five or six hours on them.”

  “Smoke,” Pearlie said, “if we’re gonna be riding half the night, I suggest we take our nooning now.”

  “Oh, hungry, are you?” Louis asked, smiling, for he knew Pearlie was always hungry.

  “It’s not that,” Pearlie argued, his face red. “It’s just I think we need to give the horses a rest if we’re gonna be working ’em all night.”

  Smoke and Cal both laughed, seeing through Pearlie’s excuse. “All right, I guess you’re right, Pearlie. Let’s make a short camp here and let the horses eat.”

  Cal glanced at the lake, a dozen yards away. “Smoke, you think there might be fish in that lake?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Smoke replied.

  “Fried lake trout would sure go down nice for lunch,” Pearlie said.

  “But we didn’t bring any fishing poles,” Louis said, though the sound of fresh fish appealed to him too.

  “Oh, Smoke don’t need no fishin’ poles, Louis,” Cal said. “Last year, up in the mountains above Big Rock, he showed us how the mountain men caught their fish.”

  “Well,” Louis said, stepping down off his horse. “This I’ve got to see.”

  “Come on, Louis, I’ll make a mountain man out of you yet,” Smoke said. “Boys, take care of our horses and get a fire and some mountain-man coffee going while I show Louis how to catch our lunch.”

  Smoke walked among the birch and maple and ash trees near the water’s edge until he found a fairly straight young tree that was about two inches in diameter. He pulled out his knife and with a couple of swings, cut the tree down and skinned off the small branches. He then whittled a sharp point onto the end and walked over to the lake. He moved down the bank until he came to where a maple was
leaning out over the water.

  “The shadow of the tree makes you able to see down into the water better,” Smoke said as he squatted down on his haunches. “It cuts the reflection from the sun and sky. In fact, you can sometimes see shore birds standing in shallow water with their wings held out to make a similar shade,” he added. He looked back at Louis. “Squat down,” he said. “Otherwise, the fish will see your shadow and it’ll spook ’em.”

  A few minutes later, Smoke struck out with the homemade spear and brought it out of the water with a three-pound lake trout wiggling on the end.

  “Hey, that’s great,” Louis said. “Can I try it?”

  “Sure, but remember, the water distorts your vision. You have to aim a little bit under where you think the fish is or you’ll miss it.”

  Sure enough, it took Louis three or four tries before he got the hang of it. But the lake was full of fish and since the water was so cold, they were moving slowly. In no time at all, Smoke had a pan full of fish filets cooking in bacon grease on the fire.

  As Louis sampled the fish, he smacked his lips and moaned, rolling his eyes. “Smoke, I’ve never tasted anything better than this.”

  “I wouldn’t tell Andre that,” Smoke said, smiling.

  Louis assumed a horrified look, “Oh, heavens, no. The man would quit instantly were I to admit anyone else could cook as well as he.”

  “Course,” Smoke said, “there’s something about eating food cooked outdoors over a campfire that makes whatever it is seem to taste even better. You’d probably turn your nose up at these fish if you’d ordered them in a fancy restaurant.”

  “Oh, I’ll agree the location has something to do with it,” Louis said, “but these fish would meet with anyone’s approval in any restaurant in the world, no matter how fancy.”

  When they finished eating, and Cal and Pearlie had washed the plates and coffeepot out, Smoke said, “Now, unless you think you need an after-lunch nap, Pearlie, we can be on our way.”