Smoke walked toward him, and when they met in a small open spot between trees, they embraced like the longtime friends they were.
Del grinned again. “I seen you was headed back to Puma’s old cabin like you was worried. Don’t fret over that woman of yours. She’s fine, an’ there ain’t nobody else around.”
“Did you talk to Sally?” he asked, noticing streaks of gray in Del’s hair and beard, and a milky spot over the pupil of Del’s left eye.
“Naw. Didn’t want to scare her none. I jest watched fer a spell an’ come looking fer you. She come outside once to gather a load of firewood. She’s okay. I came down after I talked to Mo-pe an’ his hunters. They told me you give ’em a deer fer them hungry kids they got up in Wyomin’. Damn nice of you. I give ’em six wild turkey hens I shot the other day. When Mo-pe said you was named after a cloud of smoke I knowed right away who it was stayin’ here at Puma’s summer lodge. I reckon you miss ol’ Puma much as I do. Hell, all of us who live up here miss the ol’ bastard, even cranky as he was sometimes. A man never had no better friend than Puma Buck if he took a likin’ to you.”
Smoke turned Del toward the cabin with a motion of his head as he tried to forget about the way Puma had died, in a fight that was Smoke’s, not his. “Puma took a killin’ that was meant for me,” he said, trudging through snow, remembering in spite of himself. “If it had to happen, I wish it could have happened another way.”
“You can’t blame yerself, Smoke. Puma knowed what he was up against. an’ there’s another thing. Puma never was himself after his Ute woman passed away. Used to climb up high all by his lonesome an’ sit fer days, starin’ at the sky like he was thinkin’ real hard ’bout her. He’d git kinda choked up if you was to mention her name.“
Smoke thought about Sally. “Every man has his soft spots, Del. I’ve got the best woman on earth and she’s changed me, to some degree. I get lonesome when I’m away from her too long, and I never figured that sort of thing would ever happen to me.”
Del changed the subject quickly as they crossed over a low ridge. They could see the cabin down below. “I come to warn you ’bout somethin’, Smoke. It ain’t no kinda trouble, maybe just an aggravation. There’s this long-winded feller ridin’ a mule all over these mountains. Says his name’s Ned Buntline, an’ he says he’s aimin’ to talk to you. He writes books. A nosy son of a bitch too, askin’ all sorts of dumb questions ’bout what it’s like to live up here, askin’ if Preacher is still alive, wantin’ to talk to him if he is. I run the bastard off after he come up with too goddamn many questions. But he’s lookin’ fer you, so I figured I’d better warn you. He’s already talked to Griz, an’ ol’ Griz wouldn’t hardly tell him nothin’. He offered Huggie a jug of whiskey an’ Huggie tol’ him some things he hadn’t oughta.”
“Like what?”
Del needed a minute to form his reply. “Like where we all figure Preacher is, if’n he ain’t dead by now. Nobody’s seen him fer years, I reckon you know. But I was up at Willow Creek Pass this summer an’ I found a footprint beside a stream. Ain’t a livin’ soul up there… never has been. Too damn high fer most anybody. Air’s so damn thin a man can’t breathe it right. I wouldn’t have gone up there myself if it hadn’t been I wounded a big elk bull an’ followed his blood sign fer damn near five miles straight up, nearly to the tree line. That wounded bull wanted water, an’ when I come to this creek, there it was, a print made by a man with a foot half a yard long. Ain’t no such thing as a big-footed Injun, an’ Preacher always had to make his own rawhide brush moccasins. Now, I ain’t sayin’ that footprint was his, but it was fresh, maybe a few hours old, an’ it sure as hell reminded me of his tracks.”
“He’d be close to ninety years old by now, Del, if it was him.”
“Ain’t claimin’ it was him. Just sayin’ how unusual it was to find that big footprint at Willow Creek Pass. I told Huggie ’bout findin’ it. A few weeks back, Huggie told me he’d made some mention of it to that book-writin’ feller whilst Huggie was dead drunk on that whiskey.”
“I suppose Buntline headed for Willow Creek Pass to see if he could find Preacher.”
“That’s what Huggie claimed when I talked to him.”
Smoke wagged his head as they neared the creek. “Preacher is just as liable to kill him as talk, if he’s still alive. He won’t have changed much in the disposition department. I’ve made up my mind not to talk to Ned Buntline either. He can find some other way to write his books. I’m spending the winter up here with Sally. Any son of a bitch who shows up who isn’t an old friend of mine will get shown the trail out of here in one hell of a hurry.”
“Griz told me the bastard was nice enough. I got tired of all the damn questions mighty quick, so I pointed to the way he rode up to my cabin an’ said to clear out now. He got right back on his mule an’ I ain’t seen him since. It was Huggie who told me Buntline was headed up to Willow Creek.”
“If Preacher’s alive, he’ll handle it. Now let’s see what Sally has got cooked up for lunch. She was makin’ brown sugar bearclaws in the Dutch oven when I left.”
“I’d claim them bearclaws was callin’ to my sweet tooth, only I ain’t got any teeth left.”
Smoke chuckled as they crossed the stream, stepping ever so carefully on a walkway of flat, slippery rocks, “You won’t need any teeth for Sally’s bear-claws. Damn but it’s good to see you, Del. It’s been awhile.”
“Good to see you too, Smoke. We had some good times, an’ a few that was bad when lead was flyin’.”
“We’ll talk about some of them tonight. Sally cleaned that other room across the dogrun, and we’ve got plenty of blankets to keep your old ass warm.”
“My ass an’ everything else is gettin’ old,” Del replied. “I get these powerful aches in my joints when it gits cold, and can’t hardly see nothin’ outa my left eye. Got this white stuff over it so it looks like it’s snowin’ all the time. Makes everythin’ fuzzy as hell, too. One of these years I’m gonna have to corne down outa the mountains, when I can’t see to aim this rifle no more, or climb a mountain without it hurtin’. Till that day comes, I’m gonna enjoy every minute I’ve got left I figure I’m goin’ blind, Smoke, an’ that’s about the worst thing that can happen to a man who loves the looks of high country.”
“I’d rather lose a leg than lose my eyes,” Smoke said on their way to the cabin door. He noticed smoke curling from the chimney and something else, a delicious smell coming from inside that made his belly growl.
Del stopped a few feet away from the cabin. “You might be well advised to warn your woman I ain’t had no bath fer a spell. She won’t wanna stand downwind from me. If she’ll offer me some of them bearclaws, I’ll eat ’em out here.”
Smoke laughed heartily. “Sally’s used to the smell of a man who’s been away from bathwater. C’mon inside. From what my nose just picked up now, I don’t figure a skunk could get noticed over what that melted brown sugar smells like.” He went to the door and pulled the latchstring.
Sally turned away from the crude, hand-hewn plank table Puma had built for his Ute bride years ago. “I see we’ve got company,” she said. “It’s good to see you, Del. You’re just in time to try one of my little brown sugar pies. Smoke calls them bearclaws because of the way I shape them.”
“I’d be plumb delighted,” Del replied, showing off his gums before he leaned his rifle against the wall near the door. “I do git a real strong hankerin’ fer sornethin’ sweet now an’ then.”
Smoke rested his Winchester on its pegs. For the rest of the day and most of the night, he’d be listening to Del’s stories about recent happenings in the mountains. Some of them would evoke old feelings, good feelings, about the years he’d spent up here with Preacher. “How about some coffee?” he asked Sally, to get his mind off the story Del had just told him about finding that footprint at Willow Creek Pass.
Twelve
Ned Buntline was sure he was dying, slowly freezing to death sitting at t
he base of a rock ledge surrounded by snow and wind, unable to build a fire without the matches in his packs after his mule bolted away, breaking its tether rope for no apparent reason as though something had frightened it, perhaps a bear or a cougar Ned hadn’t seen or expected to see at these high altitudes. The mule had trotted downslope, and now he was afoot, freezing, without any food or water, or a gun. Or those all-important matches he must have to get a fire going before he died of exposure. Shivering inside his checkered mackinaw, he knew he was only hours away from death. He’d gotten lost looking for Willow Creek, for his map showed nothing, no details of this region, only blank paper and the notation, Unexplored, Yet for days he’d felt he was close to the place Huggie Charles had described, even though the man had been half drunk at the time. Following the timberline west, he’d come to the rocky gorge Charles had mentioned, but somehow, after crossing it just as the snowstorm was letting up, the creek and high mountain pass were nowhere in sight. He’d tied his mule for a climb above the timberline to have a better view of what lay below. And that’s when the mule had broken free. Ned had been following its tracks in the snow for hours, until his legs and lungs played out. The air up here was almost too thin to breathe, and the bitter cold only worsened his plight. Now, as the sun lowered behind towering peaks to the west, temperatures would plunge, and he would be lucky to survive the night without a fire to warm him.
He wondered now if it had been worth it, to try to find the legendary mountain man known only as Preacher. Looking was about to cost him his life, unless he found his mule. “Damn the luck,” he stammered, teeth chattering, forcing himself to rise slowly on unsteady legs. Tracking the mule was his only hope.
Ned stumbled away from the ledge, feeling strangely sleepy, having trouble keeping his eyelids open. Staggering, almost falling in places, he made his way downslope, following hoofprints left by the mule. Lengthening shadows fell away from smaller pine trees below him, only the damn mule’s tracks kept moving in the wrong direction, sometimes higher, continually westward, as if the dumb beast could have known its destination. Ned’s feet were frozen numb, without any feeling, his boots and socks insufficient to warm them in a foot or more of snow.
Half an hour later, when Ned was certain he could go no further, the tracks suddenly turned down the mountain toward a snow-mantled line of much taller pines that seemed to wind back and forth aimlessly, winding around switchbacks, headed down to lower altitudes. Slowed to a snail’s pace, truly staggering to keep his balance while maintaining some forward progress, he floundered toward the closest trees, gasping for breath.
Skies darkened as he entered the pines, however he could see a small trickle of partially frozen water, a stream coming from a spring hidden in a jumble of rocks. And there were the mule’s prints, following the creek downhill.
For a moment, Ned allowed himself to hope, summoning all the strength he had. His mule could be around the next bend in the stream. Dreaming of a steaming cup of Arbuckles, flames to warm his hands, face, and frozen toes, he placed one foot in front of the other, now and then pausing long enough to use a pine trunk for support and to catch his breath.
Making his way down, wind whispered among snow-laden pine boughs, occasionally brushing a dusting of snow to the ground, Ned came to a sharp bend in the tiny trickle and pulled up short when he glimpsed a flickering light.
“A fire,” he wheezed. He hadn’t seen a living soul for days and couldn’t fathom who could be up here. Would it be friend or foe? He had no gun, having hung his pistol belt around his saddle horn for his climb this morning.
“I have no choice,” he said a moment later, taking short steps toward the distant flames. Whoever it was with a fire in this cold was about to have company… he would die anyway from these temperatures unless he warmed himself.
Getting closer, he saw his mule tied to a tree. Afire in a circle of stones near the creek bank revealed nothing else at the moment. A huge boulder covered with a mound of snow sat beyond the dancing flames, but as he drew closer he became puzzled by the white shape atop the giant rock… It was too large and too irregular to be snow.
“I’m a friend!” he cried with all the voice he could muster in the thin air, even though he saw no one near the fire. “That’s my mule! If you have a gun, please don’t shoot me! I’m unarmedl”
No one answered his call. Had someone simply found his mule and built a fire for him before continuing on to their destination? It seemed unlikely. He struggled faster, eyes fastened on the strange white shape on top of the boulder, until at last he could see what it was when he was only twenty or thirty yards from the flames.
A figure in a white furry robe was perched on the rock, a hood made from the same material covering his head and any detail of his face. A long rifle lay across the man’s lap. Ned was too cold and exhausted to care who it was just then, merely hoping the oddly dressed stranger wasn’t planning to shoot him.
His knees wobbled the last few steps until he stood at the edge of the firepit. He looked closely at the dark hole in the hood where a face would have been revealed in better light.
“Who are you?” Ned asked, teeth rattling so loudly he was almost unable to hear his own voice, pulling off his gloves to warm his hands above the flickering flames, “I’ve never seen a robe that color. It looks like buffalo fur. Was the buffalo a rare albino?”
“You sure as hell ask a bunch of questions for a man who’s damn near froze solid,” a deep voice replied. “Any fool can see a man like you don’t belong up here. Get warm. Boil some coffee if you’ve a mind to, then get on that mule an’ clear out of here without askin’ no more stupid questions.”
“It isn’t that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done,” Ned replied, as some feeling returned to his fingers and feet. “I was only curious as to who you were, and why you’d help me.”
“Felt sorry for you, Tenderfoot. I been watchin’ you fer a couple of days. You ain’t got the know-how to be up here, so take some advice afore your next fool mistake gets you froze till the spring thaw. Get back to the flatlands where you come from an’ don’t come back.”
Ned wasn’t quite sure what to say, or if he should say anything. “I’m a writer,” he said, to explain. “I was looking for a mountain man they call Preacher, I intend to write a series of books about the real pioneer mountain men. Alvah Dunning told me about this Preacher fellow, and so did Major Frank North of the Pawnee scouts. Everyone seems to know about Preacher, only there are some who say he’s dead now.”
“Maybe he is.”
“Did you know him?”
“Ain’t none of your affair.”
“Please don’t be offended. My readers back east would love to know more about this famous mountain pioneer.”
“You can write about some of the others.”
“Not many of them will tell me anything. I found out one of the last of the early pioneers, Puma Buck, is dead. I was hoping he would tell me a few tales.”
“He wouldn’t, even if he was alive.”
“You knew him?”
“Ain’t none of your affair.”
Ned looked down at his boots, wondering who the man was in the white robe… He couldn’t see his face, “My last hope, if I can’t find this Preacher fellow, is a man named Smoke Jensen. I was told he used to be a mountain man before he took up ranching close to Big Rock, and that he knew Preacher better than any of the others.”
A silence followed, long enough to be meaningful, but what did it mean and how could he find out? “Would you care for a cup of coffee? I have some Arbuckles in my pack.”
“Nope. You ask too damn many questions to be good company over a cup of coffee.” Now the white-robed stranger stirred, swinging off the rock. He stood for a moment looking at Ned, even though Ned couldn’t see his eyes. He seemed bent as if with old age, stooped over, although it was hard to tell because his robe was bulky, touching the ground so even his feet and legs were hidden. “Boil your coffee an’ head back where
you come from quick as you can, mister, afore somebody, or these mountains, up an’ kills you.”
Before Ned could ask for his name again, the man whirled and walked away into the darkness beneath the pine canopy shadowing both sides of the stream.
“Thanks again, mister!” he called out.
There was nothing but silence and the soft crackle of flames for an answer. Ned knew he would always wonder who the benevolent stranger in the albino buffalo robe was… He owed the man his life.
Thirteen
Jessie Evans liked all six of the Mexican pistoleros: Pedro Lopez, Jorge Diaz, Carlos and Victor Bustamante, a half-breed by the name of Raul Jones, and a fat Yaqui Indian simply called Tomo. All six were experienced gunmen and Jessie needed every good gun he could hire, since word had come that Big John Chisum was looking for men who could handle themselves. What was being called the Lincoln County War was now shaping up to be a deadly fight, if things continued the way they were. Cattle were being stolen on both sides. Jessie was ready to teach a few more Chisum riders a permanent lesson, while the territorial governor turned his head at the request of Catron and Murphy. Dolan said they might even burn down John Tunstall’s store some night, to teach him to keep his nose out of the cattle contract business. Jimmy Dolan knew how to fight a war, how to win at any cost, and he had Murphy’s money behind him to get the job done.
Jessie turned to Bill Pickett as sundown came to their camp at Bosque Redondo. “Let’s test those new Mexican boys tonight. We’ll ride over to Chisum’s cow camp on the Ruidoso River. If we gather up about fifty head of steers, an’ kill a few cowboys while we’re at it, Dolan’s liable to give us all a pay raise. We’ll tell those pistoleros to shoot as many men as they can.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pickett replied, tipping a bottle of tequila into his mouth. “I was gettin’ bored, sittin’ ’round here, freezin’ our asses off, waitin’ fer somethin’ to happen. I say we make somethin’ happen ourselves. There’s another thing I been thinkin’ about. That goddamn high an’ mighty Englishman, John Tunstall, has been hirin’ more men. Mostly green kids, or so I hear tell. Wouldn’t be nothin’ wrong with shootin’ that Englishman, if you ask me. He ain’t connected to nobody important in this territory. Killin’ him oughta throw a scare into Chisum an’ everybody else in Lincoln County.”
Battle of the Mountain Man Page 7