Colter's Journey

by William W. Johnstone

  “Ever seen this?”

  Tentatively, Tim took the bit of calico and held it up, lowered it to brush off the sand and dirt, and examined it closer. It was more than just a patch of calico. His heart sank as he remembered the brown dress with the design of red floral—his ma had called it a “roller print,” whatever that meant. The ripped piece had come from the bottom of the skirt.

  He swallowed and tried to stop the tears from welling, but could not. His stomach heaved. He imagined the very worst. “Patricia’s. Dress. My—” He stopped speaking and had to close his eyes. His mother had made it for Patricia on her fifteenth birthday. She was wearing it when . . . the . . . bandits . . . hit.

  “Is she—?” He couldn’t ask. Couldn’t open his eyes.

  “Smart?” Reno asked. “I’d say so. Leaving us a bread crumb, be my thinking.”

  Tim’s eyes popped open. Patricia was alive. The ruffians had not hurt her.

  “Trail to follow,” Reno said. “Smart gal you’re sweet on, boy. We might need some more crumbs to follow.” He took the lead rope and led the horse and mule away. “Rain washed away most sign, but they camped here.” He began removing the packs, talking to himself as he worked. “Rain might have done us a favor. Keep the emigrants from following the trail. Be my guess.” He frowned. “They might follow ours, though. Well. So be it. They want to have their topknots lifted, it ain’t my worry.”

  Once the horse and mule had drunk their fill from the flowing creek, Reno hobbled them. After unsaddling his big dun and Tim’s pinto, he led them to the river, hobbled them, then fetched a sack of grain and gave them each a handful to eat along with what grass they could scrounge up.

  “We’ll camp here,” he said, breaking out the cups from the heavy robe.

  Tim looked at the sky. The sun wasn’t even sinking beyond the far mountains. He did not understand why they would not keep riding, especially since Patricia, her mother, and his sisters had been there. He did remember some of the things Just Jenkins was always talking to Captain McConnell about and ventured to say, “There’s plenty of daylight.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he sucked in a deep breath and held it, unsure of how the mountain man would respond.

  Jed Reno looked up from a pack, his lone eye boring a hole through Tim’s innards. “What do you see here?”

  Tim looked around. Sagebrush. Ugly desert-like country to the south. The beginnings of towering mountains off to the north and west. He saw their horses, the packs, the Hawken rifle, and the patch of brown calico he still held in his fingers. He saw . . . “The creek,” he said tentatively.

  Reno’s head bobbed.

  “The Big Sandy. Water. We camp here. Get an early start tomorrow and take our time. Find their trail or maybe some more calico bread crumbs from that gal you fancy.”

  * * *

  The two jackrabbits Reno had somehow managed to snare that afternoon after setting up camp seemed as big as pronghorns. The meat was greasy, stringy, but Tim did not think he had ever tasted anything so delicious. It was just meat, speared with a stick and roasted over an open flame that gave off little smoke. No salt. No pepper. No bread or dessert. Washed down by two cups of thick, terrible coffee.

  By the time Tim was wiping his greasy fingers on the buckskins, and Jed Reno was sucking on the bones of his rabbit, the sun had begun sinking.

  With a belch, Reno finished his coffee and leaned back, using his saddle as a pillow.

  Tim decided to do the same as he watched the sky fade into darkness. “You weren’t really born here?” he asked cautiously. “Were you?”

  “You calling me a liar, boy?”

  Tim smiled. He could detect a little humor in Reno’s voice. Maybe the rabbit and the coffee—if you could call it coffee—had softened the mood. Made him human. Almost.

  “No.” Tim almost said sir. “But you weren’t really born here. Were you?”

  A moment passed, followed by a long sigh. “In the physical sense, I’d have to say no. But you could say I was reborn here.”

  “Where was home?”

  “Kentucky.”

  That interested Tim. “Did you know Daniel Boone?”

  “Who?”

  Tim lifted his head. Enough light remained so that he could see Reno grinning. He even heard a little chuckle. “You know who.” He lowered his head on the saddle. To his surprise, it felt almost comfortable.

  “Nah. Never run across Daniel Boone. He likely regrets never running across me.”

  “Did you know that Boone was born in Pennsylvania? Not near me. Not in Danville. Some place called Berks County. It’s near Philadelphia, I think. That’s far east of Danville.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, that’s what Just Jenkins told me.” He heard Reno sit up.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Jenkins. Ummm. Just Jenkins.” Tim lifted his head off the saddle and propped himself up with his elbows.

  “You knew Terrance Jenkins?” Reno asked.

  “I don’t know anyone named Terrance, but Just Jenkins guided our train.”

  The one-eyed man nodded. “Yeah. But Terrance don’t talk to just anybody.”

  Confused, Tim asked, “Terrance?”

  Reno chuckled. “Don’t ever let him know I told you that.”

  Tim sat up completely. “You know Mr. Jenkins.”

  Turning his head, Reno spit across his saddle, wiped his mouth, and chuckled. “I don’t know no Mister Jenkins, but I’ve trapped and hunted and had a few close calls with Just Jenkins, and I’m the only one in the Rockies who knows the true handle his mammie and pappie give him.”

  “That’s—” Tim leaned back against the saddle, swallowing down the ugly feelings that always came back just when he thought he was free of the shame of running and the hurt of finding his ma and pa dead. Butchered. He wiped his eyes, hoping that Reno did not see him.

  After a moment, Tim said, “They shouldn’t have left us alone.”

  Reno cleared his throat. “Jenkins said it was the captain’s orders.”

  “They voted on it,” Tim remembered, “but Captain McConnell did his stumping. They shouldn’t have left us alone.”

  “No. But they did. That was a risk your ma and pa and all those others knew they were taking, long before you left Berks County.”

  “Danville,” Tim corrected. “I wish we’d never left. Danville was home. I was born there.”

  “Terrance Jenkins.” Reno laughed, farted, and spit again.

  Tim thought the mountain man had to be the most uncouth man he had ever known. He remembered the rogue at South Pass, the one whose horse he rode. He remembered the Basque, the one whose clothes he’d donned. No, they were worse. Maybe.

  “We had some fine times together. On the Green. In the Wind. Down to the Wasatch and Uinta. He don’t just talk to nobody, boy. If he talked to you, he must’ve seen something in you.”

  Tim knew what Reno was doing. Trying to change the subject, get Tim’s thoughts away from all the horrors he had seen, all the tragedy. He could almost appreciate it.

  Of course, Reno couldn’t let it go just like that. He had to add, “Whatever it was, I ain’t seen it yet from you, boy. Get some sleep. I’m done talking.”

  But he wasn’t. About ten minutes later, Tim, still wide awake and not certain he could ever fall asleep no matter how beat he was or how much his bones and muscles ached, heard Reno speak in the coming darkness.

  “You was born in Danville, boy, but you ain’t really been born yet. That’ll come later. If you live.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Saddle your horse, boy.”

  Tim Colter tried to give one-eyed Jed Reno the blank look of stupidity that would let him understand—as if he did not know already—just how incompetent he was. The problem was that Reno, as soon as he had washed out his coffee cup that morning in Big Sandy Creek, had already moved toward his horse.

  Swallowing, Tim just stood beside the campfire Reno had kicked out. His mouth moved. He even tr
ied to clear his throat, but no noise escaped him.

  Reno took a brush from his pack and rubbed the sides of the big dun. He tossed a blanket on the big horse’s back and over that went on the saddle. Realizing that Tim wasn’t doing the same with his own horse, he turned on his moccasins and glared with that one cold eye of his.

  Tim shuffled his feet, stared at the dead man’s moccasins that he wore, and sighed. “I don’t know how.”

  What followed was an explosion of blasphemy and profanity, the likes of which he had never heard. Had he spoke such language, his ma would not have made him wash out his mouth with lye soap. She would have kicked him out of the house and disowned him.

  After the thunder faded, Reno let out a sigh of exasperation. “Well, boy, time you learned. Come over here.”

  Tim went over to Reno’s side quickly, remembering that this mountain man did not wait around for fool city boys, and he did not want to be left alone in that country. Not that he was scared. He was just . . . well . . . slightly . . . petrified. But only slightly.

  “I’ll show you once. Learn it good.” Reno flipped the stirrup over the saddle, knelt, and reached underneath the dun’s belly to grab a strap, but then stopped what he was doing, and stood up.

  “You saw what I done first, didn’t you, boy?”

  “Yes, si—” Again, he remembered in the nick of time to drop the sir.

  “Horses be like people. Hot day like it is today, they sweat. So we brush them off before we put the blanket on. Like some folks, dirt bothers them. So does loose hair. You don’t brush, it can wear on their back. Worse, they might start shaking off that dirt and loose hair. Do that, they’s apt to shake you out of the saddle. You savvy that, boy?”

  “Yes.”

  With a curt nod, Reno bent down to grab the wide strap, then brought the smaller strap from his side of the saddle and threaded it through the cast-iron ring at the end of the wide strap. Deftly, he looped the strap through a hole in a strap and a circular ring affixed to the saddle. “Then you cinch her up tight.”

  Tim watched as the man’s big hands worked, pulling the strap. The horse grunted.

  “It don’t hurt them none. Horses are tough animals. He’s just holding his breath.”

  Reno looped the small strap through ring and hole several times, then, after lowering the stirrup off the saddle, he grabbed the hackamore and led the dun away from the creek. He took time then to light his pipe, and after only a few puffs—more than likely, the ruffian was hoarding tobacco the way he hoarded powder, shot, grub, and coffee—he slipped the pipe back into the pouch that hung around his neck, and tightened the cinch more.

  “There. That’s all there be to this, city boy. Now . . . you do it. And remember what I said. Don’t worry about hurting that horse. If you don’t get that cinch on tight enough, that saddle slips, and it’ll be you who’s getting hurt.”

  Swallowing down the fear rising from his gut along with the coffee, Tim returned to the pinto and began working, trying to remember everything he had seen Reno do, and everything Reno had told him. After a few minutes, he sucked in a deep breath, held it for a while, and exhaled. He picked up the hackamore and walked the horse toward Reno.

  Blue eye scowling, Reno flipped up the stirrup and ran his finger under the cinch. Then he dropped the stirrup and tugged on the saddle’s horn.

  “You learn quick, boy. For a first time saddling a horse, that ain’t bad.”

  Tim straightened at the compliment, but his pride vanished when Reno turned.

  “Now . . . best remember never forget what you just done. Ever. Because I’m done schooling city boys on how things work out in these parts.” He went to get the lead rope and pulled the mule and spare horse behind. “Let’s ride, boy. Daylight’s a precious commodity.”

  * * *

  They rode along the Big Sandy for a few miles, turning with the creek when it cut northwest, but when the stream changed directions again, cutting back to the east, they left the water and rode toward the high mountains, purple in the distance.

  Every now and then, Reno would dismount and hand the lead rope to Tim, who took that as a compliment—that a mountain man would trust him to hold the rope that held the mule that held their supplies.

  Once, Reno looked at something on the ground—though whatever it was, Tim could not tell—and then pushed up his hat and looked off into the distance, whispering just loud enough for Tim to hear. “Where is he going?”

  Cursing slightly, Reno rose, remounted the dun, and held out his left hand to take the rope.

  They rode silently as the day turned hot. Reno did not speak again until they made camp that night, and even then, he barked only orders, which Tim knew to obey.

  * * *

  The next morning, after a breakfast of coffee, Reno brought out a pistol and held it out, butt forward, to Tim. “You ain’t filled those britches yet, so I don’t think you’ll be much of a hand with a Hawken. Let’s see what you can do with one of these.”

  Tim looked at the pistol. It was the small one the Basque had tried to hide from Reno before the mountain man had shot him down. Something was different. Reluctantly, Tim took the .45 and studied it.

  “The barrel,” he said at last. “It’s longer.”

  It had been maybe two inches long when he’d first seen it. Barrels did not grow, but this one had. It was six inches long.

  “Remember what I called it?” Reno asked.

  Tim thought back. His lips moved, but he did not speak at first. Not until he could recall and was certain he was right. Well, maybe he wasn’t all that sure of his memory, but he said questioningly, “A . . . screw . . . barrel?”

  Reno grinned. “That’s right. You screw in the barrels. Abaroa had an extra. One thing about pistols, boy. Longer the barrel is, typically, the better the accuracy. Especially for range. Try her.”

  Tim looked at the pistol, which suddenly seemed heavy in his hand. His face came back up toward the mountain man’s. “It isn’t primed.”

  Reno’s one eye gleamed. “That’s right. Maybe you recollect what I told you earlier. About powder and shot being hard to come by.”

  Tim’s head nodded, though he did not understand how shooting an unloaded weapon could teach him anything.

  “Shooting a pistol is different from shooting a long gun, boy,” Reno said. “More instinct, I figure. Less skill, though. I don’t have much use for short guns. Come to a fight that close, I figure I’d rather use knife or hatchet. But they can be handy. Like when I killed that ignorant Basque. You know how to point a finger?”

  Tim laughed. He thought Reno had to be joking, but he quickly stopped his giggle and let his head nod again.

  “Then point at that rock yonder, only use that”—he gestured at the .45 in Tim’s right hand—“instead of your finger.”

  Tim did as he was told. He thumbed back the hammer, found his target, pretending that he was pointing his finger instead of the small heavy pistol. The trigger pulled. The hammer clicked.

  “Squeeze,” Reno said patiently. “Don’t jerk. Squeeze. And don’t breathe when you’re shooting. If you have to, let out your breath, then squeeze the trigger. Just remember, boy, when you got to use one of those pistols, you might not ever draw another breath. Keep that in mind. You got one shot. Best make her count.”

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Ten more times, he dry-fired the pistol. After that, Reno took the pistol, stuck it in the packs, and they rode on north.

  * * *

  The next day, Reno made Tim dry-fire another pistol, a larger one, more of the kind that Tim had seen around Danville. Reno said it came from Harper’s Ferry, was .54 caliber, and that he had taken it off a dead Dragoon. Tim knew better than to ask how the Dragoon became dead. He hoped and prayed that the soldier had been killed by Indians, or maybe from an accident, and not by Jed Reno. Although he would not put such an action past the one-eyed devil.

  “Only reason I kept it is on
account that my Hawken’s a .54-caliber. You don’t want different size balls for your firearms. Keeps things practical if they’re the same caliber. Shoot it.”

  It wasn’t loaded. Tim dry-fired again.

  * * *

  On the next morning, Reno primed the pan and handed Tim the screw-barrel .45, which felt heavier in his hand.

  “All right, boy, point and shoot. Just remember she’s loaded and primed. Hold her steady. Squeeze, don’t jerk. Let’s she how you shoot for real.”

  The morning’s coffee splashed around in his belly, but Tim managed to stop his hand from shaking.

  They had reached timber country, so he aimed at a pinecone at the side of a tall tree. He wet his lips, inhaled, let it out gently, and squeezed the trigger. The pan flashed. The pistol roared. He felt as if his arm had been torn off, but when his eyes opened, and the wind carried the white smoke away, he realized that he still held the screw-barrel. The pinecone looked undisturbed, but a ditch had been dug along to its left.

  “That ain’t bad, boy.” Reno took the smoking pistol from Tim’s aching hand. “Not bad, at all.” He slipped the pistol inside his belt, then pulled the other—the big Harper’s Ferry—and gave it to Tim. “She’s loaded, too, and she’ll kick an apt harder. You might do well to hold her with both hands.”

  Tim obeyed. He spread his legs out and found that using both hands helped him steady the barrel. Remembering everything Reno had told him, he squeezed the trigger.

  To his amazement, he found himself still standing, and not lying on his buttocks a few yards to the east. He also had a pretty good view of the pinecone, or would have, had he been able to find the pinecone. It had vanished. Above the ringing in his ears, he heard a sharp whistle before feeling an anvil crush his shoulder.

  “By Jupiter, boy!” Reno’s face flamed. Tim feared that he had done something wrong, but the mountain man clasped his shoulder hard again. “That’s some shooting, boy. Some shooting indeed!”

  Tim grinned. He stood a little taller. Then Reno jerked the screw-barrel .45 from his waist and handed it to Tim. He held both guns.