Man and boy haggled for fifteen minutes, the man finally throwing up his arms in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. The transaction was done.
Kirby bought an extra cylinder for his left-hand .36, and a sack full of powder and shot.
They rode out.
Preacher told him he knew of a friendly band of Injuns up north of the post a ways. He’d see to it that Smoke got hisself a pair of moccasins and leggings and a buckskin jacket — fancy beaded.
“I ain’t got that kind of money to waste, Preacher.”
“Ain’t gonna cost you nothin’. I know the lady who’ll make ’em.”
“She must like you pretty well.”
Preacher smiled. “She’s my daughter.”
September, 1865
The pair rode easily but carefully through the towering mountains and lush timber. They had once again crossed the Arkansas and were now almost directly between Mt. Elbert to the north, and Mt. Harvard to the south. They had nooned and nighted just outside a small trading post on the banks of the Arkansas — which would later become the town of Buena Vista — and picked up bacon and beans and coffee. They had left before dawn, both of them seeking the solitude of the high lonesome. It had not taken Kirby long to fall prey to the lure of the lonesome. The country was wild and beautiful, and except for Indians, sparsely populated.
“Where’re we headin’?” Kirby asked.
“In a round ’bout way, to one of my cabins. On the North Fork. We’ll have to winter there. It’s gonna be a bad one, too.”
Kirby looked around him. The day was pleasant, but cool. “How can you tell that this early?”
“Leaves on the aspen. Whenever they start turnin’ gold this early in the fall, the winter’s gonna be a bitch-kitty. Bet on it. But we’ll have things to do, Smoke. Hunt, run traps, chop wood, and,” he said grinning, “stay alive. That there is the mainest thing.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling we’re the first white men to see this country, Preacher.”
“Know the feelin’ well. But they’s mountain men through here ’fore I was born. And not too many years ago an army man, named Gunnison, Captain Gunnison, as I recall, came through here. That was back in ’52 or ’53. He was chartin’ the land.”
“For what?”
“Railroad, I heared.” He spat his contempt on the ground.
“When they gonna build it?”
“Not in my lifetime, I hope. I don’t wanna see this here country all tore up. Pilgrims comin’ in with their plows, a-draggin’ they wimmin and squallin’ kids with ’em.” He shuddered. “Damn nuisance. Makes my skin crawl.”
Kirby grinned. “That could be fleas, Preacher.”
“Watch your mouth, boy — don’t sass an old man.”
Kirby laughed with his friend. “Some people might call the railroad progress, Preacher.”
“Some people might paint wings on a pig and try to make it fly, too. No, sir. Land oughtta be left the way God made it. Already folk in here pokin’ holes in the ground, lookin’ for gold and silver. They scarin’ off the game, makin’ the Injuns mad at ever’body. It’s a damn shame and a disgrace.”
“Preacher?”
“Yep, Smoke.”
“What happened back at the fort. Bent’s Fort, I mean. Did the Indians destroy it?”
“Nope. Old Bent blew it up hisself. That was back in … oh … ’52, I think.”
They stopped, allowing their horses to drink and blow.
“Blew up his own fort? That’s crazy. Why would he do that?”
Preacher chuckled. “Old Bill Bent was probably one of the finest men I ever knowed. I guess he just got discouraged when the fur trade kind of petered out. That’us back about ’50. He tried to sell the fort to the government, but they fiddle-faddled around for two years tryin’ to make up they minds. Far as I’m concerned, ain’t been nobody in government had a mind since Crockett. Anyways, ol’ Bill just blowed the damn thing up, loaded his goods on wagons, and moved down the Arkansas to Short Timber Crick. He set up two-three more places, but they weren’t none of ’em nearabouts as grand as the first.”
Kirby had gotten lost in the big hotel in Springfield; that was grand. He couldn’t imagine anything to match that out here.
“Yes, sir, Smoke, Bent’s Fort had nice livin’ quarters, a bar, and a billiard room. That there bar served up a drink called Taos Lightning. And let me tell you, it were ever’thing it was cracked up to be. Struck your stomach like a fulminate cap to powder.”
The old man and the young man rode on, climbing higher, the air cool as it pulled at their lungs. They rode for an hour without speaking, content to be surrounded by God’s handiwork.
“Where is Mr. Bent now, Preacher?”
“Don’t rightly know, Smoke. He were married two times — that I know of. Both times to Injun wimmin. First wife died … can’t ’member her name. Then old Bill hitched up with her sister, Yellow Woman. Last I heared, he was livin’ with one of his kids, on the Purgatoire River.
“Is he a legend?”
“Damn shore is. Just like you will be, Smoke. Someday.”
The young man laughed. “I’ll never be a legend, Preacher.”
“Yeah, you will.” Preacher’s reply was solemn. “I can see it all around you, in ever’thing you do.”
“Well, I guess only time will prove that, Preacher.”
“As much time as the Good Lord gives you, Smoke.”
Five
That winter of 1865–66 was a brutal one, with days of snow that sometimes piled up to the shuttered windows of the cabin along the banks of the North Fork.
With time on his hands, Kirby read and reread, many times, the McGuffey’s reader his father had bought for him. And he found, much to his surprise, that Preacher had a dozen or so thick volumes, including the selected works of a man called Shakespeare.
“I didn’t know you read, Preacher,” Kirby said, the howl of the winter winds muffled inside the small, snug cabin.
“Don’t. Can’t read nary a word. But I wintered once with a feller who, as it turned out, had been a schoolteacher back East. Them books belonged to him.”
“Belonged?”
“Thought hisself quite a ladies’ man, that feller did. ’bout twenty year ago — give or take some — he took a shinin’ to a squaw over the mountain east of here. Only problem was that there squaw already had herself a buck, and that Injun didn’t much cotton to that schoolteacher makin’ eyes at his woman. He caught ’em together one afternoon. They was … ah …”
Kirby got his hopes up. At last!
“… kissin’ and things.”
Damn! “What things?”
“Things. Don’t interrupt. That buck killed the schoolteacher, cut off the woman’s nose, and kicked ’er out. I got left with the books and the body. Buried the body. Didn’t know what to do with the books, so I kept ’em. Used to be more’un them there. Rats et ’em over the years.”
“Cut off her nose!”
“Injun way of divorce, you might call it. It varies from tribe to tribe.”
“What happens to the man if he’s unfaithful to the woman?”
“Some tribes, the woman can kick him and his goods right out of the wickiup, and he ain’t got no say in the matter — none a-tall.”
“Seems fair,” the young man observed.
“Some bucks might not agree with you,” Preacher said with a smile. “’Pecially this time of year.”
The Chinook winds blew once in the late winter of ’66, melting the snow and creating a false illusion of spring, confusing the vegetation and the animals. The warm winds also brought a stirring within the boy/man called Smoke.
“It ain’t gonna last,” Preacher told Kirby, now in his seventeenth year. “Likely be a blizzard tomorrow. Relax, Smoke, spring’ll be here ’fore you know it.” The mountain smiled knowingly. “You act like you got the juices runnin’ in you.”