Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER TEN

Old Main Building

“The event in Longmont’s saloon would be termed a shoot-out, I believe. At least, that’s what the western novelists call it, people like Owen Wister, Zane Grey, and Max Brand,” Professor Armbruster said.

“A shoot-out, yes. They use the term accurately. I have met all of them, by the way,” Smoke said. “And Ned Buntline. I’ve met him as well.”

“Surely you don’t equate someone like Ned Buntline with the more legitimate figures of western literature, men like Wister, Grey, and Brand,” Professor Armbruster said.

“Why not? He was a storyteller, just as the three men you have mentioned were. In fact, all three of those men told me they had read Buntline, and it was because of his stories that they developed an interest in writing about the West.”

“I . . . I must apologize,” Professor Armbruster said. “I didn’t mean to be pedantic, nor to give offense.”

“No offense taken.”

“Was that the first time you met Monte Carson?” Professor Armbruster asked.

“Yes. It was the first time I met Louis Longmont, as well.”

“But you and Carson, and you and Longmont, became very good friends after that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, eventually. Not right away, not until I moved there, some years later.”

“How old were you when this shoot-out happened, Mr. Jensen?” Professor Armbruster asked.

“Nineteen, twenty, maybe, I don’t remember exactly.”

“But, it was before you established Sugarloaf Ranch.”

“Oh, yes, long before Sugarloaf, even before Nicole. But I thought I was here to discuss John Jackson, not Preacher and me. You are sort of getting off the track, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed. Though many times during the course of research one finds that divergent paths can lead to other fascinating subjects. And quite often, those subjects don’t detract from, but rather enhance your original research, as has happened here, with you. But, you are right, we should get back to our discussion of John Jackson.

“Earlier you said that the man, Preacher, suggested you should educate him. Did you undertake that responsibility?”

Smoke chuckled. “Oh, yes, I spent the next year with John. It turns out that he required a lot of education.”

“Please, continue with your story,” Professor Armbruster said.

“After we left Big Rock, Preacher went one way, John and I went another.”

Smoke resumed telling his story, and as it had before, his low, well-modulated voice began to paint word pictures, so that, again, Armbruster wasn’t merely listening to a story, he was reliving it, traveling through time and space with Smoke and John Jackson.

Colorado Rockies

“How’d you meet up with Preacher?” John asked Smoke.

Following Smoke’s instructions, John was building an oven from stones. They had shot a possum, and Smoke was cleaning it as John worked on the oven.

“My pa and me come west right after the war,” Smoke said. “Then one day this old man just sort of appeared. He was the dirtiest, most stinkingest human being I had ever laid my eyes on. I tell you the truth, John, I just about threw up smelling him.”

“That bad?”

“Whoowee, you don’t have any idea how bad he was. He told us he’d been watching us for about an hour, and that we were crazy for keeping out in the open the way we were. He said we were prime targets for Indians.”

“And what did you think?”

“All I could think about was how bad he stunk and how much I wanted him to go away, or at least get downwind from us.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Smoke said with a grunting chuckle. “It wasn’t fifteen minutes later we were jumped by a bunch of Kiowa. We had to fight them off. And that stinking old man? He killed as many as my pa and I did combined.”

“I guess you didn’t mind having him around so much then, huh?”

“I didn’t mind at all. Here, let’s put this meat in there and let it start cooking.”

They roasted the possum, along with some wild onions and sun roots that Smoke gathered. On top of the oven he set a pan of water to boil, and cooked some cattails.

“Always be on the lookout for cattails,” Smoke explained. “They have more uses than you can shake a stick at. In the summer you can harvest the tender stems. The lower part of it will be white and ready to eat, just as it is. If you eat them raw, they taste a little like cucumber. If you cook them, they taste like asparagus. Later, the green flower heads can be cooked and eaten like corn on the cob. And when the yellow pollen starts up, you can gather it up, mix it with flour. That will not only make your flour last longer, it makes a real tasty bread.

“Then, in the fall you can dig up the roots, mash them in water, and let the mix set for a few hours. What you’ll get when you pour off the water is a gooey mass of starch at the bottom of the container. That will provide you with a thickening base for soups, whether it be squirrel, rabbit, bird, or, if no meat is available, it’s not a bad soup all by itself. Especially if you are in a position where you’re near about to starve. Of course, if you pay attention to what’s around you, you won’t ever actually starve.”

“You talk as if a true mountain man never needs to come into the store for supplies,” John said.

“Well, the truth is, you just about don’t. As long as you’ve a good supply of salt handy, you’ll find that you can make a meal out of almost anything,” Smoke said.

“We’ll see about that,” John replied.

Later, as John chewed the last bit of meat from a bone, then finished up with the boiled cattails, he nodded. “You know, you may be right,” he said. “This is about as tasty as anything I’ve ever eaten. And these things, what did you call them?”

“Sun roots.”

“Damn if they don’t taste just like potatoes.”

“I thought you might like that.”

Over the next three days the rain was hard and cold, and Smoke showed John how to build a shelter under an overhanging rock by draping canvas across the front to keep the rain out. Such meat as they could find they cooked over a fire they made just in front of their shelter, and Smoke continued with his lessons.

“There will come a time when you will want to build yourself a cabin against the weather. One with a fireplace and chimney so you can keep warm on the coldest days. I’ll help you build it.”

“Do you build a new cabin every winter?”

“No, Preacher’s been in his same cabin for more than twenty years now. I reckon we can build one that you’ll be proud to come back to, every winter. But there’s no need in building you one down here. We’ll wait until we get to Montana. That way you can be where you can still trap.”

“What is the value placed on a beaver skin? How much can you get for one?”

“They are called plews,” Smoke said. “And they aren’t worth as much as they once were. It used to be one beaver plew was worth three martens. Now martens are worth more than beaver, so it’s martens you want to go after. You’ll get about three dollars apiece for martens, two dollars for beaver. In a good year, you can trap maybe two hundred marten, and three hundred beaver; you could make as much as twelve hundred dollars.”

“Well, now,” John said with a broad smile. “That certainly makes the endeavor worthwhile.”

“It does, indeed, my friend, it does indeed. I tell you what. If we survive the winter, we’ll go to Rendezvous come spring,” Smoke said.

“If we survive the winter?” John replied with a bit of a start in his voice.

Smoke laughed. “Most likely, we will,” he said.

“What is Rendezvous?”

“They aren’t quite as big now as they were back when Preacher was younger, but they are still fun to go to. They are almost like a county fair. Merchants come from the east to sell supplies, whiskey, books, candy, and such. There’s music, and generally some women around for dancing. There’s shooting contests and knife- and ax-throwing contests. And it’s a place where you can sell all the skins you’ve managed to trap in the past year.”

“Where is it held?”

“A different place every year. I guess we’ll find out from some of the other trappers.”

It was one week later when the two saw their first Indians. There were six of them, all mounted, and painted up.

“I was afraid of that,” Smoke said.

“What?”

“Pawnee. They’ve been following us for the better part of an hour. I thought, or maybe I was just hoping, that they would go on their way. But now they’ve showed themselves to us, I don’t think they have any intention of leaving.”

“Are the Pawnee friendly?”

“Not friendly enough so’s you can count on it,” Smoke said.

“You think they’re going to attack us?”

“Yeah, I think maybe they are. You were in the war, so I reckon you can use that long gun.”

“Yes, I can use it,” John said.

“Problem is, you’ve got a lot of range and hitting power with that Sharps, but you’ve got to reload it after every shot.”

“Then I shall just have to make every shot count, won’t I?” John replied.

The six mounted Indians let out loud war whoops, then, slapping their legs against the sides of their horses, they started galloping toward Smoke and John. Smoke and John stood their ground.

“Now would be a good time to make one of those shots count,” Smoke said, and he no sooner spoke the words, than the big, large-bore Sharps boomed loudly beside him. John rolled back from the recoil of the big rifle, but one Indian was knocked down from his horse, and, even from here, Smoke could see the fountain of blood that gushed forth from the strike of the heavy, .50 caliber bullet.

Smoke had a lever-action Henry and he fired once, jacked a new shell into the chamber, and fired a second time. Within less than five seconds the attacking Indians had seen their number cut from six to three. Now, only three, they realized that they no longer had a substantial numerical advantage. The remaining Indians hauled back on the reins so hard that the horses nearly squatted down on their hindquarters. They turned and started galloping away.

Because the Sharps was a breech-loading weapon, and not a muzzle-loader, John had managed to reload more quickly than Smoke had anticipated. John raised his rifle to his shoulder to take aim.

“No, John, don’t shoot!” Smoke said, reaching out to push the barrel of John’s rifle down before he was able to pull the trigger.

John looked at him in surprise.

“We’ve got them on the run. By not shooting, we are shaming them as they are running from us; we are showing them that we don’t fear them.”

“What if they come back?”

“They won’t come back today.”

Boulderado Hotel, Boulder, Colorado

The university had put Smoke and Sally up in the finest suite in the hotel, or, as the hotel advertised it: “seven hundred square feet of pure luxury.” The suite, consisting of a living room, dining room, and bedroom, was on the corner so that there was an excellent view of the city.

Sally was sitting on a leather sofa in the living room, her legs folded up to her side, reading a Saturday Evening Post magazine when Smoke came in.

“Finished already?” she asked.

“Just for the day,” Smoke said.

“How is it going?”

“It’s going well, I think. He has me talking into a microphone, and my words are being recorded on a record, just like the ones you play on the Victrola, only I’m not singing,” Smoke said with a smile.

“Too bad. I’ve heard you crooning. You have a good voice,” Sally said.

“They played it back for me today, and I heard my voice. You should hear it.”

Sally laughed. “Smoke, I’ve been hearing your voice for a long, long time now.”

“Oh, yes, I guess you have. But I have to tell you that it did sound strange to me. It didn’t sound like me. The professor said it did, and he said the reason it sounded different to me is that we never really hear our own voice as others hear it. We hear by the waves caused by sounds in the air, but at the same time we also pick up the vibration of the bones in our skull.

“That’s why, when I hear myself recorded and played back, it sounds completely different, because all I hear back from the recording is sound coming through the air, minus the skull vibration and bone conduction.”

Sally laughed. “And you understood all that, did you?”

“Yeah,” Smoke said with a crooked grin. “It might sound strange, but it makes perfect sense to me.”

Sally got up from the sofa and kissed Smoke. “I’m proud of you,” she said.

“What are you looking at in the magazine?”

“An ad for a new car.”

“A new car? You don’t like the Duesenberg?”

“No, I love the Duesenberg,” Sally said. “I mean, for your truck.”

“I’m not getting rid of my truck.”

“Listen to this,” Sally said. She cleared her throat, then began reading the ad, as if reciting on stage.

“‘Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lightning and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide, and handsome. It’s a hint of old loves, and saddle and quirt. The truth is, the Jordan Playboy is built for her.’”

“What is that?” Smoke said with a puzzled expression on his face. “‘High, wide, and handsome, hint of old loves, saddle and quirt’? That says nothing about the car.”

“I think the idea is to create a feeling,” Sally said. “I think the words are beautiful. And so is the car. Look at the picture.”

Sally showed Smoke the ad.

“Doesn’t look very practical,” Smoke said. “It only has one seat, and you can’t haul anything in it. I can’t see trading the truck for it.”

“You’re right. Okay, keep the truck. Just buy the car.”

“What if we wanted to go somewhere and take some folks with us? There’s no room in this car.”

“Well, then we would just go in the Duesenberg,” Sally said.

Smoke laughed. “So what you’re saying is we’ll have two cars and a truck?”

“Smoke, don’t tell me we can’t afford it.”

“I’ll tell you what we can afford. We can afford to have something good to eat. How about we order up room service for supper, and use this fancy dining room table?”

“Oh, no,” Sally said. “We don’t get to come to a city that often. You’re taking me out, Kirby Jensen. And not for supper, for dinner.”