Return of the Mountain Man

2

Buck was being followed. He had yet to catch a glimpse of his pursuers, but he knew someone was tracking him; knew it by that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades. Twice in as many days he had stopped and spent several hours checking his backtrail. But to no avail. Whoever or whatever it was coming along behind him was laying way back, several miles at least. And they were very good at tracking. They would have to be, for Buck not to have spotted them, and Preacher had taught the young man well.

Puzzled, Buck rode on, pushing himself and his horses, skirting the fast growing towns in the eastern part of the state, staying to the north of them. Because of the man, or men, tracking him, Buck changed his plans and direction. He rode seemingly aimlessly, first heading straight north, then cutting south into the Bridger Wilderness. He crossed into Idaho Territory and made camp on the north end of Grays Lake. He was running very low on supplies, but living off the land was second nature to Buck, and doing without was merely a part of staying alive in a yet wild and untamed land.

The person or persons following him stayed back, seemingly content to have the young man in sight, electing not to make an appearance—yet.

Midafternoon of his second day at Grays Lake, Buck watched Drifter’s ears prick up, the eyes growing cautious as the stallion lifted his head.

Buck knew company was coming.

A voice helloed the camp.

“If you’re friendly, come on in,” Buck called. “If you want trouble, I’ll give you all you can handle.”

Buck knew the grizzled old man slowly riding toward his small fire, but could not immediately put a name to him. The man—anywhere between sixty-five and a hundred and five—dismounted and helped himself to coffee and pan bread and venison. He ate slowly, his eyes appraising Buck without expression. Finally, he belched politely and wiped his hands on greasy buckskins. He poured another cup of coffee and settled back on the ground.

“Don’t talk none yet,” the old man said. “Jist listen. You be the pup Preacher taken under his wing some years back. Knowed it was you. Ante’s been upped some on your head, boy. Nearabouts thirty thousand dollars on you, now. You must have a hundred men after you. Hard men, boy. Most of ’em. You good, boy, but you ain’t that good. Sooner ’er later, you’ll slip up, git tared, have to rest, then they’ll git you.” He paused to gnaw on another piece of pan bread.

“The point of all this is…?” Buck said.

“Tole you to hush up and listen. Jawin’ makes me hungry. ’Mong other things. Makes my mouth hurt too. You got anything to ease the pain?”

“Pint in that pack right over there.” Buck jerked his head.

The old mountain man took two huge swallows of the rye, coughed, and returned to the fire. “Gawddamn farmers and such run us old boys toward the west. Trappin’s fair, but they ain’t no market to speak of. Ten of us got us a camp just south of Castle Peak, in the Sawtooth. Gittin’ plumb borin’. We figured on headin’ north in about a week.” He lifted his old eyes. “Up toward Bury. We gonna take our time. Ain’t no point in gettin’ in no lather.” He got to his feet and walked toward his horses. “Might see you up there, boy. Thanks for the grub.”

“What are you called?” Buck asked.

“Tenneysee,” the old man said without looking back. He mounted up and slowly rode back in the direction he’d come.

“You’re not any better lookin’ than the last time I saw you!” Buck called to the old man’s back, grinning as he spoke.

“Ain’t supposed to be,” Tenneysee called. “Now git et and git gone. You got trouble on your backtrail.”

“Yeah, I know!” Buck shouted.

“Worser’n Preacher!” Tenneysee called. “Cain’t tell neither of you nuttin’!”

Then he was gone into the timber.

Fifteen minutes later, Buck had saddled Drifter, cinched down the packs on his pack animal, and was gone, riding northwest.

He wondered how many men were trailing him. And how good they were.

He figured he would soon find out.

Staying below the crest of a hill, Buck ground-reined Drifter and scanned his backtrail. It was then he caught the first glimpse of those following him. Four riders, riding easy and seemingly confident. He removed a brass spyglass from his saddlebags and pulled it fully extended, sighting the riders in. He did not recognize any of them, but could see they were all heavily armed. Hardcases, every one of them.

Buck looked back over his shoulder, toward the west. He smiled at the sight. Blackfeet. And the way they were traveling, the gunhands and the warlike Blackfeet would soon come face to face.

The Blackfeet had not always hated the white man. Long before the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Blackfeet had been in contact with the French-Canadian trappers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. For the most part, they had gotten along. But in 1806, when the Lewis and Clark expedition split up, Clark turning southward to explore the Yellowstone River, Lewis taking the Blackfoot Branch as the best route to the Missouri, Lewis had encountered a band of Blackfeet. No one knows who started the fight, or why, and the journals of Lewis don’t say, but the battle had a long-lasting effect. Since the Blackfeet were the most powerful and warlike tribe in the Northwest, their hatred following the battle closed both rivers to American travel.

Buck was puzzled why so many Blackfeet were in this part of the Territory, somewhat off their beaten path. He concluded, after looking them over through his spyglass, that they were a war party, and had been quite successful, judging from the scalps on their rifles and coup sticks and wound into their horses’ manes.

Buck smiled as the Blackfeet spotted the white men first. Within seconds, the Blackfeet had vanished, the war party splitting up, lying in silent wait to spring the deadly ambush.

Buck didn’t wait around for the fun. He quickly mounted up and took off in the other direction. Blackfeet had a reputation for being downright testy at times.

And from the north, a pair of old eyes watched as Buck rode out. The eyes followed the young man until he was out of sight.

Buck heard the shots from the short battle as he continued to put more distance between himself and the Blackfeet. The old man waited almost an hour before leaving his hiding place. Leading a pack animal, he slowly rode after Buck. He was in no hurry, for he knew where Buck was going and what he was going to do. He just wanted to be there to help the young man out.

1874 in most of Idaho Territory was no place for the faint-hearted, the lazy, the coward, or the shirker. 1874 Idaho Territory was pure frontier, as wild and woolly as the individual wanted to make it. It would be three more long, bloody, and heartbreaking years for the Nez Percé Indians before Chief Joseph would lead his demoralized tribe on the thirteen-hundred mile retreat to Canada. There, the chief would utter, “I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

But in 1874, the Indians were still fighting all over Idaho Territory, including the Bannocks and Shoshones. It was a time for wary watchfulness.

It had been fourteen years since an expedition led by Captain Elias D. Pierce of California had discovered gold on Orofino Creek, a tributary of the Clearwater River. It wasn’t much gold, but it was gold. Thousands had heard the cry and the tug of easy riches, and thousands had come. They had poured into the state, expecting to find nuggets lying everywhere. Many had never been heard from again. As Buck rode through the southern part of the state, heading for the black and barren lava fields called the Craters of the Moon, even here he was able to see the mute heartbreak of the gold-seekers: the mining equipment lying abandoned and rusting, the dredges in dry creek beds. Now, in early summer, a time when the creeks and rivers were starting to recede, Buck spotted along the banks a miner’s boot, a pan. He wondered what stories they could tell.

He rode on, always checking his backtrail. He had a vague uneasy feeling that he was still being followed. But he could never spot his follower. And that was cause for alarm, for Buck, even though still a young man, was an expert in surviving in the wilderness.

He skirted south of the still-unnamed village of Idaho Falls, a place one man claimed “openly wore the worst side out.”

Buck rode slowly but steadily, coming up on the south side of the Big Lost, north of the Craters of the Moon. He stopped at a trading post at what would someday become a resort town called Arco. Inside the dark, dirty place, filled with skins and the smell of rotgut whiskey, Buck bought bacon and beans and coffee from a scar-faced clerk. The clerk smelled as bad as his store.

Buck’s eyes flicked over several wanted posters tacked to the wall. There he was.

“Last one of them I seen had ten thousand dollars reward on it,” he said, to no one in particular. He noticed several men at a corner table ceased their card playing.

“Ante’s been upped,” the clerk/bartender said with a grunt.

“Man could do a lot with thirty thousand dollars,” Buck said. He walked to the bar and ordered whiskey. He didn’t really care for the stuff but he wanted information, and bartenders seldom talked to a non-drinking loafer. “The good stuff,” he told the bartender. The man replaced one bottle and reached under the counter for another bottle.

He grinned, exposing blackened stubs of teeth. “This one ain’t got no snake heads in it.”

Buck lifted the glass. Smelled like bear piss. Keeping his expression noncommittal, he sipped the whiskey. Tasted even worse.

“Have any trouble coming from the east?” the bartender asked.

“How’d you know I come from the east?”

“That’s the way you rode in.”

“Seen some Blackfeet two-three days ago. But they didn’t see me. I didn’t hang around long.”

“Smart.”

“You see four men, riding together?” the voice came from behind Buck, from the card table.

“Yeah. And so did the Blackfeet.”

“Crap! You reckon the Injuns got ’em?”

“I reckon so. I didn’t hang around to see.”

“You mean you jist rode off without lendin’ a hand?”

“One more wouldn’t have made any difference,” Buck said quietly, knowing what was coming.

“Then I reckon that makes you a coward, don’t it?” the cardplayer said, standing up.

Buck slowly placed the shot glass of bear piss back on the rough bar. He eyeballed the man. Two guns worn low and tied down. The leather hammer thongs off. “Either that or careful.”

“You know what I think, Slick? I think it makes you yellow.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” Buck said. “I think you don’t know your bunghole from your mouth.”

The man flushed in the dim light of the trading post. His dirty hands hovered over his guns. “I think I’ll jist kill you for that.”

“Bet or fold,” Buck said.

The man’s hands dipped down. Buck’s right-hand .44 roared. The gunhand was dead before he hit the floor, the slug taking him in the center of the chest, exploding his heart.

“I never even seen the draw,” the bartender said, his voice hushed and awe-filled.

“Any of you other boys want to ante up in this game?” Buck asked.

None did.

The dead man broke wind as escaping gas left his cooling body.

“He were my partner,” a man still seated at the table said. “But he were in the wrong this time. I lay claim to his pockets.”

“Suits me,” Buck said. No one had even seen him holster his .44. “He have a name?”

“Big Jack. From up Montana way. Never spoke no last name. Who you be?”

“Buck West. I been trackin’ that damned Smoke Jensen for the better part of six months.”

Big Jack’s partner visibly relaxed. “Us, too. I would ask if you wanted some company, but you look like you ride alone.”

“That’s right.”

“Name’s Jerry. This here’s Carl and Paul. Don’t reckon you’d give us a hand diggin’ the hole for Jack?”

“I don’t reckon so.”

“Cain’t much blame you.”

“Bury him out back,” the bartender said. “Deep. If he smells any worser dead than alive I’ll have to move my place of business.”