Return of the Mountain Man

13

Buck took his time saddling Drifter. He watched the old Flathead, Hunts-Long, ride out. He was conscious of Little Ben looking at him.

“You know Miss Flora, boy?”

“Yes, sir. Down to the Pink House.”

“After I’m gone, you walk down there and tell Miss Sally Reynolds I said to keep her head down. She’ll know what I mean. You got that?”

“Yes, sir. Mister Buck? Sam’s a nice feller. He ain’t no real gunhand. He got backed into it.”

“How’s that, Ben?”

“Story is—I heard some men talkin’—a deputy over in Montana Territory pushed Sam hard one day. Sam tried to get out of it, but the deputy drew on him. Sam was faster. Kilt the man and had to take the hoot-owl trail.” The boy grinned. “Sam’s sweet on Miz Becky.”

“Sam told me he was from Minnesota.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I heard, too. Sam wants to go back to farmin’, way I heared it.”

“A lot of us would like to be doin’ something other than what we’re doin’, Ben. But a man gets his trail stretched out in front of him, sometimes you just got to ride it to trail’s end, whether you like it or not.”

“You be careful, Mister Buck.”

“See you, boy.”

Buck rode out easy. He could feel…something in the air. A feeling of tension, he thought. And he wondered about it. The pot was about to boil over in Bury, and Buck didn’t know what had caused the fire to get too hot. But he knew that sometimes just the slightest little push could turn over a cart—if the contents weren’t stacked right.

A mile out of town, Buck cut off the road and reined up, hidden in the timber. He waited for half an hour. No riders passed him. He rode out of the timber, heading for the creek.

“Buck, this here is Becky,” Sam said. He was trying very hard not to grin, and not being very successful.

Becky’s hair was as red as Sam’s, her tanned face pretty and freckled across the nose. She was a slender lady, but Buck could sense a solid, no-nonsense quiet sort of strength about her. Two red-headed kids stood close by her. A boy and a girl. About four and six, Buck guessed. They grinned shyly up at Buck. He winked at them and they both giggled.

Buck took the lady’s hand and was not surprised to find it hard and callused from years of hard work.

After talking with Becky and the kids for a few moments, Buck took Sam aside. “You stay here with her, Sam. Until I get back from Challis. Don’t be surprised if you spot some old mountain men while I’m gone. I’m going to swing by their camp and tell them I’m just about ready to strike. I’ll tell them about your lady friend here, too. They’ll probably ride by to see if they can get her anything. And they’ll be by. They don’t hold with men who hurt womenfolks.”

“Who are your friends, Buck? These mountain men, I mean?”

Sam stood open-mouthed as Buck reeled off the names of some of the most famous mountain men of all time. Sam finally blinked and said, “Those are some of the meanest old codgers that ever forked a bronc.”

“Yeah,” Buck said with a grin as he swung into the saddle. “Ain’t they?”

He waved good-bye to Becky and the kids and pointed Drifter’s nose south. A mile from Becky’s cabin, Buck turned straight east, toward the new camp of Preacher and his friends. Even Buck, knowing what to expect, drew up short at the sight that soon confronted him.

Greybull and Beartooth were wrestling. Dupre was fiddling a French song while Nighthawk and Tenneysee were dancing. Together. Audie was standing on a stump, reciting pretty poetry to the others.

“I hate to break this up,” Buck said.

“Then don’t!” Preacher said. “Jist sit your cayuse and listen and learn. Go ahead, Audie. Tell us some more about that there Newton.”

“Isaac Newton, you ignorant reprobate! I was merely stating Sir Newton’s theory that to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.”

“Then direct it to him,” Buck said, pointing at Preacher. “’Cause he sure is contrary.”

Audie looked pained while the others laughed. He glowered at Buck. “If I had you in a classroom I’d take a hickory stick to the seat of your pants, young man.”

“I don’t know nothing about Newton,” Buck said, still sitting on Drifter. “But I did like that poetry. Can you say some more of that?”

“But of course, young outlaw called Smoke,” Audie said with a wave of his hand. “Dismount and gather around.”

Dupre had stopped his fiddling, Nighthawk and Tenneysee their dancing, Greybull and Beartooth their wrestling.

“‘I came to the place of my youth’,” Audie said, “‘and cried, The friends of my youth, where are they? And echo answered, Where are they?’”

“That don’t make no damn sense,” Phew said.

“And it don’t even rhyme,” Deadlead growled.

“It doesn’t have to rhyme to be poetry!” Audie said. “I have told you heathens that time and again.”

“Say something that’s purty,” Preacher said.

“Yeah, that fits us’ns,” Powder Pete said.

“What a monumental task you have verbally laid before me,” Audie said. “Very well. Let me think for a moment.”

“And I don’t reckon it has to rhyme,” Matt said.

Audie smiled. He said, “‘And in that town a dog was found. As many dogs there be, both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree. The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man. The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.’” Still smiling, Audie stepped off the stump and walked off, leaving the old mountain men to scratch their heads and ponder what he’d just said.

“Is he callin’ us a bunch of dogs?” Lobo asked.

“I don’t think so,” Preacher said.

Deadlead looked at Nighthawk. “What do you think about it, Nighthawk?”

“Ummm.”

Buck’s ride to Challis was uneventful. He found the man named Gilmore, completed his business, and headed back. When he rode into Bury, past Miss Flora’s Pink House, he noticed the front door was closed, a hand-lettered sign hanging from a string. Closed, the sign read. Smiling, Buck rode to the PSR office and handed the receipt to MacGregor. The Scotsman had a worried look on his now-more-than-ever dour face.

“What’s wrong?” Buck asked.

“New territorial governor was just named. It wasn’t Potter. He’s fit to be tied.”

“You knew it wouldn’t be all along, didn’t you?”

“I had a rather strong suspicion.”

“Now what?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t got enough evidence to bring any of the Big Three to court and make it stick. The Big Three violate a number of moral laws. But they run their own businesses on the up and up—so far as I’ve been able to find out. They have committed murder—either themselves or by hiring it out—but since this town, and all the people in it, belong to the Big Three, no one will talk. But there is a sour, rancid feeling hanging in the air, Buck, Smoke—what is your real name?”

“Kirby.”

MacGregor nodded absently. “I gather those mountain men in the timber are friends of yours?”

“Preacher helped raise me. I know most of the others.” He named them.

MacGregor chuckled. “Old bastards!” he said, with no malice in the profanity. “Did you know Audie is the holder of several degrees?”

“Yes. How did you know about that?”

“Oh, ever since I came out here, fifteen years ago, I have maintained a journal of sorts. I should like to take all those pages and turn them into a book someday. A book about mountain men. I’ve talked with many of them. But my God, they lie so much. I can’t tell what is truth and what is fiction.”

“I’ve discovered that most of what they say is true.”

“Really now, Smoke! A human being cannot successfully fight a grizzly bear and win!”

“Negro Matt fought a mountain lion with his bare hands and killed it. Preacher fought a bear up on the North Milk in Canada and killed it. Jedediah Smith fought a grizzly and killed it—by himself. Bear chewed off one of his ears, though. Shoo Fly Miller had a grizzly bear for a pet. Those old boys are still about half hoss, half alligator.”

“My word!” MacGregor said.

“Stick around, Mac,” Buck said cheerfully. “If you live through what’s coming up shortly, you can write the final chapter to the lives of the mountain men.”

It was going sour, Buck thought, walking from the PSR offices back to his hotel. He could sense it; an almost tangible sensation. The gunhands that were constantly in view were behaving in a surly manner. Cursing more and drinking more openly. Buck noticed a distinct lack of kids playing on the boardwalks and streets. He noticed a couple of loaded-down wagons parked in front of the general store.

Buck stopped in front of a saloon and asked the scar-faced Joiner, “What’s going on?”

“Two schoolteachers and their families pullin’ out. Didn’t like the way Miz Sally was treated. The boss is some sore, let me tell you.”

Buck smiled.

Joiner looked sourly at him. “You find something funny about that, West?”

“Just that a man can’t push some women, is all.”

Joiner grunted. It was obvious to Buck that he was looking for a fight. And Buck wasn’t.

When Joiner saw that Buck wasn’t going to fight, he said, “There can’t be much sand to your bottom, boy.”

Buck met him eye to eye. “If you want to get a shovel and start digging for that sand, Joiner, feel free to do so. But I’d suggest you make one stopover first for a little digging.”

“Oh? And where’s that?”

“Boot Hill.” Buck turned and walked on up the street. As he turned, his right side blocked to Joiner’s view, Buck slipped the hammer thong off his .44.

He could feel Joiner’s eyes boring into his back as he walked.

“Buck West!” Joiner shouted. “Turn and fight, you tinhorn!”

Buck heard Joiner’s hand as his palm struck the wooden grips of his pistol.

Turning, Buck drew, cocked, and fired, all in one fluid motion. Joiner’s pistol clattered to the wooden boardwalk as the .44 slug from Buck’s gun hit him squarely in the center of the chest. Joiner staggered backward, grabbed at a wooden chair for support, missed the arm of the chair, and sat down heavily on the boardwalk, one hand supporting himself, holding himself up, the other hand covering the hole in his chest.

“You bassard!” Joiner hissed at Buck.

“You pushed me, Joiner,” Buck reminded the man.

Joiner groaned and let himself slump to the boards.

Burton ran out of the apothecary shop, crossed the street, and knelt by the dying Joiner. When he looked up at Buck, his face was flushed with hate. “If you’re so damned good with a gun, why didn’t you just shoot the gun out of his hand? You didn’t have to kill him.”

“I ain’t dead!” Joiner protested weakly.

“You ain’t far from it,” Burton told him.

“Get me a preacher!” Joiner said.

“He’d probably do you more good than a doctor,” Burton agreed.

Buck punched out the spent brass and slid a live round into the chamber. He dropped the empty brass to the dirt of the street just as the sounds of a carriage approaching rattled through the air. The carriage whoaed up beside the blood-slicked boardwalk and the tall gunhand standing impassively over the dying Joiner.

“Oh, my word!” the woman seated in the carriage said.

“Help me, Miz Janey!” Joiner cried.

A group of Cornish miners, in town from their work at a nearby silver mine, gathered around, beer mugs in callused hands.

“The bloke’s nearly done,” one immigrant from Cornwall observed. “Shall we sing him a fare-thee-well, mates?”

“Aye. Let’s.”

A half-dozen voices were raised in song, drunkenly offering up a hymn.

A jig dancer from the hurly-gurly in front of which Joiner lay dying stepped out. “Can I have your pockets, love?” she asked Joiner.

“Get away with you!” Reverend Necker said, running up. “You filthy whore!”

“Careful, Bible-thumper,” the jig dancer said. “Or I’ll tell everybody where you was the other evenin’.”

Necker flushed and bent down over the dying Joiner.

“He kilt me!” Joiner said, pointing a trembling finger at Buck.

“Damn sure did,” Necker said.

Buck raised his eyes to look squarely at the woman seated in the fancy carriage.

Janey met the tall young man’s direct stare.

The elegantly dressed woman flushed as Buck’s eyes stared directly at her.

“Save me, Preacher!” Joiner groaned. “I don’t wanna go to Hell. I got a family to take care of.”

“Where are they, son?” Necker asked. He looked at the blood on his hands. Joiner’s blood. “Yukk!” Necker said.

“Damned if I know,” Joiner said. Then he closed his eyes and did the world the greatest favor men of his ilk could do. He died.

Janey stared at Buck. Her eyes widened as Buck smiled. She watched as Buck turned and walked away.

It couldn’t be! she thought. That was impossible. Kirby was back in Missouri, probably working that damned hardscrabble farm.

But she knew the man who had killed Joiner. She knew him. It was her brother.