The First Mountain Man (26 page)

Jim looked around him at the rapidly quieting camp. “Folks back East just ain't got good sense.”

Preacher glanced at him. “Took you this long to figure that out?”

11

When they had run the long dry miles and finally came to Burnt River, Preacher told them to rest and water up. Nighthawk had already switched his saddle to another pony and was ready to pull out for the Powder, to see what he could learn.

“You be careful, Hawk,” Preacher told him. “That's a mean, nasty bunch up yonder.”

“And also very sure of themselves,” the Crow said. “Red Hand is an arrogant fool, and Bum Kelley is worse. I will be back in two days.” Preacher nodded his head and stepped back, watching him leave.

“We got trouble,” Dupre said quietly, appearing at Preacher's elbow. “One of the movers is about to go mad, I'm thinkin'.”

Preacher was not surprised, and he had a pretty good idea who it was. A very soft-spoken and timid little man from New Hampshire. His wife was timid and their kids were timid. Never heard a peep out of any of them. Preacher had been watching the man as the deep wilderness closed around them. Day by day, he talked more to himself in a mumbling sort of way. He wandered the camp after dark, twisting his hands and rubbing his arms nervously.

“Winston?”

“That's him. Swift is over there talking to him now. The Big Empty got to him, I reckon.”

“Let's go have a look.”

The man's eyes were wild looking. His hands were shaking and his face was pale as a fresh-washed and sunshine-dried sheet. He also had a pistol shoved down his belt.

“Winston!” Swift said. “Where is your family, man? Talk to me.”

“What about his family?” Preacher whispered.

“They's missin'. All of them.”

Swift looked around. His eyes were not friendly. He still hadn't gotten over Preacher's insistence they move on so quickly after the Ellsworth baby's death. “No one's seen them since this morning. Winston was late getting started. The stock drovers said he didn't catch up with them until we'd been on the trail more than an hour.”

“Watch that pistol of his,” Preacher said to Dupre. He walked around to the rear of the wagon and looked inside. It was the awfulest mess he'd ever seen. Looked like a pack of Injuns had gone berserk. He picked up a shirt that caught his eye. It was covered with blood. “Damn!” he whispered.

Carrying the shirt, he walked around to the front of the wagon and opened the lid to the jockey box and looked in. A small hatchet was on top of the various tools. The axe head was bloody, with several strands of hair stuck to the edge. Preacher held the axe to the light. The hair was of different colors.

“Take his pistol, Dupre,” Preacher called.

The mountain man reached down quickly and jerked the pistol from Winston's belt. Winston offered no resistance. “What'd you find, Preacher?”

Preacher walked around the wagon and held up the bloodstained shirt and the bloody axe. “This.”

Winston screamed and jumped up. Swift popped him a good lick that put the crazed man on the ground, stunned but not out. “The voices told me to do it. They've been talkin' to me for days and days now. I could resist them no longer. I had to do it, I say, I had to.”

“Where'd you do them in, man?” Swift asked.

“Back at last night's camp. After the train pulled out this morning.”

Preacher turned to Trapper Jim. “Saddle us some horses. And rig up three pack horses. We'll bring the bodies back when, or if, we find them. It'll be long dark 'fore we get there, but it's got to be done. Dupre, you ride with me.”

The mood of the settlers very quickly grew dark, and some men were talking about a rope and the nearest tree limb.

“Chain Winston to a wagon wheel,” Preacher told Swift. “We'll be back sometime tomorrow.”

The mountain men rode easily back down the trail. There was no need to hurry, the victims weren't going anywhere. Neither man was all that anxious to find the bodies of the woman and her two daughters, for they were both pretty sure that by now the varmits had been at the bodies. It had been a horrible and shocking event, but not so appalling to the mountain men. They had seen it all before, more than once. The loneliness of the wilderness was something that not everyone could endure. The vastness of it all and the silence worked on some people. The savage land, void of accustomed amenities, had driven many people mad. They had all known trappers who had gone berserk and killed friends while they slept. This was not a land for the weak-hearted; no place for those who could not live without newspapers and comfortable chairs and lamplight and walls.

The mountain men, leading the pack horses, rode through the twilight and into the night, finally reaching the site of the previous night's campgrounds.

The vultures and the varmits had been at work all that day, but enough was left for identification. While Dupre kept the carrion eaters away with firebrands, Preacher rolled the torn and partly eaten bodies into canvas and lashed them onto the nervous and skittish pack horses. They rode back up the trail for a few miles before making camp for the night.

They hung the canvas-wrapped bodies from limbs to keep the varmits from them and made camp away from the now odious carcasses. They were back at the wagon train by noon of the following day.

Winston was bug-eyed and slobbering. He had soiled himself and was a pitiful sight chained to a wagon wheel. During the night he had gone completely around the bend and had been reduced to a babbling idiot, or so it appeared.

Avery's father had built him a noose and was talking hanging.

“You can't hang no madman,” Preacher told him. “He ain't responsible for what he done.”

“We do what you tell us to do when it involves the trail,” Swift told Preacher. “But I set the law of the train.”

Preacher could not argue the words. That was the rule of any wagon train. He walked away and joined his friends, sitting on the ground away from the still-circled wagons. Beartooth handed him a cup of coffee.

“Dispatched each one with a blow to the head,” Dupre said. “I reckon them poor little girls only had a few moments of fright. But we'll never know.”

“Did he abuse them?” Jim asked.

“Hard to tell,” Preacher said. “They was all some et on. I'd rather think he didn't.”

“Them pilgrims has been workin' theyselves up into a frenzy,” Beartooth said. “I think they're gonna hang him.”

“T'ain't up to us to interfere,” Preacher replied. “If it was up to me, I'll turn him loose. Injuns won't bother him. He'd survive for a time. But on the other hand, he might get his hands on another axe, or a club or rock, and do in somebody else who's comin' up behind us. Personal, I'm just glad the decision ain't up to me.”

“There ain't nobody been doin' much sleepin' 'ceptin' the kids,” Jim said. “They been palaverin' all night, all broke up into little groups.” He glanced over toward the wagons. “Here we go, boys. Looks like they fixin' to take them a vote now.”

“They'll be more than one,” Preacher opined.

The mountain men drank their coffee and waited by the fire. Their opinions were not asked. The settlers argued and shouted and fussed and talked for the better part of an hour. A dozen times men and women alike left the group to walk over to the bodies and throw back the canvas, looking at the bodies of the woman and two girls.

Finally, Swift walked over to where the mountain men sat, drinking coffee. “We've voted. We've decided to take him with us and turn him over to the proper authorities.”

Preacher shook his head in disgust. “Man, what authorities? There ain't no law out here. We ain't got no in-sane asylums. There ain't no jails. I don't know what the billy-hell you people got in your minds that you're gonna find when we reach Fort Vancouver. But it ain't no town like y'all think of. Either hang the poor wretch or turn him loose. Injuns won't bother a crazy person. They stay shut of them. Hell, they might even adopt him and look after him. You can't tell about Injuns. But they ain't gonna harm him, and that's a fact. You want to take him with you, fine. But he's your responsibility, now and forever. The chief factor at the post ain't gonna take him off your hands. He ain't got no way of takin' care of the poor bastard. He don't
wanna
take care of him and he ain't
gonna
take care of him. Winston is your responsibility. He ain't ourn. He's yourn.”

Swift walked back to the group. Winston was howling like a chained dog.

The mountain men ground some more beans and brewed a fresh pot of coffee and smoked and chewed and waited.

The group argued and shouted and seemed to be unable to reach any decision.

“Oh, Lord,” Dupre said, looking up. “Here he comes again.”

“We're taking him with us,” Swift informed the men. “We've voted and that's the way it's going to be.”

Preacher shrugged. “Suits me. Have fun guardin' him and hand-feedin' him and bathin' him and wipin' him after he shits. 'Cause you folks sure got it to do.”

Preacher walked to his camp under a tree, laid down, and went to sleep.

* * *

Since most of the movers thought it inhuman to chain a maddened person like an animal—even though that was exactly what was happening in the young nation's asylums, and would continue that way until well into the next century—Swift was persuaded to merely bind the man securely with ropes.

Of course, Winston escaped.

Preacher, laying warm in his blankets, as well as Beartooth, Dupre, and Jim, heard the man after he slipped his bonds and made his way out of camp.

“You gonna stop him?” Dupre whispered.

“Not me,” Preacher said, speaking in low tones. “It's a hard thing, and these pilgrims don't wanna accept it, but the man will be better off thisaway. I seen the insides of one of them in-sane asylums one time back in St. Louie. Most pitifulest things I ever did see.”

“Winter'll probably kill him,” Beartooth said.

“But you never know,” Jim spoke up. “Folks like that got some sort of natural survival about 'em. That fool over yonder in the Bitterroot's still there. And he's as silly as a gaggle of geese. Been over there for goin' on fifteen years, I reckon.”

“I clean forgot about that feller,” Dupre said. “But you sure right. Wonder if he still lives in a tree?”

“He was two ... no, three year ago. 'Cause I seen him with my own eyes. He liked to have scared the crap outta me.” Trapper Jim chuckled softly. “I was ridin' along, just a-followin' the St. Joe and en-joyin' the view when all of a sudden this fool comes a-runnin' and a-hollerin' and a-squallin' out of the woods and a-wavin' a stone axe. My good horse damn near bucked me out of the saddle, pack horse tore loose and run off about a half a mile, and I damn near made a mess in my britches. That crazy man was nekkid as the day he was borned and his hair was a-growed down to his waist. Turrible lookin' sight. Don't speak words that make no sense to nobody. Injuns is scared to death of him. I talked to Mark Head last year and he told me he seen Ol' Crazy clear down to the Red Rock one time. Ol' Crazy do get around.”

“Mark ain't got much more sense than Winston,” Preacher said. “That boy takes too much chances.” He chuckled. “I was at the rendezvous, back in '33 or '34 when ol' Bill Williams scolded Mark for cuttin' buffalo meat across the grain.”

“I heard you fit Mark once,” Dupre said.

“We had us a round one time. He told me shortly after he left the Sublette party back in '32, I think it were, that he'd been in the mountains for ten years. I gleaned right off that the boy was a greenhorn and he was storyin' and I told him so. Although not that kindly. He was a good scrapper even then. But I whupped him and then we was friends and still is. If he ain't dead.”

“He ain't,” Beartooth said. “Least he warn't last year. He fit a grizzly over on the Grand River. The grizzly won but Mark he lay still as a log and ol' griz figured he was dead and wandered off. Them two or three others that was with him thought shore he was gonna die. But he didn't.”

“The boy's too brash for my tastes,” Preacher said. “I don't care to ride with him. Brave is one thing, reckless is another story. He'll come to no good end, you mind my words.”
¹

“Reckon when some sentry is gonna look into the wagon and see that Winston's done slipped away?” Dupre questioned softly.

No sooner had the words left his mouth when a shout shattered the quiet night. “Winston's gone! He's slipped his ropes and fled. See to your women and children. The madman is among us.”

“Oh, hell!” Preacher said, throwing off his blankets. “Somebody's sure to get shot if we don't sing out.”

“He's gone!” Beartooth hollered. “So y'all just calm down.”

Swift ran over, looking rather foolish wearing his long handles and nothing else. “You saw him leave?”

“Sure,” Preacher said. “I'd say it was a good hour ago. He had enough sense to take a pack and a poke with him. So he ain't as crazy as you might think.”

“Why didn't you stop him?”

“'Cause we're better off without him, that's why. Now go away and let me sleep.”

Swift sputtered and stuttered, so angry he could not speak. He finally stalked away into the night, yelling for a search party to be formed.

“Some of them is gonna get lost sure as we're layin' here,” Jim said.

“You wanna volunteer to lead 'em out there in the night?” Preacher asked.

“Nope.”

“Then shut up and go to sleep.”