“… 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.”
“What do you mean?”
Preacher cocked an eye at him. “Girls, boy. You know.”
Kirby shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t know nothin’ about girls.”
Preacher paled.
“I figured you’d tell me about females.”
“Lord Gawd!”
“You mean I have to ask
“Don’t blaspheme, young man,” Preacher said sternly. “Come a time — and this ain’t the time,” he was quick to add, “you’ll learn all there is for a man to know ’bout females.” He grimaced. “And a bunch you don’t want to know. Most aggravatin’ creatures God ever put on this here earth. Can’t live with ’em, can’t do without ’em.”
“That’s what my father used to say. But he’d always grin at Ma when he said it.”
“He better grin,” Preacher replied.
Kirby read for a time while Preacher slept by the fire. When Preacher awoke, Kirby asked, “What do we do when spring does get here?” His thoughts were suddenly flung far, to his father, wondering where he was, if he was still alive.
“I start learnin’ you good. And you start bein’ a man.”
“I wonder where my Pa is?”
“He’s either on the way to doin’ what he set out to do; he’s already done ’er, or he’s doin’ it.”
“Or he’s dead,” Kirby added.
“Mayhaps,” Preacher’s words were soft. “We all get to see the elephant someday.”
“I don’t know the whole story, Preacher. Pa said you’d tell me when it was time. I reckon it ain’t time just yet.”
“That’s so, Smoke.”
“All right. But I’ll tell you this, Preacher: If those men he went after killed him, I’ll track them down, one by one, and I’ll kill them. And anyone who gets in my way.” His words did not come from the lips of a boy; but a man grown in many ways.
Preacher had a sudden flash of precognition, the foreseeing coming hard, chilling the old mountain man.
“Yep,” he said. “I reckon you will, Smoke.”
The warm winds once again blew, and this time they were the real advance guard of spring. First to show their appreciation of the cycle of renewal were the peonies, bursting forth in a cacophony of color. The columbine, which would one day be the official flower of the yet-to-be-admitted state of Colorado, cast forth its contribution to spring, in colors of blue and lavender and purple and white. The valleys and foothills, the plains and mountains exploded in a holiday of technicolor.
And on that day, Preacher packed his gear and told his young friend to do the same. “Walls closin’ in. Time to get movin’. Time for you to start learnin’.”
With their Henry repeating rifles across their saddles, the pair rode out, heading northeast from the North Fork, into the timber and the mountains. Still, one hour each day, the boy called Smoke practiced with his deadly Colts, perfecting what some would later write was not only the first fast draw, but the fastest draw.
Those few who would get to know the man called Smoke would say he was even faster than the legendary Texas gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin; possessing more cold nerve than Wild Bill; meaner than Curly Bill; and as much a hand with the ladies as Sundance. But for now, Kirby was learning, and the mountain man taught him well.
Still spry as a cat and tougher than wang-leather, Preacher taught Kirby fistfighting and boxing and Indian wrestling. But more importantly, he taught him to win in a fight — and taught him that it didn’t make a damn how you won. Just win. He taught him to kick, gouge, throw, and bite.
“Long as you right, Smoke, it don’t make no difference how you win. Just be sure you in the
