them mean as snakes. I think they get together once a year and bathe.”
“But you said you soldiered with some mountain men.”
“Did. But they got out in time. ’Fore the high lonesome got to them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They stay up in the high country for years. Don’t do nothin’ but trap and such. Maybe they won’t see a white man once ever’ two years — except maybe another mountain man. Sometimes when they do meet, they don’t speak. All they’ve got is their hosses and guns and the whistlin’ wind and the silence of the mountains. They’re alone. It does something to them. They get notional … funny-actin’.”
“You mean they go crazy?”
“In a way, I’m thinkin’. I don’t know much about them — nobody does, I reckon. But I think maybe they didn’t much like people to begin with. They crave the lonesomeness of space. The mountain men I was with, now, they were some different. They told me ’bout that old man’s kind. They’re brave men, son, don’t never doubt that — probably the bravest men in the world. Got to be to live like they do. And what they’ve done will …” He thought for a moment. “… con
“That’s a real pretty speech, Pa.”
Emmett reddened around the neck.
“What’s con
“Means they done good.”
Kirby looked behind them. “Pa?”
“Son.”
“That old man is following us, and he’s shucked his rifle out of his boot.”
Two
Preacher galloped up to the pair, his rifle in his hand. “Don’t get nervous,” he told them. “It ain’t me you got to fear. We fixin’ to get ambushed … shortly. This here country is famous for that.”
“Ambushed by who?” Emmett asked, not trusting the old man.
“Kiowa, I think. But they could be Pawnee. My eyes ain’t as sharp as they used to be. I seen one of ’em stick a head up out of a wash over yonder, while I was jawin’ with you. He’s young, or he wouldn’t have done that. But that don’t mean the others with him is young.”
“How many?”
“Don’t know. In this country, one’s too many. Do know this: We better light a shuck out of here. If memory serves me correct, right over yonder, over that ridge, they’s a little crick behind a stand of cottonwoods, old buffalo wallow in front of it.” He looked up, stood up in his stirrups, and cocked his shaggy head. “Here they come, boys … rake them cayuses!”
Before Kirby could ask what a cayuse was, or what good a rake was in an Indian attack, the old man had slapped his bay on the rump and they were galloping off. With the mountain man taking the lead, the three of them rode for the crest of the ridge. The pack horses seemed to sense the urgency, for they followed with no pullback on the ropes. Cresting the ridge, the riders slid down the incline and galloped into the timber, down into the wallow, the whoops and cries of the Indians close behind them.
The Preacher might well have been past his so-called good years, but the mountain man had leaped off his spotted pony, rifle in hand, and was in position and firing before Emmett or Kirby had dismounted. Preacher, like Emmett, carried a Sharps .52, firing a paper cartridge, deadly up to seven hundred yards, or more.
Kirby looked up in time to see a brave fly off his pony, a crimson slash on his naked chest. The Indian hit the ground and did not move.
“Get me that Spencer out of the pack, boy,” Kirby’s father yelled.
“The what?” Kirby had no idea what a Spencer might be.
“The rifle. It’s in the pack. A tin box wrapped up with it. Bring both of ’em. Cut the ropes, boy.”
Slashing the ropes with his long-bladed knife, Kirby grabbed the long, canvas-wrapped rifle and the tin box. He ran to his father’s side. He stood and watched as his father got a buck in the sights of his Sharps, led him on his fast-running pony, then fired. The buck slammed off his pony, bounced off the ground, then leaped to his feet, one arm hanging bloody and broken. The Indian dodged for cover. He didn’t make it. Preacher shot him in the side and lifted him off his feet, dropping him dead.
Emmett laid the Sharps aside and hurriedly unwrapped the canvas, exposing an ugly weapon, with a potbellied, slab-sided receiver. Emmett glanced up at Preacher, who was grinning at him.
“What the hell are you grinnin’ about, man?”
“Just wanted to see what you had all wrapped up, partner. Figured I had you beat with what’s in my pack.”
“We’ll see,” Emmett muttered. He pulled out a thin tube from the tin box and inserted it in the butt plate, chambering a round. In the tin box were a dozen or more tubes, each containing seven rounds, .52 caliber. Emmett leveled the rifle, sighted it, and fired all seven rounds in a thunderous barrage of black smoke. The Indians whooped and yelled. Emmett’s firing had not dropped a single brave, but the Indians scattered for cover, disappearing, horses and all, behind a ridge.
“Scared ’em,” Preacher opined. “They ain’t used to repeaters; all they know is single shots. Let me get something outta my pack. I’ll show you a thing or two.”
Preacher went to one of his pack animals, untied one of the side packs and let it fall to the ground. He pulled out the most beautiful rifle Kirby had ever seen.
“Damn!” Emmett softly swore. “The blue-bellies had some of those toward the end of the war. But I never could get my hands on one.”
