Battle of the Mountain Man

Del stopped a few feet away from the cabin. “You might be well advised to warn your woman I ain’t had no bath fer a spell. She won’t wanna stand downwind from me. If she’ll offer me some of them bearclaws, I’ll eat ’em out here.”

Smoke laughed heartily. “Sally’s used to the smell of a man who’s been away from bathwater. C’mon inside. From what my nose just picked up now, I don’t figure a skunk could get noticed over what that melted brown sugar smells like.” He went to the door and pulled the latchstring.

Sally turned away from the crude, hand-hewn plank table Puma had built for his Ute bride years ago. “I see we’ve got company,” she said. “It’s good to see you, Del. You’re just in time to try one of my little brown sugar pies. Smoke calls them bearclaws because of the way I shape them.”

“I’d be plumb delighted,” Del replied, showing off his gums before he leaned his rifle against the wall near the door. “I do git a real strong hankerin’ fer sornethin’ sweet now an’ then.”

Smoke rested his Winchester on its pegs. For the rest of the day and most of the night, he’d be listening to Del’s stories about recent happenings in the mountains. Some of them would evoke old feelings, good feelings, about the years he’d spent up here with Preacher. “How about some coffee?” he asked Sally, to get his mind off the story Del had just told him about finding that footprint at Willow Creek Pass.Twelve

Ned Buntline was sure he was dying, slowly freezing to death sitting at the base of a rock ledge surrounded by snow and wind, unable to build a fire without the matches in his packs after his mule bolted away, breaking its tether rope for no apparent reason as though something had frightened it, perhaps a bear or a cougar Ned hadn’t seen or expected to see at these high altitudes. The mule had trotted downslope, and now he was afoot, freezing, without any food or water, or a gun. Or those all-important matches he must have to get a fire going before he died of exposure. Shivering inside his checkered mackinaw, he knew he was only hours away from death. He’d gotten lost looking for Willow Creek, for his map showed nothing, no details of this region, only blank paper and the notation, Unexplored, Yet for days he’d felt he was close to the place Huggie Charles had described, even though the man had been half drunk at the time. Following the timberline west, he’d come to the rocky gorge Charles had mentioned, but somehow, after crossing it just as the snowstorm was letting up, the creek and high mountain pass were nowhere in sight. He’d tied his mule for a climb above the timberline to have a better view of what lay below. And that’s when the mule had broken free. Ned had been following its tracks in the snow for hours, until his legs and lungs played out. The air up here was almost too thin to breathe, and the bitter cold only worsened his plight. Now, as the sun lowered behind towering peaks to the west, temperatures would plunge, and he would be lucky to survive the night without a fire to warm him.

He wondered now if it had been worth it, to try to find the legendary mountain man known only as Preacher. Looking was about to cost him his life, unless he found his mule. “Damn the luck,” he stammered, teeth chattering, forcing himself to rise slowly on unsteady legs. Tracking the mule was his only hope.

Ned stumbled away from the ledge, feeling strangely sleepy, having trouble keeping his eyelids open. Staggering, almost falling in places, he made his way downslope, following hoofprints left by the mule. Lengthening shadows fell away from smaller pine trees below him, only the damn mule’s tracks kept moving in the wrong direction, sometimes higher, continually westward, as if the dumb beast could have known its destination. Ned’s feet were frozen numb, without any feeling, his boots and socks insufficient to warm them in a foot or more of snow.

Half an hour later, when Ned was certain he could go no further, the tracks suddenly turned down the mountain toward a snow-mantled line of much taller pines that seemed to wind back and forth aimlessly, winding around switchbacks, headed down to lower altitudes. Slowed to a snail’s pace, truly staggering to keep his balance while maintaining some forward progress, he floundered toward the closest trees, gasping for breath.

Skies darkened as he entered the pines, however he could see a small trickle of partially frozen water, a stream coming from a spring hidden in a jumble of rocks. And there were the mule’s prints, following the creek downhill.

For a moment, Ned allowed himself to hope, summoning all the strength he had. His mule could be around the next bend in the stream. Dreaming of a steaming cup of Arbuckles, flames to warm his hands, face, and frozen toes, he placed one foot in front of the other, now and then pausing long enough to use a pine trunk for support and to catch his breath.

Making his way down, wind whispered among snow-laden pine boughs, occasionally brushing a dusting of snow to the ground, Ned came to a sharp bend in the tiny trickle and pulled up short when he glimpsed a flickering light.

“A fire,” he wheezed. He hadn’t seen a living soul for days and couldn’t fathom who could be up here. Would it be friend or foe? He had no gun, having hung his pistol belt around his saddle horn for his climb this morning.

“I have no choice,” he said a moment later, taking short steps toward the distant flames. Whoever it was with a fire in this cold was about to have company… he would die anyway from these temperatures unless he warmed himself.

Getting closer, he saw his mule tied to a tree. Afire in a circle of stones near the creek bank revealed nothing else at the moment. A huge boulder covered with a mound of snow sat beyond the dancing flames, but as he drew closer he became puzzled by the white shape atop the giant rock… It was too large and too irregular to be snow.

“I’m a friend!” he cried with all the voice he could muster in the thin air, even though he saw no one near the fire. “That’s my mule! If you have a gun, please don’t shoot me! I’m unarmedl”

No one answered his call. Had someone simply found his mule and built a fire for him before continuing on to their destination? It seemed unlikely. He struggled faster, eyes fastened on the strange white shape on top of the boulder, until at last he could see what it was when he was only twenty or thirty yards from the flames.

A figure in a white furry robe was perched on the rock, a hood made from the same material covering his head and any detail of his face. A long rifle lay across the man’s lap. Ned was too cold and exhausted to care who it was just then, merely hoping the oddly dressed stranger wasn’t planning to shoot him.

His knees wobbled the last few steps until he stood at the edge of the firepit. He looked closely at the dark hole in the hood where a face would have been revealed in better light.

“Who are you?” Ned asked, teeth rattling so loudly he was almost unable to hear his own voice, pulling off his gloves to warm his hands above the flickering flames, “I’ve never seen a robe that color. It looks like buffalo fur. Was the buffalo a rare albino?”

“You sure as hell ask a bunch of questions for a man who’s damn near froze solid,” a deep voice replied. “Any fool can see a man like you don’t belong up here. Get warm. Boil some coffee if you’ve a mind to, then get on that mule an’ clear out of here without askin’ no more stupid questions.”