CHAPTER 14
They rode west and north for several days across seemingly endless plains of tall grass with no sign of human habitation, then they came across a pile of rocks that had not been arranged by nature.
“Pa, look,” Kirby said, pointing to the rocks.
They pulled up.
“Some of the mountain men I met told me about them,” Emmett said. “That’s what I been looking for.”
“What’s it here for?”
“It’s a sign telling travelers that this here is the Santa Fe Trail. North and west of here will be Fort Larned, and north of that will be Pawnee Rock.”
“Pawnee Rock? What’s that, Pa?”
“Pawnee Rock would be a landmark, Pilgrim.” The voice came from behind them.
Turning toward the one who had spoken, Kirby saw, without a doubt, the dirtiest man he had ever seen. The man was dressed entirely in buckskin, from the moccasins on his feet to his wide-brimmed leather hat. A white, tobacco-stained beard covered his face. His nose was red and his eyes twinkled with mischief. He was mounted on a spotted pony and had two pack animals with him.
“Ain’t no pilgrim, old-timer,” Emmett said, low menace in his tone.
“Reckon you’re right, at that.”
“Where did you come from?” Emmett asked.
“I been watching you two pilgrims from that ravine yonder,” he said with a jerk of his head. “You don’t know much about traveling in Injun country, do you? It’s best to stay off the ridges. You two been standin’ out like a third titty.” The old mountain man shifted his gaze to Kirby. “What are you staring at, boy?”
The boy leaned forward in his saddle. “Be darned if I rightly know.”
The old man laughed. “You got sand to your bottom, all right.” He looked at Emmett. “He your’n?”
“My son.”
“I’ll trade you for ’im,” he said, the old eyes sparkling. “Injuns will pay right smart for a strong boy like this ’n.”
“My son is not for trade, old-timer.”
“Tell you what. I won’t call you pilgrim, you don’t call me old-timer. Deal?”
Emmett smiled and nodded. “Deal.”
“You don’t know where you are, do you?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do you now? And just where would that be?”
“We’re somewhere west of the state of Missouri, and east of the Pacific Ocean.”
The old man chuckled. “In other words, you’re lost as a lizard.”
“If you got no particular place to go, you ain’t never lost,” Emmett said.
Again, the old man laughed. “Well now, you do have a point there. You got names?”
“I’m Emmett. This is my son, Kirby.”
“Folks call me Preacher.”
“You’re a preacher?” Kirby asked, surprised at the response.
“Didn’t say I was a preacher. I said that’s my handle. That’s what folks call me.”
Kirby laughed out loud.
“What you laughin’ at, boy?”
“I’m laughin’ at your name.”
“Don’t scoff. It ain’t nice to scoff at a man’s name. If I wasn’t a gentle type man, I might let the hairs on my neck get stiff.”
“Preacher can’t be your real name.”
“Well, no, you right about that, but I been called Preacher for so long, that I’ve near ’bout forgot my Christian name. So, Preacher it’ll be. That or nothin’.”
“Well, it was nice talkin’ with you, but I reckon we’ll be goin’ on now, Preacher,” Emmett said. “Maybe we’ll see you again.”
Preacher’s eyes shifted to the northwest, then narrowed, his lips tightening in a weird smile. “Yep. I reckon you will.”
Emmett turned his horse and pointed its nose west-northwest. Kirby reluctantly followed. He would have liked to stay and talk with the old man.
When they were out of earshot, Kirby said, “Pa, that old man was so dirty he smelled.”
“He’s a mountain man, some way from home base, I’m figuring. More ’n likely trying to get back. Cantankerous old boys, they are. Some of them mean as snakes. I think they get together once a year and bathe.”
“But you said you soldiered with some mountain men.”
“I did, but they didn’t stay that long. They had to get back to the high lonesome.”
“Where is the high lonesome?”
“It’s more of a condition, than a place. Men like Preacher stay up in the high country for years. Don’t do nothing but trap and such. They won’t see another human being for a year or more, and not a white man more ’n once ever’ two years or so. All they’ve got is their horses and guns and the whistling wind and the silence of the mountains. They’re all alone, and it does something to them. They get notional, funny acting.”
“You mean they go crazy?”
“In a way, I’m thinking. I don’t know much about them. Nobody does, I don’t reckon. But I think maybe that most of the folks who would go off ’n live like that, don’t like people all that much to begin with. They crave the lawlessness of open space.
“The mountain men I was with, now, they were some different. They told me about that old man’s kind. They’re very brave men, son, don’t ever doubt that. Probably the bravest in the world. They got to be to live like they do.”
Kirby looked behind them. “Pa? That old man is following us, and he’s shucked his rifle out of its boot.”
Preacher galloped up to the pair, his rifle in his hand. “Don’t get nervous. I ain’t the one you need to be afeared of, but I do believe we fixin’ to get ambushed.”
“Ambushed by who?” Emmett asked.
“Kiowa would be my thinkin’. But they could be Pawnee. My eyes ain’t as sharp as they once was. But I seen one of ’em stick his head up out of a wash over yonder. He’s young or he wouldn’t have done that. But that don’t mean that the others with him is young.”
“How many?”
“Don’t know. In this country, one is too many. Do know this—we better be agettin’. If memory serves me, right over yonder, over that ridge, they’s a little crick behind the stand of cottonwoods, with a old Buffalo waller in front of it.” He looked up, stood up in his stirrups, and cocked his shaggy head. “Here they come, boys. Get agoin’.”
Even as he was speaking, the old man slapped Kirby’s bay on the rump, and they were galloping off. With the mountain man taking the lead, the three of them rode for the ridge. Cresting the ridge, the riders slid down the incline and galloped into the timber, down into the wallow. Whoops and cries of the Indians were close behind them.
Preacher might well have been past his good years, but the mountain man leaped off his spotted pony, rifle in hand, and was in position and firing as quickly as Emmett and Kirby. Preacher had a Sharps .52. It fired a paper cartridge, but was deadly up to 700 yards or more.
Kirby looked up in time to see a brave fly off his pony, a crimson gash on his naked chest. The Indian hit the ground and didn’t move.
Emmett got a buck in the sights, led him on his fast running pony, then fired the Spencer in his hands. The buck was knocked off his pony, bounced once on the ground, then leaped to his feet, dodging for cover. He didn’t make it. Preacher shot him in the side and lifted him off his feet, dropping him dead.
Emmett fired six more rounds in a thunderous barrage of black smoke, and the Indians scattered to cover, disappearing behind a ridge, horses and all.
“Scared ’em off,” Preacher said. “They ain’t used to repeaters. All they know is single shots. Let me get something out of my pack, ’n I’ll show you a thing or two.”
He went to one of his pack animals, which, along with the other horses, was standing just inside the tree line. He untied one of the side packs and let it fall to the ground, then pulled out the most beautiful rifle Kirby had ever seen.
“Damn!” Emmett said. “The Blue bellies had some of those toward the end of the war. But I never could get my hands on one.”
Preacher smiled and pulled another Henry repeating rifle from the pack. Unpredictable as mountain men were, he tossed the second Henry to Emmett, along with a sack of cartridges.
“Now we be friends.” Preacher laughed, exposing tobacco-stained stubs of teeth.
“I’ll pay you for this,” Emmett said, running his hands over the sleek barrel.
“What for? I didn’t pay nothin’ for either one of ’em,” Preacher replied. “I won both of ’em in some shootin’. Besides, somebody’s got to look out for the two of you. You’re liable to wander around out here and get hurt. It appears to be, you don’t neither of you know tip from tat ’bout staying alive in Injun country.”
“You may be right,” Emmett admitted. He loaded the Henry. “So I thank you kindly.”
Preacher looked at Kirby. “Boy, you plannin’ on gettin’ into this fight? Wait a minute, maybe I better ask you, can you shoot? Iffen you cain’t shoot, better stay out of it. Don’t want to worry none ’bout you maybe shootin’ one of us.”
Proud of his son, Emmett answered. “He can shoot. Kirby, pick up the Spencer.”
“Better do it quick. Here they come,” Preacher said.
“How do you know that, Preacher?” Kirby asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“Wind just shifted, and I smelled ’em. They close, so get ready.”
Kirby wondered how the old man could smell anything over the fumes from his own body.
Emmett, a veteran of four years of continuous war, could not believe an enemy could slip up on him in open daylight. At the sound of Preacher jacking back the hammer of his Henry .44, Emmett saw a big painted up buck almost on top of him. Suddenly, the open meadow was filled with screaming, charging Indians. Emmett brought the buck down with a slug through the chest, flinging the Indian backward, the yelling abruptly cut off in his throat.
The area changed from the peacefulness of summer quiet, to a screaming, gun-smoke-filled hell.
Kirby jerked his gaze to the small creek in front of them. He had seen movement on the right side of the stream. For what seemed an eternity, he watched the young brave, a boy about his own age, leap and thrash through the water. Then he pulled back the hammer of the Spencer, aimed at the brave, and pulled the trigger.
Kirby heard a wild screaming and spun around. His father was locked in hand-to-hand combat with two knife wielding braves. Too close to use the rifle, Kirby jerked the pistol from the holster and fired in one smooth motion. He hit one of the braves in the head, just as his father buried his Arkansas toothpick to the hilt in the chest of the other.
Then as abruptly as they came, the Indians were gone. Two braves lay dead in front of Preacher, two more lay dead in the shallow ravine. The boy Kirby had shot was facedown in the creek, arms outstretched, the waters a deep crimson, the body slowly floating downstream.
A thin finger of smoke lifted from the barrel of the Navy. 36 Kirby held in his hand.
Preacher smiled and spat tobacco juice. “You’re some swift with that hogleg. Yep. Smoke will suit you just fine. So Smoke it’ll be.”
“Sir?” Kirby asked.
“Smoke,” the old man repeated. “That’ll be your name from now on. That’s what I aim to call you. Smoke.”
Preacher took another .36 Navy Colt from one of the dead Indians, then tossed it to Kirby. “I seen the way you handled that pistol. Ain’t never seen no one your age that good with a handgun, and not sure that I’ve seen anyone full growed who was any better. Now you got yourself two guns.”
From another Indian, Preacher took a long-bladed knife in a beaded sheath and handed that to him, as well. “Any man worth his salt out here needs hisself a good knife, too. Most especial someone who calls hisself Smoke.”
“I don’t call myself Smoke.”
“You will.”
“Why should I?”
“All famous men needs ’em a moniker, a name other ’n the one they was borned with. I’ve knowed some right famous men in my day, and Smoke sounds good to me.”
“But I ain’t famous.”
“You’re goin’ to be, Smoke. Ain’t no doubt in my mind. No doubt at all. You’re goin’ to be a famous man someday, the kind of man folks writes books about.”
“I doubt that,” Kirby said, but already he was beginning to think of himself as Smoke. He smiled. Yes, he liked that name.
Kirby and Emmett were shocked at what happened next. Preacher scalped the Indians they had killed.
“Good God, man, what are you doing?” Emmett asked.
“What’s it look like I’m a’ doin’? I’m takin’ hair. I know a tradin’ post that’ll pay a dollar a scalp for ever’one I bring in. I won’t do this with a Ute or a Crow. I’ve lived with them for too long. But I pure dee can’t abide a Kiowa or a Pawnee.” Carrying the scalps with him, Preacher started back toward the horses. “What we need to do is get out of here now . . . put as much distance between us and the Injuns as we can.” He put the scalps into a buckskin bag that hung from one of the pack animals.
“Won’t those stink?” Kirby asked.
“They do get ripe,” Preacher replied as he mounted his pony.
The three men left the site of the battle at a gallop. Holding the gallop for several miles, they then walked their horses, then galloped them again, then walked them again, so that by late afternoon, Emmett believed they may have ridden as far as thirty miles. They made a quick camp by a creek.
“Get a fire goin’,” Preacher said. “I’ll get us some grub.”
“I’ll go hunting if you want,” Kirby offered.
“’Preciate the offer, Smoke, but you’d more ’n likely have to shoot our food. Don’t know who might be lurkin’ around here listenin’, so whatever game we take tonight has to be took quiet.”
“I guess Smoke’s my new name,” Kirby said after the old man left the camp afoot. While there was still light, he carefully cleaned and oiled the Navy Colt taken from the dead Indian.
Emmett looked at him. “What do you think about that?”
“You know what? I kinda like it.”
They ate an early supper, then doused the fire, carefully checking for any live coals that might touch off a prairie fire, something as feared as any Indian attack, for a racing fire could outrun a galloping horse. They moved on, riding for an hour before pulling into a small stand of timber to make camp for the night.
Preacher spread out his blankets, used his saddle for a pillow, and promptly closed his eyes.
“I’ll stand the first watch, Smoke,” Emmett said, grinning at Kirby. “Then I’ll wake Preacher for the second, and you can take the last watch, from two until daylight. Best you go on to sleep now until you’re needed.”
“All right, Pa.”
Just as Kirby was drifting off to sleep, Emmett said, “If you don’t like that nickname, son, we can change it.”
“It’s all right, Pa,” the boy murmured, warmed by the wool of the blanket. “Pa? You know what? I kind of like Preacher.”
“So do I,” Emmett replied.
“That makes both of you good judges of character,” the mountain man spoke from his blankets. “Now why don’t you two quit all that jawin’, ’n let an old man get some rest?”
“Night, Pa, Preacher.”
“Night, Smoke,” they both replied.
* * *
Preacher rolled the boy out of his blankets at two in the morning, into the summer coolness of the plains. The night was hung with the brilliance of a million stars.
“Stay sharp, now, Smoke,” Preacher cautioned. “Injuns don’t usually attack at night ’cause they think it’s bad medicine for them. A brave gets killed at night, his spirit wanders forever, don’t never get to the hereafter in peace. But Injuns is notional kind of folk, ’n not all tribes believe the same. Never can tell what they’re goin’ to do. More ’n likely, if they’re out there, they’ll hit us at first light, but you don’t never know for sure.” He rolled over into his blankets and was soon snoring.
The boy poured himself a cup of scalding hot coffee, strong enough to support a horseshoe, then replaced the pot on the rock grate. The fire was fueled by buffalo chips, hot and smokeless, and it couldn’t be seen from ten feet away. Preacher had given him a holster for his second weapon and a wide belt from his seemingly never empty packs. Smoke adjusted it so that he was wearing a brace of pistols.
He had no way of knowing—with what had happened in Salcedo and especially in Delphi—that he had already taken the first steps toward creating a legend that would endure as long as writers would write of the West. Men would fear and respect him, women would desire him, children would play games imitating the man called Smoke. Songs would be written and sung about him in the Indian’s villages and in the white man’s cities.
On this pleasant night, Smoke—he was already thinking of himself as Smoke—was still some time away from being a living legend. He was just a young man in the middle of a vast open plain watching for savage Indians. He almost dozed off, caught himself, and jerked back awake. He bent forward for another cup of coffee, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
That movement saved his life.
A quivering arrow drove into the tree where, just a second before, he had been resting. Had he not leaned forward at that precise moment, the arrow would have driven through his chest.
Smoke drew first the right-hand Colt, then the left-hand gun, his motions almost liquid in their smoothness. The twin Colts were in the hands of one of the few men to whom guns were but an extension of the body. Two Pawnee braves went down under the first two shots. He shifted position. The muzzle flashes were like lightning, and the gunshots like thunder as the Colts roared. Two more bucks were cut down by the .36 caliber balls.
The night, filled with acrid smelling gun smoke, was silent except for the fading sounds of ponies racing away. The Indians wanted no more of that camp. They had lost too many braves.
“I ain’t never seen nothing like this!” Preacher explained, walking around the dead and dying Indians. “I knowed Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Broken Hand Fitzpatrick, uncle Dick Watt, ’n as many as a hunnert other salty old boys, but I ain’t never seen nothing to top this here show you just put on. I tell you what, Smoke, you may be a youngster in years, but you’ll damn sure do to ride to the river with.”
Smoke did not yet know it, but that was the highest compliment a mountain man could ever give to another man.
“Thank you,” Smoke said to Preacher as he reloaded the empty cylinders.
July 1867
Early morning, and though most self-respecting roosters had announced the fact long ago, half-a-dozen cocks were still trying to stake a claim on the day. The sun had been up for quite a while but the disc was still hidden by the mountains in the east. The light had already turned from red to white and here and there were signs that Westport Landing was starting another day.
A pump creaked as a housewife began pumping water for her daily chores and somewhere a carpenter was hammering. Janey was awakened by the sounds of commerce. She could scarcely believe that she was living in Kansas, given the hard feelings between Kansas and Missouri during the recent war. But she was in the place that was sometimes called the City of Kansas and sometimes called Kansas City, though it wouldn’t acquire that name for a few years to come. It was known as Westport Landing, Kansas.
Getting up, she poured a basin of water and washed her face and hands. She stood by the open window and looked out on the town. She had been there for almost a year. Her baby would be fifteen months old, and she wondered if Becca was speaking. Did Becca know she had a mother? Did she wonder about her mother?
Scarcely a day went by without Janey thinking about Rebecca. Sometimes she considered going back—when she thought she couldn’t stand being away any longer—begging Ben for forgiveness and spending time with her daughter. But she never followed through on it. Maybe after the first few weeks, maybe even after the first couple of months, she could have done so. But it was far too late for that.
Westport Landing was considerably more unruly than anyplace she had been. The customers of the house where she worked were rugged men who were more at home in the saddle than in a parlor. Some were hell-raisers when they came to town. Often they let off steam by shooting their guns, if not at each other in some spontaneous fight, then at any target that might catch their fancy.
The most troublesome of all the visitors to the place was a man named Cole Brennen. Twice in the last month, he had abused the woman he was with, and Maggie had told him he wasn’t welcome anymore.
As expected, he didn’t take that too kindly. He was a member of the city council and threatened Maggie with closure if she ever tried to deny him services.
Maggie Mouchette owned and operated the Pretty Girl and Happy Cowboy House. Janey did not occupy quite as elite a position as she had at the Palace Princess Emporium, but she and Maggie had become very good friends over the past year. As a result, Janey operated as Maggie’s second in charge.
As Janey looked outside, a couple freight wagons rolled slowly through the street. The boardwalks were full of people, and a game of horseshoes was being played between two of the buildings on the opposite side of the street.
There was a knock on her door. “Abbigail? Are you ready for some breakfast?” Maggie called.
“Sure, I’ll be right down.”
Janey had gotten rid of the name Fancy Lil, because just as she didn’t want her father or brother to track down Janey Jensen, neither did she want Ben Conyers to find Fancy Lil. She didn’t really think there was much chance of him finding her, though. Westport Landing was quite a ways from Dallas.
Most of the citizens of the town had eaten breakfast quite some time ago but, as Maggie said, “The town people have their schedule, we have ours.”
The other girls were already sitting at the table when Janey came down. Penelope was holding a cat in her lap.
“Penelope, why do you bring that dirty old cat in here?” one of the girls asked.
“Hortense isn’t a dirty cat. He cleans himself all the time,” Penelope said. “Don’t you, Hortense?”
“That’s another thing. If it’s a tomcat, why do you call him Hortense?”
“Because I like the name.”
“You are a strange person.”
An older woman wearing a black dress and a white pinafore came in. “Ladies, breakfast is served.”
The days passed leisurely for Maggie’s girls. Some napped, some played cards, and some read. Normally Janey was one who enjoyed reading, but she had agreed to go to town with Maggie. When any of the girls went to town, they wore no makeup of any kind and plain dresses, which made them appear no different from any of the other women of the town.
Despite the fact that they purposely dressed down, all the girls were known on sight. When they went somewhere, they were generally shunned, not only by the “good” girls of the town, but quite often by the same men who frequently came calling on them at night.
Not everyone shunned them. One who was always nice to them was Elmer Gleason. He had arrived in town at about the same time Janey did. She heard, once, that he had ridden with Asa Briggs during the war, and though she was not aware that her own brother had ridden with him, she knew that many young men from the county had. It was quite possible that if Elmer Gleason ever learned her real name that he would know who she was. But he would never connect Abbigail Fontaine “from New Orleans” to Janey Jensen.
Elmer was a shotgun guard for the Westport-Landing-to-Wichita stage line, so he was often gone. When he was in town though, he was a frequent guest of the Pretty Girl and Happy Cowboy House, and had even been with Janey a few times.
His visits with her were limited though. Her time didn’t cost as much here as it did back in Dallas, but she was still the most expensive girl on the line. As he once said, “In the dark, they all look alike.”
Elmer was in the hardware store when Janey and Maggie stepped inside. When he saw them, he smiled, and touched the brim of his hat. Janey smiled back at him. Unfortunately, Elmer wasn’t the only one in the store. Cole Brennen was there as well.
“Mr. Deckert,” Brennen said to the proprietor of the hardware store. “You do know what these two women are, don’t you?”
“As far as I’m concerned, they are customers,” Deckert said. “The young women from Miss Mouchette’s establishment stop by here from time to time, and they have always been good customers.”
“Yes, well, they may not be good customers much longer. I intend to introduce a city ordinance which will close that den of iniquity, once and for all.”
“Then where will you go, Brennen?” Elmer asked.
“What? Why you insolent cur! I’ll sue you for libel and slander.”
“I don’t know what them fancy words mean,” Elmer said. “But if you’re tryin’ to say you ain’t never before been to Miss Mouchette’s place, then I’m callin’ you a liar, ’cause I’ve seen you there.”
Brennen wheezed and gasped for breath, then angrily spun around and stomped out of the building.
Maggie laughed. “Elmer, next time you come to my place, I’ll set you up for a free drink.”
“Just a free drink?” Elmer asked.
“And a visit with one of the girls,” Maggie added.
“That’s more like it. All right, missy, I’ll be by tonight.”