Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) by William W. Johnstone Page B

always being hungry, and never enough clothing to keep warm in winter had been his lot. But then, everyone else had lived the same during the Civil War, especially in Missouri. Young Kirby had never eaten a juicy steak or a grapefruit. Didn’t even know what the latter was until years later when he had seen one in the breakfast room of a fancy San Francisco hotel.
    No, his past life had not prepared him for elegance. It did teach him to survive. So he took up a notch in his belt and began to trudge along the trail with Preacher…
    That had been a day to remember. When Kirby first saw Preacher, the man looked to him like one of the horrors out of a story by the Brothers Grimm. Preacher hadn’t shaved in several days and a thick, dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin. He was dressed all in skins, with Indian beadwork on the shirt, which he wore loose, outside his trousers, kept in place by a wide, thick leather belt. From that latter hung a tomahawk, the biggest knife the boy had ever seen, and a brace of revolvers in soft pouch holsters. A possibles bag hung over one shoulder by a rawhide strap, and a bullet mold dangled below that.
    There was a brass compass tied to it by a thong, and a powder horn. Preacher wore buckskin leggings over trousers of the same material, with high-top, lace moccasins. The uppers of those had been done in ornate quill and bead work.
    Preacher wore his hair long, and lockets of other human hair had been braided into the fringe of his shirt. A skunk-skin cap covered the crown of his head. His mustache was months overdue for a visit with a pair of scissors, and covered his mouth in a shaggy droop. Had young Kirby Jensen been four or five years younger, such an apparition would have made him pee his pants. Then he saw the twinkle in those flinty eyes and the mouth opened in a white smile.
    Preacher took him under his wing and saw to his upbringing, and his education. Before a year had passed, Kirby had read from Shakespeare and from the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. He had improved his ciphering to the point he could deal with fractions in his head. He also learned to trap beaver, mink, otter, and raccoons. He proved to have a natural eye and became an expert marks-man within two years. He could ride a horse nearly as well as a Cheyenne boy born to it. All in all, he concluded as he arranged tinder and kindling in a ring of rocks, he had a well-rounded education….
    For which he would be eternally grateful, he vowed as he lighted the fire with a lucifer. When the twigs blazed merrily, he fed thicker chunks of wood until he had enough, then left the small fire to find himself some fresh meat for his supper. It didn’t take long. In a land rich in animal life, Smoke soon found a covey of plump quail.
    With a cunning learned from Preacher, he called them in close enough to swiftly grab up three and wring their necks. He took them back to camp, plucked them, gutted the carcasses and threaded them on a green sapling to roast over the coals. Then he made biscuits. He had some dry hominy, which he had put to soaking when he first reached his chosen site. All that he wanted for was some gravy. To achieve that, he put the tiny giblets of the birds to boil with some wild onions and some crumbled sage leaves. Coffee came next.
    Smoke’s stomach began to growl as he smelled the savory odor that rose when the sparse fat on the birds began to drip into the orange glow beneath them. He poured coffee the minute it had boiled enough. Sighing, he sat back against his saddle and sipped with lowered eyelids.
     
     
    Tyrone Sayers peered through a thick screen of gorse and blackberry brambles at the man who lay in the clearing in such confident repose, his saddle for a pillow. Tyrone knew they would find him. A wide smile spread on his face, which made him wince as the cuts in his mangled lips split open again. You’re gonna git yers, Smoke Jensen, he thought in triumph as he slid back to where the others