The First Mountain Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

Other than God.
    He rode into a tiny creek and told the others, “Stay right behind me. Don’t get out of this crick. It won’t fool them for long, but it will slow them up tryin’ to figure out where we left it.” He chuckled. “And that, boys and girls, is something that’s gonna take them a-while to do.”
    They rode for several miles, always staying in the creek, until coming to a sandy, rocky flat. “We’ll leave it here,” Preacher told them, as he swung down from the saddle. “Stand down for a couple of minutes and rest; let the horses blow. I got to do something.”
    He had saved his old buckskins and now he cut them up to make socks for the horses’ hooves.
    â€œWhy are you doing that?” Richard asked.
    â€œSo’s the steel hooves won’t scar the rocks and leave a trail,” Preacher told him. “Get that old ragged blanket off my pack horse and do the same with it. Quickly, people. Every minute counts.”
    When the hooves were covered, Preacher led the group to the timber and told them not to move from that spot. Then he led the horses over, one at a time and had each one mount up.
    â€œStay with me,” he told them. “Don’t snag a thread on a branch. If you do, holler and stop and pick it off. They’ll find this trail, eventually, but let’s don’t make it any easier for them.”
    Preacher led them deep into virgin forests, forging his own trail, the needles and leaves making only faint whispering sounds under the hooves. He pointed to a tree, which had strange markings some twenty feet off the ground. “Grizzly. And a big one. He’ll stand twelve feet high and weigh damn near half a ton. If a grizzly gets after you, climb a tree. They’re so big and heavy they don’t climb. Usually,” he added with a smile.
    Edmond looked up at the scratchings and shook his head, wondering what it would be like to come face to face with a beast that large.
    It was a trail-weary and saddle-sore bunch that finally slipped out of the saddle just at dusk. Preacher had set a grueling pace. And he didn’t make matters any better when he said, “Cold camp. No fires. Roll up in your blankets now and stay there. Cool clear night like this, the odor of food cookin’ or coffee boilin’ would travel five miles. This spruce and pine’s got an odor to it, too.”
    â€œNot even a little fire?” Penelope asked.
    â€œNo. See to your horses, rub them down good, and picket them careful on graze.”
    â€œTyrant!” she muttered.
    Preacher slept well but cautiously that night, as he usually did in the mountains. He did not awaken at natural sounds. The sounds of a hunting owl seizing a mouse or rat or rabbit would not pull him awake. The lonesome call of a coyote or the talking of wolves would not alarm him. A breaking twig would pull him instantly alert, for deer or elk or most forest creatures would not step on a branch unless they were frightened and running. Man steps on twigs and branches.
    The rain woke him several hours before dawn would touch the high country.
    He quietly climbed out of his blankets and rolled them in his ground sheet. The others slept on, unaware of anything that was happening around them; they would have to learn the woods, or they’d die.
    With it raining, he would chance a small fire for coffee, built under an overhang to break up the smoke. He checked the snares he’d set out the evening before and found two fat rabbits. He skinned them out and carefully scraped the meat from the skin and rolled them up from habit. They made good glove linings. He had the meat cooking before the others began stirring.
    Melody was the first up. She completed her morning toilet and joined Preacher by the small fire, both of them waiting for the coffee to boil and the meat to sear.
    â€œWe’re in trouble, aren’t we?” she asked.
    â€œIt ain’t the best