Preacher stayed just south of the Salmon River and crossed over into the Beaverhead Mountains. He was camping in the Tendoys when the first big snow of the season came. Preacher knew it wouldn’t last, and there would be many more pleasant days before winter locked up the high country, but when he pulled out, he quickened his pace, as much as the terrain would bear.
He crossed the Divide and headed down for the Tetons, after talking with a hunting party who told him that fifteen or so white men were in the Hole. Unfriendly white men. Quarrelsome and not prone to washing very often.
With few exceptions, the Plains Indians felt the white man was dirty most of the time…and they were right more often than not. An Indian would break the ice in a river or pond to bathe, and do it several times a day.
Preacher was camped along Bitch Creek when he caught the smell of wood smoke, and knew it wasn’t coming from his fire. He took his Hawken and went looking. He grinned when he slipped up on the camp and eyeballed the three men around the fire. He started coughing like a puma and watched as the mountain men jumped up, grabbed their rifles, and started looking all around them. Preacher then howled like a wolf.
A man known only as Clapper narrowed his eyes as Preacher attempted, unsuccessfully, to contain his laughter. Clapper lowered his rifle in disgust. “Preacher!” he shouted. “Damn your eyes. Come on in here and sit and eat.”
Clapper’s companions were Joe Morris and Dave Nolan. After swapping some highly profane insults about each other’s character, the men sat down to drink coffee and eat.
“I heared tell you was surrounded by petticoats earlier this year,” Clapper said.
“I was. Got most of ’em over to the Valley. Now I’m lookin’ for the men who ambushed the train and killed my good horse.”
“Hammer’s dead?” Joe asked.
“Buried him on the plains. You boys seen any signs of life over to the Hole?”
“Not personal, we ain’t,” Dave said. “But some wanderin’ Flatheads told us they’s a group of damn fools thinkin’ ’bout winterin’ in the Hole.” He chuckled. “I allow as to how I near’bouts froze my butt off that winter me and Russell spent there. Back in ’33, I think it was. We reckoned—without tellin’ no lies ’bout it—it got down to close to seventy-five below at times. Joe Meek wintered in there last year, even after me tellin’ him it was a frozen hell.”
Preacher nodded his head and was silent. Clapper stared hard at him. “You huntin’ these men, Preacher?”
“Yeah. I damn sure am.” Then he told the mountain men about Bedell and what was left of his band, ending with, “On top of everything else, they killed Hammer.”
The trio of mountain men all shook their heads in disgust, Clapper saying, “Me and the boys here would sure be proud to ride along with you, Preacher. Men like that don’t need to be out here.”
Preacher shook his head. “No. But I thank you boys. This is my show.”
No one bothered to point out that one against fifteen was really lousy odds. Mountain men had been fighting against odds like that from the first moment a white trapper set foot in the wilderness, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.
Preacher stood up. “I’ll go get my gear and bring it over here.”
“Then you can tell us all about what it’s like to be surrounded by a hundred and fifty fillies for two thousand miles,” Dave Nolan said.
Preacher’s eyes twinkled for a second or two. “Not the good parts, boys. Them’s private.”
Preacher stared out over what was then called Jackson’s Hole. The mountains around the valley—approximately eighty miles long and fifteen miles wide—have been referred to as Teewinot by the Shoshoni. Others called them Shark’s Teeth and Pilot Knobs. But the name a French trapper gave them has topped the list and remained constant over the years: The Grand Tetons. Big Breasts.
Preacher dismounted and squatted down for a time, studying the land below him. He was high-up, just below the timber line to give him some cover. He couldn’t spot any smoke from cookfires, but he hadn’t expected to see any. Bedell wasn’t stupid, just arrogant. And he wasn’t at all certain Bedell and his gang were even in the hole. They might have moved north to the land that thunders and smokes.
Preacher figured that’s where he’d find most of them. A couple of Shoshoni had told him that the white men had split up, the larger band moving north out of the hole and into the place of haunted spirits.
If Preacher had his way, and he figured he damn sure would, he’d leave some more spirits up yonder to haunt the place.
He took his time heading down, staying with the timber whenever possible and utilizing every bit of cover he could find. The temperature, he figured, was in the fifties, with nighttime temperatures in the low thirties, and snow staying in the high country, melting during the day in the valley.
Reaching the valley, Preacher stayed away from the scrubby floor and stayed near the base of the slopes, weaving in and out of the timber. He paused often to swing down from the saddle and view his surroundings through his spyglass. Nothing. Then he left the slopes and headed onto the valley, staying to the west side of the Snake River.
Then he smelled the smoke. He stopped and looked all around him. But he could see no signs of fire. That meant the fire was a small one and built under low branches to dispel the smoke. The men weren’t entirely stupid, he thought.
He swung down and picketed Thunder. Then he stood for a moment, sniffing the air. Taking his rifle, he headed out on foot, following the smoke odor as it became stronger.
He almost blundered straight into the small camp, catching himself just in time. The camp was a good one, well concealed, with a little lean-to built up against the side of a bluff. The lean-to told him it was a one-man camp. But he could see no man.
Preacher didn’t want to harm some innocent, so he waited for the better part of an hour. He heard one shot, coming from the north, and figured the man had killed him a deer or elk. He made himself more comfortable and waited.
Sure enough, the man soon came trudging back in, toting the whole carcass. Preacher figured he planned on using the hide and didn’t want to leave none of it behind for the wolves, coyotes, and bears. Although had it been Preacher who made the kill, he at least would have gutted the animal and spared himself some weight.
The man laid the deer down with a sigh and propped his rifle against the carcass. Then he straightened up, with both hands to the small of his back, and arched backward, sighing with relief, for the deer was not a small one. Preacher stepped out, his Hawken leveled, and the man’s eyes widened in shock.
“Just stand easy and raise your hands,” Preacher told him. “And I might decide not to kill you. Start makin’ funny moves and I’ll blow your kneecap off and leave you here to die.”
“I told Bedell you was a devil,” the man said. “I told him you’d not give up. And I was right,” he added bitterly.
“Where’s Bedell?”
“Gone north, up into the Absarokas. Him and most of the gang.”
“How many?”
“Hard to say and I ain’t lyin’ ’bout that. Half a dozen more finally linked up with us some weeks after the failed ambush in the rocks. They got six of the women with ’em. Lara and Kim died on the trail.”
“Give me a guess.”
“I’d say twelve men and the women. They’s five or six others like me who decided to go it alone. Providin’ you let me live, what’s my chances of makin’ the winter here?”
“Poor to none,” Preacher told him. “If Injuns don’t get you, a grizzly might. If the bears don’t eat you, the weather will more than likely kill you. This ain’t no place for a damn pilgrim. Whereabouts in the Absarokas?”