seen nothin’ like it afore in my life. An’ the lad didn’t even blink an eye doin’ it.”
“Tole you!” Preacher said to the men, grinning.
“Don’t start braggin’,” Powder Pete told Preacher. “It’s bad ’nuff jist havin’ to look at you.” Powder Pete was so called because of his expertise with explosives.
“Did the law run him out of town?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t hang around to see. Law might ask him to leave. But if that there boy gits his back up, there ain’t nobody gonna run him nowheres.”
“Wal, les’ us just sorta amble on toward the northeast,” Preacher said. “If I know Smoke—and I do, I raised him—he’ll take his time gettin’ to Bury. He’ll lay back in the timber for a day ’er so and look the situation over. We’ll cross the Lost River Range, head acrost the flats, and turn north, make camp in the narrows south of Bury. I know me some Flatheads live just west of Bitterroot. Once we set up camp, I’ll take me a ride over to the Divide, palaver some with ’em. They’ll be our eyes and ears. That sound all right to you boys?”
“Quite inventive,” Audie said.
“Ummm,” Nighthawk grunted.
Buck crossed the Salmon to the east bank and began following the river north. He stayed on the fringe of the timber that made up the northern edge of the Lemhi Range. He would follow the river for about thirty-five miles before cutting to the east for about ten miles. That should put him on the outskirts of Bury. Once there, he would make camp south of the town and look it over.
The dozen mountain men, with about six hundred years of survival and fighting experience between them, were riding hard just south of Challis. With their rifles held across the saddle-horns, their fringed buckskins and animal-hide caps and brightly colored shirts and jackets and sashes, the last of the mountain men were returning for one more fight. They were riding hard to help—if he needed it—the youngest mountain man. One of their own. A young man who had chosen the lonely call of the wilderness as home. A young man who preferred the high lonesome over the towns and cities. A young man they had taken under their wing and helped to raise, imparting to him the wisdom of the wilderness, hopefully perpetuating a way of life that so-called civilized people now sneered at and rejected. This gathering, this aging motley crew, knew they were the last—the very last—of a select breed of men. After this ride, never again would so many gather. But hopefully, just maybe, their young protege would live on, known for the rest of his life, as the last mountain man.
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