Chapter 1

Well, it’s springtime. After another winter on the mountain, I was ready for some human companionship and other things.

Springtime means different things to different people. City folks see it as a welcome break from dreary, wet, and cold weather. The temperature is warming up, roads and streets are clearing. Trees and flowers are blooming. All in all, for city folks, spring is a magical time of rebirth and renewal.

Farmers see it different. Spring means work. Hard work. Fields need to be plowed, planted, and fertilized. Winter damages need to be evaluated and repaired. Stock needs to be gathered together, checked over, and assessed. Animal stock will receive medical attention, sometimes with better quality care than the farmer’s family. This is the time when the farmer looks at what he has and puts into motion the plans that were made during the winter.

Mountain folk see springtime in an even more different light. Spring is the hunger time. Most times, city folk and flatlanders don’t understand this. They see new growth, baby animals, everything is turning green, and they see that as a sign of abundance.

In the high country, for both man and beast, during the winter, all of the mountain residents live off of what they have saved up from the previous summer and fall. Some use sleep as their solution. Bears and squirrels hibernate and live off their stored fat. Rabbits and weasels burrow and feed off the roots above them. Deer and elk graze on what they can find. If there is nothing available, they will move downhill until they find food.

Man uses all of these solutions. And takes advantage of the solutions of the others around him. Taking a rabbit, deer, or elk as a food source can assure his survival. And to ensure that survival, the smart mountain man uses everything that his prey provides. Meat, hide, and hoof. Everything has a use and may mean the edge needed for survival.

The smart mountain man will also use his time productively. Improving his shelter, his clothing, his equipment. Winter days can be long and boring. Learning how to sew and knit can provide a welcome diversion from boredom as well as another arrow in his survival quiver. Warm mittens, scarfs, and socks are always welcome gifts for the mountain man.

But each day of winter uses up supplies. Eventually, those supplies will reach a critical level and need to be replaced. If your timing and luck is good, you’ll make it to spring with a comfortable reserve, which is where I wasn’t at. It was spring. There was still snow on the ground. Not much, and it was rapidly retreating. But I had miscalculated, and I was out of coffee. Yes, coffee. Not tea, not chocolate, not booze, coffee.

My decision to head out for supplies was not solely based on my taste for caffeine. But it was very high on the list. After seeing to Margarite’s and Jughead’s tack, I loaded up what was needed, and we set out for civilization. I planned to head down to Elk City and board Margarite and Jughead at Mabel’s restaurant. Then Shadow and I would head to the low country and get supplies. And maybe see some old friends.

Margarite and Jughead were two parts of my team. Margarite was an Appaloosa mare that I had acquired off a Navaho horse trainer in Nevada. She had been trained up as a cutting horse and was an excellent barrel racer. The two talents going hand in hand. She could turn on a dime, at full speed, and reverse direction in half a step, which is a great thing when you’re roping brain dead yearling calves. That is if you could stay on board. There have been a few times I’ve had to dust my britches after I’d ridden her wind.

Jughead was my heavy lifter. A buck mule, broad in the chest, and with a heavy back. He could carry half again his weight all day without complaint. But don’t think that big and strong also means stupid. Jughead’s trail sense has saved me many a time. He could spot a landslide or avalanche a mile off. And god help you if you tried to keep going. I’ve got several bite scars where I forgot who was in charge.

The third part of my team was my best friend, companion, and, truth be told, my savior. After I was medically discharged from the army, I went through a physical therapy program in Tacoma, Washington. While I was there, an ex-army dog trainer was working on a research project. He was matching dogs to soldiers that were having trouble with PTSD. The dogs were supposed to take some of the edge off.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was part of that group. I was clueless when I met the trainer. I was having a cold one at the club when he sat down next to me and ordered a beer. We introduced each other and gradually started swapping war stories.

The next day he took me to his kennel. He told me what he was doing with the vets and pointed out some of his successes. But then he pointed out this little runt, long-haired, black German Shepherd. Sad story, he told me. Runt of the litter, rejected by his mom, he wasn’t expected to survive. That is unless someone would step up. The sob had me hooked, in the boat, gutted and on the table in nothing flat.

He put this little black and brown furball in my lap. Between the squirming, whining and licking, I was finished, we were bonded. From that point on, we were never very far from each other.

It being springtime, and as I said, the hungry times, I was keeping a close eye out for anything unusual. In particular, I was watching for bear. The black and brown of the species were around the area and just coming out of hibernation. They would be hungry and not in a very forgiving mood. It’s entirely possible that Mr. Bruin would see myself and my little party as a possible main course for dinner. Towards that, I was carrying my shotgun outside of the scabbard. I still had my 1911 Colt in my preferred shoulder holster. And the Henry in its scabbard. But if I ran upon an angry black bear, I felt that the Winchester was a better choice.

My Winchester 1901 was a 10-gauge, lever-action shotgun. Also known at one time as a coach gun. It was the preferred weapon of the Wells Fargo shotgun riders. Mine wasn’t an antique, but it looked impressive to people that didn’t understand guns. It had a 3 round magazine which I stacked with defense in mind. The first round was a load of rock salt and bacon rind. It wouldn’t kill anything big like a bear, or even a man unless I hit him in the upper torso. However, if I flushed a grouse, I might be able to bring it down. I didn’t know if the rock salt would preseason a bird. And to tell the truth, didn’t care. A field dinner of grouse sounded like a good idea. And if my visitor was a large, hungry, and angry carnivore, the sting and sound might drive him away.

The second round was a combination load of birdshot and buckshot. Again, not heavy enough to take down a bear. But a deer and maybe even an elk that could fill up my cold storage. For the cost of a single shotgun round, I could have 100 to 150 pounds of what in New York or LA would be a gourmet dinner at a posh restaurant. Pretty good investment, if you ask me.

The next round in the magazine was my failsafe, end of the world, zombie apocalypse, atomic bomb solution. This was a 10-gauge bear slug. At 3 1/2 inches long and 1 3/4 ounces, they were guaranteed to bring down man or beast. I didn’t carry too many of those monsters and hoped that I would never need to use one. But if I walked up on a pissed off grizzly, well, rock salt and buck wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in a single slug, either. But I did count on it slowing him down long enough for the Henry or the Colt to come into action. I had no intention to do a Hugh Glass and fight a bear hand to hand. I knew my limitations and planned around them.

For those that don’t know, Hugh Glass was another mountain man. After getting into, and winning, a hand to claw encounter with a Griz, he was left to die by his companions. He survived and crawled back, on his hands and knees, to civilization. Using pure grit, anger, and a desire for vengeance to keep him going.

Now, as I was moving down the trail, none of this was going through my mind. Mainly I was going over my mental list of the things I needed or thought I needed. That is until I noticed Shadow starting to act a little hinky. His nose was up and sniffing, and his ears were swiveling like a radar. I pulled up on Margarite, and we all stopped.

“What’s up, boy? Something out there?” There were times that I wished that animals could talk like in the old-time cartoons. As it was, I had to rely on Shadow’s nose and ears. Then Margarite got into the act. She started to softly nicker to me.

Now I knew there was a problem. Slipping the safety off the Winchester, I went into battle mode. Every sense I had kicked into high gear. Sight, smell, and hearing took priority. And sure, enough, I started to hear something, human voices. It seemed that they were “Trying” to be quiet, but voices can carry quite a bit in the forest. I also started to hear gear rattling around, and then I could smell cigarette smoke.