Just Yarnin' Chapter 7: Bridger's Glass Mountain
Blue smoke from tobacco-filled pipes drifted towards the heavens to disappear seamlessly into the blackness of the night sky that had enveloped the trapper’s camp. The coming of night’s blackness was also unveiling the millions of twinkling stars overhead. Even after all these years, the men took a few minutes to crane their necks and contemplate just what those stars were. They were wild men, and it was love of the wildness that still filled their hearts.
After several minutes of silence Solitaire was the one who spoke up first. “You heard from Bridger lately? Been many moons since I shared a fire with that child.”
“Been a few years now,” Parfleche replied. “Last I knowed, the Mormons run him out of the fort he’d built. Workin’ fer the army best as I know.”
Solitaire drew deeply on his freshly filled pipe. Campfire light illuminated the deep creases carved on his face by years of exposure. “Bridger. Now thar was a child had the hair of the bear ifn’ I ever knowed one.
“Me an’ Old Gabe come west in the same year. Both eager to quit the towns and have us some real wild times. Ha! We never knowed what lay ahead. In fact, he was cordelling next to me most that first trip. We’d bend our backs to buck the Missouri then share us some whiskey round the fire at night. We was both gonna be booshway fer shore one day!
“In fact, it weren’t long for Old Gabe actually was booshway. Remember how he bought into that Rocky Mountain Fur Company with them others? Ha! Old Gabe was as good a trapper, hunter, and Injun fighter I ever knowed, but he warn’t the business man of Chouteau, and that trails reads easy. Either way, I always took the chance to throw in with Bridger ifn’ I had the chance. Talk about spinnin’ yarns! That coon was up to Green River.
“One night we was sitting round the fire, eatin’ us some hump ribs and smokin’ some pipes. We had nary a place to travel and was just content to lay up fer a spell till the fall hunt started. Thar’ was a few greenhorns in the bunch and Old Gabe gets to yarnin’ bout the time he found the glass mountain. Ifn’ I remembers right, the story goes like this;
“One day Old Gabe was up there ‘round Pierre’s Hole, before the big fight. He was all by his lonesome and huntin’ hadn’t been too good. One day he spies this big open meadow with a bull elk feeding not far away. Quick he gets down from his hoss, throws on the hobbles, grabs his trusty rifle and starts creepin’ up Injun style on this elk.
“Now Old Gabe had got a mighty good sneak on that elk, and was fixin’ ta make meat. He throwed that rifle up to his shoulder and makes the powder burn. After the smoke cleared he looks and sees that elk standing gentle like and feedin’ as if nothing had happened. Now, Bridger always shot plumb center with that rifle and laid down near everything he sent ball at. How this elk was still grazin he didn’t knowed. But he loads another ball and sends it again to the elk. Again, that elk keeps feedin’ like thar ain’t even a mosquito to bother him.
“By now Gabe was gettin’ his bristles up and he loads up another ball. The rifle bucks and that bull just keeps grazin. That was enough for Gabe. He takes his rifle and goes to club that elk to death. He goes runnin’ head long fer’ that elk when all the sudden; boom! He hits this wall and falls over backwards. After gettin’ up he takes a few steps forward and puts his hand out. Needless to say he was surprised when he starts feelin’ glass.
“Now Old Gabe does some searchin’, and ‘fore long he figures it out. Before him stands a mountain of glass between him and that old bull elk. The glass was pure and clear and a child couldn’t nary even tell it was thar’. What’s more is that the glass mountain was sort of like one of them tellerscopes. Though he thought that elk warn’t more than 50 yards away, he was actually some 25 miles off! That’s why he didn’t stir none when Old Gabe was shootin.
“So when we was sitting round the fire, these young tender feet get to askin’ Gabe about this mountain. One asks ‘well, ifn’ how’d do know this was a mountain? Ifn’ it was glass you couldn’t knowed how high it goed.’
“Shore ‘nuff true, Bridger responded, cept fer one thing. As he looked up he seen dead birds up in the sky. They was jist barely able to be seen, but they had died by flyin’ into that thar’ glass mountain. He said after that, he just whips off the hobbles of his hoss and heads fer some other valley whar the mountains is able to be seen.”
“Glass mountains?” Parfleche asked suspiciously. “First yer’ tellin’ yarns about putrifications now its glass mountains?”
“I told ye, it was Bridger telled the yarn. Next time ya’ see him be shore an’ ask him about it. I’m shore he’ll tell ya the same.”
“Ifn’ I do get the chance to see Old Gabe again,” Parfleche responded, “ I shore would like the chance to talk with him about it.”
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