Mountain Man Jack: A Vignette

Tumbling through the earth scented fodder common to these wood, I struck my face upon a mossy stone and then continued my escapade down the steepening slope. My descent was arrested abruptly by the gentle embrace of the trunk of a Douglas fir. Half blinded by blood and pain, I managed the effort to lay on my back while heavily breathing in the dusty air. The crashing sound of a heavy beast moving closer through the underbrush, brambles and leaves, rapidly approached and roused me to my knees.

The shadow cast across me in this darkening evening belonged to an enormous creature clad in buckskin and beaverskin and coonskin and manskin. Gutterally spitting a greeting through his three teeth, I learned they called him "Jack". He had heard a "moghty ruckis" while hunting game and observed my frolic with alarm at losing the track of the elk he was trailing.

Neighborly as his preacher taught him to be, he aided me in stumbling to the river where I cleaned the moss from my wound. We sat for a time by the water talking seldom while he smoked his hand-carved pipe. Leaving me, he retraced my route, retrieving my bundle. I managed to shoulder the burden with a bearable amount of effort feeling well enough to make it to my camp. Jack wouldn't think to let me go it alone, a waste the resources invested in aiding me should I "keel o'er" on the way.

Back at my camp I thanked Jack for the help and rewarded him with a days worth of dried elk for the effort. Jack gladly accepted, assuring me "twern't a thing" while simultaneously lamenting the effort and lost hunting time. Bidding me farewell, Jack ambled down the trail whistling "Dan Tucker" through his teeth.