Jim Taylor, Mountain Man: Life's Tough On The Mountain

Jim Taylor, Mountain Man

Jim Taylor, Mountain Man: Life's Tough On the Mountain

Jim Taylor pressed his hand against his side and winced. He could feel a warm stickiness and knew that he was bleeding. He swore viciously and lifted up the stiffened buckskin shirt he was wearing. The movement caused a stabbing pain to run through the wound that made him break out into a sweat, and he swore again.

Jim was a mountain man, standing 6'1" and weighing damn near two hundred pounds of solid muscle and attitude. It was this attitude that had caused his current difficult situation. At a recent rendezvous, he'd got into an argument with Bill Carlson over who could handle their drink better. Both of them had got roaring drunk beside a fire one evening, and Jim had let his guard down and bragged about a cache of furs he'd collected over the last three months. Some of the thickest beaver pelts he'd ever seen.

Jim was regretting his actions now. The Overshaw brothers had heard of his cache and had obviously trailed him back to his camp. He hadn't know about their presence until he'd taken a bullet to his side while walking back from checking his traps that morning. He'd given a grunt and lost his footing, rolling down a slight hill and coming up hard against the trunk of a Pine.

His rifle had fallen from his hands when he'd been shot and he knew that staying where he was would be certain death. Stifling a groan, Jim hauled himself up using the tree trunk, and made his way into the thicker bush, moving as quietly as he could. He reached behind his back and gave a sigh of relief when he found that his hunting knife was still there.

He hadn't known who had attacked him until the Overshaws called out to each other.

"You get him, Cletus?"

"I sure did, John. I heard the bullet hit him, and there's some blood here on the ground. Trail leads down the slope there. And look, here's his rifle." Jim watched as Cletus Overshaw picked up his rifle. It had fallen just a foot down the slope and lodged against some roots.

"Good shooting, brother. Let's head to his camp and find that cache of furs. Pickings were slim this year so it'll be nice to have something to trade in at the next rendezvous. Bring that rifle along. We can trade it for a few bottles of whiskey."

Jim watched them from the shadows of the bush, thanking his lucky stars that the Overshaws were both lousy shots. His icy blue eyes flashed with menace and he pulled back into the deeper shadows, his tanned skin, buckskin clothes, and grizzly beard camouflaging him perfectly.

He pulled some herbs from his leather satchel and bound them to the wound using a strip of cloth. The poultice was rudimentary, but it would do for now until he had time to prepare something better. But first he had to deal with the Overshaws. They were walking along the trail to his camp, talking loudly, their voices disturbing the peace and quiet of the mountain.

"Typical. Those two are a sorry excuse for mountain men. They wouldn't know how to skin a beaver, even if one of their piece of shit traps did manage to catch one."

Jim checked his wound again and then put the pain into a box inside his mind, focussing himself on the task at hand. Once he'd taken care of the two outlaws, he'd sort his wound

out. For now, the anger and adrenaline were keeping him going and he swore to himself that the Overshaws were going to pay for their sins. He was going to stalk them and read them from The Good Book. They weren't going to get off this mountain alive.

Jim made his way through the forest, placing his feet carefully on the ground before putting any weight on them to avoid breaking branches that would alert the Overshaw brothers to his presence. Jim did it unconsciously, never taking his eyes off the murderous brothers.