Mott Brinegar, Mountain Man
by Charles C. Cole
By his own accounting, Mott Brinegar was three-fifths wild animal, one-fifth civilized fella and one-fifth folk legend. He lived apart from humanity in the mostly unexplored section of the forest, and he liked it that way. He rarely trimmed his hair or his beard or washed in the cold mountain stream. In fact, he suspected body soap was just a way to announce to nature: “Intrusive being coming through. Hide your eggs and keep your pups in the den or they won't be here long.”
There was a small stockade half a day's walk down into the valley with a modest community, a place where he sometimes traded herbs and edible mushrooms. He relished the way the sheltered women and children gawked at him, like he was a seven-foot mountain man who rode moose through deep mud and picked his teeth with still-smoldering lightning bolts. And, to be honest, the obligatory small talk kept him from completely forgetting English.
In truth, Mott was never alone. While he had a cordial relationship with most of his immediate neighbors (beaver, wolves, a curious mountain lion), he had a serious bond with the trees thereabouts. They gave him shelter and companionship and a sense of oneness with nature in the “open-air cathedral.” Let others shut themselves away in uninviting quarters with crude furnishings and small windows.
Mott's infrequent interactions with those of his species, however, tended to be solely based on his whims and urges. Human guests more familiar with walls than with trees, with board sidewalks than with meandering deer trails, rarely strayed out of sight of the regional outpost. So, it was completely unexpected when a half-dozen transient, scheming opportunists began making loud plans down by the river.
Like a pack of feral, hungry dogs, the group of dusty men huddled close together, with their eyes constantly looking over each other’s shoulders for some previous victims intent on taking biblical retribution.
A gray-bearded man with a black patch over his left eye waved them closer still. “They'll never expect it. They keep the gates closed at night, sure,” grumbled the apparent ringleader, “but, in the day, they have to let folks out to tend their crops and cattle and such.
“Maybe, if we're lucky, some of the men will even be away on a hunting party. That's when we show up with a battering ram. They'll only have one deadbolt in place then, I'm told, so's they can let their friends inside quickly. We crash right through it and take what we want, as much as you can carry. We just need to cut down the right tree. And I'm thinking this one.”
Mott, all six-foot-six of him, coughed in a way of announcing his presence. They turned. “Sorry to interrupt. Gentlemen, I beg you to reconsider. That particular tree is an old friend of mine. Kept me from being swept down the river once. Then there was this troublesome bear who—”
“Who are you?” asked the leader.
“I live here. You're standing in my home. So, maybe I should ask you the same question.”
“You're not from the stockade.”
“As I told you, I'm from here, right here actually.” He pointed at his feet.
“Go back to your moldy cave, and we'll let you live,” said the leader.
Mott unsheathed a knife he'd once used to skin a buffalo. The men noticed.
“You could have taken any other tree, if you'd asked nicely, but not this one.” Then he sliced along his open left palm and let the blood drip onto the ground close about the tree's trunk.
“There's no need for violence,” said the leader, though his unspoken thoughts contradicted his words.
Mott mumbled a brief incantation then, with a wince, wiped his hand on the bark. “I tell you this to save you the effort: my blood is finding its way to the roots of Grandpa here, and it will make the heart of this old timer as hard as iron. Nothing you can use can cut it. I learned this trick from the original man of the mountain. I saw him fly. I saw him walk on water. This is one of his easier spells.”
“Fine,” said the leader, not sure who he was dealing with. “We'll cut another one.”
“Too late for that. See how they stand so close together? Their roots reach out to each other like a vast network of underground telegraph lines; that's how they communicate, not with words. And while you're standing there, the message has traveled from tree to tree to tree. And they're not happy. There's more of you than me, but there's way more of them than you.”
“Trees?” scoffed the stranger.
“And their friends,” added Mott. Just then, the curious mountain lion scrambled atop a nearby wagon-sized boulder, sniffing the air, likely smelling Mott's fresh blood. It looked at the group of men and seemed unpleasantly surprised as its ears went back and the hair on the nape of its neck stiffened. The men, in turn, collectively took a couple of mincing steps in the opposite direction.
“You're probably wondering if you can outrun the big cat. You can't. You're also probably wondering if he is alone. He isn't. Now you're wondering the fastest way to get away from this place. If I were you, I'd leave your heavy things behind and jump in the river. Cats hate getting wet, even big cats. And the water will carry you downstream to places safer for civilized company. But I wouldn't delay; he looks hungry.”
The men looked at each other, then removed their boots and dropped their guns and jumped in the river. The leader was last. “We'll be back to collect our things.”
“I'll leave them right there.”
Then the last one, Flynn by name, dropped into the cold river and floated quickly away.
He did indeed return some time later, unhappy and not alone, but that's a story for another day.
Copyright © 2026 by Charles C. Cole
