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All of us at one time or another have wished, dreamed or pretended to be somebody else. For some of us the fantasies end as we grow into adulthood, and some of us never lose that dream. All my life I have read and studied about the mountain men who came west in quest of beaver; and in doing so, they explored the western half of a continent of what would one day become the United States. They adopted the ways and skills of the Indians in order to survive. They learned every inch of the land, occupied it, and developed a commercial enterprise to a degree the American Government could legally declare it a part of the United States. Those of them who returned to the United States told wonderful tales of high mountain ranges, beautiful valleys, fertile ground and unlimited opportunity. The stories they told were so large and outrageous that hardly no one believed them. But there were a few who listened and began to dream their own dreams, and in a few years they began to follow their dreams. I guess that is where this story begins. Over the years I continued to read about and learn all I could about theses characters, that only show up fleetingly in our history books. Their story is fascinating to the point that I felt the need to do more than just read about them. I learned all I could about them to the point that I possessed much of the knowledge and skills that they knew. I learned the agony of setting traps for beaver in the freezing streams, lived in a tipi and lean-to and made my fire with flint and steel. I’ve gone from “fat cow times” and buffalo steaks to “poor bull times” with rattlesnake on a stick. There were others who were interested in what I had learned and I found myself teaching and giving living history presentations to civic groups and talks in schools from 4th grade to college history classes. I developed a character whom I portray in these presentations. He is a composite of all the mountain men who roamed the west in the 1820-30's. His name is Iggy. Iggy came to the Rocky Mountains in 1824. He was with Bridger and Meek when they crossed the South Pass over the Wind River Mountains and down to the Seedskadee, the headwaters of that mighty Green River that many miles down stream cut the Grand Canyon. He trapped and traveled all of the west over the next 20 years. He saw the smokes and geysers of Yellowstone, the stinking springs on the Big Horn, tasted the waters of the Great Salt Lake, and even spent some time in the beautiful Yosemite. He crossed the Mojave and swam in the mighty Columbia River. In all his wanderings, though, he never found anyplace better than that mountain valley they called Davy Jackson’s Hole. No matter how far he roamed across the mountains and valleys, he always returned to this favorite spot. He always spent his summers in the valley east of the Grand Tetons and thought of it as home. He even took a woman, one he had found living with the Crows. She was a white woman with beautiful blonde hair, who had been kidnaped as a child east of the Mississippi and been brought all the way out here. The Crows called her, Hinziwin, Sun Hair Woman. He changed her name to Icamaniwin, “Walks Beside Him Woman”, but he called her "Itchy" for short. They lived with the Indians, and he taught them how to make fire with flint and striker. He always chuckled at the their amazement of the wondrous magic piece of steel. Iggy and Itchy spent the winters with the Crows. When he went trapping, he left her with the village; but come green up he would return, and they would spend the summer in Jackson’s Hole. In 1844 Iggy went back to the United States, to St. Louis, to see how the world had changed. He didn’t stay long. How could people live like that? All crammed together eating greasy pork and corn and he couldn’t stand the smell. Them people lived in dark, stale log cabins, and never washed, with pigs in pens nearby, and outhouses on the other side. He drank some whisky in the taverns with other men who had returned from the mountains, and told stories about the mountains and the Indians and all the things he had seen. The porkeaters and flatlanders listened with their mouths hanging open a mile. Someone would say, “Iggy, that’s got to be a lie!” Iggy would grin and say, “I’d tell you a story three different ways, afore I’d tell you a lie!” Well, the cool fall winds from the west came driftin’ in and Iggy smelled the mountains and his heart told him it was time to go! He was back in the Big Horns before the first snow. That winter he went north along the continental divide and over Togwotee, through Coulter’s Hell and up the Yellowstone River, into Montana and along the Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) where 40 some years later the Sioux would wipe out General Custer and his command when he attacked their village on a hot summer day. In the summer of ‘46, he decided to go see Bridger at the fort he had built on the Black’s Fork of the Green. He came out of the mountains and looked down on the slopes of South Pass and he couldn’t believe his eyes. There strung from horizon to horizon was a string of canvas topped wagons and people and cattle headed west. There was thousands of them. He skirted around them and made his way to Bridger’s fort. He found Bridger and asked what they was! Bridger shook his head sadly and said, “They is Porkeaters, Iggy, a goin’ to Oregon. There has been over 5000 of them this summer, and they say it has only just begun”. After only one day Iggy packed his plunder and was ready to leave. Bridger said, “I’ll ride a ways with you Iggy." "I’ve got to get away!” They rode for several miles in silence and reached a high hill. They sat there on their horses and watched the miles of wagons back down below. Bridger looked at Iggy and tears came to his eyes. “We ruined it Iggy!" "We was living in paradise, but we told them flatlanders about these mountains, and now here they come!” Iggy nodded and offered Ol Gabe his hand. Bridger looked at Iggy for a second and nodded. He understood what Iggy was telling him. Gabe turned his horse back to the fort and rode into history, and Iggy turned for the mountains, and was never seen by a white man again. Iggy and Itchy lived with the Indians from then on. They always spent the summers in Jackson’s Hole. In the winter they lived with the Crows, the Shoshone or the Sioux. Iggy always preached peace with the white man, because he knew that they couldn’t win in a war against the swelling crowd of immigrants and armies flooding over the prairie and into the edges of the mountains. They stayed with Red Cloud’s band in the winter of ‘66. Iggy and some friends were out on a hunting party when the soldiers came. The army attacked the sleeping village before dawn on a freezing morning. Survivors on both sides of the fight told of the yellow-haired white squaw that ran out and tried to stop the soldiers and prevent a fight. She died in a hail of bullets and was trampled in the Cavalry charge. The Indian survivors were scattered into the storm and the village burned and all of the Indian ponies were killed. When Iggy and the hunters returned, the survivors were huddled there. Iggy found Itchy and his son. The signs showed the nine year old boy had died trying to protect his mother’s body, and that he had put up a hell of a fight. Iggy buried them there on the bank of the stream that the white men now call Crazy Woman Creek. Iggy went back across the Big Horns, to the Crow camp and gathered his plunder. He never spoke a word. He rode west up into the Wind Rivers and was never seen again. Now I’m not saying there is a connection, but about 30 years ago during a summer break between college sessions, for some reason I felt I had to get away from people for a while. I took two horses and loaded them into a trailer and went to the Big Sandy opening at the south end of the Wind River Mountains. I unloaded at Comstock’s Cabin and left my pickup and trailer there. The cabin was abandoned, but I knew my rig would be safe for the two months I would be gone. I spent the summer riding and exploring the high country of the Wind Rivers, and the continental divide. I rode the ridges and the valleys, up the Thourofare. I camped at Two Ocean Lake from which two streams flow. One to the Atlantic and the other to the Pacific. I straddled the backbone of America that day. Then I went north and west over Togwotee Pass, turned south-west and down off of Sleeping Indian Mountain and into Jackson’s Hole. One afternoon I rode out onto a promontory that looked down on the Snake River and across the valley to the Grand Tetons. Lord! That was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I camped on the spot and found an old stone fire ring already there. I knew that I was at the closest place there was to Heaven that a man could find on this earth. I had eaten my supper and was drinking a cup of coffee by the fire, and watching the sun set over the Tetons. I was awestruck by the beauty and majesty of the scene. Suddenly out of the timber appeared a thin and ancient man. He had long grey hair and a beard that reached almost to his waist. He was dressed in old and tattered buckskin clothing from head to foot and carried a flintlock rifle. He approached slowly and scanned my camp with eyes that could look right through you. I offered him a cup of coffee, and he sat on the ground across the fire from me. He sipped and savored that coffee and held the cup in both hands like a long lost friend. His eyes flitted from item to item in my camp and examined each as if he had never seen them before. His voice was a croak, like he hadn’t used it in a very long time, “ Name’s Iggy, you got any Baccy?” I offered him a cigarette, but it appeared as if he didn’t know what it was. I carefully and slowly lit one for myself and handed him the Bic lighter. His eyes widened in amazement as he struck a flame and lit the cigarette. I chuckled to myself and had to admit that it was funny, watching a man discover a magic trick. I watched him as he slowly and deeply inhaled the smoke and held it as long as he could. It was clear he hadn’t had a smoke in a long time. He finished the cigarette, slowly rose and moved around my camp. He gingerly touched and examined things with his eyes and his hands. He touched my nylon-covered, goose down-insulated sleeping bag. He looked at the pictures of food on the tin cans in my packs, and ran his fingers along the barrel of the rifle lying against the tree. When he had finished, he turned to me. There were tears in his eyes. He looked me up and down and said, “Bliged, pilgrim”, and faded into the timber and was gone. Over the years, I have told many people of the wonderful summer I spent in those mountains and the wonderful things I had seen, but I never mentioned the old man. I’m still not certain if he was real, or maybe just a dream. Well, this spring something started gnawing at me. I had learned so much about the mountain men that I felt the time had come. Could I meet the test? Could I make it on my own in the mountains living off the land? Could I really make it as a mountain man? I tried to ignore the challenge. I turned my back on the mountain’s call, but in the end I gathered up my plunder, put on my skins, loaded the horses in the trailer and headed for the Wind Rivers. I drove up to the Big Sandy opening and back to Comstock’s cabin. Things had changed in the last 30 years. There were houses everywhere. I found the remnants of the cabin in a pile in the edge of the timber. They had torn it down and built a Mini-mart. I unloaded the horses and camped in the edge of the forest nearby. I tried to see the stars I remembered from so long ago, but the glare of the street lights overwhelmed their glow. Well, no matter, tomorrow I would drive to the end of the paved road that was the trail I rode years ago, and unload my horses and ride on from there. Well, to make a long story short, the road didn’t end. What had taken me two weeks to ride I now drove on a paved road in one day. I came down off of the Sleeping Indian and there were the Tetons. I drove my Suburban up to the edge of the promontory where I had camped so many years ago, and stopped in front of a National Park Service sign announcing the Snake River Overlook. The place where I had camped was covered with asphalt and stone barbecue pits, cars and trailers and 30 foot motor homes with satellite dishes on the roof. I got out of the Suburban, and walked through the campground. The sun was going down, so I walked out to the point and watched the sunset until the last rays of the sun were gone. I looked back at that campground and the crowd of tourists there. A deep pain began to grow in my chest, I knew the hurt was in my heart. Epilogue: Many of the tourists camped there that evening, had seen the strange old man with the long hair and grey beard and dressed in fringed buckskins walk through the camp. They shut off their TV’s and walked outside to see who he was. They gathered there in the fading light and watched as he stared off in the direction of that big mountain. They didn’t even know it’s name. They stood there in their shorts and bright shirts and sandals and wondered as they saw him slowly sag to his knees. Not one person understood when they heard his sobbing and anguished voice cry out,
"Lord, You Gave Me A Mountain" Marty Robbins Arranged by Steve Day © Chip Harding Site created by: Twink's Ink September 1999 
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