Michael Punke

If luck wouldn't find him, he would do his best to make his own.

His guilt swelled up, churning like a paddle wheel in his stomach. He wanted desperately to flee. How do you escape something that comes from inside? The revenant, he knew, searched for him.

Yet it wasn__ the Mississippi River that captured Jim Bridger__ imagination : it was the Missouri. A mere six likes from his ferry the two great rivers joined as one, the wild waters of the frontier pouring into the bromide current of the everyday. It was the confluence of old and new, known and unknown, civilization and wilderness. Bridger lived for the rare moments when the fur traders and voyageurs tied their sleek Mackinaws at the ferry landing, sometimes even camping for the night. He marveled at their tales of savage Indians, teeming game, forever plains, and soaring mountains.The frontier for Bridger became an aching presence that he could feel, but could not define, a magnetic force pulling him inexorably toward something that he had heard about, but never seen. A preacher on a swaybacked mule rode Bridger__ ferry one day. He asked Bridger if he knew God__ mission for him in life. Without pause Bridger answered, __o to the Rockies_. The preacher was elated, urging the boy to consider missionary work with the savages. Bridger had no interest in bringing Jesus to the Indians, but the conversation stuck with him. The boy came to believe that going west was more than just a fancy for someplace new. He came to see it as a part of his soul, a missing piece that could only be made whole on some far-off mountain or plain.

The notion of burial had always struck him as stifling and cold. He liked the Indian way better, setting the bodies up high, as if passing them to the heavens.