Izzy Bird, cayenne pepper
December 14, 2020
Isabella is still in Estes Park. She was going to start her ride for the Canyon today but the weather is disagreeable. Instead, she and the boy are heading up to Jim’s cabin. Her pretext is that she wants to read him her account of their climb of Long’s Peak. But. It feels like more than that, somehow.*
The boy intends to interview this well-known desperado and sell the result to a newspaper. Which is a thing people did then, I guess.
Jim’s cabin in more like an animal den, Isabella writes. It was “dense with smoke, and very dark, littered with hay, old blankets, skins, bones, tins, logs, powder flasks, magazines, old books, old moccasins, horseshoes, and relics of all kinds.
“I could not help looking at Jim as he stood talking to me. He goes made with drink at times, swears fearfully, has an ungovernable temper…. There is hardly a fireside in Colorado where fearful stories of him as an Indian fighter are not told; mothers frighten their naughty children by telling them that Mountain Jim will get them….but he is undoubtedly fascinating.”
On the ride back from Jim’s, she took a chill and started to feel unwell. However, the men gave her a trapper’s remedy, which is a tumbler of hot water with a pinch of cayenne in it. That “proved a rapid cure” and she hopes to set off tomorrow.
* maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
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