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The Lady and the Mountain Man:
Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship
Once the group reached the area near the lava beds, they collected the horses they’d left there overnight. Jim lifted Isabella and placed her on Birdie’s back. She guided her ride slowly over the jagged shards of rocks. When they reached the camping grounds, Jim lifted Isabella off her horse and led her to a bed of charred wood. In a few moments, he had a fire going, and the four huddled around the blaze. Rogers and Downer considered continuing to Estes Park, but Jim convinced them to stay. “Now gentlemen,” the mountain man admonished, “I want a good night’s rest, and we shan’t stir from here tonight.” No one disagreed. In truth, everyone was too tired to debate the matter.
Isabella made herself comfortable under a cluster of nearby trees. After wrapping herself in a roll of blankets, she fell fast asleep.
“When I woke, the moon was high shining through silvery branches, whitening the bald Peak above, and glittering on the great abyss of snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a bonfire in the cold still air,” Isabella wrote about the excursion. “My feet were so icy cold that I could not sleep again, and getting some blankets to sit in and making a roll of them for my back, I sat for two hours by the camp-fire. It was weird and gloriously beautiful. The students [Rogers and Downer] were asleep not far off in their blankets with their feet toward the fire. ‘Ring’ lay on one side of me with his fine head on my arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting up the handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side….
“Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp, when ‘Ring,’ with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats, stampeded, and came rushing wildly toward the fire, and it was fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was restored.”
A light shower of snow drifted down on the camp. Mountain Jim stared pensively at the flakes, melting as they met the flames of the campfire. Eventually he spoke. He had a great deal to say. He told Isabella of his troubled childhood and how he squandered much of his youth breaking laws and promises. Isabella gave no indication that Jim’s tales of his misspent younger years was his way of bragging about his misdeeds. He spoke as though he sincerely regretted his actions. He made no excuses for whatever bad he had done but was truly repentant. He talked about the enthusiasm he once had for life and for exploring the West. He confessed that the spark had been replaced with anger and frustration over wealthy nobles who took possession of land to which they had no moral right. Tells welled up in Jim’s eyes as he shared with Isabella how he felt he had wasted his years. He was a sinner who believed redemption for him was impossible.
Isabella only listened. His pain was real, but she wondered if the emotions bubbled to the surface out of fatigue or the need to fill the silence? She couldn’t help but be moved by all he was admitting. While working with her father in the church, she’d heard similar cries from those who had fallen short. She had encountered men and women who hated their sin nature and wanted to get right with the Creator. Some, like Isabella, believed and accepted the gift of forgiveness. Others, however, struggled with the idea that God’s grace could transform their lawless, desperate deeds. Jim was one of those individuals. He grieved, and Isabella was sad for him.
