 
When my Mother gave me birth, The Great Mystery gave me life. My early years taught me the way of a free heart, and it was then not knowing the wiles of this world, I became forever a spirit lost in the Borderlands."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I'm not sure when my fate to head to the wilderness was sealed, maybe eight or nine, more probably around four or five, like I said I'm not sure. What I do know, is that by the time I started thinking for myself, paying attention, questioning, reading of such men as Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark--and even more so the free breed that came later, the mountain men, Manuel Lisa, Ashley's men, Bridger, Smith, Jackson and Sublette, and of those already in the West, Washakie, Crazy Horse and the other wild folk of the west (frontiersman and Indian alike) of that forgotten frontier era, it was already  too late for the public indoctrination (I mean education) to fully take hold.
For when one smells the smoke of primal winds, hears the howl of wolves in their soul, there is no compensation civilization can offer to satiate such stirrings. When one truly finds themselves in such a predicament there is no choice but to follow that fire and turn their back on civilized doin's to answer the call of the wild. But have no illusion, it isn't easy breaking free. The traps of this modern day brainwash are so carefully laid, so fully ingrained in our life-view most are ensnared before they get out of school.
Even so by the time I was twenty-one I was so fed up with the force fed destiny they enslave with, that's what I did, broke out (yet not free of, but knew not that reality at the time) of the trap, to leave it all behind and went chasing smoke for most of my life, only in the end to become that myself, a mere wisp of what once I'd dreamt and thought possible. Oh the wicked lusts and desires of a world outside of the garden, had it not been for what I already knew and had experienced, confused by the early insertion of our dogma, I may have still been safely disappeared in the mountains. What follows is the tale of the twisted trail of a moderm mountain man, about forty years really, indeed a long, strange trip.
As of necessity I use the safety of fiction, any names (real or imagined), places, incidents or mishaps are fully from the ragged fringes of my mind, and in no way are purporting to be true--any resemblance to people living or dead, or to events real or imagined are but a coincidence of that twist and I duly enter my requisite disclaimer to protect the innocent and convict the guilty at this time. As a convenience, I use both real and imaginary names, at times for the same character or place, again in no way does that implicate any relevant participation to an event real or imagined by said parties real or imagined. As with all my works it is in a permanent state of rewrite and construction 'till it's published in ink, or I end up dead.
 That said, The Lost Cache Journals are the account of an imaginary lad named Tobias Stewart who ran off to become a modern day mountain man back in the 1970's. An attempt to finally put in perspective what transpired on his forty-year trail--perhaps finally come to terms with the separation one feels when there are none to understand the journey, no one free of the trap--
And make no mistake--any of you--
Toby didn't set out to live the life he ended up living, he'd hoped for a far better hand--but that's what happens if you bet it all on freedom when the cards are already dealt--sometimes it does come down to where there IS nothing more, then nothing left to loose...
Always on The Long Trail, even when standing still, W.J. Lynus O'Brien, a.k.a., Tobias Stewart
-- trapper, woodsman & guide (retired)
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Prologue To A Dream -- Journal of a Modern Mountain Man 
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