Beauty for Ashes

by Win Blevins

  When Gideon finished, no man broke the silence, and they rode on.

  Part Three

  Rendezvous

  Chapter Thirteen

  SAM COULD HARDLY believe this business of finding someone in a wilderness a thousand miles high and two thousand across, but it worked. They picked up the trail of the Fitzpatrick outfit easily, a dozen or so horses following the Siskadee. They even found Fitz’s camping spots. Soon the two groups joined up and trapped the Uinta Mountains (the men had named them after the Indians who seemed to be called Uintas, or Utahs, or Utes).

  Ashley was still gone down Green River with an exploring party, Fitz said.

  “What the devil’s Green River?” asked Sam.

  “What the general calls the Siskadee, mi coyote. That’s its official name now, the map name.”

  “What’s wrong with Siskadee?” said Sam.

  “It’s not the white man name,” Fitz said. It was the Crow word for the river, and meant sage hen.

  It was time to make a living. Sam liked roaming the country and getting to know Indians better than he liked trapping. When you came back the the trap you’d set in the cold creek, if you were lucky, a beaver had inspected the stick to see if a rival was coming into its territory. CLAMP! No matter how it struggled, if you’d done your work right, the beaver would drown. Now the work began. You skinned it out. Back in camp you scraped the fat off the hide and stretched it on a hoop made of willows. The results of your labor were two: you stunk of blood and fat, and you had something to trade to General Ashley for supplies you needed to survive another year in the mountains.

  In mid-June they set out for the place General Ashley had appointed for a midsummer rendezvous of all his mountain men.

  Ashley told his three captains, Fitz, Clyman, and Zacharias Ham, that on his way down the Green River, he would mark a meeting place in a certain way. Fitz had written it down. After going at least forty or fifty miles downstream, he would cache all his trade goods and unneeded baggage at some conspicuous point. If a river entered on the west, that would be the place. If there was no river, it would be some place above the mountains the river seemed to pass through. Here Fitz had down Ashley’s instructions exactly, including spelling. “Trees will be pealed standing the most conspicuous near the Junction of the rivers or above the mountains as the case may be—. Should such point be without timber I will raise a mound of Earth five feet high or set up rocks the top of which will be made red with vermilion thirty feet distant from the same—and one foot below the surface of the earth a northwest direction will be deposited a letter communicating to the party any thing that I may deem necessary.”

  Fitzpatrick commented that the general would never be celebrated for his literary style. Sam wasn’t sure what that meant.

  What Sam couldn’t believe was, it worked. Here they were, all the American trapping outfits from all over the west side of the mountains—Pacific drainage, all of this, maybe the wildest country left on the continent. By a mark simple as a mound of rocks they came together on a broad flat on this stream they were calling Henry’s Fork, above the general’s Green River.

  They came in one outfit at a time, and greeted friends. Ashley’s men had been in the mountains only three years, but the friendships felt strong and deep.

  “This child is glad you’re still wearing your hair.”

  “Glad to see you, old coon, I heered you’d gone under on the Salt River.”

  “Good to see you above ground, hoss.”

  Sam observed quietly that a lot of them, sun-darkened white men for sure, called themselves “this nigger” and others “you nigger,” without any implication of race at all. Strange, he thought. But then races here were a jumble: American whites, French-Canadians, Mexicans from Taos and Santa Fe, blacks, and Indians.

  The man Sam most looked forward to seeing was Jedediah Smith—Cap’n Smith to some of the men, Diah to those, like Sam and Gideon, who’d known him before he became a captain. Diah acted glad to see Sam, too, almost effusive for this restrained Yankee. He said he’d spent the winter going clear to some place called Flathead Post on some river named Clark’s Fork of the Columbia, far to the northwest.

  Bill Sublette was also in, after wintering on Bear River with Captain Weber, and young Jim Bridger with them. Sam wasn’t clear how well he wanted to get to know Bridger.

  A party of men under Johnson Gardner had fallen in with Weber—free trappers they called themselves, not employed by Ashley or anyone else. Sam wondered what that was like, operating without the protection of a big outfit like the Ashley men, having no one to issue you horses or supplies, trapping wherever you wanted to, and owning a hundred percent of your fur at the end. He wondered if those free trappers would make more money than he did.

  And the Weber-Johnson outfit brought a surprise—twenty-nine French-Canadians who used to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the far Northwest. Gardner had offered them $3.50 a pound for their beaver, and prices for supplies far lower than the John Bulls offered. Immediately they’d come over to the American side. They were old hands from their look, men like Gabriel, in the beaver country a long time. Most of them had Indian wives, Indian children, and Indian ways. Sam watched them carefully, and enviously.

  Eight horses for Meadowlark.

  THE TRAPPERS SPREAD their camp under the cottonwoods on a flat alongside Henry’s Fork of the Green River. There wasn’t much need for shelter, for here the country was more desert than mountain. Bedrolls and some tents, brush shelters, and tipis were scatted near mess fires. The talk over morning coffee was about where the Ashley party might be—every other brigade was into rendezvous. The general had set out to find out where Green River went.

  “Maybe it went to hell,” someone offered.

  “Maybe the general got lost,” Gideon said.

  “Maybe he got seduced by the maidens of California,” said Beckwourth.

  Blue Horse gave Sam a look like, “Explain this to me later.” Sam knew Blue Horse spent time explaining things to Flat Dog, too; but the younger brother’s English was improving.

  Sam said nothing in answer to the maidens of California remark, but wondered whether so small a party, eight men, might have been stalked and killed by Indians. “Killed by Indians” was a phrase that sang wickedly through his mind more and more, and through his dreams.

  “I hear you got to be a hero,” boomed a voice behind him.

  Sam wheeled. Micajah.

  Sam jumped to his feet and shook Micajah’s paw, careful to keep the clasp light and quick.

  Micajah and his brother Elijah were the biggest men Sam had ever seen. They weren’t big like trees, tall and limb-shaped, but like kegs. Their thighs were keg-sized, their upper arms similar, and their enormous chests and bellies were full-sized barrels. Maybe they were signs that the Bible stories about giants were true.

  Way back on the Ohio, Micajah and Elijah had been working crew on the keelboat that brought Sam to the West. Captain Sly Stuart took on one passenger, a sassy madam named Abby. In Evansville, Indiana, Micajah and Elijah attacked Abby, Sam, and his friend Grumble, intending to steal the gold coins sewn into the stays of Abby’s corset. In the big men’s view, their proposed victims were a boy, a whore, and a gambler. The boy, whore, and gambler turned out to be more dangerous than expected, especially the whore. Micajah ended up fleeing, and Elijah ended up dead.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Sam mustered. He didn’t like being called a hero.

  When Sam ran into Micajah months later by surprise, Micajah was blaming him for Elijah’s death. But when Micajah got sober—there wasn’t enough liquor in the wilderness to keep him drunk—they made up.

  “They tell a big story about you,” Micajah went on, “walking the whole Platte River by yourself, starving, coming out to Atkinson all right.” There was sneer in the tone.

  “The hero’s Hugh Glass,” said Sam. “I just did what I had to to survive.”

  Coy sat next to Sam’s legs and st
ared fixedly at Micajah. Sam marked it down as strange behavior, but kept his attention on the big man.

  “Wal, hoss, you’re my hero,” Micajah said, and exposed his big, yellow teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. “What’s this?” He pointed at Coy.

  “My pup,” said Sam. He didn’t want to say “coyote.”

  “Looks like a damn prairie wolf to me, Hero.” It meant the same as “coyote,” but Sam disliked both terms equally. Coy was Coy. “You want a prairie wolf for a pet?”

  “Saved my life on that long walk,” Sam said. “Maybe we ought to call him Hero.”

  Micajah gave out a roar of a laugh. “Maybe we oughta. A prairie wolf hero, ain’t that the cat that caught the cradle?” He clapped Sam hard on the shoulder. Sam stumbled sideways, tripped over Coy, and went ass over teacups into the dirt. Coy skittered off making little yelps.

  “Come on, Hero, get up, we’re gonna have some fun over by the river. Men competing.” Micajah grabbed Sam’s hand and yanked him to his feet.

  “See you over there,” Sam said, and turned his back.

  Blue Horse gave him a look like, “You have funny friends.”

  THE NEXT MORNING Micajah interrupted their morning coffee. “Sam,” he said, paused dramatically, and squatted. “You and me, we oughta do something. Show each other we’re friends. I know you’ll play the comrade to me—that’s the kinda man you are. And I am your friend, but you don’t seem sure of that.”

  Micajah waited, one eyebrow cocked.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “A little shooting show,” he said, tapping the butt of the pistol stuck in his belt.

  “Not pistol,” Sam said. Sam didn’t have one. And a pistol might be a sensitive matter. At the Crow village, winter of ’24, Micajah and Gideon fought best two of three falls, and Gideon won Micajah’s pistol.

  “Naw, not pistol. For this you’ll want it accurate as it can get.” His face looked full of good humor.

  “What?”

  “We shoot the tin cup off each others’ heads.” It was an old and favorite trick of the alligator horses of the big rivers, the keelboat men. It was used to show how strong a friendship was, or that one had been patched up.

  “Hell, no,” said Sam. That was something he’d never do, not with anyone. Even if he had perfect confidence in the other fellow, it was too risky. Hell, what about the wind? It was a game for drunks and wild men.

  “It’s safe. You’ve caught me sober.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “I challenge you, as a matter of honor.” That was supposed to be the invitation that couldn’t be refused.

  Sam didn’t want to play. “Not a chance,” he repeated.

  “You don’t, I’ll take it unkindly,” said Micajah.

  Gideon threw words in fast. “I’ll do it. Sam’s not that sure of himself. I’ll stand in for him.”

  In the strange world of river honor, this was allowed, and Micajah couldn’t refuse it.

  “Let’s get at it,” said Micajah, and stood up.

  They picked an open spot within view of most of the mess fires. Fifty paces apart they stood, and they weren’t long paces.

  Micajah was genial and kept it light. “You take the first shot,” he told Gideon. “Since we have no whiskey to make our pledges,” he mock-complained, “we’ll do it with the best drink in the world, Rocky Mountain creek water.”

  He downed a cup, and so did Gideon. Then Micajah took Gideon’s hand and said, “In this way, I pledge everlasting friendship between you, me, and Sam.”

  Gideon said the same words in a light-hearted tone.

  Sam felt damn weird, but he had no intention, ever, of playing this game, especially with Micajah.

  They took their positions. Micajah looked sassy as he waited, hips cocked. Just as Gideon’s flintlocker came level, no hesitation, BLAM!

  The tin cup flew. Micajah danced a jig.

  Micajah’s shot was just as quick and accurate.

  Dozens of men grinned at each other.

  Gideon and Micajah joined arms at the elbows and danced around.

  WAITING FOR ASHLEY, the trappers held competitions—foot races, horse races, wrestling, and whatever else they could dream up. They played euchre endlessly with the few decks of playing cards in their possible sacks. They made bets on contests of knife-throwing and tomahawk-throwing—take seven steps back and throw at a piece of cloth pinned on a tree. Sam watched and decided he had something else to practice during the long winters, learning to throw a knife or tomahawk accurately enough, and hard enough, to stop an attacker. He was damn impressed with the realization that this was a dangerous country.

  Some men also hunted. Some fished. But mostly they did what all their successors would do during the long evenings while the twilight glowed and the sun rimmed a western range on the horizon with gold. In a country without newspapers, and almost no books, they talked.

  Every kind of talk. Shop talk—where such and such a creek heads up and what river it flows into. Where you can cross a certain mountain, and where it peters out into plains. What spring might save your critters and your own hide on a long, dry crossing, if you know where it is. What berries are good to eat, and when; which ones tastes all right in a stew, if not by themselves. What roots are nourishing, and which ones might make a poultice, or a remedy for headache or looseness of the bowels.

  Endless talk of animals, too. What the habits of Old Ephraim, the most dangerous animal of the country, seem to be; how prairie wolves act different from wolves. How you catch up with an ermine or a river otter and what their hides are worth in trade to Indians, or worth in dollars back in the markets of the States. Where elk can be found in spring, summer, autumn, winter. How, if you hang your shirt or hat from your ramrod, you might get an antelope to walk right up to you. How antelope hide makes a fine shirt for dress up in front of squaws, but deer hide is better for leggings, moose hide for winter moccasins, buffalo to wear like a blanket in winter.

  Talk of weather, too, a rain so hard it opens a gully right in front of you. Lightning that dances on the horns of the buffalo. A dust storm that will choke you if you stay out in it. A night’s blizzard deep to a mule’s muzzle. A flash flood that swept away our horses, beaver packs, possibles—everything.

  Indians: What tribes were usually friendly, meaning the Crows and to Sam’s surprise, the Snakes, which some of the men called the Shoshones. Those “friendly” Indians still might kill your friend and steal your horses. Which tribes were never friendly, meaning the Blackfeet. Which made the most durable moccasins, which tanned hides the finest, which did the best beadwork, and which had squaws most eager to go to the willows, and were most fun when they got there.

  The news got handed around. Sam thought the most dramatic was Jedediah Smith’s story. Trapping to the north and west of the Green, he and his half-dozen men had come on a bedraggled party of Hudson’s Bay fur men led by a fellow who called himself Old Pierre. These men were from Flathead Post, on Clark’s Fork of the Columbia, far to the north and west. They hailed originally from the region of the St. Lawrence River, all the way beyond Montreal, they said, but some of them had been on western waters for more than a decade. Bearing names like Godin, Godair, and Geaudreau, they were French-Canadians—half-breeds—and the American fur men called them by the tribe they said they came from, Iroquois.

  These trappers, separated from their main outfit, had been harassed by Snakes, and the Indians were aroused because a chief had been killed. Would Captain Smith, they asked, in exchange for the hundred and five furs they had, escort them to the camp of their leader, Alexander Ross?

  Jedediah Smith knew an opportunity when he saw one. The combined party would be safer than either outfit alone, and he would be guided through country he didn’t know and get paid for it. And then he could follow the main outfit in safety all the way to their home post, mapping out beaver country all the way.

  Now he was back, with knowledge of lands with plews aplenty. B
ut his tale, along with Johnson Gardner’s, meant bad news as well as good: The British were trapping the prime Snake River country to the northwest. Here on the west of the mountains, the territory was disputed. Both the U.S. and Britain claimed it. Whoever got the beaver first would carry the day, and neither side would do the other any favors.

  Now a realization began to dawn on Sam and everyone else. This rendezvous wasn’t a one-time thing. It was the way for all the men who roamed the mountains to get together. Summer, like winter, was a time you couldn’t be out making a living—the beaver pelts were too thin to be worth taking. So why not rendezvous? See your friends, and note which ones you wouldn’t see anymore. Get the stories of what happened to everyone, and be warned, or know where you would likely have a welcome. Rendezvous would be like a giant bulletin board, keeping all men up to date on doings in the fur country.

  Now they were impatient for Ashley to show up, so they could trade their year’s catch for all the things they needed, powder and lead, maybe a pistol or another trap, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and blankets, cloth, beads, bells, vermilion, all the foorfuraw that gave you entrée in a village because the squaws wanted it.

  Some of the men saw that they were accomplishing something else, too. At this first rendezvous in the summer of 1825, they started to build their community’s body of knowledge. Hard-won detailed facts about a land of daunting vastness and astonishing topographical complexity, creek and plain, mountain and badlands, and all the creatures who inhabited it, four-legged, winged, rooted, crawlers, and most important, two-legged. As carpenters knew about different woods and about tools, the mountain men needed to know about a country that was equal parts inviting and hazardous to your health.