A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  Sufliciently extravagant, however, that he was provided with twenty line war-horses, complete equipage, four unmarried "sisters"—very attractive young ladies, too—who competed bitterly to serve him, and a new wife. "I could not," he writes, "find it in my heart to undeceive these unsuspecting people and tear myself away from their untutored caresses." Nor could most of us if we’d be honest about the matter. Thus James P. Beckwourth begins his long career as a Crow chief, which was marked by great success and a general prospering of the tribe. He did, in actual fact, join the Crows this winter, but there is a" suggestion that his departure from the company might not have been so precipitate as all that. The terrible mourning of his fellow trappers (who thought he’d been killed) is, unhappily, a figment. They knew where he was going when he left. And Robert Campbell, furthermore, made him put his mark on an IOU before he let him go. Dated Wind River, January 6, 1829, it was for $275.171/2—"which I promise to pay in good merchantable Beaver Furr at Three Dollars per pound." A somewhat more prosaic departure from Smith Jackson & Sublette; but, after all, a promissory note is far too banal a thing to be found in a book like The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth.

  ***

  Campbell lost four other men this spring, and these went the hard way. On the "Bad Pass of Big Horn," according to the casualty lists, Blackfeet took Ezekiel Abel, Peter Spoon, one Adam, and one J. Larime (Lariour). There was an Indian report some time later that these four had been killed by Snakes, but the original assumption of Blackfeet seems to be more likely.

  It isn‘t certain whether these men were lost going to the Powder or on the return trip; Campbell almost certainly came back by way of the Bighorn, since Rendezvous 1829 was scheduled for some point on the Popo Agie.

  Dale Morgan suggests that this may not have been a general rendezvous but simply an arranged meeting between Campbell’s detached party and Bill Sublette, coming up from St. Louis with the new outfit. Whatever the actual scheduling had been, that was how it worked out. Davey Jackson did not reach the Popo Agie. His expedition to the Flatheads had been only moderately successful from the point of view of furs; but there he had been joined by the long-absent Smith, and now the two partners were making their way south along the western slope.

  Sublette met Robert Campbell on the Popo Agie around the lst of July and found his hunt had amounted to about forty-five packs of beaver.

  Campbell decided to take the catch down to St. Louis himself. For the past four years the entreaties of his brother had become increasingly persuasive. Further, there was trouble at the Campbell estate in Ireland, and Hugh could not see to it. (The management of the estate was in the hands of "Long Andy," Andrew Campbell, and he was not doing too well, being somewhat inclined to get himself and family in debt over their heads. Hugh claimed that Andy had always had "the evil genius of the family.") Robert’s presence was needed to put things in order, and he was probably happy enough to get a brief respite from the mountain rigors. Family feelings ran deep in the Campbells, and he had not seen his mother, sister Anne, or Hugh for four years. It is sometimes hard to remember that the mountain men were so young;—Robert had left the comforts of a civilized life when he was barely twenty-one; he had already spent a fifth of his life among what his brother called "those Black Footed Black Headed & Blk hearted savages."

  Campbell arrived on the Missouri late in the summer of '29, and arranged the sale of the beaver through Ashley, as usual. The price was a little higher this time: $5.25 a pound. Robert had 4,076 pounds of beaver, 7 otter skins (at $3) and 14 pounds of castoreum (at $4). The total was $22,476; a good catch, if you ignore the four men it had cost. The company had a balance on Ashley’s books of $6,684 (left over from Sublette’s transactions last fall), which was now raised by Campbell’s take to $28,160. This, like the profits of the previous year, would have to be applied toward a new party; and, as it turned out, would not quite cover expenses.

  After completing his transactions with Ashley in the winter of '29-'30, Robert left for Ireland to see what could be done about the estate and renew some of the old family ties. The mountains drew him back, but by the time he returned there was no firm of Smith Jackson & Sublette.

  III

  When Bill Sublette left St. Louis in the spring of '29 he knew what he was doing. Over the past four years the mountain men had gradually been working out the technical procedures of overland travel, until they were now in the form which they retained pretty much throughout the history of the American West. Ashley began it in ’25, with the supply party destined for the informal Green River rendezvous. This caravan, led by the unhappy general himself, was the first of a long series to follow nearly the same course—the Platte route—and meets similar problems. This route became the road to Oregon, with all its famous landmarks: Independence Rock, Scott’s Bluff, Devil’s Gate on the Sweetwater, etc.

  Since that ’25 caravan, one or more large parties had made the trip every year. Gradually the procedure of march became standardized, and after this point one description will do for all. The first wheel ruts had been made on the Oregon Trial by Ashley’s cannon; all that remained was to transport a body of wagons along this road, and even that was not far off.

  A party consisted of anywhere from sixty to eighty men. The first place in line was taken by the booshway, as he was known to the American trappers. (From the French "bourgeois." The HBC brigade chiefs were more frequently known as "partisans.") The rear of the column was brought up by the company clerk, or little booshway (e.g., Harrison Rogers, Tom Fitzpatrick, etc.), Between these two the entire party stretched out, frequently over a distance of half a mile or more.

  The booshway rode on ahead, searching out the road, encountering whatever problems might be in the line of march. Beside him was a mule, "chosen for its qualities of speed and trustworthiness," which carried panniers containing the necessary papers: company records, journals, the articles of agreement with the men, and what not. . . .

  The pack animals of the column were loaded in a conventional way with three packs. Loading these required—and still requires, for that matter—the patience of Job, the strength of Samson, and the wisdom of Solomon. The miserable, terrifying, and frustrating job of packing the animals was entrusted to a number of the men designated campkeepers. These were usually new recruits; greenhorns on their first trip, signed on by the company at a low wage, and responsible for all the mechanical trivia of march and camp. Each campkeeper was responsible for three animals. Aside from the pack animals proper, with general goods and supplies, each trapper had two or more animals of his own: one to ride, the others for carrying his personal equipment such as traps, furs, and foofaraw for his squaw.

  On departure, each member of the caravan was issued such goods as were considered necessary (which included his animals) and every disbursed item was entered in the company’s account books by the little booshway. (One slightly ludicrous example was Harrison Rogers’ notation on the agonizing first trip to California: the regular issue of shaving soap to Jedediah Smith, and him only.)

  Organizationally, the entire column was divided into messes, consisting of eight or ten men. Each mess was represented by one spokesman, who made known to the booshway the complaints and desires of his particular mess. These messes formed the discrete units out of which the whole party was made.

  When the booshway had determined their camping place for the night he stopped and let the rest of the column come up to him. The camps were generally laid out in a square, or rough. circle, containing enough area for all the horses to graze within the perimeter, each horse being allowed a grazing range thirty feet in diameter. When camp was made by the side of a large watercourse, which was often the case, the water itself was made one side of the square, ground permitting. A position for each mess was designated, the animals unloaded, and a breastwork formed of the packs, packsaddles, etc., as protection against possible night attack.

  The animals were then put on light halters and entrusted to the horse g
uards, who led them outside the camp to graze. At sundown, or slightly before, the animals were returned inside the ring. The horse guards then placed the stakes, or picket pins, thirty feet apart, and the horses were duly picketed for the night. If the presence of hostile Indian parties was suspected they were sometimes also hobbled. While the horses were grazing outside, the men remaining within the camp circle would be seeing to the condition of their equipment, repairing the damage of the day’s march, cleaning their guns, etc. All during the time of march a semimilitary discipline was observed. The booshway made inspection rounds of the camp before nightfall. Disciplinary procedure was (slightly, very slightly) indirect.

  A booshway, finding a man with a dirty gun, seldom even spoke to him. The gun was found wanting; the booshway turned to the nearest man and said, "Can you do this right?" "Yes," said the man. "I’ll give you ten dollars to do it," quoth the booshway, who then entered a $10 debit in the account of the offender. This was big money, and the mistake was seldom repeated. The firing of a gun in camp was one of the worst offenses possible, and seldom forgiven. Only under the extreme provocation of a direct Indian attack could a gun be fired. Internal disputes had to be adjudicated by means of fists or knives.

  Throughout the day hunters ranged ahead' and to the sides of the column. By dinner time there was—with fortune—a pile of game stacked in front of the booshway’s lodge. Division of the game was the responsibility of the little booshway. He butchered the animals—or had it done—and the first man who happened to pass was given the job of distribution. He turned his back to the pile of meat, and the little booshway selected a piece at random. 'Who is this for?"

  "Number ten,” said the man, also choosing at random. The men of mess number ten then came to pick up their meat. The mess of the booshway himself was included in this arbitrary division, and, presumably, no one was able to claim they consistently got the bad cuts.

  Meat was the diet; the mountain men wanted nothing else. The finest of all foods was the hump rib of a fat buffalo cow, though some liked tongue nearly as well. Occasional contests are recorded where two mountain men start at either end of a slippery boudin—the buffalo’s intestine—and swallow their way to the middle. Like all meat eaters in history, the mountain men knew you have to have plenty of fat with the lean, and the condition of their buckskins testified to the fact that they got it. What with the blood drippings of one sort and another, and a good substantial coat of grease, the color of a mountain man’s buckskins was a far cry from the delicate beige-brown of the moving picture. They were black. Dirty black, greasy black, shiny black, bloody black, stinky black. Black.

  Sentries were posted for the night, but they were generally stationary. The booshway made rounds of inspection of these, too. The trapper in charge of sentry duty communicated with the posted guard during the night by the customary "All’s well!" and if the guard answered in turn "All's well!" all, obviously, was well. If there was no answer, the sentry captain would go to investigate.

  Somewhere near sunrise—sometimes much earlier, on forced marches—the little booshway would appear to raise the camp. This he did by shouting. "Levé, levé, levé, levé!" fifteen or twenty times (again a French corruption, of course: levez-vous).

  If in country not known to be safer than mother’s bosom, two scouts were always sent out to check the surrounding area, "ravines, woods, hills, and other places within striking distance of the camp." While these "spies," as Ashley called them, were out, no man was permitted to leave his protective breastwork. If they reported favorably, the morning preparations began. The horses, having grazed during the night in their thirty-foot circle, were again led out of camp by the horse guard and permitted to graze until the party was ready for saddling and shoving oif. The campkeepers would wrestle and curse the packs aboard, and when they had succeeded to some degree or other, the party was ready to start again. (This, naturally, does not allow for the recalcitrants; those feisty animals who would let pack be half lashed on, then stampede and scatter pans and panniers and traps and foofaraw for a mile before being caught. Nor for the endless arguments on the merits of various forms of the diamond hitch. Nor for the campkeeper who got kicked in the head and was now desperately trying to murder the mule without firing a gun.)

  The first mess that found itself ready to go moved up behind the booshway and took its choice of position in the column. As the other messes were ready they came up behind. Each mess marched together during the day.

  When in dubious territory there would be scouts ranging on all sides of the party, in addition to the hunters. Those in front would be several miles ahead by midmorning, while the flanking and rear "spies" would be keeping a fairly constant distance of half a mile or more.

  It was a ponderous, complex, irritating and grueling or ideal, only the general outlines of which have been suggested here. From the experience of these brigades came the knowledge that was to make the cross-continent epic of the Oregon Trail possible, and supply America with part of her mythos. And this was what Bill Sublette had ahead of him when he set out from St. Louis in the middle of March, 1829.

  IV

  I enter the next section of this narrative with even greater trepidation than usual. The fact is that I feel more than a little guilty about it, and think some sort of—excuse? explanation?—ought to be offered the unwary reader.

  Generally speaking, it is necessary and desirable for a student of history to maintain a decent objectivity toward his material; to observe carefully and set down accurately, without bias. I have tried to do this, or have at least tried to make my bias plain enough so that it can’t be confused with the facts.

  But all history is comprised of the actions of individuals. This devious probing at documents which we call "research" has the surprising effect of bringing the student very close to the individuals he is studying. He finds them to be human beings, and reacts to them as such. This kind of personal reaction puts considerable strain on the admirable principle of objectivity.

  In short, I have here reached a point where I must warn the reader not to expect even the semblance of objectivity. This is by way of explaining my attitude toward a character who is about to make his entrance in this narrative. I confess that I am—wholly incapable of xercising even a decent minimum of critical judgment about him because I find him such extraordinarily good company.

  Joe Meek is his name, River of the West is his book, and Frances Fuller Victor is the woman who wrote it down for him.

  ***

  Mrs. Victor throws you off, at first. You get the impression of a terribly naive, romantic woman,. somewhat wide-eyed at the adventures of Joseph L. Meek. Recent historians have been more than a little condescending toward Mrs. Victor, picturing her as a gullible fluiffhead, sitting at Joe's feet and soaking it all up to her wonderment. A lot of this, I think, is due to her prose style, which was naturally the one of the times (1870 publication). But never has condescension been more wasted. Frances Fuller Victor was an extraordinarily keen, shrewd historian, and the evidence is in River of the West, among her other writings.2 For example, the reader should check her observations on white-Indian relations and her analysis of the social and political position of John McLoughlin in later-years. She was nobody’s fool, and many of her insights into the forces at work were amazingly perceptive for the time in which she lived. And if she chose not to be exceedingly critical of Joe’s anecdotes, maybe she had something else in mind.

  You must not understand by this that Joe Meek was a liar. He was more a sort of artist—with the truth. James P. Beckwourth, now, he was a liar. The only reason he’s funny today is through his desperate, naive attempts at self-aggrandizement. But in Joe’s stories, often as not, he himself is the butt of the jokes.

  There are a lot of inaccuracies in River of the West: matters of dating, routes, and what not. Sometimes through the normal lapses that occur in all these later reminiscences, sometimes because Joe had a good story to tell. These errors are absolutely without
import. I have to be concerned with them, because a finicky accuracy is essential to what I’m doing, but there’s no reason a casual reader should give them a second thought. The actual facts can be had elsewhere, after all, but only in River of the West can you find those facts shaped into something that greatly resembles a work of art (a statement Joe would not have tolerated for a minute).

  CHAPTER 15

  "Craig began to sing,

  and I began to laugh;

  but Nelson took to swearing"

  JOE MEEK was eighteen in the spring of 1829, fresh from Washington County, Virginia. He was one of a number of recruits Bill Sublette picked up that spring; many of whom were to play an important—or at least a recorded—part in the settlement of the Oregon country. Joe’s particular friend was Robert Newell, another greenhorn. He was known a little later as Doc Newell, with no more rhyme nor reason than any other mountain epithet. (Joe himself is often called major in the contemporary joumals.) Another of these prospective Oregonians was George W. Ebberts; all three of these men left their experiences recorded in some form or another.

  Sublette had fifty-four men in the outgoing party, and they left St. Louis in the middle of March. While the column was crossing the barren country between Arkansas and the Platte, the new recruits got their first taste of what became almost standardized as a mountain welcome. ("Arkansas" is on Meek's authority, but it is more likely the South Platte he means.)

  Roaring out of the desolate country around them came a huge and howling band of Indians, riding full tilt down on the column of whites, screaming and shooting and generally raising a good quantity of plains dust. Sublette quickly drew his men up into a semblance of a fighting line, though the Indians were estimated at nearly a thousand. Whooping wildly, the band careened headlong to within fifty paces of the waiting whites. The principal chief reined up his horse, leaped off, and put his weapons on the ground, making peace signs.