Hugh Glass - Bruce Bradley

by Bruce Bradley

  One afternoon, after managing to kill two small antelope, he returned to camp and noticed that the ranks of the trappers had swelled considerably. When he spotted Jedidiah Smith he knew the men had arrived from Fort Henry. Before too many days had passed, the Army would be there as well.

  He gave the meat to the camp cook and headed off to wash himself and rest his leg, which had begun to throb an hour earlier. It had been nearly a month since he had been shot. He was certain that using the leg was the best thing for it, but still it bothered him.

  He was moving toward the river when two men intercepted him.

  "You must be Hugh Glass." The man who addressed him was the older of the two. He was about Hugh's age, tall and slim, with clear, blue eyes and an air of sureness about himself that spoke of authority. The other man was much younger. He was taller than Hugh was, with a strong build and bright red hair. But for his height and mature frame, he could have been sixteen.

  "I am," Hugh told the man.

  "I'm Major Andrew Henry," the man said, putting out his hand. "And this young fella is James Bridger."

  Hugh shook hands with both men. There was a solidness about the two of them that he immediately liked--Bridger, especially. There was a maturity in the young man's eyes that was at odds with his youthful appearance. Hugh took note not to imderestimate him because of his years.

  "Pleased to meet you, Major," Hugh said, then added, "...Mr. Bridger."

  "The cook tells me you brought us some antelope," Major Henry said.

  Hugh nodded.

  "Well, we appreciate it. They also tell me you used to live with the indians."

  "That's correct."

  "What tribe?"

  "Pawnees," Hugh told him.

  "How long were you with them?"

  "Almost four years."

  "And before that?"

  Hugh looked at the ground.

  "I was a mariner," he said.

  "What ship-"

  "Excuse me Major," Hugh interrupted him, "but can we continue this interrogation over by the river? I was shot in the leg last month when the Arikaras attacked. I've been on that leg all day today, and it hurts like hell. I'd like to sit down."

  "Yes, of course," Henry said, suddenly embarrassed. "Please forgive my manners."

  Hugh turned and started away.

  "Just one more thing," Henry stopped him.

  "Yes?" Hugh breathed with disgust.

  "James Clyman says that, during the attack, a couple of the Arikaras seemed to recognize you?"

  "They recognized me, Major." Hugh told him. Then he turned again and walked away, trying not to limp.

  Henry watched him go, saying nothing more. A single thought leapt into his mind about Hugh Glass.

  What's he hiding?

  ***

  A short while later, Hugh was sitting by the water, massaging his injured leg and thinking about his conversation with Major Henry.

  That was almost too close, he thought. Henry had been on the verge of asking him what ship he had served on. If Hugh told him it had been the Gallant and the Major checked on it, questions would be raised. The Gallant had gone down six years ago, with all hands, and that was the way Hugh Glass wanted it to remain.

  Even if he had given Henry the name of a different ship, trouble could follow. He had been fairly well known, six years ago, and had enjoyed a good reputation in the shipping trade. There might still be those in the industry that would remember that Hugh Glass had served on a ship that never returned to port.

  Henry wasn't through with his questions, Hugh was certain of that. Hugh had cut him short, but the man would be back. Hugh had to decide, before that time, just what he would say.

  He thought about the Major and what kind of man he was--things Hugh had heard and his own impressions of the man--and immediately made his decision.

  If and when Major Andrew Henry again asked him about his past, Hugh would tell him the truth.

  ***

  The Arikaras, almost more than any other tribe, were known by a variety of names, all given to them by the whites. Walking through the camp, Hugh Glass was surprised by the number of ways the men referred to them: Picareens, Rikaras, Picarees, Rikarees, or just Rees--they all meant Arikara. As the days and weeks passed and word came back that the U.S. Army was on their way, enthusiasm was high. The Arikaras were going to be taught a real lesson, and word of that lesson would travel to all the tribes, making it safe for white men to travel in the wilderness once more.

  On August sixth, Leavenworth finally arrived. With him were two-hundred forty U.S. Regulars, eighty men from Joshua Pilcher's Missouri Fur Company, and the Sioux, whose numbers had swelled to around one-thousand.

  The expedition almost didn't make it. Shortly after leaving Fort Atkinson one of the boat commanders, Lt William Wickliffe, unhappy with the slow progress they were making, went looking for more wind. He found it, and promptly crashed into it sunken tree. The keelboat split in two and sank. About fifty rifles and seven men were lost. Concluding his report on the matter, Leavenworth wrote that, "most of the flour and all of the whiskey was saved."

  Less than a week later a second craft, the Yellowstone Packet, also capsized. Again, a considerable amount of ordinance was lost, but most of the flour and all of the whiskey were retrieved.

  At least the Army knew their priorities.

  What was vitally important about the second mishap were two things: First, the hull of the Yellowstone Packet remained sound, so the craft could be righted and continue upriver. Second-and more important--was the fact that one barrel of gunpowder had also been retrieved. Without this, their cannons would have been useless. Leavenworth would have turned the expedition around and gone back to tort Atkinson.

  With so many Sioux warriors around, Hugh was careful to keep anything that would have linked him with the Pawnees out of sight, knowing that those two tribes liad been bitter enemies even longer than the Sioux had been at war with the A rikaras.

  On August ninth the expedition, now joined by the Rocky Mountain Fur trappers, arrived at the Arikara village, led by Colonel Leavenworth and his Regulars. Morale was high among both the whites and the Sioux. Both groups looked forward to a quick and absolute victory, possibly followed by the complete obliteration of the Arikara village. Such an action would send a message to all the tribes and let them know what they could expect if they decided to move against the whites.

  Not one among them could have predicted what would really happen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  COLONEL HENRY LEAVENWORTH had never spent time around indians before. He had seen them, even worked with them to a limited degree during the War of 1812, but those were indians whose long contact with the whites had tamed them. They were nothing like the proud, fierce warriors that rode alongside him now. Warriors whose numbers outweighed his own troops by four to one.

  Those numbers worked on Leavenworth, worried him. After all, he was responsible for this expedition, as well as for the men who made it up. What would happen, he wondered, if their supposed allies, the Sioux, decided to turn on the white men? Even with the addition of the two companies of trappers, the Sioux had them outnumbered more than two to one. Not good odds.

  As they grew closer to the Arikara village, another possibility occurred to him--one that anyone truly acquainted with these two tribes would have laughed at. What if the Sioux and the Arikaras decided to join forces against them? The whites wouldn't stand a chance. The two tribes were said to be ancient, bitter enemies, but who could say for sure with indians. As military commander, Leavenworth had to be aware of every possibility. The closer they got to the Arikaras, the more this possibility occurred to him.

  Leavenworth was also aware that he had taken action without waiting for authorization. It had been a bold move, the kind of thing that gained him a reputation in the War of 1812. In those days, his decisions had been followed by quick action that had always worked out well for him, and he never had much time to think about co
nsequences.

  This time it was different. He'd had a month of hard travel--and plenty of time to look for holes in his scheme. What had started out as a grand, bold plan began to seem foolhardy to him. If the indians turned on them, the whites would all be destroyed. Even if he, miraculously, escaped unharmed, his career would be ruined, for he had acted without orders.

  He would have to be careful here. Very careful.

  ***

  When they arrived at the Arikara village, the Sioux were in the lead. Seeing them, the Arikaras immediately rushed out of their town to do battle. The Sioux were more than anxious to engage them. A fight ensued, which went on until the US Army appeared on the horizon. Seeing this, the Arikaras beat a hasty retreat back to the shelter of their town, leaving thirteen of their own dead upon the plain.

  Only two Sioux warriors had been slain.

  Instantly, the Sioux began dismembering their dead enemies, cutting off the arms and legs of the Arikaras, dragging the entrails over the plains. They tied thongs about the various body parts. These they also dragged around, cat-calling to the enraged Arikaras, who watched from their village walls. One Sioux warrior, donning a bear robe, crawled from corpse to corpse, growling and tearing chunks from each one with his teeth.

  Far from allaying Leavenworth's fears, this spectacle heightened them. Watching the Sioux, he felt sickened by what he saw. After all, if they would do this their own kind, what would they do to the whites?

  ***

  Hugh Glass knew that the indians west of the Missouri had seen very little of the American military, but they had heard a great deal. He, himself, had perpetuted stories of the Great White Father's might, while he was among the Pawnees. This exaggerated myth was what kept many tribes on friendly terms...and kept many a white man alive.

  Having finished mutilating the bodies of the slain Arikaras, the Sioux now pulled back and waited for the U.S. Army to show their power. From all they had heard, they expected nothing less than total destruction to descend upon the Arikaras. Thunder and lightning, earthquake or tornado--none of this would have hurprised them.

  The Arikaras actually had two separate villages. Both were walled, as Pawnee villages were, and consisted of earth-dome lodges. The villages were bordered on one side by the river--where the attack on Ashley's party had taken place. Leavenworth had the Sixth Army stretch out in a thin line, which began on one side at the river and nearly surrounded the villages. The line was completed by Ashley and his men, who stretched the line around to the river on the opposite side of the village. Joshua Pilcher's men, along with the one-thousand Sioux warriors, waited in the rear. The Army set their cannons up on the low, rolling hills that faced the villages, and everyone waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Finally, one of the cannons barked, but instead of blasting away the palisade that surrounded the village, the artillerist merely lobbed a ball over the top, where it struck one of the earthen dome lodges and did some minor damage, certainly nothing that would impress any of the indians.

  After the first cannon shot, a second gun spoke. They then began a general firing which continued for a short while but was, for the most part, ineffective. The Arikaras withdrew into their earthen homes, which the missiles had little effect on. Not once were the cannons directed at the palisade, which would have opened the village and allowed the whites and their allies, the Sioux, to attack.

  The remainder of the day was spent in what Leavenworth, in his report, would refer to as "brisk marches, clever shifts in position," and, "daring advances down the throat of opposition".

  The great, decisive battle that they had all come to take part in never occurred. The following morning a delegation of Arikaras, led by Little Soldier, came out to talk. Little Soldier told them the surprising news that, of the few deaths that had actually been caused by the shelling, one had been their chief, Gray Eyes. Apparently, Gray Eyes had stuck his head up over the palisade at the wrong time, and had lost it to a cannonball.

  After describing this to the whites, Little Soldier then told them that the Arikaras wanted an armistice. This was fine with Leavenworth, who had mysteriously lost his taste for battle. Leavenworth conducted the negotiations himself, even though he legally had no authority to do so. Major Andrew Henry and Joshua Pilcher, both agents for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, refused to take part.

  Even this Leavenworth botched. Sensing fear on the part of his adversary, Little Soldier began to dictate the terms of the treaty.

  The peace talks, which took place on August eleventh and twelfth, were not without incident. Of all the whites, only Leavenworth seemed unaware of the mess he was creating. Joshua Pilcher was furious with him. Pilcher had spent enough time in that part of the country to understand the way that the various tribes thought and felt. The only thing that had made it safe for white men to travel in that area, up until now, was the total awe with which the indians held the white man's army. Leavenworth, in one blundering move, was destroying that awe, turning it into something laughable. Indians, Pilcher knew, loved a good joke. Especially if they could turn it around.

  At one point in the proceedings, Pilcher alerted the Army Surgeon, Major John Gale, to the very real possibility that the Arikaras might attempt to capture Leavenworth and hold him for ransom. After the capsizing of the Yellowstone Packet, Major Gale had been responsible for retrieving the one barrel of gunpowder, which had allowed the expedition to continue upriver. The Major responded to Pilcher's warning by firing his pistol into the group of Arikaras. Pilcher and one other man joined him, also firing toward them. The Arikaras responded by firing back. Pilcher was wounded, although only slightly. It was enough to put an end to the peace talks for that day.

  In the end, for the murders of fifteen whites, the Arikaras agreed to pay General Ashley three rifles, one horse, and sixteen buffalo robes. Disgusted, the Sioux left without a word, stealing seven of Ashley's horses and a half-dozen Army mules.

  Aware that there was still some unsettled wrath on the part of the whites, but not aware that the Sioux had left, the Arikaras left their villages in the middle of the night. On the morning of August 13, the whites awoke to find the villages abandoned.

  Hugh Glass was awed and amazed at this. How, he wondered, could several thousand men, women, children, dogs, and horses sneak away from an armed siege, without being detected? It raised his appreciation of the Arikaras considerably.

  The following day, Leavenworth sent his interpreter, Toussaint Charbonnau, with a message for the Arikaras, telling them all was well and asking them to come back. Twenty years earlier, Charbonnau and his Shoshoni wife, Sacajawea, had led Louis and Clark on their famous journey across America. He knew the land and he knew the indians, and they knew him.

  Charbonnau was no fool. He chased the Arikaras but never caught them.

  On the morning of August 15, Leavenworth declared the Arikara siege ended. The Army packed up their things, and headed back toward Fort Atkinson, leaving the late chief Gray Eyes' aged mother, who had been left behind by the Arikaras, in charge of the village.

  Before the Army was out of sight, two of Joshua Pilcher's men, Angus McDonald and William Gordon, burned the villages.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  WITH THE Army gone and the near-comical siege at an end, it was time for the trappers to get back to their work. Joshua Pilcher and the men of the Missouri Fur Company went their way, as did the Rocky Mountain Fur Traders. The Ashley-Henry group traveled enmasse as far as the Grand River. Then Ashley took the bulk of the men and headed south. Moving west along the Grand, Henry headed overland toward Fort Henry, at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Since the mishandling of the Arikaras, the upper Missouri would not be safe to travel.

  With Henry were Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger, and eleven others. Henry would have preferred to have more men with him. Most of those who traveled south with Ashley did so because they had decided to find easier and safer ways of making a living.

  Due to the shortage of mounts, Henry'
s party were forced to use their horses as pack animals. This made going slow. The men were lucky to manage twenty miles a day. At night they made their camp close to the river. As was his habit, Hugh made his own camp, some distance away from the others.

  Andrew Henry tried to persuade Hugh to stay with the other members of the group, but Hugh flatly refused. Following the directions of others had brought him nothing but grief. He would work with the others and be there when they needed him. Other than that, he would keep his own counsel and make his own camp, and would accept whatever consequences that brought to him.

  And he always kept the Hawken loaded, and close at hand.

  ***

  Jim Bridger came awake suddenly. He did not move, but lay fully alert, listening to the darkness. Something wasn't right.

  Slowly, he eased his hand out from under the blanket, to where his rifle lay. With painstaking slowness, he pulled the hammer back until it cocked. Someone, or some thing was moving around in the darkness just outside the camp.

  Probably coyotes, he thought. Whatever it was, it was causing Jim's inner alarm to sound, sending him into a near-paralyzing panic.

  Moments passed. Jim lay, listening to the night, not moving, eyes wide open and searching the area in front of him. He wanted nothing more than to raise himself up and look around, but he knew that if someone were out there, that might be a deadly mistake.

  He never saw them appear, but he was suddenly aware of six silhouettes standing silently at the edge of the camp-human silhouettes.

  Without thinking, and without rising, he brought the rifle up in one hand and fired.