Hugh Glass - Bruce Bradley

by Bruce Bradley

  Jim Bridger knew he'd made a mistake. He knew it the moment he gave in to Fitzgerald and agreed to leave. But once he made that agreement, he felt bound to hollow through. Strangely, he felt almost as obligated to follow Mr. Fitzgerald now, having said that he would, as he had originally felt toward the promise that Filzgerald had persuaded him to break. It was confusing.

  Leaving Hugh Glass was wrong. There was nothing confusing about that.

  Jim took a sharp, deep breath at the thought. Unconsciously, he looked back m the trail behind them.

  They had taken his weapons.

  Everything about what they were doing was wrong. Everything.

  And yet, there was no denying that Fitzgerald's arguments had been valid. No one expected them to stay as long as they had. Even Major Henry expected Mr. Glass to die that day, or at least the following day. No one expected Hugh Glass to still be breathing five days later, which was when they had left.

  "We won't do him or anyone any good if we hang around and get ourselves killed!" Fitzgerald had said. "Who'll bury him then?"

  It was an argument that Jim didn't have an answer for. The reason Major Henry had asked for volunteers to stay with Mr. Glass in the first place was because Glass was slowing the party down. With the probability that every indian tribe in the area having declared war on the whites, the men needed to get to Fort Henry fast. Discovery might mean death to them all.

  So, Henry had asked for two volunteers, to stay with Hugh Glass and bury him when he died, while the others got away. He offered a reward--eighty dollars for the men who stayed--and James Bridger and John Fitzgerald had volunteered. Now they were running away, their duty unfulfilled. They'd left him.

  It had taken Fitzgerald five days to get Jim to leave. In the end, it seemed to happen so fast, the danger seemed so imminent, that Jim had just panicked. For five days they'd waited for one of two things to happen--either Hugh Glass would die, or they would all be discovered and, most likely, killed. It had been a nerve racking wait, with nothing to do the entire time except to look over his shoulder and listen to John Fitzgerald speak of their coming doom. In the end, Fitzgerald's words had gotten to him.

  So, that had been the truth of it. He panicked. Fitzgerald had come running into camp, out of breath and white-faced, and said they had to leave, right now, or it would be too late--the Arikaras were right over the hill.

  And Jim had gone for it. Now, he wasn't so sure. Had the indians really been there, or was it a trick, to get Jim to leave? For two days now he'd been watching. He saw no sign that they were being followed.

  Stopping once more, Jim checked their back trail again. Hugh Glass was back there, his body probably stiff and cold and, most likely, being worked over by wolves or vultures. Certainly, he was dead by now.

  What if he wasn't?

  And if he was, was he at peace? What about his ghost?

  ***

  Major Andrew Henry and his small group of trappers arrived at Fort Henry late in the afternoon. Upon arriving, they immediately opened a jug of whiskey and passed it around to celebrate their arrival. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Andrew Henry joined them. Only now did he realize the terrific strain he had been under--that they had all been under. Since the attack by the Mandans, there had been a growing certainty among them that they would be attacked again at any moment. Every dip, every hollow that they walked through, had been an ambush which, fortunately, never came.

  Finally, having reached the relative safety of the palisade, they were able to breathe easy again.

  Henry's alleviation from strain was short lived. Daniel T. Potts gave him the news.

  "It was the Blackfeet again, Major. They hit us while you were gone. They managed to make off with 22 of our best horses."

  "Damn it!" Henry swore. "And damn Leavenworth! This is his fault! If he had done what he set out to do--what he said he was going to do, none of this would be happening! Word would have spread among the tribes that the whites aren't to be trifled with. Even the Blackfeet would have hesitated to bother us! Instead, look what we have. Through his own weakness he's left things in a state ten times worse than they were! Damn him for the imbecile he is!"

  Potts simply raised his eyebrows and said, "It's a problem..."

  Looking out through the open gate, Henry thought for a long minute about where they were and all that had happened. So far, their losses had been almost unmeasurable, while their gains had been small. Was all this really worth it?

  He shrugged that thought away quickly. He had more immediate concerns. He had to think ahead to winter, and about the problem of the Blackfeet. Altogether, Henry had less than fifty men at his disposal, including two who might or might not make it back to the fort.

  The fort itself was built well enough for what it was. Against a medium-sized war party, it was defendable. Against a large force, however, it would fall. Considering recent developments, it was not inconceivable that the Blackfeet might try that. It would be great coup for them.

  He thought again about the two men he had left behind--and about the man they had stayed behind to care for. Both Fitzgerald and Bridger were good men. Hell, Bridger, if he lived, might well turn out to be Henry's best. In every emergency, he had kept his head and reacted coolly. The boy was only nineteen, not even a man. Yet, when the Mandans struck, he had been the first to react, catching the indians off guard. In Henry's mind, Bridger's good instincts had probably saved them all.

  Now Bridger might well die because he stayed to care for a man who, by refusing to obey orders and stay with the others, had gotten himself mauled. It had been Glass' own fault, but his foolishness might well cost the Rocky Mountain Fur Company three men instead of one.

  Damn Hugh Glass, and damn Henry Leavenworth.

  The Major continued to stare out through the open gate, thinking.

  No, he thought, it was my fault, too. He had been too lax, too easy. He should Iiave insisted that Glass stay with them and obey orders or go back to St. Louis. Then none of this would have happened. At least Bridger and Fitzgerald would be here.

  Well, hopefully, Hugh Glass was dead and buried, and the other two men were no more than a day behind. And safe.

  Potts was still standing there, leaning on his crutches. Henry looked at him.

  "Have someone close that gate," the Major ordered. "Tell them to keep a sharp lookout. And spread the word for everyone to start packing. As soon as Bridger and Fitzgerald get back, we're moving upriver."

  Henry walked away, heading for his cabin. Before he reached it he heard someone say:

  "Hey, that's a nice bearskin! Who killed the griz?"

  "Hugh Glass," another answered, "but it killed him right back."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  HE DREAMED he was with the Pawnees again. Yellow Fox was working over him chanting, performing one of his magic rituals to keep the bad dreams away.

  "It isn't a dream!" Hugh yelled, half awake and dilirious. "The bear...!"

  Yellow Fox kept working. Little Feather was there too, somehow. Not really there, exactly. It was more as though she were nearby, just out of sight, waiting.

  Yellow Fox kept chanting.

  He awoke late in the day, soaked with sweat and parched from lying in the late summer sun, and from fever. He had the feeling that Yellow Fox and some of the others had just been there, but now they were gone.

  The previous evening, when he had stopped, he'd made it a point to position himself close to the river. Reaching out, he managed to scoop a handful of water and threw it into his face, missing his mouth altogether. It alarmed him just how much effort that took. The fever had drained him. He needed to get a lot of water into himself, and he needed food. If he didn't meet both of those needs soon, he would be too weak to continue, and he would die.

  It took everything he had just to get enough water into himself. When he was done he fell back, exhausted.

  As he drifted off to sleep he thought he could hear someone laughing.

  ***r />
  It was late into the second night. The two men were sitting by the fire, not talking. Jim was staring at the flame, not really seeing it. He was thinking about Mike Fink.

  Fink had been a big man, a powerful man, known far and wide as the King of Ihe River. He had been a legend before Jim Bridger was ever thought of. Talbot had killed him. Three days later Talbot drowned in the river.

  To Jim, that was no coincidence.

  Like most of the trappers, Jim was not formally educated. He had grown up on the river and in a blacksmith shop. One thing he had learned was that there were things not of this world--not of the flesh--that were just as real as hammer and anvil. Jim was certain, as many of the trappers were, that it had been the ghost of Mike Fink that had caused Talbot to drown. The King of the River had taken his revenge on the man who had killed him. It was as simple as that.

  Jim had a real strange feeling that Mr. Glass would rest no easier than big Mike Fink had. Looking across the camp, his eyes fell on Glass' rifle. It was a beautiful piece, one of the earlier Hawken's and definitely one of the finest Jim had seen. Fitzgerald had taken possession of it and intended to keep it as his own. That was fine with Jim. He wanted no part of it.

  He looked back at the fire, trying to shake his feelings of dread. Fitzgeralds voice startled him.

  "Boy, you better stop lookin' at that fire. Anythin' happens and you gonna be blind and useless!" .

  Self conciously, Jim looked away. Fitzgerald was right. Looking at the fire destroyed his ability to see into the darkness around them. Hell, they shouldn't even have a fire.

  But Jim wanted one

  ***

  When Hugh awoke again the sun was up. He was lying on his stomach, with one hand in the water. He could hear as well as feel flies buzzing around on his laccrated back. Weakly, he tried to shoo them away. In doing so he caught a whiff of something rotten, and he knew it was him.

  The flies were back before his arm had completed to pass.

  "What the hell," he said. "I need a bath!"

  The sound of his voice startled him. It was deep and gutteral--not his own voice at all. The throat wound.

  Pulling himself forward, Hugh entered the river, letting the cool water wash over him. This felt better than anything he could remember for a good, long time. Where the pain had numbed his mind to little more than survival, the water made him feel more alert. The bouyancy helped relieve his weight, which in turn helped to relieve some of the pain. Although the pain itself was undeniable, he felt alive again.

  Staying in the shalows, Hugh began to move downstream, with the current. This worked well, much better than crawling on land, but he had to be careful. If the current got hold of him, he would drown. There was no way Hugh could swim this river in the condition he was in.

  He noticed that something kept catching on his right side whenever he would turn a certain way, sending tremors of pain down into his right leg. Reaching back carefully, Hugh made two discoveries. The first one delighted him.

  It was his side pack. It had been there all along and he had been too dullbrained from pain to realize it. The pack contained a small tin cup and a razor--two items that would come in very handy.

  The second discovery wasn't so pleasant. During the attack, the grizzly had bitten away half of his right buttocks.

  Hugh managed to stay in the water for the better part of an hour, nearly losing conciousness twice when his injured leg banged against rocks hidden below the surface of the water. He had no way to guage the distance he traveled, but he was certain that it was greater than the previous two days. He was nearly at the limits of his strength when he spied a patch of buffalo berries growing alongside the bank. With great effort he pulled himself up out of the river, and passed out.

  Later, when he awakened, he would drag himself up to the berry bushes and eat.

  ***

  Hugh stayed by the berry bushes throughout that day, eating and sleeping. Twice he made trips to the river to drink.

  He was starting to feel a little better about his chances for survival, although he still harbored no illusions about the danger he was in. As far as he knew, every indian tribe in the area would consider him their enemy. If that weren't bad enough, there were a hundred ways a man could die out here alone, even a healthy man. Another bear might find him, or a pack of wolves, or a sudden storm might create a flash flood, drowning Hugh before he could crawl to higher ground. Anything could happen.

  Living with the Pawnees, Hugh had learned their methods of traveling through the countryside undetected. He had also learned which plants and herbs were beneficial. The buffalo berries relieved the hunger and provided some nutrition for him, but Hugh knew that to recover from his wounds and get back his strength, he would need protein and that would mean meat. That would be a problem.

  One thing at a time...

  ***

  Once again he asvoke with the knowledge that something was wrong. He waited, not moving, listening and trying to detect whatever it was that had alerted him. His eyes searched through the early morning darkness. He was lying on his right side, his broken, right leg stretched out straight, his mangled left arm lying along his side. He had the berry bushes at his back, and had a clear view of the river.

  Nothing moved in front of him. Gradually, Hugh began to relax. He shifted slightly. Realization came suddenly. As he had done with the flies on his back, Hugh both heard and felt the rattle beating against his leg. A wave of panic washed over him.

  It was a prairie rattler, about three feet long. In the cool of the night it had crawled up next to him for warmth. Hugh lay as still as he could, praying that the snake would crawl away again.

  After awhile the sun came up. Moving slowly and with great effort, Hugh managed to turn his head slightly and peer down at the rattlesnake. What he saw made him want to laugh, both from nervousness and relief.

  There was no way this snake would leave him today, or tomorrow, for that matter. A huge lump in its belly showed that it had recently eaten. As such it would be in a state of torpor, which meant that, unbelievably, it was even more helpless than Hugh was.

  Here was meat.

  ***

  His pace was impossibly slow. Each slight obstacle that lay in his path had to be skirted around, easily taking him an hour or more out of his way. For Hugh, the daylight hours seemed an ongoing, relentless wave of pain. The sun scorched him. Insects feasted undisturbed on his already weakened frame, or else ran away from him at speeds which eclipsed his own sloth-like efforts. Day or night, his body seemed either to be racked with fever or shaken by shivering chills. His efforts seemed wasted and useless and hopelessly weak. Only one thought kept him moving.

  If you die, he told himself, they win.

  Bridger and Fitzgerald expected him to die. They had even planned for it by digging a grave for him. They had made a mistake, though, by not putting him in that grave. They should have finished the bear's work. Slitting his throat or putting a bullet in his brain would have been far more humane than just leaving him, but they hadn't even had the decency for that.

  So, he continued to push himself, hour after hour, passing out often from pain and from exertion. Rocks and sticks tore at his flesh, adding to his agony and wearing his right elbow and left knee raw and bloody. There was nothing to be done for it. Each new and old needle of pain gave him another reason to live long enough to kill the two men who had deserted him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  BRIDGER AND FITZGERALD arrived at Fort Henry in the early afternoon. The fort was in an uproar. The Blackfeet had been there once again, during the night. Seven more horses had been stolen. Major Henry was furious. His anger was softened by relief when he saw Bridger and Fitzgerald.

  When the two men entered his office, the Major was packing. He stopped long enough to welcome them back.

  "So, Glass finally passed on, eh?" Henry asked them.

  "Yessir, Major," Fitzgerald told him. "Dead an' buried. Got his fixins right here, so's
the injuns couldn't pack 'em off. Figured I'd keep the rifle--if it's all the same to you. A momento, sort of."

  Henry nodded. He was looking at Jim Bridger. The young man seemed pretty upset. He kept staring at the floor of the office.

  "Did you see any indians?" Henry asked them.

  "Nossir." Fitzgerald spoke up. "Not a one. We were lucky."

  "Yes. You were. We've lost twenty-nine horses to the Blackfeet in the last two weeks. They're definitely on the prowl."

  "Twenty-nine! That's a lot!"

  "Too many. Well, you men get some rest, then get yourselves ready. Tomorrow morning we're moving the fort, lock, stock, and barrel. We're getting out of range of the Blackfeet, altogether."

  "Whew!" Fitzgerald exhaled. "Alrighty Major."

  The two men turned to go. "Oh, and Jim..." Henry suddenly added.

  Bridger froze. After a moment, he looked up.

  "Yes?"

  "Welcome back," the Major told him. Jim simply nodded, then went out. Major Andrew Henry watched him go, wondering. He'd never seen Jim both scared this way before, about anything. The young man must have really taken a liking to Hugh Glass.

  Well, he would get over the man's death, eventually. In the meantime, there was a hell of a lot of work to be done.

  ***

  After five days, Hugh realized he was healing. Or rather, that he was starting to heal. It was still going to be a long, slow process, but within his pain-ridden brain, he saw the beginning signs, and it gave him hope.

  Fortunately for Hugh, there were a lot of berry bushes along this part of the river, so he wouldn't starve. He also ate grubs and insects, worms--anything that came within his reach. Sometimes he gagged when he would eat them, but eat them he did. All the while he was aware that, if he were really going to heal and get his strength back, he needed to get some meat. Berries might keep him alive, but they also gave him diahrea, which left him feeling weak. Hugh needed protein.

  In the beginning, he had been able to crawl only short distances before passing out from pain or exhaustion. This continued to be the case, but each day the time and distance he traveled between rests grew longer. He was still aware that his chances of making it to Fort Kiowa were slim at best. But he kept his mind focused on one thought at all times, and that kept him going. Hugh wanted revenge. He would endure any form of Hell that stood in his way and find a way to overcome it, just to confront the two men who had abandoned him. He wanted to see the fear and shame in their eyes. He wanted to watch them die, suffering as he was sufferi ng. Somehow, some way, he would do this.