By God, he would.
***
At mid-morning on the sixth day, Hugh made what was, to him, a great find. He was crawling up over a low rise, starving, looking for anything that might come within his reach that he could use to feed himself. The berry bushes along this section of the river had grown sparse. He reached the top of the rise and stared down into the gulley beyond. Before him was a sight that most men would have avoided, but which held great appeal for him.. It was the stripped-bare carcass of a buffalo. There was no meat on the bones, but the smell of putrefaction was still strong and the bones were green with mold. Hugh crawled toward it.
By the time he reached the carcass, Hugh was gagging from the smell and was no longer sure he could do what he needed to do. With great effort, he managed to break off one of the rib bones, fighting off flies and a horde of angry ants as he did. Then, crawling some distance away and into the wind, he found two large rocks. Placing the rib bone on one of the rocks, he used the other rock to strike the bone. After several tries, he managed to crack the bone open. Then, scraping the marrow out, he placed it in his cup.
He repeated this process several times, until he had what amounted to several spoonfuls of marrow in the cup. Then he crawled back a ways, to a berry bush I he had spotted earlier. He picked some of the berries and put them in the cup, mixing them with the marrow. After he had mashed them together, he began to eat.
It wasn't the most delightful meal he'd ever endured, but it was food. Hugh spent the afternoon repeating the unsavory process, finally crawling away at dusk to find a place to sleep.
He awoke with a strange, morose heaviness that he found disturbing. He didn't feel physically heavy, exactly. He was emotionally weighted, and in a way he was unnacustomed to. He felt depressed.
He'd had some bad dreams, but he really couldn't remember them. His father had been in one of them, but Hugh couldn't recall any more than that. Hugh's father had been a hard man, a Pensylvania coal miner who had a tendency toward meanness whenever he drank. He was the main reason Hugh had run away to sea at such an early age and had never looked back. Hugh had not thought of him in years. Nor had he wanted to.
He tried to shake off the depression, but it clung to him. What had he been thinking? Did he really believe he could crawl all the way to Fort Kiowa? He tried to guage how far he had come in the past week. It was a mile or two at best. Hugh still had three hundred miles to go. At this rate, Winter would be on him before he was even a third of the way. It was hopeless.
Hugh made a weak start at trying to crawl again, but gave up before he had gotten six feet. He tried to bolster himself, speaking out loud. His unfamiliar voice, though gutteral, was flat and without enthusiasm:
"C'mon, Glass, pull it together. You can do this..."
After a few moments, he added, "No ...I guess you can't."
He lay there, face down, eyes open but not seeing the grass and dirt before him, until he fell asleep again.
Once more he dreamed of his father. This time, though, the images were confusing. Sometimes they were his father. At other times the image of his father was intermingled with the image of another man from Hugh's past. Tom Halpern.
The final dream had four men in it--Hugh's father, Tom Halpern, Jim Bridger, and John Fitzgerald. They seemed to be having a party, were drinking and laughing. Something was hilarious to them. Hugh realized it was him.
"Go to Hell!" he yelled. "All of you! Go straight to Hell!"
His own voice woke him up. Hugh blinked several times, slowly realizing that he was once more awake.
"That's right," he growled. "You can all go to Hell." A moment later he added: "Better yet, I'll send you." He began to crawl again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THEY HAD REACHED an impasse with the river. Waterfalls blocked their progress. The keelboats could not continue upstream. Camping near the base of the falls, the trappers pondered their next move.
It was a beautiful spot, but Jim Bridger was reminded of another time, when they had stopped at a waterfall, and the Blackfeet had been waiting.
Others remembered too. Nervously, they watched the trees and the surrounding countryside, each man trying to keep some cover near him as they worked to make camp.
Without any particular pushing from Andrew Henry, the small group of men had become more cohesive, in the way that men in constant danger sometimes will. No one balked at his orders. No one argued. They were a small group, but they were well-armed, alert, and ready.
Henry was still puzzled about Jim Bridger's behavior. Since returning with H'itzgerald, he had continued to act nervous, edgy, and--if the Major didn't know better--somewhat guilty. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, acted as if everything were right as rain.
Like Bridger, Andrew Henry also remembered the incident at Great Falls. He knew that the falls themselves were a diversion that would work against the trappers in case of attack, creating noise and confusion that could allow a hostile party of indians to close in unobserved. With every tribe in the area a potential enemy, the sooner they found a way past this obstacle, the better.
Not for the first time since they had returned from the Arikara siege, he felt a sudden longing to be back in St. Louis, among his books and playing his violin. This is crazy, he thought. Why am I here? What are we gaining? In less than year's time, more than twenty men had been killed, mostly by indians. Could they even hope to make up for that? Not to mention the staggering financial losses. True, Ashley was a man of credit, but how far could that credit go, and for how long?
As it turned out, the thing the trappers feared the most became their salvation. While waiting at the falls, a party of indians materialized. These turned out to be Crows. Signalling peaceful intentions, Henry followed them to their village, where he traded successfully with them. When he returned to the camp, he brought with him forty-seven horses.
The party continued upriver.
***
Hugh Glass did not so much as breathe. He lay, hidden by a thick growth of scrub brush, not moving, not even blinking. Thirty feet away from him, six Cheyenne warriors were watering their horses.
If they spotted him they would kill him. Hugh had no doubt about that. Nor would it be an easy death. The Cheyenne, like all the tribes in the area, liked to take their time when they captured an enemy. Hugh had been fortunate, both in his timing and in the direction they had come from. The indians had come up from the south--the direction Hugh was heading toward, so they hadn't crossed the hopelessly obvious trail, that a crawling, injured man would leave. If they had arrived five minutes later than they had, Hugh would have been caught out in the open, for he had been about to exit the protection of the brush and crawl to where they now stood watering their horses. Instead of crawling out, he froze where he was and tried to blend in with his surroundings.
Reading the party, Hugh decided that they had probably been out for some time and that, by the look of them, they hadn't done too well for their trouble. Often, when a raiding party went out, they would go on foot, the intention being that they would ride back on the horses they would steal. That clearly wasn't the case here. These ponies all wore Cheyenne saddles and markings. The men looked gaunt and tired. They had traveled far and had little to show for it. Hugh didn't want to be the one to change their luck.
The wait began to grow painful for him. One of the irritating things about Hugh's injuries was that they made it difficult for him to be comfortable in any one position for any length of time. Even in his sleep he was shifting every few minutes. He was lying on his stomach, resting on his arms. Both his lacerated left arm and his broken leg began to throb.. Hugh forced himself to remain still.
One of the warriors suddenly looked directly at him. At the same moment, sweat ran into Hugh's eyes, forcing him to blink.
Miraculously, the Cheyenne didn't see him. He'd seen something, though. He continued to stare at the spot where Hugh lay, searching the area with his eyes. Abruptly, the leader of the group barked an
order. Almost instantly, all six men were again on horseback. Moving single file, they turned their horses into the river. The last one in was the indian who had looked at Hugh. As his horse entered the water, he turned back once more to let his eyes search the area where Hugh lay. Seeing nothing, he turned his attention back to what was before him.
The six men crossed the river, floating back but still holding onto their mounts as they entered the deeper water, so that their weight wouldn't push the horses under, then settling in again as they reached the shallows on the opposite side. The Cheyennes rode up and over the opposite bank and quickly disappeared from view. Only then did Hugh resume normal breathing.
He waited a full ten minutes without moving from where he lay, just in case they decided to come back. Then, as quickly as he was able, he crawled down to the river. Entering at exactly the same spot that the Cheyennes had, he swam out a short way and allowed the current to carry him downstream.
This time he stayed in the water for quite a while, allowing the current to put as much distance as possible between him and the raiding party.
Finally, exhausted again, he made his way back to the bank and crawled out of the water. For a few brief moments he allowed himself to rest. Then he crawled up into the brush, hid himself, and slept. It was an unrestful sleep. He dreamt that the Cheyennes had returned. Finding the spot where he had entered the river, they followed him downstream. Aware that they were growing close, he laid where he was, not moving, his eyes closed. By their voices, he could tell that they had found where he had left the river. He could hear them moving closer.
One of them had found him. Now Hugh lay in a sort of dream-paralysis, unable to move. Roughly, the man rolled him over.
It wasn't a man at all. It was an enormous bear, twice larger than any bear Hugh had ever heard of. It loomed over him, snarling, snarling...
Hugh woke up. He lay for several moments, chest heaving, his breath coming in great gulps. Slowly, he realized that once again, he had been having a nightmare.
Then he had a second realization.
The snarling was real.
***
It was a wolf pack. With great relief Hugh realized that it was not him they were snarling at. They had separated a buffalo calf from the rest of the herd, which must be somewhere nearby. It was a large calf, about six months old, and it was doing its best to keep them at bay, but its moments were running short. Hugh could tell from its heaving sides that the wolves had run the calf as far as it would go. In a few short minutes it would take its last breath, probably not more than a few paces from where it now stood.
One of the wolves made a run at it, growling. The calf took a step toward the wolf, swinging its big head defensively to protect itself. The wolf leapt away. Even as it did, a second wolf came in from the other side. Unseen until it was too late, the second wolf succeeded in clamping its teeth firmly on the throat of the buffalo. Bawling in pain, the calf managed to move forward a little, stepping on the wolf but not dislodging it. Another wolf grabbed the calf by the tail and started pulling it back. At first this had no effect. Then the calf once more stepped on the wolf that held its throat.
This time the wolf let go. The wolf that held the calf's tail held firm, pulling with all its might. Suddenly free of the weight of the first wolf, the calf was now off-balance. It sat down hard on its rump. Without waiting for it to recover, two more wolves struck the calf at once, knocking the young buffalo onto its side.
The calf would never rise to its feet again. The wolf that had been stepped on once more found purchase on the buffalo's throat and held it down. Avoiding the calf's flailing hooves, the rest of the pack rushed in. Not bothering to wait for death to arrive, the wolves tore open the belly of the calf and began to devour it.
The fight was over.
Having killed many buffalo himself, Hugh was yet not unmoved by the scene befi him. The calf had died in fear and in pain. Hugh's sympathy, however, was tempered the fact that he was starving.
As the wolves commenced their feast, Hugh eased himself backwards, slowly moving out of sight. An hour later he was back, dragging two heavy poles with him. Crawling back to spot he had left earlier, Hugh looked down upon the scene. Having sated their hunger, wolves lolled about their kill. Hugh watched them for signs of aggression. He saw none.
It's now, he decided, or not at all.
Moving as quietly as he could, Hugh managed to raise himself up onto his knes. Then, using one of the poles as a crutch, he pulled himself up to his feet for the first time since being attacked by the grizzly. His broken leg was tender, but it accepted the weight with the help of the crutch.
One of the wolves looked up and saw him. In an instant all of them--five wolves all were on their feet, staring at Hugh, growling at him. Not hesitating, Hugh rushed down at them, using the makeshift crutch under one arm and wielding a club with other, yelling at the top of his voice as he went. Only one of the wolves approached him. Hugh struck it hard in the side of the head with his club. Yelping, the wolf leapt away.
If he had attempted this earlier, before all the wolves had eaten their fill, they would have pulled him down and killed him as they had the calf. Instead, with their stomachs full, they retreated into the dusk.
The kill was his.
***
Hugh stayed at the kill for four days, eating his fill again and again and resting. He had no means of making a fire, but for a man who was starving, the raw meat was heaven. Considering the amount of blood he had lost and strength he needed regain, the bloody meat was probably the best thing for him.
During the time he spent by the buffalo calf, Hugh pre-occupied himself by cutting the meat into strips, pounding it and mixing it with berries, and allowing it to dry in the sun. He also practiced walking with the makeshift crutch. He was awkward at first, the leg was pretty tender, but after four days of practice and rest he found he could move pretty well. On the morning of the fifth day he moved on. When he left, he did so walking upright, as a man, and he had with him more pemmican than he could comfortably carry.
For the first time since meeting with the grizzly, Hugh Glass felt like a man again.
CHAPTER FORTY
ITWAS NOW the middle of September. Hugh was making good time--not as good he wanted, not as good as an uninjured man--but good time just the same. He estimated that he was making between five and ten miles a day. He still had far to go.
At night he slept little. His right leg throbbed with pain from walking over the uneven terrain. Hugh knew that would pass. He was more concerned with the wounds on his back. They weren't healing properly. They were open and festering. Hugh could feel insects crawling over them. His back gave off a bad smell. Hugh , aware that he was fighting a fever.
There was nothing to be done about any of this. Hugh couldn't reach the wnds, couldn't clean them or dress them, or even shoo the insects away. All he could do was keep moving.
A week after leaving the buffalo calf, his supply of pemmican gave out. Hugh continued along, making the best time he could, eating buffalo berries or whatever came within his grasp. He was beginning to recognize the area he was traveling through, having passed through more than once while traveling with the Pawnees. He developed a plan.
As near as Hugh could figure, he was now within a couple of days walking in the Arikara village. The village had been burned and abandoned, but that was precisely why Hugh was headed there. Like the Pawnees, the Arikaras would have one or more food caches hidden somewhere in the village. Hugh doubted that they'd had the time to clean them all out before they fled into the night. If he could make it to the village and find one of the caches, he would feast like a king. Besides that, the village was along his path back to Fort Kiowa.
***
He reached the village four days after his supply of pemmican ran out. By then he was nearly starving again.
Instead of going directly in, he watched the village. Despite his hunger, he spent hours circling the village, making sure ther
e was no sign of habitation. Only when he was certain did he venture in.
The village was laid out almost exactly like the Pawnee villages. The Arikaras used the same type of earth lodges as the Pawnees, only these had been burned. Many of the lodges had fallen in. Those that hadn't were unsafe to enter. None of that mattered to Hugh. If the Arikaras built their caches the way the Pawnees did, then they would not be inside one of the lodges, but outside, somewhere within the compound.
Knowing what to look for was a big advantage. After entering the village, it took Hugh less than two hours to find the food.
He ate his fill of the raw corn. Suddenly exhausted, he then lay back on one of the earth lodges that were still intact There he slept. During the night he awoke to find a strange pair of eyes looking at him. Startled, Hugh relaxed when he realized that it was an indian dog, somehow left behind by the Arikaras. The dog kept a respectful distance, and was still there when Hugh drifted off again.
When he woke up the dog was gone. After eating some more of the corn, Hugh washed himself in the river. Then he sat back once more on the earth dome, to try to plan the next leg of his journey. His best bet was to try to salvage enough lumber from the burned out village to construct a raft. That would be no easy chore, but if he could manage it, the rest of the journey would go much easier for him. A raft would also enable him to carry enough corn to last him until he reached Fort Kiowa.
Hugh Glass - Bruce Bradley Page 20
