by Terry Grosz
“Near as I can tell from all the dead Indians around me, Iron Hand kilt three of them tomahawk-swinging bastards and the rest of you kilt those left standing. Fer as I can tell, we had a party of Indians out on a deer hunt and they shot this big buck with an arrow now lying dead at my feet. That damn deer ran right to me and fell over dead, and then the rest of them ‘buggers’ dropped in on my morning’s dump and you guys can figure out all the rest,” continued Old Potts with a big ole sly grin showing through on his heavily whiskered face.
“Now what do we do? We got six dead Gros Ventre and what the hell do we do with all them bodies?” asked Big Foot. “’Cause you know their kin are going to come looking fer them just as sure as Iron Hand is the ugliest among the four of us standing here all agape...”
“I got an idea. We dump all these buggers in the Poplar River, take their horses, load up all our gear and head fer Fort Union fast as we can. We are almost ready to get the hell out of this area fer the season anyway, so what if we leave a week or two earlier than planned? Let’s dump all the bodies along the Poplar at intervals as we trail all their unshod ponies behind our pack and ridin’ string. That way, we leave the area for a few months, they cannot find us, we get rid of all them bodies and make our ways to Fort Union with all of our hair. By the time we all come back, if we do, them ‘war-hoops’ will have forgotten all about this killing spree and their disappeared kin. If that plan is alright with you guys, let’s find where they tied off their horses, load up our furs and leave the area tomorrow at daylight. Along the way, we can dump their bodies and leave the area with all our furs and our ‘God-given’ hair, what do you think about them ‘apples’?” said Old Potts.
The next mid-morning found all the trappers’ horses loaded with their traveling gear and packs of furs. The rest of their gear they did not need for the trip had been cached in the ground behind their cabin for later retrieval, if and when they returned. The Indians’ horses, having been located the morning before, were now carrying their dead masters’ bodies as the men made ready to leave. This the trappers purposely did because any Indians tracking the dead men’s horses could tell by the depth of the horses’ hoofprints if they had been ridden or not. If the hoofprints were deep as normally associated with a ridden horse, the trappers figured that may throw any pursuers off the fleeing trappers’ trail. As it just so happened, lashed across one of the Indians’ horses was also the ‘traveling meat’ for the trappers on part of their trip, namely one mule deer, courtesy of the now dead Indian hunters who had ‘tangled’ with Old Potts and company the day before...
Reaching the west bank of the Poplar River not far from their cabin, the trappers turned south trailing the six Indian horses behind their pack string in order to hide their obvious white men’s horses’ shod tracks. Reaching the south end of the rolling and timbered hills leading them out onto the open expanses of the prairie, the trappers dumped the bodies of the now identified by their dress, Gros Ventre, from the battle the day before into the strong current of the Poplar River.
After making sure the bodies were drifting southward on the Poplar towards the Missouri River, the trappers continued heading south as well. They had only traveled about five miles when Crooked Hand spotted about 20 Indian riders riding in a loose group on the far horizon. Realizing that remaining out in the open expanses of the prairie would make them easy targets since they were so outnumbered, the men scampered their pack string into a large grove of nearby aspens, rode their stock into the middle of the trees where they were more than out of sight and dismounted. Walking their horses over into a deep gully in the grove, the men secreted the animals out of sight and then took up their battle positions at the top lip of the gully, in case their pack string’s tracks were discovered by the distant Indian riders and then they were ridden down and attacked where they lay in hiding.
Come nightfall and still undiscovered by the distant Indian riders, the trappers re-emerged from their place of hiding and continued riding south along the Poplar River. After a three-hour ride in the darkness, the trappers once again pulled into another grove of aspens along the Poplar River and made a cold camp. However as a matter of precaution, Big Foot and Iron Hand hobbled all their horses and remained with them as they grazed into the night. Come daylight, the horses had been re-packed with their bundles of valuable furs and after a breakfast of jerky and a long drink of water from a spring, the trappers once again hit the trail. Around noontime, the trappers and their pack string arrived at the shallow ford in the Poplar River, crossed over and by nightfall, had reached the north bank of the Missouri River.
Making camp in a dense stand of trees and brush along the Missouri River bottoms, the trappers finally chanced a fire. There they prepared a staked dinner of fresh venison from the buck deer the Indians had killed earlier in the fight with the trappers and relaxed as best as they could while their horses quietly grazed deep in the river bottoms. Early the next morning, the trappers set out once again heading for Fort Union with their heavily loaded pack string and with luck, would soon have a chance to relax under the fort’s protective walls from the chance of hostile Indian discovery.
Two days later, the four Free Trappers were once again met at the fort’s front gate by their old friend and Factor for the American Fur Company at Fort Union, Kenneth McKenzie. Once again, McKenzie was amazed over the sight of their trapping successes, the size and quality of their plus and another again-increased horse herd comprised in part by somehow acquired Indian ponies!
The following day after being hosted by McKenzie the evening before to a dinner fit for the class of Free Trappers they represented, the usual ritual for fresh from the field trappers with their furs began. While Old Potts and Big Foot oversaw the counting and grading of their trapping successes, Crooked Hand and Iron Hand visited the fort’s storehouses and began compiling the next year’s stocks of needed provisions, since the four men had finally decided on spending at least one more year on the frontier as trappers, since it suited their fancy just fine.
The following evening, two Free Trappers sporting a long pack string of heavily loaded mules and horses moved into view of Old Potts’s camp located along the Missouri River bottoms off to one side of Fort Union’s log walls. Suddenly, those riders stopped cold in their tracks upon seeing Iron Hand cooking around Old Potts’s campfire and intensely scrutinized him for the longest time like something was the matter with what they were seeing! As they did, Iron Hand could see that one of the men moved ominously closer to his closest pack animal carrying a rifle as if to be able to quickly withdraw it for immediate use! Then the intense looks from the two newcomers shifted from the camp cook onto Old Potts, Crooked Hand and Big Foot who were working around the campsite, with the same intense stare they had originally focused upon Iron Hand just moments earlier. Strange behavior indeed for the two new arrivals to the general Free Trappers’ campsite to say the least, thought Iron Hand.
Finally satisfied over what they were seeing or not seeing around Old Potts’s campsite, the two strangers casually brought their pack string down the riverbank, pitched their tents nearby, unpacked their tired animals and let them out to graze in the lush river bottom grasses adjacent the Missouri River. As they moved around establishing their campsite, Iron Hand noticed that both men were strapping, strong-looking individuals, weighing at least 250 pounds apiece and who were at least six-and-a-half feet tall. Finally seeing someone almost as tall and large as he was and interested in meeting the new arrivals, Iron Hand ventured over to their campsite once they were all set up and introduced himself to the two strangers.
“Evening. I am Tom Warren from Missouri but my friends here call me “Iron Hand”, and you two are…?”
“Good evening, yourself. I am Joshua Dent and this here runt of the litter is my younger brother, Gabriel,” he said with an obvious ‘smile’ in his voice, unlike the serious and strange initial scrutiny they had just given Iron Hand and his camp mates an hour earlier. “Our friends just cal
l us Josh and Gabe. If you don’t mind me asking, Tom, how the dickens did you come by that moniker of “Iron Hand”?” asked Joshua.
“Oh, that comes with a long story. But in short, while being attacked by some Blackfeet warriors up around the Medicine Lake area, I managed to kill one of the attackers with my hands during the battle,” replied a slightly embarrassed Iron Hand over what he considered a rather personal question. Then to quickly change the subject over the genesis of his unique frontier name among his friends and the rest of the knowing trapping fraternity and looking over at the two trappers’ beautiful string of horses, Iron Hand said, “Those six matched buckskins with the coal black fetlocks are some of the finest looking animals I have seen in a long time. How did you two come by such fine and beautifully matched horses way out here on the frontier? I ask, because most of the stock we see out here are rather rangy and not anyway near the fine quality of those animals.”
“They at one time belonged to our uncle back in Missouri. Uncle Jack was killed, as was our aunt, by four Missouri ruffians or “Bushwhackers” as they are called locally. Those killers are led by an evil son-of-a-bitch from the next county over from our old farm, named “Black Bill Jenkins”. Those horses are in part, the reason why my brother and I are here in this country today as trappers. You see, Black Bill and his three brothers, named Clio, Stilt and Lem, also killed our Ma and Pa earlier that same year on our farm, while my brother and me were out gathering several tubs of wild honey. Then because the law was hot on their trails for all the killing and robbing they were doing around our county, they fled to the frontier and became trappers to avoid a damn good hanging back home in Missouri,” surprisingly offered Joshua in more detail than Iron Hand would have normally expected from having just met the two men.
“When that bunch of killers left the county, we sold Uncle Jack’s farm since we were his last of kin and became trappers for a damned good reason as well. In so doing, me and my brother here dedicated our lives to hunting down Black Bill and his kin and have been doing so now for several years. We know and have also heard from a number of other trappers, that they have been trapping and trouble-making up on the Yellowstone, the Musselshell, the Big Horn, and now along the western reaches of the Missouri. After hearing they may be in this neck of the woods, we came to Fort Union in the hopes we would find the four of them selling their furs and getting new provisions so they could continue on the run out here where there is no law. If we run across their trails and the four of them, we intend to kill the lot for what they did to our folks and our aunt and uncle,” continued Joshua with a degree of iron in the tone and tenor of his voice.
With those words of extreme family loss, Iron Hand’s mind once again flashed back to his painful past and the loss of his young wife and beautiful, first-born young son to a deadly ‘killer’ as well. A ‘killer’ to his way of thinking, which was just as evil as Black Bill was purported to be, but one which moved silently and had favorable consideration for none...
Then Joshua broke into Iron Hand’s thinking back on the darker earlier days in his life by saying, “So, Tom, back to our ‘horse’ story. When we left Missouri hunting Black Bill and his kin, we needed good horses for what we planned on doing in tracking down that bunch across the untamed west. Being that Uncle Jack had some of the finest horseflesh around that neck of the woods, we came by them naturally since we were the last of his kin. Those buckskins are the only ones like them, and my brother nor I will never, ever part with them unless someone kills the two of us and steals them from our cold, dead hands. They mean that much to us, because that is all of what we have left from our past to remind us of the loved ones we lost in such a violent manner. And we aim to keep them unto death,” continued Joshua with a look of grim determination flashing across his dark eyes. Surprisingly, the same dark look Iron Hand had when he was deep in battle with the Blackfoot that had attacked their camp earlier…
Then Gabriel got a big grin on his face as did his brother, when the following was revealed regarding their earlier behavior upon riding up onto Iron Hand’s campsite. “When we rode up onto your campsite, we damned near fell off our horses after all these years of chasing Black Bill and his kin. You see, Iron Hand, you are built just like what we have heard tell about Black Bill, beard and all! He is at least six-and-a-half feet tall, weighs about 250 pounds and has a large, dark beard just like you are sporting. That is why we paused at the top of the trail leading to this camping area in amazement when we spotted you tending the campfire. On first look, we figured you were Black Bill and we were almost ready to start shooting and kill you on the spot, before we realized you might not be him because of the friendly appearance of your fellow trappers at the campsite! You see, Black Bill has three brothers who are running with him that will never leave his side, and are all reported to have flaming red hair and beards. Just as we were ready to come down and see if you were Black Bill and if so, send you off to hell, Joshua here cautioned me not to shoot unless we were certain you were him. But then when it came to looking over your friends, we could see that none of them sported red hair and beards, so we backed off knowing you were not the man we were after. However, we came down to check and make doubly sure who you were anyway, up close and personal like,” said Gabriel with a wide and winning smile...
With the story of that discovery out and in the open, all three men had a good laugh over what might had happened had Gabriel unlimbered his ‘smoke-pole’ and had exhibited an itching trigger finger. That and a keen eye for details, like a mess of flaming red-haired and bearded cohorts accompanying a large and tall man with a dark in color and full beard not being in the company of the rather large man the two brothers were at that moment observing...
It was then that Iron Hand’s eyes took a closer look at the different type of rifles the two brothers were carrying. Rifles that were not exactly like the Hawkens he and his fellow trappers were carrying but appeared to possibly be their rifle’s forerunners.
“Say, what manner of rifles are you men carrying? They kind of look like the Hawkens me and my friends are carrying but are not exactly the same,” asked Iron Hand, out of his curiosity for all manner and type of firearms, being an ex-Army man.
“They are an old style, 1803 U.S. Military rifle, caliber .50 in nature. When we left St. Louis, other trappers who had been to the frontier told us to get heavier caliber rifles than our old Pennsylvania rifles, which were .40 caliber in nature. They advised that a rifle shooting at least a .50 caliber ball would be needed for such large-bodied animals found on the frontier like the moose, buffalo and such mean-assed critters like the much-feared grizzly bear.”
“So my brother and I went to Samuel Hawken, a local gunsmith in St. Louis, to see if he might have and we could buy from him, such a heavy caliber rifle. He did not have one but said one like we wanted was in his mind for making in the near future. However, he did have a shipment of the 1803 short barrel, half-forestock rifles coming and would be willing to sell us those. When we heard that, we bought out his stock of four such rifles and have used them ever since and very successfully, I might add,” advised Joshua.
Walking over to look at Gabriel’s rifle lying against a nearby sitting log by their fire site, Iron Hand could see that the rifle had been heavily engraved and had carved into the stock the wording, “Gabe’s Rifle”.
“That sure is some fancy ‘smoke-pole’,” said an admiring Iron Hand, as he looked down at the customized rifle lying propped against the sitting log.
“Like our matched buckskins, that rifle will never leave my hands unless someone kills me and removes it from my dying finger,” said Gabriel quietly, but with a touch of ‘cold’ in his voice. “That rifle has saved my life three times in just this last year alone. As such, it will remain with me until my dying day,” he continued...
“I hear what you are saying about your rifle. My Hawken is just as special to me as is your rifle to you. I too have not only saved my life with my rifle but that of some of
my friends as well,” quietly said Iron Hand.
“I be doing all the talking since we met; what about you guys?” suddenly asked Joshua.
“Well, some years back, the four of us signed on with Kenneth McKenzie, Factor for the American Fur Company when we were in St. Louis. We signed on as Free Trappers but agreed to accompany the expedition to the Missouri headwaters and help them in building a trading post and fort for trade with Free Trappers, Company Trappers and the local tribes of Indians. Then upon the building of Fort Union and the end of our contracts with the American Fur Company, we four struck out on our own as Free Trappers. There is not much left to say except that we have been very successful and still have all of our hair,” said Iron Hand with his classic, heavily bearded grin.
For the next month, Old Potts’s trappers remained in their camp along the Missouri River bottoms visiting with old friends; purchasing new handmade and gaily decorated clothing items from the numerous groups of Indians visiting the fort that befitted the flashy dress of Free Trappers; hunting buffalo; topping off their supplies, especially more high grade rum, powder, lead, beans, rice, dried fruit, and sacks of coffee; trading off four of the Indian horses from the earlier fight with the Gros Ventre while keeping the rest as pack animals; and having all of their animals’s hooves trimmed and re-shod by the fort’s blacksmiths for the coming year’s travels.
During those times, Old Potts’s group of Free Trappers and the “Brothers Dent” spent many an easy evening visiting, telling tall tales, drinking rum and eating together as good friends will do. About a month into their stay, the Dent brothers received word from several other freshly arriving Free Trappers at Fort Union that they had a violent run-in with four trappers working the Missouri further west, who had caused them grief over ownership of overlapping trapping territories. The descriptions given by those trappers fitted Black Bill and his three red-headed and heavily bearded kinfolk to a “T”! With that current information in hand, the Dent brothers topped off their needed supplies for the coming year and headed out west along the Missouri River looking for the killers of their kin. But before the Dent brothers had left, Iron Hand and his partners made sure they had a small mountain of freshly cast rifle and pistol bullets in their inventory in case they were able to hunt down and kill those four Missouri bushwhackers who were long past needing more than just a damned good killing, from all they had been told around the men’s campfires over the last month!
