by Terry Grosz
Come dusk, Iron Hand had a thick bean, rice and beaver meat stew bubbling away, three 16-quart Dutch ovens turning out biscuits every three minutes or so, and an apple and raisin Dutch oven pie in the making. It was a good thing that he did because soon he had seven almost starving men it seemed, gathered around the campfire looking to store up on some grits before ‘their big guts ate the little ones’!
The next day, there were seven men working on the new addition to the cabin-making detail. Seven men now working the cabin-building detail, because Iron Hand and Crooked Hand had not reset their beaver traps from the day before so they could join in on the cabin-making detail in order to get it built before the really heavy snows flew and the temperatures went to that of below zero on a daily basis. By day two of the cabin making, the seven men had the additional space for Otis and the Dents roughed out, walls up and roofed in. All that was left was cutting out a door so the addition led into the main cabin and the work was done!
The following morning found seven hungry men gathered around their outside campfire warming their hands on their metal coffee cups, as Iron Hand put the finishing touches on his Dutch oven biscuit making. After a breakfast of thick brewed trapper’s coffee, half-raw buffalo steaks fried in Iron Hand’s three-legged cast-iron skillets over a bed of coals and Dutch oven biscuits, the men were ready for work.
The evening before, the men had decided that Old Potts and Big Foot would stay behind and start building an extension on their corral in order to accommodate the 11 horses from the now dead Gros Ventre and Blackfoot Indians, and the nine horses the Dents and Otis had brought into the fold as well. That left Iron Hand, Crooked Hand and the Dent brothers to sally forth and re-set the original trap line and for the Dents to establish an additional trap line further north. Come dusk, the four trappers returned and while Iron Hand made supper, the rest of the men pitched in and finished the corral extension to accommodate the extra riding and pack stock.
Thus began the daily routine of the four trappers venturing forth and running their trap lines, and Old Potts, Big Foot and Otis staying back so they could guard their very valuable expanded horse herd, as well as doing all of the fleshing and hooping of the fresh beaver, muskrat and river otter hides brought back to the cabin on a daily basis.
Two weeks later as Iron Hand kept busy around their campfire making his famous Dutch oven biscuits, a large and wet snowflake plopped on the end of his nose, causing him to look up. When he did, he observed what appeared to be dark and ugly low-hanging storm clouds quickly moving down from out of the northwest. Realizing that was the direction from whence came their worst winter storms, Iron Hand shouted for the rest of the men to make haste in their daily preparations. After a quick breakfast amongst now flying snowflakes of the heavy and wet variety, the men had finished eating and laid their day’s plans. Old Potts, Otis and Big Foot were to take three packhorses and kill several near at hand buffalo and butcher out the same. Iron Hand and Josh Dent would pull their traps for the winter as Gabe Dent and Crooked Hand stood guard duty, as well as acting as the skinners on any and all beaver trapped that day.
Come an early dusk because of the low-hanging winter storm clouds and the heavy snowfall, the trappers finally returned to their cabin. There the beaver skins were unloaded into their warm cabin and as Big Foot and Old Potts got to the fleshing and hooping duties, the other five men hung the two buffalo carcasses cut into quarters from their meat poles and cut off a mess of steaks for their supper and breakfast the following morning. By the time the men had finished their meat handling and butchering duties, they looked like snowmen they were so blanketed with wet snow from the now fully engaged winter storm that was upon them.
Walking to their cabin, they shook off the snow from their heavy winter garb, entered their now warm cabin, closed their front door on the first heavy winter storm of the season and in so doing, ended that fall’s beaver trapping season on the Porcupine…
Come the next morning, found the cabin covered with two feet of freshly fallen snow and the outside temperature hovering around 20 degrees below zero. Dressed for the winter’s intense cold, Iron Hand and Joshua Dent stepped outside armed with their rifles, glanced upward at the clearing skies, struggled through the deep snows over to their horse corral, and let their stock out so they could feed. As the animals moved out onto the open prairie and pawed their ways to the grasses underneath, the two men stood watch over their valuable horse herd. Two hours later, a shout caught the two men guarding the horse herd, happy to see two additional trappers coming their way in order to relieve them from their cold duties and enable them to return to the cabin to warm up.
Once back at the cabin warming up, Iron Hand and Joshua watched Gabe, Old Potts and Big Foot removing a small mountain of beaver plus, removing their willow hoops, folding the pelts skin side inward, and forming packs of the dried hides for the summer’s transport to Fort Union. Before long, the packs of plus ready for transport and covered with tanned deer hides to prevent damage in transit, were stacked clear to the ceiling in the back of the cabin! Thus went the winter regimen among the seven trappers, only interrupted with almost daily forays onto the prairie to kill buffalo for meals, kill buffalo to surround with wolf traps for those pelts so generated, or trips to their winter woodpile to feed their fireplace for heat and cooking. Old Potts’s idea of combining forces among the seven men for the protection, beaver trapping and company it offered, had indeed borne fruit of the sweetest of kinds!
With a long winter behind the men, spring beaver trapping became a welcome change. Initially, the seven men went as a beaver trapping group for the protection it offered and then when the swell of hides became too much to reasonably flesh and hoop during the evening hours, the trapping team was reduced once again to just the five best shooters of the group. That left Old Potts and Big Foot back at the cabin to watch over their valuable horse herd and flesh out and hoop all the men’s daily catches. Finally, come late spring when the beaver went out of their prime, the men began preparing for their long trek back to Fort Union with their valuable furs and pack strings.
One day while currying the horses, Iron Hand noticed a slight depression in the ground near a giant fir tree. Stopping what he was doing, he remembered the story Harlan had told Old Potts about there being so many beaver along the Porcupine that he had to leave some of his furs behind in a hidden cache next to his cabin...
Walking over to their cabin, Iron Hand took up a shovel, and enlisting the help of Big Foot and Gabe Dent, began digging in the spot next to the fir tree where the ground showed a slight indentation. After about 40 minutes of digging, Iron Hand and Gabe had broken through the log roof of an old trapper’s cache and before you knew it, all seven trappers were pulling numerous items up out from the underground and heavily brush-lined cache! There were rusty items of cast-iron cookware that could be cleaned up and re-used, a rusty rifle, a keg full of rum that was still drinkable, several stoneware crocks full of much-appreciated honey, six packs of beaver plus that were still good, a keg of powder that had picked up moisture from being buried in the earth that had turned into a solid brick of gunpowder and was ruined, 20 rusty but still usable beaver traps, an ax, shovel, and a rusty saw! What Iron Hand had discovered was Harlan’s reported cache from years earlier. Items that he had ‘cached’ because he had so many valuable beaver plus that he had to leave some of his goods behind because his horses had all they could carry with their 90-pound packs of furs! And since he was reported to be no longer living, the items in the cache now belonged to the seven men as they now saw it. As it turned out, the stoneware crock of rum was still good, welcome and gone in four days! The furs had been well-packed and were judged as still good and added to their already small mountain of packs as well. The crocks of honey were put to use right away since the men had long since run out of most of their original stores, and the rusty but usable beaver traps added to the trappers’ inventory. The rest was stacked next to their cabin in case they had room to
take it with them when they left the area.
With the mountain of packs the men had amassed over the trapping season, they discovered that they were going to use all of their packhorses, the two extra Indian horses procured from the dead Indians still lodged under the log pile in the Porcupine River (the ones who had earlier shot the plate off Iron Hand’s lap as he ate his breakfast one morning and had died shortly thereafter for their bad breakfast manners), and the livestock from the Bad Seed’s group of Indians!
It was only then that the trappers realized the problems they had earlier with the Indians had been Heaven-sent. Heaven-sent because without the extra horses they had brought to the ‘party’, the men would have had to dig a cache and leave a number of their valuable plus behind, as had Harlan in his earlier days when trapping on the Porcupine River…
Wanting to get a ‘jump’ on the summer season and ahead of all the other trappers who would also soon be traveling back to Fort Union to sell their furs and re-provision, Old Potts began to get fidgety and eager to ‘hit the trail’. One morning as Iron Hand prepared making breakfast at the outside firepit now that the spring weather had improved, he noticed that Old Potts had emerged from their cabin and was sitting alongside the fire warming up. Iron Hand also noticed, having lived with the older man for a number of years now and aware of his moods, that the old man had that faraway look in his eyes that morning. Iron Hand ‘steeled’ himself for what might be coming next from Old Potts and he did not have long to wait.
“Iron Hand, I think now is the time to pack up our gear and plus, make a run for the Missouri River in order to outsmart those who would take them from us, and see if we can make it back to Fort Union, sell our furs and see who of our fellow trapper friends is still above the ground.”
Grinning, Iron Hand said to Old Potts, “Old Potts, can I finish making breakfast this morning first before you decide to up and skedaddle us out of here?”
Then Iron Hand ducked as Old Potts grabbed the first stick he could lay his hands upon and threw it at him in jest over being made fun of over his desire to be up and moving. But ‘that’ look in Old Potts’s eyes said it all that morning. He had done what he wanted to do in seeing what the Porcupine River had to offer, had ‘kept his hair’ and was now ready to move on and see what the other side of the frontier looked like…
Iron Hand just grinned over the morning’s events, checked his Dutch oven biscuits for just the right amount of browning and crust they were showing, and then shouted, “Breakfast is ready. Come and get it before I throw it out.” Nothing had to be thrown away…
CHAPTER ELEVEN: JOHN PIERRE AND SINOPA’S REVENGE, “WAMBLEESKA”
On the fifth day after Old Potts had gotten that faraway ‘traveling look’ in his eyes while sitting by the campfire one morning, the seven Porcupine River trappers were up, fully packed and on the trail back to Fort Union. Heading south from their secluded cabin towards the Missouri River while riding along the western side of the Porcupine River, rode Old Potts at the head of the trappers’ long and heavily loaded pack string of horses, happily leading the way.
In front trailing five loaded horses rode Old Potts, followed by Otis Barnes and Big Foot trailing five horses each, followed by the Dent brothers riding side by side each trailing five horses, and bringing up the rear of the trappers’ pack string rode Crooked Hand and Iron Hand, each also trailing five heavily loaded horses. Since Crooked Hand and Iron Hand were the best shooters in the group, they rode ‘drag’ in the pack string for a specific reason. That reason being the two best shooters of the group of trappers rode ‘drag’ because any attacking Gros Ventre Indians historically attacked the rear of any pack string encountered. This they did because attacking from the rear of any pack string usually created the greatest amount of consternation, enabled the least concentration of fire to be laid down upon the attackers and pretty much guaranteed the attacking Indians the least number of casualties in any such attack.
Old Potts’s travel plans were to head due south until they reached the Missouri River, then riding along on the northern bank of that river, proceed easterly until they reached Fort Union. There they would trade in their hides, skins and plus, sell their extra horses and then decide what would be their next trapping season’s destination.
Finally arriving at the confluence of the Porcupine and Missouri Rivers without incident, the group rested for a day in order to not stress out the heavily loaded horses and allow them to extensively graze in the river’s rich bottomlands’ grasses. Following that respite, the trappers headed easterly along the Missouri and after several days of slow travel because of the fully loaded pack strings, arrived at the confluence of the Wolf River and once again rested their livestock and let them graze under guard for a full day and evening.
All along their travels, Iron Hand had noticed several times the fresh tracks of numerous shod horses heading in their same direction of travel, and even sometimes paralleling their direction of travel. As he did, he also noticed that his ‘sixth sense’ was a little ‘raggedy’ but not outstandingly so. So Iron Hand ignored those normally trusted inner concerns because he had one hell of a pack string of rambunctious, Indian horses who had never been packed before, causing him a high level of concern. Besides, Iron Hand just figured his ‘sixth sense’ was also concerned with moving such a valuable herd of ‘green pack animals’ carrying packs full of plus, and that was what had caused them to be more than unruly at times.
However with all those ‘somewhat concerning’ fresh tracks, Iron Hand along with the other riders of his group, just figured they were also early arriving trappers returning to Fort Union to sell their furs and re-supply for the coming trapping season the same as them. Several more days of slow travel in order not to overly stress their heavily loaded pack animals and the trappers arrived at the confluence of the Poplar River. Upon their arrival, they crossed at one of their familiar shallow-water fords from previous times of use in that river. That evening, the trappers rested their horses and let them feed throughout the night in the river bottoms. But as they did, the men working in two-hour shifts managed to maintain a watchful eye over their horse herd, even though all of them had been hobbled to preclude anyone from easily running off with some of their stock. Two more days of easy riding found the trappers at another familiar ford, only this time they crossed over the Big Muddy River and then they once again rested in the Missouri River bottoms on the east side of the river just crossed.
That evening as the men rested their stock, they took turns bathing in the Missouri in preparation for their several days’ out arrival at Fort Union. Then Crooked Hand managed to shoot and kill a fat barren doe deer coming down to the river to drink and come suppertime, their camp smelled Heavenly of roasting deer meat, Dutch oven biscuits, and a baking with the last batch of their dried and now soaking apples and raisins for another of Iron Hand’s famous Dutch oven cobblers. Additionally, the men broke out their last stoneware jug of rum in celebration of their pending arrival at Fort Union with their load of some of the finest ‘blanket-sized’ beaver plus the men had ever taken since they had begun trapping west of Fort Union.
Taking longer than normal to completely bake the deeper than usual Dutch oven celebratory cobbler, the men dipped even deeper into their stock of rum and soon, no one even noticed the always present clouds of mosquitoes hovering over everyone anymore. Finally, the cobbler was done and Iron Hand began serving his fellow trappers sitting around their campfire from right out of the Dutch oven.
Just starting to dish out a portion to Old Potts since he was the oldest of the group, Iron Hand saw the strangest look quickly cross Old Potts’s face as he looked past and behind his favorite pie and cobbler maker. Not sure what the hell had caught Old Potts’s usually sharp eyes, Iron Hand turned with the bail of his Dutch oven in hand and a serving spoon in the other, only to find himself staring directly into a large bore, leveled rifle barrel just inches away from his face!
Looking up in surprise past an
d down the leveled rifle barrel, Iron Hand saw the leering face of John Pierre holding that firearm, and all around him and standing behind with leveled rifles as well were the outlaw trapper’s gaggle of seven evil friends with smiles of satisfaction splashed clear across all of their faces! Then Iron Hand ‘flashed back in his memory banks’ to the one and same John Pierre who he had stopped from beating little Sinopa, his sex slave, along the Missouri River some months back. The one and same John Pierre who had started a fight with Iron Hand back at the fort’s warehouse and had badly lost. The same John Pierre who had been banned, along with his seven now-fired, once Company Trappers from Fort Union, forever. The one and same now holding him at bay with the end of his rifle barrel sticking in his face…
“Well, well, well, what do you suppose we have here? A bunch of McKenzie’s ass-kissing pissant Free Trappers all caught with their pants down! That being the case, I say we kill the lot of them, take all of their furs and horses, and ride out of here rich men once the Hudson Bay people settle up with eight of us better trappers than all of them,” snarled John Pierre through his tobacco-stained teeth behind lips curled up in a snarl.
Iron Hand, feeling the killing boil of bile building up inside him and pissed that he had not ‘read’ more into all the shod horse tracks he had been seeing along the Missouri for the last few days or had paid more attention to his ‘sixth sense’, slowly set down his Dutch oven with the still hot cobbler contained therein and slowly rose to his full height to face John Pierre.
“That’s right, you giant piece of shit! Don’t make any quick or false moves ’cause it will just get you killed before I am ready to do so. I think you and yours need to sweat for a few days before me and my boys finish off the lot of you and toss your miserable carcasses into the Missouri for the fish to enjoy,” continued John Pierre, obviously enjoying for once having the upper hand over Iron Hand. But upper hand or not, John Pierre kept the end of his rifle barrel pointed at Iron Hand’s chest, full well knowing that if he did not enjoy the current position of power, from the deadly looks he was getting from the giant-sized trapper, he, John Pierre, would already be on his way into the darkness that comes with eternity!
