by Terry Grosz
Picking up his pace, Tom walked by the much-used keg of rum smiling at its users like all was well when all of a sudden he slowed his pace. There looking right at him from just a few feet away was an Indian with a large scar running from the left side of his forehead, clear across his nose and down the man’s right cheek! It was the same Indian that had lanced Robert Caster during their first battle with the Arikara on their trip down the banks of the Missouri en route to St. Louis! It was all Tom could do to keep from drawing his pistol and killing the leering, now in the process of getting drunk, killer of his friend and fellow fur trapper, Robert Caster!
About then, Adam York walked up alongside Tom saying, “Tom, there are at least a dozen fresh scalps from white men tied to a number of these Indians’ horses’ manes so they can dry out! Let’s get the hell out of here before they rear up and kill us where we stand and hang our hair on those horses’ manes as well. You were right, these Indians are catching trappers coming into St. Louis with their furs and killing them!”
Without another word, the two rivermen casually walked away from the group of Indians still gathered all around the keg of rum, up the gangplanks onto their respective keelboats and then pulled up the gangway so no one could run up them and attack the boatmen. Then Tom gave the pre-arranged signal to all the men manning the six swivel guns to be ready, turned and then looked back on the raucous scene around the rum keg on the beach.
When the right moment came when all the Indians were knotted around the keg in one jumble of pushing and shoving humanity, Tom gave the final signal and instantly six swivel guns boomed out their loud reports and lethal messengers of death in the form of buck and ball was hurled on its way. At that range, the group of Indians literally exploded into hundreds of body parts as pounds of lead balls tore into their bodies from just 30 yards away! When the buck and ball arrived, in addition to the Indians, the keg of rum exploded into sprays of alcohol and thousands of wooden splinters! In fact there was so many lead balls concentrated into such a small area, that five nearby horses fell to the deadly blasts as well. Then the rest of the boatmen grabbed their hidden rifles and poured another deadly volley of lead into anyone who even remotely looked like there was any life left in their carcasses. Then there was nothing left but black powder smoke drifting over the area, the acrid smell of burned gunpowder, and the smell of burned blood and flesh, along with the silence from the world of birds in the immediate surroundings over the tremendous blasts that had just rent the normal prairie quiet…
As the boatmen quickly reloaded their rifles, the swivel gunners reloaded their pieces as well just in case they had missed someone. However, the only heartbeats left on the sandy shore were those of a number of pack and riding horses, nervously moving about because of all the loud explosions and now, the fresh smells of blood.
Then the work began as the men quietly descended from their keelboats and surveyed the scene of destruction. As for the large group of Arikara Indians guzzling the rum before they were blasted into…well, let’s just say there was a lot of ‘fodder’ for the wolves, coyotes, magpies and ravens if they weren’t bothered with the fact that there weren’t very many large pieces left ‘standing’. As for the five horses inadvertently killed by the blasts, they were unpacked and left to also lie as the next set of meals for those predators of the plains as well.
It wasn’t long before the men had stripped all of the horses of their packs of furs and had loaded them on top of the decks on the keelboats because all their storage space below decks was already jammed full of furs, hides and peltries from Fort Union. Since there was no way to bring all the Indians’ packhorses home with them on the boats, they were let loose to roam and live on the prairie. That is except for the six matched buckskins that meant so much to the Dent brothers. They were unpacked and with the use and aid of a planking system, led up onto Tom’s boat. There they were tied off, because Tom had decided he would keep those beautifully matched horses on his new farm that he had purchased just before leaving St. Louis on his first trip to Fort Union with his two keelboats carrying their loads of provisions. He would do so out of respect for his friendship that he held for the Dents and for the memories they cherished so much when it came to the remains of their family’s heritage. As for Gabe’s special rifle, Tom also kept that in memory of the two men who were hellbent in destroying the ruffians who had so completely destroyed the Dent brothers’ families and had apparently died trying to fulfill their vision quest.
The rest of the trip to St. Louis was made without mishap, with the boats’ arrivals being made several weeks later. Once there, the furs were unloaded and taken to Astor’s American Fur Company warehouses, and Tom was reimbursed for his transport of Fort Union’s furs downstream to St. Louis. As for the 72 packs of furs recovered from the destruction of the predatory Arikara Indians who had been ambushing and killing returning trappers, they were sold to the American Fur Company and the profits shared equally among the men on the two keelboats who had taken a chance and had avenged those fur trappers who had died such an untimely death.
The scalps of the white men taken from the Indians’ horses were buried in a common grave on the bluff overlooking the scene of death and destruction. All the personal property taken from the Indians was piled up on the beach and burned. As was usually the case out on the vast prairie, when so much fresh meat was on the scene, it was mostly gone as a result of the many visits by the land and aerial predators within a week. All that remained were a number of pelvises, long bones and a number of grinning skulls, all of which had been much picked over by the ‘little people’. Come the following spring flood on the Missouri River months later, all signs of such a violent struggle had disappeared under the sands of time because of the high water effects that came with the annual flood waters.
(Author’s Note: The six matched buckskin horses were later released on Tom’s Missouri farm located several miles to the west of St. Louis. There they lived out their lives peacefully and upon their individual deaths, were buried under the warm Missouri soil by Tom and his family together as they had lived. Gabe’s special rifle resides as family property to this very day in the hands of Tom’s descendants.)
As came to light several months later from four other trappers taking their furs to St. Louis, the Arikara Indians killed by Tom and his keelboat men had not killed the Dent brothers. The four trappers traveling to St. Louis discovered where the Dent brothers and their two Indian wives had been killed in a small camp along the Missouri River. Two of those trappers had recognized the Dent brothers’ remains and from all signs around their campsite, they had been killed by at least four white men from ambush and their furs taken, as well as had been their horses. The trappers, hellbent on avenging the Dent brothers’ deaths, followed the four white men killers to their camp located several miles further down along the Missouri River, and discovered that they in turn had been ambushed and killed by the Arikara Indians! The trappers viewing the freshly killed white men who had killed the Dents, reported there appeared to be one very large individual with a heavy black beard and three other white men who had traces of flaming red hair still on their skulls even though they had been scalped! One of the trappers who knew of the Dents’ search for a large black-bearded individual with his three red-headed kin, surmised these were the ones the Dents had been pursuing all those many years. It then was postulated from the evidence left in the camp scenes, the Dents and their Indian wives had been surprised and ambushed by the very four men they had been tracking since their kin had been killed previously in Missouri. Then Black Bill Jenkins and his red-headed kin had in turn been attacked and killed by the renegade Arikara Indians. The one and the same bunch of Indians led by the scar-faced one who had lanced Robert Caster back in Tom Warren’s camp earlier when he and his fellow trappers were traveling to St. Louis with their trappings…
Then in turn, Tom Warren discovering the Dents’ personal property and matched buckskin horses in the hands of the scar-faced one,
he and his boatmen in retribution had sent that trapper-killing bunch of Arikara Indians off to join the Cloud People in their land of eternity…
As for the Brothers York and Jim Tweedle, they joined forces, and upon Tom’s following spring return to Fort Union with the year’s provisions, worked their ways north via Tom’s keelboats as well. They then returned to trapping on the frontier once again and several years later, none of them ever returned to Fort Union, but disappeared into the vastness known as the Great American West.
Old Potts, Crooked Hand and Big Foot bought a homestead next to Tom Warren’s 1,200-acre farm and settled down. There they lived comfortably on their retirement returns from Tom’s keelboat business. When they all passed together years later due to a bout of food poisoning, no relatives showed up to arrange for their burial. Tom and his family took control of the bodies and instead of having them buried in St. Louis’s Potter’s Field, interred them in his family’s personal cemetery. There those three fur trappers reside to this very day on the Warren property.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FLOWERS IN THE GRAVEYARD AND THE ‘SIXTH SENSE’
Tom’s next trip in one of his keelboats took him to Hermann, Missouri, where he dropped off barrels of whiskey, sacks of milled flour and barrels of salt that had been shipped upriver all the way from New Orleans. Upon his return trip to St. Louis, Tom found his ‘sixth sense’ acting up once again and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. There didn’t appear to be any danger nearby, the boating weather was excellent and they hadn’t had any Indian problems near about for years. Finally writing off his intense inner feelings, he continued sailing downriver back to St. Louis and docked his keelboat near his other boat. Leaving the boat and his captain in charge of loading the boat for their next trip, Tom rode over to Mrs. Davis’s boarding house and had lunch.
Still concerned over his ‘sixth sense’ feelings, Tom rode back to his farm, checked in with his farm manager and found nothing amiss regarding the management of his properties. Tom then checked in on his son’s school teacher and discovered that White Eagle was doing very well in school; in fact, he was at the top of his class in mathematics, reading, language studies and deportment. Still not able to figure out why he had a ‘bout’ of his ‘sixth sense’ acting up on his trip back from Hermann, he offhandedly headed for the cemetery where his wife Jeannie, and his son Christopher, lay buried. He had not been to their gravesites for some time and felt it necessary to clean up around their graves and maybe plant some more flowers, because when Jeannie was alive, she had loved her flowers.
Tying off his horse to the stone cross on another man’s nearby tombstone, Tom walked over to Jeannie’s grave and just stood there for a few moments looking down at her headstone and that of his son’s, thinking of what his life might have been had they both lived. Then catching himself and remembering why he was there, he knelt down and began pulling the weeds from around the two graves’ headstones.
As Tom removed a number of weedy plants from his son’s gravesite, all of a sudden his ‘sixth sense’ began kicking up inside him and he thought, What the heck is going on? Pausing and looking all around him, he saw nothing in the way of any danger in the quiet cemetery, so he commenced pulling more weeds from around the tombstone of his son.
Moments later Tom heard, “Hello, Tom. Gosh, it has been a long time since I saw you last.”
Whirling around on his knees, there just a few feet away quietly stood a beautiful-looking young woman in a blue gingham dress holding a handful of flowers! She had shoulder-length reddish-blond hair, eyes that were so pretty and deep blue that they would catch anyone’s attention just looking at her, and a smile that was nothing but purely captivating! It was then that Tom recognized his sister-in-law, Linda Johnson, quietly looking down at him. Tom had not seen her since his wife’s and son’s funerals years earlier and not until this day, ever since his trip into the frontier as a Free Trapper.
Standing up and dusting off his pant legs from all the weeding he had been doing, he said, “Good afternoon, Linda. Damn, woman, I haven’t seen you in years. How have you been?”
“I have been doing just fine, Tom. Like you, I too have also lost the love of my life when he was kicked in the head by a mule he was shoeing, but other than that, my son David and I have somehow managed. I hear tell that you are now in the keelboat business, now that you are back from being a trapper up near Fort Union. How is that going?”
“It is going great. White Eagle and I have all the business that we can stand and it is increasing,” he said, as an unfamiliar warmth kept flooding throughout his body.
“Who is White Eagle?” Linda asked demurely.
“White Eagle, why, I guess I could say, is my adopted 12-year-old Sioux boy whose family is all dead. I adopted him when I was a fur trapper and he has been with me ever since,” responded Tom, still having trouble getting over just how pretty Linda looked.
“Oh, I would like to meet him. He is the same age as my David, and I bet the two of them would have a lot to talk about,” said Linda with a beautiful smile.
When she smiled over hearing about White Eagle, Tom’s ‘sixth sense’ strangely made ‘its presence’ more than strongly felt inside of him once again.
“I will tell you what. I have a chicken supper and all the trimmings planned for me and my son this evening. Why don’t White Eagle and you come over and have supper with us, and that way the two boys can get acquainted as well?” asked Linda with another of her captivating smiles.
For a moment, Tom just stood there like a ‘goose out of water’ not knowing quite what to say in response to her very genuine-sounding ‘invite’ to supper. It had been such a long time since he had spoken more than just a few words to or with a woman and he found it surprisingly hard to respond. Then he realized it was his turn to speak and without knowing why, he mumbled out the words that he and White Eagle would be glad to come…so the boys could get acquainted...
“Great! I live just a quarter-mile down Nelson Road from your new place. It is the white two-story home with the red trim. How about you and White Eagle coming around six and just bring your appetites and I will supply the down home cooking,” said Linda, accompanied by another one of her great smiles.
Tom stammered out his words of acceptance and then for the next 20 minutes, the two of them cleaned up around his wife’s and son’s gravesites in quiet silence, after Linda had placed the flowers she had brought onto her sister’s grave…
Then just as quickly as she had appeared, she returned to her buckboard and was gone!
Untying his horse, for the longest moment Tom stood there trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. He had just met his sister-in-law after a number of years of being apart, she was now single, she was beautiful, White Eagle and he had just been invited to supper, and did I say she was beautiful…
Tom’s horse had never been ridden as hard as he was that day back to his new farm. Then Tom took a bath and trimmed his massive beard so he didn’t look like a mad grizzly bear on the prod. About then, White Eagle arrived home from attending school and he too was all spruced up so he would be presentable and make a good impression come suppertime… It was then that Tom realized that his ‘sixth sense’ had not ‘died down’ ever since his meeting with Linda at the cemetery…
That evening, Tom and White Eagle had supper with Linda and David. As luck would have it, both boys, being boys, hit it off like clockwork! After supper the two boys took off to explore the woods around Linda’s home, leaving Tom and Linda alone.
Dreading that moment, however, Tom found Linda very pleasant to be around and she made him feel relaxed and comfortable around her. Soon the two of them were talking about old times and their lives since they had been apart for so long after Tom’s wife’s death, and when he had retreated into the frontier as a trapper in order to try and forget his loss. Linda in turn, shared with Tom her ordeal in the loss of her husband and trying to make ends meet after his untimely death.
> Then the two of them adjourned to the front porch and sat on the swing together talking about their two boys. About then, here came the two boys both covered with mud from ‘stem to stern’. The tale soon came out the boys had gotten into the nearby creek and were catching crawdads, hence being muddy from head to toe. However, the great thing in Tom’s eyes was that the two boys had hit it off so wonderfully and seemed so comfortable around each other.
It was pretty late before Tom and his mud-covered White Eagle left Linda’s. But when the two of them left, it was with another supper ‘invite’ in their back pockets!
For the next fast-paced month, Tom and White Eagle found themselves almost nightly supper guests of Linda and David. Tom was finding Linda very interesting to say the least and the two boys found themselves almost like ‘blood-brothers’!
