Zach scrunched his face into a knot. “Are those Indians dumb, then?”
“Which Indians?”
“I can’t recollect whether it was the Cheyenne or the Apaches. But I do remember you telling me about the boys in the tribe, about how they prove whether they’re brave or not. They track down a bear, and when it’s not looking they sneak up and thump it on the backside. Isn’t that what you told me they did?”
“Yes, but—” Nate began to explain, but Zach went on in a rush of words.
“You told me they had contests to see who could stand behind a bear the longest before it noticed them. You went on about how the bravest boy was held in the highest regard by everyone else. You said that you liked the idea even though it was a mite risky.”
Winona turned to her husband. “A mite?”
Nate didn’t quite know what to say. He half wanted to throttle Zach for somehow turning the incident around so he was the one in hot water. “Just because I mentioned the practice doesn’t mean I wanted you to go out and try it,” he scolded. “A harebrained stunt like that could have gotten you killed.” He gestured at his horse. “We’ll talk about this some more later. Right now there are ten pack horses at the cabin waiting to be stripped and fed and watered. Hop to it.”
Sulking, the youth dutifully obeyed.
Nate waited until Zach was out of sight, then snuggled against Winona again and went to kiss her. She put a finger on his lips.
“This is important. How many times have I warned you to be careful what you tell him? A boy his age is too reckless for his own good.”
“I’ll be more careful in the future,” Nate promised, and planted his mouth on hers. She kissed stiffly at first, but warmed as his hands roamed.
Winona grinned when they broke for air, her dark eyes twinkling. “There is one part about your being away so long that I like.”
“Which part, as if I can’t guess?”
“The part where you come home to me.”
Their next embrace lasted long enough to bake a cake. Hand in hand they walked along the narrow path, shoulders brushing, hearts in tune. Winona was jolted back to reality by the sight of the ten pack animals.
“Five of those are Shakespeare’s. Did something happen to him?”
“He’s as healthy as an ox,” Nate said. “He asked me to cache his plews here so the river rats wouldn’t know where they were hid and steal them.”
“River rats?” Winona repeated. Despite her mastery of English, this was a new expression to her. It conjured mental images of a pack of aquatic rodents making off with bales of beaver. Ridiculous images.
In detail Nate imparted the encounter with Cyrus Porter. He filled her in on the attempt to make off with the pack train and the fate of the four responsible.
“And Blue Water Woman? She was not harmed?” Winona queried anxiously, for they were the very best of friends.
“She wasn’t hurt,” Nate reiterated. “When I left their place, she was being bored to death by Porters account of his childhood.”
Unwittingly, they had slowed. Winona looked up to see the cabin door in front of them. “How long do you have to decide?”
“They leave in five days. Shakespeare doesn’t much like the notion of those rivermen going along. But they all swore they had nothing to do with steadying the pack horses, and Porter took them at their word. He even offered them more money since they’ll have more work to do with four less to help out.”
“Do you think the river rats swore with two tongues?”
“I honestly can’t say,” Nate replied. “Four bad apples don’t mean the whole bushel is rotten to the core.”
“Yet you suspect they will cause more trouble?”
“I do, yes.”
“So you want to go.”
“I have to go.”
“Because of Shakespeare?”
“And Blue Water Woman.” Nate held the door for her. “Let’s say I’m right. If I don’t join the expedition, and something happens to those two, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
“It will be a very long journey.”
“There are few longer.”
“Perhaps my cousin will check on our cabin from time to time while we are gone.”
Nate clasped her hands and stood nose to nose. “You could stay. It would be a damned sight safer.”
“Without you, my life is empty. I could not stand an entire year of emptiness.”
“Well go, then.” Nate kissed the tip of her nose. “And if we get rubbed out, you can kick me with your dying breath.”
“It is not us I am most worried about. It is our son.”
“Him? He wallops bears on the butt for fun. This trek will be a picnic as far as he’s concerned.”
Winona’s throaty laugh was chopped short by a strident whinny outside. More horses neighed in fright as Nate bolted from the cabin and raced to the southeast corner. Around it stood the corral. Zach was hemmed in among the panicky animals, striving to shove past to the fence.
The cause of the commotion reared on two squat legs beside the south rails. It was the black bear. Mouth agape, saliva dripping from its lower jaw, it roared and pawed at the top rail.
Nate ran to the last post and took aim. He’d rather drive the bear off than slay it, but that had failed once and he couldn’t risk his stock by trying again. Bears were notional creatures. Now that this one knew where to find prime horseflesh, it might return sometime when he wasn’t around.
The black bear swiveled, eyeing Nate. It dropped onto all fours and slowly advanced, growling fiercely.
Nate bellowed to no avail. He quickly cocked the hammer, pressed his finger to the trigger, and squeezed. There should have been a booming retort, a cloud of gunsmoke. Instead, there was a loud click.
Nate realized the jarring blow he had delivered to the bears muzzle had fouled the rifle. He set it down with one hand while his other stabbed at a pistol. The bear was almost upon him. He cleared his belt, leveled the flintlock. His thumb pulled on the hammer.
In a spurt of speed, the black bear was on the trapper. A lashing paw struck the pistol and sent it sailing.
Nate retreated, tried to draw his other flintlock. The bear swung again, forcing him to leap to the right or be torn asunder. For a moment the corner post was between Nate and the Bruin, and he availed himself of the precious seconds he had to whip out the smoothbore.
Snarling, plodding methodically, the bear stepped past the post.
Nate sighted precisely and fired, planting the ball above and behind the bear’s ear. The beast recoiled, roared louder, and surged at him with its claws flying. Nate resorted to his Green River knife, stabbing ineffectually as the bear drove him steadily backwards. Blood flowed from the head wound, but the bear was hardly fazed.
Suddenly Nate accidentally backed into the corner of the cabin. He tried to dart to the left but the bear moved first, blocking him. Its maw yawned wide.
Two shots rang out, one from the corral, one from the vicinity of the cabin door. Two balls thudded into the bear’s head and it sagged, yowling. Its legs kicked a few times, then it was still.
Winona walked from one direction, Zach another, both bearing smoking rifles.
“Thanks,” Nate said simply.
“It is fortunate we are going along,” Winona said, trying to make light of the occurrence. “You are the one who will need someone to look after him.”
Nate stared at the bloody bear, hoping it wasn’t an omen of things to come. For all of their sakes.
Five
On a fine day in late May the Porter-Clark Expedition, as it subsequently became known in the press after Porter supplied the papers with his personal account, left the rustic cabin of Shakespeare McNair bound for the Oregon Country.
Included among the members were McNair and Nathaniel King, free trappers referred to by the newspapers in the States as “illiterate vagabonds,” and their wives, simply labeled “squaws”. Young Zachary King fared better; he was
usually mentioned as the “wild cub” when he was mentioned at all.
The self-proclaimed leader fared best of all. Cyrus Oldfield Porter of the highly respected Hartford Porters was a “distinguished gentleman noted for his unimpeachable courage and indomitable spirit,” as one journalistic wag put it. His “protégé,” Adam Keel Clark, was eulogized as “an enterprising young man of means whose boundless energy inspired all who knew him.”
Receiving shortest shrift were the rivermen from St. Louis, called simply “the workers.” Only one of them was ever named, LeBeau, their leader, and that in passing. An injustice if ever there was one.
Neither Chavez, the tracker, nor Brett Hughes, the blond man who kept to himself so much, were referred to even indirectly. This was another injustice, but of a different sort, since one of them played a critical part in the expedition a success.
At the outset of the expedition twelve additional riders tagged along. Buffalo Horn, one of McNair’s oldest friends, and the rest of the Flatheads traveled with the party for the first five days.
Initially Shakespeare led the expedition eastward to the foothills, then northward to a low pass that brought them to the west side of the Rockies. It was shortly thereafter that Buffalo Horn had to veer off to the northwest in order to return to his village. During the whole time the Flatheads rode along, Cyrus Porter was conspicuous by his silence. He never remarked that he disliked or mistrusted the Flatheads, yet his attitude smacked of both.
The St. Louis crowd were equally aloof. They hung together, suspiciously eyeing the warriors, refusing to associate with any but their own.
From the pass Shakespeare bore westward to Sandy Creek. Water would be his main consideration on the journey, since without it the stock would swiftly perish. He had to locate streams, rivers and lakes by memory, and not once did he fail them.
Sandy Creek took them to the Green River. A short jog westward for several days brought them to Ham’s Fork of the Green, and here they camped two days to give the pack animals a rest.
Nothing of note took place until they stopped. Shakespeare spent most of his time with Porter and Clark. Nate and Chavez rode in advance of the column in order to forewarn them should hostiles appear.
Nate grew to like the tracker a lot. Chavez was a man of few words but undeniable competence. His skill with pistols was demonstrated to the satisfaction of all not long after the Flatheads left.
The column had stopped for the midday break on the bank of a nameless creek, a ribbon of a waterway that invariably dried up during the hot summer months. Here the ground was dry and barren, littered with boulders and large rocks.
Cyrus Porter and Adam Clark walked along the creek a score of yards to stretch their legs. At a gravel bar they removed their boots and waded in a shallow pool.
Nate and Chavez happened to ride up as the two New Englanders moved to the bank to replace their footwear. It was Nate who spotted Porter starting to climb a short section of rock-covered bank.
“Be careful there,” Nate called out. “There are a lot of rattlers hereabouts.”
“We haven’t seen a one,” Porter responded. He lifted a foot to step over a rock and abruptly turned pale when a loud rattling sound filled the air.
The snake slithered into the open, tongue flicking as it tested the air. It was less than a foot away from Porter’s leg when it coiled, head rising, fangs exposed.
The others all heard, but none were close enough to act. Porter stood petrified with fear, his upraised leg shaking uncontrollably.
Nate snapped the Hawken to his shoulder. Out of the corner of an eye he caught a blur of motion. A pistol cracked, and the serpent’s head was smashed to the ground by a heavy lead ball.
Chavez had drawn and fired from the hip without aiming. Most men would have missed. But the Mexican’s accuracy had been uncanny; he’d put the ball smack between the rattler’s eyes, and at a distance of ten yards.
Porter scooted to the gravel bar and stood quaking. Anyone else would have been thankful for having his life saved. All Porter did was glance at the tracker, then say, “I think a bonus is in order. You’re worth every penny I’m paying for your services.”
“Gracias, señor,” Chavez said, opening his bullet pouch.
Disgusted, Nate turned away. He’d never met a man quite like the New Englander. Porter measured everything by its monetary value, including his daughter’s husband and his own life. Some folks, evidently, got so wrapped up in money they forgot about living.
It was at Ham’s Fork that Nate finally got to say more than two words to one of the rivermen.
LeBeau and his men were in charge of the pack train. Feeding, watering, packing and unpacking—all were under their supervision. They did their jobs conscientiously, if not always expertly.
Then two of the pack horses turned up missing. Nate and Chavez searched but found nothing to indicate the animals had been stolen. It was assumed they had broken loose and wandered off, and Porter appointed LeBeau to go find them.
“And I’d be grateful if you would go with him, Mr. King,” Porter added. “He’s not much of a tracker and could use your assistance.”
The horses had strayed to the southwest. Nate had the lead, his gaze riveted to the soil. The countryside was very mountainous, broken by lush bottomland along the streams. Both horses had paralleled Ham’s Fork for several miles, then taken a branch leading northward.
Typically, wild animals were bountiful. Elk and mountain buffalo could be seen grazing wherever there was enough forage. A number of times Nate startled small herds of antelope into flight, the sleek animals racing off in mighty bounds no other creature could rival.
Approaching a bend, Nate bent lower to verify that the vagrant animals had gone around it and not off into the underbrush.
“Hold up there, honnete home,” LeBeau said quietly.
Reining up, Nate looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Ours,” LeBeau said, pointing.
In a thicket beyond the bend a vague shape moved, an enormous animal twice the size of the black bear Nate had slain. “A grizzly,” he said softly. “I’m obliged for the warning.”
Loud grunting emanated from the thicket, along with the crackling of branches. Presently the beast lumbered from sight, but Nate was in no rush to move on immediately. He preferred the bear to be long gone to avoid a clash.
“Ours grow big out here,” LeBeau commented with a trace of awe. “That one, it looked big as a house, non?”
“Grizz grow bigger,” Nate informed him. “And they’re as tough as nails. I saw one take eight balls once and it still wouldn’t drop. If one comes after you, aim for the heart or the eyes. Their skulls are so thick and layered with so much muscle it’s next to impossible to blow out their brains. A lot of good men have died trying.”
“I will remember. Merci.”
Nate did not know what to make of the riverman. LeBeau acted friendly enough, but Nate still felt a lingering distrust spawned by the attempted horse theft. To pass the time, and to get to know LeBeau a little better, he commented, “The mountains are a far cry from St. Louis. They take some getting used to after living there.”
“Very true,” LeBeau gazed wistfully eastward. “Many times I long to be back on a Mississippi riverboat. My body not be made for all this riding.”
“What’s stopping you from going back?” Nate casually asked.
“The same thing that brought us here. Argent. Money.” LeBeau doffed his blue cap to scratch his curly brown hair. He was in his early twenties and had handsome, chiseled features and a roguish tilt to his mouth that must have had a dazzling effect on the ladies.
“I thought as much,” Nate said.
“Oui. This crazy Yankee, this Porter—” LeBeau pronounced it Poortieer—”he came into the grog shop where I was drinking, and he say for all to hear that he need good men to go west with him. Most laugh at him behind his back. But he offer more money than I make in two years. So I think it over, and I think,
how can I say no? At last I maybe save money. One day I might want a family.”
One mystery had been cleared up. St. Louis was the jumping off point for travelers venturing across the plains but there were few seasoned frontiersmen available to act as guides or to handle everyday tasks. Porter had hit on a clever way of hiring those he needed. It helped tremendously that money had been no object.
“That is how all of you were hired?” Nate asked.
“Oui.” LeBeau’s face darkened. “Some of us should not have left St. Louis.”
Nate took a gamble. “Those who tried to take the pack horses were fools.”
“Dupree never be one for deep thinking,” LeBeau said. “I wonder why he so eager to have his friends join. Now I know. He was a big idiot, Dupree.”
“Too bad you didn’t have a clue what he was up to. You might have stopped him.”
LeBeau’s eyes narrowed. “We make our beds, we lie in them, yes? Dupree was a grown man.”
Nate loped on. The riverman’s thick accent and poor English were terribly hard to understand at times, but enough of LeBeau’s personality came through to convince Nate the riverman was truthful in all he said. He would have to share the insight with McNair.
The bottomland widened into a valley. Grazing near a wooded slope were the missing horses. Nate swung wide to come at them from one side while LeBeau approached from the other. They needn’t have taken the precaution. Both horses ate on as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
Nate slipped a rope over the neck of a middling mare and headed back. So intent had he been on the horses that he’d neglected to pay much attention to the trees bordering the grass. A snort from the mare caused him to shift in the saddle to discover the reason and his mistake.
A huge shadow had detached itself from the pines and moved into the open. Other shadows moved deeper in the forest, but they were smaller. They were cows. The bull vented a challenge and pawed the ground with an iron hoof.
LeBeau jerked around at the bellow. “Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, bringing up his Halls rifle.
“No!” Nate cried. Mountain buffalo weren’t as temperamental as their prairie kin and wouldn’t charge unless greatly provoked. The riverman, not knowing this, hastily fired, but as he did, his horse, spooked by the buffalo’s scent, broke into a gallop, throwing LeBeau’s aim off and him from the saddle.
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