by Terry Grosz
That look was furthered even more when the occasional traveling fur buyers came to town. These men would trade for furs that the local settlers could pull from the forests and surrounding rivers. They offered a little bit of the hard currency that was scarce in Salt Lick, and more often, goods in barter. On their day of arrival, many of the local Indians, farmers and townsfolk would gather to trade skins: elk, deer, beaver, river otter, wolf, bear, mountain lion and the occasional buffalo.
During those exchanges, the discussions ran from the quality of hides being traded to the rich fur-filled lands existing ever farther to the west. That talk was especially exciting about the fortunes to be made fur trapping in the area they called the Trans-Mississippi— an area lying north and west of a jumping-off place called St. Louis. A place where a man could be his own person, life was bigger than all get out, and if one looked he could see forever and a day.
Jacob’s quiet and reflective moods were also apparent after travelers came through their settlement heading for the new lands to the west. Those travelers were full of hope and spoke of the many wonders awaiting those who ventured west. Tales were spun about the money to be made in the trade of animal skins and the fierce Indian tribes just waiting to lift one’s hair. Those tales were often intermixed with stories about flatboats and keelboats moving trade goods up rivers so immense in size that in some places man could not even shoot across them. As if a young man needed to hear more, stories were often further intermingled with descriptions of the adventurous life awaiting those choosing to become free trappers in the booming fur trade. And for the benefit of the hard-to-convince farmers, accounts were told of the richness of the vast lands where corn grew taller than a man sitting on a horse. Yams wafted through the air like so many leaves blowing in the fall winds. There were stories of lands full of game of every kind, and rivers awash with many species of huge fish. Stories of such fish called sturgeon that were longer than two men were tall and weighed as much as a horse.
Many travelers spinning such yams swore by them because they had been there and seen such things of wonder for themselves. Now those travelers had returned and were bringing their entire families west to seek their fortunes based on the richness of those lands just explored or yarned about.
Every time Jacob listened to these accounts from folks staying at his parents’ cabin or in town, he would come away with an even greater emptiness inside that he could not explain away. It was an emptiness that only seemed satisfied when he was in the quiet forests hunting game or just exploring with Martin, his long-time Delaware Indian friend of the same age. But even at that, that emptiness or restless spirit found itself only partially fulfilled.
On Jacob’s sixteenth birthday, in 1829, he approached Zeke as they toiled in a new field with mules to pull stumps from the ground.
“Father, I’ve made my mind up. I need to go West.”
Zeke turned, not as surprised as Jacob had expected, and nodded.
Jacob continued, “I need to see for myself what’s out there. The traders, when they come, they speak of the West with such wonderful words and bright smiles. It’s something I have to do.” He waited for Zeke to show his displeasure.
Instead, Zeke quietly tied off the mule’s reins to the oak stump he had been attempting to pull. The older man sat down on the stump, then drew in a deep breath and let it slowly escape as he seemed to be gathering his thoughts.
The mule huffed in impatience. Somewhere, a bird sang. Zeke looked up once at Jacob and pulled the boy’s childhood out of his own memory.
Zeke had expected as much from his adopted son at some point. But now that those times were upon them, he found himself unprepared. Zeke was aware of Jacob’s lost moments in time and their increasing frequencies, especially during the great fall migrations of waterfowl and the annual bugling of the quickly vanishing elk in the forests. Those pauses by Jacob had harbored the look of wanderlust and adventure offering the potential of lifelong fulfillment. That yearning was also accompanied with longer visits to his parents’ grave and in the meaningful hugs he gave his adopted mother when he returned—meanings all pointing to a young man about to venture into the unknown to fulfill the vast unexplained emptiness gnawing at his soul from within.
“Okay, Jacob,” Zeke finally said. “But I will need your help in getting in this fall’s harvest. After that, we can go to town and have you outfitted for whatever awaits you on the frontier. We can trade some of the cattle to the storekeeper, and that should be enough to cover your outfitting needs. Now, settle down, you’ve earned it. You’ve given plenty of years of loyal service to this family.”
Jacob was about to say something, but Zeke grabbed his wrist and stared him in the eye, man to man. “Son, I am going to hate it, you going West. I have fears that you won’t return from such adventures. But I know that’s where your heart wants to be. I understand it, and I support your decision. But please, find some gentle way to tell your mother. And use words that will reduce her worries.”
Zeke felt his eyes beginning to fill with tears of emotion, and he quickly looked away to the mule. “Now, let’s see what we can do with this damn oak stump.”
The rest of the afternoon the two men worked side by side without uttering a word as they pulled stumps so more acreage could be put to the plow. And for the first time, they worked as equals in a world made of hardy men possessing a vision. Be it as a farmer or as an adventurer looking for his place on the land or in his soul.
Chapter Three
The Will of the West
“Martin,” said Jacob, “The travelers from the West tell of rich farmlands, herds of buffalo that shake the ground and blot out the sun with their dust, and great rivers that are so wide one can hardly see across them. They also tell of beaver and river otter in every stream thick as the ants on the ground and every other kind of opportunity that abounds. I am leaving to go to those lands further west.”
Martin furrowed his brow.
“My father said I can go after the crops are gathered in this fall and that I intend to do.”
Jacob watched as Martin’s eyes quickly began darting in thought.
“Would you like to go with me?”
Martin was almost as tall as Jacob and equally as strong, not to mention, very capable as a frontiersman. He was a full-blooded Delaware Indian whose family had been swindled and then forced from its home in Ohio by land-hungry speculators—the product of a land swindle aided by the United States Government after the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. That treaty had opened up most of the State of Ohio after the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware had fought hard against the United States trying to save their lands from white encroachment. Martin’s family now peacefully farmed on Lemuel’s old farmstead, which they had purchased shortly after the Indian raid that killed Jacob’s parents. Martin came from a large family of eight and, like Jacob, had been educated in the town’s small one-room school when not working on the farm. That was a tribute to both of the boys’ mothers who had stubbornly insisted the boys get some “schoolin’,” so they could learn to read, write and cipher.
“Go where the sun sleeps?” asked Martin with a wide open set of eyes. Then they filled with wonder, awe and the pure, faraway look of adventure matching Jacob’s.
“Yes, and maybe more. I want to see everything that is out there to see. My parents never got the chance before they were killed. Now that I have the opportunity, I want to go and see for not only myself but for my parents as well. If I go, it will first be to a place they call St. Louis along the Mississippi River. It is a river settlement where large boats bring in supplies and those venturing further west leave from. This settlement is at the edge of what is known to civilized man. I want to go not only to St. Louis but farther west to see what is out there as well. I would also like to go with a friend,” said Jacob with a gleam of adventure in his eyes and a crowding of emotion in his voice.
Martin’s brown face slowly pulled a wide, beautifully white toothed smile.
/> “I, too, would love to go and see what is out there. But I must first talk to my father and get his blessing. If he says yes, I will go with you and the two of us can make good medicine together,” he replied with his characteristic trademark grin.
“Then it is almost done,” said Jacob as he reached out and the two friends shook hands. They validated the deep abiding friendship and respect they held for each other.
Jacob raced home and burst into his family’s cabin filled with the good news about his friend and the possibility of going West together. His mother was at the hearth fixing supper as his dad sat at the wooden kitchen table quietly smoking his pipe when Jacob shared the news.
“Father, I asked Martin to go with me. He said he would, if his father says it’s okay. Martin’s asking him tonight for permission to go. Martin thinks his father will agree. You see, Martin’s three older brothers are still at home. They can help with the farming, so Martin thinks his father will say yes. After all, it’s one less mouth for them to feed. Oh, I hope he can go, I really do. If he can go, we can go to the West together to make our fortune.”
Jacob grinned at his father, who grinned back. In the last four years, Jacob had not felt this excited over anything. All his emptiness, his strange longing, had lifted from his shoulders with this decision to go West.
However, when his mother Margaret turned from her cooking, it was evident she had been crying. Jacob, seeing her emotion, was instantly touched out of the love he shared for his mother. In his excitement and haste, he had forgotten his father’s earlier words of caution about his mother and her feelings regarding such an adventure. Jacob gathered her up into his powerful arms. Her body at first trembled and then openly shook as she broke down and sobbed. After a few moments, Margaret regained her composure and pushed herself out from Jacob’s arms. Her tears left dark blotches running down the front of his buckskin shirt.
She said, in a quivering voice still filled with emotion, “Young man, I have a supper to finish. You go get washed up and just as soon as the Dutch-oven biscuits are done, we can eat.” With that, she set the cast-iron pot of elk stew on the table and returned to the Dutch oven on the hearth to check the biscuits.
Jacob raced outside to wash up. He ran headlong into Martin on the cabin’s steps. The collision put both of the young men on the ground in a swirling heap.
“I can go! I can go!” shouted Martin. “My father said after the corn is shocked and the winter hay is in the barn, I can go!”
Both boys wrestled around on the ground in glee until Margaret interrupted from the cabin doorway to ask if she should set one more plate for supper.
The boys’ imaginations ran wild as their thoughts swirled around the supper table that evening. Margaret, in order not to show her true emotions, joined in the conversations with many questions in an attempt to show support. However, like Zeke, she could barely hide her feelings that once Jacob left, she would never see her son again.
The discussions went long into the evening, as plans were made and then remade. Both boys even agreed if one father’s crop was in first, that boy would help the other so they could be on their way before the winter snows arrived. That became a somewhat worrisome topic in those discussions; winter could be a hard time in their neck of the woods for any traveler, especially those who were young and foolhardy in nature. However, both boys tried to calm Margaret’s fears—and those in themselves— by saying they would travel northwest to St. Louis, and as such, would pass through the many settlements dotting the way. They could hole up in one of them if the weather moved in. Plus, they planned to winter over in St. Louis if they got there in time before the heavy snows flew. Once there, they could work and earn some money for the next leg of their journey in the spring of 1830. Beyond St. Louis out in the Trans-Mississippi, they would be self-supporting. They would hunt the great buffalo for their hides, tongues, and meat, or trap the silky furred beaver, to sell to merchants back in St. Louis.
And so the excited talk went on into the night until Zeke reminded Martin the boy had to go home or his parents would start to worry.
Zeke leaned back in his chair as Martin said his goodbye and rushed out the door. The boys didn’t say a single word about returning someday. Maybe it was an oversight...or maybe it was the intervention of fate.
Chapter Four
Essentials
In the fall of 1829, Jacob and Zeke went into town for those supplies they felt necessary for the great undertaking. Jacob still had his dad’s Pennsylvania rifle and powder horn. It was tight as a tick and deadly in the right hands out to at least two hundred yards with its .40-caliber lead ball. Coupled with Jacob’s almost uncanny shooting skills, the rifle had been named “Old Meat in the Pot.” It was so named because every time Margaret heard him shoot, she would get out the cast-iron frying pan knowing it would soon be filled with chunks of fresh venison. He also had his father’s tomahawk as well as his old skinning and gutting knives. However, his father’s bullet mold, lead melting pot, and fowling piece had been lost in the cabin fire along with everything else.
Other than that and the clothes on his back, he would need almost a complete outfitting for his travels. In Salt Lick’s small general store, items deemed necessary for such a trip abounded in the eyes of one used to living on a hardscrabble farm and backwoods log cabin. Zeke had little trouble selling four head of his fattened cattle for top price in trade. Zeke and Jacob figured there was little use in carrying a year’s supply of goods since the boys were only heading to St. Louis on their first leg of the journey. There they could re-outfit more appropriately for the times, travels and challenges that lay ahead of trappers in the Trans-Mississippi.
First on the immediate list were the essentials such as several small wooden kegs of powder, whetstones, pigs of lead, grease, spare gunlocks, a bag of flints, hatchet, coffee mill, and a spare skinning knife. These were followed with a good riding horse, packhorse and the necessary tack, including extra horseshoes, nails, file, and farrier tools. Then came the foodstuffs including a goodly supply of salt, hard sugar cones, coffee beans, cornmeal, flour, bacon, dried beans and pepper. Last came a large cast-iron legged skillet, bean pot, medium-sized Dutch oven, plates, coffeepot, cups, coffee grinder, and metal serving and eating spoons. The men figured their sheath knives and fingers would furnish the rest of the necessary eating tools.
Back in the forest, Jacob and Martin shot six rolling fat white-tailed deer and made jerky out of the entire batch. They also shot a large black bear getting ready for hibernation that was fatter than a pig. Margaret spent the better part of two days rendering fat from the bear for the boys to use on the trip for a variety of uses but primarily for cooking. The rest of the bear was processed in Zeke’s smokehouse for winter use on the farm. Martin supplied his own riding horse, packhorse, tack, personal gear and “possibles.” In addition, he brought a bale of tanned animal skins of deer, elk, and buffalo for the two boys’ bedding and for replacing worn out clothing and moccasins. He also carried his dad’s old Pennsylvania rifle and gear, along with his ever-present set of bow and arrows.
One week later found Jacob and Zeke saddling horses and loading gear in the cold pre-dawn hours. Margaret was at the hearth making a hearty breakfast of bear steak, fried cornmeal mush, scalding hot coffee, and her usual wonderfully light Dutch-oven biscuits. As the two men labored to make ready, they were surprised to see Martin quietly standing not ten feet away in the morning’s darkness. He had “Indian typically” slipped up on them and stood quietly alongside his horse and pack animal waiting for Jacob and Zeke to finish.
“Just like a damn Indian,” said Jacob with a grin once he discovered the presence of his close friend, “sneaking around all the darn time.”
“Just like a white man, can’t hear nothing or nobody coming,” Martin responded with an even bigger grin illustrating once again the strong bond shared between the two young men.
“Breakfast is ready,” said Margaret quietly from the cabin door
.
With that and finished with their making ready, the three men washed up and entered the warm cabin. Little did the two young men realize, it would be many a day before either of them felt such household warmth and family life once they began this, their life’s journey.
Jacob and Martin sat down to the table with Margaret and Zeke. The boys grabbed this way and that, clanking her favorite silverware and china without regard for ceremony. Martin managed a polite “This is so nice of you” and “This tastes good, Miss Maggie” between bites, but Jacob was too busy trying to fill and then clear his plate.
“Sunrise is almost here,” Jacob said to Martin, as he placed his napkin on his empty plate. “We got to get going.”
Martin mumbled something through his mouthful of biscuits.
Jacob rose and strode purposely for the door. Martin followed as the two of them once outside finished up with last-minute details. Finally they were ready just as daylight broke. A cold nip in the air foretold that winter was not far away. Both boys looked skyward. Jacob strode over to his mother and gave her a long and meaningful embrace that had to last both of them for a long while.
Jacob then turned to his father and shook hands without looking him in the eye. But when Zeke failed to let go, Jacob suddenly hugged him in a warm, strong embrace.
“I’ve never hugged you like this, Pa, but I’m glad I am. I’m so grateful for all you’ve done. You done right by my dad and me.” Then he let go, and stood there, indecisive.
Jacob thanked his parents again and once more for all they had done for him. He lightly swung up into the saddle and, without looking back, headed for his folks’ old farmstead. Martin rode closely alongside with the loaded packhorses in tow.
Margaret and Zeke watched the two young men ride off down the forest trail leading from their cabin to the land which one time belonged to Jacob’s true parents who had been killed by Indians. Margaret returned to her kitchen and Zeke returned to feed his small herd of cattle.
