by Terry Grosz
The supplies began stacking up, yet they added more: files, shovels, fourth-proof rum, moccasin awls, hatchets, and six extra whetstones, which had a tendency for being broken, lost or stolen. Then sixteen New House No. 4 beaver traps—four extra to cover losses incurred, in addition to the six normally carried by each trapper—extra saddle blankets to replace those already worn out from their long trip, four extra packsaddles, eight “mannies”—tarps to tie over the packs once loaded to keep the rain and snow off—and a small spool of one-inch halter rope.
“Now,” said Jacob, “let’s get the necessaries. If only you weren’t such a big eater.”
Martin grunted at the friendly jibe.
Jacob grabbed another large coffeepot, extra knives, forks and spoons, a large camp kettle, another large Dutch oven, and two cast-iron frying pans
“Don’t forget some plates and cups,” Martin said. “We can use ten pounds of those blue glass beads for trading. Get some cuds of that James River chewing and smoking tobacco for us and for trade.”
Jacob obeyed and their inventory grew some more.
The merchant made more suggestions to the two would-be trappers. “You’ll want to procure some brass wire for repairs, and you’ll certainly want horseshoes and horseshoe nails, and about one hundred extra feet of halter rope. A few simple iron rings are always good as trade items.”
And so Jacob added the suggested goods.
Anything else they needed and had forgotten, they would have to forego or make due from the materials at hand in the wilds until they could be replenished at a rendezvous.
The two adventurers then headed back to the livery stable with armloads of supplies and a loaded, small rented horse-drawn cart in tow. They stopped back at the Hawken Gun Shop along the way. Jacob asked the elderly gunsmith if they could store the recently purchased supplies as well in his back room, along with their new guns and other accessories. The gunsmith agreed and for the time being their supplies were safe. The gunsmith also agreed to return the horse and cart to the livery that afternoon once he got his “colored” back from running another errand.
The two men left the gun shop and again visited an eatery. They partook of the best civilization had to offer. Then off to their sleeping quarters they went for the evening.
Chapter Seven
Free Trappers
The next morning, after another hearty breakfast of flapjacks, side pork, coffee and apple pie, Jacob and Martin walked the city streets. They chanced on a group of men standing on a sidewalk. The men were looking into a newspaper shop’s window and reading a posted article with rapt attention. Curious, they waited their turn until the crowd thinned, then read the newspaper article from the St. Louis Gazette posted in the window.
It read simply:
Needed, eighty enterprising young men to join me, Jedediah Smith, David Jackson and William Sublette. Travel in the largely unexplored Trans-Mississippi west, trapping and trading. Hiring now for an expedition to leave on April 7, 1830.
If interested, meet one Clayborn Jones at Hickory and First Streets at ten in the morning daily until April 4, 1830. On April 7, the brigade will leave St. Louis at five in the morning. Travel will be on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers north by boat until the Platte River is reached. From there the expedition will proceeded westerly by horse along the Platte to the junction of the Laramie River. After a final supply of the parties, brigades numbering twenty men per group of contract and free trappers will move off into the northern reaches, trapping and pelting out beaver throughout winter and spring.
Once a year trappers will return to a designated rendezvous site in the summer to outfit and bring in their furs. At the end of the annual rendezvous, trappers will return to their trapping areas until the following year’s rendezvous. Interested parties must initially supply their own rifles, pistols, horses, knives and other essentials for the trip. Supplies may be topped off at field prices prior to leaving the main party once the jumping off place is reached.
Signed,
William Sublette, Jedediah Smith and David Jackson March 10th, 1830
Martin turned to Jacob, smiled, and said, “This seems like the answer to our dreams.”
“It sure does! Trapping and hunting. And right there: ‘The unexplored Trans-Mississippi west.’ Such an expedition would let us travel through the hostile country in the company of armed men who know the ways of beaver trapping. We could learn the trade while safely traversing the country. That’s our boat.” Jacob stabbed the article with his fingertip. “We have to be on it.”
“Then why are we standing here?”
Jacob laughed. “You are right. Let’s go sign up and get this adventure underway!”
Jacob extended his hand, and Martin grasped it warmly in the Indian fashion.
They asked directions to Hickory and First Streets from a passing citizen, then off they went. As they approached the location advertised in the paper, they observed a crowd of men already gathered around a tall, thin individual representing himself as one Clayborn Jones. The closer they got, the more they could hear all kinds of excited talk among the crowd. Moving in closer, they stood at the outside edge of the crowd listening to what was being said. Many of the hopefuls wanting to sign on to the trapping expedition lacked any kind of good horseflesh or other necessaries. As such, they were turned away. Eventually, Clayborn worked his way through the hopefuls to Martin and Jacob standing quietly at the edge of the crowd.
“How about you boys? Interested in becoming a contract trapper for Messieurs Sublette, Jackson and Smith?”
“No, sir,” replied Jacob. “We would like to sign on as free trappers. We have our own equipment and goods, and wish to remain free in our business dealings as well as independent in our work as trappers.”
Clayborn looked the men over closely through a narrowed set of eyes based on his knowledge and years on the frontier. “Either of you ever been up north in the Trans-Mississippi before?”
“No, sir,” replied Jacob.
“Well, I am here to tell you this is not for those without a bucket of guts, a lot of sand, a feedbag full of luck and a damn good shooting eye. Living is hard, food is sparse and long in-between eating, and the winters are murderous. There is an Indian behind every bush looking to lift your topknot, steal your horses, firearms or plews. There is no medical help out there ’cept yourself and your own good common sense unless you hook up with a good woods-wise squaw. You won’t see another white man for a year at a time and many times if you do, he could very well be out there to kill you and also take your valuable plews. And the only women out there is a red one crawling with lice, stinking of rancid bear grease, and one who knows how to use a knife if you get out of hand or mess with her honor. Still interested?”
Jacob and Martin grinned back.
“Life’s not all that easy where we come from, either. And sure as hell even less so on the trail. This is what we want, come hell or high water,” Jacob said. “This is meant to be what is ours.”
“Where and when do we form up with the rest of the brigade?” asked Martin.
Clayborn smiled and said, “Come over here, boys and sign up.” Jacob and Martin moved over to a small table where several pieces of paper, an inkwell and several goose-quill pens lay.
“Sign here and you are part of an adventure of a lifetime,” stated Clayborn with a smile.
“What do these papers say?” asked Jacob as he looked Clayborn directly into his eyes.
“They say you will sell your catch of furs to Messieurs Sublette, Jackson and Smith at the rendezvous, and purchase your needed goods at the same time from those same gentlemen. That is as long as they have the supplies you need. Barring that, you can trade with anyone else you are of a mind and as the need arises.”
Martin and Jacob looked at each other for a few moments as they thought over Clayborn’s words. That meant possibly selling their furs low and purchasing needed goods at higher prices. But, it would also get them into the countr
y of their dreams and give them a start.
They picked up the quill pens and signed their names with a flourish, as if to emphasize the significance of the moment at hand.
Clayborn picked up the contracts and looked at their signatures. “You boys know how to cipher?”
Both men nodded affirmatively.
“Well, I’ll be damned! You two are the first in several days of recruitment who made something other than a mark for your name. Keep in mind however, you will kill off just as easily and get dead as all the rest who have gone before if you are not careful as a raven. For your information, since this type of fur trapping has been ongoing, we are losing about a quarter of the men who go north every season. At least since we started this method of trapping and commerce in 1822, that has been the case. Don’t know where or how, but the trappers just up and disappear. Injuns for the most part I reckon, and then everything else gone bad in between from a mean-assed bear bite to a horse wreck,” he continued as if discussing something as simple as the time of day.
Jacob looked long and hard at Clayborn and then with a smile said, “Man has to have a little pepper on his meat as well as salt to make it taste good.”
Clayborn smiled back. “We will meet on the north end of the boat landing docks and be boarding the paddle wheelers Jeremiah O ’Brian and the General Slaxton on the seventh of April at five in the morning. They will take us upstream to where the Missouri and Platte Rivers meet. There we will be offloaded at the wooding station and proceed westerly along the Platte until we reach the Laramie River. From there we go north into the fur country and whatever awaits. Don’t be late or you will be left sucking hind tit if you get my reasonin’. Also watch out for roving bands of thugs and crooks along the docks and city alleys after dark. They will approach you as friends and before it is all over, will steal everything you have, kill you or both.”
With that, Clayborn shook their hands and moved on to the next candidate who clamored for a chance at losing his topknot in the hands of a savage or having a bite taken out of his hind end, as Clayborn was wont to say, “by a mean-assed bear.”
Jacob and Martin walked back to the Hawken Gun Shop after renting another small horse-drawn cart to carry their firearms and supplies to the livery. Once all their gear was loaded, they drove the cart to the livery stable where their livestock were being kept. They unloaded their gear into an empty adjacent stall for safekeeping, then threw down their bedrolls alongside in the straw. They ate in shifts so their property would always be guarded, then they finally settled down for the night.
Visions of high and dangerous adventures ran through both men’s minds like a dose of the salts as they lay in the bedrolls. What would they discover in their travels; how would they fare as trappers; would they be killed; and would they ever see Kentucky again? Finally a welcome but fitful sleep overcame the two soon-to-be adventurers and Mountain Men.
For the next four days Jacob and Martin tended to the examination, inventory and care of their equipment and livestock. They made a few last-minute purchases at the nearest mercantile such as files to float the teeth on their horses. Horses were examined by the livery man for their overall health as the blacksmith checked their shoes and replaced those as necessary.
Extra shoes were also made by the blacksmith for those horses acquired from the deadly fight on the trail. The new Hawkens were tested out back of the livery stable and found to be excellent in shooting and handling qualities. The same was discovered for the four Hawken single-shot horse pistols.
However, Jacob did return to the gun shop to procure five hundred extra primer caps for their weapons. He figured numerous years in the outback would use up what they had already purchased and wasn’t sure on their resupply under rendezvous conditions. Packsaddles were custom fitted to those animals so designated as the pack string, and extra halter ropes created for each horse. Mannies were constructed from sheets of canvas by Martin to cover the packs against the bad weather certain to follow. Jacob saw to it that tanned, soft, buckskin-leather fringed sleeves were made to cover and protect the valuable Hawken rifles against the elements.
By the fourth day, the men were more than ready to head out. Still eating in shifts, they finished their last meal. Afterwards, they sat on a couple of old barrels outside the livery stable and chewed some of their newly purchased chewing tobacco. Jacob had purchased a small barrel full, containing four hundred cuds of tobacco the day before, figuring if they didn’t chew or smoke it, they could swap it with the Indians for furs. Both men found satisfaction in the chew and their recent dinner as they sat there watching the life of St. Louis going by.
They finished with the packing and loading of the horses around four in the morning on the day of departure. Then they saddled up and headed with their pack strings towards the docks. Once they arrived, they took their places at the edge of the milling crowd of trappers and other soon-to-be Mountain Men. Much mayhem mingled throughout the crowd of trappers: braying mules, swearing teamsters with their cracking whips, and creaking wagons loaded with hay for the horses while on the boats. Sweating black men loaded cords of firewood for the paddle wheelers’ always-hungry steam engines that belched smoke and hissed steam continuously from the two vessels, dotted with the ever-present, always yelling deck hands. As final dressing, men dressed from head to toe in furs and buckskins were announced to St. Louis the day of departure, for the newest fur company was at hand.
As the sun peeped over the horizon, it found the General Slaxton loaded and the Jeremiah O’Brian getting there. Jackson was on hand to smooth out any wrinkles and give last minute instructions to the expedition leaders. Finally, the appointed time arrived and the mooring lines securing the paddle wheelers to the docks were cast off. As the General Slaxton drifted back in the current a short distance to clear the dock, she gave two long blasts on her steam whistle. Then the great paddles commenced their rhythmic swish-swish-swish as the boat slowly headed upstream into the current of the murky Mississippi. The Jeremiah O’Brian fell in behind the General Slaxton and the trip into the Trans-Mississippi, and a new and exciting life, was underway.
Chapter Eight
The Trans-Mississippi
Jacob and Martin had boarded the paddle wheeler General Slaxton. They had quickly secured their horses near the bow of the vessel and had unloaded their packs and sleeping gear alongside. With some fresh hay meant for the livestock, Jacob and Martin quickly made a bed next to the rail where they could watch their horses and gear during the trip. Having nothing else to do, they both watched the countryside roll gently by as they enjoyed their first paddle wheeler ride, up the mighty Mississippi and into the mouth of the Missouri River.
For the next several days, the two paddle wheelers plowed upstream, dodging the many sand bars while avoiding the numerous floating snags and numbers of dead buffalo floating downstream—dead buffalo that had earlier broken through the spring ice and drowned while trying to cross the Missouri. Some of the men onboard, to avoid boredom, took great sport shooting the feeding ravens and crows off the floating buffalo carcasses as they bobbed their ways downstream alongside the vessels.
“A real waste of powder and shot,” Jacob told Martin.
In the two men’s eyes, the food or swill served onboard the paddle wheeler was really bad, especially when Martin discovered Camel-Backed Crickets in his watery soup and white worms throughout his hardtack. The jerky the men had purchased for the trail was soon put to use to keep “the big guts from eating the little guts.”
Soon the geography began changing from the heavy green forests of Missouri to the drier short-grass prairies of the lands to the north. Several times the men observed herds of buffalo swimming the river or grizzly bear looking for food along the shoreline. In the river itself were flocks of ducks, mostly of the fish-eating variety. Bald eagles and osprey soared overhead constantly. With the changing geography, everyone had something new to observe and enjoy.
Friendships were made or rekindled, and there
was much talking and teaching regarding the trapping of beaver, muskrat and river otter. Then the talk turned to the dangers of the mighty Lakota, the horse-stealing ways of the Crow Indians, the dangers of the grizzly bear, the ever-killing Cheyenne, and the merits of the different firearms. Once discovered, many trappers who sported the tried and true Pennsylvania rifles stopped by to admire Jacob and Martin’s unusual and prized St. Louis Hawken rifles; so much so, that Jacob and Martin kept an even tighter watch on their gear, especially their state-of-the-art firearms.
However, in the process, Jacob had to smile. Both he and Martin had only been able to purchase their new firearms because of a lethal encounter that had occurred along the trail to St. Louis—a fight where men had planned on taking Jacob and Martin’s lives and property, but in the end may have saved them. As a result of the coins taken from the outlaws’ saddlebags after the killing was over, both men were able to procure the finest and heaviest of firearms newly available—firearms that would not only provide for them, but would save their lives and those of others many times over the ensuing years. And unbeknown to everyone onboard the paddle wheeler, there were still two very full saddlebags containing coins remaining from that fight—more than enough for the two men to buy some land and settle down if they so desired once this trapping and exploring thing was out of their systems. That is, provided they survived.
There were two heavily bearded men that took a particular interest in Jacob and Martin’s rifles. “Who are those two men?” Martin asked one of their fellow travelers.
“Don’t know much more about them ’cept they ain’t ones to be company with. They used to be free trappers, but they weren’t much good at it, and the others say they went bust spending more than they made at rendezvous. They signed on as contract trappers, ’bout the only way they are gonna get by.”
