by Terry Grosz
They found their old camp little used and not badly rundown after the several months of neglect. Someone had been inside after they headed out for the rendezvous and had left the front door ajar, but other than that, the place was like they had left it. The men placed their horses in the corral and started unpacking the horses. Jacob lifted a pack heavy with four kegs of powder for storage in the cave and staggered into the cabin under its awkward heavy weight.
“Oof!” Jacob cried. A surprisingly strong smell, almost a stench, had met his nostrils as he entered the darkened interior.
“Ugghhh!” Wham.
Jacob was knocked flat on his back.
Stunned for a second, he became aware of the fetid breath of an extremely mad boar grizzly bear tearing at the pack of gunpowder kegs lying on top of him.
Jacob rolled back and forth underneath, all the while trying to keep the protective pack between himself and the grizzly’s savage front claws and snapping teeth. “Help!”
The bear finally ripped the heavy pack off Jacob like it was light as a feather, then reached down and grabbed Jacob by the front of his shirt with its teeth.
Jacob, in his defense, grabbed the bear’s face with his hands and tried to poke out its eyes with his fingers.
All that did was to push the bear into a monstrous, towering rage. It lifted Jacob up off the floor effortlessly and with a vicious head swing, the bear hurled Jacob into the back wall of the cabin.
Crunch. Jacob heard his almost inert body as it hit the solidly built wall.
Stunned but still in some sort of mental command, Jacob went for his knife and pistol only to feel the bear bite down hard on his left shoulder. Then he was lifted once again by the bear’s front paws as he went for the dreaded “bear hug” and head-crushing bite.
Boom-Boom. The inside of the cabin exploded in flame and white black-powder smoke. With that Jacob was hurled to the cabin wall once again as the grizzly fell back and crumpled alongside another wall.
Jacob strained to shunt aside his pain and reassess his situation.
The boys, Leo and Jeremiah, stood at the open cabin door. They had shot their Hawkens simultaneously. The heavy lead balls had flown true, and had struck the huge grizzly squarely in the head, and killed it instantly. The explosive force of the bullets’ crushing impacts from such a short range is what must have hurled Jacob to one comer of the room and the bear to the other.
Stunned but still alert, Jacob staggered to his feet in an attempt to get away from the still-twitching bear.
It was all over. Jacob staggered out of the cabin on his own adrenaline and sat down heavily on a log bench to recover from the most recent deadly scare of his young life.
The bear must have taken up residence in the cabin. When I walked in on the giant, I must have roused it from sleep. I bet it thought it was in danger. That’s why it attacked me in true grizzly fashion! Jacob loosed a soulful sigh. Thank God I had the packsaddle loaded with bulky kegs of powder between me and the bear when I walked in. Had I not...
Leo and Jeremiah both stood in front of Jacob, worriedly looking him over to make sure he was all right. The looks on their faces spoke to more than just considering Jacob as a friend. Then they were quickly pushed aside by Singing Bird.
Singing Bird took Jacob’s ripped buckskin shirt in her hands and lifted it over his head.
“Jacob,” Singing Bird reported, “you have four bite wounds. Very ugly, very deep. From canine teeth. Down to the shoulder bone. You are lucky shoulder not broken.”
Jacob grimaced. “Still dangerous enough of a bite to take in the backcountry.” His shoulder was now beginning to stiffen up but Singing Bird was right on it. She opened up the puncture wounds slightly with her knife to the depth of canine teeth’s penetration, then washed out the furiously bleeding wound. Into that she poured some evil-smelling, oily looking, black liquid that burned like all hell. However, Jacob had come to trust Singing Bird and her medicinal remedies as he bravely put up with the stink and searing pain of her doctoring.
Meanwhile, the other four men dragged the grizzly out of the cabin with difficulty and laboriously hung it on the big-game skinning pole between two aspens adjacent to the cabin. It was a very large male grizzly, probably measuring at least nine to ten feet in length and weighing at least nine hundred pounds. The pelt was not in its prime but the bear was rolling fat and much good bear oil was in store once they rendered it out. That would go double for good eats with the huge hams and shoulders once smoked.
“How ironic,” said Martin. “The bear tried to kill and eat Jacob. Now the moccasin is literally on the other foot.”
With the bear’s smell heavy in the air, the horses began to get a little uneasy. Seeing that, Martin and the boys reinforced the corral poles so the horses could not spook and escape no matter how nervous they got. Singing Bird, in the meantime, was quickly cleaning out the cabin of the refuse and offal the bear had left behind. Soon everything was shipshape in the cabin and the men began to unload the rest of their precious supplies into the cave, cabin and lean-tos. That completed, they set about erecting the tepees for Singing Bird and the boys.
When the horses settled down a little, the boys hobbled all of them and herded them into the nearby meadow so they could graze and water. However, as everyone worked, they kept their firearms handy. That episode with the bear bespoke of the many dangers at every turn in the wilderness and if one was “to keep his hair or the meat on his bones,” he had to be ever vigilant.
Ben and Martin finished their unpacking chores, then commenced gutting and skinning the bear. He was fatter than all get-out and that pleased Singing Bird very much as she stood by watching.
Soon Singing Bird had great slabs of fat stripped from the intestines, back and sides merrily rendering away in one of her big cooking kettles. Bear fat was the mother of all answers to many of life’s problems on the frontier. From cooking to smearing the body when the mosquitoes got bad, bear fat was Nature’s treasure.
It wasn’t long before Singing Bird had the cooking fires going along with great chunks of fresh bear meat smoking away on the drying racks erected the year before. All the men were abuzz at her work ethic and speed in getting the whole thing done. In short, she was recognized as the camp boss for all but very few instances.
The next morning Jacob awoke to a shoulder that was stiff and sore. But not as stiff as it might have been had the boys ’aim not been so quick on the scene and deadly accurate, he thought. Singing Bird’s quick aid and native medicine has once again done the trick.
In fact by noon, Jacob took to working with the others as they dragged in logs for the winter’s wood supply. Not the heavy work, but leading the horses down the hill with their logs in tow. By the following morning when Singing Bird checked the wound and added more of her evil smelling liquid, Jacob felt pretty damn good.
The wound was still swollen and flushed with red color, which he knew meant that blood was moving to the wound and healing was taking place. Once again, he was lucky when it came to surviving in the wilderness. Luckier than many in his trade, especially when it came to crossing swords with Ephraim.
For the next several weeks, the company stayed busy getting camp ready for winter and the upcoming trapping season. They cut emergency hay for the animals and stacked it into one of the lean-tos after it had dried—backbreaking work but necessary, if past experience had anything to do with the necessity of such actions. The men killed numerous elk for the meat, jerky and hides, which Singing Bird tanned, another never-ending task.
Hunting the elk was a chore the men undertook with much happiness because of the freedom of movement it offered, along with the great meals and the adventures it brought. Elk supplied nowhere near the amount of meat of a buffalo, but elk were close at hand and would have to do until the men could venture forth later to hunt what they needed for winter from the great beast of the plains.
Ben taught the boys, “We hunt the buffalo for their hides, but during this time
of year, the buffalos’ hides are not in the best shape. They are better in the winter, when the hides are four or five times thicker than in the summer. It’s a lot of hard work to make meat from a buffalo, but you’ll find that you enjoy it, and hell, if you don’t, you’ll be hard pressed to survive the long winter months this far north.”
The lessons continued with the finer points of hunting buffalo whenever the boys were skinning and gutting the elk as Singing Bird showed them how to smoke and store the processed, rich meat in parfleches that hung from the cabin rafters.
In addition to work around the cabin, Martin and Ben were often off exploring for new beaver waters to trap come fall, winter and spring. The valley in which they trapped the previous year still had not recovered in numbers of beaver. In fact, one scared more mallard ducks off the decaying beaver ponds than beaver because of their earlier over-trapping. This was mute evidence that their trapping season the year before had been very effective. However, one low ridge over in the mountains to the east provided another rich find. That valley was not as big as the one next to camp but almost as rich with beaver, with even more feeder streams coming down from the nearby mountains. Both Martin and Ben returned from their travels to the new trappings speaking in glowing terms of what they saw. Additionally, they saw no fellow trappers or Indians and few grizzly bears to compete with or muck up their day.
* * *
Come time to trap, the men were more than ready. It was decided that Ben would take Leo as his trapping partner and teach him the trade. Jacob, Martin and Jeremiah would form the other trapping team. They would trap the upper streams in the new valley and Ben and Leo would trap the lower valley floor.
Singing Bird would again be left in camp by herself since no hostile Indians or other trappers had been seen in the area. That way she could help with the skinning and fleshing of the hides as well as stretching them when the men were off trapping. If she got behind, several of the men would also stay behind to help in order to keep up with the demanding but necessary work. That would also give Singing Bird time to tend to other camp chores, such as mending clothing and footwear as they gave out from the constant wading in the gravel of streams and the mud of beaver ponds.
Come daylight one day in the fall of 1831, it was decided the beaver were coming into prime. Singing Bird was up early and fixed a hardy breakfast for the men. They loaded their gear and six beaver traps per man, and off they went into their newest set of trapping adventures.
Soon a steady flow of trapped beaver plews streamed into camp at the end of each day. Because of the distance now traveled to the trapping areas, the men skinned the beaver out in the field and brought back only the fresh hides. That way the packhorses didn’t have so far to go carrying heavy carcasses. Work was hard but the new trapping grounds were rich and everyone “fell to” with joy in their hearts. The pressure of winter’s approaching downtime and thick ice kept them full of energy.
Soon, almost too soon, winter’s frigid breath arrived. This forced the men to break the ice daily with their hand axes and make their sets under the ice. But no snow came with the icy blasts so everyone kept trapping.
Finally the day came when the ice became too thick to trap with much hope for success. With that, the men pulled their traps and headed for their winter camp for the relief it brought from the daily wading and immersion in icy waters. But the work didn’t stop there. There were still more buffalo, elk and deer to hunt as well as gathering and processing of those hides.
Then winter arrived in all its fury. Howling winds, sub-zero temperatures and drifting snow became the conditions of the day. Like Buffalo Calf had said earlier when he was alive, “The valley could be miserable in the winter and then even worse come spring.”
Singing Bird had made sure the tepees were prepared for winter and that she and the boys never had any worries when it came to the cold. There was plenty of firewood close at hand, water was made from melting snow and meat was aplenty—having been smoked, hung to freeze or jerked earlier. Times were good and maybe about to get better come the spring of 1832.
Chapter Seventeen
Prosperity
Awakening early one morning, Jacob stoked the embers in the cabin’s fireplace with some pine knots until a fire merrily blazed away. As he carried a large pot out the front door to fill it with snow to melt for water, he came smack dab onto a Lakota Indian warrior quietly sitting on his horse, looking at him from ten feet away. Jacob dropped his pot in surprise and quickly went for his pistol, only to quickly recognize Singing Bird’s brother, Standing Elk.
Standing Elk smiled at seeing his friend Jacob, apparently amused that he had surprised him. With a big grin, Standing Elk then signed, “You jumped like a bug on a hot rock.”
Jacob smiled back and signed, “I was surprised and jumped because I have never seen such an ugly Indian on a horse before.”
Standing Elk chuckled and dismounted lightly, born from years of riding horses.
The two men embraced like the close friends they were and then Jacob scooped up some fresh snow for coffee water. As they entered the warming cabin, Ben and Martin immediately stood up in happy recognition at seeing Standing Elk. The cabin filled with excited conversations and flying hands making sign. Soon the water was boiling and the coffee was ready. Standing Elk, par for the course, poured his cup half full of coffee and the rest of the cup full of crushed, hard brown-sugar granules.
“Making honey?” signed Jacob with a big grin. Standing Elk ignored the jab at his coffee-making as he swilled down the cup of black, thick liquid. After finishing in one gulp, he signed for more. Jacob refilled his cup halfway and then watched more precious sugar disappear into the coffee.
It’s a good thing we have a small mountain of that sweet stuff in our cave, Jacob thought. But for a great warrior and good man like Standing Elk, I don’t mind. Jacob shared a warm smile with his friend. He is the type of friend everyone needs in this country.
Standing Elk signed, “The rest of the band is an hour or so away from your camp. They had a late start because of the surprise snowstorm the evening before. But soon there will be an additional twenty tepees in the meadow keeping you company during the winter.” He punctuated the news with his typical wide grin.
“That will be very good,” replied Jacob. Not only would Singing Bird be happy around her clan once again, but the trappers could trade some of their recently acquired goods from the rendezvous to the Indians for the animal pelts the Indians had acquired during their winter trapping.
Breakfast consisted of great strips of buffalo meat cooked over the hearth, fried cornmeal mush with honey, and many steaming cups of typical trapper’s thick black coffee. The wafting aroma of breakfast soon brought Singing Bird and the Hunter brothers to the cabin.
Singing Bird greeted her brother in the usual, stoic Lakota fashion, but she managed to make a pest of herself as she fussed over her brother. She made sure Standing Elk had enough of the meat and cornmeal mush, and more sugar for the coffee she refilled. The rest of the company simply stayed quiet lest they interrupt Singing Bird’s happiness.
About one hour later, a great commotion could be heard approaching the cabin. Barking dogs, yelling children, neighing horses, braying mules, and every other kind of sound in-between, announced the arrival of Singing Bird’s band of Lakota.
After the usual joyful greetings, the band moved over to the edge of the meadow by the lake, where they had stayed the previous summer, and began clearing snow off the same spots with buffalo-shoulder-blade shovels. They used many of the same stones marking the old tepee rings. Then the support poles were quickly erected in the chilly air and the buffalo-hide portions of the tepees pulled and wrapped into place. The travois and pack animals were quickly unloaded before it snowed again and soon smoke rose in happy, lazy, hearty-smelling twists from the tops of the tepees. Horses were left free to roam in the meadow as the trappers and Indian women gathered dried, beetle-killed lodgepole pine firewood from the adjac
ent hillside. The trappers, with Leo and Jeremiah cutting, dragged the logs down to a central area in the Indian camp. By noon, there was a small mountain of dried wood for the Indians to use throughout the winter.
That afternoon, preparations were made for a great buffalo hunt on the morrow so all could lay in an additional supply of fresh meat before the snows became too deep.
The Lakota had made meat earlier that fall but many old women in camp advised a hard winter was coming. With that, the tribe decided to lay in extra supplies of buffalo meat if it was possible.
Excited over the prospect of so many helping hands, the trappers returned to their camp and made ready for the next day’s hunt. Ben and Martin cast several pounds of heavy lead bullets for the big Hawkens. Jacob laid an edge to every knife they had because the course, knife-resistant buffalo hair always dulled knives rapidly during gutting and skinning. Singing Bird made sure all the powder horns were filled with fresh powder and that each possibles bag held plenty of primer caps, bullets, patches, a nipple wrench, nipple prick and bullet screw. She paused a moment to handle the bullet screw, a wondrous, beautiful work of White Man’s technology. It was a corkscrew-like device that attached to the end of a ramrod, to be inserted into the barrel of a rifle after a misfire. The screw twisted into the soft lead bullet so it could be extracted from the rifle barrel. The old powder could be poured out and a primer cap could be fired into the now empty rifle to clear out the flash hole. The barrel could then be swabbed out with a fresh patch, then new powder would be poured into the rifle, followed by a cloth patch and lead ball. Once a new primer cap was placed over the nipple, the rifle would be ready to fire again.
That evening a great bonfire was built in the middle of the Indian camp and the two groups, sharing what they had in the way of foodstuffs, held a great welcoming feast. There was roasted elk, antelope and buffalo meat. Singing Bird and her mother made great mounds of fried cornmeal mush with honey and everyone fell-to with huge appetites. Even the camp dogs fed well that evening as the bones—cracked open and the marrow removed—were flung over the eater’s shoulders to the eagerly waiting dogs. Everyone it seemed had a great feed and a good time.
