by Terry Grosz
Looking over at Big-Eye, Josh quietly said, “What happened?”
“It were a she-griz,” he slowly and painfully uttered. “Al did not see her and had got between her and her cubs when he made a set. Before he could run or we could shoot, she were all over him, just a-rippin’ and a-tearin’! It were all over in a moment and Al never had time to say nary a word. She almost tore his head off, then was on top of him just a-gnawing and a-tearing. It took four shots to kill her and another two for her cubs,” he quietly continued.
Jim had said nothing as he just sat there looking into the fire for the answers that were not to be in the dancing flames as to why such a thing had to happen and to his little brother and last of his kin at that! Finally, Jim rose with a sigh as if his body weighed a ton, said, “We need to bury him. Gabe, will you grab a couple of shovels and follow us to that there knoll over yonder overlooking the cabin?” With that and not waiting for Gabe to acknowledge his request, Jim gathered up the reins of the horse carrying his dead brother and headed slowly for the knoll. The rest of the men quietly followed and once there, Josh and Gabe dug Al’s grave while Big-Eye and Jim tightly wrapped his body in the skin of the offending grizzly. Al was gently lowered into the hole in the ground. Then Jim began throwing dirt over his brother’s body. With that, the rest of the men gathered up numerous rocks and boulders to put on top of the grave so the wolves and bears would not dig up and eat the body.
It was long after dark when the men had finished. Quietly walking back to their cabin, Josh took the men’s horses, unsaddled and curried them. Then they were hobbled and turned out into the meadow with the rest of the stock to feed. By then, the moose steaks previously staked around the fire to cook, were cremated. The Dutch oven biscuits were burned to a crisp, as was the pie, and the coffee had boiled itself down to thick, syrupy grounds. As Josh cleaned up the campsite and the Dutch ovens, Gabe went into their cabin. Soon he emerged carrying a small keg of whiskey kept for celebrations and cleaning out deep puncture wounds. He also carried four tin cups which were soon quietly loaded to the brim with the fiery liquid. For the next hour, other than putting more logs and limbs into the fire and drink into the cups, the men sat and drank in stunned and saddened silence.
Then Jim rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet saying, “Gentlemen, we are burning daylight. We have a lot of traps to check and reset tomorrow, so we best get crackin’.” With that, he wobble-walked his way to the inside the cabin and was soon snoring loudly.
The next morning at daylight, Gabe and Josh tended to the fire and breakfast fixin’s, as Jim and Big-Eye gathered their needs and horses ready for the day’s work. Nothing was said about the events from the day before as the men silently ate their breakfast. Saddling up, the two teams of trappers went their ways to the trapping grounds as if this was just another day, and it was...
For the next two weeks, the men went about the business at hand. Nothing else was ever mentioned about the loss of Jim’s brother, but a change in the older brother had taken place. Every day when Jim and Big-Eye returned, they not only carried pelts from beaver, river otter, and some muskrats, but Jim came in every evening with a fresh grizzly bear hide rolled up on his pack animal. Then the bear’s hide would be quietly scraped clean of its fat and meat scraps by Jim. Once that chore was done, it was stretched over the roof or alongside the cabin for drying and later trade at Fort Raymond. However, Jim first removed the claws for trade back at the fort with the Indians who revered and were terrified of the great bear. Soon, there were several sacks full of grizzly bear claws quietly hanging in the cabin! No one said much about Jim’s newfound interest and being such a crack shot, no one was concerned if he tried on for size on every grizzly bear he came across. After all, they were worth something in trade back at the fort. Plus, it seemed only fitting that Jim cleaned out every great beast he came across since “it” had so carelessly taken on and had killed one of Jim’s own...
Word soon got around through contact with some friendly Indians and other trappers they came across as to Jim’s new mission besides trapping beaver. Soon those who knew him best began calling him “Griz” Johnson because he never found a grizzly bear he didn’t “like.” Especially if bringing their hides home was in any way a measure of the man’s “love” for the great bear ... since he no longer had a younger brother to love.
CHAPTER NINE : BLACKFEET PROBLEMS AND THE DAY THE GROUND MOVED!
Trapping in 1810 finished with one of the worst blizzards in December in twenty years. The morning before that weather event occurred, as the men finished their breakfast, Griz stepped outside and stood there looking skyward for the longest time as if scenting the air. Moving back into the cabin, he announced, “Boys, we best pull our traps this day. If my way of figgerin’ is right, we will be in fer one heck of a blow by this evening, tomorrow at the latest. It is pretty warm now, but the breeze out of the northwest along with the warmth and moisture in the air, does not bode well fer those of us caught out in the middle of what is sure to come. In fact, let’s make one quick trap run, pull our traps and head fer the barn early this afternoon. That way, we can git in a mess of firewood afore she blows. It would also be good as well iffen Gabe or Josh kin kill us some fresh elk meat when they come in from the north end.”
Griz, known for his historically uncanny natural ability to read the weather, made for no contrary discussions on the matter as the men tossed their buffalo capes or capotes for inclusion onto their pack animals. Even though the weather that morning was still unusually warm, there was no disagreeing with Griz over his weather predictions. He had been right for more times than the men could remember when it came to weather events, especially bad ones. Hence the lack of discussion when it came to Griz and his weather predictions... Finishing breakfast, they saddled up their mounts, led their pack animals and headed out on their trapping runs. However, everyone kept looking skyward on the warm and sunny day as if to see what Griz was sniffing was really going to come true.
Little did any one of the group realize that while they were looking skyward, several sets of dark eyes were watching from concealment at the trappers’ departure from their well-hidden cabin. Those sets of eyes had also read the weather to come and were in the process of coming home with several travois loaded with fresh, rich buffalo meat. Now those sets of dark eyes had just discovered a bonus. Not only did they have a load of rich buffalo meat for their families and friends, but they also had discovered a new trappers’ cabin and their enticing corral full of horses and mules. Plus if they worked it right, there would be six more animals in that corral once the trappers returned from their current daily trapping trip for the taking as well. Yes, this had been a very successful buffalo hunt in more ways than one, the leader of the group thought with a look of appreciation on his face over their “good medicine” and the latest fortuitous turn of events...
For Gabe and Josh, that day was a full one. Every trap they had set the day before now contained dead beaver and two huge river otter. It seemed that in the icy cold waters of December their legs and feet were so numbed that they could hardly move as fast as they wanted. Plus, as predicted by Griz, as the afternoon wore on, the temperature plummeted and their buckskins became nothing more then icy cold and clammy wet skins clinging to their legs. As luck would have it, they ran across a small herd of elk and killed one large fat cow. That was good news at first until they discovered when the cow fell down the steep slope on which she had been standing, she landed upside down and was held fast between two trees. Two trees that now held her fast like a wood tick on a deer in the spring. By the time they had finally removed the best parts of the cow from between the trees and had skinned all their trappings, the wind had ominously picked up and had shifted. Now, buffalo capes or not, because of the wet buckskins on their legs, the men were freezing on their horses. Pushing their mounts and the heavily loaded pack animal hard, they finally rounded the last set of low hills leading to their cabin.
At that moment, they r
an across four sets of unshod pony tracks pulling several heavily loaded travois from the looks of the deep pole-skid drag marks! That meant they had Indians, more than likely Blackfeet, in their neck of the woods and dangerously close to their cabin for comfort!
Keeping that information in the backs of their minds, Josh and Gabe continued pushing their mounts for home. Finally, they swung below the last set of knolls just south of their cabin. Swinging onto the old game trail leading to their cabin, they were pleased to smell and see pine wood smoke swirling into the cold, damp afternoon air from their chimney. That meant Griz and Big-Eye were back and hopefully had all the wood hauled in ahead of the fast-approaching storm. Sure as shootin’, Griz and Big-Eye had a small mountain of dry wood stacked next to the front of their cabin. Upon hearing the arrival of the boys, they stood ready to assist Josh and Gabe with their pelting duties.
***
Once finished with hooping, the skins were laid against an inside wall of the cabin to dry as Gabe and Josh began cooking their evening meal. After supper, the men brought the hobbled horses and mules in from putting on their “feed bag” in the meadow and placed them securely inside their corral. After throwing several armloads of previously harvested summer hay into the corral’s manger, the men retreated to their warm cabin as the chill wind had noticeably picked up in the still-dropping temperatures. Just as Gabe entered the cabin behind his partners, a large, heavy, wet snowflake softly landed on his cheek. I’m not sure how Griz can read the weather, but he is damn good at it, he thought as he closed their cabin door and latched it in the face of the coming winter weather.
For the next two days, the blizzard swirled around their cabin only allowing the men out for short periods of time to gather snow to make water and to feed their livestock. The third day of the storm dawned gray, cold and windy, but at least the heavy snowing had stopped several hours earlier. Stepping outside, Gabe filled the iron kettle full of clean snow to melt so the men could make coffee. Turning to re-enter the cabin, he took a casual look at the livestock corral to see how they were doing. It was as empty as was his belly! Dropping his kettle and yelling to his comrades, Gabe ran over to the corral hardly believing what he was seeing. Sure as shootin’, the heavy corral gate logs had been slid back and every horse and mule was gone! Quickly looking around as if he would see the animals feeding in the nearby meadow and seeing none, he was surrounded by his partners looking on in deep concern as well at the empty corral.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” said a grimly faced Josh. “I knew those tracks we saw the day we came home from trapping carried the potential of an ill wind being so close to our cabin and all. And now, we are afoot in Indian country and in the dead of winter at that!”
By then, Gabe had returned to the cabin and was hurriedly gathering up his cold weather clothing, possibles bag, some jerky, and his rifle. He was quickly joined by his partners who hurriedly made the same winter travel preparations because to be afoot on the frontier in Indian country was nothing short of a death sentence to the trappers. They had to get their horses back or suffer the consequences of being horseless in what could be a wild and cruel wilderness on even the best of days.
“Which ways was those tracks you boys saw the other day a-going?” asked Griz.
“North like they was headin’ towards the Whoo-Doo’s,” said Josh.
“I suspect they was headin’ towards that big stand of timber at the north end of the Whoo-Doo’s so they could better hide their tracks and get out of the worst of the coming weather. Iffen we is to catch them red devils, we best make haste,” said Griz, “afore they get in among their own kind back at their camp. Then they be too many fer the four of us to take on. We be dead men from that point on if we not be successful in getting back our stock.”
The speed with which the rest of the trappers hurriedly prepared for the chase foretold of the gravity of what Griz had just said... Finally outfitted for what they suspected would be several hard days on the trail, Josh, the best tracker, led the band of trappers as he followed their stolen livestock’s faint hoofprint indentations in the fresh snows. For the rest of the day using the trapper’s trick of running a hundred yards, walking fifty and then repeating that procedure, the four men covered many hard and cold snowy miles knowing full well to be afoot in the wilderness was a sure-fire trip to disaster if not soon quickly rectified. A man on foot was nothing but a slow moving target for every varmint afoot, be it two or four legged...
That first night the men huddled in a frozen creek bottom under some thick brush without any fire for fear of detection by the horse thieves, particularly if they were nearby and had been watching their back trail. The next morning, Josh was hot on the thieves’ trail once again at daylight following tracks that were now freshening. By mid-afternoon, the trail was very fresh and from the looks of the tracks, the horse thieves had slowed their speed of flight after losing their fears of being tracked in the deepening snows by the horses’ owners because of the previous heavy snowstorm. Still, the trappers pushed on hard with near frozen legs and feet. Now they were taking short cuts by moving ahead of the old trail trying to cut the tracks instead of following directly behind which could lead them into a deadly ambush if they weren’t careful.
***
Right at dusk, Josh smelled wood smoke coming from somewhere deep in the heavy timber the men now found themselves traveling in. Stopping, Josh touched his nose, which told the others that he was smelling the nearness of the Indians through the presence of smoke from their campfire. The others slid to a stop and began taking in huge lungfuls of the frosty, evening air trying to scent the sign as well. Soon Gabe pointed to the northwest like he felt that was the direction from whence the smell of burning wood was emanating. Big-Eye nodded his head in agreement and then the men began a slow, careful stalk in that direction. Soon it was darker than the inside of a dead cow buffalo and yet the men still quietly forged ahead in the soft snow. There was now a collective sense among the men that their lives were in mortal danger at that point so great care was taken not to announce their presence. To spook the horse-thieving Indians and have them ride off with all their stock would be a death sentence for the now almost-exhausted and freezing trappers. Also, to blunder into the Indians’ camp might mean they themselves could be killed in that process as well. Either way, extreme caution was now the word among the desperate trappers. Then off in the darkness, Gabe spotted a faint flicker of light. Soon, soft voices of men speaking in the Blackfoot dialect could be heard as the trappers continued making their stealthy approach.
Stopping and through hard-to-see hand signals because of the darkness, the men decided to split up. Two would come in from one side and two from the other. That way, there would be no escape ... for either the trappers or the Indians once the battle started. Finally after many long moments and being where they wanted to be, the trappers quietly waited in the darkness at the far edge of the Indians’ campfire light until they felt the horse thieves were fast asleep.
There are eleven Indians, Blackfeet by their dress, thought Gabe as he continued shaking violently from the bitter cold. To his way of thinking, they were soon going to join their ancestors if he had his druthers. That same thought was in the minds of his partners as well. Long about midnight when the Indians were sleeping their soundest, Gabe saw Griz sneaking towards the closest of the sleeping Indians. Off to his side in the Indians’ soft, dying campfire light, quietly sneaked Big-Eye as well. Josh led the way from their side with Gabe slightly off to one side to back up his brother. Once the men were fairly close, Gabe looked over at the tethered livestock in the faint firelight observing that they were all watching the quietly approaching men with extreme interest.
About then, realizing the quietly approaching men were strangers, an Indian pony snorted loudly and stomped his feet! Thump! went a tomahawk thrown by Griz into the closest Indian who had awakened and quickly sat straight up in his sleeping furs at the horse’s nervous warning. Griz’s tomahawk hit
the Indian square in the head with such force that the handle broke off from the metal ax portion! However, with that unmistakable sound of a tomahawk crunching into bone, the other sleeping Indians quickly awakened. Jumping to their feet, that first thump of a striking tomahawk was instantly followed by three others quickly thrown in unison. All hit their intended targets with solid sounding, like in kind, bone crunching thumps! The camp was now in an uproar full of yelling, screaming and moaning Indians. Boom-boom-boom- boom! went the trappers’ rifles in quick succession into the confused Indians. That was followed by four desperate trappers in a vicious and savage attack with their knives and rifle butts on those Indians still remaining alive. Light from the Indians’ fire glittered off the knife blades as they swiftly found their soft, wet marks in their still half-confused targets. Soon, the only noises heard were those coming from four heavily breathing trappers and the nervous shuffling of mule and horse feet over the violent action just witnessed. That was soon followed in the cold winter air with the intense pungent smells of fresh blood and “fear” urine from the Indians scattered around the campsite during the battle.
The trappers slept well the rest of that night in the dead Indians’ buffalo robes for it had been a long, hard, cold day on their bodies. Daylight the next morning found the trappers riding bareback on the way back to their cabin. Behind them trailed not only their extra string of horses and mules, but the riding stock and pack stock from the eleven dead Indians as well. The day now had the makings of a good day to the trappers’ way of thinking. They were uninjured and not only trailing their valuable livestock but that taken from the Indians as well. Plus, the wolves back in the timber at the battle site were now loudly enjoying the bloody “repast” the men had left behind. All in all, it was a good start to a fine, crisp winter morning on the sometimes violent but beautiful frontier. The feeding wolves back at the Indians’ old campsite thought so as well...
