West Of The War

by L. J. Martin

English Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce, Lemon Flavor

  This dinner will be served for 50 cents.

  Was the cook not a little gnome of a man, rather than a woman, with a bulbous nose and an arrogant manner, I'd ask ol’ cook to wed me.

  I’m sure the menu at Delmonico’s in far away New York City is no better. Again our fare was one hundred dollars, as much as our original fare from Brunswick. But the fact is, we have little negotiating power. I make up my mind to eat my way all the way to Benton City and make the captain sorry he let us onboard.

  Captain Easton is kind enough to direct me to a cabin where a barber is working with razor and scissors, and renting out a tub of hot water, and to another cabin he says houses a haberdasher who’s hauling goods all the way to Benton City. My first visit, with Ian in tow, is to have my shaggy mane cut, a tangle that Ian has been sawing with a sharp knife as I’ve been doing for him, and my beard trimmed. Then to the man who’s said to have ready-made clothes for sale…and I’m only slightly shocked to have Alex Strobridge open the door to my rap.

  “Damn if it isn’t Braden McTavish,” he says with a grin, before I can recover my dropped chin, and pumps my hand.

  “You, sir, are a man of great determination,” I manage, as I enter.

  “Head down, tail up, charge forward, lad. It looks as if you’ve had a rough row to hoe? You’ve got a few more scars and gone Indian on us?” He’s surveying my neck and face, where the scars of the Crow women's efforts still shine, particularly now that my hair and beard are trimmed short—and me wearing my elk skin shirt and moccasins.

  “Yes, sir, I have a few more beauty marks, but I have not gone Indian, which is the reason for my calling on what the captain has said was a haberdasher. Might I trouble you to break out some duds that might fit me? I’m sure they can smell these all the way back to St. Louis.”

  “I sure do, you got that two dollars you owe me for stacking wood.” He laughs.

  “Yes, sir. I wish you’d have waited for me to mention it.”

  “I’ll flip you for it, and the cost of whatever you need. Double or nothing?”

  “No, sir. I’ll pay up for both. When did you leave Benton City?”

  “On the first boat out more than two months ago. I gave a wave to your camp as we passed. How’d you winter?”

  “We did fine. Just fine,” I say, and can’t keep the smile off my face. “Ian is fat and sassy, we killed buff until they quit passing then wolf and beaver when we weren’t putting up wood, or when the weather didn’t keep us boxed in. Then it all started again as the buff returned." I pause a moment, then ask what I really want to know. "So, how’s the rest of the folks?” I hedge, not wanting to be obvious.

  “Folks?”

  “The rest of those of us survived the Eagle?”

  “Fine, just fine. Lucas Eckland healed up and went back to work—”

  “He and a friend are now running the wood yard.”

  “The hell you say. Lucas was a fine fellow.”

  “And the rest…Madam Allenthorpe and Chance?”

  “Funny you should lump them together. It seems they took up together. In fact by the time we get there they should be ready to open a saloon and opera house.”

  “Really. Ian won't fancy that as he talked of her long, and longingly, all the long, long winter?”

  "He may be better off. Fine feathers don't always make a good eatin' bird."

  "And the others," I continue to press.

  “Pearl?”

  “You bet, Pearl?”

  “Pearl is still working with Miss Allenthorpe…Madam Allenthorpe. She looked fine last time I saw her, fat as a toad, as I guess all that fine food sets well with her…but fit as a fiddle.”

  “Fat?”

  “Seemed to me. Done lost that girlish figure. I was working hard trying to get a mercantile built and didn’t pay attention to much else. Benton City has become a bit of a rough and tumble town. You got to look out for yourself if you want to stay in one piece. We got a sheriff and a deputy and I’m not sure that’s enough.”

  “A good lawman, I hope?” I say, wanting to ask more about Pearl, but not wanting to seem the panting cur. Fat, I can’t imagine Pearly letting herself get fat. Neither her mama nor her daddy carried any extra weight.

  “A good lawman? I don’t know. Seems tough enough. Come to think of it, you might remember him. Wade Jefferson, fellow with a white streak in his black beard…rumor was he rode with Bloody Bill, but that’s just a rumor.”

  “Skunk?”

  Alex shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be calling him that. He beat a young fella half to death in the middle of the road for doing so. You know him?”

  I can feel the heat in my cheeks. “Know the son of a bitch? Silas something is his real name...it'll come to me. I guess you could say I know him. He was trying to rob me when Ian picked him up like a sack of cow shit and flung him over the rail of the Eagle. We were sure he had drowned, and hoped he had.”

  Alex raises his eyebrows, then shakes his head thoughtfully. “You two might not be too welcome in Benton City,” Alex says, his brow furrows.

  “We don’t plan to stay long. We’ll be off to the goldfields soon enough.”

  “Don’t tarry. He’s a mean one and the town fathers, such as they are, seem to be all behind him.”

  “We’ll only hang around long enough for me to sell my percherons and to buy another good saddle horse and some prospecting gear. I’ve got two of my pack mules.”

  “I’ll stake you and Ian for a third cut?” Alex offers.

  “I appreciate the offer and will pass it along to Ian, but we’ve got a good stake and all we need is a good fast saddle horse and tack, a couple of good pack saddles, and shovels and picks and pans…plus grub, of course.”

  “I’ve got all that on board, except the saddle horse. I’ll give you as good a price as anyone in Benton City, so you won’t have to hang around town long.”

  I shrug. “I’m not afraid of Skunk.”

  “I’m not saying you are, but he’s the law in Benton City and you don’t want trouble with the law, right or wrong.”

  He’s right, of course. A picture of my daddy rotting at the end of a rope flashes through my mind's eye and I get a bad taste in my mouth. One McTavish at the end of a rope is enough for a dozen lifetimes. I shake my head slowly in agreement, then slap him on the back. “Let’s go find Ian and we’ll stand you to a few shots of hooch, then figure out what you can sell us.”

  “Let’s get you some duds first, those smell like you’ve been living in a wolf den…or worse. It may be you gets shucked overboard.”

  “Worse. More like a pigsty I’d guess.”

  He chuckles. “I’d hate to see you buried way up in Benton City smelling like a goat and looking like a savage. They already got a boot hill going and you’d have lots of company.”

  While we enjoy good company and decent whisky, I catch up on the war, and the date. It is July 25, 1864 when we wave goodbye to our river camp.

  My old friends in the 43rd Battalion have been busy. Sorry to learn my old commander Colonel Mosby has been wounded, shot through the thigh, but is expected to be back in the thick of things soon. Hell, had I stayed in the fight, I might be in line to take over the battalion...unless someone was smart enough to figure out it was my damned uncontrollable mount that made me look the hero and got me promoted time and time again. Or I'd likely be dead, as many of my fellows surely are.

  However, it’s not going well for the South. A series of battles called The Overland Campaign is costing General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia heavy casualties and he’s retreating closer to the Confederate capitol of Richmond. Another Union general, Nathaniel Banks, is moving upriver from Louisiana, and if the north gets their hands on cotton, thousands and thousands of bales of cotton, it will cost the South dearly and benefit the north equally.

  To be truthful, I’m happy to be off to a new life in what I now learn has just become its own territory, capitol bein
g a place called Bannack. And there are three or four new gold discoveries in the new Montana Territory. Names like Bannack, Alder Gulch, and others are pouring gold into many pokes, and Ian and I plan to reap our share.

  If we can get to Benton City without another damn boat blowing itself all to hell, with us aboard.

  Alex, Ian, and I shut the boat’s saloon down, along with a dozen others, then Ian and I stumble our way back to the engine deck. Alex has offered us his floor, but his room is full of crates and bags of goods so there’s little room. We quickly determine it’s too damn hot to sleep on a warm night so near the boilers, so we take our bedrolls and saddle bags up to the hurricane deck high above the water where we can catch as much breeze as possible, and roll up. Since all our worldly wealth is in those saddle bags it's our habit to sleep with the bag’s back strap under our necks and our sidearms in hand. I decide to split mine up and divide it between my bags and the money belt Pearl sewed up for me. When wearing it I look like I've gained a few pounds but better safety than vanity.

  I’m not so soaked with demon rum—actually, Who Hit John, corn whiskey—that I don’t take extra precautions. I have an eight-foot leather thong, a fine dark strand, and tie it a few feet from our spot at the end of the deck, so any who approach will likely stumble and upset a couple of rope spools I’ve stacked so they’ll easily fall.

  I didn’t work all winter and nearly freeze my fingers and toes off only to lose my poke to a thief in the night. And I have seen the folly of stowing your wealth in the purser’s safe, only to have it rest on the bottom of the Big Mo.

  I guess it’s terrible to thank the good Lord for someone’s horrid luck, but a fight at breakfast had folks diving for the floor as gunfire broke out. It seems some German hooligan did not favor his breakfast and upon entering the cook's holy sanctum, the small kitchen, threatened the cook with bodily harm, and reached for his sixgun. A mistake. Particularly when the cook is a stout Mexican lad used to moving quickly to serve over a hundred diners plus crew three meals a day. His well sharpened chopping knife found the German’s backbone before his six gun cleared its holster, and found it by first passing through the German’s generous beer belly.

  That German squealed like a Hampshire hog until his squealing diminished to a final loud sigh.

  Having his food in great favor, there was little complaint from the other travelers, twelve of whom also sit, between breakfast and lunch, on the jury quickly impaneled by the captain. The German is prepared for burial at the next stop, wrapped in a sheet, and the Mexican doesn’t miss a beat and has lunch on the tables on time. Of course he is assisted by three helpers…who were not impaneled as jurors as it would have interfered with the preparation of lunch.

  Such is life…and death…on the riverboats.

  Which is why I'm not too heartbroken over the German's bad luck, but the fact was, I disliked him from what little exposure I had to him in the saloon.

  And there certainly is no complaint from Ian and I as we outbid others, offering forty dollars, for the German’s cabin, and now find ourselves traveling in style as well as having our worldly wealth in a much safer place. The small bed is barely room for two so we make a pallet on the floor with the single buff skin we’ve kept and flip for who’ll spend the first night there…as we’ll trade off from here on out.

  With a stop in Bismarck we treat ourselves to some decent coats and more new duds. I now have a fine pair of boots and have replaced the coach gun I lost when the Eagle went to the bottom. More than once I wished for it when we were in the middle of a dog fight with the Crow. Nothing like a sawed down scatter gun for close work as the Union boys discovered when they came to rob our farm and hang my daddy. However, even a half dozen more double barrels couldn’t have prevented that outrage.

  As there was on the Eagle, the Glasgow has an interesting mix of folks—gold seekers, merchants, trappers, and even a couple of professional men—and I’m happy to join in some games of chance. Particularly since I’ve had several lessons from Chance O’Galliger and was fortunate in my play as a result.

  And I win steadily, except from a gentleman with a high top hat, not as tall as Mr. Lincoln’s custom, but high. Mr. Johnathan Gilbert, with a nicely trimmed van dyke under his high hat and pince-nez spectacles, says he’s a man of the law, and another fair player is a physician, Albert Whittle—both gentlemen originated their trip in far off Philadelphia. And both truly are gentlemen and I spend a great deal of time with each, sipping good brandy, questioning them about their chosen profession. And both are tolerant of a young man trying to gain an education.

  As the river becomes more and more shallow and in spots narrower, as tight as a couple of hundred yards in spots, the captain is now putting into shore every night, and every night either Ian or I, not both as one of us stays close to the cabin to protect our pokes, goes ashore to graze the stock.

  After Bismarck the river, which has been almost due north and south, begins to bend to the west. As we travel, with little to do, an old trapper I’ve befriended, Nester Peabody, gives me an education on the country, critters, and savages. He’s been as far west as the Blackfeet country, and seems to know of what he speaks. He points out Mandan, Gros Ventre, and Arikara Indians we see from the boat. Having to hit the deck more than once as they fire at what they call the smoke-boat. We return fire a time or two, but I do so with little enthusiasm as I’ve grown to understand why one would take umbrage at others riding roughshod over their land. As the Union did over McTavish Farm, and as Sheriff Oscar Scroggins tried to do and paid for with his life. Thanks to Pearl. Pearl, about who I have such mixed emotions.

  We put in at the old fur trading post of Fort Berthold, once a stronghold area of the Sioux, the eastern Sioux known as the Dakota who arrived from Minnesota. Only two years ago was the conclusion of what was called the Dakota Conflict which ended with thirty-eight Dakota men being executed, hanged by the neck. The bulk of the conflict was east of here in southwest Minnesota. There was never an official report on the number of settlers killed, although it was estimated not less than eight hundred men, women, and children had died. So it seems the thirty-eight deserved the rope. And it seems a small price for that tribe to pay...of course no one knows how many they lost in the war. Come to think of it, they lost all—their way of life.

  Battles between the Dakota and settlers and later, the United States Army, ended with the surrender of most of the Dakota bands. By late December 1862, soldiers had taken captive more than a thousand Dakota, who were interned in jails in Minnesota. It’s said the hanging of the thirty-eight was the largest one-day execution in American history. In April of only last year, the rest of the Dakota, more than a thousand of them, were expelled from northern Dakota and Minnesota to Nebraska and farther south in Dakota Territory.

  I can't help but wonder what Many Dogs thinks of this, and am surprised he didn't take my hair when he often had the chance. But it seems one band of natives is not overly concerned—and at times are even jubilant—when something bad happens to another tribe.

  As we near Fort Buford and Fort Union, I’m elated. In a very few miles we’ll be at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, where it dumps into and widens the Big Mo, and then into the new Territory of Montana.

  Then there’s nothing but wild country until we reach Benton City. Fort Benton, where Madam Allenthorpe is constructing a saloon and opera house. I’m eager to see both of the ladies, and smile at the thought Pearl has gotten fat. I’ll bet Chance O’Galliger is not sweeping his gaze up and down her as he once did.

  I’ve continued my games of poker, whist, cribbage, and occasionally chess, with only two others faithfully taking part. Albert Whittle, the physician, and Johnathan Gilbert, the law dog. I’m about twenty-five dollars ahead, and happy to be as most who’ve been in games with Mr. Gilbert, esquire, have left with nothing but lint in their pockets. He’s been kind teaching me chess and not taking any winnings as he explained to me it would be unfair from a neophyte. I’ll h
ave to look that word up if and when I’m in the company of a copy of Mr. Webster’s fine book. I presume it’s not something too terrible to be called.

  I’ve truly enjoyed meeting Whittle and Gilbert, and will hate to lose their company.

  I’m not, however, looking forward to meeting up with Silas Jefferson Holland, now going by Wade Jefferson, known as Skunk to those brave enough to call him that.

  Wade Jefferson, the law in Benton City.

  Chapter 27

  From the mouth of the Yellowstone over the hundreds of miles of river to where the captain informs us we’re only a day out of Fort Benton, we see Indians at a distance, and more and more buffalo—a thing I thought impossible—as well as herds of deer, elk, and antelope too many to count. The occasional black bear feeds along the shore and less often, but more impressive, is the sighting of a grizzly—we’re careful when grazing the stock, keeping the Sharps at hand, and have them back aboard before it’s full dark. The country is low along the river and slightly rolling, the banks almost continually lined with cottonwood. The low hills are ravine-cut and sage covered with little in the way of evergreens but lots and lots of grass. The soil looks rich to me and were I still a farmer…

  Finally, we're told we'll see Fort Benton on the morrow.

  As it’s our last night on the Glasgow we have what old Shamus would call a jollification, and see if we can drink the boat’s saloon dry. I’m not one to be reckless with my money, but do buy the house a drink, which gains me a sore back from the slaps. I don’t know how late it is when Ian and I stumble back to our cabin, but it’s dead dark with hardly a star to light the deck…but when we near it’s light enough to see our door is standing open.

  Ian gasps, as I have a good share of my poke in the money belt Pearl sewed up for me, but other than what he has in his pockets, all of Ian’s share is hidden on the underside of a small wash stand. A clever spot and I’d congratulated him on finding it, but not a spot that would take an earnest thief long to find. Ian beats me to the doorway, and is almost bowled over by a man trying to burst out.