by Win Blevins
Right now that meant hunger. They had no fresh meat at all. Soon the dried buffalo would run out. They were already hungry, almost to the point of pain.
What Sam would always remember about the Sweetwater, though, was the wind. It rose the first night they camped along that river. It swooped, it whooped, it howled, it roared—no man there had ever seen anything like it. It scooped up snow and hurled it at them. It tried to pull the hair out of their scalps and their jowls and fling it toward the settlements. It scoured flesh cold and raw.
They huddled in their blankets and robes. A couple of times during the night men couldn’t stand the cold any longer and got up to make fires. Each time the wind darted among the embers devilishly, flung them into the air, and scattered them far and wide. Sometimes the huff-huff of the gale sounded like a mocking cackle. The poor fire-makers went back to bed colder than when they started.
The gale roared all that night, then all day, and most of the next night.
That “most” was critical.
Sam and Clyman, unable to bear the cold sitting, decided about midday to go for a walk to warm up. They walked fully encased in blankets and robes, and couldn’t have said they were more comfortable moving than sitting. But a dull inertia kept them padding on, toward some rocks to the south.
Here they found a crevice between two boulders and tucked themselves partly out of the wind. Sometimes they talked to keep their minds off their hunger.
Suddenly Sam exclaimed something out loud, threw up The Celt, and fired. Clyman couldn’t believe what happened next. A mountain sheep fell right beside them.
They started laughing and couldn’t stop. Funniest thing either of them ever saw. A mountain sheep posed majestically right uphill from Sam, and when shot, the critter had the good manners to fall right at their feet.
They set to skinning it out immediately, their hands glad of the warm flesh and hot blood. They cut off pieces of the fleecy fat and ate them raw, grinning. Suddenly this journey was changed completely. This isn’t a catastrophe, it’s an adventure.
They hauled the meat back up the valley to the wind-whipped camp. By the time they arrived, it was again a brutal day. Several men tried to get a fire going to roast the meat, even shielding the fire from the gale with a phalanx of blankets. Nothing worked. A few ate some meat raw, but it didn’t satisfy. They wrapped themselves in their blankets cold and hungry.
Until Clyman was awakened in the wee hours by the silence. The wind had lulled.
Instantly he was up, striking flint to steel, getting his tinder to flame up, feeding the fire. He started roasting sheep meat on a stick and gorging himself on it. As soon as they smelled the cooking flesh, all the men woke up and joined the feast.
The next morning the captain gave in to the reality of winter. He told the men to go downhill in various directions and find a place with plenty of firewood, some shelter, and some game. Sam and Gideon wandered four or five miles down to a canyon and found there a grove with plenty of downed wood, grass and bark for the horses to eat, and mountain sheep roaming the cliffs above. Gideon shot a sheep. They buried it in a snow drift, and went back for their companions.
After a week or so, the mountain sheep were too skittish to make easy hunting. It was time to move on. First, though, they made a big cache. Taking turns, they dug out a hole with a small entrance and a big basement. There they put lead, powder, and other essentials, and covered the hole with the sod they initially removed, making it all but invisible to thieves. Diah told them this was the place. “If we split up, we’ll meet back here. If we divide into two parties, we’ll find each other back here. On June first.”
And now some of the men thought, for the first time, that it was useful, even in the mountains, to know the month and day, the way Captain Smith did.
Up the Sweetwater they went, and then into what they hoped was the Southern Pass. It was a wild-looking place, mountains to the north, knobby buttes and monuments to the south. If it was the pass, it was high, wide, and handsome.
South Pass was not, however, accommodating. No game. No water. They melted snow to drink. And they went hungry.
On the sixth day, four of the days with nothing at all to eat, Clyman and Sublette went ahead looking for antelope. They’d seen some the previous evening, just before dark. What they found was a buffalo lying down. They debated about how to shoot it, since the vital parts were buried in snow. They decided on the rump and the shoulder simultaneously. One, two, three—both guns exploded.
The buffalo lurched violently and did not get up.
When the men heard the shots, they came running, and topped a little ridge just as Sublette made the finishing shot to the head.
Never was butchering happier.
They traveled on in hope of finding wood for a fire, but had no luck. They ate raw meat that night, and drank melted snow. Melting enough for the horses too was slow work.
While they indulged themselves in a very primitive and partial feast, Captain Smith walked out for a look around. When he came back, he said he could see it clearly. The peaks were behind them. Ahead, downhill, was the valley of the Siskadee.
“We did it.” This phrase alone was excess for Diah. “We crossed the pass. The next water we drink”—
“—if we ever find any,” Fitz called out—
“—will be the waters of the western watershed, flowing to the Pacific Ocean.”
The men laughed and cheered.
The first water they found was the Big Sandy River, frozen. The men chopped at the ice with their tomahawks until their arms would reach no farther down. “Froze to ze bottom,” said Gideon miserably.
Clyman drew a pistol and shot into the bottom of the hole. Water welled up fast, plenty for man and beast.
By the time they reached the Siskadee, they were half-starved again. But the river had lots of wild geese, which they feasted on, and soon they had buffalo.
“Starving times to shining times is a short distance in this country,” said Gideon.
Snow still patched the ground, but the days were pleasantly warm, the living easy.
There was beaver sign, and plenty. They were eager to reap a bounteous harvest of plews to send down to General Ashley, so he would continue to finance their mountain adventures. Captain Smith split the party in two, himself to take some of the men south along the Siskadee, and Fitzpatrick to lead the other outfit north along the river. Three sets of partners, Clyman and Sublette, Gideon and Sam, and Branch and Stone went with Fitzpatrick.
Back to the routine of trapping the wily rodent. Pick a likely-looking creek, ride upstream with Gideon in the early light. Spot beaver sign. Wade in some distance from where you want to set the trap. Set it, chained, with medicine for bait. Get the job done early, before Indians are about.
At dusk, ride the trapline again, taking your beaver and skinning them out. Set the traps somewhere new, so you can take hides again at dawn.
Make meat when you need to. Enjoy lounging in camp during the middays and the evenings. Give a name to the creek you found, and the pretty peak near its head. Observe everything, the creeks, the ridges, the mountains, the elk, deer, and buffalo, the ducks, geese, and cranes. Savor these moments. You are the first white men ever to see this country, to set foot in these creeks.
Eden, Sam said to himself, and thought of his father, and their special place. Sometimes I miss home, he admitted to himself. But Eden was here, not there, and his father was gone.
He said to Gideon as they rode down the creek toward the camp, their packhorse bearing fresh hides, “This is a perfect country.”
Gideon shrugged. “If the people can learn to live with each other.”
They trudged along a little.
“White men and Indians don’t get along, I guess,” said Sam.
“Look at me.” He stuck out a bare arm that was between red and white. I do fine wiz both. And you go good with Meadowlark.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah.”
“The French,
we do. You Americans not so good.”
Soon they came on a family of Indians camped on a creek. Shoshones, they called themselves, the tribe the whites called Snakes, from the hand sign for their band. They were a peaceable family, very shy-seeming, making the signs that meant they were hungry.
Fitz looked them over and talked it over with the others. Sam and Gideon argued for feeding them, making friends. Branch and Stone said to tell ’em to get gone and stay away—“They’ll steal us blind.”
“They had no luck hunting,” said Clyman.
Sublette agreed, “Could happen to any of us.”
So Fitz said yes. They gave the poor creatures beaver tail to eat, the one edible part of the critter. The family stayed close to the outfit for maybe a week, feeding on beaver. Sam tried to get to know them, but they were too shy.
One morning the Snakes were gone. So were the outfit’s horses, all dozen or so.
“Damn it!” shouted Fitz.
Trusting, they’d let the horses graze loose overnight. Branch and Stone threw out I-told-you-so looks.
The men tried to find the damned Indians and take the horses back. But the Snakes had disappeared. How? Half a dozen people, more than a dozen horses—a crowd can’t walk without leaving a track. They looked again. Across the stony ground, looking for where the party crossed onto dirt and left sign. Up the creek, down the creek, trying to find out where they left the water. No luck. Finally Fitz decided. “We’re losing prime trapping time. We’ll set traps and bring ’em back on foot.”
A damned nuisance, and worse than a nuisance, marching up and down the creeks and taking beaver on foot. Walking to the next trapping ground. Burying your furs in a cache to get later, because you have no way to carry them. But they did it. Beaver were plenty, and the hunt was very, very good.
When June neared, Fitz said they better start walking. They had to get to the cache to meet Captain Smith by June first.
Their horse gear, their plews, their traps, and other essentials were put in a cache. When they had mounts, they would come back for it all, get the furs en route to St. Louis, and then maybe be out of time to do anything but start the fall hunt.
Sam was mindful of his promise to Meadowlark—‘I’ll come back next summer, regardless.’ But he couldn’t go to her village, not alone and on foot. Too dangerous. Also, he couldn’t go in as a pauper.
That’s why he was so happy when, about noon on the day they started walking, they came around a corner and saw face to face five or six Indians, mounted on the trappers’ horses.
Rifles pointed quick at the Indians.
The Indians’ weapons were bows and arrows, spears, and war clubs. None of those could be put into play as fast as a trigger could be pulled, and they knew it.
They dismounted and handed over the reins. The men jumped on their horses gladly. They threw hard eyes at the Indians, who were surely Snakes. They talked it over. Half a dozen horses were still missing. Branch and Stone halfway wanted to lift hair. “Then we’ll never get our horses back,” said Fitz.
Sam made the signs. We come in friendship. We want our horses. Take us to your village.
It was a steep mile up the mountains, a camp of maybe four score Snakes, including the ones Fitz and the fellows had fed beaver tail.
They made their own camp within easy rifle shot of the village. They talked in council to the village leader.
In another half hour they had all their horses, except one, Branch’s riding mount.
Quick like a snake, Branch dived and caught a young man by the ankle and yanked him to the ground. It was one of the family they’d fed. Branch tied the fellow up, both hands and feet. Then he gave Sam a hard look. “Tell them if my horse isn’t back in an hour, we’ll kill him.”
Sam flashed the signs to the watching crowd, though there was no way to indicate “one hour.”
The horse was back in a jiffy.
Branch let the young fellow go, reluctantly, Sam thought.
While the outfit roasted meat over a common fire that night, Sam brought it up. “You treat Indians like they are only half human.”
“Half human is what they are,” mumbled Stone, his mouth full.
Sam raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He looked into Gideon’s face, wondering what his friend thought of this.
“Pilgrim,” Branch said to Sam, “I don’t have to learn things all over again. My father fought ’em. My grandfather fought ’em. My great-grandfather fought ’em. They knew they were savages. It’s settled. Frees my mind to think about other things.”
“I don’t see it that way,” said Sam. “There’s good and there’s bad, both.”
Stone said, “You forgot what happened on that beach at the Rees? You forgotten your dead friends? What kind of man are you?”
“I’ll never forget,” said Sam. “The Rees were bad. The Crows are good.”
“Nothing good about Crows but the pussy,” said Stone, laughing. Some of the others laughed too.
Sam asked, “What do you think, Clyman?”
“There’s good and bad, or better and worse, but they’re savages.”
“Gideon?”
He shrugged. “I am half Indian, but all mountain man.” He waited and asked Sam, “Why you no say what you think?”
What could he say? He doted on Meadowlark all the time. Just now he had thought of Ten, then of Hannibal. He couldn’t tell them about Hannibal, he just didn’t see how. “Don’t know,” he said.
Gideon turned and got right in his face. “You better know. I am your partner.”
Sam smiled easily and said, “You, yeah, you I know about.”
Gideon gave him a big clap on the back.
No one was at the cache on the Sweetwater. Fitz figured the date now at June 5—they were late. Had Jedediah come and gone, giving up on them?
No tracks or other signs. The cache was untouched.
Where were Diah and the men who went with him?
While they waited, Fitz and Sam rode downstream a dozen or miles, checking the river. It was broad and shallow, no water to float boats, even the bullboats they would make.
Fitz looked seriously at Sam. “You up to going downstream, finding a place where you’re sure it’s navigable, and waiting for us?”
Sam hesitated.
“Don’t play the hero. But we won’t wait more than three or four more days, then we’ll come along with him or without him.”
“Glad to do it,” said Sam. He made his voice clear and strong when he spoke.
“When you find a likely place, ride on down a way and make sure.”
They didn’t want to build the boats and load the furs, then have to unload the boats and go back for horses after a few miles.
“Right,” said Sam.
Without further ado Fitz rode back. Sam could hardly believe how lonely the world seemed. Himself, his horse, The Celt, a pistol, what was in his possible sack—these against the world. But he was glad Fitzpatrick trusted him with this job.
He took his time wandering on down the Sweetwater. Since the moon was nearing full, he rode at night and slept during the day. No sense taking a chance on Indians, not a lone man.
In three or four nights’ travel he came to a big river, rolling in from the south. Was this the Platte? Or was he on the Arkansas? He didn’t know.
Either way, the river would float boats from here. He slept the day through, hidden in a clump of willows on the south side, above the joining of the rivers. At evening he decided to make his camp for the four or five days in these willows and set to cutting down enough of them to make a brush hut.
Suddenly voices. Human voices.
Too soon for Fitz and the boys.
He peered out of the willow thicket. Indians, plenty of them, just across the river. He counted twenty-two, he couldn’t tell what tribe, and more horses than that. He lay down very still and watched. They started several fires. They tethered their horses. Clearly they intended to camp.
In which cas
e Sam meant to get the hell out of there.
The ground beyond the willows was sandy and flat, with little vegetation. The moon was full. A horse couldn’t sneak quietly. They would easily see him riding away, and his life expectancy would be very short.
He took stock.
Then he got The Celt and his pistol, knife and tomahawk, and his possible sack. He left his horse tied to some willows. Probably lose it, which pissed him off.
Walking backward, and as silently as his father had taught him, he eased across the sand. His tracks would look like they were going toward the river, and his horse was there.
After less than a quarter mile he backed onto a rocky ridge. He turned and climbed to a pinnacle, where he could see the Indians very well.
They lay down to sleep. Good, maybe they wouldn’t see his horse, and would leave in the morning.
About midnight they got up and gathered their mounts, but two horses wandered across the river. Damn, right near Sam’s horse. When the Indians went to collect the strays, they immediately sent up some whoops. Commotion about his camp. Checking of his tracks.
They mounted and rode around in all directions for maybe an hour. Then they had a talk, and all of them rode off to the north. With Sam’s horse, of course.
Hell, what a fix. Fitz, come on!
In the morning Sam went exploring downstream. Right away he found a swift, whitewater canyon. He scrambled up several hundred feet of rock wall to get a better look. No boats could go through here. They’d have to start floating farther down.
Just then he saw twenty Indian men walk to the north bank of the river. Damn! Was this a powwow place or what? Again he couldn’t tell what tribe. On foot. Probably a horse-raiding party—out walking, back riding. Way too many strange Indians around here to suit Sam. They built a raft of driftwood, crossed the river, and walked off to the south.
