Wilderness Double Edition #10 Page 2

  Chapter One

  Several years passed. The beaver population in the valley multiplied until there were nearly as many as there had been before the coming of the white man. The other wildlife likewise thrived. To an outsider, the valley appeared serene, inviting, yet another pocket paradise in the vast expanse of the rugged Rockies.

  Into this paradise rode three new trappers. Like Jacob Pierce, they were attired in buckskins. Each wore a possibles bag, powder horn, and ammo pouch slung across his chest. Each wore knee-high moccasins. Two of them wore hats made from beaver fur, the third a blue wool cap.

  In the lead rode the oldest, a white-haired veteran of decades in the mountains, his flowing beard lashed by the strong gusts of wind blowing from the northwest. His eyes were sea-blue, his skin as bronzed and weathered as the skin of an Indian.

  Next in line came a strapping young mountaineer whose striking green eyes swept the terrain with bold confidence. A pair of matching pistols were tucked under his belt. On his left hip nestled a keen butcher knife, on his right a tomahawk. Tied to the back of his long black hair was a single eagle feather, slanting out from under the bottom of his hat. With his broad shoulders and muscular frame, he was the perfect picture of masculine vitality, as elemental in his own way as a mountain lion or a grizzly bear.

  Third in line rode the youngest of all, a man whose beard was more fuzz than hair. He cast nervous glances right and left and started at the loud cries of birds and beasts. Often he licked his lips and looked at his partners as if for reassurance that all was well. His brown hair was the shortest of the three and brushed so that it exposed his ears instead of covering them as was the case with the other two.

  The trio descended to the gurgling stream and sat scouring its length in both directions. The black-haired young giant nodded, then remarked to the older man, “I’d say it’s worth trapping. How about you, Shakespeare?”

  “This coon has to agree, Horatio,” Shakespeare McNair said. “See those lodges down yonder? And up there a ways? A few weeks here would prove right profitable.”

  The third member of their party coughed to clear his throat. “Pardon me for asking, McNair, but why the dickens do you call him Horatio half the time when you know as well as I do that his real name is Nate King?”

  “His memory is failing,” Nate answered before Shakespeare could reply. “Why, sometimes he looks at his own reflection and doesn’t know who in the world it is.”

  “Ha!” declared McNair, and then quoted from the writings of the English bard whose name he now bore as his own. “Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave’s offal!”

  The youngest trapper looked at Nate King. “What did he just say?”

  Nate chuckled. “It was his way of putting me in my place.” He saw lingering confusion in the other’s eyes, and had to remind himself that Tim Curry was a greenhorn, new to the mountains and new to them. Curry had not yet learned of McNair s passion for William Shakespeare, a passion legendary among the trapping fraternity. “If you’re going to stick with us, you’ll have to get used to McNair rambling on the way he does. Every chance he gets, he quotes from that big book he lugs all over creation.”

  “Big book?” Curry repeated.

  Shakespeare twisted and gave a parfleche a resounding whack. “The complete works of old William S.,” he said. “The best investment I’ve ever made. If you want, I’ll read you one of his plays after supper.”

  Nate leaned toward Curry. “Try not to encourage the old rascal or you’ll never get a moment’s peace.” He turned his stallion up the stream. “Now let’s find a spot to camp for the night.”

  The sun hung low in the western sky. Already the shadows had lengthened on the valley floor and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Nate trotted briskly along, eager to rest after a hard day’s travel. He glanced back at Curry and hoped they wouldn’t regret allowing the newcomer to tag along with them.

  Greenhorns were dangerous, not only to themselves but to those they worked with. Their ignorance made them prone to mistakes, and mistakes in the wilderness often proved deadly. A man might make too much noise or build a fire too big and draw a war party down on his head, or he might not pay as much attention as he should and blunder onto a grizzly or a panther. There were a thousand things greenhorns could do wrong, and did, as the bleached bones of far too many testified.

  Nate well knew the difficulties greenhorns faced. He’d been one himself once. But thanks to the patient teaching of his mentor, McNair, he had gone on to become one of the most skilled trappers around. Few men caught as many beaver in a single season as he routinely snared. Few men had tangled with as many hostiles and beasts and lived to tell of the clashes.

  Nate was one of the best at what he did, and now he had a chance to help someone else as he had once been helped. Which was why he had offered Curry the opportunity to join them when they encountered the younger man several days ago near Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River. Since then he had learned enough about Curry to know the youth wouldn’t last long alone.

  Timothy Curry was from Maine, the son of a blacksmith. He had chafed at the idea of following in his father’s footsteps, instead craving adventure and excitement. So when he’d read The Trappers Guide, a manual put out by a firm that made traps, he knew he’d found the ideal career for him. The life of a trapper, boasted the manual, was for men “looking out for pleasant work and ways of making money.” The manual had gone on to portray the profession in the same glowing terms as it might the life of European royalty, complete with drawings that were supposed to represent how real trappers lived, but were more in keeping with a boar hunt by an English earl.

  Young Tim Curry had blithely accepted the distortions as the real article. Taking all his savings, he had headed west without delay despite the loving protests of his parents. In St. Louis he had outfitted himself according to the advice of a trapper in from the mountains to “guzzle at the trough of polite society.” Then, in keeping with his reckless audacity, Tim had ventured beyond the mighty Mississippi into the depths of the unknown.

  Miraculously, Tim had crossed the plains without being discovered by the Pawnees, Sioux, or Cheyenne. His luck had held as he ascended into the Rockies, pushing high into the remote regions where beaver were most abundant. And it was there Nate King and Shakespeare McNair had found him after spying his oversized campfire from miles off.

  Just thinking about the youth’s good fortune was enough to make Nate shake his head in wonder. Most men would have perished long since. He’d once heard a seasoned mountaineer, as the trappers like to call themselves, calculate that well over a hundred trappers began each new season, and less than twenty were alive one year later. Death was a daily prospect for the men who chased beaver, and only the hardiest survived.

  The sight of a clearing brought Nate’s reverie to an end. He reined up, and was about to swing down when he saw a crude lean-to under a lofty pine on the north side. Firming his grip on his heavy Hawken, he rode over to investigate.

  Right away it became apparent the lean-to was old. Pine needles and dust coated the back and one of the supports was cracked almost clean through.

  Nate dismounted and checked for tracks, but time and the elements had long since erased any. He turned as the others climbed down. “Looks like someone else passed this way a few years ago.”

  Tim Curry walked over. “Injuns, you figure?” he asked.

  “No, white men. Or more likely just one.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Indians prefer conical forts,” Nate explained, “the same shape as their lodges.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know. I’ve never seen a lodge.”

  Shakespeare was beginning to strip off his saddle. “You will, son. Once the cold weather sets in, we’ll go visit the Shoshones. After months of sleeping under the stars, you’ll swear their lodges a
re more comfortable than the finest mansions.”

  “Are they friendly?”

  It was Nate who answered. “The friendliest tribe there is. I should know. I’m married to the most beautiful Shoshone of all.”

  “You took a squaw as your wife?” Tim blurted out in surprise, and barely were the words out of his mouth before Nate towered above him, those green eyes smoldering like molten jewels.

  “Since you’re new to the mountains, I’ll let your remark go. This time. But keep in mind that some of us don’t like to have our wives called that. Only those who think of Indian woman as being little better than dogs call them squaws.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tim said sincerely. “I didn’t know. Please believe me when I say I didn’t mean any insult.” To hide his embarrassment, he turned away and worked at removing his saddle and unloading his supplies from his packhorses.

  Tim was more upset than he let on, and not just because of his blunder. It was becoming more and more apparent as time went on that he had a lot more to learn about life in the mountains than he had gleaned from the manual. A trapper’s life wasn’t the life of ease he had envisioned. Several times during his arduous trek across the prairie he had nearly perished from lack of water and food. The sun had burned him brown. The wind had chafed his skin. Frequently the packhorses gave him trouble. It had been a constant struggle to keep things on an even keel ever since leaving St. Louis, and from what he had learned from his new friends, the worst was yet to come.

  Many times Tim had doubted the wisdom of continuing on, yet always he had, goaded more by pride than determination. He had boasted to his family and friends that he would return to Maine a well-to-do man, and he’d be damned if was going to crawl on back in defeat, penniless. His father would shake his head in that way fathers had, and his friends would mock his foolhardy scheme.

  Tim hadn’t said anything to King or McNair, but he’d tried laying out traps several times before meeting them, without success. On finding streams rife with beaver, he’d lowered his steel Newhouses into the water with every hope of coming back the next morning to find each contained a dead animal, only to haul them in empty. It was as if the beaver knew the traps were dangerous and avoided them like the plague. Yet the manual claimed beaver would fall all over themselves in their eagerness to be first to step into the jaws. He’d realized he was doing something wrong but had no idea what.

  Just when it seemed certain Tim would have to give up, along had come the two more experienced men. How overjoyed he had been to have other souls to talk to! He’d gratefully jumped at their offer to join them, and so far had found them marvelous company. The old man, McNair, was a bit strange, and at times King could be downright moody, but overall it was better than being alone. The last thing he wanted to do was offend them and have them tell him to go his own way.

  Tim glanced at Shakespeare and was given a reassuring smile. Nate King was leading his horses toward the stream, so Tim said quietly, “I really didn’t want to upset him. Will he hold it against me?”

  “Horatio isn’t the kind to hold a grudge for more than a month or two. Don’t fret yourself.”

  “A month!” Tim declared.

  “I was only joshing you, son,” Shakespeare said, holding in an urge to laugh. “It helps to make the time go faster if a man has a sense of humor.” He toted his saddle under the pine tree and set it down next to the lean-to.

  “Easy for you to say,” Tim responded. “You’ve grown accustomed to this sort of life. You must know all there is to know about trapping and Injuns and such.”

  “I wish I did.” Shakespeare sighed, then gazed wistfully skyward. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

  “More William S., as you call him?”

  “Sort of.” Shakespeare walked to his horses to gather up the reins and the lead rope. “There isn’t a man alive who knows all there is to know about anything. Some like to flatter themselves they do, and they let their heads swell as big as the hind ends of buffaloes. But what comes out of their mouths is the same hot air you hear coming out of buffaloes when they’ve eaten too much sweet grass.”

  Curry mustered a smile. “You sure do have a way with words.”

  “There’s more,” Shakespeare said. “It seems to me that the surest way for a man to keep from putting his foot in his mouth is to keep his mouth closed except when he has something important to say.” He put his hand on Curry’s shoulder. “I don’t often give advice unless it’s asked for, but in your case I’ll make an exception. I’ll teach you the three words told to me by the old French-Canadian who took me under his wing for a spell when I first came to this neck of the country, words that have served me well ever since and helped me to avoid making more mistakes than I did.” He paused for effect. “Look. Listen. Learn.”

  “That’s it?” Tim said, somewhat disappointed the advice hadn’t been a trifle more profound.

  Shakespeare nodded.

  “Why, any child can do as much.”

  “I beg to differ. Children seldom look before they leap, they talk when they should be listening, and they only want to learn when it suits them. Do better than they would and you’ll do better in these mountains.” Shakespeare made for the stream, wishing there was more he could say, some magical combination of words that would impart his stockpile of wisdom to the novice. Unfortunately, though, wisdom was a lot like money. It had to be earned, and commonly the only way to earn it was the hard way.

  Nate King stood by his horses, scanning the valley while they drank. He heard Shakespeare coming and shifted. “Sorry I got so testy with him. I just hate to have anyone insult Winona.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for a man who will stick up for his wife,” Shakespeare commented. “Of course, there’s a lot more to be said for a man who knows when she really has been insulted and when she hasn’t.” He positioned his animals along the bank and sank to one knee to take a sip himself.

  “Ever worked this stream before?” Nate inquired, with good reason. McNair was more familiar with the mountains than any man alive, white or red. Sometimes it seemed to Nate as if his mentor knew every square inch of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico. Not even the redoubtable Jim Bridger knew them as well.

  “Can’t say as I have,” Shakespeare said. “Near as I can tell, we’re in country no tribe claims as its own. We’ve got the Utes to the south of us and the Crows to the north, but the only time they go through this area is when they’re raiding one another.”

  “We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled,” Nate said. “I don’t care to meet with either.”

  The Utes were a warlike tribe, nearly as feared as the Blackfeet, who had a long-standing policy of driving all trappers from their domain. The Crows weren’t so openly hostile, but they had been known to steal from trapping parties on occasion, and had killed a few whites foolish enough to enter their territory alone.

  “It’s not us I’m worried about,” Shakespeare said, gazing at the greenhorn. “We’ll have to keep him on a short tether or he’s liable to cost all of us our hair.”

  “There’s an easy solution.”

  “Impress me.”

  “One of us must be with him at all times. He can’t do much harm if we’re always looking over his shoulder.”

  Shakespeare grinned. “Now why didn’t I think of that?” He pointed at the water, at his reflection, and quoted, “A fool, a fool! I met a fool in the forest! A motley fool, a miserable world. As I do live by food, I met a fool.” His mouth curved upward. “See, Horatio? You claimed I wouldn’t know me when I saw me. But if that’s not me, there is someone walking around who deserves to be.”

  “Your brain is addled,” Nate observed. “One of these days someone is going to hear you babble on so and give you a sound knock on the noggin to set your mind right again.”

  “Though this be madness, yet is there method in it,” Shakespeare countered somberly.

  Nate knew better than to joust with
words with McNair. He stretched to relieve a kink in his lower back, then suddenly went rigid on seeing movement high on a mountain to the west. He looked closely and saw a huge brown shape plowing through a bramble patch. Thankfully, the monster was going up the slope, not coming down. “Damn,” he muttered.

  Shakespeare looked, and frowned. “We’ll have to keep the horses close at night and never leave them untended during the day. A grizzly that size could kill half the string before we bring it down. They’re awful hard to die.”

  “As I well know,” Nate responded. It had been his misfortune to tangle with the fierce brutes on more occasions than he cared to recollect, and each time he’d had a closer shave than the time before. Not for nothing had he been given the name Grizzly Killer by the Cheyennes. If he wasn’t almighty careful, sooner or later one of the beasts was going to rip him open from neck to groin. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, as if he had just had a premonition of his final fate.

  Timothy Curry picked that moment to join them. “What are you both looking so grim about?” he asked.

  “Grizz,” Shakespeare said, nodding at the mountain. The gigantic predator had vanished into an aspen grove.

  “Grizz?” Tim said, puzzled.

  “As in bear,” Shakespeare clarified.

  “As in the scourge of the mountains,” Nate amended. “Next to hostiles, they’re the one thing we have to always be on our guard against. If a grizzly attacks you, aim for the eyes and then climb the handiest tree as if you were born a squirrel and not a man.”

  Tim patted his rifle. “I’m not scared,” he blustered. “Believe it or not, gentlemen, I’m a good shot. Let one of those overgrown groundhogs pester me and I’ll make worm food of it.”

  “Have you ever fought one before?” Shakespeare inquired.

  “No, but I’ve hunted black bears back in Maine. Killed one, in fact, with a clean shot to the head.”

  “A black bear is only half the size of a grizzly,” Nate pointed out. “And not a tenth as mean.”

  “Straight tongue,” Shakespeare said.