Henry Allen snorted. “You’re an American and you’ve never heard of them? Where the blazes were you back then? Why, they were wrote up in every blamed newspaper from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico. I daresay they’re just about two of the most famous gents who ever lived.”
“I am new to America,” Emilio revealed. “You must excuse me if my knowledge of her history is flawed.”
Nate leaned back against a boulder and bit off a piece of pemmican. “Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were picked by President Jefferson to explore the country between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. On their way back, Lewis tangled with a bunch of Blackfeet who tried to steal the guns of his party. Two of the warriors were shot, and the Blackfeet have never forgiven us for that. Ever since, they’ve done all in their power to make life miserable for any whites they catch.”
Admiration flowered as Emilio listened. These Blackfeet, he mused, were a lot like his own people. They apparently valued their honor above all else, and never let a wrong go unavenged. “How many trappers have they killed?”
“No one knows for sure,” Nate said, “because most of the time there are no witnesses. But a lot of men have gone into their country to trap and never come out again.”
“I’d swear an oath on the Bible that they’ve rubbed out thirty or forty,” Allen remarked. “Some were good friends of mine.”
Nate stared soberly skyward. He had lost friends, too, one a preacher who had rashly believed it was possible to convert the Blackfeet despite Nate’s assurances to the contrary. Some men, he had learned the hard way, believed what they wanted to believe, whether it conflicted with reality or not.
Emilio was still not satisfied. “Do these Blackfeet only attack small groups of whites or will they go up against large parties as well?”
“They’ll go on the warpath against anyone anytime,” Nate made clear. “About six years ago a war party of sixty-nine Blackfeet went up against more than two thousand Crows. The Crows won, but it cost them dearly.”
The more Emilio heard, the more his admiration grew. He hoped that he would have the chance to test his mettle against the Blackfeet, just as he had against the Crows.
Since the Sicilian was being so talkative, Nate casually asked, “What can you tell me about those business associates Ashworth talked about?”
“Who?” Emilio feigned.
“The Brothers, I think he called them.” The subject had bothered Nate ever since Ashworth mentioned them. By rights it was none of Nate’s business, but Ashworth’s secretive behavior had convinced him that something was amiss.
“Mr. Ashworth is the one you should ask,” Emilio hedged. He didn’t like the mountain man prying. Were it not for Ashworth’s insistence that they needed King to get them safely in and out of the mountains, Emilio would have liked to snap the trapper’s neck later that night while King slept. The Southerner’s, too, just for the hell of it.
Nate didn’t press. If Ashworth and the Sicilian wanted to keep the matter secret, that was their affair. Stretching, he said, “I reckon I’m going to turn in. If we get an early start, we should catch up to the brigade by noon.”
By ten, as events came to pass. The Ashworth Expedition had stopped on the south bank of the Snake River. It was much too early to make camp for the night, so Nate figured Jenks had done so to water the stock, until he noticed that the horse herd had been drawn up under heavy guard and that the women and children were behind a protective barrier of supplies.
“There’s been a racket,” Allen guessed.
Nate saw no evidence of a battle as he descended a steep ridge and applied his heels to the stallion. But there was no denying the nervousness of the horse guard, one of whom threw a Kentucky to his shoulder as Nate and the others burst from a stand of cottonwoods and willows. The man was set to fire when an older mountaineer trapper shouted something that made him lower his weapon.
“Nate! Are you a sight for this coon’s tired eyes!” the old-timer declared as the three men rode up.
“What’s the trouble, Ferris?” Nate got right to the point.
“What else?” the grizzled trapper responded. “Blackfeet.”
Seventeen
Richard Ashworth was a nervous wreck. Nothing was going as it should of late. So much had gone wrong, in fact, that he was inclined to think his precious expedition had become jinxed.
It had been one thing after another. The death of that poor Flathead woman. The abduction of the Nez Perce. The stampede, with the attendant loss of lives and provisions. And now, when the man he most relied on to guide his judgment was gone and might have fallen victim to the Crows, a new problem had reared its unwanted head in the form of the notorious Blackfeet.
As if all that were not bad enough, two days had gone by since Ashworth had enjoyed a sip of Scotch, and he wanted some badly. There was an ache in the pit of his stomach, an ache that would only go away if he indulged. But he only had a little Scotch left in his flask, and he was saving it for a special occasion.
Hands entwined behind his back, Ashworth paced in front of the piled supplies and wondered if perhaps his great brainstorm was truly as flawless as he had imagined back in New York City.
A commotion brought an end to Ashworth’s pacing. He looked up. Never had he been so glad to see anyone as he was to behold his second-in-command returning, along with the Tennessean and the gigantic Sicilian.
“King!” Ashworth exclaimed happily, rushing forward to meet the mountain man halfway. But someone else got there first. Ashworth had to stand and wait while the trapper’s Shoshone wife embraced King for a full minute. Impatient to confer, he hastened forward as soon as they separated. “King!” he repeated. “It’s about time you’ve shown up. Jenks claims were in big trouble.”
Nate let his eyes linger on his lovely wife a few seconds before he turned to the greenhorn. Zach and Evelyn were nearby, dutifully waiting for him to notice them. He gave each a smile, and he would have gone to them had his arm not been gripped and had Richard Ashworth not spun him around.
“Haven’t you heard a word I said, mister? The men riding scout saw a party of Blackfeet who took off into the deep woods. Jenks is afraid the heathens went to get reinforcements so they can attack us in force.”
Nate yanked his arm loose. It galled him to be manhandled, and it incensed him even more to be treated as if he were at the New Yorkers beck and call, as if he could be bossed around like some sort of lackey. “So I’ve heard. Where is Jenks now?”
Ashworth gestured to the northwest. “He rode off with fifteen men about an hour ago to track the Indians. I’m worried that the Blackfeet got them.”
“Clive Jenks has spent more years in the Rockies than most. He knows what he’s doing,” Nate said. “He’ll be back when it suits them.”
“And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Ashworth demanded irritably.
“We wait.”
Ashworth was about to reply that he was tired of waiting, that he wanted to get the brigade moving again, that he didn’t think King was taking his responsibility seriously enough, but he never uttered a word. Something in King’s eyes, a flinty gleam that hinted at latent violence, held him in check. Swallowing his pride, he stepped back, soothing his ruffled feathers by telling himself that it was best to use tact and diplomacy when dealing with men who were little better than the savages they lived among and took to wife.
Winona could tell that her man was upset. Taking his hand, she steered him to the children and was rewarded by a huge smile as Nate gave each a big hug in turn.
“What happened with the Crows, Pa?” Zach asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it tonight before we tuck you in,” Nate promised, scooping his daughter up. Blue Flower giggled and pecked him on the cheek.
“Missed you, Papa.”
“Missed you, precious.”
A low cough intruded. Nate twisted. Henry Allen was still mounted and standing in the stirrups, a hand over his eyes to shield them from t
he glare of the sun.
“Riders coming,” the Tennessean reported. He squinted. “It’s Clive, sure enough.”
Ashworth overheard and clasped his hands. “Hallelujah! At last something is going my way. Let’s hope he made wolf meat of the Blackfeet, as you mountaineers like to put it.”
Jenks was grinning when he reined up, which Nate took as a good sign. Ordinarily, the man was a stickler for always believing the worst that could happen, would happen.
“Howdy, hoss,” Nate greeted him. “What’s this about Blackfeet skulking about?”
“The scouts figured as much,” Jenks said. “But we followed the tracks of four unshod cayuses off to the northwest to a spot where one of the Injuns climbed down. Saw his moccasins prints as plain as day. They weren’t Blackfoot.”
“Flathead, then? Or Nez Perce?” Nate said, since both tribes occupied territory in that direction.
“Neither,” Jenks said. “I never saw prints like these, Nate. Whatever tribe those Injuns belonged to, it’s a new one on me.”
In itself, the news was a relief. The Blackfoot Confederacy had yet to learn of their presence. Nate speculated that maybe the four warriors were from a tribe living up in Canada. He’d heard tell that there were as many tribes in the north country as there were in the southern Rockies and the plains, many of whom had never had contact with white men and would naturally run off at the sight of a party the size of the fur brigade.
“We can move on then,” Nate announced. “Spread the word. From here on out, we push twice as hard.”
The words were music to Richard Ashworth’s ears. He had half a mind to celebrate by finishing off his Scotch, but he refrained. Noticing the Sicilian, he walked over as Barzini led his mount off. “How did you fare in your foray against the Crows?” Ashworth inquired.
“It was educational,” Emilio said. His all-too-brief time away from Ashworth had brought into sharp focus exactly how much he despised the man. Emilio couldn’t wait to be done with his job and get back to New York. The knowledge that it might be another two years was enough to shake even his iron-willed resolve.
One thing alone kept Emilio there. The Brothers had hinted that if he performed well, they would bring his sweetheart over from the Old Country. Maria was the only person in the world Emilio cared for. He had courted her before he went to work for the Brothers; they had looked forward to the day they would be man and wife.
His departure for America had spoiled their plans. Once a month she wrote him, begging that he send for her so they could be together again. And at long last, after Ashworth sold the furs and he disposed of the man, her wish would be granted.
Suddenly Emilio realized that the silver spoon had gone on talking.
“Why anyone in his right mind would live in these mountains is beyond me. Just between the two of us, my good fellow, giving up all the comforts civilization has to offer to live like an animal is insane. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Emilio almost laughed. This from a man who had concocted so mad a scheme to recoup his family’s fortune? He changed the subject. “From now on, you are not to wander out of my sight. Is that understood?”
Ashworth halted in midstride. “What?”
“You heard me. My employers can’t afford for anything to happen to you. It wouldn’t do to have the Blackfeet take you captive.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Ashworth said, indignant at being treated as if he were an infant. “I’ve done just fine these past few days while you were gone.”
Emilio moved closer, towering over the other man, intimidating him on purpose. “It’s not open to debate. You will do as I say of your own free will or I will force you to do it. Either way, I must do as the Brothers expect of me.”
Before Ashworth could stop himself, he complained, “Sending you along was a mistake. They shouldn’t have done it.”
“For once we agree on something,” Emilio responded.
Ashworth tried to think of a witty retort but couldn’t. He resigned himself to once again having a hulking shadow at his elbow every waking hour of the day. Feeling glum, he sat on a log and looked on as the mountain men loaded supplies onto packhorses. In short order Nate King had the brigade ready to move out. Ashworth took his position at the head of the column, waved an arm overhead, and their trek resumed.
Nate had a definite destination in mind. In order to make the expedition a success, the brigade had to bring in more plews than anyone ever had before. To do that, they had to trap virgin streams and rivers, waterways white men had never touched, where the beaver were thicker than the blades of grass on the prairie. One region in particular offered that prospect.
Deep in the heart of the Bitterroot Range, below the divide in remote wilderness through which the Salmon River and countless smaller streams meandered, existed perhaps the last area where beaver could be found in abundance, where they were as numerous as they had been in the central Rockies before the coming of the white man.
Or so Nate had heard from the few hardy souls who had ventured into the region and lived to tell of what they had seen. To a man, they had lost their horses and their fixings and almost their lives to roving bands of Blackfeet, Bloods, or Piegans, for the Bitterroot Range lay in the very heart of Blackfoot country.
Years back a smaller brigade had gone in there with the intention of cleaning out the beaver. Less than half made it back again, without a single pelt.
Nate had discussed it at length with Ashworth. They had a plan, and if all went well, they would succeed where everyone else had failed.
As the brigade journeyed ever deeper into the foreboding fortress of mountains, Nate doubled the scouts during the day and the guards at night. No sign was seen of Indians, but there was plenty of evidence of beaver: their lodges, their dams, their runs, trees gnawed through, and the beaver themselves in more numbers than he had seen at any one time since he first came to the Rockies.
“Lord, this is paradise,” Henry Allen commented one fine morning as they wound along a wide stream in which several beaver frolicked, unconcerned. “Tell me I’ve died, hoss, and gone to heaven.”
The other mountaineers felt the same way. Nate had seen it mirrored in their joyful eyes, in their happy expressions, in the general air of contentment that had come over every last trapper. They were in their element, about to do that which they did best. After several seasons of hardship and want, they were on the verge of realizing a dream come true. But only if they took steps to insure the Blackfeet wouldn’t drive them off.
Nate found a suitable spot in a verdant valley rife with elk, deer, and mountain buffalo. As soon as he called a halt, he set the men to work. One detail was assigned to chop down cottonwood trees, another assigned to trim them. A third dug holes in the shape of an eighty-foot square. A fourth sunk the cottonwoods into the ground to a depth of two and a half feet.
Working in unison, the mountaineers erected their stockade within ten days. It included two bastions ten feet square at opposite angles and railed parapets on all four walls. Shelters were added inside, solid buildings that would keep out the wind and the cold during the winter months. Suitable quarters for the married trappers were set up. The single men had to make do with a long, low barracks that was more than adequate for their simple needs.
Ashworth insisted on holding a formal ceremony. He was so proud of Fort Ashworth, as he dubbed it, that he had one of the trappers unfurl an old Stars and Stripes the man owned atop a twenty-foot pole.
The expedition leader also gave a speech, mercifully short, in which he urged the men to exert themselves to their utmost, and to show the crude red man that the white man was not to be denied once he set his mind to a task. To prove to the vile Blackfeet that they were superior to them in every way, and that if they harassed them, they would pay dearly.
Nate could not help but notice that the speech did not go over very well. Most of the mountaineers didn’t think of Indians as inferior, only different.
&nbs
p; That evening Nate called all the trappers together and laid down the rules they must follow. Most stemmed from sheer common sense.
No one was to go into the forest alone. Trapping parties were to consist of ten men, minimum. Half would lay and raise their Newhouses while the rest stood guard. All peltries were to be turned over to Jenks, who would keep the official tally.
Horses were always to be hobbled when left unattended, even when close to the stockade.
Never were more than three trapping parties to be gone from the fort at any one time. The corral attached to the rear of the stockade was to be guarded day and night, and the ground around both to be cleared of all plant growth for over a hundred yards so no hostiles could sneak up on them.
The women were never to go to the river without an armed escort. Children were prohibited from playing in the woods. Dogs were to be kept on leashes. The stock was to be watered in small bunches throughout each day.
Nate tried to think of everything. Their lives depended on it. He personally made sure that trappers manned the bastions twenty-four hours a day. And he set a policy that no Indians other than direct kin of the mountaineers were permitted in the stockade after sunset.
Richard Ashworth had little to do. He was tremendously impressed by his lieutenant, so much so that he seriously considered offering King a small percentage of the profits should the undertaking prove successful. He decided against it, however, since it might set a bad precedent. Once word got around, Allen and Jenks and some of the others might take it into their heads to demand more money, too. And he couldn’t have that.
Emilio was largely bored. He hovered over the silver spoon like a hawk over one of its brood. Also of special interest were the two expensive leather carrying cases he had saved that day of the stampede. No one other than Ashworth and he knew what was in them, and he made certain that Ashworth kept them locked at all times so no one else would find out.
With so many mouths to feed, all the boys and quite a few of the men spent most of each day in quest of game for the cooking pots. Young Zachary King was rated one of the better hunters. Thanks to the tutelage of his father, he could track and shoot better than most boys his age.
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