The Revenant

by Michael Punke

Captain Henry paced between the stream and the clearing, and by midmorning sent Black Harris to scout upstream. The sun stood directly overhead when Harris returned. He had seen no Indians, but a game trail on the opposite bank was covered with the tracks of men and horses. Two miles upstream Harris had found a deserted campsite. The captain could wait no more.

  He ordered two men to cut saplings. With Glass’s bedroll, they would fashion a litter.

  “Why don’t we make a travois, Captain? Use the mule to pull it?”

  “Too rough to pull a travois by the river.”

  “Then let’s move off the river.”

  “Just build the damn litter,” said the captain. The river was the sole marker across unknown terrain. Henry had no intention of veering so much as an inch from its banks.

  FOUR

  August 28, 1823

  One by one the men reached the obstacle and stopped. The Grand River flowed directly into the steep face of a sandstone cliff, which forced it to turn. The waters swirled and pooled deeply against the wall before spreading widely toward the opposite shore. Bridger and Pig arrived last, bearing Glass between them. They eased the litter to the ground. Pig plopped heavily to his rump, panting, his shirt stained dark with sweat.

  Each man looked up as he arrived, quickly appreciating the two choices for moving forward. One was to climb along the steep face of the cliff. It was possible, but only by using hands as well as feet. This was the path taken by Black Harris when he had passed two hours before them. They could see his tracks and the broken branch on the sagebrush that he had grabbed to pull himself up. It was obvious that neither the litter bearers nor the mule could make the climb.

  The other option was to cross the river. The opposite bank was level and inviting, but the problem was getting there. The pool created by the embankment appeared at least five feet deep, and the current ran swift. Seam water toward the middle of the river marked the place where the stream shallowed. From there it was an easy wade to the other side. A surefooted man might keep his feet in the deep water, holding his rifle and powder above his head; the less agile might fall, but could certainly swim the few yards to the shallower water.

  Getting the mule in the river was no problem. So famous was the animal’s love of water that the men called her “Duck.” At the end of the day she would stand for hours in water up to her sagging belly. In fact, it was this odd predilection that kept the Mandans from stealing her along with the rest of their stock. While the other animals were grazing or sleeping along the shore, Duck was standing in shallow water on a sandbar. When the bandits tried to take her, she was firmly stuck in the mud. It ultimately took half the brigade to pull her out.

  So the problem wasn’t the mule. The problem, of course, was Glass.

  It would be impossible to hold the litter above the water while crossing.

  Captain Henry mulled his choices, cursing Harris for not leaving a sign to cross earlier. They had passed an easy ford a mile downstream. He hated to divide the men, even for a few hours, but it seemed silly to march them all back. “Fitzgerald, Anderson—it’s your turn on the litter. Bernot—you and me will go back with ’em to the crossing we passed. Rest of you cross here and wait.”

  Fitzgerald glared at the captain, muttering under his breath. “You got something to say, Fitzgerald?”

  “I signed on to be a trapper, Captain—not a goddamned mule.”

  “You’ll take your turn like everybody else.”

  “And I’ll tell you what everybody else is afraid to say to your face. We’re all wondering if you intend to drag this corpse all the way to the Yellowstone.”

  “I intend to do the same with him that I’d do for you or any other man in this brigade.”

  “What you’ll be doing for all of us is digging graves. How long do you figure we can parade through this valley before we stumble on some hunting party? Glass ain’t the only man in this brigade.”

  “You ain’t the only man either,” said Anderson. “Fitzgerald don’t speak for me, Captain—and I bet he don’t speak for many others.”

  Anderson walked to the litter, placing his rifle next to Glass. “You gonna make me drag him?”

  For three days they had carried Glass. The banks of the Grand alternated between sandbar and jumbled rock. Occasional stands of cottonwood gave way at the high water line to the graceful branches of willows, some reaching ten feet in height. Cut banks forced them to climb, giant scoops where erosion sliced away the earth as neatly as a cleaver. They maneuvered around the tangled debris left piled behind the spring flood—mounded stones, tangled branches, and even entire trees, their sun-bleached trunks as smooth as glass from the beating of water and stone. When the terrain became too rugged, they crossed the river to continue upstream, wet buckskins compounding the weight of their load.

  The river was a highway on the plains, and Henry’s men were not the only travelers on its banks. Tracks and abandoned campsites were numerous. Black Harris had twice seen small hunting parties. The distance had been too great to determine if they were Sioux or Arikara, though both tribes presented danger. The Arikara were certain enemies since the battle on the Missouri. The Sioux had been allies in that fight, but their current disposition was unknown. With only ten able men, the small party of trappers offered little deterrent to attack. At the same time, their weapons, traps, and even the mule were attractive targets. Ambush was a constant danger, with only the scouting skills of Black Harris and Captain Henry to steer them clear.

  Territory to cross quickly, thought the captain. Instead, they plodded forward at the leaden pace of a funeral procession.

  Glass slipped in and out of consciousness, though one state differed little from the other. He could occasionally take water, but the throat wounds made it impossible to swallow solid food. Twice the litter spilled, dumping Glass on the ground. The second spill broke two of the stitches in his throat. They stopped long enough for the captain to resuture the neck, red now with infection. No one bothered to inspect the other wounds. There was little they could do for them, anyway. Nor could Glass protest. His wounded throat rendered him mute, his only sound the pathetic wheeze of his breathing.

  At the end of the third day they arrived at the confluence of a small creek with the Grand. A quarter mile up the creek, Black Harris found a spring, surrounded by a thick stand of pines. It was an ideal campsite. Henry dispatched Anderson and Harris to find game.

  The spring itself was more seep than font, but its icy water filtered over mossy stones and collected in a clear pool. Captain Henry stooped to drink while he thought about the decision he had made.

  In three days of carrying Glass, the captain estimated they had covered only forty miles. They should have covered twice that distance or more. While Henry believed they might be beyond Arikara territory, Black Harris found more signs each day of the Sioux.

  Beyond his concerns about where they were, Henry fretted about where they needed to be. More than anything, he worried that they would arrive too late on the Yellowstone. Without a couple of weeks to lay in a supply of meat, the whole brigade would be at jeopardy. Late fall weather was as capricious as a deck of cards. They might find Indian summer, or the howling winds of an early blizzard.

  Aside from their physical safety, Henry felt enormous pressure for commercial success. With luck, a few weeks of fall hunting, and some trading with the Indians, they might net enough fur to justify sending one or two men downriver.

  The captain loved to imagine the effect of a fur-laden pirogue arriving in St. Louis on some bright February day. Stories of their successful establishment on the Yellowstone would headline the Missouri Republican. The press would bring new investors. Ashley could parley fresh capital into a new fur brigade by early spring. By late summer, Henry envisioned himself commanding a network of trappers up and down the Yellowstone. With enough men and trading goods, maybe he could even buy peace with the Blackfeet, and once again trap in the beaver-rich valleys of the Three Forks. By next winter
it would take flatboats to carry the plews they would harvest.

  But it all depended upon time. Being there first and in force. Henry felt the press of competition from every point on the compass.

  From the north, the British North West Company had established forts as far south as the Mandan villages. The British also dominated the western coast, from which they now pushed inland along the Columbia and its tributaries. Rumors circulated that British trappers had penetrated as far as the Snake and the Green.

  From the south, several groups spread northward from Taos and Santa Fe: the Columbia Fur Company, the French Fur Company, StoneBostwick and Company.

  Most visible of all was the competition from the east, from St. Louis itself. In 1819, the U.S. Army began its “Yellowstone Expedition” with the express goal of enlarging the fur trade. Though extremely limited, the army’s presence emboldened entrepreneurs already eager to pursue the fur trade. Manuel Lisa’s Missouri Fur Company opened trade on the Platte. John Jacob Astor revived the remnants of his American Fur Company, driven from the Columbia by the British in the War of 1812, by establishing a new headquarters in St. Louis. All competed for limited sources of capital and men.

  Henry glanced at Glass, lying on the litter in the shade of the pines.

  He had never returned to the task of properly stitching Glass’s scalp. It still lay haphazardly atop his head, purple-black around the edges where dried blood now held it in place, a grotesque crown on a shattered body. The captain felt anew the polarizing mix of sympathy and anger, resentment and guilt.

  He could not blame Glass for the grizzly attack. The bear was simply a hazard in their path, one of many. When the troop left St. Louis, Henry knew that men would die. Glass’s wounded body merely underscored the precipice that each of them walked every day. Henry considered Glass his best man, the best mix of seasoning, skills, and disposition. The others, with the possible exception of Black Harris, he viewed as subordinates. They were younger, dumber, weaker, less experienced. But Captain Henry saw Glass as a peer. If it could happen to Glass, it could happen to anyone; it could happen to him. The captain turned from the dying man.

  He knew that leadership required him to make tough decisions for the good of the brigade. He knew that the frontier respected—required—independence and self-sufficiency above all else. There were no entitlements west of St. Louis. Yet the fierce individuals who comprised his frontier community were bound together by the tight weave of collective responsibility. Though no law was written, there was a crude rule of law, adherence to a covenant that transcended their selfish interests. It was biblical in its depth, and its importance grew with each step into wilderness. When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, to his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another.

  The utility of his code seemed diminished as the captain struggled to apply it to Glass. Haven’t I done my best for him? Tending his wounds, portaging him, waiting respectfully so that he might at least have a civilized burial. Through Henry’s decisions, they had subordinated their collective needs to the needs of one man. It was the right thing to do, but it could not be sustained. Not here.

  The captain had thought of abandoning Glass outright. In fact, so great was Glass’s suffering that Henry wondered briefly whether they should put a bullet in his head, bring his misery to an end. He quickly dismissed any notion of killing Glass, but he wondered if he could somehow communicate with the wounded man, make him understand that he could no longer risk the entire brigade. They could find him shelter, leave him with a fire, weapons, and provisions. If his condition improved, he could join them on the Missouri. Knowing Glass, he suspected this was what the man would ask for if he could speak for himself. Surely he wouldn’t jeopardize the lives of the other men.

  Yet Captain Henry couldn’t bring himself to leave the wounded man behind. There had been no coherent conversation with Glass since the bear attack, so ascertaining his wishes was impossible. Absent such clear guidance, he would make no assumptions. He was the leader, and Glass was his responsibility.

  But so are the other men. So was Ashley’s investment. So was his family back in St. Louis, a family that had waited more than a decade for the commercial success that seemed always as distant as the mountains themselves.

  That night the men of the brigade gathered around the three small fire pits. They had fresh meat to smoke, a buffalo calf, and the shelter of the pines gave them added confidence in building fires. The late August evening cooled quickly after sunset: not cold, but a reminder that a change of season lurked just over the horizon.

  The captain stood to address the men, a formality that foreshadowed the seriousness of what he would say. “We need to make better time. I need two volunteers to stay with Glass. Stay with him here until he dies, give him a proper burial, then catch up. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company will pay $70 for the risk of staying back.”

  A pine knot burst from one of the fires, catapulting sparks into the clear night sky. Otherwise the camp fell silent as the men pondered the situation and the offer. It was eerie to contemplate Glass’s death, however certain. A Frenchman named Jean Bernot crossed himself. Most of the others simply stared at the fire.

  No one said anything for a long time. They all thought about the money. Seventy dollars was more than a third of their wage for the entire year. Viewed through the cold prism of economics, Glass would surely die soon. Seventy dollars to sit in a clearing for a few days, then a week of tough marching to catch up with the brigade. Of course they all knew there was a real risk in staying back. Ten men were little deterrent from attack. Two men were none. If a war party happened upon them … Seventy dollars bought you nothing if you were dead.

  “I’ll stay with him, Captain.” The other men turned, surprised that the volunteer was Fitzgerald.

  Captain Henry was unsure how to react, so suspicious was he of Fitzgerald’s motive.

  Fitzgerald read the hesitation. “I ain’t doing it for love, Captain. I’m doing it for money, pure and simple. Pick somebody else if you want somebody to mother him.”

  Captain Henry looked around the loose circle of men. “Who else’ll stay?” Black Harris threw a small stick on the fire. “I will, Captain.” Glass had been a friend to Harris, and the idea of leaving him with Fitzgerald didn’t sit right.

  None of the men liked Fitzgerald. Glass deserved better.

  The captain shook his head. “You can’t stay, Harris.”

  “What do you mean I can’t stay?”

  “You can’t stay. I know you were his friend, so I’m sorry. But I need you to scout.”

  Another long silence followed. Most of the men stared blankly into the fire. One by one they arrived at the same uncomfortable conclusion: It wasn’t worth it. The money wasn’t worth it. Ultimately, Glass wasn’t worth it. Not that they didn’t respect him, like him even. Some, like Anderson, felt an additional debt, a sense of obligation for gratuitous acts of past kindness. It would be different, thought Anderson, if the captain were asking them to defend Glass’s life—but that was not the task at hand. The task at hand was waiting for Glass to die, then burying him. It wasn’t worth it.

  Henry began to wonder if he would have to entrust the job to Fitzgerald alone, when suddenly Jim Bridger rose clumsily to his feet. “I’ll stay.”

  Fitzgerald snorted sarcastically. “Jesus, Captain, you can’t leave me to do this with some pork-eating boy! If it’s Bridger that stays you better pay me double for tending to two.”

  The words jabbed at Bridger like punches. He felt his blood rise in embarrassment and anger. “I promise you, Captain—I’ll pull my weight.”

  This was not the outcome the captain had expected. A part of him felt that leaving Glass with Bridger and Fitzgerald differed little from abandonment. Bridger was barely more than a boy. In his year with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, he had proved himself to be honest and capable, but he was no co
unterweight to Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was a mercenary. But then, thought the captain, wasn’t that the essence of the course he had chosen? Wasn’t he simply buying proxies, purchasing a substitute for their collective responsibility? For his own responsibility? What else could he do? There was no better choice.

  “All right, then,” said the captain. “Rest of us leave at dawn.”

  FIVE

  August 30, 1823

  It was the evening of the second day since the departure of Captain Henry and the brigade. Fitzgerald had dispatched the boy to gather wood, leaving himself and Glass alone in the camp. Glass lay near one of the small fires. Fitzgerald ignored him.

  A rock formation crowned the steep slope above the clearing. Massive boulders stood in a rocky stack, as if titanic hands had piled them one on top of the other and then pressed.

  From a crack between two of the great stones grew a lone, twisted pine.

  The tree was a sibling to the lodgepole pines that the local tribes used to frame their teepees, but the seed of its origin had been lifted high above the fertile soil of the forest below. A sparrow had pried it from a pine cone decades before, carrying it to a lofty height above the clearing. The sparrow lost the seed to a crevice between the rocks. There was soil in the crevice, and a timely rain for germination. The rocks drew heat in the daytime, compensating in part for the exposure of the outcropping. There was no straight path to sunlight, so the pine grew sideways before it grew upward, worming its way from the crevice before turning toward the sky. A few gnarled branches extended from the warped trunk, each capped with a scruffy tuft of needles. The lodgepoles below grew straight as arrows, some towering sixty feet above the floor of the forest. But none grew higher than the twisted pine on top of the rock.

  Since the captain and the brigade left, Fitzgerald’s strategy was simple: lay in a supply of jerked meat so they were ready to move fast when Glass died; in the meantime, stay away from their camp as much as possible.