“No, well, most of ’em,” Luke answered after a pause to think how much of the load was his. “I was workin’ with a team of three other men and one of them was trappin’ with me.”
“How long you been workin’ for American Fur?” Jug asked. When Luke told him, Jug asked, “You ever think about free-trappin’?”
“Well,” Luke hesitated, “funny you ask. I’ve thought about it a lot lately, enough that I’d already decided that this was my last rendezvous as a company man. I wanna part with them on good terms, so that’s why I wanna make sure I get this load of pelts to the rendezvous. And I weren’t too happy to find some Blackfoot raiders between here and Green River. This bein’ Shoshone territory and all.”
“I know what you mean,” Jug replied, “and it don’t seem likely that them two that jumped me was down here all by theirselves. There’s always some Blackfeet, and sometimes Sioux, sneakin’ around when it comes to rendezvous time to try to ambush trappers on their way to the party. There’s most likely a larger party of Blackfoot down this way. Those two just broke off and went huntin’ for some lone trapper like me.” He paused to tug on his beard, then commented with a grin, “Well, they found me, didn’t they?”
“I expect we’d best keep a sharp eye out for any sign,” Luke replied, “and just play it like they’re somewhere around here for sure.”
Chapter 2
The two trappers reached the Green River Valley with no more sign of Blackfoot raiders along the way. There was an abundance of tracks on the trail they followed, however, all heading toward the rendezvous. So, there was no way of telling if they were left by friend or foe. Even though many of the tracks were left by unshod hooves, they offered no useful information to Luke and Jug. Hundreds of Indians friendly to the white man attended the rendezvous to trade for themselves. Shoshone, Flathead, Crow, and Nez Perce would all take part in the annual celebration.
Upon first reaching the upper end of the rendezvous site, they automatically paused to survey the scene in the lush river valley. As far as the eye could see, there were camps of all kinds, fur companies, Indian camps, individual traders, and trapper camps. There were thousands of horses and cattle, as well. It was almost as if a whole city had appeared where there had been an empty river valley in the early part of the summer. It would remain that way until the middle of the summer before disappearing to leave only a few shacks and sheds behind. For both Luke and Jug, it was the yearly event where they acquired the supplies they needed for the coming year without having to travel back east to resupply. They were just two of the five hundred mountain men there for the same reason. In addition to the essential supplies needed to survive the coming winter, there were opportunities to “let the dogs out,” as Jug expressed it. Foremost for many was the opportunity to buy whiskey. There was gambling of all kinds, as well as horse races, knife-throwing contests, target shooting, wrestling matches, drinking contests, foot races, and anything else that could offer a challenge.
“Well, we made it with our scalps still on,” Jug declared, all thoughts of Blackfoot warriors gone from his mind, replaced by the sight of the empty jug on his packhorse.
“Looks that way,” Luke agreed. “I reckon I’ll ride down the river a-ways. The American Fur Company is supposed to be camped where Horse Creek meets the river.” He was anxious to turn his packs of furs over to the company and set his camp up with the other men.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll ride along with you and maybe set up my camp down that way,” Jug said.
“Why sure,” Luke replied, “glad to have you. You might wanna make camp with us. The three fellows I work with are pretty good to camp with. Matter of fact, most all the company men will be in one big camp. You won’t even be noticed.”
“Maybe I’ll just set up close by,” Jug responded. “I wanna see what some of the other companies are payin’, too. Need to get the best price I can for my plews.” So they rode on down the river until reaching Horse Creek and the American Fur Company camp. When they reached the tents the company had set up for receiving furs, Jug pointed to another one about seventy-five yards farther with a sign out front that proclaimed it to be a saloon. “Yonder’s where I can fill my jug. Maybe I’ll just go ahead and let your company gimme a price for my plews. Maybe we can have a drink after you get through.” He realized that he was going to miss the strapping young man. In the short time he had spent with Luke Ransom, he could feel the honesty in him and the obvious portion of common sense he seemed to possess. He liked the way he carried himself.
“Good idea,” Luke replied. “I’ll turn these pelts in and see where Tom and the others are set up, and maybe they’ll join us.” He led his packhorses around behind the trader’s tent where he could see the large stacks of packs stacked. As he pulled his horse to a stop, he saw Jim Frasier coming out to meet him.
When Jim realized who it was, he stopped suddenly, as if he had seen a ghost. “Luke,” he uttered.
“Howdy, Jim,” Luke returned, oblivious of Frasier’s open-mouth gaping. “I reckon you boys have been wonderin’ about the rest of the pelts Tom Molloy claimed he had. Well, here they are. Is Tom around?”
Jim hesitated before answering, long enough for Luke to start to repeat the question. “No,” Jim interrupted then, “Tom ain’t hardly around, and neither is Fred Willis, and neither are the furs they was supposed to be packin’.”
“What?” Luke responded. “What are you talkin’ about?” Jim just continued to stare wide-eyed at him. “You didn’t mention Charlton Lewis. What about him?”
“He made it here, but just barely. He had to run for it, let ’em have the furs, and run for his life.”
“Tom and Fred dead?” Luke uttered in disbelief. “Let who have the furs? Blackfoot?”
“That’s what Lewis said,” Jim answered. “Molloy and Willis were both shot down. He said he was just lucky to get away.” Stunned, Luke found it hard to believe what he was hearing. When he said nothing for a long few moments, Jim continued. “Axel said he asked Charlton Lewis about you, and Lewis said you dropped out about fifteen or twenty miles before a big party of Blackfoot warriors came down on ’em.”
Still shocked and knowing that Tom Molloy and Fred Willis would have put up a hell of a fight, Luke wondered if Charlton Lewis would have done the same before he ran. He didn’t know Lewis as well as he did Tom and Fred, since this was the first time he had ridden with them. “Where is Axel? He needs to take the count on these pelts I’m haulin’.” He wanted to talk to Axel Thompson and Charlton Lewis, as well. This business just didn’t add up. “How many was in that Blackfoot party?”
“He just said it was a big party,” Jim answered. “Axel’s in the front, talkin’ trade with a free trapper.”
Luke stepped down from his horse and walked in the back flap of the large tent where the furs were bought and sold to find Axel Thompson examining Jug Sartain’s pelts. “Luke!” Axel exclaimed upon seeing him. “We was wonderin’ about you.”
“Jim’s unloadin’ the pelts I brought in,” Luke said. “I need to talk to you when you’re done with Jug.”
“We’re just about done,” Axel said. “Jug, here, says he’s a friend of yours. He’s brought in some prime fur, and he’s gettin’ as good a price as he could get anywhere in this valley for ’em.” He nodded toward a small group of men near the other end of the long tent, who had stopped talking and were looking at him now. Luke recognized them as company trappers. “There’s some of the boys shootin’ the breeze over there,” Axel said. “They’ve been talkin’ about what happened to Molloy and Willis.”
Luke shrugged. “Right, I’ll go chew the fat with ’em till you’re done tradin’.” He walked over to join the group of trappers. “Howdy, boys,” he greeted them, “glad to see you all made it back this year. I just found out about my partners a few minutes ago, and I still have trouble gettin’ my head around it. Tom Molloy and Fred Willis, they were two damn good men, best I ever worked with.”
&
nbsp; His greeting was met with a puzzling silence until a big, heavyset mountain man named Bloodworth responded. “Looks like you made it here without a scratch.” His tone was blatantly sarcastic. “Sure was lucky for you when you decided to leave ’em right before they was ambushed by them Blackfoot, weren’t it?”
Luke didn’t like the tone of his question. It sounded as if there was an accusation attached. He met Bloodworth’s intense gaze with one of his own. “I reckon you could put it that way,” he responded. “Every man here made it to rendezvous on account of luck.”
“Sometimes a man might make his own good luck and that turns out to be bad luck for somebody else,” Bloodworth declared.
“You sound like you’ve got something chewin’ on your mind, Bloodworth. Why don’t you just spit it out?” Luke suggested.
“All right, Ace, I’ll spit it out. Charlton Lewis said him and Molloy and Willis thought it was kinda strange that you just decided to hang back on a little stream that didn’t amount to more’n a trickle of water. Talkin’ about a beaver dam up the mountain, said you was gonna catch up with ’em after you took a quick look. Only, you never showed up when they stopped to camp that night. And you never showed up when them Injuns jumped ’em and got away with a helluva lot of beaver pelts that rightfully belonged to this company.”
“There was some talk about that, Bloodworth,” Hiram Jones spoke up at that point. “And it did smell a little bit like a double-cross, but that was before Luke showed up with his share of the pelts. It don’t make no sense to show up with the pelts, if he was in cahoots with them damn Injuns.”
Not to be dissuaded from the opinion he had formed, and already set to carry it to a physical confrontation, Bloodworth was not willing to concede any ground in his accusations. “Maybe he thinks we’re too dumb to see the fur he stole, if he brings a fourth of it in to be counted. And it still stinks to hell that he didn’t come to help when his partners was under attack. He’s still earned hisself an ass-whuppin’ for that.”
Luke responded with a tired smile. “And whose job is that gonna be, Bloodworth? Yours?”
The heavy beard on the big man’s face twitched upward in reaction to his smug smile. “I reckon I could take it on. I ain’t particularly busy right now.”
Luke nodded, then turned his attention away from the eager bully to address the rest of the men standing by. “Seems like you fellows have already had a trial for me, and without any witnesses at that. I appreciate the point you brought up, Hiram, but seems like there’s still some question about why I never caught up with my partners. Well, it’s an unfortunate fact, since a couple of good men lost their lives maybe because of it, but I was busy. And before Mr. Bloodworth gives me my ass-whuppin’, I’d like to bring forth a witness that will testify to the truth of my claim for being so late gettin’ here.” He turned back to Bloodworth. “Is that all right with you, Bloodworth?”
“Yeah,” Bloodworth smirked. “I got plenty of time, and it ain’t gonna take long once I get started.”
Standing back at the counter with Axel Thompson, Jug Sartain had been frozen spellbound upon hearing the informal trial being played out by Luke’s fellow trappers. He recoiled slightly when he heard Luke state that he had a witness who would testify that he was too busy to catch up with his partners. He took no more than two steps toward him when Luke made his next statement, stopping him again. “My witness is waitin’ out back of this tent. His name is Mr. Beaver, and he’s stretched out on a willow hoop, hangin’ on my saddle horn. I’d be happy to fetch him, or one of you distinguished gentlemen of the jury can. Any man of you can examine Mr. Beaver and can see that he is almost dried out enough to fold, which oughta give you a pretty good idea what I was doin’ when I didn’t catch up to Tom and the other boys.”
His statement succeeded to cause a pregnant moment of silent amusement to fall upon the small group of men. Before anyone else spoke, Jug strode forward and announced. “I’d like to be another witness, your honors.”
“Who the hell are you?” Bloodworth blurted.
Jug cast a look upon Bloodworth that Luke later described as incredulous. “Why, I’m Jug Sartain,” he said. “Everybody knows who I am.” Of course, no one did, but his boast captured their attention. “Luke didn’t mention that after spending the night to trap that beaver, he skinned it and stretched the hide to dry. Then he made breakfast outta him and scraped, charred, and boiled the tail. After that, he took a little time to come into the mountains when he heard a couple of Blackfoot Injuns takin’ potshots at a trapper trapped behind his dead horse—that bein’ me—the trapper, not the horse. After he sent the two Injuns to Injun Hell, it took us a little more time to round up the Injuns’ horses, load all my stuff, then go back and get Luke’s horses. So, like he told you, he was busy, and we didn’t see no sign of that ambush you said killed Luke’s partners on our way to the rendezvous.”
“Well, that pretty much satisfies the issue for me,” Hiram Jones announced. “We all shoulda known better’n to even think Luke Ransom ain’t a genuine mountain man when it comes to helpin’ another trapper in trouble.” His declaration brought on cheers of agreement—except for one. Bloodworth was all primed to administer a generous helping of pain on one he suspected of cowardly deceit. Being deprived of that pleasure served to cause him to despise the tall, broad-shouldered young man even more.
For Luke, there was still the matter of settling up with Axel Thompson, not only for the pelts he had just brought in, but also for drawing his wages from the company. There was also the promise of having a drink with Jug, so he told him to go ahead and set up his camp and take care of his horses, and he would meet him at the saloon he had pointed out earlier. Jug agreed to that and left him to talk to Axel back at the buyer’s station. When all the counting and grading of the firs was completed, Axel decided to pay Luke the bonus price for every pelt he had brought in. He commented that it was a shame that Charlton Lewis would receive only a tiny percentage of the bonus, a much smaller cut than he would have received had all the other pelts they had gathered made it to rendezvous. Luke agreed with him and suggested that the two of them should just split the bonus money fifty-fifty. When they were finished, they shook hands, and Luke told Axel he could strike his name from the payroll because he was quitting the company to try free trapping. Axel said he was really sorry to hear that but wished him luck. “You’ve been a good man for a good many years, so you can still sell your pelts here, and we’ll give you the best price we can,” Axel offered. Luke thanked him, knowing Axel was sincere, but also knowing that whatever the market price for prime beaver would be next year, that would be the best price he would get.
People were still pouring into the river valley, but there were still many good spots for Luke to make his camp. He picked a grassy meadow next to the creek where his horses could graze close to water, and there was plenty of firewood available in a stand of trees nearby. He set up his camp close to the trees where it would be easy to make a quick shelter in the event of rain. After his horses were taken care of, he started collecting a supply of firewood to use later on.
“When we gonna have that drink of likker?” The voice startled him. He turned quickly to discover Jug standing a few yards away in the trees. “I swear, you snuck right up on me. I was fixin’ to walk over to that saloon as soon as I laid some firewood aside. You camped near here?”
“About thirty-five yards that-away,” Jug said and pointed toward the opposite edge of the trees. “I see you know how to pick a pretty good campsite. Better’n mine. If I’da cut around these trees, I mighta beat you to this spot.”
“Well, you’re welcome to move your possibles on over here with me, if you want to,” Luke invited. “From here, you got a clear shot at that saloon, if you were to need one.”
“That would suit me just fine,” Jug replied at once. “I thought you mighta been campin’ with some of the American Fur fellers. Did you quit the company like you said you was gonna do?”
&nb
sp; “I did,” Luke answered. “So I figured I oughta make my camp somewhere else, but I intend to have a drink with some of the boys. I’ve known some of ’em since we damn-near got cleaned out by the Rees and the Blackfoot up on the Missouri. I need to see Charlton Lewis for sure. I’d like to hear his account of what happened to them.”
“I declare, you mighta oughta been a lawyer,” Jug said. “You had me guessin’ back yonder when you said you had a witness named Mr. Beaver.” He threw his head back and released a loud guffaw. “I don’t believe it set too well with that big blowhard that was doin’ most of the talkin’, though. I think he was wantin’ a piece of you.”
“Bloodworth,” Luke said. “I never did have much use for him, and I reckon he musta known it.” He grinned and commented, “I believe it was your witness testimony that swung the jury for me, though.”
“I reckon I owed you that for savin’ my bacon back on that mountain,” Jug said. “I’ll go fetch my belongings, then we’ll go get that drink.”
* * *
“Luke!” Charlton Lewis sang out when they walked into the large tent that housed Berman’s Saloon. He walked over to meet Luke and Jug. “I swear, I heard you rode in with your string of horses. I was afraid those murderin’ Blackfoot mighta jumped you, too.” He nodded briefly to Jug before coming right back to Luke. “It was a terrible thing, Luke. They came down on both sides of us. Tom and Fred were ahead of me and they was shot outta the saddle before we even knew they were there. There wasn’t nothin’ I could do against that many Injuns, so I took the only chance I had and that was to run for it. You understand that, don’tcha, Luke? Tom and Fred were both dead.”
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