Luke moved quickly down to end the cow’s suffering. He had aimed for a lung shot and had hit his mark. The cow had reared backward when the bullet struck her, then managed to run a few yards after the others before collapsing. He ended her life with his knife, and when she was still, he hoped he’d never have crazy thoughts again, like those that struck him before he shot. Jug would think I’d gone lip-dripping loco, he thought. The picture of the cow he spared came into his mind then and he said, “That’s twice I’ve let you go. The next time I see you, you’re meat.”
While her blood was still warm, Luke decided to go ahead and hang the elk from a tree limb to gut her and let her bleed out. With Jug’s help and the use of one of the horses, he cleaned the elk’s innards out and left her to hang until they finished recovering all their traps. The last trap came out of the pond, and Jug was delighted to find a frozen beaver in it. “Hot damn!” he exclaimed. “I’m proud to see him. I ain’t never been skunked in my trappin’, and this prime-lookin’ gent saved my record.”
“How do you know it’s your trap and not one of mine?” Luke japed.
“’Cause it’s got a beaver in it,” Jug answered, “and I ain’t never been skunked.”
* * *
With the days getting shorter and shorter, the sun was already well on its ride for the day by the time the elk and the traps were all loaded on the horses and the two trappers led their herd of horses back to the tipi by the waterfall. Using Smoke to help him, Luke hauled the elk up to hang from a limb while he skinned and butchered it. Jug built a fire close to the tree the elk was hanging from. And since they had had nothing to eat since a little bit of smoked venison that morning, some fresh cuts of elk meat, roasted over an open flame, was a fine feast indeed.
Jug stood watching the horses for a few minutes while he chewed on a hot strip of meat. “They’ve already got to where they’ll go to your fir barn to try to get warm,” he commented to Luke. “I think it helped ’em a little to get to run some, too. Maybe we won’t lose too many of ’em this winter.”
“I’m plannin’ on goin’ down the hill tomorrow and cut up a mess of cottonwood limbs and twigs to give ’em a little feed. I don’t think they got much grass under that snow today.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jug said. “I’ll help you with that. Then I’m gonna make me an oven, so I can have some biscuits to go with all that meat you’re gonna be killin’ with your bow and arrows.”
“I hope that flour we packed all the way from Green River is still all right,” Luke said. “We ain’t even opened it since we left there. It might be full of weevils or something.”
“We didn’t camp in one place long enough for me to make an oven,” Jug replied, “and pan biscuits just ain’t the same as oven-baked biscuits. That flour will be all right, even if there is some bugs in it. Just adds a little more meat to your supper. I noticed some good-sized rocks at the foot of that waterfall. Oughta be just right for my oven.”
“Uhmm, baked biscuits,” Luke commented. “Now that’s to my likin’. You can go ahead and get started on your oven tomorrow. I can go get the cottonwood bark for the horses tomorrow by myself. I’m gonna have to chop down a sizable tree, to get enough bark to feed our herd. I’ll take that buckskin we just got. He looks like he’s a workin’ horse. Let’s see if he spent any time doin’ farm work.”
“You got a deal,” Jug said. “And you’ll get a chance to taste the best baked biscuits this side of the Rockies—maybe the other side, too.”
“That’s the reason I agreed to spend the winter in the middle of Blackfoot territory with you,” Luke said. “I heard you could bake good biscuits.” Although he joked about it, he sometimes wondered if they weren’t both crazy to hole up all winter in territory that was definitely hostile to the white trapper. Most of the other free trappers camped together during the winter freeze, primarily for the protection of numbers. More than a few trappers wintered in a Shoshone or Flathead village, where the Indians were friendly toward the white man. More often than not, they were treated like honored guests in those villages. The same could be said for some Crow villages as well as Nez Perce. Luke thought about that and couldn’t help but question his sanity again. He and Jug had started out on a risky plan, to trap beaver in not only hostile Blackfoot territory, but in Hudson’s Bay territory as well. Their reason was simple, there were a lot of beaver there and the other trappers were afraid to take the risks. Admittedly, the risks were many, but the payoff in furs was worth the risks. And by wintering in the territory, they were already trapping the ponds and streams when they thawed out, while those trappers who wintered together were just starting out to their different trapping sites. He shook his head to rid it of these thoughts of doubt. Their decision was already made. We’ll just lay low and eat hot biscuits, he thought.
* * *
The following morning, they were in no hurry to leave their cozy tipi. The fire in the center kept the lodge very comfortable, even though another morning snow shower was in progress when Luke went outside to answer nature’s summons. By the time they had made coffee and roasted some elk meat over the fire, the snow shower had let up. “As much as I like sittin’ here by the fire, I reckon I’d best go see about gettin’ some feed for the horses,” Luke finally declared.
“You sure you don’t want me to help you with that?”
“Nah,” Luke replied. “You’d best make your oven before the ground gets any harder than it is already. I expect it’s already froze six or seven inches down.”
They climbed into their heavy coats and caps, pulled on rabbit hide gloves, with the fur turned inside, and went to their different chores. Luke went to his tree-barn where the horses were just starting to move around, and he fashioned a halter in one end of a long rope. Then he slipped it over the buckskin’s head. With his axe in one hand, he led the willing horse down the slope where the cottonwoods were growing. He tied the horse there while he selected a tree that was not too large for the horse to drag. When he found one that looked perfect for his needs, he set into it with his axe. In a few minutes time, it came crashing down. He untied the buckskin and led him over to the tree. He widened the loop in the rope, so it spread more evenly around the horse’s withers. Satisfied that it would pull where he wanted it to on the withers, he tied the loose end to the tree and led the buckskin back up the hill. The horse proved equal to the task and pulled the entire tree up to the fir corral. Luke untied him from the tree, but before he released him, he took his axe and peeled off some of the bark and held it up in his hand for the horse to eat. The buckskin hesitated only a moment before taking all of the bark from his hand. In a few minutes time, all the horses came to him as he peeled the bark off the trunk of the tree. Before he peeled the whole trunk, the horses were biting the bark off without waiting for him.
While Luke introduced some of the horses to cottonwood bark—his and Jug’s horses as well as most of the Indian ponies were already acquainted with it—Jug was working on his oven. It was necessary to use his axe on the top few frozen inches of ground, but once past that, he used his shovel to dig out a portion of the slope about a foot and a half deep. He was judging the size by the size of the big flat rocks he found by the waterfall. Weighing approximately twenty pounds each, the oblong rocks were used to form three sides of his oven. He struggled then to pick up an even larger stone to be the top. Using loose dirt to seal up the corners and cracks, he then raked dirt over the top and filled the floor of the oven with small rocks. When it was finished, he had a tight little rock-walled oven with an open front, buried in the hill. He turned when he realized Luke was standing behind him, watching him. “She’s ready to go,” he said. “All I need to do is build a fire in there, stick a pan of biscuits in it, and prop this thin rock up for the door. And that little oven will bake ’em just like ol’ Aunt Jane bakes ’em in her oven.” He stood, grinning at Luke for a long couple of moments, proud of his creation.
“When you gonna test it?” Luke asked.
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“Supper,” Jug answered.
Chapter 11
Ever since Luke had hooked up with Jug Sartain, whenever the subject of biscuits came up, Jug never failed to proclaim his biscuits were the best of any you would ever eat. With the construction of his oven, the day finally arrived when he was going to have to back up his claim. Holding the coffeepot in his hand, Luke watched him with a great deal of interest as the spry little man rolled out his biscuit dough on a square piece of deer hide and formed it into six large individual biscuits. He placed the biscuits in a pan to protect the bottoms from getting scorched by the fire and into the oven they went. “If those biscuits ain’t no good,” Luke jibed, “you’re gonna be eatin’ a lotta crow with ’em.”
“And when you try one of ’em, you’re gonna be eatin’ your words,” Jug replied. “You just go on back in the lodge and get that elk meat cookin’.” He checked the small fire under the pan and added a few sticks from the cottonwood to keep it constant. “It ain’t gonna be long before they’re done, so go get the meat cookin,” he prodded.
“I’m goin’,” Luke replied, “soon as I get some water in this coffeepot.” He went over to the waterfall then and caught a pot full of the icy water falling on the frozen pond. He didn’t really think about it, but there was a feeling of peace and satisfaction that had come over both him and Jug. The hard winter had set in, and they were content to wait it out with no worries as far as hostile Indians were concerned. Their little valley was not likely to be stumbled upon until the spring thaw, and with a little luck, maybe not even then. They had already scouted a large promising area to trap without riding more than three miles from their camp. The harvest should be good.
Luke got his coffee water and went inside the lodge to cook the strips of elk meat he had prepared to roast. He was looking forward to Jug’s biscuits, since their food had been nothing but meat for so long. He had a pot of coffee boiling by the time Jug came in with the pan of baked biscuits. “They look good enough to eat,” Luke commented.
“They’re perfect,” Jug crowed. “Here, take you one and I’m gonna put the pan back on top of the oven, cover ’em with this piece of deer hide, and they’ll keep warm.” They both took a biscuit and placed it on their plates, and Jug went back outside to put the pan on top of the oven to warm.
“Damn, they are good,” Luke had to admit when Jug returned, much to the little man’s smug satisfaction. They worked on the elk strips, but soon were ready for another biscuit.
Jug graciously went back to the oven to fetch a couple more of the warm biscuits. “There’s another biscuit waitin’ for you after this’un,” he reminded Luke.
“Those are big biscuits,” Luke said. “My belly’s tight as a tick right now, but in honor of this occasion, I’m gonna find room for that last biscuit.” When Jug started to get up, Luke stopped him. “I’ll get it. Maybe, if I take a few steps, I can shake a little more room down in my belly.” When he came back, carrying the pan, he said, “I thought you meant there was one left for each of us. When did you get that other biscuit?”
Jug looked at him as if he was japing him. “What are you talkin’ about? Ain’t there two biscuits in that pan?” Luke held the pan down so Jug could see the single biscuit in it. Jug stared at it for a moment before grinning broadly. “I told you they’d be the best biscuits you ever et. I didn’t know they’d turn you into a biscuit hog, though.” He reached over and took the biscuit out of the pan. “This’un’s mine. You can go get that other’n wherever you got it hid.” He took a big bite of the biscuit but paused when he saw the confused expression on Luke’s face. “You’re japin’ me, right? Where’s that other biscuit?” Confused as well, now, Jug said, “You saw me put six big biscuits in that pan, and there was four in it the next time I brought it in.” He was convinced now that Luke wasn’t playing a joke on him.
“I don’t know,” Luke said, “but it looks like we’ve got us a varmint in our camp—possum or a coon, or a coyote, maybe one of the horses.”
“Maybe,” Jug allowed. “But it don’t make no sense to leave a biscuit.”
“No, it don’t,” Luke agreed. “I’m gonna go take a look around that oven and see what kinda tracks I can find.” Jug followed him out the door. The possibility of an Indian raid on their camp never entered the mind of either one of them. If that had been the case, they would most likely already be dead. Daylight was fading rapidly by then, but there was still light enough to inspect the ground around the oven. There were many tracks in the snow, all of them left by Luke and Jug as they had gone about their chores that day. Luke searched carefully for the prints left by a small animal, but there was no trace of a possum or raccoon, attracted by the warmth of Jug’s oven. Suddenly, Luke stopped and took a step backward, something irregular having caught his eye. He stared at one of the footprints left by Jug, easy to distinguish because they were smaller than his. Close beside it, there was a print from another moccasin, this one smaller than Jug’s. He dropped down on one knee to get an even closer look at the tracks. Concentrating now on Jug’s tracks, he searched until he found a clear imprint of a smaller track inside Jug’s footprint.
Knowing what he was looking for now, he moved very carefully, inspecting each footprint left by Jug. Fascinated by the spell that had seemingly come over his partner, Jug remained silent but followed close behind him. Finally, when he could hold his curiosity no longer, he asked, “What is it, partner? Whatchu got scent of?”
Luke straightened up. Looking straight at the waterfall, he said, “We got company and it ain’t a possum.”
“Well, what the hell is it?” Jug wanted to know and dropped his hand on the pistol in his belt.
“It’s either a woman or a young’un,” Luke answered. “I’m bettin’ it’s a woman, and I suspect she’s hidin’ behind the waterfall. Look here,” he said and pointed to one of Jug’s tracks. “If you look close, you can see the imprint of another track inside your track. She musta been mighty hungry to try to disguise her tracks and steal a biscuit—pretty smart, too—’cause if she hadn’t missed one of your tracks beside the oven, I wouldn’ta never caught onto what she was doin’.”
“How do you know she’s behind the waterfall?” Jug asked.
“Well, she might not be, but I tried to think like I figured she might be thinkin’. Figured she’d wanna try to hide her trail in your prints. So I looked till I found her walkin’ in your prints when you were walkin’ away from the oven. Well, you were walkin’ in every direction around here all afternoon. But she picked your footprints to walk in when you were headed toward the waterfall. She stepped outta your footprints when you turned and headed toward the horses. She kept walkin’ toward the waterfall.”
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Jug started. “She must not have a gun, else she’da been pickin’ us off while we’re out here in the open talkin’ about her.”
“Reckon so,” Luke said. “You ready to go see what we can find behind that waterfall?” Jug said he was, so they proceeded on to the waterfall, aware that there was not much room for anyone to hide behind it. As a precaution, they both pulled their pistols and cocked them. At first, when they walked behind the fall, there appeared to be no one in the small dark alcove in the cliff. After a few moments, however, Luke saw the small, dark figure squatting tightly against the back of the earthen chamber. Like a fox in a trap, the woman was terrified by the two white trappers, expecting the worst treatment, but helpless to fight them. “Don’t be afraid,” Luke said and put his pistol away. She continued to glance nervously from one of them, back to the other. “We will not harm you.” When she continued to stare at him, too frightened to speak, he assumed that she didn’t speak English. So he asked, “Blackfoot?” He spoke, using their term for it. She didn’t answer but shook her head. So he asked again, “Crow?”
“Absaroka,” she said, in the Crow tongue and nodded.
Her answer surprised both Luke and Jug. “How did you get here, so far away from your home?” Lu
ke asked. Both he and Jug were fluent in the Crow language. When she didn’t answer him, obviously too frightened to speak, Luke said, “You must be hungry.” He paused, still looking her over carefully. “And cold, too,” he said. “You ain’t dressed very warm to be slippin’ around in this snow. Come on, we’ll go inside and get you something to go with that biscuit you ate.” Afraid to trust them, she still hugged the cold rock wall behind the fall. “Don’t be afraid,” Luke tried to assure her. “We’re not goin’ to harm you.” Still, she did not budge.
Jug stepped in at that point, losing his patience with the woman’s fear. Sounding very much like an older parent or grandparent, he scolded her. “If we meant you any harm, you’d already be hurtin’. Now get yourself up from there. Ain’t no sense in all three of us standin’ out here in the cold when there’s a warm fire and food in our tipi yonder.” His impatience seemed to have registered with the frightened woman, for she moved away from the back of the alcove at once. “There’s likely to be somebody lookin’ for her,” Jug said to Luke. “Pretty little Crow woman like that, she was most likely took by some raidin’ party.”
To the River's End Page 13