by Terry Grosz
Casually looking up from his ‘home-making’ endeavors, Tom noticed their ever-watchful Indian who had been dogging their entire trip and had initially hidden himself in a mess of distant boulders, WAS NOW ABSENT FROM VIEW! Tom made sure everyone was aware of that fact and that everyone kept their ‘smoke poles’ near at hand and a cocked eye on their nearby feeding and valuable hobbled horse herd.
Finished with their earlier double horse hobbling and corral making duties, Big Foot and Crooked Hand rode out to the nearest small herd of buffalo and shot a nice fat cow. An hour later, the smell of roasting buffalo meat over an open fire tickled the men’s primal senses. Soon, the only sounds coming from the trappers’ new camp was that of the happy noises of men eating what they dearly loved and in amazing, semi-raw quantities!
For the next two days, the men posted up their camp, hauled in their winter’s supply of firewood and made ready for the oncoming fall trapping season. Then for the safety offered in numbers, the men paired up, left camp and began exploring the various stream tributaries and marshes around Medicine Lake looking for the sign of beaver. There they found plenty, as well as a number of vast patches of willow growing nearby the lake in which to use for making hoops to stretch out the beaver hides in the subsequent shaping and drying process to come. Additionally, the men made good use of the near at hand buffalo herds when it came time to kill and ‘make meat’ in the form of sun and air-dried jerky for use during the long, northern latitudes’ winter trapping season. Old Potts, being the better of the four men when it came to processing the buffalo meat into jerky, drew those duties, while Tom kept him supplied in good, non-resinous smoking wood used in the ‘drying and jerking’ process. Crooked Hand and Big Foot saw to it that Old Potts had all the best cuts of buffalo meat he could process and that they could also cook and eat. Soon, the trappers had settled into a routine that satisfied each man’s abilities.
On the side of their other duties, the men ventured forth numerous times into nearby draws, for the purpose of cutting and hauling even larger numbers of dry aspen logs back to their campsite for their winter firewood supply. Additionally, dry logs found around the lakeshore were also pulled back to camp by their horses and stacked for winter use as well. Soon the campsite took on a look of permanence and the men now felt that come the winter storms, they would be more than well-sheltered and ready for what challenges living out on the vast frontier would bring.
Then out came their beaver traps, which were duly smoked over an aspen fire to get rid of the man and metal smells, and hung from the trees for later use when the beaver were in their prime. With Crooked Hand standing guard because of his good set of eyes and shooting abilities, the other three men moved into several nearby draws and began cutting armloads of prairie hay and stashed several mounds of it into the deeper recesses of their cave for deep of winter use when their horse herd found getting enough to eat problematic because of drifting snows, howling winds and sub-freezing temperatures.
Arising one morning with a heavy frost in the air, Tom started a fire in their outside cooking firepit. Once the fire was more than blazing, he set their coffee pot on hanging irons and adjusted to a lower height over the fire’s coals the earlier-placed roasting slabs of buffalo steaks for slower cooking. When those smells reached the sleeping area in the cave, the other three men awakened and stumbled forth with their tin cups in hand ready to fill with coffee and meet the day.
Sitting down on their recently dragged-in sitting logs around the fire, Old Potts said, “Boys, I think today is the day. What say we venture forth, set a few traps and see what the fur quality is like once we are looking at what we have trapped?”
Mumbles from the other three men with their mouths full of hot roasted, partially cooked buffalo meat greeted Old Potts’s ears. “Then it is done. I say we start nearest our camp in the beaver waters and work our ways east as we trap out the closest of waters along the ponds and marshes by this side of the lake. Then we hit the river tributaries entering the lake and go from there. What does everyone have to say about that for a plan?” Once again mumbles greeted Old Potts’s ears, as everyone kept filling their bellies with slabs of partially roasted buffalo meat and scalding hot, thick enough to float a mule’s shoe, trapper’s style of coffee.
With breakfast done, the rest of the day was spent setting out a number of beaver traps in likely looking places and then in scouting out the next day’s areas to be trapped. Scouting the area by the men revealed the adjacent waters were loaded with many beaver and that year’s production of beaver kits had been good as well. A buffalo hunt was held later in the day and once again, the wonderful smell of roasting meat soon filled the cooling night air back at their campsite. After supper that evening, a keg of rum was brought forth from their stores and the men topped off their evening with cups of the fiery liquid, as the fall winds gently rustled the many falling aspen leaves overhead. Then it was off to bed with visions of following up on their beaver trapping on everyone’s minds, all fortified by the many cups of high proof, belly-warming rum imbibed earlier in the evening...
CHAPTER THREE: BLACKFEET AND THE LEGEND OF “IRON HAND” BEGINS!
Awakening right at daylight, Old Potts and Crooked Hand exited the shelter of the sleeping cave and headed in the pre-dawn darkness towards a thick stand of aspens near the horse corral to take care of a call of nature. Tom on the other hand, having already taken care of his call of nature and having risen earlier than the rest of the trappers, walked over to the woodpile, took up an ax and began chopping an armload of aspen wood for the morning’s cooking fire. As Tom tended to the wood chopping and gathering duties, Big Foot, back at the firepit, tended to the coffee making duties.
Hefting up a large armful of wood as only a large man his size could carry, Tom turned and headed back towards the morning’s fire in order to help in making the rest of their breakfast, since he had been designated the camp’s cook and was their best biscuit maker going.
“ZZZIIPPPP—THUNK!” went a steel-tipped arrow into Tom’s armload of wood that had been initially aimed and intended for his massive chest! Instead due to the poor light, that arrow had lodged deeply into his just recently shifted upward load of firewood! It took just a split second for Tom to realize what had happened, then his close at hand field of view instantly filled with an enraged Indian rushing right at him with an upraised tomahawk! Instinctively, Tom heaved his huge armload of wood into the onrushing Indian’s face, then quickly withdrew his ever present pistol from his sash and from just two feet away, shot his assailant in the top of his head with a load of buck and ball, as the unfortunate attacker was still bent over and trying to untangle himself from the huge mess of firewood!
By now, Tom was keenly aware of the heavy firing and fighting coming from all quarters of the aspen grove as the other trappers, having also been jumped simultaneously by the attacking Indians in a coordinated attack, were now in the fight of their lives! With empty pistol in hand, Tom sprinted for the mouth of their cave where the rest of his weapons were stored by his sleeping furs. However, his sprint for the cave was not to be! Another Indian materialized out from the pre-dawn darkness in front of Tom and with a vicious swipe of his tomahawk, sliced open Tom’s right cheek to the bone! If Tom had not instinctively ducked when he saw the tomahawk being swung, he would have been killed on the spot!
Tom, in a rising internal fury he had never felt before, swung his empty pistol with such force in reaction to the tomahawk-swipe that had split open his entire right cheek, that he buried the whole barrel of the empty gun into his assailant’s head, crushing his skull and exploding his brains all over his hands still holding the weapon! In so doing, Tom’s face was also instantly splattered with the man’s blood and flying chunks of brain as well! Plowing over his assailant’s still falling body, Tom reached the cave’s entrance, grabbed his remaining loaded pistol in one hand and his Hawken in the other, spun around and was INSTANTLY smashed into with the full force of another hard-charging In
dian bodily slamming into him! Both men flew over backwards because of the Indian’s impact velocity, spilling both of them violently onto the cave’s packed and now rock-hard dirt floor. Losing his Hawken rifle and pistol because of the surprising violent impact, Tom reached up, grabbed the Indian by his throat with his strong right hand and crushed the struggling man’s windpipe and internal carotid artery in one fluid-crushing motion! As the man gurgled and in a spasm trembled away his last moments, Tom threw the dying man’s body off to one side, sprang back onto his feet, quickly grabbed his Hawken rifle up off the floor of the cave and joined the ongoing desperate battle at their campsite. In so doing, he left his dropped pistol where it lay because of the intensity and confusion of the moment...
Storming out from the cave, Tom ran ‘pell-mell’ into another Indian coming his way at a dead run! In that collision, Tom dropped his rifle once again, grabbed his assailant and the two of them fell struggling to the ground. Tom in a still adrenalin-rising fury, bit down hard on the Indian’s nose and part of his face and in the process, tore big chunks of the man’s flesh off with his teeth! The man underneath Tom screamed out in pain in spite of his mouth now filling with blood from his gushing, ripped-off facial parts! Then the Indian’s flying wide-open eyes showed extreme surprise, as Tom’s ten-inch sheath knife was savagely ripped upward from the man’s lower bowels clear into his heart and lung area! Throwing aside his dying opponent, Tom grabbed his Hawken up off the ground just in time to see Old Potts locked in a deadly knife swinging, one-sided combat with two Indians and their upraised tomahawks! Tom quickly threw his rifle up to his shoulder and snapped off a quick shot into one of Old Potts’s assailants. Fortunately, it was a spinal shot and one of Old Potts’s attackers dropped like a sack of rocks. Moments later, the other Indian, who had unwisely attacked Old Potts, had grabbed his last trapper... As for the Indian struggling on the ground with a broken spine, Old Potts matched that bullet wound with a knife wound running clear across that assailant’s throat!
All at once another Indian filled Tom’s view, running right at him with an upraised tomahawk! Tom, now in an absolute killing fury like he had never experienced before, ducked the Indian’s tomahawk swipe, grabbed the heavyset Indian by the front of his throat with just his right hand, and LIFTED THE 200-POUND GURGLING MAN CLEAR OFF HIS FEET, MOMENTS LATER CHOKING HIM TO DEATH WITH A CRUSHED LARYNX AND RUPTURED INTERNAL CAROTID ARTERY, WITH JUST THE ADRENALIN-FUELED STRENGTH IN HIS RIGHT HAND!
As Tom dropped his still kicking and gurgling Indian at his feet with a crushed larynx, another Indian backed into him, screaming after having boiling coffee tossed into his fact by a frantic Big Foot! As the screaming Indian staggered backwards into Tom, Tom stepped off to one side, swung the barrel of his Hawken at the scalded man’s head and felt the head bones crushing upon impact! In so doing, he also clearly heard above the sounds of battle, the strange squishing sounds a brain makes when it is violently turned to mush!
Then Tom noticed that Big Foot was now struggling under the weight of two Indians fighting from on top of him. Once again the bile of fury boiled up into Tom’s throat, as he stepped over to the three struggling men on the ground, reached down and grabbed one of the Indians fighting with Big Foot. In an instant, that Indian had been jerked clean off his fight with Big Foot, lifted clear off his feet and once again, Tom’s strong hands were wrapped around the throat of the now desperately struggling Indian. However, Tom’s iron grip would not be loosened and that man, with feet kicking explosively in the air, violently died from a crushed larynx as well!
Witnessing that whole event was another young Indian man on his first raiding party standing just a few feet away. In so doing, that Indian looked on as Tom almost serenely but in a distinct killing mode, finished strangling his fellow Indian with just his right hand! That onlooking Indian, with a look of absolute terror, shock and disbelief on his face over seeing what Tom was doing to another of his Indian brothers with just his bare hand, broke away screaming and ran like the wind for his horse in order to escape the same violent death!
When that young Indian ran away from such a violent battle, he was able to carry that almost mystic memory back to his tribe, in which he presented a vision of Tom, a giant white man trapper, who was so strong that he could hold another man clear off the ground and crush the unfortunate’s throat with just one hand! With that firsthand observation from one of their own and the story of such being told later around many Indians’ campfires, the legend of a huge white trapper who killed even the strongest Indian with his bare hands drew sounds of amazement and almost disbelief from those hearing such words! However, from that moment on among the Blackfeet of the Northern Plains, the legend of a white trapper who killed with just his hands was now named “Iron Hand” and the legend was born! It was not long before the story of the almost mystical powers of strength and fierceness of that giant white man living in the cave by the spring with three other trappers, swept across the prairie grasses and throughout the numerous bands of Blackfeet, a nation of fierce warriors in and of themselves, with awe, respect and reverence...
Then except for the nervous shuffling of the horses in the corral over the sights and sounds of death all around them and the smell of fresh blood and burned black powder hanging heavy in the early fall morning air, all was once again eerily silent in the trappers’ camp!
Looking all around for more danger with a killing look still flashing in his eyes, Tom saw only dead Indians lying scattered everywhere throughout their camp! Then he became aware of the blood still flowing freely down the front of his buckskin shirt from the tear in his right cheek from the earlier tomahawk swipe. Placing his hand alongside his split cheek, he became aware of the sticky hot feeling of a lot of blood and a row of his now painfully exposed teeth! Then his eyes once again swept the scene of the carnage from the surprise morning attack by the Indians. Indians he was sure that had been led right to their camp by their earlier lone Indian rider who had dogged them during their entire journey from Fort Union to their Medicine Lake campsite.
Down by the horse corral, Tom saw Old Potts, all covered with his attacker’s blood, rising up from his killing site where the Indians had attacked him as they tried to get at the trappers’ horses. Then Tom’s eyes flashed over to Big Foot. Hell, he was still in a killing fury and other than being put upon by a mess of savages and having to throw a pot of perfectly good, almost ready to drink hot coffee at one of his assailants, was busily scalping the last Indian who had attacked him! Then he took a quick look over to where he had last seen Crooked Hand in furious combat with two very large Indians to see how he was doing or if he had even survived. There he was, leaning against an aspen holding his hand over a bloody Indian’s knife handle still sticking out from his thigh muscle! But other than that, all the trappers, aside from a bad case of fright and some superficial wounds, were still alive and kicking! However, the same could not be said for the small Blackfoot Indian raiding party.
“Did any of them red devils get away?” bellowed out Old Potts, as he furiously reloaded his pistol and rifle just in case there was further need.
“I saw one get away and eventually mount his horse and ride out across the prairie like the Devil was hot on his tail,” said Tom with painful difficulty, as his sliced open face and heavy beard was beginning to get matted and hanging down under all the coagulated blood weight, pulling the wound down and open even more.
“Damn, Tom!” said Big Foot. “Get your ass up here and sit down so I can take a gander at that sliced open ugly face of yours. You too, Crooked Hand. You don’t appear as stove up as is Tom, so I will take a look at him first to see what I can do.”
Sitting down on a log next to the fire, Tom winced as Big Foot grabbed him by the lower jaw and turned his face sideways so he could get a better look at the damage on his face.
“Tom, I am gonna hafta take my knife to some of them lovely whiskers so I can get down to the skin and see about getting your ugly mug all sewed up,” sa
id Big Foot.
“Do what you gotta do,” mumbled Tom, as his face began objecting to the rough handling it was getting from the hands of Big Foot.
Half-an-hour later, part of Tom’s face had been roughly shaved clean with the knife used to scalp the two dead Indians, and Big Foot was now in the process of cleaning out the wound with some of their precious rum. Finished with the cleaning portion of the face fix-up detail, Big Foot then took a leather-mending needle and some heavy thread, soaked it into a cup of rum to ‘slick it up some’ and then sewed the two flaps of Tom’s face back together! That needle and thread process however, took some doing. Tom kept flinching every time Big Foot jabbed his needle deeply into the damaged and tender facial flesh and began roughly pulling the loose flaps of skin together. But finally the deed was done and Tom could now sit back and listen to Crooked Hand howl as Big Foot took needle and thread to closing up the deep knife wound on his damaged thigh after pulling the Indian’s knife from the leg with a hard jerk! But before he did, he once again reloaded the pistol and rifle lying at his side just in case other Indians came ‘calling’...
“There. That is as good as I can mend you two fellas up so that will have to do. But I would stay off that leg, Crooked Hand, for a while and let me and Old Potts take care of the camp’s chores. As for you Tom, I would try and not talk much and try to eat smaller chunks of buffalo come chow time,” said Big Foot, as he sat back and quietly surveyed his attempts at ‘frontier doctoring’...