The Adventurous Life of Tom Iron Hand Warren: Mountain Man (The Mountain Men Book 5)

by Terry Grosz

  “I can have that done. Say, are any of those horses and mules for sale? Because if they are, we sure can use them,” asked McKenzie.

  “Every one of those animals were brought along on this trip for sale to you here at the fort. We kind of figured you could use them, so when my men purchased them from around the St. Louis area, I had them only purchase those animals that we considered ‘hell-for-stout’, knowing how you and your Company Trappers would be using them under the toughest of conditions. Additionally, about half of my cordelling crews want to stay on here at the fort or continue working as Company Trappers, so you best be prepared to have lots of answers for those men,” advised Tom, as his deck hands tied up the keelboat to the dock’s pilings.

  “Well, I sure can use the extra men around here at the fort as well as employing some as my Company Trappers. As you probably remember, I was losing about a quarter of my trappers annually to Indians, horse wrecks and those damn mean-assed grizzlies, so those new men are more than welcome as replacements,” replied McKenzie. “Say, how about you and your crew of men having supper with me and some of my Company Clerks this evening? If that would work, I will get my cooks moving, kill a buffalo and start preparing for a grand time. Besides, I can’t think of a better way to welcome the first arriving keelboats of the season with our much-needed supplies than a damn good feed and several cups of rum. By the way, I hope you brought one hell of a load of good grade rum in the holds of those boats. It seems the Indians and our trappers can’t get enough of it,” continued McKenzie. “Oh by the way, now that you are here, I have a special surprise for you for this evening. Just you wait and see what I have in store for you,” said McKenzie, with an all-knowing smile spread clear across his heavily whiskered face.

  That evening, the entire force of men who had brought the keelboats all the way from St. Louis to Fort Union were honored at McKenzie’s grand celebration and supper in the fort’s courtyard. As McKenzie had predicted, the two kegs providing the cups of rum were the centerpiece of attraction for everyone with a cup in hand that evening.

  Then through the front gate came the surprise McKenzie had in store for Iron Hand. In marched Old Potts, Crooked Hand, Otis Barnes and Big Foot! Upon seeing his old comrades, Tom was almost speechless, then there was a lot of handshaking and backslapping once the men from the original ‘family’ were all together once again! For the rest of that evening, the old ‘family’ of trappers were talking so much, that anyone else wanting to join in could hardly get in a word edgewise…

  The next day as the two keelboats were being unloaded, Tom sat on the riverbank with his old buddies and filled them in on how he was doing and the status of the original three trappers’ investments given to him by the men a year earlier. For the next hour, Tom filled the three men in on how he had invested their joint monies accrued from their trapping successes and what shipping plans were in the future. All three men seemed surprised over what Tom had managed to achieve in such a short period of time and were well pleased in how he had invested the group’s monies. They were even more surprised when he apprised the three men that he still had over $30,000 of their original funds back in the bank in St. Louis!

  That was when Old Potts dropped a surprise on Tom. “Iron Hand,” said Old Potts, “we three need to take you up on your offer of a free boat ride back to St. Louis, so we can avoid traveling through all that Arikara Indian country and getting our hair lifted. We three, like you, have had enough of this country and have seen what we wanted to see. It seems that the winters up here are making our bones ache more and more every time we venture forth in the howling prairie winds and blowing snows. We three have decided to go back with you to St. Louis if you will have us. Then we plan on buying us some land and the three of us settling down together since none of us have any living kin to our knowledge. We have made some good money this last trapping season and coupled with what can be provided to us from our share of the keelboat business, that should about do it for us in retirement. We don’t need much other than some time to ourselves and not worrying about our next meal, how cold the beaver trapping waters are getting, or being eaten by a mean-assed bear and being left behind as just ‘bear scat’ out on the prairie. So what do you say, Iron Hand? Do we get that promised boat ride back down the Missouri to St. Louis, or do we have to chance it by a-going through that damn Indian country and risking our hair?”

  For the longest time, upon hearing those ‘going home words’ from Old Potts, Tom just sat there on the riverbank and looked from one to the other of his dear friends to see if they really meant it. Finally seeing that the men were serious, Tom rose from his place on the riverbank saying, “Old Potts, Crooked Hand and Big Foot, the three of you are more than welcome to travel downstream when I leave and enjoy your ride clear to St. Louis! That also includes space for you, Otis, if that is what you desire.”

  “No, I think I will be staying. My home is out here on the frontier and I even have a group of trappers all lined up who still need another trapper for their foursome,” replied Otis. “In fact, my two brothers Oliver and Sterling are here and with the addition of my dad, Rufous, we four will have a go at being a family once again and this here beaver trapping thing,” he continued.

  Then there was more backslapping and eventually back on Tom’s boat, a number of cups of rum drunk by the now celebrating, together once again, foursome of ‘family’…

  Finally, after the two keelboats had been unloaded except for the supplies the boat crews needed for the long trip back to St. Louis, the reloading of furs from the fort’s accumulated stores began. For the next three days, the fort’s Company Clerks and men from the old cordelling crews who had been hired by McKenzie and were staying on at the fort, loaded the tons of packs of furs, hides and pelts to be shipped back down to St. Louis to the American Fur Company warehouses.

  Once they had loaded the keelboats to the ‘gunnels’ with all the peltries, Tom’s ‘sixth sense’ began kicking in for some unexplained reason. That time, that ‘sixth sense reason’ included the need for more rum… Knowing his ‘sixth sense’ was seldom wrong, Tom had four extra kegs of rum loaded back onto his keelboat, and that extra amount of rum now loaded, for some reason seemed to settle down his ‘sixth sense’ demons. Then because of the need to leave before the Missouri’s waters got any lower in order for the keelboats to get over a number of sandbars after the spring runoff had been reduced, Tom made ready to leave and head back to St. Louis just as soon as possible.

  The day before his departure, McKenzie approached Tom with a packet of letters and his fur house draft to be drawn from the fur house’s bank upon his return to St. Louis for his transport payment of all the peltries from the fort. Additionally, McKenzie handed Tom a long list of his needs come the following spring to be delivered to the fort as well upon his return. Then with a big grin, McKenzie made a request. McKenzie wished to have another celebration and supper for all of Tom’s remaining crew before they left for St. Louis.

  That evening, a grand party was held in celebration of another successful trapping season for the fort’s trappers and the fact that their warehouses were now filled to the brim with new provisions for the year ahead. That evening, the two casks of rum were once again the center of attraction followed by the entire roasted carcass of a cow buffalo and all the homemade pies the men could eat, prepared by McKenzie’s now three Chinese cooks on his staff.

  After the grand celebration, Tom took McKenzie off to one side and arranged for him to supply free of charge all of his Indian Brother Spotted Eagle’s needs for the year, once he came into Fort Union on his next annual trading venture. Additionally, Tom arranged through McKenzie, for him to provide a shopping trip for little Sinopa for anything that caught her eye and she wanted, free of charge of course…

  The next morning right at daylight, Tom’s two keelboats shoved off from Fort Union’s boat docks and were quickly swept out into the river’s currents. With Tom were the remains of his cordelling crew who wanted
to return to their homes in St. Louis, his boat crews including the Brothers York and Jim Tweedle manning the second keelboat, Old Potts, Big Foot and Crooked Hand. With Tom at the rudder, he found time in teaching White Eagle, now his 12-year-old son, on how to ‘read’ the water and learn to steer the boat downstream. In so doing, Tom allowed White Eagle to steer his keelboat while learning how to avoid the dangerous sandbars and the river’s floating and dangerous logs, snags and the numerous buffalo carcasses. Come nightfall on that first night of travel, the two keelboats tied up on a sandy island out in the middle of the Missouri River as a precaution against any surprise attack from Indians. As supper was being prepared on the two boats for their crews, Tom yelled across to Tweedle and had him load all three of his swivel guns with buck and ball. When asked why, Tom just replied, “Because my frontier ‘sixth sense’ is telling me to.” With that, Tom then moved to his three swivel guns and taught White Eagle how to safely load the weapons in case the need for their use arose downriver. Then picking a floating bloated buffalo carcass drifting by mid-river, Tom had White Eagle practice shooting at the carcass as it drifted by and scattering off the feeding ravens with the cabin roof swivel gun.

  (Author’s Note: Just for history’s sake, during the winter months, many buffalo used the iced-over river to cross from side to side in order to get to better feeding grounds. Come spring and thinner ice, many crossing buffalo broke through the ice and drowned. Come ice out, many of those frozen in the ice buffalo carcasses broke free and floated down the Missouri River, becoming commonplace hazards for any boats plying the river.)

  For the next two days, the keelboats made good time drifting downriver. The weather was nice allowing the use of the sail on both boats and good and fast progress was made. Then on day three, Tweedle’s keelboat ran aground on a small sandbar. Seeing his other boat ahead of him running aground, Tom quickly dropped his anchors stopping the downriver progress of his boat alongside Tweedle’s grounded boat. As the two boat crews worked with their poles to free the grounded boat, they saw about 20 unidentified Indians riding along the far riverbank trailing about 30 horses and mules heavily loaded with packs of furs!

  The Indians, upon seeing the two stalled keelboats mid-river, stopped and watched the white men in the process of freeing the grounded boat. In so doing, the Indians made many hand gestures that they wanted the boats to come ashore and trade. Tom, watching the Indians carefully making gestures indicating they wanted the two boats to come ashore and trade for the packs of furs they were trailing on their horses, detected his ‘sixth sense’ at work once again...

  However ‘sixth sense’ aside, the Indians were trailing a huge number of obvious packs of furs and if he could trade for them, that would enrich his trip back to St. Louis just that much more. Holding a hurried conference with the other boat crew, Indian treachery aside, they all indicated a willingness to court the possible danger of trading with the band of Indians because there were a large number of armed boatmen to keep the order and safety of all concerned. Besides, “they had six swivel guns, didn’t they?” were the common utterances among the crew members. They did so, because to be able to trade what little they had, mostly rum of low value for furs of high value, would enrich each man’s share of money on the trip, so the boat crews wanted to take the risk and ‘test the waters’.

  Against Tom’s cautious judgment but knowing he could trade off their ‘sixth sense’-ordered kegs of rum for packs of high value furs made good sense if he could safely pull it off, he relented and opted for the trade. However in the thought processes, Tom figured the Indians had probably run across a number of trappers bringing their furs to St. Louis for sale and had killed and robbed them. This ‘darkness of source point acquisition’ Tom had deduced just by looking at the motley band of Indians.

  The Indians were traveling light and none sported any kind of beaver trapping gear other than the numerous packs of furs on their horses and mules. The more he looked at them, the more he figured he was looking at numerous packs of stolen furs that represented the hard work from many dead trappers! Having been there and almost robbed by renegade Indians earlier in his life, that alone made him angry. Then the previous ‘military training’ in him took over as a crazy plan spun through his mind.

  Casually walking over to the edge of his boat, Tom beckoned Jim Tweedle over to his boat as the two of them floated on the Missouri River. “Jim, I feel that those Indians have attacked and killed a number of trappers who were bringing their furs down to St. Louis for the better prices they could get for them. Somehow along the way, they must have been attacked by this band of Indians, robbed and killed. I think all of those packs of furs we are seeing were stolen and their original owners are now dead as the last buffalo you shot. I would like to get those furs if I could somehow prove they were stolen and those Indians are nothing more than the killers of a bunch of innocent trappers. Here is what I propose we do. We have 24 men still on board these boats who are experienced shooters and frontiersmen. I want you, and I will do the same, to alert all of the men on our boats to quietly arm themselves without making it obvious and prepare for battle with these Indians if necessary. Then have three of your men casually act like they are working on your boat near the swivel guns. That way if the crap hits the fan once they get nearer, or I am able to determine these Indians are the killers of innocent trappers, we can be near and ready for battle, starting with the collective destructive power from those six swivel guns. The bottom line is that if these Indians are sniping off the trappers as they head for St. Louis, they will continue doing so and killing off more of the same as long as they are rewarded with those valuable packs of furs. That needs to stop and that means right here and now, so that the killing of innocent trappers stops as well,” said Tom, with a new quiet determination in the tone and tenor of his voice.

  “Here is what I propose to do. We need to find a river channel that is deep enough for our boats to navigate that runs right along the bank. That way we can bring our boats right along the shore and still be protected with our swivel guns and the rest of the armed men on board. Then I propose to take ashore several kegs of our extra rum, set it up and make like we are their friends. In so doing, I will make it look like we wish to trade for their furs. As I do so, I will try to discover how they came by those furs by walking among them looking around to see what I can see. If I am able to discover that the furs have been stolen from now dead trappers, we will kill the lot of these Indians so their depredations on other human beings will stop here and now. If I can’t make that determination, we can trade our rum for whatever furs it will bring us and then just move on, letting the Indians trade their furs as they see fit,” said Tom.

  “I will take Adam York with me when we anchor next to some sort of a secure landing place and the two of us can take ashore several kegs of rum for the Indians to drink. Maybe as they are drinking and getting all liquored up, Adam and I can discover if they are ‘good or bad’ Indians once we find evidence of wrongdoing on their horses or in the gear they are packing. If we feel they are nothing more than killers, I will give you a signal if I am not back on the boat or able to do so, and you can have our men kill the lot of them,” concluded Tom.

  With those plans being set into motion, Tom went back onto the bow of his keelboat and through hand gestures, now that the other keelboat was off the sandbar and floating free, for the Indians to meet them further down the river. When Tom had finished gesturing to the Indians, they seemed to understand and began herding their pack strings downriver and watching the boats all at the same time. About half-a-mile downriver, Tom spotted a channel that ran alongside the riverbank by a wide sandy stretch of the river. Slowing the vessel down with the use of their long poles, Tom finally maneuvered and anchored his boat next to the shoreline, as Tweedle nosed his keelboat right in behind Tom’s so they could communicate among themselves and yet provide a covering fire for each other if the Indians attacked their anchored boats or they decided to ‘go to
war’.

  As they waited for the Indians still coming downriver to arrive where the boats had anchored, Tom and Adam York lugged a keg of rum off Tom’s boat and set it up tactically between the two boats so if necessary, the six swivel guns could concentrate their fire on the area of the rum keg’s close at hand location. Then Tom returned and retrieved a number of cups so the Indians would have the means to consume the rum once they had arrived.

  About then, the Indians began streaming off the riverbank onto the sandy plain adjacent the river and the two anchored keelboats. Lounging around on board appeared the boatmen but unknown to the arriving Indians, the men had laid their rifles and pistols down where they would be unobserved but in easy access if the need arose for their immediate use.

  Spotting the keg of rum sitting out in the open, the Indians bailed off their horses and while their pack strings milled about on the sandy bench of land adjacent the two anchored boats, Tom greeted the arrivers by holding out a handful of drinking cups. Immediately the Indians made use of the cups with a lot of shoving and gesturing of their appreciation for the free drinks as they swarmed around the rum keg.

  However, as they milled about, Tom had determined that they were the dreaded Arikara Indians by the manner of their dress! As Tom moved about through the ranks of the Indians’ riding and pack stock, he began looking for any signs leading to the intent or previous behavior of those now gathered around and pushing and shoving each other near the keg of rum.

  Then Tom’s eyes fastened upon two packs being carried by a bay. Both packs had the burned-in brand stamped into the deer hide covering the beaver plus with the name “DENT”! Moving closer, Tom recognized the brand of his friends, the ‘Brothers Dent’, burned into the pack covers! Then his eyes discovered the very evidence he had been looking for regarding the Indians’ guilt or innocence when it came to their acquisition of the many packs of furs. Standing together in a clump, Tom spotted six beautifully matching buckskin horses! The one and same horses proudly owned by the Brothers Dent when Tom had first met them back at Fort Union the year before! The same six buckskin horses Gabe Dent had told Tom they would never part with unless they were dead, because that was all the two brothers had left of their family’s heritage! Walking back to his boat in grim determination, Tom was stopped dead in his tracks by what he saw hanging from the mane of another Indian’s horse. There were three fresh scalps from white men, and red-headed white men at that! Then Tom remembered the Dent brothers seeking a man named Black Bill Jenkins and his three red-headed kin, who had not only killed the parents of the Dent brothers but their aunt and uncle as well! Having seen enough, Tom started to head back to his boat once again when he passed another Indian’s horse, and in the rifle scabbard he spotted an 1803 military rifle with the words “Gabe’s Rifle” artfully carved in its stock! Tom then realized that these Indians had probably killed off the Dent brothers and had not only taken their furs, but their coveted six buckskin horses that meant so much to the two brothers as well!