Grizzly Killer: The Making of a Mountain Man

by Lane R Warenski

  She asked if she could give something to the Medicine Dog. I called Jimbo over, and she reached out to him, and he stepped right up to her and licked her face. She rubbed his ears and whispered to him for a minute then opened up a leather pouch and pulled out a turquoise stone that was on a piece of rawhide. The rawhide went through a hole that had been ground through the turquoise. She very carefully wrapped the rawhide around Jimbo’s collar and centered the stone between the grizzly claws. She said that was the most cherished of her possessions, and she wanted the one that saved her life to have it. Jimbo loved the attention and lay down right in front of her with his huge ol’ head sittin’ in her lap.

  After Spotted Elk and Butterfly left, I wanted to go back over to the tradin’ area and talk more to the other trappers ’bout the land, to learn as much as I could ’bout which way others were goin’ for the fall trappin’ season. It wasn’t that I wanted to tag along, but just the opposite, I wanted to stay far away from where most of the trappin’ was bein’ done. Last season me and Pa hadn’t seen another trapper after we left Rendezvous and had had a great trappin’ season, so I figured the fewer trappers in an area, the better trappin’ we would have.

  Sun Flower and Raven Wing stayed while me and Runnin’ Wolf saddled up and headed for the tradin’ area. We were just takin’ our time, walkin’ along the river. It was early enough in the day; the mosquitoes weren’t bad yet. Twice we passed groups of naked Injun kids and women playin’ and bathin’ in the river, and as we got closer, there was even a group of trappers out in the water, their skin so white it ’bout hurt your eyes. One ol’ trapper that I didn’t know walked up to the river and said, “Jack, you need to sit down in some of that mud over on yonder bank. That ass of yours is so white it’s ’bout to blind the rest of us.” Everyone was gettin’ a good laugh from that bein’ said, and as the one doin’ the talkin’ stripped down to get in the river, everyone laughed even harder. This trapper had whiter skin than Jack.

  There was a small group of men standin’ and looked to be just jawin’ away, when I saw one of them was Ely. When he saw me and Runnin’ Wolf, he motioned for us to come over. We stepped off our mounts and walked on over, and Ely, with a big smile on his face, said we was just in time for the fun.

  Ely told a story of an old trapper they called Stinky Johnson and that he smelled so bad no one wanted him around. Ely said, “Last night after an ample amount of whisky had been drunk, Grub and a couple of the boys was gonna take Stinky over to the river ta give him a bath. It had became clear that Stinky wasn’t as drunk as the rest of them, and it turned out to be quite a fight.” He said, “Grub has a black eye, and Frank and Marcus both have fat lips this mornin’, and well, Stinky, he still stinks.” He told us, “I don’t think Stinky has bathed since he come to the mountains more than five year ago.”

  And Henry Finn added, “Or put on a different set of buckskins.” After the fight was over, Grub had yelled at Stinky that the only company he was fit to keep was with a skunk.

  Well, several of the boys heard that, and some of them went out and caught a couple of skunks last night, and now they were just gettin’ ready to throw them in the tent with Stinky, and maybe that would make him take a bath. There must have been two dozen men in on this, ’cause they was forming a circle ’round Stinky’s tent. Ely said he was still sleepin’ off last night’s drunk.

  Then I saw Grub and Marcus walkin’ real quiet, each carryin’ a little willow cage with a skunk in it. When they got right up by the tent flaps, each of them reached in their cage and grabbed the skunk by the tail and threw them right through the tent flaps. Then they grabbed the tent flaps and held them closed as four or five other men ran up with sticks and started to beat on the canvas tent. It was only a few seconds, and we all started to back up as the sickenin’ smell of them skunks started to come out of the tent. Stinky was tryin’ to cuss through all his coughin’ as he fought his way out. When he got clear, there was a roar of laughin’ and men scatterin’ in every direction, tryin’ to get farther away from that smell. Stinky was cursin’ to the heavens as he was strippin’ out of them old greasy buckskins. He picked up his knife, and yellin’ at the top of his lungs, he told us all we was the most low-down dirty bastards that ever walked the earth and he was gonna slow-peal the hide off every one of us sons of bitches. He went on and on, tellin’ us he had never seen such a bunch of goddamned bastards before, that we was all so low-down we would all fornicate with animals, and he would get even if took till his last breath.

  He was headed to the river, and just before he got there, he stopped and started to wretch his guts up. I figured the smell, along with the hangover, was just too much for even his iron belly. He was sittin’ in the water on a little sandbar, usin’ the sand to scrub the smell off, and another group went over to his tent and pulled out all his buckskins and bedroll and, with sticks, picked it all up, including the tent, and took it to the closest fire and burned every last bit of it. They all said if he didn’t have enough on the books to get a new bedroll, clothes, and a little tent, that they would take up a collection.

  I had never met Stinky before, and I wasn’t right sure just how serious his threats were. But Ely said he’d calm down after a while, and even if it took a while longer, he would see it was for his own good. He had been out in the river for quite some time, and another trapper walked over to the river’s edge and tossed him a piece of what looked like a cactus and told Stinky to use the pulp on his hair and it would help. He was a mighty red- and tender-skinned man when he finally climbed out of the river. Grub picked up a tanned elk hide and walked over to him, and he wrapped it around himself, and he simply said thanks. He was shiverin’ from the cold water as he walked over and stood by the fire to dry off and get warm.

  Me and Runnin’ Wolf was standin’ with this group of trappers, and I asked if anyone had seen where them skunks ran off to, and everyone just shook their heads. One of them said, “They’s probably down to the river too, tryin’ to wash Stinky’s smell off them,” and everyone roared with laughter.

  We talked ’bout where they had all spent last winter, and it seemed most of the Rocky Mountain Fur men stayed right here in Willow Valley, and they planned on doin’ that again this winter. I told them I had a place in the Bear River Mountains, and I figured there were still plenty of beaver to be had in that direction. But we were goin’ down into Ute territory first, and I didn’t know what I’d find down there. Grub and Ely both said I had me a right fine guide for that country in Runnin’ Wolf and there were beaver to be had. Ely told me that the Spanish claimed that land as their own. They had given a license to trap that country to a man by the name of Provost, said he was a Frenchy but worked with the Spanish out of Taos. But he said when they went with Ashley into that area, they stayed and trapped ’bout six months and never had any trouble.

  There was still a lot of drinkin’ and gamblin’ goin’ on. There were trappers and Injuns bettin’ on all sorts of contests. There was knife and tomahawk throwin’, foot races, and wrestlin’ matches. There was a horse race gettin’ started. It appeared to me the Injuns loved to gamble as much as the trappers did.

  The tradin’ area had been busy ever since we had got here, with the Bannocks tradin’ all the hides they had brought in, and then someone said there was a village of Flat Heads camped ’bout twenty miles north of us, and they would be comin’ in to trade tomorrow. It ’peared to me General William Ashley was makin’ a fortune.

  I made my way over and found General Ashley and talked to him for a while ’bout what he had found scoutin’ to the south of here a few days ago. He described a round valley not far, maybe ten or fifteen miles south, with three rivers that met in the middle of it. They formed one river, and it cut through a mighty steep, narrow rocky canyon goin’ down through the mountains to the west. He said that all three forks of this river looked like mighty good trappin’ grounds with plentiful game, and with it bein’ so close to Willow Valley, he figured one of his brigades
would trap those forks for the fall hunt.

  I told him I was goin’ to be headed for Ute country in just a few days and thought I might go through that area on the way. He suggested we go on through this valley, and maybe ten miles farther to the south, we would come upon a bigger river that would lead us right up into the western end of the Bear River Mountains. He told me his men were callin’ the river Weber River after their leader, John Henry Weber, who was leadin’ one of his brigades for Rocky Mountain Fur.

  I started wonderin’ ’bout all the supplies we’d picked up, and with the teepee and our other camp stuff, I thought we might need a couple more pack animals. I asked General Ashley if he figured he was goin’ to need all the mules for his return trip or if he might sell a pair of them to me. We made a deal for the mules, a couple more sacks of sugar, and a couple more empty barrels, and I still had over $600 on the books.

  Me and Runnin’ Wolf had just put the packs on our new mules, had the extra sugar in the barrels, and were ready to head back to our camp when somebody yelled from the other end of camp, “We got Injun trouble! They’s is two dead white men up on the big bend of the Bear!”

  16 Dead Men Don’t Tell

  We tied off the mules, Red, and the chestnut and went with all the others to where these trappers had just come in. Ely said he knew one of them. His name was Lucas Fuller, but he didn’t know the others. The one doin’ the talkin’ said his name was Clay Sanders, and the two youngsters with them were Noah Hart and Samuel Perkins. Said they had been up in the Absaroka country and spent the winter with the Crows, that they had run into a party of Blackfeet in Jackson’s Hole and had to turn back and go way out east and come down across the Popo Agie and then west to the Bear. That was why they were so late gettin’ here. ’Cause they sure didn’t want them Blackfeet cuttin’ their trail.

  He said ’bout midafternoon yesterday, they were followin’ the main trail along the Bear, and just where it started to turn south again, they came across a mighty gruesome thing. He said it was just by chance they saw them, ’cause they was off the trail apiece. He told us they were just ridin’ along, and he caught a scent of smoke and burned meat, so he rode over through the trees to see, that they found a little clearin’, and in it, two men had been staked out on the ground, stripped naked, and a fire built right ’tween their legs.

  He said red-hot coals had been put in their eyes and on the bottoms of their feet. He said he figured it took them a considerable amount of time to die. He said one of them had been castrated, and then it was all put in his mouth, and he had been scalped as well. While the other one wasn’t cut up at all, he said they cut them from the stakes and gave them a proper burial, but we’d not know what happened, ’cause dead men don’t tell.

  Someone said it had to be those Frenchmen, and everyone just nodded. Then someone else explained to Clay and the rest of them what had happened here at Rendezvous and what the Shoshones had done ’bout it and what we had done and that the Shoshones had warned them if they caught them, this would happen.

  Clay said, “I thought the Snakes was friendly to us trappers,” and someone else said, “They are, until we’re not friendly to them.” He pointed at me and said, “Grizzly Killer there and his Ute partner are livin’ right in their village with a couple of their squaws right now with no trouble at all.”

  Clay looked over at me and said, “So you’re the one they’s callin’ Grizzly Killer.” He said, “The Crows is even talkin’ ’bout your medicine up in Absaroka and out on the plains with the Sioux and Cheyenne.” He said, “Listenin’ to the stories they’re tellin’, I figured you must be bigger than a grizzly and your dog the size of a buffalo.” He walked over and looked up at me, then he said, “Well, you are mighty big man, but with all them stories they’re tellin’ ’round the fires at night, I sure thought you’d be bigger. Now where’s this buffalo-size dog of yours?”

  I whistled, and the group parted as Jimbo came to me.

  Clay jumped back and then laughed. He looked at Jimbo and shook his head then said, “Well, he ain’t as big as a buffalo, but he is the biggest damn dog I ever saw.”

  I patted Jimbo on the head and said, “Jimbo, meet Clay,” and Jimbo lifted his paw to shake, and everyone around had a good laugh.

  Someone asked Clay if them Blackfeet was a raidin’ party, a village, or what? Lucas spoke up for the first time and told us they weren’t there long enough to find out. Once they figured they was Blackfeet, they was hightailin’ it out of there mighty fast. He went on to tell us they was with the Crows last winter when them Blackfeet devils attacked a Crow village that was on the Yellowstone or, as the Injuns called it, the Elk River, maybe twenty miles from our village. When most of their warriors were on a hunt, they butchered everyone in the village—man, woman, and child—then burned it to the ground. Every lodge was lost. “When that huntin’ party came back and saw what was left, they sent a runner over to our village, and we got up a war party mighty fast. Clay and me went with them, but these two youngsters was out huntin’ with some young men from the village at that time.” He went on that they had followed them devils for near a week when a big norther blew in and they lost all sign of their trail. He said they were lucky to make it back at all with three feet of new snow and wind blowin’ so hard you could hardly see your horse’s ears. “After we saw what those Blackfeet do to people, we didn’t want to be anywhere they might find us.”

  Death was just accepted by all of us in these Shinin’ Mountains. No more was said ’bout the fate of Lucien and Jacques. I didn’t know for sure, but I, just like the rest, figured that was who these four latecomers had buried. That the Shoshone had done it, I had no doubt, but I didn’t think any less of them for it either. I had been raised on the edge of the frontier, where mostly the law was what good men believed was right and wrong, where men had the will to enforce what they believed was right. Those of us that chose to live this far from the civilized world just accepted this as part of life. I had no desire to change their ways and no desire to leave these mountains either. So I, like most all the trappers and explorers that just had to cross the next horizon, accepted the Injuns and their justice like we accepted our own. Their ways were harsh and cruel, just like this land they lived in, where every day was a struggle to survive.

  It was near dark when we got back to the lodge. Sun Flower and Raven Wing had those three elk hides staked out, fleshed, and the hair scraped off two of them. That grizzly hide looked like it had been worked hard as well. The cookin’ pot was settin’ on coals by the edge of the fire, and what they had in it was smellin’ mighty good. Me and Runnin’ Wolf unloaded and then picketed the mules with Red and the chestnut. I figured they would try to go back to the other mules they had been with for so long. So we made sure the picket line would hold and there was good grass for them so they didn’t try to move.

  When the chores were done, we sat down by the fire, and Sun Flower handed me and Runnin’ Wolf a carved wooden bowl, then Raven Wing filled them with a stew. It was made with the leftover elk roast and the wild onions and camas root and the root of a flower I’d heard called sego lily. Then they just stood back, waitin’ for us to eat. I motioned for Sun Flower to sit by me, and she seemed hesitant, but she did so. I asked her why she and Raven Wing weren’t eatin’ with us, and she looked at me and said, “Men eat first then women.”

  I looked at Runnin’ Wolf, and he was just grinnin’ at me. I asked Sun Flower if this was my fire. She looked puzzled but nodded. Then I asked her if this was my camp, and she nodded. Then I said to her and Raven Wing, “If this is my camp and this is my fire, then this is my food, and we will do things my way.”

  They both had very puzzled looks, and Sun Flower said, “You are not pleased with the food.”

  I said, “The food is good, the eatin’ is not. I want all of us to eat together. I want my woman to eat by my side when I eat. I want her to be by my side always. My woman is not my slave. She is my partner, and I will not eat until she does.
”

  Sun Flower looked at her sister and then at me and said, “We have only two bowls.”

  I grinned at her and said, “We will share this bowl then.” I reached in the bowl and pulled a very tender piece of meat out and put it to her mouth. Those beautiful dark eyes of hers were starin’ right into mine as she opened her mouth, and I slowly pushed the piece of elk between her lips.

  The next day we just stayed around camp most of the day. The women worked on finishin’ the hides. I walked out and found some suitable cottonwood pieces and went to work carvin’ a couple more bowls and some spoons. Eatin’ stew with your fingers is a messy process. Ma always had a bunch of wooden spoons, and when one would break, Pa would make a replacement. He liked usin’ hickory, but that doesn’t grow out here, so cottonwood will have to do.

  Runnin’ Wolf went out and checked on all the horses and brought in the women’s horses. Sun Flower’s roan and Raven Wing’s dun where both nice mounts, not what I would call great horses, but they did what was asked of them. I wondered what it would take to trade the Nez Pierce out of a couple of their Appaloosas. But then I figured what we had would do just fine.

  As we sat ’round the fire, drinkin’ coffee and eatin’ some of the fresh smoked elk for lunch, Runnin’ Wolf asked Sun Flower and Raven Wing if they could use weapons. Raven Wing said, “With warriors like us to protect them, why would they need to?”

  Sun Flower didn’t say a thing but took her knife and threw it. It stuck in the piece of firewood ’bout ten feet away, and then with a sly smile on her face, Raven Wing threw hers, and it stuck in the same piece of wood, only a couple of inches from Sun Flower’s. I must have had a surprised look on my face, ’cause Sun Flower smiled at me and said, “We grew up tryin’ to compete with Spotted Elk.” Then she looked at Raven Wing and said, “Raven Wing is good with a bow.”