by Terry Grosz
One afternoon, as they approached a small lake nestled up against a ridge covered with lodgepole pine, Buffalo Calf signaled a halt. Jacob watched as Ben rode forward and carried on a discussion with Buffalo Calf, who pointed out things of interest as they talked.
When Ben returned to the group, he said, “This is home until the next rendezvous. Buffalo Calf suggested we dig into that small hillside and make a cave for storage of our valuables. That way they will be harder to steal than if left outside. Plus those items will be out of the damaging weather. Then we could build our cabin and several lean-tos directly into the base of the ridge, facing the lake. That way we will miss the deepest of the winter’s snows and winds. Plus we will have a constant supply of firewood close at hand, have plenty of good water nearby in the lake, and it will be a good place to fight off any attacks with our backs to the ridge. Buffalo Calf also says many elk and buffalo winter in the adjacent valley to the east and there is plenty of high quality mountain hay in the nearby meadow for our horses.”
Jacob took a quick look around the area to make sense of what Ben had said, then watched as Martin did the same. Martin then nodded to Jacob in agreement. With that they moved all their horses into a close-at-hand, quickly made pole-and-rope corral to prevent a stampede in case of the ever-present threat of an Indian attack. Then the packs were lifted off the tired animals and stacked next to a deadfall of pines. In effect, this made a small defensive firing position against any roving war parties.
In the meantime, Singing Bird offloaded her horses’ packs and commenced putting up the tepee in a small clearing immediately adjacent to where the rest of the trappers were working. Ever mindful of The Ways, she positioned the opening of the tepee to the catch the sun’s morning rays from the east.
Buffalo Calf rode off to investigate the surrounding area while Jacob, Martin and Ben put their backs to their shovels and dug a sizeable cave in the hillside. The cave was eventually roofed, floored and walled on the inside with green logs. Once the cave was completed, the men began cutting a large number of pine logs.
In several days, the walls of a large cabin began to take shape adjoining the newly dug cave. After erecting a log roof over the walls of the cabin, it was then covered with cross-timbers, which were then deeply covered with chopped sagebrush. Then with their shovels, they covered the roof with three feet of fresh earth, which had been set off to one side when the cave had been dug. Afterwards, the men offloaded barrels of gunpowder, primers, spare parts, extra axes, blankets and other valuable items from the packs. They stacked the boxes and barrels on the raised log floor of the cave, to keep them high and dry. Then they placed their dry foodstuffs on the shelves dug into the back and side walls of the cave, which had been lined with flat rocks to keep those valuable items out of harm’s way.
About then Singing Bird spoke to the men in Lakota, and when they turned, they observed Buffalo Calf entering camp.
“Where have you been?” Jacob asked. “You’ve been gone for several days.”
“I have been hunting, to bring food. I have bighorn sheep ewe for us to eat.”
“You’ve been ducking out on what you think is ‘woman’s work’ of cutting wood and building a cabin,” Ben said.
Buffalo Calf gave a sheepish grin. He patted the sheep carcass laid behind him on his horse and said, “I bring bighorn sheep to eat.”
“That will be some good eats,” said Ben with a hungry grin as he moved to help Buffalo Calf unload the animal, ignoring the man’s long absence in the process.
The two men removed the animal from the horse and took it over to a smiling Singing Bird. They left it next to her campfire for preparation, then Ben returned to building the trapper’s winter quarters. However, Buffalo Calf still found it difficult to get involved in the hard and dirty work. He was not into this shoveling and chopping thing because in his Lakota culture, women did much of that kind of work. Buffalo Calf sauntered off again with his horse, going out of sight into the dense willows and brush lining the many creeks next to camp.
Ben just grinned at his Lakota friend as he and Jacob and Martin got back to work making a solid post and stringer corral for the horses. Singing Bird, true to her work ethic and reputation, was making her hands fly as she carefully dressed and skinned the bighorn. Doing so, she worked carefully because bighorn sheepskin, when properly tanned, made some of the most supple clothing imaginable, especially ladies’ dresses.
The men had just finished their horse corral with heavy lodgepole pine logs sunken into the earth and lashed with smaller side poles when Singing Bird walked over to them. In her beautiful singsong language, she told Ben supper was ready. The three tired and sweaty men washed, picked up their rifles and walked over to her tepee. They got there just in time to see Buffalo Calf once again riding out of the willows with a big smile on his face.
The Lakota stepped off his horse lightly. “I ride one-half of one-half of valley, down along creeks below our camp,” he said. He spread his arms as wide as he could. “Beaver more than my arms can hold and they are everywhere!”
A ripple of anticipation and excitement spread palpably throughout camp. Soon everyone was talking all at once through large mouthfuls of delicious bighorn sheep stew, laced with aromatic sage, pepper, salt, wild onions freshly dug from a nearby rocky hillside and starchy tubers from a nearby marsh—tubers none of which the men recognized but all enjoyed for their potato-like flavor. Then the thick, spicy gravy from the stew was sopped up with Singing Bird’s wonderful Dutch-oven biscuits. With that kind of a repast in the evening high in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, what else could one ask for?
Well, maybe less mosquitoes, thought Martin. Before the evening was done, the group had eaten most of the small bighorn sheep.
“I can’t believe we finished off that entire animal,” Jacob said. “Oh,” said Ben, “it’s not unusual. I figure that trappers will often eat between seven and ten pounds of meat in one sitting. After all, their meals may be few and far between.”
The next morning, Martin and the others awoke to find a frosty dew on all their sleeping furs under the lean-to. For certain a sign of what is soon to come, thought Martin, ever the woods-wise individual.
The men hung their bedding furs on the sides of the horse corral to dry and let the hobbled horses out to graze around camp. Buffalo Calf provided horse guard while the other three continued building permanent lean-tos for the harsh winter weather to come. That even included a large lean-to for their horse herd, now numbering twelve. This would give them shelter when blizzards descended over the land.
As for the cabin, there were still lots of cracks between the wall logs. That problem was soon remedied. Singing Bird started mixing grasses from the meadow and mud of the nearby lakeshore. Carrying a load of the mud and grass mixture in a hide basket, she attacked the cracks in the logs with her flying and skillful hands. Soon the cracks were filled with bark chips from the log cuttings, moss, and the mud-grass mixture from the lake. The men cut window openings on the ends and front of the structure, and shooting ports in the walls in case of attack.
Then it was done! A log cabin with a dirt floor measuring twenty by fifteen feet in size and seven feet in height. No ordinary little fur trapper’s cabin, this one. It had a porch over the stone front step and a long porch overhang extending the full length of the front wall. Here one could sit and watch out over the geography of the land. And from under the dry cover of the front porch, flesh out and hoop animal skins. At the north end of the cabin stood a stout mud, log and stone fireplace for heating and cooking.
Then they covered the window openings with soft deer hides that allowed in some light but kept out the weather. These drapes could be rolled up in the summer to allow in the breezes, and lowered in the winter to keep out the snow and cold. Additionally, they had interior log shutters over the windows with firing holes that could be closed and locked in case of an attack.
The back end of the cabin butted right into the hillside
in front of the cave where their most priceless supplies and furs could be stored. On either side of the cabin stood a large, well-built lean-to. Close at hand and under the covering fire from several windows stood a very stout log corral for the horses. Twenty feet distant in the clearing stood Singing Bird and Buffalo Calf’s tepee, close enough so they could safely and quickly run to the fortified cabin for protection if need be.
Then Jacob and Martin constructed log tables, chairs, benches, and sleeping and storage platforms for inside the cabin. It was then Buffalo Calf finally realized that if he wanted to be warm and have his food cooked, he would have to help in gathering the winter’s supply of firewood. Apparently not happy about it, he began helping in the cutting and hauling of firewood in preparation for the upcoming winter.
Once they finished the inside of the cabin with a hearthstone for the fireplace and all the needed sleeping platforms, benches, and storage shelves, Jacob and Martin turned their creative talents to the outside. Soon pegged wooden benches and tables graced the outside for those who would be skinning and fleshing out the hides. Much bantering and good-natured talk flowed back and forth between those working in the house and those cutting wood.
After Jacob and Martin were finished with the furniture, everyone tried and retried those household furnishings, declaring they were more than fit for the life of a fur trapper.
Then all four men fell to gathering up even more firewood to see them through the worst kinds of winter. Once that feat was done, off to the surrounding rocky hills they went to harvest the bighorn sheep for the meat, jerky, tallow and fine hides they offered.
That was followed with the cutting of the iron-hard mountain mahogany for the special kind of wood needed for their Dutch- oven cooking. To use the local and plentiful lodgepole pine for cooking would smoke up the sides of the Dutch ovens, and to use cottonwood would take a mountain of wood to get the necessary bed of coals. Hence, much effort was put into procuring a winter’s supply of the dense mountain mahogany hardwood.
The work did not stop there. Hay from their meadow was cut, cured and gathered by Singing Bird. That hay was then secured in a lean-to for those times in the winter when the snows drifted so deeply the horses could not forage for themselves. At that same time, Singing Bird gathered curing Indian rice grasses from the nearby sagebrush flats to put between the inside liner and outside wall of her tepee. Soft grasses were also gathered and placed in leather bags, for her man’s winter footwear to act as an insulator when he came home wet and cold from trapping. Seeds from those grasses, especially the Indian rice grasses, were carefully thrashed from the plants, ground into flour or stored in thick buffalo hide containers called parfleches to be used for thickening in stews.
Lastly, the men put an edge to all their knives, axes and shovels, then double-checked their rifles and made sure their traps were in working order. The traps were then smoked over an open fire to eliminate the “man” smell and hung on wooden pegs inside a lean-to.
The summer of building their base of operations was nearly done. With a fast-approaching fall, Ben and Buffalo Calf went out to open a beaver dam and trap those beaver who came to repair the damage. In so doing, they would get some of the much- needed castoreum for all the men to use trapping beaver. Come the evenings, Ben spent time carving and hollowing out wooden containers from Douglas fir limbs to hold the foul-smelling castoreum mixture. A wooden top or plug finished out the item that was hung about the neck by a leather cord for easy access during the trapping process.
Meanwhile, Martin and Jacob went out to the nearest buffalo herd to “make meat.” Knowing Ben and Buffalo Calf would be through with their work before the buffalo hunters were theirs, they left directions as to where they could be found. Singing Bird, on the other hand, stayed behind to tend camp, build meat- drying racks and make final preparations for the start of trapping season.
Careful to just shoot the edge of the buffalo herd, Jacob and Martin each dropped a fat cow with their first shots. Then they took the extra Hawkens and dropped two more cows before the first two had quit kicking. Quickly reloading, they dropped another pair of plump cows. In a matter of minutes, they had dropped ten buffalo before the animals spooked and lumbered off. That was enough anyway, the two men agreed—any more than that and the meat would spoil before it could be processed. They rode out to the animals, then began gutting, skinning and boning out the meat as fast as they could. Both men had built travois for their riding horses and packhorses and soon they fairly bent under the weight of the great slabs of bloody meat.
By nightfall, the two men had boned out much of the meat and loaded it on the travois or stacked it on the skin sides of the fresh hides laying on the ground. A yell from the timber soon told the tired men help was on the way from the rest of their group.
The four men built a huge fire in among the remaining buffalo to be processed to keep the wolves at bay and provide some light, then hurriedly removed the rest of the meat and hides from the last of the dead animals. With overloaded horses, they slowly made their way back to camp. Behind them, the wolves made many gruesome noises over their still-warm gifts of guts, heads, bones and meat scraps.
They arrived back at camp well into the evening. The men tiredly sat down to the serious business of eating another great meal prepared by the ever-faithful Singing Bird. This time, it was cooked beaver meat and cornbread. That was topped off with great spoonfuls of honey piled high on the remaining pieces of cornbread. The repast gave the men the needed strength to continue and that they did until the morning light. Come daylight, half the meat had been cut into strips and hung on wooden drying racks under a smoldering fire of willow, aspen and cottonwood. Finishing up the meal from the evening before, the men continued until noon. By then all the meat was cut into strips and placed on the smoking and drying racks.
With that, they turned in while Singing Bird tended the drying fires under the racks, making sure they were not too hot and not too cool for the job. She also kept the nearby coyotes and magpies from snatching pieces of the drying meat in between all her other duties.
The men woke to the delicious smell of frying buffalo meat in bear grease. They ate like they hadn’t eaten for days. Then, after having occasionally turned more meat on the racks, brined some of the cuts for winter use, cleaned many feet of fresh intestines in the lake’s waters for later consumption and kept the fires smoking, Singing Bird finally rested up.
Several days later, the meat processing was completed and hung from the cabin’s ceiling rafters in many soft deerskin pouches. On the ropes leading from the rafters to the bags of jerked meat were wooden “plates” with a hole cut into the center for the rope to go through. That way the wooden plates could be placed over a knot on the rope halfway down, to stop any varmints from going further down the rope to get at the valuable bags of dried meat.
Much work went into “making meat,” However, if not done correctly, terrible times would be the consequences come winter. Meat was the main food staple for the trappers and backwoodsmen in the wilderness, and without such high-energy foods, it was doubtful they could survive what awaited them, especially when the winter winds howled and temperatures dropped below zero.
With that necessary work behind them, the men made ready for the much-anticipated fall trapping season with all its “warts.”
Chapter Twelve
Setting a Trap
A chilled dawn heralded the trapping season.
The four men had finished saddling their horses. Then they breakfasted on fresh venison, cornbread and steaming hot coffee. They stuffed the rest of the cornbread into a soft deerskin pouch in their saddlebags, along with some jerky, and they were ready to go.
Each man carried a rifle: a Hawken each for Jacob, Ben and Martin, and a flintlock by Buffalo Calf. Each carried a horse pistol tucked in his sash, a tomahawk, and a gutting and skinning knife. A hand ax hung from each saddlehorn as did six beaver traps in a sack. A rolled-up blanket over the rear of each saddle con
tained extra pairs of moccasins and some James River chewing tobacco.
Each man sported a gray flannel shirt and a Hudson’s Bay Company blanket coat with a powder horn hung over the shoulder from a leather thong. Blanket cloth leggings over a pair of leather breeches with dressed elk moccasins comprised the lower wear and a sack of “possibles” hung from their off shoulders to complete the outfit. The “possibles” sacks contained flints and steel for fire making, spare rifle locks and picks to clean the nipples, worms for pulling bullets, extra tins of primers, cloth patches and spare lead balls.
Everyone had long hair and Jacob sported a full beard, while his Indian friends remained essentially beardless.
They left a loaded double-barreled fowling piece and two pistols with Singing Bird for defense before they moved off into another of life’s adventures.
Ben and Buffalo Calf took the northwestern side of the extensive creek-dotted valley while Martin and Jacob took the southeastern side. In short order, the trappers made their sets along the beaver-populated streams and ponds. When they finished setting out their six traps each, both teams continued exploring the valley further to the north and south, scouting out additional trapping sites. The valley was heaven-sent for fur trappers if the numbers of beaver present were a measure. Six large streams cluttered the valley, which were loaded with moose, willows, numerous beaver ponds, cutthroat trout and muskrat. Everywhere in the waterways showed evidence of the use by beaver: evidence such as mud runs, half-cut trees, beaver ponds, beaver houses, green limbs jammed into the mud at the bottom of a deep pond that were underwater beaver food stashes, tracks, numerous beaver dams ... and the animals themselves.