by Terry Grosz
At Martin’s feet the blood from his facial wound dripped without favor on the bodies of four more dead Indians. Two had been shot at close range by pistols. One had been knifed in the throat and one had a deathly bruise on his neck, apparently killed with Martin’s strong hands in a violent fit of raging fury.
Ben had fared a little better. He had had his little finger on his right hand shot off at the palm. The shooter was still moving slowly at Ben’s feet as he held in his guts. Ben’s knife dripped with blood. Two more dead Indians laid at his feet as well, with crushed skulls—one had the pistol barrel still stuck in the skull, it having hit with such force.
Then all three men, as if one, swung their eyes towards Buffalo Calf and Singing Bird’s camp a few feet distant. No one was standing.
Buffalo Calf laid in a pile intermixed with four of the attacking Indians; none of them were moving. Singing Bird, on the other hand, was kneeling over Buffalo Calf and rocking gently back and forth. She emitted a low sounding wail. Off to her side lay three more dead warriors. In the fury of the fight, she had shot one with her pistol, had knifed another and had sunk Buffalo Calf’s tomahawk into the face of the last attacker.
Jacob ran to Buffalo Calf and felt his heart almost stop. There was a dark purplish-blue hole and powder burns in Buffalo Calf’s forehead, from a musket ball fired at close range. A gaping bloody hole. A hole mixed with fragments of glistening white bone at the back of his head.
Before he was killed, Buffalo Calf had made sure someone paid dearly for the ill-fated morning’s attack, if the dead at his feet were any evidence.
Ben stepped around Jacob and tenderly lifted Singing Bird up from Buffalo Calf’s inert form. She did not object but just cried harder over the loss of her husband as she was lifted from him and held tenderly by Ben.
Martin, now coming back from a short jaunt into the willows, carried the still-bleeding head of a young Indian boy. Martin must have gone into the willows to see if any more attackers still lurked.
Jacob could just imagine the scene. Martin must have surprised a young boy, probably on his first raid. Such boys would often be holding the attackers’ horses. No doubt, running into the boy, Martin still felt the fury of the earlier attack. Martin would have grabbed the boy by the hair, and in one savage swoop with a gutting knife, lopped off the boy’s head.
“This boy was the last,” spat out Martin. He threw the head into the slow-moving waters of the Big Sandy, its wide-set, dark brown eyes still showing great surprise. Within moments, live minnows in the waters tugged at the boy’s exposed bloody flesh.
Singing Bird, in shock and yet with typical Indian stoicism, reached up and removed the knife sticking in Jacob’s shoulder with a quick jerk.
The pain blinded Jacob. He let loose a sharp yell and almost fell to his knees, but managed to recover his senses as the pain settled in.
Singing Bird undid Jacob’s buckskin shirt and pulled it over his head, then dressed his wounds. Then she tended to Martin which took a whole lot more doing.
With needle and thread from her possibles kit laid to one side on a rock, she carefully washed out the facial wound and then sewed back the flap of skin—but not before expertly placing and sewing the many facial muscles crudely but firmly back into place. Martin said nothing of the intense pain during the operation. When Singing Bird finished, Martin silently nodded to her in thanks.
Then Singing Bird stoked up their fire. She took her always-sharp knife and placed the blade into the flame. After a few moments, she took Ben’s hand and removed the hot knife from the fire. She pressed the flat side hard against the remaining portion of his little finger. In so doing, she cauterized the still-bleeding wound against further infection.
Once she had tended to the men’s wounds, she partially pulled up her buckskin dress to reveal a broken arrow shaft sticking deeply into her thigh.
That woman is completely selfless, Jacob mused. I have never known anyone to be so brave, to treat others while she herself is in great pain and having just lost her man.
Blood trickled down Singing Bird’s brown leg and onto the sand in which she stood but not a sound did she make. She took the still-hot knife blade and cut out the arrowhead, which had hit the thighbone and stopped.
Again, not a sound did she utter!
With that, she dug into a pouch she carried at her side, removed some moss and healing herbs and pressed them over the furiously bleeding wound. She quickly cut a piece of tanned elk leather strapping from her possibles kit, bound up her thigh, and then dropped the dress with the bloody arrow hole over her leg as if nothing had happened.
Jacob stood there in amazement at what he had just observed, and finally realized it was all over. Now they had work to do.
Ben, with tears of grief freely rolling down his cheeks over the loss of his close friend Buffalo Calf, took his ax and rifle and disappeared into the brush and trees along the river. Soon chopping sounds could be heard.
Singing Bird went back to her husband; she kneeled down and began a low wail of grief once again from her very heart and soul; as she wailed, she dressed Buffalo Calf’s body in his finest buckskins.
Jacob and Martin, hefting their Hawkens and reloading their pistols, walked up the adjacent river bank above camp. From there they took a long and careful look out across the short-grass prairie for any other signs of danger. No other riders who might have heard the shooting and come to investigate were in view. Jacob was satisfied they were alone and not in further danger, and Martin agreed. They returned to their bloody campsite.
Ben identified the attackers as a raiding party of Crow. “I also think they thought our camp was Lakota and attacked. That mistake cost all of them their lives, and almost ours.”
The west is certainly beautiful, thought Jacob, but it can be bloody and deadly as well if one is not careful or is unlucky. And even if one is careful...
They dumped the Crow’s bodies into the Big Sandy to let nature work its magic. But not before mutilating the bodies so that entering the “Happy Hunting Grounds” would not be an option for the attackers.
Jacob and Martin then painfully assisted Ben in building a burial scaffold on the bluff overlooking their campsite. When completed and satisfied that the wolves could not get at the body, they wrapped and tightly bound Buffalo Calf—dressed in his finery—in a buffalo robe. They then tenderly laid the body on top of the burial scaffold. Alongside the body they placed his skinning and gutting knife. His bloody tomahawk was also placed at his side and his bow and arrows were laid at his feet. His old flintlock was laid along his right side with powder and shot—his Hawken being too valuable to leave. Food was also laid with him as well as under the burial scaffold.
A great silent sadness came over the group as they returned to camp to fix something to eat, load their livestock and be on their way. Singing Bird had already started breakfast as the men moved through the willows gathering up the attacking Indians’ horses. Now they had nineteen additional horses to add to their livestock—a sure-fire attraction for every Indian group that chanced their way because of the great value horses held in the wilderness.
Jacob tried to break the pervasive silence. “The horses will be great trading material if they can make it to the rendezvous. So will the eleven extra rifles we took from the Crow. I know they are old flintlocks or North West fusils of poor quality, not really great guns at all. But Indians without any firearms at the rendezvous will happily trade away most anything they have to get a ‘fire stick.’”
The three men finished breakfast, then loaded up their livestock and tethered the raiders’ stock into two long lines.
They left the Big Sandy for the trip to Cache Valley and the rendezvous. Singing Bird now led the way since she was familiar with the lay of the land. But before they left, all said goodbye to their late friend laying quietly on the burial scaffold in the Rocky Mountains wind.
Ben said a few last words in Lakota, then quietly explained to Jacob: “Buffalo Calf is
now waiting for his Maker to carry him off to the ‘Land of Eternal Sunrises and Unending Herds of Buffalo.’ Buffalo Calf was a good friend and knowledgeable frontiersmen. He will be sorely missed by everyone.”
For the next several days, Singing Bird wore ashes on her face and made many small cuts on her arms—her people’s tradition to show the grief she felt. Ben rode near her throughout those days as she continued her low wail and singing to the Great Spirit over the loss of her husband. From then on, when camp was made, Ben always made it a point to be near her side. She was still her own woman, but Ben just felt she still needed someone else around close at hand.
Chapter Fifteen
The 1831 Rendezvous
Singing Bird and Ben had stopped leading the caravan, and were looking from the mountain range on which they sat into the distant valley below. Singing Bird pointed and then made sign that this was Cache Valley, the site chosen for the 1831 rendezvous. Jacob and Martin tenderly rode up to have a gander for themselves—rode tenderly, because they were ever mindful of the still oozing wounds on their bodies slowly trying to heal. And riding on the hurricane deck of a horse cross-country wasn’t the best way to feel good and heal quickly.
They slowly worked their way off the mountain range and soon reached the valley floor. It was deep in grasses and small clear streams abounded underfoot. They rode to a small shallow lake with heavy stands of willow and cottonwood alongside a stream. There, they stopped and surveyed their surroundings. The area where they sat was easily out of the wind and out of sight of anyone passing by. There was also firewood aplenty and grass in abundance for their growing herd of horses. A depression in the ground at a potential campsite also made for a natural defensive position.
Jacob decided there they would stay until they located the rendezvous site. For the rest of that day everyone pitched in and constructed camp. They soon discovered an old corral among the trees near their campsite made by earlier visitors. With a little work, it held their entire herd of horses. Not familiar with the Indian nations in the area, Jacob made sure all their riding stock were hobbled when they were let out to feed or water. That way, if the herd was stampeded by Indians, their riding horses would at least not be far away. Then several shelters were constructed under the trees and covered with green cottonwood boughs to keep out the afternoon rains and glaring midday sun. They dug out a central, rock-lined fire pit, with several logs dragged to its edge for sitting. Singing Bird soon had a fire going and supper cooking as the men dragged in more firewood with their horses, enough to last for several days. After supper and not fully realizing just how tired they all were, they turned in. But not before laying multiple firearms within arms’ reach in case another hostile surprise came their way.
* * *
Daylight came. The sounds of Canada geese rising into the air in alarm erupted from the lake next to the camp. Quickly they honked their way out of earshot, but not before everyone in camp was instantly alert—without moving to give away that fact.
“Hello the camp,” came a sonorous voice from the twilight dark. “We are friends heading for the rendezvous. We smelled the wood smoke from your evening’s fire. May we enter and sit a spell?”
Jacob and Martin were up, armed and ready, as was Ben. Singing Bird had scuttled out of the way but was armed with her trusty fowling piece and two horse pistols, just in case.
“Come on in,” yelled Jacob, “but don’t touch a lick of iron unless you want to part with it and your hair as well!”
From the early morning darkness, three trappers slowly emerged with five mules in tow. Singing Bird must have sensed that all was well, for she commenced building her cooking fire from the previous evening’s coals. She signed, Six men in the morning must be famished. She hobbled around in the process.
Jacob was more hesitant. He kept his Hawken directed at the feet of the stranger who was taller than the others, who had an eagle feather perched at an angle in a wolf-skin cap. He sensed that Martin had his gun pointed directly between the other two.
The strangers held their empty hands up at shoulder height, to show they came in peace, but all three looked towards Singing Bird, whose bloody dress and leg wound were apparent to see.
Ben instinctively moved between the strangers and Singing Bird, and aimed his rifle from one to the next. Jacob knew the meeting had come to a decision point, so he used the tip of his rifle to wave the strangers into the camp.
“Man!” said the taller one with the eagle feather in his cap, “I’d say you fellas was in a recent scrape. And from the looks of you folks, I would hate to see those who started the ‘hoo-rah.’” Extending his hand, the man said, “I be Jim Bridger. This ugly one here is Hugh Glass and the squinty-eyed one is Tom Oliver. We was free trapping up on the Fire Hole on the Yellowstone. We was damn lucky to get out alive with all them red devils from the Blackfoot Nation behind every tree. Fact is, I am still carrying an arrowhead in my shoulder that I cain’t dig out from one of them encounters. So who might you folks be?”
“My name is Jacob. These are my friends Martin and Ben. The squaw is Singing Bird, a Lakota. Her man was just killed in a fight on the Big Sandy several days back. We all were involved but those starting the ‘hoo-rah’ didn’t make it to the next sunset.”
“How many was they and what kind?” asked Bridger with a questioning look of interest on his grizzled weather-beaten and bearded face.
“They was Crows and nineteen of them,” said Jacob.
“How many?” asked Bridger with the look of disbelief spreading across his face.
“Nineteen,” repeated Jacob in a quiet but matter-of-fact tone of voice.
“Whoo-whee!” uttered Bridger. His two partners just shook their heads and clucked their tongues in amazed disbelief. The group just stood there looking at one another regarding the previous information involving the number of attacking Crows for a long moment.
“Normally, they ain’t bad Injuns. Just up to their horse stealing ways. But that bunch must of had their ‘red’ up,” said Bridger with a thoughtful look on his face. “They normally ain’t this fer south either. If that was the case, I will be more careful in the future around that tribe in these here parts,” he mused. Then with the Indian thing explored enough to his way of thinking he said, “We have a fresh hindquarter from an elk we killed just last evening. If you boys are willin’ and iffin’ your squaw can cook, we would be glad to stretch our legs and sit a spell. Hopefully that be followed with some palaverin’ and eat some good meat for breakfast,” Bridger continued.
Martin gestured with his hand and said, “Grab a log and pull it up. We would be glad to make your acquaintance and eat with you boys since you brought the grub.”
With that, Glass and Oliver removed the elk hindquarter from the last mule and laid it down on a bed of firewood near the fire pit. As Singing Bird went to work gathering green willow cooking sticks and deftly butchering the hindquarter, the men sat around the fire with their weapons at hand and began visiting. Talk centered around the beaver trapping and trade, but they also shared information about the fierce Blackfoot Nation to the north. That talk was followed about griz and the problems they caused, especially at close range, and the price of plews, and on it went, until Singing Bird advised breakfast was almost ready. The meat was cooking away on roasting sticks and soon even better smells came from the two Dutch ovens sitting in a bed of glowing coals baking sourdough biscuits. Soon the men were wolfing down great chunks of almost raw meat, steaming hot coffee and Dutch-oven biscuits almost too hot to hold.
“Mm-mmm,” Bridger said amid the lip-smacking sounds. “I guess your squaw can cook after all.”
Singing Bird stood off to one side as the men ate. Then Ben suddenly motioned for her to join in and sit by him. Singing Bird took some meat and a biscuit, then demurely took a seat behind the men and out of sight. Jacob and Martin said nothing.
It had been obvious since they met Buffalo Calf and Singing Bird, that Ben was partial to her. Jacob
had paid it no mind since Buffalo Calf and Singing Bird were married and happily so. However, Singing Bird would bury her husband’s bones when they returned from rendezvous, according to Lakota tradition. With that accomplished, she would be free to do as she saw fit in her culture, or so Ben had told them. And to help her make that transition, all three men had already decided that Singing Bird, because of her hard work and having been married to Buffalo Calf, would get his share of the trappings.
“What do you fellas think about the three of us making camp next to your’n?” said Bridger through another mouthful of meat and biscuit. “That way, we would have more guns in case trouble was a-brewin’.”
Jacob, Ben and Martin just looked at each other for common agreement. Once they decided with their “eyes,” Jacob said, “That would be fine with us. We could use the extra rifles if needed and the good company goes without saying.”
“Then it’s done,” said Bridger. “We will camp in that there adjacent grove of trees up yonder if that meets your fancy. That way we will be out of the way of your camp but close enough to lend a hand if the shootin’ gets fierce and the killin’ good.”
With a grin over the newfound friendship and a wave of the hand, the men fell to the meal at hand until the entire hindquarter of elk and all the biscuits were consumed.
* * *
Every day thereafter, two men from each camp rode out to hunt in different directions and replenish the meat supply. The valley was full of elk, pronghorn and deer but skimpy on the buffalo. However, “pickin’s” were good as was the killing of many of the species, and so each camp member waxed fat under Mother Nature’s bounty.
However, that was not the main reason for venturing forth each day. Both camps were loaded with the results of their last winter’s and spring’s trappings. They needed them at rendezvous, to be supplied with all the necessities for living in the wilderness the coming year.