by Terry Grosz
Jacob felt her spirit just below the skin. It flowed into his own. They touched, pressed and caressed, learning each other, letting one another’s spirit flow together. They spoke in gentle words, each in a language the other did not understand, yet these were words as old as the earth, as easily understood as the sky. Jacob could not recall when they had disrobed, or when they had found themselves in the bedroll together, under furs and blankets. He only knew he wanted to learn more about her, to keep joining with her, to be closer than he had ever been to any person, inside her heart and her thoughts, as she was in his. He had discovered something stronger than lust, something nine times stronger.
Love.
It was hours later before Jacob could pull himself from his new bride. White Fawn lay quietly amid the furs, supple and beautiful and trusting. It took impossible strength for him to pull his eyes away, even more to actually leave the cabin for the late-morning mountain air—when had it become late morning? Had they been in bed for so long?
Martin and Running Fast had been waiting for him. They teased one another, while Martin would stop every now and again to teach her a word in English, and she taught him in Snake.
“Ahem,” Jacob made his presence known. “Not like an Indian to let a white man sneak up on him.”
Martin turned, and gave his childhood friend the biggest smile ever. The Delaware Indian scooped up Running Fast and whirled her about, then said to Jacob, rather matter-of-factly, but with much energy, “I have consummated my marriage, Jacob the White Man! This is my woman.”
“That’s good,” Jacob replied, poking fun at Martin. “Perhaps you can give me a little bit of that meat and some coffee, and get back to whatever you were doing, and I can bring my woman some breakfast while I continue to consummate my marriage.” The Wind River Mountains watched over them. The nearby creek gently reported its flow of water down the valley towards the large lake. Somewhere an eagle screeched. It was not like the men to lose a day without work, but this was their honeymoon with their new wives, and never had there been a more beautiful day in a more beautiful place.
Throughout that fall and into winter, the men trapped and their wives managed the camp. The men took Tom and Al’s traps and ran those as well. Soon both pack animals returned to camp almost daily loaded with every beaver they could carry. And true to form, the hard-working women stayed ahead of the men in the skinning, fleshing and hooping duties. Soon their supply of beaver, river otter, muskrat and fox hides formed several small mountains in their cabins.
Fortune had again smiled on the two men as trappers. And, if the price of pelts were worth anything that year, they would be able to replenish their supplies and gaily dress their women with just about anything in the way of apparel they desired.
Come the deep part of winter, the men quit trapping and settled down to await the spring thaw. Their work still continued, however. They were involved in such things as making new moccasins, repairing the old ones, casting more bullets for their rifles and pistols, and packing the furs into traveling bundles. The men also took the time to teach White Fawn and Running Fast to load and shoot the rifles and pistols accurately, in case the need arose in their absence. Those activities also included teaching the women the English language and learning that of the Snake. Lastly, when the weather was right, the men cared for their stock and made meat from the numerous moose and mule deer wintering in the valley near their camp.
When the spring of 1834 came, the men were more than anxious to resume trapping and add to their hoard of plews. Soon the ice was out and the men began once again the business of trapping. It seemed the beaver had greatly multiplied over the winter and the men begin catching large numbers of the furry rodent daily. Several times they brought in such loads of beaver that they had to stay home the following day to help their wives with the skinning and hooping duties.
Finally, the long-awaited moment after a hard spring-trapping season arrived and the furbearers had gone out of prime. The men stopped trapping so they could have their hides dried and processed before the journey to the 1834 rendezvous on Ham’s Fork of the Green. The last plews were finally packed into traveling bundles, more bullets were cast for the rifles and items not needed for the trip were cached since they would be returning to this area after the rendezvous. The men then tended to the livestock, making sure all were shod if needed and the tack repaired for the long trip ahead. Lastly, two moose were killed and made entirely into jerky for the trip in case the hunting was poor along the way.
Come the day of departure, they made quite a caravan. Each woman rode her own horse and led two others with travois carrying camp and sleeping items along with a number of tanned buffalo hides. These buffalo hides had been acquired from the Snake in trade for North West fusils, powder, lead and Green River knives over the quiet winter months. The men rode their own horses, each of them leading four pack animals heavily loaded with furs and some needed camp equipment for the trip. Each woman carried a pistol and by now knew how to use it, and Jacob and Martin carried their Hawkens, two pistols each, and extra rifles on the first packhorses in the line for instant retrieval. They had done well once again. On the packhorses were more than four hundred beaver plews, one hundred muskrat hides, and another hundred fox, river otter and mule deer hides. On two of the travois led by their wives were nothing but tanned buffalo hides. Suffice it to say, it had been a very good season for trapping.
For some several days on the trail, Jacob noticed that the two Indian women seemed to be conspiring in whispers. They would giggle and shoot the men sideways glances. Something was up, but when asked, White Fawn demurely looked away and would not answer.
One night, around a campfire, with the horses quietly eating the grasses in a meadow they had found, Running Fast told Martin “Come,” and pulled him away by the arm to run off into the darkness nearby.
White Fawn sidled up next to Jacob on the rocks by the fire. “Jacob, you are good man.”
“You are good woman.” Jacob could see his wife struggling with English to tell him something.
“You are strong man. You bring good spirit to me.”
Jacob was lost. “I am glad you are happy,” he said.
“No! No, no no!” White Fawn’s eyes began to well up. So frustrated was she to say what she had to say. She looked like she was making ready to sign, but instead pulled her dress up over her stomach. Jacob, confused by her timing, could not react. White Fawn reached for his hand, then placed it on her stomach. Leaving the one hand there on top of his, she placed her other hand to his heart.
“Little person,” she said.
Jacob rapidly pulled his hand back and jumped to his feet. “You’re pregnant?” he stared deep at her, so intense was his question.
White Fawn stared into his eyes, afraid, unable to interpret his sudden actions, apparently. After a heartbeat, she quickly and nervously touched her belly. “Little person inside.”
Jacob broke into joyous laughter and pulled White Fawn to her feet. “A baby!”
White Fawn giggled, the anxiety of telling her husband she was pregnant having been met with his pride and happiness. “Bay-bee?” she asked, as she always did when she was trying to learn a new English word.
“Baby. Little person.” Jacob explained. “Wahh! Wahh!” he said as he tried to mimic a crying infant.
“Baby.” White Fawn put Jacob’s hand back on her stomach. “Ohmaa,” to teach Jacob the Snake word.
Jacob pulled White Fawn close and tight. Then he began to dance a jig. “I’m going to be a father! I’m going to be a father!” Then, regaining his tough-man composure, Jacob said, “I can’t wait to tell Martin.”
“Martin make baby, too.”
Jacob stopped, motionless. As he worked the new information into his skull, a loud Whoop! came from the darkness. It was Martin. Soon, Jacob’s old friend came running back to the campfire, his wife barely able to keep up with her husband’s grip. “Jacob! I’m going to be a father!”
; “And so am I!”
* * *
The couples headed south along the New Fork River until it joined the Green River. Then, they followed the Green to Ham’s Fork and finally arrived one beautiful afternoon after numerous days on the trail.
They soon discovered that the American Fur Company was camped near the junction of Ham’s Fork and Black’s Fork while the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was another seven miles up the Ham’s Fork. Then they discovered that a man named Wyeth, a freelance trader, was another five miles above the Rocky Mountain Fur Company on Ham’s Fork. These scattered trading camps made for a lot of traveling back and forth during the rendezvous trading process.
White Fawn and Running Fast, never having been to a rendezvous, were wide-eyed at what lay before them. Surprise after surprise awaited the two because neither had ever experienced in their lives such an abundance of white man’s things.
Jacob just had to smile at what their ladies were discovering upon arrival in each new trading camp, and he even caught Martin stifling a chuckle himself. One thing is for certain, the women sure do cotton to looking glasses, rings, bolts of brightly colored cloth and the many colored glass beads that are available in the camps.
The beaver plews were way down in price because the silk top hat industry was now more than ever supplanting that of beaver. Jacob and Martin traded very carefully for their needs in the coming year. Their many buffalo robes brought top dollar as did their river otter and fox pelts, especially since the two wives had done such an excellent job in skinning, fleshing and hooping the hides. As a result they got more than they needed in goods, including a fair amount of items to trade with the Indians throughout the coming year. Jacob and Martin also found themselves dressing up their wives in the finest “foofaraw” the beaver trade could supply. Many a trapper’s head turned when those women rode by, making Jacob and Martin smile with pride even more so when they were offered top dollar for the women by other trappers. Their women had turned out to be excellent wives in every word and deed. Both men as well discovered themselves very deeply in love with their wives—and they, with them. No, these Indian women were not for sale.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gros Ventre
The rendezvous was as jubilant, drunken and chaotic as in years past, but experience and a sharp eye kept the two Kentuckians and their new brides out of trouble. As rendezvous grew to a close, the word had spread that the next year’s get- together would be in the vicinity of Fort Bonneville near Horse Creek, site of the 1833 rendezvous. Jacob and company retraced their steps back to the Wind River Mountains.
Back at the cabins, they found most everything as it had been left months earlier. For the next several months, they hauled winter firewood to camp and several buffalo hunts were held jointly with their wives’ band of Snakes. Goods were traded with the Indians for their buffalo robes and they dug up their cached goods and equipment to make ready for the trapping season—that and the care of the horse tack ate up the remainder of the men’s time.
Soon it was time to begin trapping as the beaver started once again coming into their prime. On the day to begin trapping, the men hurried through a hearty breakfast of fried moose steak in bear grease, fried cornmeal mush and several steaming hot cups of coffee. Sitting there eating, Jacob ran through his mind the changes made to camp in the past months. Both cabins had been upgraded so they would be safer in case of attack by any roaming bands of Blackfoot. Those upgrades included a door that could be bolted and windows that could be locked and shuttered from the inside with shooting ports. An additional door had also been added to the rear of each cabin for emergency escape if necessary. An outhouse of rather stout proportions had been added nearby on the side hill, which precluded defecating just anywhere and later finding “it” on your moccasins. Also, being heavy with child, an outhouse made it easier for the women to relieve themselves.
Each woman now had a muzzle-loading, double-barrel shotgun over the door of her cabin and a Hawken rifle over the fireplace for defense, and knew how to use them. Plus, both women carried a horse pistol and knife at all times. And to the great satisfaction of Jacob and Martin, both women knew how to use such weapons and use them well. The lessons of Tom and Al’s deaths at the hands of the murderous Blackfoot had been well learned and passed on.
Leaving that first morning of the 1834 fall trapping season, both men waved goodbye to their women and proceeded downstream, to a nearby valley full of ponds holding beaver lodges in such profusion it all but promised excellent trapping results. While Martin sat guard on his horse, Jacob set his traps. Then the men—used to the security ritual—switched places and Martin set his traps while Jacob watched over his partner. When they finished those activities, they tied off their pack animals in the dark timber out of sight from any prying eyes that might be in the country. Then the men headed further downstream to scout out new trapping territories for when the first area was trapped out. They hadn’t gone a mile when they ran across many sets of fresh, unshod, horse tracks.
Martin examined the tracks. “As near as I can count, there are about twenty Indians here. I wish I knew which tribe. The tracks are pretty fresh, so we could be in some danger. Be quiet and we’ll follow these tracks.”
Later that day they ran across the mystery riders’ encampment. Quietly looking on from a brushy ridge above the scene, both men quickly determined from the strangers’ clothing that they were the deadly Gros Ventre, kin to the Blackfoot.
Jacob signed to Martin, “I see only young warriors. This looks to be a raiding party for horses and scalps. I will stay here, with the Gros Ventre, and you will leave quickly to seek help from the Snake Indian villagers, five miles upstream. With our combined numbers, we will attack this war party and kill as many as we can before they can hurt anyone in our valley.”
Martin agreed. “The Gros Ventre have made camp for the night. Meet me here when I return.”
“Once you bring the Snake Indian warriors, we will think of a plan of attack.”
Moments later, Martin glided silently off into the forest towards the Snake’s friendly encampment. Jacob, in the meantime, took to heavy cover, watched and waited.
* * *
Five hours later, Martin approached Jacob as silently as he had left him. Armed with his bow and arrows and his Hawken, he was accompanied at a distance by twenty-five heavily armed, fiercely painted and mounted Snake warriors.
Martin advised Jacob in sign: “I recovered the staked horses from the timber and took them to our camp. I told our wives of the danger. I brought back six North West fusils, powder and shot, which I gave to the Snake Indian warriors. The guns will fortify their resolve and guarantee their presence in battle.”
Jacob nodded in agreement, then signed, “The Gros Ventre have bedded down for the night. They are all still near their campfire.”
Martin gave Jacob a thumbs up and then they both scuffled off to where the Snake warriors were hiding below the overlook. Martin quickly informed Chief Nash-e-weta of the position of the Gros Ventre, then Martin, Jacob and Nash-e-weta began formulating a plan.
“I’ll take ten warriors,” Jacob signed, “and come in on the Gros Ventre from the side of their horse herd, over there. Martin will go with you and the rest of the warriors and overrun the camp from the far side, there. Once the Gros Ventre are surprised by the attack, they will naturally try to escape by running for their horses. As they come towards me, my group of warriors will kill as many Gros Ventre as we can with the rifles. Then we will all fight in battle.”
“I will give the hoot of a great homed owl as a sign that the attack will start.”
Chief Nash-e-weta agreed, and they clasped wrists.
Both parties quietly separated into the early evening’s darkness. Jacob waited a short time for the others to get in place, then led his warriors silently down the hill and into position between the horses and the now sleeping and unawares Gros Ventre Indians.
Hoo-hoo—hooo, hoo-hoo—hooo came the
call from Martin, and then all hell broke loose.
Jacob looked on at the Gros Ventre camp as Martin’s group of warriors came running with a bloody war cry into it. The Snake warriors screamed, yelled and used their tomahawks with precision. The thudding reports of a tomahawk strike on a Gros Ventre skull were permeated by rifle shots. The Gros Ventre, caught unawares, started to rout. They began to run for their lives, to reach their horses. They ran directly at Jacob’s hidden team, just as he had predicted.
Jacob’s team of warriors watched him. They were eager to get into the fight.
“Fire!” Jacob shouted, and took aim and fired. The warriors lying beside him followed with their own volley. A barrage of thunder, a line of smoke and hurtling lead bullets met the onrushing Gros Ventre at close range.
Jacob reached for his pistol, while the rest of his team raised tomahawks and knives. They took advantage of the confused enemy to charge them and fight at arm’s length. Jacob fired his pistol at one Gros Ventre, hitting him in the chest, and in one fluid motion before his opponent fell, he turned to another Gros Ventre warrior who was trying to run past and tomahawked him on the side of the head.
Then a white light of pain exploded inside Jacob’s head before all went dark.
Jacob came to sometime later and looked into the fuzzy worried face of his friend, Martin. He blinked back the fog of injury and tried to figure out what had happened. He felt a burning sensation along the side of his head, just above his ear. Reaching up, he discovered fresh and dried blood from a long wound running the full length of the left side of his head. To the sounds of screaming and frenzied Snakes celebrating their great battle, Jacob tried to raise himself to a sitting position. He almost passed out from the pain, but Martin steadied him.
Soon his head cleared somewhat and between the two of them, they tried to make sense out of what had happened. None of the Gros Ventre running for their horses had fired any weapons, so the bullet that had creased Jacob’s skull had to have come accidentally from the attack led by Martin’s team. One inch closer to the center of the skull and he would have been a goner.