Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Back to twenty-four,” Jim answered, his eyes growing wide with excitement, “and that was the first year the general wasn’t headed upriver with them keelboats to get on by the Ree villages. This time he was bound to ride overland for the mountains.”

  “Say, boys—my belly’s beginning to holler for fodder,” Potts declared, leaning over to scoop up a handful of sand from the bottom of the pool. “Telling me it’s time to eat my fill of that elk we shot this morning.”

  For a few moments Titus watched with interest as Potts, then Beckwith, scooped up one handful after another and used it to scrub their skin.

  “What’re you two doing?”

  Potts replied, “Givin’ ourselves a good washing.”

  “Just sittin’ there in the river isn’t going to help a man much,” the mulatto advised.

  “When was the last time you sat your ass down in some water?” Potts asked.

  With a shrug Titus said, “Been a long time. ’Cept for times I swum rivers with my critters and stood freezing in mountain streams—I ain’t been near no washing water for more’n a year.”

  “Once a year,” Potts instructed, “a man ought’n wash up proper … as good a cleaning as he can.”

  Bass said, “I never figgered I’d be one to carry me lye soap.”

  “We ain’t the sort to carry no soap neither,” Beckwith explained. “But a good hard scrubbin’ with sand does a toler’ble job, Scratch.”

  “Awright,” Titus answered them, scooping up a double handful of sand, which he smeared over his chest.

  “Rub it hard, now,” Potts said. “Gotta get shet of all that stink afore ronnyvoos.”

  “If you watch, you’ll see your horses and mules does about the same thing when they have themselves a roll in the dirt,” Beckwith said as he pulled one leg out of the water and began sanding it.

  Next to his, Bass’s leg was starkly white. In fact, Scratch was so pale, his legs reminded him of the skinny white legs on the pullets the family raised back on the place in Boone County. Only his hands from wrist down were deeply tanned, along with that wide vee extending from his neck onto his chest, as well as his darkened face. Except for those river crossings when he briefly stripped off his clothing, every other part of his pale hide had been protected from much exposure to the sun’s light as far back as he could remember.

  At first it was an odd sensation, rubbing the river bottom grit from chin to toe, but soon enough it became a right pleasant feeling. In fact, his skin began to tingle and glow the more he scrubbed.

  “That ’bout does it for me,” Beckwith announced as he rose out of the water, turned, and long-legged it onto the riverbank to stand dripping among the foxsedge.

  “I’m done too,” Potts agreed as he stood with a splash.

  Bass watched in amusement as the two trembled and quaked, shaking what they could of the water from their flesh just like a hound. Then, as the evening breezes cooled, they quickly stepped into their clothing, despite still being a little damp. Potts pulled on leather britches and a ragged, dirty calico shirt. Beneath his linen shirt Beckwith wore a pair of leggings and a breechclout, same as Bass.

  As Titus emerged from the water, shivering in the gentle movement of a cool wind, the other two plopped to the ground and began pulling on their moccasins.

  “Dang if it ain’t time to fill up my meatbag,” Potts declared. “Been a long stretch since breakfast.”

  “C’mon, now—don’t dally,” Beckwith urged Bass. “Unless you hurry, there won’t be a thing left for us to eat.”

  “He’s right.” Potts smacked with relish. “Them others can eat a horse by themselves—and all we got us is half a elk!”

  Titus leaped into his clothes, suddenly discovering he was himself immensely hungry after the long day’s ride, followed by that invigorating bath. As the trio neared the fire lighting the ring of deeply tanned faces, Fitzpatrick stood, wiping his greasy fingers in his hair as he called out.

  “That you, Potts?”

  They strode into the corona of firelight as Daniel announced, “It’s me.”

  “You got Beckwith?”

  “I’m here,” the mulatto replied, coming into the light.

  All three stopped near the fire ring. Potts was the first to yank his knife from his belt and bend down over one of the two roasting elk quarters. He sliced himself a long, narrow slab of the pink meat still dripping juice and blood into the flames below—each drop landing with a merry hiss.

  “Just wanted to tell you what I reminded the rest here,” Fitzpatrick declared. “When you roll out in the morning, see to it you trim off that beard of your’n.”

  Potts eyed the brigade leader. “All of it?”

  Fitzpatrick nodded. “You too, Beckwith.”

  Scratching at the side of his face, the mulatto said, “A shame, Fitz. I been growing real particular to it since winter.”

  Sporting his own brown beard, Fitzpatrick replied, “If you don’t wanna stay working for Ashley long, then a man can keep his beard, boys. Otherwise—you know the general’s rule. He don’t ’llow no beards on his men.”

  Titus asked, “Why’s Ashley so all-fired against beards?”

  “He’s a trader, mind you,” Fitzpatrick explained, stepping close. “And traders allays deal with them Injuns, don’t they?”

  “Yep,” Billy Hooks answered, leaping into the conversation.

  With a cursory glance at the mat of facial hair on Hooks, Fitzpatrick went on. “General’s come to know Injuns don’t like beards. They don’t much favor any kind of hair on a man’s face.”

  “That’s why they pluck ever’ damn hair out,” Bridger added with a mock shudder. “Even the eyebrows too.”

  Fitzpatrick continued. “Few years back Ashley learned him that some Injun bands won’t have nothing to do with a man wearing a beard. They say it hides a feller’s face. And the Injuns is big on reading a man’s face to see that he’s talking straight.”

  “Man kin grow him a beard,” Potts declared, “but he dare’st not let the general ever see it.”

  “All that fuss over a man’s beard?” Tuttle inquired.

  “You free trappers don’t have to worry none over that,” Fitzpatrick explained.

  Potts stepped back with a second slice of elk hanging from his knife. “But you free trappers best ’member the general takes care of his own fellas first.”

  “An’ if Ashley’s got anythin’ left after he outfits his own for the next year,” a new man spoke up with an accent that reminded Bass of the Spanish and French tongues heard at the mouth of the Mississippi, “then you free trappers might get to pick over the leavin’s.”

  Bass studied that speaker for a moment as the older man bit down on one end of a long strip of meat, pulled the strip out from his lips with one hand, then used the knife he clutched in his other hand to slice off a good mouthful. He had long black hair prematurely sprinkled with gray where it hung loosely on either side of his well-wrinkled face, and his beard was starting to show a dusting of iron too, although the man was clearly younger than Titus.

  Potts explained, “Louis here don’t cotton much to you free trappers joining in on our ronnyvoos.”

  Around a mouthful of the meat, Louis Vasquez spoke up for himself, his dark Spanish eyes glaring at Daniel Potts. “This here’s the general’s doin’s—ronnyvoo is. Them don’t work for the general has no business barterin’ plews for Ashley’s trade goods.”

  “’Sides powder and lead, coffee and sugar,” Fitzpatrick said, “the rest of it’s all foofaraw anyway, Vaskiss.”

  “Their kind wanna work for Ashley, eh?” Vasquez growled. “Let ’em sign on wit’ Ashley.”

  Silas snorted. “An’ fight Blackfeet up there in the devil’s own country like you boys done? No thankee. Pll trap where I wanna trap an’ stay aways from making trouble for myself.”

  Then Hooks chimed in, “That means us keeping our noses far from Blackfoot country!”

  “Weren’t all that far no
rth of here,” Bridger declared. “Was a good li’l scrap of it. Show ’em what I mean, fellas.”

  Five of the others brandished scalps they had hanging from their belts.

  “That’s five Blackfoot what ain’t ever gonna raise my hair!” Bridger exclaimed.

  “’Nother’n was shot up bad—but the rest rode off with his carcass,” Fitzpatrick said. “Couldn’t raise his scalp.”

  “Makes six Blackfeet what won’t devil none of us no more,” Fraeb emphasized.

  “Much trouble as them niggers are, the trapping’s some up in them parts,” Fitzpatrick said.

  Titus asked, “Some?”

  Potts turned to look at Bass. “Means it’s just ’bout the best there is, child.”

  “Blanket beaver,” Bridger added with an approving cluck. “And the rivers is so thick with ’em, all a man has to do is walk down to the water and club ’em over the head.”

  “Sounds like some crock of bald-faced to me!” Cooper spouted, a disbelieving grin creasing his dark beard.

  The dour Fraeb scratched at his nose with the black crescent of a dirty fingernail. “Haps you free trappers ought just go on up there to that Blackfoot country and see for yourselves.”

  “No thankee,” Cooper replied, eyes dancing with mirth as he winked at Hooks. “I favor my skelp to stay locked right where it is!”

  Billy tore the fur cap from his head and grabbed a handful of his own long, greasy hair. “Ain’t the red nigger born what can take this from me, Silas!”

  Then Tuttle observed, “For balls’ sake—only way you Ashley boys can poke your noses up there in that Blackfoot country at all is to travel in a hull bunch like you done.”

  “Yessirreebob!” Hooks added, spreading his arms wide. “And there ain’t but four of us!”

  Potts leaned close to Bass and asked under his breath, “You still so sartin sure you don’t wanna throw in with us come ronnyvoos?”

  For a few moments Titus looked over Fitzpatrick’s bunch, then eyed what the ten had themselves in the way of fur. As much as there was, man for man, the Ashley trappers didn’t have a thing on Cooper’s bunch—despite having trapped that spring in the beaver-rich country haunted by the bloodthirsty Blackfoot.

  Then Bass glanced at Tuttle, Hooks, and even the bruising hulk of Silas Cooper himself before he turned aside to Potts and said, “Thankee anyway, Daniel. You offer a handsome prospect, mind you. But the way I see it—I’d rather work for my friends than be working for some trader what brings his goods out to the mountains come once a year.”

  “Fitzpatrick’s a good man to foller,” Potts explained, “an’ Bridger’s gonna make him a fine booshway one day his own self.”

  “Booshway?”

  “Man what leads a brigade hisself.”

  “Yeah,” Scratch replied. “Plain as sun to see Bridger’s older’n his years.”

  The jovial Potts tugged on Bass’s elbow, whispering low. “Come join us, Scratch. You’re a good man to have around for a smile or two.”

  As much as he might take pleasure in the honor of those words, Titus weighed matters a mite different from most, perhaps. Here he was offered the chance to cut the losses in beaver he’d already suffered and get out from under the ominous shadow of Silas Cooper … or he could stay on with the men who had come along to give him the companionship of an open hand—no matter that the same hand had closed itself into a brutal fist of a time. No, Titus saw himself as a loyal, steadfast man, the sort of man another could easily put his faith and trust in without question.

  He wasn’t the sort to let down those who had very likely saved his hide.

  Bass slapped a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, saying, “Thanks anyway, Potts—you’re a good man, and this appears to be a likely bunch but … I got my own place where I already been took in.”

  * Present-day Green River

  ** Present-day Bear Lake

  12

  “Ever you see anything like this before?” Tuttle asked.

  All Bass could do was shake his head.

  In his youth he had floated down two of America’s greatest rivers, shoulder to shoulder with a crew of hard-bitten, double-dyed Kentucky boatmen. He had even reveled in the rum-sodden fleshpots of Natchez-Under-the-Hill and “The Swamp” farther down in the port of New Orleans. But none of that had prepared him for the sheer joy of camaraderie expressed by those men gathered on the grassy, willow-veined floor of what would one day very soon come to be known among the mountain trappers as Cache Valley.*

  True enough, he had seen the hustle and bustle of those Ohio River port cities: Cincinnati and Louisville. And he had soaked in the heady, noisy air of raucous New Orleans, where more than a dozen languages were spoken around him. But never had Titus expected he would find anything quite like this out here in the middle of all this wilderness.

  They had rolled in that afternoon with Fitzpatrick’s brigade, Cooper’s outfit joining all the rest whooping and bellering back at those who were screeching and shouting to welcome every group of new arrivals.

  More than a hundred of them had already gathered in Willow Valley, at least half the faces pretty near scraped clean of whiskers. Out they came from beneath blanket and brush bowers to fire their rifles into the air, whoop like wild, red-eyed warriors, and greet these last to pull in. Lunging through the dottings of the large creamy flowers that towered along the tall stalks of the Spanish bayonet, they jumped and cavorted—slapping and jabbing at the horsemen they knew, offering their hands to those they did not. Horse hooves and moccasins trampled the bold sunflower-yellow of the arrowleaf balsamroot as every last one of these men celebrated this midsummer homecoming of old friends and new, drawn here from distant parts.

  In addition to all those trappers Ashley was responsible for bringing to the mountains in the past few seasons, Etienne Provost led his own band of partisans, who had worked their way north out of Mexican territory far to the southeast, down below the international boundary of the Arkansas River. This redoubtable figure had first grown concerned, eventually desperate, in recent weeks when his own partner, Francois Leclerc, had failed to show up with supplies from Santa Fe at the appointed place and time for their own rendezvous. No telling what ad happened—but the unspoken belief was there among Provost’s men that Leclerc’s outfit could well have been wiped out on its way north toward the Wasatch and Uintah country.

  Along the banks of a stream stood more than a dozen small wickiups belonging to the wives of some twenty-five Iroquois trappers who, until a year ago, had been employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company working out of English posts far to the north and west on the Columbia River. But in the summer of 1825 the Iroquois had encountered the shrewd William Ashley, who sweet-talked them into turning their backs on the English and trading their furs to him instead. That Ashley-instigated betrayal would be the beginning of some bad blood between the HBC’s Snake-country outfits operating under the hard-bitten Scotsman John Work and those upstart and most undisciplined Americans probing ever deeper into the beaver country of the inner basin. A land the English had had all to themselves … until now.

  Besides the lion’s share in attendance—those who owed some sort of allegiance to one company or another—here gathered a generous sprinkling of free trappers already making their presence known in these fledgling years, plying the waters of the great continental spine on their own hook. Men who, like Provost, had originally plunged into the mountains from the north along the Upper Missouri River drainage, besides those many and more who had first come overland to the tiny villages of Taos and Santa Fe at the far northern reaches of Mexican Territory.

  This summer at least two dozen such men were in attendance—men who, like Silas Cooper’s bunch, owed allegiance to no man.

  Yet one thing was as clear as those streams flowing down from the Bear River Range this midsummer of 1826: if a man didn’t hanker to march all the way south to Taos country, or east over yonder to the posts on the Lower Missouri, then General William H. Ashley wa
s offering them the only game in these parts. If a trapper wanted to deal himself in for the coming year, he damn well had to sit down at the general’s table and be willing to play with the general’s deck.

  Not that Ashley hadn’t had a tough time of it getting there himself. The overland journey, hauling his supplies and twenty-six men up the Platte to the Sweetwater then down to Ham’s Fork, had turned out to be such a test of endurance that nearly half of his men had eventually deserted the general. But there on Ham’s Fork that warm day back in late May, Ashley had been greeted with nearly sixty-five of his own trappers brought in by his partner, Jedediah Strong Smith, and the iron-legged Moses Harris. Their reunion was not to last long, for Ashley pushed the whole brigade on west to the Bear River, where they followed its meandering bend to the south, ultimately reaching the site he had designated last summer for this rendezvous—Willow Valley.

  Near the site where the competitors under Danish sea captain John Weber and the mountain veteran Johnson Gardner had passed the previous winter, that late June day Ashley must surely have gazed about at plenty of tall, ripening grass gently waving in the breezes to fill the bellies of their stock, the many streams gurgling down from the circuit of sheltering hills, the thick vegetation choking every creekbank, branches and vines heavy with ripening fruit, as well as the beauty of the nearby peaks still mantled with snow at this early season … and decided it was good.

  Here they would hold their second mountain rendezvous—now at the very dawn of that most glorious era of western exploration. Lewis and Clark had cracked open the portal, laying out the lure and the bait. Manuel Lisa and Alexander Henry had together been the first to throw their shoulders against the sturdy door to that imposing wilderness. And now it was these very men gathered in Willow Valley that hot summer of 1826—those trappers bound to Ashley as well as those bound to no other—who would in the seasons to come shove wide-open the gate, thrusting themselves against a barrier that would never, could never, be closed again.

  Let there be no doubt, even in those earliest days of the mountain fur trade, these hardy hundred were ready for a celebration after all they had accomplished in the last season.