Grizzly Killer: Under The Blood Moon

by Lane R Warenski

  Grizzly Killer: Under The Blood Moon

  ( Grizzly Killer Book II )

  Lane R Warenski

  Contents

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  Foreword

  1. Rocky Mountain Spring

  2. Good to See Friends

  3. The Battle

  4. Enemies No Longer

  5. A Cannon

  6. Never Learning Respect

  7. The Brother He Never Had

  8. Jedidiah Returns

  9. A Scent on the Breeze

  10. Bad Omens Were Not Enough

  11. Under the Blood Moon

  12. Lost Creek

  13. A Jealous Mule

  14. The Hunters

  15. The Grizzly

  16. Home

  17. West Along the Platte

  18. Battle on the Sweet Water

  19. Finding the Mighty Herd

  20. Meeting New Friends

  21. Gray Prairie Ghosts

  22. A Dangerous Man

  23. The Devil’s Wind

  24. Looking for Jimbo

  25. Give ‘em the Slip

  26. The Arapaho

  27. Leaving for Home

  28. Black’s Fork

  29. Meeting the Beaumont Brothers

  30. Returning Home

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  About the Author

  Grizzly Killer: Under The Blood Moon

  ( Grizzly Killer Book II )

  by

  Lane R Warenski

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2017 by Lane R Warenski

  Wolfpack Publishing

  P.O. Box 620427

  Las Vegas, NV 89162

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-62918-815-7

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  Dedicated to my wife Cathy for all of the encouragement and support,

  For all of the long hours of editing and

  all the years of making me a better person

  Foreword

  He was high up in the Bear River Mountains or as the Ute Indians call them the Uintah Mountains, standing there on a bare rocky ridge way up above timber line as he watched the sun come up. He was a big man standing a couple of inches over six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds. He was broad at the shoulders and powerful from hard work his whole life. He was wearing buckskins from his head to the moccasins on his feet. His hair was a sandy brown and hung down well past his shoulders. His bright eyes being the color of the sky stood out against the sun- darkened skin of his face and full beard.

  With a quick look you could see his eyes missed nothing of the world around him. He had his Hawken Rifle cradled in his arm and his knife in a highly decorated scabbard on one side of the broad belt around his waist and his Cherokee tomahawk slid under the belt on the other side. He wore a necklace with brightly colored beads placed between a dozen five-inch-long Grizzly Claws around his neck.

  Standing there at his side was his constant companion, his dog Jimbo. Jimbo was huge- weighing near two hundred pounds. He wore an Elk skin collar that was decorated by a large piece of turquoise with three Grizzly Claws on each side of it. That piece of turquoise was given to Jimbo by a Shoshone Indian Woman for saving her from a French trapper that thought he owned her nearly a year ago at the Rendezvous in Willow Valley.

  The man’s name was Zachary Connors but it had been nearly a year since anyone had called him that. He was a trapper, adventurer and explorer but he just called himself a Mountain Man. He spoke the language of the Cherokee, Shoshone and Ute just about as well as he did English and could use the sign language of the Indians to talk with most all the other tribes as well. He had a deep love for these high Rocky Mountains, this untouched western land and its people.

  Even though he had been here for just over two years now, he considered it his home. For most of the two years he had been known as Grizzly Killer and was both feared and respected from the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho out on the plains to the Blackfoot and Crow to the north. He lived in the Borderlands between the Snake and Ute nations and he was a major reason the two were no longer enemies. The Indians all believed he and Jimbo, who the Indians called the Great Medicine Dog, had powerful Medicine and because of that his enemies feared him and his friends would do anything for him.

  He was born in Pottersville, Kentucky in the year of our lord 1805, the son of John and Sara Connors and had grown up on the frontier. His friends in Kentucky were Cherokee Indians and what skills his father hadn’t taught him of living on the frontier he had learned from the Cherokee.

  His Pa, John Connors was a trapper and explorer. He was known to all that knew him as Captain Jack because he had been the leader of several immigrant trains that he brought over the mountains from the east to the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee. It was on one of those trips he had met and then married Sara Jacobson and settled down to help Gabe Potter build the community that was later named for him. He had built a home and farm a ways west of town and was well liked and respected by all who knew him. Then in March of 1805, Sara gave birth to Zachary or Zach as he was called.

  From the time he could walk he was adventurous and it seemed to his Ma that Captain Jack’s whole world was centered around his son. As he grew, Capt. Jack would take him along doing everything that needed to be done. When plowing the fields Zach would ride the mule and when cutting fire wood his Pa gave him an old Cherokee Tomahawk with the blade blunted so he couldn’t really hurt himself. By the time he was six or seven he could braid a rope nearly as good as his father and by the time he was ten he was big and strong enough to hold and shoot his Pa’s .36 caliber squirrel gun. From that time on he was never the same. He loved hunting more than anything he had ever done and was the best natural shot his father had ever seen. That squirrel gun was a Pennsylvania-made long rifle and was the most accurate gun Captain Jack had ever shot. It wasn’t long before young Zach could shoot the head off a turkey at 20 paces and did so quite regularly.

  His Ma insisted he learn to read and write and would make him study a couple of hours each day. Books were scarce on the frontier and most of his reading lessons came from the Bible. With his Ma’s tutoring he learned to read and got his religion at the same time. Counting, adding and subtracting came real natural to him. His mother would make him count the eggs each day when he gathered them. When they used some of them she would have him figure out how many were left without counting them again and thus went his education.

  He worked hard on the homestead but his mind was never really into it. He became good friends with the Cherokee Indians from the village just a few miles away that Captain Jack and Gabe had bartered with for the lands where Pottersville now sat. He learned the skills of a hunter and tracker. He became so good with the squirrel gun that he could bring down one of the White Tail deer that were abundant in the woods of the area by hitting them at the base of the ear and he seldom missed. His pa had to keep reminding him to only shoot what they needed to eat and no more, but Zach would counter back that someone in town always needed the meat and they didn’t always have time to do their own hunting.

  He was about fourteen when Gabe’s oldest son moved to Pottersville with his family and started a homestead at the mouth of what they called Potter’s Draw. The whole community went over for a barn raising and that was when Zach met his daughter Emma and his world was changing again. She was his age with auburn
hair and green eyes and was pretty as a picture. The two of them became instant friends. For the first time in his life he now thought of more than hunting and being in the woods but the only girl he had ever been around was his Ma and he was way too embarrassed to ask her about girls. Zach and Emma stayed friends as they grew to adulthood. It was just assumed by everyone around they would marry and keep the community growing.

  During this time at a social in town two men came through and Captain Jack and Zach stopped like everyone else to listen to their stories. They had been with the Corp of Discovery with Captains Lewis and Clark and talked for hours about the great western lands, the vastness of the plains, of the Indian people and the animals, the huge grizzly bears, the unbelievably fast running antelope, the pure white mountain goats, and big-horn sheep. They talked about the crystal clear rivers and the herds of buffalo that number in the tens of thousands, herds so big that it takes days for them to pass by. But what caught Captain Jack’s attention most was the talk of the Rocky Mountains. With peaks so high they touched the sky and even the clouds have a hard time going over them.

  Captain Jack Connors was 41 years old and had a good life but he still dreamed of seeing all that he heard tell of, but that was not to be. He loved his wife but the hardships of that kind of wilderness were way too much to ask of any women and he would not even consider leaving her for the year or two it would take to travel out there and back. So Zach and him worked the homestead, trapped the forests and hunted the woods while he just dreamed of the great western frontier.

  Then, in the fall of 1823 both of their worlds changed forever. Sara Connors caught a fever and even though she was a mighty strong woman within two weeks the fever had taken her. After that Captain Jack lost all interest in the homestead and Zach just watched as his Pa lost all interest in life. By Christmas that year he was mighty worried about his Pa. He had shot a turkey for dinner and had brought in a tree but Captain Jack couldn’t even eat dinner and had no interest at all in decorating the tree.

  Zach spent New Year’s with the Potters and he talked with Emma and her family about his Pa and although they didn’t know it, it was them that gave him the idea. He had to give his Pa something that would interest him again and all he could think of was going to the Rocky Mountains.

  That was the spark that saved Captain Jack. The more he thought about it the more excited he became. They decided they would leave the next summer for St. Louis and from there see if they could hook up with some trappers to go west. They figured they would be gone a couple of years, at most, with Zach promising Emma he would return to her.

  They had two good saddle horses and two yearling mules that Captain Jack thought was old enough to carry their supplies. Starting the first of July they dried meat, butchered a hog and salted the pork in a brine barrel. By the third week of that month they were ready for the trail. Emma cried until he was having second thoughts about going, but he couldn’t abandon his Pa. The entire community showed up to see them off. The excitement of an adventure like this took away a lot of the pain of leaving Emma behind.

  They followed the Ohio River down until it joined the Mississippi and caught a ride on a cargo barge that was headed for New Orleans to cross the river. The Captain of the barge wanted a high price for the passage but settled for three fresh deer as the crew needed the meat. By the time that heavy barge got to the other side they were fifteen or twenty miles farther down river from St. Louis but they made up time once on land again. They traveled north now, on the west side of the Mississippi until they hit St. Louis. Zach had never seen a city before. He couldn’t even imagine over ten thousand people living so close together.

  They camped out of the city that night where they found grass for their mules and horses. The next morning, they rode into St. Louis. He was amazed at the sites, the number of people and the stores, where it seemed you could buy anything and not have to make it. They found work doing various jobs and supported themselves as they learned the city and its people. It was on a bulletin board in a mercantile a few weeks later that they saw Gen. William Ashley’s post that he was looking for men to work as packers and trappers taking supplies to the Rocky Mountains.

  When they met William Ashley they were hired on the spot and Captain Jack and Zach were excited to get started. It was now about the first week of August 1824 and Zach had turned 19 years old last March and he had grown into a big man. He was an inch or so taller than his Pa and his Pa had been known as a mighty big and powerful man. They started for Gen. Ashley at once getting supplies together and making up packs for all the horses. Ashley gave them a little spending money to live on for the weeks before they left.

  That time in St. Louis had many firsts for Zach. He did not know what a whore was and he was mighty embarrassed when his Pa explained it to him. He had never eaten in an inn or road house or been in a tavern. Although Captain Jack wasn’t a drinking man they went in several taverns to have a drink after work with some of the men they were working with. Zach had tasted whiskey a couple of times back home at socials but he didn’t like it and his pa had always told him it robbed a man of his senses. After seeing the condition of some of the men leaving the taverns he didn’t think he would ever care to drink. His pa said they didn’t need to drink but they had to make friends with those they were going to the wilderness with because they needed to know who they could depend on when the going got rough.

  Gen. Ashley was a fair man and a good judge of character. He made Captain Jack a booshway right off. They left Fort Atkinson on the 3rd of November 1824 and headed west with 25 men and 50 pack horses. The weather turned on them later that month and not finding the Indians they planned on getting supplies from, feeding the men and horses become all important. The cold and snow was like nothing they had encountered before. With no trees on the plains and the ground covered with snow, finding food and something to burn for warmth was the most important task of the whole company. When they could find cottonwoods along the river they would strip the bark to feed the horses. But still many died and they had to kill other horses to eat. Zach was assigned as a hunter and was out looking for game every day. The winter of 1824-1825 tested both man and animal to the fullest.

  They met the Pawnee Indians and were able to resupply somewhat and purchase 23 horses from them as they pushed on through that terrible winter. Game became more plentiful the further west they went and Zach more than proved his value as a hunter. By the time they crossed the divide and reached what the Indians called the Seeds-Kee-Dee River, it was the Middle of April and they were then attacked by a war party of Crow Indians and lost 17 of their horses. That battle was the first time he had shot a man and his Pa had explained to him that violence was part of being in wild and untamed country and was part of the Indian way of life.

  Gen. Ashley divided the men into four groups with Captain Jack leading one of them. Now, being short on horses General Ashley’s group built bull boats and started down the Seeds-Kee-Dee with him giving instructions for all the men to meet at the designated Rendezvous spot around the 1st of July.

  Captain Jack led his group to the west and they trapped the streams until it was time to meet at Rendezvous. They met instead on the river where there was no grass, about 25 miles west in a place they called Rendezvous Creek, later named Burnt Fork. There were several hundred there mostly Indians but around a hundred and twenty of them were trappers mostly employed by Gen. Ashley’s Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

  Captain Jack and Zach decided to stay and trap one year before returning home. Their saddle horses and mules had survived and in lieu of payment for their work they took the supplies they would need for a year in the Rocky Mountains. Gen. Ashley tried to convince them to work for him and lead a brigade but Captain Jack wanted to be on his own as a free trapper.

  They headed west after Rendezvous and explored the rivers and streams flowing from the north slope of the Bear River Mountains and found a beautiful place on Black’s Fork where they figured to spend the fal
l trapping season and winter. They built a dugout in the side of a hill not far from the stream and enlarged it with logs. They put up a pole corral and built a small smokehouse with logs strong enough to keep a bear out. The work was hard and never ending but they wanted to be well prepared for winter so they wouldn’t have the hardships they went through last year.

  By fall they were actively trapping and the beaver were so plentiful Captain Jack couldn’t believe the numbers of beaver skins or as the trappers called them plews they were getting. By late fall they were trapping a stream Zach would later call Grizzly Creek, when one morning after leaving camp an 800-pound Grizzly bear attacked Captain Jack. Zach heard the shot of his Pa’s rifle and by the time he got there the bear was dead but Captain Jack was mortally wounded and later that day he buried his Pa overlooking a meadow there on Grizzly Creek.

  The trapping that fall had been great and between him and his Pa they had over 200 plews. He spent that winter alone in the dugout on Black’s Fork. He was attacked by Snake Indians and lost his horses and one of the mules. The big Kentucky mule, the one he called Ol’ Red broke free from his Snake captors and came back to him. In searching for his horses he found a pup at the abandoned Snake camp and so the three of them became a family. He named the pup Jimbo and worked with him every day until it was like that pup could read his thoughts. Jimbo grew to be huge, bigger than any dog Zach had ever seen and they were never apart.

  The next spring while trapping on the Bear River he found a Ute Indian Warrior that had been attacked by a party of Snake hunters and had a broken leg. He helped him and together they fought off the Snakes. His name was Running Wolf and they became like brothers. Running Wolf and Zach stayed together and as they traveled to Rendezvous the next summer, they rescued 3 Snake women from the brutality of three French trappers. Two of them were sisters and became the wives of Zach and Running Wolf. He had realized by now he loved this western wilderness more than anything and even though he still thought about Emma Potter he knew he would never return to her.