by H. V. Elkin
“Okay,” Fred said and cocked a giant fist that looked as if it could take care of all the teeth Bill had left. Fred was hoping for a reaction, but Bill continued to stand there with his chin out.
Fred sent his fist barreling through the air. In the split second before it connected with Bill’s chin, Bill dropped through the cowboy’s loose grip. Fred’s punch landed on the cowboy’s nose. Before the nose had time to start bleeding, Bill grabbed Fred’s leg, pulled it forward, and Fred went over on his back. Fred went for his gun, but Bill’s gun was out and pointed before the man could clear leather.
Behind Bill, the cowboy had recovered from his surprise. He grabbed Bill’s beer bottle from the bar and raised it over Bill’s head. But then he felt a tight clamp around his wrist. His forward motion was suddenly wrenched in the opposite direction as he tumbled over Cutler’s back, flew through the air, and landed on a table that crumpled under his weight. The customers who had been sitting there moved away quickly, as if the cowboy was a stone thrown in a brook and they were the ripples.
There was a joyous yell in the room. Everyone was getting into the spirit.
While moving away from the table when the cowboy landed, one of the men jostled another. It was enough reason for a second fight to start. Then a third. Bill shrugged, put his gun away, and waited for Fred to get up. When Fred regained his feet, he threw another punch at Bill. Bill dodged it again and sent his own fist as deep into Fred’s gut as it would go.
Cutler didn’t have to worry about more trouble coming from the cowboy he had broken the table with. The cowboy’s arm was broken, his gun arm. The cowboy did the smart thing and picked his way out of the room. It wasn’t easy, since twenty-two customers were happily slugging away at each other. Bottles were flying through the air, and chairs crumpled on heads.
Fred lunged for Bill. Bill sidestepped deftly and Fred ran into Cutler. Cutler grabbed Fred’s abundant hair, held his head, and brought his knee up to connect with Fred’s chin, putting him to sleep.
Bill grinned at his partner. “Like you said, this ain’t a part of nothin’.”
“Not very restful, is it?”
“Think we ought to get out while everybody’s so occupied?”
“Before I’ve even had a drink?” Cutler did not see Gates at first. Then he spotted him smashing somebody’s jaw near the fireplace.
“Come on around here,” Cutler told Bill, and they both went behind the bar. Cutler found some bourbon of low quality, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and drank from the bottle. Bill found himself another beer. The two of them stood behind the bar and drank, having a good time watching the show.
Since the place was not very restful, Cutler decided they should find another spot in which to rest for a day. At daybreak they moved on to a hospitable house, run by a man called Signor, an affable man who was well liked and was able to keep two road ranches running successfully.
Bill and Cutler enjoyed a bath in a nearby hot spring. After their day off, they pressed on with fresh determination. Except for camping at night, they stopped only at an oil spring along the Little Popo Agie River, where Cutler oiled the wagon wheels.
They did not stop when they got to Landers, even though it was an inviting little town. The road was still good and they used it to make good time. They could see that the mountain tops above timberline were dusted with snow. They also saw deer coming down the mountain to escape the harsh winter coming to the peaks.
Seventeen days after they had left Cheyenne, they saw the Stars and Stripes over Fort Washakie on the Wind River Reservation on sage-covered upland. The Shoshones occupied small log cabins in the vicinity, and there were other log houses for Agency employees plus a sawmill and a flour mill, a blacksmith and an Episcopal church. It added up to a small town.
Cutler asked directions of a young man, who turned out to be the allotting agent. Cutler was directed to the Colonel’s quarters, located in a stone house nearby.
The Colonel himself came to the door after seeing Cutler drive up. He seldom got away from the fort, and strangers were a relief from the routine of his job. The Colonel greeted Cutler and Bill warmly as he led them into his spartan office.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
Cutler showed him the letter he had received from Fort Yellowstone. The Colonel read it, and looked up, surprised. “John Cutler,” he said. “I didn’t make the connection.”
“We’re about halfway there,” Cutler said, “and the hardest part is still ahead of us. Thought you might know if there’s still reason to go the rest of the way.”
“Matter of fact, there is. I got word just two days ago that the bear problem still exists. Don’t know much about it myself. But I know you’re expected. Need a guide, do you?”
Cutler shook his head. “We’ll be goin’ then.”
“Now why don’t you and your partner spend the night?”
“Can’t do that. We’re burnin’ daylight.”
“Well, I guess I understand your eagerness. Winter’s a little late this year. I guess that means it’s gonna be a bad one.”
Cutler turned to go.
“Hang on a minute,” the Colonel said. “On your way here, did you come across an old Shoshone?”
Cutler looked back. “Haven’t seen any Indians at all. Trouble?”
“No, not really. He’s a little loco, I guess, and he’s always wandering off the reservation. That could be trouble. Was once before.”
Bill was concerned about what they might run into the wilderness. “What kind of trouble?”
“Some Shoshones went off hunting in July. They just didn’t understand why they shouldn’t. Can’t blame them for being confused, either.”
“Why’s that?” Bill asked.
Cutler told him, “Wyoming law makes it illegal. But the Shoshone treaty with the government gives ’em the right.”
“That’s right,” the Colonel said. “And the government food allotment isn’t much for them. Guess the government figures they’re going to hunt. Wyoming says they can’t. Anyway, some of them went down into Jackson Hole and shot a few elk. That made the settlers mad. They got up in arms about it. Half a dozen Shoshone got killed before it was over. They still burn signal fires around here, and promising them more food hasn’t helped a bit. Anyway, the one who’s missing, the old man, was part of that hunting party.”
“We’ll keep a watch for him,” Cutler said.
“Thanks. AH I can tell you is he’s an old man. Used to be a medicine man. Thinks he still is. Reverend Roberts from the Episcopal mission has tried to make a Christian out of him.” The Colonel shook his head. “But I guess the old ways die hard.”
“He’s an old man, you say?” Bill asked. “That mean he isn’t dangerous?”
“Don’t think so,” the Colonel said. “He might even be dead. But who knows? He’s crazy enough to do anything. I’d be careful if I were you.”
Three days later, they were in the Wind River Mountains about fifty miles from Jackson Hole, traveling through an area where they were surrounded by tall ledges and crags. Suddenly, Cutler stopped the wagon and motioned to Bill to be quiet and pointed up.
Bill looked up at a precipice. A bighorn ram was standing and looking down at them, a magnificent animal. It was easy to understand why it was prized among trophy hunters. A few other bighorns grazed on the other side of a narrow ravine about fifteen feet from the ram.
A brown blur was speeding toward the ram. It was a wolverine. The ram turned toward its attacker and lowered its horns, but he was a second too late. The wolverine was under its neck and snapping. The ram backed to the edge of the ravine and went over the edge, a thirty-foot drop. But it didn’t die. Its front hooves splayed against the opposite rock face, it teetered there a moment defying gravity, then the ram hurled itself to a niche in the other rock face and continued to jump from one niche to another. Small indentations, too small to be seen from the ground, permitted it to make a controlled fall. When the ram reach
ed the bottom of the ravine, it walked over to Cutler’s wagon as though the exhibition had not been worth making a fuss about.
It stood six feet away and eyed Bill curiously, as though Bill looked familiar. Bill was too startled to move. When the bighorn had satisfied its curiosity, it moved back to the rock face and raced up it as easily as a man might climb the stairs in his own home.
They were a day from Jackson Hole. It was close to dusk when they spotted a man standing directly in their path. Cutler had to use the reins to stop the mules as he worked the wagon brake. Bill instinctively had his hand on his gun butt.
The man was not armed. He made no threatening gestures. He only stood there looking directly ahead, not moving a muscle.
Cutler figured it was the old Shoshone who had been missing from the Wind River Reservation.
The Indian was dressed in a light cotton shirt and worn denim trousers. His hair was white and hung to his shoulders. His face was darkly tanned and creased with the lines of a long life.
Red did not growl. Cutler knew the Indian meant no harm. The worst he intended was to stand in the roadway and keep Cutler and Bill from getting to set up that night’s campsite.
Bill started to get down. “I’ll move him, John.”
“No,” Cutler said, “stay where you are.” He touched Red’s head. “Red, stay.” Then he got down and went up to the Indian. “They’re missin’ you at Fort Washakie,” he said.
The man, who had been staring straight ahead, turned and looked at Cutler with black, penetrating eyes. “Coyote has come to me,” he said.
Cutler knew about the spirit god of the coyotes. An old trapper once told him that when, as a boy in the Yellowstone area, he had found a bleached bison skull, picked it up, and started to carry it away. It had been broad daylight, but the coyotes began to howl. It had scared him. After returning the skull to where he had found it, the howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Cutler nodded. The Indian nodded back.
“Death sits on your shoulder,” the old man said.
“I know.”
The Indian looked toward Bill. “Keep the young man with you. He has been sent to you.”
“Yes.”
The former medicine man turned and walked into the forest. Cutler watched him go until he was swallowed by the trees. He didn’t think the Indian was crazy.
A day later, they camped at Jackson Hole before moving north toward Yellowstone. Bill sat alone by the campfire. There was something about what the old Indian had said that had spooked him. Cutler remained closemouthed about the episode, which made it all the more eerie.
A twig snapped in the darkness. Bill jumped. A crawling sensation went up the back of his neck. He figured he could make a good show for himself with anyone or anything he could see. It was the things you couldn’t see that made him edgy. The feelings he had had about the Indian were now transferred to the darkness around him and the unseen predators that were surely lurking nearby.
A low chuckle came from behind him, and Bill’s head snapped toward the sound. It was only Cutler. Even he looked ghostly in the firelight against the darkness. “What’re you laughin’ about?”
“Just wonderin’ why you was shiverin’.”
“It’s gettin’ cold against my backside.”
“This’ll help what ails us.” Cutler pulled out the bottle cork with his teeth, spat it into the fire where it hissed once, then held the bottle out toward Bill’s cup and poured.
Bill smiled. “About time.”
“Yeah,” Cutler said. “Just about.”
“How big’s our ration for tonight?”
“Tonight we’ll drink it all.” He poured for himself and drank it down in one gulp, then poured again, after which he held the bottle out to Bill.
“I’ll take it a little slower,” Bill said.
Cutler nodded and sat down by the fire. He drank in silence, but more slowly this time. When his cup was empty, he poured again. “Now then,” he said, “about grizzlies.”
Bill finally knew why Cutler had been saving the bottle. This was to be the young man’s lesson about the kind of animal that had killed Cutler’s wife. The liquor made it easier for Cutler to talk about it. Bill had never been in this part of the country, but he figured they must be close to Yellowstone. From where they had camped, they could hear the roaring of a great cataract.
Cutler took another swallow. “About grizzlies,” he repeated, as if tasting the words with the bourbon. “They come in all sizes of big. Can be ten to twelve feet long from nose to butt. They got heads as big as a good-sized pumpkin. Maybe a foot between ear tips. See one comin’ at you and it’ll look like a thousand pounds of trouble, which is what it’ll be, and that’s just a sow.
“They come in different colors, from yellow to black, and any combination. The legs are usually black. Now and then you’ll hear of an albino, but I never saw one. It’s got guard hairs along its spine, kind of white, which is why it’s called a silvertip.”
Cutler frowned, finished his cup and poured again. “You want any of this bourbon, you’ll have to reach over and take it. But listen good, because I’m gonna tell it fast, and I don’t want to have to say any of it over.”
Bill nodded. “Okay.”
“A grizzly’s got a lot of pride. Walks with a kind of bowlegged swagger. Not afraid of anything. Doesn’t have to be. It can kill any other kind of animal there is.
“You’ll find him mostly right around here. Half the population’s probably within three-hundred miles of where we’re sittin’. They stay in the high country mostly, but they come down to catch salmon. If you’re gonna see one, it’ll be early morning or dusk. That’s the only time they go out into open country.
“You find the trail of another kind of bear, it might be a grizzly’s too, ‘cause they’re tender-footed like you, and they like to let other animals do the bushwackin’ for ‘em. You ever see a grizzly track, it’ll be about this wide.” Cutler held his hands about four inches apart. “And a couple inches longer. They got claw marks almost as long as your fingers.”
“Keep your eye on fallen logs. Grizzlies sometimes like to lie behind them to keep an eye on their backtrail. You might see the nose and eyes, maybe only the tip of its ears poppin’ over the top. Watch spruce trees when they’re sappin’. Grizzlies use ’em for curry combs in the spring. They get rid of the loose hair and have a good scratch. That way they mark out their territory, too. They also leave claw marks as high as they can reach, to warm off the little animals like you and me.
“The grizzly’s usually a gentleman. Won’t bother you unless you bother him first. But watch out where territory’s concerned—and cubs and food. Those are the three things he cares about.
“The one kind of food that a grizzly likes so much he’ll go miles for it is meat that’s rottin’. They can smell it for miles, and they go right to it. That’s why their breath smells so bad. But I hope you never have to get close enough to know about that. He eats until he’s stuffed, then he has to lie down and sleep it off.
“If you’re unlucky enough to only wound him, you’re in trouble. If he decides just to get away from you, though, you can count on him takin’ the easiest trail there is. No matter how bad he’s hurt, he’ll keep backtrackin’ to get wind of anything that might be followin’ him. So if you think you’re followin’ a wounded grizzly, he might be followin’ you.
“Wounded or not, you never know when a grizzly’ll decide to pick a fight. You enter his territory and get within ninety feet, and he’ll consider you a trespasser. By the time you see him, it’ll be too late. He’ll have already made up his mind he don’t like you. Then watch out.
“You hear a growl, deep from his throat, and you’ll look up. There’ll be this thousand pound hunk of murder, mouth droolin’, comin’ at you faster than a horse can run. You’ll do what you can to try to stop him, and it probably won’t be enough. I heard of one that got shot in the side, twice in the mouth, once in the throat,
twice in the chest, and once in the foot, and it still kept comin’. The man hit it with his rifle stock, the bear put his teeth through it and tore away the butt plate. Then it slapped what was left so hard it landed thirty feet away. And it never stopped barkin’ and howlin’ once. A grizzly like that can scalp a man with one swipe or break the neck of a two-year-old steer.
“Your best bet is to climb a tree. Grizzlies’ wrists get stiff as they get older, so most of them can’t climb. If you want to kill him, better catch him in a trap or shoot him in the brain. That’s it.”
Cutler drained his cup.
Bill reached over and took the bottle and filled both cups. “None of that fills me up with a heck of a lot of confidence,” he admitted.
Cutler smiled ironically. “That ain’t the worst of it.”
“It ain’t?”
“Nope. The worst of it is, you can take everything I just told you with a grain of salt. We’re goin’ after a rogue, Billy boy. And there’s never any predictin’ what one of them’s gonna do.”
Chapter Five
The trappers had named it Jackson Hole. Hole was what they called a flat valley surrounded by mountains. Here the hole was surrounded by the Gros Ventres to the east, the Wyoming range and the Salt River to the south, and the Caribou Mountains to the west. North were the Grand Tetons, the most formidable of all, named by French-Canadian trappers who thought they looked like three great teats against the sky. As the morning sun rose over the Gros Ventres, it lit the Tetons’ snow-covered peaks but it was not warm enough to melt the caps of white. They remained hard and cold, resembling no woman’s breasts.
The sounds of the rolling wagon and the hoof beats of the two mules and the horse echoed off the Tetons as Cutler and Bill made their way north. The mountains hid the early afternoon sun, and night descended rapidly. The sudden cold chilled the sweat of the men as well as that of the animals. animals.
For the moment, the campfire beside Jackson Lake was the most important thing in the world. And the trout they cooked over it was the second most important.