Into the Unknown

by David Thompson

  I had to marvel at his strength. I doubted I could move that boulder, but he did. Inch by begrudging inch it gave way, until, with a loud crash, it went tumbling down the stone-covered slope.

  I was not prepared for what happened next.

  In my ignorance I assumed the slope was solid earth. But it was no such thing. For as the boulder rolled, it dislodged not only those small stones, but the earth underneath as well. Rapidly gaining momentum and mass, the talus, as Zach had called it, cascaded down the mountain, a river of dirt and rock that would have crushed any living thing in its path.

  A great rumble rose and echoed off nearby peaks. It reminded me of the buffalo stampede.

  The talus crashed into the timber. Entire trees were uprooted, limbs were snapped like twigs. Scores of trees disappeared, buried in the twinkling of an eye.

  I was in awe of the devastation.

  Zach came riding back with a smile on his face. “Not bad, if I say so myself.”

  “Congratulations,” I said dryly. “You have wiped out half the mountain.”

  “And our tracks.”

  Sometimes I wonder about the gray matter between my ears. “If anyone is following us, they will never find us now!” I exulted.

  “A good tracker could pick up our trail again, but that will take some time.” Zach motioned at the tendrils of dust rising from the broad expanse of displaced terra firma.

  I had to hand it to my young companion. He was resourceful in the extreme. Presently, as we wound down the other side the mountain, he resorted to another of the wily tricks he had up his buckskin sleeves.

  A stream bisected our course, flowing out of the northwest and off to the southeast. As with many mountain waterways it was fast flowing but shallow. Zach promptly reined into the water and started upstream, riding in the very middle. He beckoned for me to imitate him.

  Yet another stroke of brilliance. Most of our tracks were washed away by the strong current.

  “You think of everything,” I complimented him.

  “Repeat that when you meet my sister,” Zach said. “She says my head and a tree stump have a lot in common.”

  The affection in his tone was undeniable. “I gather you love your family very much.”

  He glanced sharply back at me. “Why wouldn’t I? Don’t you care for yours?”

  If he only knew. My father ran a dry goods business. He had expected me to take it over once he was too old to work. My decision to become a naturalist appalled him. He could never understand my fascination with the outdoors, or how deeply I disliked doing account books and juggling figures in my head. He shocked me one day by giving me an ultimatum: either give up my silly interest in biology or be banished from home until I came to my senses.

  We had not seen each other in seven years.

  My mother, bless her, approved of my work, but she was too timid to stand up to my father and tell him that. Whatever he told her to do, she did, even if she was against doing it. Tears moistened her eyes the day I left. She hugged me and kissed me, then stepped back to my father’s side.

  I have a brother, but he and I are as different as day and night. He, too, has no interest in dry goods. He would rather spend his days loafing and his nights in taverns and saloons. But my father did not banish Edward as he did me. Ed has always been his favorite. Sour grapes on my part, you might say, but you would be mistaken. I am simply mentioning the facts.

  So, yes, while I did care for my family, there were limits to my caring. Unlike Zach King, my affection was tempered by their treatment of me. It is hard to give unconditional love to someone whose own love for you is conditioned by whether you do as they want you to do.

  “You are a lucky man, Zach King,” I remarked.

  He laughed bitterly. “To be born a halfbreed is hardly what I would call a stroke of luck.”

  “You never stop thinking about that, do you?”

  “When I was seven my father took me to a rendezvous. This was back in the days when the beaver trade was at its height. I was wandering around, looking at the goods and weapons and whatnot for sale, and I bumped into a trapper. He was swilling from a jug, and when I bumped him, he spilled some down his chin. I told him I was sorry.” Zach paused. “He said, ‘Watch where you are going, you breed gnat.’ And then he spat on me.”

  “Oh my. What did you do?”

  “What could I do? I was only a boy. I turned to go when suddenly Uncle Shakespeare was there. He had heard what the man said, and he walked right up and broke the man’s jaw with the butt of his rifle.”

  “Uncle Shakespeare? You called him that before. Is McNair related to your father?”

  “No. But we have always called him our uncle. He is part of our family, blood ties or not.”

  “I look forward to meeting him.”

  After a few miles Zach reined out of the stream. We pushed on, generally northwest, surrounded by the most glorious mountains imaginable. The roof of the continent, the Rockies have been called, and the title is apt. Near bottomless gorges, canyons whose walls were streaked with glistening quartz, phalanxes of firs and colorful stands of aspens. So much to drink in, a man could not absorb it all.

  Then there were the animals. Black-tailed deer far larger than their white-tailed low-country cousins. Regal elk, each as big as a horse. Mountain sheep, white spots on the high cliffs. Black bears, which usually left people alone, and grizzly bears, which often didn’t.

  The lesser animals were of no less interest to me.

  Rabbits were not as plentiful as on the prairie, but those we saw were bigger. Squirrels scolded us from the safety of high branches. At one juncture, we were crossing a slope when I distinctly heard someone whistle. I cast about but saw no one. The whistle was repeated, so I asked Zach who the deuce was whistling at us. He laughed, and drew rein. In a bit he pointed up the mountain.

  I spied a creature of the rodent variety, about two feet in length with brown fur, perched on its hind legs and staring down at us. It suddenly let out a piercing whistle and vanished from view.

  “A marmot,” Zach explained. “That whistle is their danger signal. They live in burrows much like prairie dogs.”

  Nor were they the only ones. Two days later, toward evening, we had stopped for the day and Zach was skinning a rabbit he had shot. I wandered off with my pad to sketch and spotted an earthen den of some sort higher up. I investigated. The hole was bigger than any I had yet seen, and I was curious as to the inhabitant. I did not stay curious long. For as I bent to peer into the hole, out of it rushed the irate tenant, snarling and bristling and snapping at my legs. I barely leaped back in time.

  Zach heard the racket and came on the run, and had another good laugh at my expense. “A badger,” he confirmed my surmise. “I can shoot it if you want the hide.”

  “Heavens, no.”

  The badger hissed, its back to the mound of dirt, its dark eyes mirrors of ferocity. Thick bodied, with short legs, its mouth was rimmed with razor-sharp teeth. I particularly admired the white stripe that ran down its broad back, and the white markings on its face. “Do you suppose we could catch it so I can paint it?” I envisioned containing it in a cage. We could build one of tree limbs.

  “I know a Shoshone who lost two fingers to a badger,” Zach mentioned. “Have you looked in its mouth?”

  I frowned in disappointment. I could always paint by memory, of course, but having the animal before me was infinitely better for capturing the small details my memory might miss.

  “There are badgers in our valley,” Zach said. “I will give it some thought, and when we get there, we will try.”

  I had the impression he was growing more and more anxious to reach his home. Dunce that I am, I kept forgetting an important fact. “You miss your wife, don’t you?”

  Zach had started to back away from the badger. “What brought that up?”

  “Your mention of your valley,” I said, easing backward. I was not looking at the badger but at him. “It is nothing to be emba
rrassed about. If I had a wife, I would—”

  “Look out!” Zach shouted.

  A searing pain shot up my left leg and I was bowled over. The only thing I can compare it to is being tackled by my brother when we were younger and would roughhouse. The pain was terrible. I came down on my back and instinctively reached for my hurt leg. I almost lost fingers. A snap of the badger’s teeth missed my hand by a whisker. I sought to scramble back out of its reach, but with a swift lunge it was on me again, its teeth shearing into my right shin this time, ripping through cloth and skin. I am afraid I cried out.

  Then Zach was there, looming with his Hawken to his shoulder, taking quick aim.

  “Don’t kill it!” I yelled. The animal was only defending its den. The fault was mine; I had been careless.

  Zach looked at me in disbelief.

  The badger gave my leg a hard shake, and I gritted my teeth against the agony. I kicked at it with my other leg to try and drive him off me but my kick had no effect other than to make the badger madder than it already was.

  Just then Zach reversed his hold on his rifle and raised it overhead to bring the hardwood stock smashing down.

  “No! You might hurt it!”

  Under different circumstances, Zach’s expression would have been comical. “Are you loco?” he re sponded in amazement.

  The badger let go.

  I flung myself backward, my elbows digging into the ground. I thought the badger would let me go, but I was wrong.

  The creature pounced, moving incredibly fast for its bulk, and bit at my right wrist. Its teeth caught my sleeve, not my arm, and it shook its blunt triangular head from side to side in a frenzy.

  I tried to push it away, but it weighed upward of thirty pounds. A savage snarl rose from its throat. I went to push to my knees, when without warning the badger slammed into my chest, knocking me flat.

  Before I could collect my wits, I was on my back again and the badger was on top of me, its glistening teeth spreading wide to tear at my throat.

  Chapter Eight

  Of all the ways to die, being slain by a badger has to qualify as unique.

  I braced for the sensation of its fangs tearing my flesh and the warm gout of blood that would ensue. But suddenly the badger seemed to fly off me and swing around in midair. Then I saw that Zach had hold of its rear legs and had torn it off me. He released his hold, and the badger hit the ground with a thud and rolled.

  I feared Zach had hurt it, but the animal was up in the blink of an eye. It snarled and hissed, then whirled and vanished down its hole with a speed that belied its size.

  “Well,” I said, for lack of anything better. Zach picked up his rifle and turned to me. “You saved my life. I thank you.”

  Zach simply stared.

  “Say something,” I prompted.

  “You are an idiot.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me,” Zach said. “You nearly got yourself killed, and for what? To spare an animal that was out to kill you? If that’s not being an idiot, I don’t know what is.”

  “Really, now,” I said, offended.

  “Try that stunt with a grizzly or a mountain lion, and I will bury what is left of you and laugh when I do it.”

  “I would never get that close to either,” I responded indignantly. “I am not entirely without common sense.”

  “A thimbleful isn’t much to brag about.” Zach squatted. “Let’s take a look at you.”

  It was not as bad as it looked. My sleeve was ripped, but my wrist had been spared. Both shins were bloody and my pants torn, but the bites were not all that deep, and the bleeding had about stopped. “See?” I said, wincing. “I’ll live. There was no call to kill it.”

  Zach was bent over my right leg, examining the wound. “I don’t like the looks of this one.”

  “I will be in pain for a few days, but I will be fine,” I said. “It is not as if a couple of bites will kill me.”

  “That’s just it,” Zach said. “They can.”

  “I have been bitten before. It is nothing to get excited about.”

  “Maybe not back East where there are plenty of doctors to tend you. But out here”—Zach gestured to encompass the wilderness—“just about any wound can land you in the grave.”

  “Posh and poppycock,” I declared.

  Zach regarded me much as you might regard a wayward child. “Evidently no one ever told you.”

  “Told me what?” I was sure he was trying to put a scare into me for my insisting he spare the badger.

  “About what kills more folks than anything else. It’s not guns or bows or lances or knives. It’s not claws or fangs or talons. It is the infection that sets in.”

  “You exaggerate, sir.”

  “For every man who dies of a bullet to the brain or the heart, nine more die from being shot in the leg or the arm. For every warrior who goes down from an arrow or a lance to a vital organ, nine more die from minor wounds. The cause is always the same. The blood turns foul.” Zach indicated my shins. “I’ve seen worse bites than these, sure. But that’s not the point. Even the smallest bite can become infected, and if it does, you’re as good as dead.”

  He was so greatly in earnest that I grew alarmed. “You are serious? You are not pulling my leg?”

  Zach surprised me by placing a hand on my shoulder. “I would never joke about a thing like this. We need to clean and bandage you, and pray to high heaven the rot in that badger’s mouth did not get into your blood.”

  “The rot?” I repeated.

  “All meat eaters have bits of rotting flesh between their teeth from the critters they have fed on. That’s what mixes with your blood and turns it putrid.”

  Genuine fear washed through me. “I didn’t realize,” I said, my mouth going dry as the implications sank in.

  “Most newcomers don’t.” Zach slipped an arm around me and assisted me in rising. He smiled in encouragement. “So long as you don’t come down with a fever, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

  All night I tossed and turned. I was so hot, I was caked with sweat. I told myself it was because of my blankets, and toward morning I cast them off.

  Zach was up before the sun rose and immediately came to my side. He saw I was awake. “How are you feeling?” he asked, pressing a palm to my brow.

  “Tired, but otherwise fine.”

  “You have a fever.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean I am infected,” I said. But I knew. I was just being pigheaded.

  Zach went to one of his parfleches and rummaged inside. “My mother packed some herbs for me. She has considerable skill as a healer.”

  “Herbs?” I said skeptically.

  “Indians have cures for all sorts of ailments. Pine gum for boils. Sagebrush leaves for indigestion. Elderberry roots for inflammation.” Zach brought out a packet tied with twine and set it down. “A lot of their cures, the white man doesn’t know about.”

  “Are there herbs in there that will help me?”

  Zach began undoing the twine. “What the Shoshones call unda vich quana. It will fight the infection. Then there is a tea I can make to bring down your fever.”

  “You are going to a lot of trouble on my account,” I remarked.

  “Would you rather die?”

  All that day I lay feverish and sweating. Zach applied poultices to my shins and made me drink a cup of tea every hour or so. I felt awful, slowing us up this way, but it could not be helped. I was too weak to ride.

  That night I was worse. I hardly remember any of it except that I was constantly sweating and constantly shivering. How you can be hot and cold at the same time is a mystery, but I was. By morning I was so helpless, Zach had to tilt a tin cup to my lips to get the tea into me.

  About the middle of the afternoon the fever broke. I became aware of the blue of the sky and white pillowy clouds and of the breeze on my face. I smelled my own sweat and longed for a bath. Licking my lips, I turned my head.


  Zach was nowhere to be seen.

  Panicked, I tried to rise on my elbows but couldn’t. For a few wild moments I feared he had deserted me. Yes, I should have known better. He had already demonstrated he was not the ogre he was reputed to be.

  I licked my dry lips and croaked, “Zach? Zach? Where are you?” When there was no answer, my panic climbed. I struggled to sit up and was afflicted with dizziness. Then a shadow fell across me. I gave a violent start, convinced some beast had found me.

  “What in the world is all the fuss about?”

  I looked up. Zach had a small doe over his shoulder and was regarding me in puzzlement. “Where have you been?” I said.

  “Off hunting.” Zach gave the body a thump. “You need meat, and a lot of it, to build your strength.”

  I almost burst into tears.

  “Are you all right?” Zach dropped the deer and knelt beside me. “I checked you earlier and would have sworn we beat the fever.”

  “Why are you doing all this for me?” I foolishly asked.

  Zach shrugged. “You need help.”

  “But you hardly know me. And gossip has it that you hate whites, yet here you are, doctoring a white man.”

  Chuckling, Zach replied, “My wife is white, and I sure don’t hate her. My father is white, and so is Shakespeare McNair, and they are two of the most decent men I know.” He sobered and said, “It is not whites I hate, it is white bigots. Or red bigots. Or any kind of bigot.”

  “I will be forever in your debt. Anything you ever want of me, you have only to ask.”

  “There is one thing.”

  “Name it and I will do it,” I pledged.

  “Whatever you do, don’t take it into your head to paint a griz. If a badger can do this to you, just think what a bear would do.”

  I blinked and laughed and could not stop. Perhaps it was an emotional release. But I laughed as if his little joke was the funniest I ever heard. I laughed until my ribs ached, and just when my mirth subsided, he made another comment.