the Sackett Companion (1992)

by L'amour, Louis

  There were rarely any Indians around when I was growing up except a few who occasionally dropped by to talk to my grandfather. They would sit cross-legged on the lawn and drink coffee heavily laced with sugar and talk over old battles as those who came later would talk of football games.

  There were also a few who occasionally camped down near the tracks where some old stumps with huge masses of spiderlike roots were lying.

  These were, I understood, trees ripped up from miles away by a tornado and dropped here. The tops had long been cut away for firewood but the stumps remained. They had been giant trees, larger than any around in my time with a few possible exceptions.

  In the days when the Sacketts rested their herd near the rivers it was all Indian country. Soon settlers would be coming in, many of them former soldiers such as my grandfather who had first seen the country when pursuing the Sioux into Dakota after the Little Crow Massacre in Minnesota.

  The troubles in Canada were drawing adventurers, land speculators, and others all out to pick up a little quick money if opportunity allowed. Pembina was a gathering point for those traveling north, as it had been for fur trappers and traders at a still earlier time, and Fort Garry was usually the immediate destination. Louis Riel had returned from Montreal in an attempt to forestall these would-be landgrabbers. It was unfortunate that his actions were misunderstood by many of the eastern Canadians.

  FORT CARLTON: A fairly large palisaded enclosure with bastions at each corner. It stood back about a quarter of a mile from the North Saskatchewan in an almost parklike setting of green hills and clumps of forest. It was a regular stopping place for parties going west and often a dropoff for furs whose owners wished to approach no nearer to civilization.

  The fort was established about 1795, and the first steamer to come that far up the river arrived in 1877, the Northcote. Shortly after, a regular service was established on the river and maintained for some time.

  Carlton House was also a headquarters for the Mounted Police, and witnessed a confrontation there with Big Bear, a Cree. Later, Poundmaker, one of the most noted chiefs, spent time in the area. At the time of this story there were only traders and trappers at Fort Carlton.

  TURTLE MOUNTAINS: A gathering of hills, lakes, and rolling plateau some three hundred-odd feet above the surrounding country. The borderline runs through the mountains, leaving a part of them in Canada. A favored hunting ground of the Indians in bygone years.

  PEMBINA: Named for the colorful highbush cranberries growing in the area, a Chippewa name. Charles Chabboillez established a fur trading post there in 1797, and it soon became a gathering point for the metis, the French-Indian buffalo hunters who formed their expeditions there for buffalo hunts. These were highly organized, sometimes accompanied by more than a thousand Red River carts, and more than that number of people. They were disciplined, carefully coordinated hunts by skilled hunters. Pembina was to remain an important port in the Red River for many years.

  HAWK'S NEST: A flat-topped hill rising some four hundred feet above the plains, with a spring near its top. This was long a camping place for Indians moving across the country, and a well-known landmark for travelers. The hill was well-forested. Sibley camped near here before the Battle of Big Mound. My great-grandfather, Lieutenant Ambrose Freeman, had been slain by the Sioux about a week earlier, at a point further east.

  FORT GARRY: Later, it became Winnipeg. At the junction of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers. The Fort was originally built in 1806, and destroyed in 1816, known then as Fort Gibraltar. In 1822, when the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Companies became one, the Fort was rebuilt and christened Fort Garry. In 1835 it was rebuilt in stone with round bastions at each corner with embrasures for guns and frequent loopholes for muskets. The walls were about twelve feet high with a wooden walk near the top from which to fire in defense. The residence of the Hudson's Bay Company governor faced the north gate. Four other buildings were barracks for soldiers, each fitted to accommodate one hundred men. There were other buildings, including a store and an officers' quarters.

  The village that was the beginning of Winnipeg lay about a half mile from the Fort. The road was lined with houses, forty or fifty in number; a chemist's shop, several saloons, an hotel and a saddle shop were among other places of business. In the village of St. Boniface there was a cathedral, and several other churches, including an Anglican cathedral and a Presbyterian church.

  McCAULEYVILLE, MINNESOTA: Riverboat town; white frame hotel owned and operated by Nolan. A clean, well-kept place. There were a number of houses in the village, which lies across the river from Fort Abercrombie.

  DEASE LAKE AND RIVER: Relatively easy of access today, but in the 1870s it was back of beyond, one of those places often heard about but rarely visited. Chief Trader McLeod discovered Dease Lake in 1833, and some three years later a man named Hutchinson was sent with a party to open a trading post there. Word got out they were to be attacked by Russians and they fled. Irritated, Sir George Simpson commissioned Robert Campbell to explore the area of the upper Stikine and Pelly Rivers. A post was established and held briefly, then abandoned for some thirty-five years.

  BARKERVILLE AND THE CARIBOO: Billy Barker is credited with the first rich strike in the vicinity of the town named for him. He was a tough little man who had been a potter and then went to sea. He was forty feet down and about to give up when he hit pay dirt, and took out better than six hundred thousand in gold if sold at 1860s values. Like so many of his kind, Billy met a lady, who was less than a lady, and Billy Barker wound up broke. He died in Victoria in 1894, and no doubt the lady met a gentleman who was less than a gentleman who no doubt spent her money and abandoned her.

  The Cariboo was the name given to a district between Quesnel and Barkerville, and gold was found over the whole area in greater or lesser quantities. Later the name came to be extended to cover more country and was a symbol for riches, if you could get them. There was Cache Creek in that same area, and stories of buried gold and of a running horse with blood on his saddle, and a ghost who watched over the cache, wherever it was.

  Laketon, near the mouth of Dease Creek, was for a time the metropolis of the Cassiar district and, as with all such places, the town bred its collection of characters and inherited a few from the surrounding country. They were men of grand deeds and fearsome appetites and there was little they would not do in their quest for gold. They included Cariboo Cameron, Dutch Bill, Nellie Cashman, and many others.

  MARY McCANN: A much-traveled lady who could ride anything that wore hair and do a man's work as well as her own; an attractive lady who added poundage without losing shape. In E-Town she ran a saloon-restaurant, and in Bodie she washed clothes for the miners and panned out the mud she washed from them and made four times as much as she charged for the washing. She and Cap Rountree had crossed trails before and the results had been mutually agreeable.

  SHANTY GAVIN: A haady man with a gun who believed he was big time until he met a big timer. It was a mistake that could only be made once.

  COUGAR: No excuses for him; he recognized the situation and did not make the mistake the first time. But there was a second time.

  DEVNET MOLRONE: Her last relative but one had died, and there was but little money, with employment for women almost nonexistent. Fortunately, she had a brother. She trusted he would care for her, until. . . .

  She did not guess how wild Prince Rupert's Land was but was sure she could find her brother. Yet she did not know how wide the land nor that her brother had changed.

  THE OX: He was large, strong, and sure of himself. His sheer size and presence usually got him what he wanted--until he suddenly got more than he wanted.

  GILCRIST: A sandlot winner about to face big league pitching; how good you look depends on how tough the competition.

  You win a few and get to believing you're good, and then you try to prove it against somebody who is really good. The next morning they are patting you in the face with a shovel, and som
ebody is writing an epitaph: He was good, but not good enough.

  THE CENTURY AND THE ATLANTIC: Magazines referred to in the story. Such magazines were widely circulated on the frontier, and as with all other reading material passed from hand to hand until worn out. SCRIBNER'S was another magazine frequently found at trading posts, forts, and other frontier establishments.

  HIGHPOCKETS HANEY: Any tall, lean man of six feet four inches or more was apt to be nicknamed "Highpockets." This one was a top-hand in any company.

  DOUG MOLRONE: A young man of education and intelligence who simply took the wrong route. A brother to Devnet, he lacked her strength of character and left town running. Such characters have a way of turning up again. Did he learn his lesson or not?

  ORRIN SACKETT: Self-educated lawyer, peace officer, and congressman, a man of engaging personality with a fine speaking or singing voice and only a shade less good with a gun than Tyrel or Tell.

  Growing up where hunting was a daily occupation, all the Sacketts could handle guns. Growing up with an already existing feud going on, all lived with the awareness of danger.

  Orrin began his study of law as did many frontier lawyers, by carrying a copy of Blackstone wherever he went and reading whenever opportunity allowed. He had also studied Greenleaf on Evidence and then for two years worked with a country lawyer. His first marriage to Laura Pritts ended in divorce.

  He was the best educated of the postwar generation of Sacketts.

  LOGAN SACKETT: One of the Clinch Mountain Sacketts, descended from Yance. They were generally a wild, rough lot, the Clinch Mountain Sacketts, considered outlaws by some, and when they went west they were always riding on the fringe of the wild bunch. A twin brother to Nolan Sackett, but they were rarely seen together, each preferring to go his own way, yet on occasion. . . .

  Logan has also appeared in RIDE THE DARK TRAIL.

  LAURIE GAVIN: A blood sister to Kyle, and Shanty Gavin was her stepbrother. She was in the Dease River country with no place to go but out, if she could get out. And then she met Logan.

  ISOM BRAND: Called Brandy; a young cowboy hired en route. Like many others of his time and later, he had left home to find work wherever and however it could be had. Much of our country was built by such itinerant labor.

  SHORTY: A man to ride the river with, and a man who rode for the brand. A man with a love for far horizons, and when he cashed in his chips they buried him where his grave overlooked a lot of beautiful country, with horizons wherever you turned. Shorty would have liked it that way.

  BAPTISTE: An old man who wasn't that old and took to the trail again. Once they've traveled the trails of a far country, there is always the urge to go on to a still farther country.

  KYLE GAVIN: From Toronto, and headed west, but for what? A full brother to Laurie, and a connection by name only to Shanty Gavin. He, too, wanted to stop the delivery of cattle and hoped to profit from the jumped mining claims, but he was prepared to go only so far, and as the situation developed he became uneasy. His moral judgment was possibly nudged into place by the possibility of decisions by Winchester.

  THE METIS: A French-Canadian-Indian mix; hunters and trappers, famed for their well-organized buffalo hunts and their rebellion. The latter began as an effort to protect their rights in land long occupied by them when surveyors appeared and began surveying right across what the metis considered their property lines. Louis Riel, whose father had been a spokesman in the past, was sent for by his mother to return from Montreal. He endeavored to set up a provisional government that would keep things under control until the eastern Canadians decided whether they wanted to be bothered with Prince Rupert's land or not.

  The metis were a colorful lot in costume, song, and language. Some of their boating songs, sung to accompany their paddling of canoes or larger boats, are favorites of mine. My father often sang them and since then I've heard them sung by Canadian lumberjacks with whom I've worked.

  As for the mix mentioned above there might also be added a touch of Scotch here and there. Many of the early Bay Company factors were Scots, and others came west and fell into the fur trade as if born for it.

  Western Canada was a country of rare beauty, of vast distances, and forests that seemingly went on forever, with some fine rivers and along the coast many islands and coves that permitted easy access to the country. There was gold and there was fur, but most of all was the country itself.

  There was plenty of wild game, and a man with a rifle could live mighty well without even half trying. The metis were great hunters and had some of the finest horseflesh you'd be likely to see.

  They also had the Red River carts, often to be seen in long caravans stretched across the country, carrying buffalo hides to market or bringing back the goods they'd bought in St. Paul or Minneapolis.

  It was a wild and beautiful land to which the Sacketts rode, and they were the men to understand and appreciate it.

  *

  *

  RIDE THE DARK TRAIL

  First publication: Bantam Books paperback, June 1972 Narrator: Logan Sackett Time Period: c. 1875-1879

  Reed Talon knew good land when he saw it and this place had prairie, mountain meadow, timber, and water. Reed Talon was a builder and it was to the timber he looked first because he planned to build not a house but a home. This was to be the place where he took off his boots and hung up his hat, and riding over the land he looked at it with pleasure. This place had everything. Most important, the mountain meadows were bordered by cliffs and protected from invasion, and the open prairie below was useless without water.

  Reed did not have a woman but he had one in mind. She lived away back in Tennessee and he had never so much as glimpsed her but he had a working partner who was forever talking about this tall mountain girl who could shoot better than any man he knew, but who could also bake a cake and sew a fine seam. The more his partner talked, the more Reed knew she was the girl for him.

  He had worked with heavy timber most of his life, joining and fitting and working with broadaxe and adze. He had built bridges, barns, churches, school buildings, and silos, so when he built for himself he built carefully and well.

  When he told Colly Sackett he was going east to propose to that mountain girl he'd been talking about Colly looked him over afresh. "I've had it in mind. She's some kind of cousin to me but a Clinch Mountain Sackett and I don't hold with their ways, although they be kin.

  "A year or so back I come through her country and stopped a night thereabouts, and thinks I, there's a woman who needs a man, but an almighty good man. We'd trapped a spell in the Wind Rivers, you an' me, and thinks I, 'that's the man for her.' "

  Colly paused, then added, "She's a mite taller than you, but don't you ever let her know it. She's all woman. Not beautiful, but a fine-lookin' girl, an' she could take her pick of the mountain boys, but she's held off. I don't know what she wants but she surely does, and I've a hunch it might be you."

  Colly stayed on at the ranch so Reed could go a-courtin', and he took off for the eastern lands. When Reed rode up to Emily Sackett's door he didn't waste around. He told her what he had come for and she told him to get down and come in, that he couldn't do much courtin' settin' upon a horse, thataway.

  He was shorter than Em but broad in the shoulders and strong from a lifetime of lifting heavy timbers. He bedded himself down under a big oak tree and helped with the chores. That night they went to a church social and a few days later to a barn-raisin', then a box supper. The womenfolks talked him over at a quiltin' bee and on the third Sunday they stood up before the gospel-shouter and were married. Trulove came down from the high-up hills to give the bride away and Ma-con stood in for best man. The church was crowded because everybody liked Em and most of the womenfolks had 'lowed she'd probably never marry. There was nigh onto a hundred folks there and thirty-two of them were Sacketts. On the other side of the church, the bridegroom having no family present, there were twenty or so of the Higginses.

  The Sacketts and the
Higginses had a feud going but it was considered right sinful to shoot a man on a Sunday, all forms of entertainment being left for weekdays except for funerals or weddings.

  Reed Talon had brought a black broadcloth suit with him and Em had hand-stitched her own wedding gown, having it laid away and ready. They made a handsome couple, folks said. Even a couple of Higginses said it.

  After the ceremony one of them said, "Mr. Talon, you all| are a Sackett now, so come daylight when you take out of here you be sure you will be follered and shot."

  Reed Talon just looked him over and said, "Boy, if youl foller us you be durned sure you can't catch up."

  Colly Sackett had furs to trap and wanted no part of ranch-j ing so he left them to handle it and went off to meet Jir Bridger or Kit Carson or some such person, and Reed went to cutting poles for corrals, cleaning out waterholes and fixing up the barn to handle hay cut for winter days.