The tragic scenario was playing itself out just as he and Bridger had figured it would. With fewer beaver reaching rendezvous every year, and the market for those pelts diminishing with each rendezvous season, what with the price of supplies and trade goods continuing to escalate at the same time, only the biggest company of them all had pockets deep enough to stay in this fight for the Rocky Mountains.
First the traders brought milk cows, then two-wheeled carts, and freight wagons, and even a Dearborn carriage! And now, not only were the preachers come to the mountains to deliver their hellfire and sulfurous brimstone sermons … but they’d brought white women along too!
What would these mountains come to?
Looking back now, Scratch could see how in the last few winters the trade had undergone such dramatic changes that he and Gabe hardly recognized it anymore. Now there were posts and forts sprouting up at the mouth of this river or that, stockades where the company’s traders successfully lobbied the surrounding tribes to harvest beaver so they no longer had to rely solely on the labors of white trappers—indentured employee or free man, neither one.
Maybeso these rendezvous were on their way to playing out as the fur was playing out itself.
“Boys, I’m ’minded of that time I first come to the mountains—how I made a tumble mistake,” Bridger said the next afternoon at his fire, looking up at Bass and Shad Sweete with such sad eyes. “I ’member looking down at that ol’ wolf, Hugh Glass, his breathin’ like a death call in his chest, chewed up so bad there weren’t a ghost of a chance of him survivin’, just a’layin’ there beside his own shallow grave in the sand—sure to die.”
Jim drew in a long sigh and poked among the ashes at the edge of the fire pit. “Maybeso this here business is just like ol’ Glass. It’s fixin’ to die, run outta time there beside its grave, just hanging on somehow, one breath at a time.”
“But Glass didn’t die that way, Gabe,” Shadrach argued.
“That’s right,” Bass agreed. “He went down years later, fighting on the Yallerstone.”
“Mayhaps you’re right, boys,” Bridger admitted. “But even ol’ Glass went under … eventual’.”
“You figger the end’s coming, Jim?” Sweete asked.
Bridger nodded his head. “Take a good look around us, boys. See what Sublette and Campbell and them St. Louie parley-voos are doing to choke the life out of us. Don’t figger it’s a question of if the trade’s gonna die. Only be a question of when.”
That had set Scratch to brooding, down in his mind and dwelling on matters he hadn’t given much thought to over the last few years. He just couldn’t bring himself to accept that his way of life was changing and would never be the same again, that the way he had lived might actually be dying, never to resurrect itself again.
“You one-eyed idjit nigger,” he scolded himself sharply late of an afternoon. “You been half-blind to it!”
All a man really had to do was look around at those gathered for rendezvous to read the sign. If he didn’t count in the Frenchmen who trapped for the company, and didn’t tally up those settlement fellas who came and went with Fitzpatrick’s supply caravan—there was a damn sight fewer white men come to rendezvous this summer of thirty-six than ever before. And even more revealing, for the first time he could remember, there were almost as many free men gathered in the valley of the Green as there were company trappers.
More than anything, that hammered home just how many were giving up and fleeing the mountains. Would this mean the company posts controlled the rivers, and the company brigades controlled their chosen territories in the high country? Would these changes now force the last of the free men to trap where they wouldn’t run the risk of bumping into the booshways and their hireling skin trappers?
How long now had he refused to see what was right before his eyes? This fur business was being slowly strangled. If it wasn’t the big, powerful companies that would kill it, then surely the death was coming as the beaver were wiped out. Already there was talk of areas stripped clean, nary a flat-tail to be found.
If that didn’t sound like a wheezing death rattle in those last gasps of the fur trade … Bass wasn’t sure what did.
Wasn’t a day went by when he didn’t walk past some conversation, or overhear someone at the trading post talking about the latest dire news straight from the tongues of those St. Louis clerks.
“They say for the last two years, the first time ever,” a wag pontificated before some two dozen company trappers, “buffalo robes are selling better than beaver.”
For top dollar, merchants and middlemen were buying up every last robe brought in from the prairies, no question about it. This, while beaver was moving poorly, no longer regarded with as much favor as the robes.
“Them fur buyers back there been seeing how slow this beaver is to sell lately,” agreed another clerk. “What with Campbell’s brother living in Philadelphia, I’ll bet he’s the one who’s been feeding Billy Sublette all the news of them eastern markets.”
“Don’t know how long this company can afford to keep buying your beaver, boys,” a third settlement type pronounced. “Silk is all the go of the day back in the States, and with robes in high demand, beaver don’t stand a chance to last much longer.”
How long had he been refusing to admit that the market wasn’t just flat, but on a downhill slide?
How long did he have before the fur trade breathed its last?
And if he didn’t trap no more, just how was a man to go about providing for his family?
16
Six days after they reached rendezvous, McLeod and McKay turned their brigade around and departed for the northwest. This time the Hudson’s Bay men would be guiding five missionaries and their two young Indian boys on to the land of the Nez Perce.
Scratch and Waits-by-the-Water, like hundreds of whites and Indians, watched the short procession of pack mules, horses, sixteen milk cows, and that oddly misplaced Dearborn carriage wind its way out of the valley of the Green River, followed by the Nez Perce village dragging their travois, a hugh pony herd bringing up the rear. It made for a noisy, heartfelt farewell from the trappers who turned out for one last look upon those church women, a departure that left behind such an awful silence when the dust clouds eventually disappeared beyond the northern hills.
So quiet, Bass could hear the quiet gurgle of Horse Creek along its bed, or Zeke’s fitful panting in the oppressive heat, or the buzz of the deerflies that tormented and bit, leaving behind hot, painful welts. So unlike those last few frantic days after Wyeth had introduced McLeod and McKay to the American party.
“This must surely be God’s answer to our prayers!” Marcus Whitman exclaimed. “Praise the Almighty for His blessings!”
Henry Spalding concurred. “We’ve been praying that He would provide us a way to reach the Walla Walla country.”
“That’s where Sir Stewart suggests we settle our mission,” Whitman explained. “Up the Walla Walla some twenty-five miles north of your post, at a place he says the Nez Perce call Waiilatpu.”
“A good spot: plenty of ground for your crops and graze for your cattle,” John McLeod replied enthusiastically. “It’s agreed—you can join our brigade when we leave on the eighteenth. From here we’ll march for the Walla Walla by way of Fort Hall.”
“Thank God, thank God!” Narcissa cried, and clapped for joy.
“There is one thing I must require, however,” McLeod declared more sedately, quickly glancing over the few Americans who happened to be visiting the missionary camp at that moment.
“If it’s about money,” Whitman began, “I’m afraid we don’t have much of any to—”
“This isn’t about your money,” McLeod interrupted. “Only that I must have your guarantee on something before I commit to lead you into Oregon, into Hudson’s Bay Company territory.”
Spalding’s brow knit. “A guarantee?”
“We cannot have you encouraging any of these American hunters and trapper
s to come to the Columbia River to settle,” McLeod drew a fine point on it. “We do our best to have nothing at all to do with the American fur men, nothing in any fashion.”
“B-but you’ve come here to their rendezvous,” Whitman observed.
“The better to see to the nature of the American business on this side of the mountains,” McLeod declared.
Whitman shook his head. “Why shouldn’t we have the right to encourage any man who might want to make a home for himself among our mission—”
“Reverend,” McLeod said, “we know from past experience that any of these American hunters who would come to the Columbia country only cause trouble and difficulties among our Indians. They always have before.”
“But I have been thinking that we might need some help in building ourselves the church and meeting hall, putting up our simple homes too,” Whitman stated.
McLeod was waving his hand, ready to speak. “Should you need any manual labor, be it workers for your fields or men to assist in putting up your buildings, the Hudson’s Bay Company would rather furnish you with what you need than to have you encourage and invite any of the Americans to migrate into the Columbia country.”
It was clear, from the set of McLeod’s jaw and the determined cast in his eyes, that should the missionaries desire the assistance of his brigade in delivering them to the land of the Nez Perce, those missionaries would have to toe the company line.
Whitman cleared his throat to announce, “Then I have committed something of an error I will have to correct.”
“What error, Doctor?” asked half-breed McKay.
“I’ve asked some men to accompany us to Oregon country,” Whitman explained, “enlisting them as employees to help us raise shelter before winter arrives. Now … I’ll have to tell them I won’t need their services.”
“We believe that’s for the best,” McLeod responded. “For all concerned. Our enterprise, and yours.”
So the Whitmans marched out of the Rockies, across the interior basin, and on to Oregon, passing into the lore and legend of a fading era.
How quietly did two great upheavals glide by that summer, all but unnoticed on the turbulent river of history.
Having crushed all remaining American competition in that year of our Lord 1836, Astor’s St. Louis successors in this western trade would themselves end up closing the door on a glorious era. The end of an age had come.
Yet at this same July rendezvous another door had been cracked open, one never to be shut again: white women, wheels, and cows had crossed the Southern Pass.
From here on out, the West would never be the same.
Within days of the missionaries’ departure, Thomas Fitzpatrick and Milton Sublette packed up their furs and started for the post on La Ramee’s Fork, now no longer called Fort William but renamed Fort Lucien when Fontenelle and his partners purchased it from Sublette and Campbell back in thirty-five. While the one-legged Sublette would remain as mayordomo at the post, Fitz would pilot the pack train to St. Louis. With this fur caravan went Nathaniel Wyeth, who carried a pouch of letters written to loved ones back east, most transcribed for those who could neither read nor write. The intrepid Yankee promised to have them in St. Louis by October, as he was heading south to Taos by way of Bents’ Fort. Bound too for St. Louis and the States were Stewart, the Scottish nobleman, and his guide, Antoine Clement.
The most significant transaction there on the banks of the Green River was not the trading of furs for sugar and coffee, powder and lead, but that sale of Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick & Company to Joshua Pilcher, agent for Pratte, Chouteau &c Company. With no more than a whimper the grand and raucous rivalry that had raged between competing outfits was now a thing of the past.
A new American Fur Company had won the pot. But while those wealthy St. Louis Frenchmen might have defeated their less-well-heeled American competitors, Pratte, Chouteau &c Company still did not have the fur country to themselves. With Hudson’s Bay continuing to skulk around the edges, this business of beaver pelts was bound to be not only a competition between two companies, but a sharpening of the rivalry between two countries.
While Andrew Drips once again led a small brigade south by west past the Snake River country for the Wasatch and Uintah ranges, Lucien Fontenelle departed with Kit Carson and some thirty men for a fall hunt on the Musselshell, intending to winter on the lower Powder, a favorite with trappers because of its protection from the winter winds and the numbers of buffalo that grazed there throughout the cold months.
“Due north, where we’ll stab our way into the gut of Blackfoot country again.” Thus Sweete explained where Bridger’s brigade was heading as he held out his hand, preparing to move out at first light that late July morning.
“Got us plenty of time to trap a’fore we winter somewheres over on the Yellowstone,” Jim Bridger added as Bass shook their hands in farewell.
Scratch embraced his old friend. “You boys gonna watch your ha’r up there in the land of Bug’s Boys, ain’t you, Gabe? Maybe we’ll run on you come winter. Spring at the latest.”
“You’ll be up north too?” Sweete asked.
With a nod Bass said, “Fixing to winter on the Yallerstone with my wife’s people. Crow, they are. We lost her pap to the Blackfoot two year ago. Time we got back up there to see to her mam.”
Bridger glanced at Cora who sat atop her pony nearby. “Reckon I know how your stick floats when it comes to your wife’s family. Many don’t just marry a woman.”
“He ends up hitching hisself to all her kin,” Titus concluded. “It’s a good thing too, Jim—what with that doctor’s wife gone to Oregon now. Shiny-eyed gal like that being around just naturally made my woman jealous. Yours too.”
“What? My Cora?”
“Yep. Reason I know is, my wife had a good talk with me—worried all sorts of white gals was coming west and I wouldn’t want her no more,” he explained, watching Bridger turn to stare at Cora.
“I had me no idee I done anything to make her worry.”
“She’s carrying your child now, Gabe.”
Jim nodded and said, “So I made her worry I was gonna leave her high and dry with a young’un?”
“Take it from a feller what has one pup and ’nother on the way—carrying a child makes a woman act like she was bit by the full moon for no reason at all. Best for you just to figger she’s gonna bawl at nothing, scream at you for nothing too.”
Grinning, Jim commented, “I know my way round the mountains, know a Blackfoot mokerson from a Crow, know when to fight the niggers and when to run … and damn if I ain’t a fool to think I knowed women too!”
“At times, Gabe—there be no sign writ on a woman’s heart, so it’s for us to find out for our own selves.”
“Thankee, Scratch,” Bridger added, shaking Bass’s hand again before he turned, swung into the saddle, and waved his arm as he hollered for his brigade to mount up.
“Time for the trail,” Sweete said as he crawled atop the strong, jug-headed Indian pony, the man’s legs so long they all but brushed the tops of the meadow grass as he reined away for the column starting out of the valley.
Titus waved, crying out, “See you boys on the Yallerstone!”
Some of the finest moments in his life were spent sitting on a hillside such as this, listening to autumn pass with such a hush that most folks simply weren’t aware of its journey across the face of time until winter had them in its grip.
Now that summer was done, every few days Titus dawdled among the shimmering quakies, leaning back against a tree trunk there in the midst of their spun-gold magnificence to gaze out upon the valley below where he ran his trapline. Since leaving rendezvous, he had keenly anticipated this season of the year, this season of his life.
The quiet murmur of the land as it prepared for a winter’s rest. The frantic coupling of the wild creatures big and small before the coming of cold and hunger. That soul-stirring squeal of the bull elk on the hillside above him. Those heart-wrenching honks
of the long-necks as they flapped overhead, making for the south once again to complete a grand circuit of the ages.
As he sat there today, gazing down at how the wind stirred tiny riffles across the surface of the stream, Scratch remembered the ancient Flathead medicine man who had died early that July morning his village was preparing to depart the white man’s rendezvous. Only the day before the old man’s death had Bass gone to the Flathead camp with Bridger, Sweete, and Meek, who had come along with Cora to visit some of her kinfolk to have a divination, a portent of their autumn hunt.
The ancient one unexpectedly called the trappers to his shady bower where he lay suspended on his travois of soft blankets and robes beneath a buffalo-hide awning. His daughter, old herself, remained at his side.
“My father wants to talk to you,” the widow had explained, looking up at Bridger, then the others, with tired eyes.
“Who is your father?” Sweete asked in sign.
And Bridger inquired with his hands, “Why does he want to talk to me?”
“Come,” she gestured. “He will tell you everything.”
The old man reached out a frail, bony hand, looking more like a bird’s claw, the moment he heard his daughter return, heard the trappers shuffle up and position themselves self-consciously around the travois.
“Touch his hand,” she signed, rubbing the back of hers with her fingers. “So he knows you are here.”
Bridger knelt and rubbed the back of the ancient one’s veiny hand. Then Scratch touched it, amazed at how the dark cords stood out like tiny ropes against the sheen of the malleable brown skin.
“Does he hear?” Bass said, then remembered to make the sign.
The woman nodded and laid a hand on her father’s cheek, spoke to him softly in Flathead.
When he began speaking, it was only a few words at a time, almost as if he was having to fight for breath between each phrase. And when he sighed, resting, the old woman translated with her hands.
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