Gabriella

by Earl Murray

  He pointed out that the buffalo migrate through and after grazing everything off, move on to other locales, allowing the grass to recover.

  “But the mules and oxen never stop coming and never stop eating and the grass never recovers, killing their roots. Nature won’t allow productive ground to lay barren, so smaller grasses and plants not suitable for grazing come in to cover the soil.”

  I looked again at the brush and cactus that dotted the landscape. In some places, especially the sandy knobs, the cactus had gotten too thick to ride through. Landers said he could see from reading earlier botany journals that it wouldn’t be long before a lot of the grasslands were changed forever.

  “I predict that in just another twenty years travelers will come this way and won’t ever know what they’ve missed,” he said. “If I was God, I would stop your westward movement.”

  Quincannon’s Journal

  22 APRIL 1846, 2ND ENTRY

  Pawnee Creek is flowing brimful and our earlier crossing wasn’t nearly as easy as I’d hoped. There was still plenty of light left, and after letting the mules rest a short while, we plunged in. The banks were steep and we had to take an hour to dig them back a ways to allow for easier entry for the carts. I have seen wagons and carts, both, tip over by not preparing correctly.

  We got the carts across without mishap, but Barton Strand slipped from his horse. Luckily, I was close to help him out. He thanked me and coughed up water, then asked how hard it would be to catch a caravan going back to St. Louis.

  “You can make arrangements with somebody at Bent’s Fort,” I said. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “I’m not willing to die out here,” he said.

  Garr said nothing to him, visibly embarrassed at seeing his nephew in trouble. I wonder how he would react if the tables were turned.

  Gabriella did her best to revive Barton’s spirits, but it was plain that the young man felt distinctly out of place and wanted nothing more than to be home in England.

  We were pitching camp when Lamar came riding in and announced that he had discovered a herd of buffalo moving steadily in our direction from the southwest. It wasn’t long until the word spread through camp and the excitement began to build. Garr was ready to leave immediately but I pointed out that the sun was falling and only fools hunted buffalo in the dark.

  As my men prepared cuts of antelope for the fire, I got ready for the hunt. Since going to the mountains I’ve carried a 52-caliber percussion rifle made by Jacob Hawken of St. Louis. I doubt I will ever find a gun I like better. A lot of the trappers and traders prefer flintlocks of the Kentucky and Lancaster styles. They have longer barrels and may shoot farther, but I like the heft of my piece.

  I can’t hit anything at long distances anyway. I’ll leave that to Lamar and those like him, men who can shoot the eye out of a bird at nearly three hundred yards. I’ve seen it happen—not often, but often enough. In turn, they’ll depend on me to drop a bear coming at us. I’ll stick with Lucy. She’s been my bodyguard for nearly ten years, and I won’t go back on her now.

  I had finished cleaning and oiling Lucy, and was preparing to take a cut of meat, when Bom appeared and bowed.

  “Master Sir Edward would like to see you. He says that maybe you are tired of eating antelope.”

  “I’m tired of prairie dog as well,” I said.

  “If you will come,” he said, “Master Sir Edward promises a delicacy.”

  I followed Bom over to Garr’s tent and saw that he was offering chairs to Walter and Avis, as well as Miss Hall.

  “Please,” he said to me, “will you join us?”

  He had been out that evening with his fowling piece and had dispatched a number of large grouse. The Rivet brothers had roasted them underground, a trick they had learned from Bom, and had made a red wine sauce and a side dish of roasted Indian breadroots that Lamar had pointed out to J. T. Landers.

  The little botanist was delighted, digging up a number of specimens and carving into the large white roots. He told me the plant was a member of the pea family, and from its appearance, had just starting blooming. They were moist enough that we ate some of them raw. I had learned the French name, pomme-blanche, during my early years in the mountains. Wild white potatoes is what the trappers called them.

  The servants had laid a carpet and fitted three tables together, covering it with fine linen. Poles had been erected back from the tables three feet apart, with lanterns secured to each one, providing nearly as much light as midday.

  I took a seat across from Gabriella. She wore her charming blue dress and slippers, all having been cleaned to immaculate condition by her servant, Jessie. Her hair was drawn up in ringlets and a bow fastened on one side. She caught my eye and smiled slightly while Peter Rivet filled her wineglass.

  “I propose a toast to the morn,” Garr said. “At last we have reached the buffalo and they are mine.”

  I sipped from my glass, noticing all at the table cared as little for the toast as me. All but Avis, who giggled after swallowing.

  “You’ve been toasting already for some time, haven’t you, dear?” Walter said.

  “Now, Walter. Would you fault me for enjoying the evening?”

  “Just don’t enjoy it too much,” he said.

  The servants offered a first course of deviled grouse eggs and wild mushrooms. The chefs had learned how to fry bread in a deep skillet from Lamar. But the flour had gotten slightly sandy and Garr threw the offering over the tent into the darkness. He said nothing, but snapped his fingers and ordered the main course.

  “I’m delighted that you could join us, Mr. Quincannon,” he said. “Are you ready for the hunt?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We should have a good feast this time tomorrow.”

  “I will be taking the first shot,” he said. “I shall select a trophy bull and then the real hunt can commence. Is that understood?”

  “You do what you want,” I said. “Far be it from me to give you instructions.”

  Gabriella’s Journal

  22 APRIL 1846

  I believe our dinner tonight was one of the most interesting I can remember. It might have ended badly but for the calm manner of Owen Quincannon, who continues to surprise and interest me more with each passing day.

  I’ll never know what struck Edward to bring us all together, except perhaps some quirk in his character that drives him to try to humiliate others in front of a crowd. Had Mr. Quincannon had any idea what was coming, I’m certain he would have declined the invitation. As it was, he listened to Edward and never once even squirmed in his chair.

  I would say he is a man who stays detached until something needs to be done, to save lives or somehow survive, and then springs into action. I would also say that whoever stands in his way during those times had better think twice.

  He wouldn’t allow himself to be disturbed, but ate his grouse with a gentleman’s manners. He told Edward more than once that he didn’t intend to interfere with his hunting methods, but advised him to be very careful. Edward thinks that just because he’s hunted African big game, he has nothing to fear on the American plains.

  Barton has suggested to me that his uncle will likely meet a grim fate at the hands of some animal that wishes not to be taken for granted. Bears came to mind and Barton related a story to me that Mr. Quincannon had told him about a hunter who believed his rifle could drop anything to be found in the mountains without difficulty.

  It seems they were setting traps in a stream in late fall when a bear charged from a nearby patch of berries. The hunter boasted that he could bring the animal down with one shot. But the bear ran him over, a huge brown and yellow monster called a grizzly, and tore the hunter open from throat to groin and began devouring him in front of Mr. Quincannon and two others, who all fired upon the bear until it fell dead.

  “I learned from that story,” Barton said, “that nothing is to be taken for granted.”

  Barton had come to my tent to present me with flowers,
a bouquet of bright yellow sweetpeas that I immediately placed in a vase of river water. I thanked him and asked why the courtesy.

  “I believe that my uncle takes you for granted,” he said. “Perhaps he doesn’t mean to, but he does nevertheless. I just wanted you to know that you’re admired.”

  The flowers have remained fresh and I decided to place them upon the table for the evening. I fingered their lovely blossoms while Edward continued to test Mr. Quincannon.

  “Have you ever shot a white buffalo?” he asked.

  “No,” Mr. Quincannon answered.

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “I’ve seen two, and a robe that belonged to an Arapaho medicine man.”

  “What kept you from shooting the buffalo, or taking the robe from the Indian?”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with a white buffalo,” Mr. Quincannon said.

  “I suppose it has something to do with superstition,” Edward said.

  “Call it what you want.”

  “Are you afraid of Indians, Mr. Quincannon?”

  “If you show them respect, there’s no reason to worry about them.”

  “It seems that your men have been mixing with mine far too much. I’ve heard that we’ll all be dead if we don’t give banquets to every Indian passerby we meet.”

  “It’s only courteous to share a meal,” Mr. Quincannon said. “Should we go into a village to visit, they would be offended if we didn’t eat with them.”

  “I choose when and with whom I eat,” Edward said.

  Mr. Quincannon thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t do any visiting, then.”

  When it finally became obvious that Mr. Quincannon would not be detoured from enjoying his meal, Edward began talking about hunting Indians. I noticed Mr. Quincannon’s face darken slightly and he stated that if what had been said wasn’t a joke, then we should all turn around and go back to St. Louis.

  “You told me that you weren’t afraid of them,” Edward said. “I would never have thought you a coward.”

  “You can talk cowards if you want,” Mr. Quincannon said. “I’ll talk fools.”

  “Are you calling me a fool?”

  “Didn’t you just say that anyone who was afraid to hunt Indians was a coward?”

  “I said that.”

  “Have you ever hunted Indians?”

  “That’s a foolish question, Mr. Quincannon. I’ve never been to this country before.”

  “Then how can you know whether or not you should be afraid of them?”

  “I’m not disposed to be fearful of anything, Mr. Quincannon.”

  “If you’re not a fool,” Mr. Quincannon said, “then you’re a very unusual man.”

  Edward cut a bite of meat and stared at him.

  “How many men have you killed?” he asked.

  “One is too many.”

  “Really,” Edward said. “Maybe we should have had this discussion back in St. Louis, before I agreed to take you on.”

  “You would still have had to cross Indian country.”

  “Are you certain it’s Indian country, Mr. Quincannon? Isn’t it now American soil being unjustly occupied by native tribes? Isn’t that what your Manifest Destiny is all about?”

  “I suppose you would rather it be British settlers occupying those lands.”

  “Perhaps it will be.”

  “You’ve already failed,” Mr. Quincannon said.

  Edward got up from the table and threw his napkin into his plate. He paced back and forth and asked Mr. Quincannon what to expect at Bent’s Fort, whom we might meet there and if, as he had learned, it was a haven for frontiersmen who knew the mountains.

  “There might certainly be any number of mountain men there,” Mr. Quincannon said.

  “That is interesting to hear,” Edward said. “I’ve decided that should I make the right arrangements with the right individual, you and I will no longer be partners.”

  THE ARKANSAS

  Gabriella’s Journal

  23 APRIL 1846, 1ST ENTRY

  I awakened before dawn to the sounds of men yelling and running for their horses. The buffalo had reached the river nearby and there was concern that the herd might stampede across and through camp.

  They made a tremendous bellowing sound, and as the light crept into the sky, I mounted Whistler and rode to the top of a hill. They were a rolling black ocean sweeping through the scarlet sunrise, their heads down and their tails flying high. They crossed the river and scrambled up the banks.

  Mr. Quincannon and his men had taken position in a line between the herd and our camp. They held their rifles raised in the air, hoping the leading animals would see them and veer away. He told me later that he didn’t want to fire even a single shot, for fear of sending them off. They weren’t like the wild Spanish cattle to the south and couldn’t be turned by shooting in front of their faces.

  Edward chose not to heed any such warnings and leveled his rifle at a large bull crossing close to the tents. The ball did nothing appreciable to the animal. It shook its head and began to run—luckily, away from camp.

  The bellowing grew to a deafening roar as the herd broke across the open, thousands of them in a steady stream, pounding the ground to a fine powder that rose into the air and clouded the skies above camp. When finally they ceased to stampede, only half the herd had passed and it took fully the entire morning before the remainder had left.

  Edward seemed embarrassed but said nothing. Had Providence not been with us, we might all have been trampled to pieces. He deferred to Mr. Quincannon, who suggested we move farther upriver to a new camp and save the hunt for late afternoon.

  As it stood, the men had to gather lost mules and horses that had broken from camp in terror. They were all found grazing peacefully along the hills below the herd. But time had been lost in rounding them up.

  I find it curious that Edward complains so often regarding our movement, exclaiming that we aren’t traveling fast enough, and then makes a silly decision to shoot a buffalo less than a stone’s throw from us all. Had he thought for an instant, he would have realized that even if we had not all been killed, there would be other consequences from buffalo stampeding in the vicinity of the stock.

  Walter was clearly put out. Had there been reason to scramble for his life, he would have had little chance of surviving. He and Avis had tried to make for higher ground and he had fallen twice. He told me later that in a world where smart decisions are imperative, Edward should sit back and leave it all to just about anyone else.

  I asked him how Edward had managed to rise in the military ranks so swiftly and become a leader with a lot of responsibility.

  “Family ties,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  After cleaning dust from our tents and beds, everything was packed and we began our journey anew. The south end of the herd remained well within view while we traveled. Calves trotted beside their mothers and I wondered how they had kept pace during the running. Edward talked incessantly about a white bull, but the sea of black held no spots of any other color except occasional grays and reds.

  I now ride Whistler much more often than I sit in the carriage. Jessie has proven a grand seamstress and has modified two of my dresses so that I might change from sidesaddle to riding astride my pony at will. Avis is horrified to see me sitting on the horse like a man, but I can see nothing wrong with it. I’m not athlete enough to ride with both legs on one side while a sea of buffalo trample nearby.

  Avis asked me before we left if I was getting good use out of the young slave. Aside from her altering my dresses, I hadn’t desired her services as much as I had early in the journey, so I wondered what my aunt was talking about.

  “As of late, Jessie hasn’t been around for me all that much,” she said. “I thought perhaps you required her services more now, since she was meant mainly for you in the first place.”

  I realized then why I hadn’t seen Bom as often as before, either. Whe
n I questioned him about it, he just grinned.

  “She needs help adjusting to the frontier,” he said.

  In midafternoon Mr. Quincannon stopped us where a small stream of good, fresh water emptied into the Arkansas. Edward was so desperate to hunt that even before camp was complete, he mounted his black stallion, rifle in hand, and charged towards the herd. A number of his men followed, and before long, they had scattered buffalo in every direction.

  Walter and Avis watched from in front of their tent. Avis was not looking forward to dinner, but Walter had told me earlier that he was looking forward to the taste of buffalo and to telling stories to his friends upon our return to England.

  I’ll admit, I had tired of sketching antelope and landscapes. The thought of seeing and painting the same wild scenes as those famous artists before me created an intense excitement. Mr. Quincannon said that the herd was large, but not nearly so as in years past. Their numbers were suffering terribly, he said, from all the hunting. He was not happy that Edward was already shooting.

  I rode with him and Lamar atop a small rise and saw Edward repeatedly dismount and fire, stamping his feet in frustration, as no buffalo were falling. Mr. Quincannon stated that the animals must be shot in a certain spot behind the shoulder to fall. Otherwise they might never go down, or wander off and die some distance away.

  I asked him why neither he nor Lamar were joining in the chase and he informed me that there would be plenty of meat for the evening cookfires and that wasting ammunition was foolish.

  I noticed Barton standing by himself at the edge of camp. He had convinced Edward not to insist that he hunt, so was content to just watch.

  Robert Colville had stated often that he would show his prowess at hunting when the time was right. He rode between two large bulls and lowered his rifle to fire. Both animals swung their heads into his horse at the same time, goring it terribly on both sides.