“Around 1806, when the company was returning from the Pacific and had reached the Mandan villages, Colter asked to be discharged from Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery so he could stay in the wilderness and trap for furs. He was doing that along about 1809 when he and a trapper named John Potts met up with hostile Blackfeet Indians along the Jefferson River . . . this was long before the pox and other diseases almost wiped out the entire Indian nation. It was no small hunting party. Five- or six- hundred Blackfeet were not happy about white men hunting in their hunting grounds.
“Blackfeet being Blackfeet, they captured Colter and shot Potts to pieces, hacking up what was left of the dead trapper. After that, Blackfeet being Blackfeet, they stripped Colter of all his clothes, pointed, and signed at him to run.
“John Colter did.
“It was a game to the Blackfeet. They were sporting about such things, giving him a head start of three hundred yards.
“What the Blackfeet did not know was how fast Colter could run. The Indians sent their fastest warriors after him, thinking they would overtake him quickly and kill him the way they had killed John Potts. But Colter ran. And ran. And ran. He seemed tireless and rarely slowed down.
“He left most of the Blackfeet far behind him, but one Indian seemed only slightly slower afoot than Colter. They ran through forests, and branches and brambles tore much of Colter’s flesh. His nose was bloody. His feet were raw.
“With only one Indian nearby—maybe twenty yards behind—Colter turned to face the closest Blackfoot and held out his arms as though awaiting death. Maybe he was. Maybe that’s what he wanted. The sudden move caught the Indian by surprise. He threw his lance, but worn out from running . . . and the shock of seeing the bloody white man . . . the spear fell short. Colter snatched it up and ran the Blackfoot through, pinning him to the earth.
“He pulled the lance free of the dead brave and grabbed the blanket the Indian had. Armed, Colter continued to run. Five miles later, he ran to the banks of the Madison River, and there he saw the beaver dam. Wading into the water, with only a spear and blanket, he swam to the animals’ lodge and hid inside.”
Just like I did, Tim thought, when Jackatars’s men attacked us. Only I had no spear. No blanket.
Reno continued the story. “That night, Colter came out from the dam. He had a spear. A blanket. And many years of experience living and surviving in this country. He walked, hiding his tracks, surviving on berries, bark, grass, whatever he could find to eat.
“Eleven days later, John Colter, browned by the sun, still naked except for a blanket that stank and was filled with holes—he had lost the spear shortly after leaving the beaver dam—stood outside the gate to Fort Raymond near the Big Horn and Yellowstone rivers. Fort Raymond was a trading post. The men up in the watchtower stared down, wondering what kind of creature he was.
“Colter told him his name.
“At first, no body believed him.
“Cactus spines were embedded in both feet. He was more skeleton than man, but that skeleton recovered. John Colter had walked two hundred miles to survival.
“He lived only three more years, marrying a girl called Sally, who bore him a son. He died of jaundice. He died a legend.
“That’s John Colter,” Reno said.
Tim marveled at the story, although he did not know how much he could believe. “Did you know him?”
Reno cursed. “Boy, how old do you think I am? He was dead before I ever heard of the Rocky Mountains.”
Sipping his coffee, Tim thought more about Reno’s tale. “But what’s Colter’s Hell?”
“That run from the Blackfeet might be why folks back East talk about John Colter, but he done his share of exploring, too. Probably was the first white man ever to see a lot of this country. Including Colter’s Hell.
“Shortly after leaving the Corps of Discovery, he joined a party of fur trappers heading up the Platte River under command of Manuel Lisa. Colter had been paddling a canoe, heading back to civilization in St. Louis, but he already missed the mountains. So he joined the keelboat and returned to the Yellowstone and built Fort Raymond.
“In the winter of 1807-08, Lisa sent men off on explorations in different directions. Colter went up the Big Horn, and in the dead of winter, found Hell.
“In those days, they called the Shoshone the Stink-ingwater River—it give off a foul odor, like rotting eggs and sulfur. At the mouth of the canyon cut by the wild river, Colter wandered into a place that smelled even worse than the river. He saw bubbling earthen cauldrons of foul-smelling hot springs. Geysers that sent steam shooting hundreds of yards into the air. And ground that pulled a struggling buffalo into the depths of Hades like quicksand. Vents in the earth shot out gasses. Boiling water carved ditches that carried the evil water to the stinking river.
“It was Hell, but it was Hell in the middle of a Garden of Eden. Maybe that’s the way it was supposed to be.” Reno saw the disbelief on Tim’s face. “After all, Heaven can’t be far from Hell, can it? Where else could it have been?
“Colter returned to the trading post and told of his discovery. Most of the men laughed at him. They said he could sure tell a whopper. Some called him a liar, regretting it after getting a taste of the mountain man’s knuckles. No one believed him . . . at first.
“Others soon confirmed Colter’s Hell. A few years back a Crow Indian chief named Plenty Coups told me about camping there. I heard descriptions of Colter’s Hell from Joseph Lafayette “Joe” Meek when we shared a few jugs at the Rendezvous way down south in the Willow Valley.
“‘Ye ne’er seed the likes, Jed,” Meek told me. “‘Everywheres ye turnt, ye found the whole land just a-smokin’ from the mists of ’em boilin’ springs, an’ the springs was a-burnin’ with gasses. Stank, I means to tell ye, but it wasn’t just the stink or the gas or the hot water. It was the noise. ’Em craters jes kept a-whistlin’, an’ a-whistlin’ sharp. It was Lucifer hisself, I reckon, a-whistlin’ for us sinners to come join him. But as frightenin’ as it was, as horrible as it seemed and sure, by thunder, smelt, it was a beautiful place, Jed,’ he told me. ‘Inspirin’, I reckon be the word. God put his hand on that land, son. Maybe the Devil wants his share of her, and that’s why ’em pits and that smell be thar.’ ”
* * *
Stiff as Reno’s leg was, the trapper still managed to climb into the saddle on the black. He seemed glad to be rid of the travois, but Tim wondered if maybe they should keep it—just in case.
“No,” Reno said. “It’ll just slow us down, and we’ve wasted enough time.”
They were out of the mountains, although the land remained rugged. The sun turned hotter. They crested a hill and rode down the eastern side where the evergreens had been carved away by long-melted glaciers or mudslides from years past. Antelope grazed below, but both men knew better than to fire a rifle. Sound carried a long way, and Jackatars and his raiders would be alert. To the west rose more mountains, maybe not as inspiring as the Tetons that Reno had pointed out some days back, but brutal and dark and menacing. He led his horse away from those tree-lined peaks.
It was morning, though hot. Wisps of white clouds seemed to reach only halfway up the mountains to the east. Even though they remained snowcapped but tree-lined, it was as if they rose out of the sky itself. Closer to the valley and grass, the gray and brown rocks turned red. In the low country, where Reno and Tim rode, antelope loped away from the horses and mule.
The creeks they crossed were shallow, rocky, and cold. The animals splashed across. Reno did not give them time to drink. He did not drink himself.
Tim followed him.
That night, they camped beside a hot spring along a river that Reno did not name. When Tim started to unsaddle the black, Reno stopped him, and Tim did not ask why. Maybe the trapper wanted his horse ready in case they had to leave in a hurry. Besides, Tim was so stiff and sore, if he didn’t have to unsaddle a horse, that seemed fine and dandy to him.
They built no fire and
finished the pemmican Tim had been carrying for longer than he could remember. He brought a scarred hand to his face and brushed away the dirt and grime and . . . what was it? He rubbed harder, feeling bristles like peach fuzz.
A few yards away, Reno sat massaging his bad leg, though he kept looking at the teenager with his one good eye.
Finally, the mountain man grinned. “That don’t come off, boy.”
Lowering his hand, Tim asked, “What?”
“You’d call it a beard, I guess. Though I don’t.”
Amazed, Tim brought his hand up again, brushing the fuzz on his face gently, careful not to knock any of that hair off.
The hot spring gurgled. A nighthawk screeched. Clumsily, painfully, Reno began removing his moccasins. That he could do by himself, but he needed Tim’s assistance to pull off his patched buckskin britches.
When he removed the bandage, Tim frowned.
“It doesn’t look good.” His voice sounded hollow.
“Hurts worse than it looks,” Reno said, and jutted his jaw toward the steaming spring. “Help me over there.”
Tim sucked in his breath as Reno eased both legs into the hot spring. Well, it wasn’t bubbling, so that meant the water was not boiling. Maybe it would not scald the trapper to death. Reno sank in to his armpits and gave Tim a wink and a grin.
“Want to come in?”
Tim’s head shook.
“If you reach my age, you’ll like it. Indians say some of these springs can cure what ails you.”
“It stinks.”
“Most medicine does.”
While Reno soaked, Tim found a muslin sack in the packs. He emptied its contents—two twists of tobacco, a pouch of beads, and a dried human ear—and returned to the spring. He cut the sack into strips and then soaked them in the water.
“Boy, what are you doing?”
“Making you a fresh bandage for that leg.”
“You’re a regular surgeon, ain’t you.” As Tim kept working, the mountain man added, “Smart thinking, though. My leg and I appreciate it.”
* * *
When it was full dark, and the moon had yet to rise, Jed Reno used his crutch to push himself to his feet. He carried the two Hawken rifles with him, first to the packs the mule had carried, then toward his horse. Tim could not understand how the man, using a makeshift crutch, could handle two rifles, but Reno did, at least until he reached the black’s side.
“Come here, boy,” he ordered.
Under Reno’s direction, Tim took some pelts and secured them with leather cords to the black’s four feet. Reno told him that the pelts would cut down on noise—the ground they’d be traveling was hard—and make it hard for anyone to follow him, should he get back.
“Where are we going?” Tim asked.
“I’m going. You’re staying.” Reno tossed his Hawken to Tim, who caught it as if he had expected it.
“Hold the rifles while I climb up,” Reno ordered. “Don’t shoot me out of the saddle.”
When he was seated, keeping his wounded leg out of the stirrup, he reached for the smaller rifle, which he turned and strapped behind the cantle. His own rifle, he held in his right hand.
“Your crutch?” Tim asked.
Reno shook his head.
“Boy, I’m making a scout. You wait here. If I ain’t back before sunrise, I’m dead.” He frowned. “Don’t look at me like that. It happens to everyone. It’ll happen to you one day, but with luck, maybe by then, them britches will fit. If I ain’t here, you take the mule and your pinto and ride north and west.” He gestured. “Eventually, you’ll come to the Yellowstone River. Follow it downstream. Follow it forever. If you’re lucky, real lucky, you’ll come to the Missouri. Near the confluence, there’s a trading post. Called Fort Union. They’ll get you back to any kin you might have left.”
Tim stiffened and felt his face flushing. “I have kin near here, Reno. If you’re not back by sunrise, I’ll find them myself.”
Reno spit. “Boy, if I ain’t back, your sisters and your gal and her ma will likely be put under, too. And if they ain’t, they’ll all be praying to God that they were.”
CHAPTER 34
Over time, the Shoshone River had carved a deep gorge through the granite and sedimentary rock of the sharp rough uplift someone had named Rattlesnake Mountain. As the moon began to rise, Reno rode easily along the bank, watching the canyon looming before him. The river roiled, but it would be worse in the steep canyon.
However, Reno knew he would not reach the canyon. He’d come to Colter’s Hell first.
Twice, he stopped and looked down his back trail, thinking that he had heard horses. He didn’t think the fool kid would be dumb enough to follow him, but he had not much experience dealing with teenage city boys. If someone was trailing him, they were smart. They had stopped their horses, too.
For fifteen minutes, he waited before deciding that he was just growing old and starting to hear things.
On he rode.
The hot-spring soak had relieved the ache in his leg, but he still kicked free of the stirrup and stretched it out as he rode. The hard climb from the Green River and over those vicious mountains had taken its toll, and the leg remained stiff. Despite how bad it looked before the soak and how awful it felt, he saw no signs of infection. No gangrene. He might live just long enough to be buried with all his body parts intact, unless you count the three or four teeth he had lost in drunken rows—not to mention that missing eye and earlobe.
He smelled the sulfur long before he heard the first boiling pits, and the black snorted its distaste. Vapors rose as he rode between the two cracks in the earth. Ahead of him came a faint twinkling, too low to the ground to be stars. He knew it must be fires.
The horse stopped without Reno pulling on the hackamore.
Knowing horses had an instinct, he sat still in the saddle, looked at the horse and at the dark, eerie ground before him. He climbed from the saddle, remembering the oft-told story about how John Colter had seen a buffalo bull pulled down through the soft, stinking ground. He led the black back to the Shoshone and down to the bank, looping the hackamore around a heavy stone. “Stay here.” Taking the extra rifle from behind the cantle, he moved back toward the stinking place.
The vents in the earth whistled, and he moved carefully across the ground, testing often before he stepped. Once his foot started to sink, and he felt the heat burning through the soles of his moccasins, but he stopped before he died like that old buffalo, and backed away, finding another path toward the flickering campfires.
An hour later, he could hear the voices. With his dying breath, Malachi Murchison had spoken the truth. Louis Jackatars was there.
Reno checked his knife, hatchet, and the two rifles. The moon was larger than usual and brighter than it needed to be. But a man could live only so long, Reno figured, as he began crawling over the stinking ground, slowly, carefully, stopping to listen and careful not to head into a boiling pit or come across a geyser as it erupted. He went down an incline and up again, peering at the camp of the half-breed Métis and his rogues.
He frowned and mouthed—but did not speak—the curse on his lips. Jackatars was doing more than getting the Indians blamed for murdering and kidnapping white emigrants. He was fueling the war he intended to start.
Only two men in buckskins were unloading kegs from three mules. At first, Reno thought that the containers were filled with whiskey, but they were being stacked underneath a lean-to, far away from the campfires.
Powder. Gunpowder.
Louis Jackatars barked orders to the men. Reno could have killed the Métis right then, but he knew he would never make it back to Tim Colter alive if he did that. It would also get those women killed.
One of the trappers carrying a keg was clean-shaven, rare for a mountain man. On his head, he wore a red beret. Reno studied the man helping him. With his hooded coat and the way he spoke and carried himself, it had to be Donald Baker. Reno did not know the one in the beret.
That figured. The British wanted the Oregon country for its empire, and Hudson’s Bay wanted that trade with the Indians and the furs and whatever else Oregon had to offer.
Keeping out of sight, Reno worked his way down to the camp until he came to a ditch. Stopping, he stared. The fast-flowing water that had carved the ditch smelled as it moved toward the Shoshone River. In front of another lean-to that had been set up near the reeking spring that fed the ditch, he saw the women.
Four of them. A full-grown woman and three kids, although two of those looked like they were practically grown up. He let out a little sigh of relief. All alive. A few yards in front of the lean-to and the women, five men squatted by the fire, but only one of those looked at the women. With curiosity and concern, the rest watched the dancing going on in the center of the camp.
That’s where the whiskey kegs were. And the Indians. Blackfeet, all right. Twenty of them. He cursed when Red Coat himself—though his coat had turned pink—stumbled out of the center of the circle, fell to his knees, and crawled to the nearest jug.
Red Coat . . . Donald Baker . . . Louis Jackatars. Three dangerous men.
How many more? Reno did a rough count before he spotted the horses. He looked back at the gunpowder and the ditch. The ditch. That could be it.
Sliding back, away from the camp and down a slope, he eventually turned and crawled alongside the ditch. Two feet deep, maybe just as far across. Too small for a man the size of Jed Reno, especially with a bum leg, but...
He followed the ditch all the way to the Shoshone. He tested the water that spilled into the river, smelled it, tasted it, and spit out its bitterness.
After reading the moon, he moved along the banks of the river, heading back to his horse. He ran, for the banks of the river would keep anyone in Jackatars’s camp—half a mile deep into the basin of geysers and hot pits and poison water—from seeing him. He ran as best he could with the bad leg. Ran until he heard the shout and saw the Indian, silhouetted by the moon, leaping at him.
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