Uncompahgre

by Reid Lance Rosenthal

  June 22, 1855

  Johannes rode with the Sharps across his lap, lost in the brilliant grandeur surrounding him, enjoying the warmth of early summer sun. He could see the trail and canyon leading to Little Medicine stretched below them a number of miles away, the layers of mountains stretching endlessly in all directions, each range painted with its own brush, dipped in a different color from nature’s palate.

  Ahead of him straggled the last cows in the long, narrow line of cattle. Bente’s ears flicked at the faint ding, ding, ding of the lead cow’s bell, far to the front. Hips and shoulders swinging ponderously, the cattle picked their way downhill, occasionally sliding on the remnants of snow or plentiful mud. The column of cattle, five or six animals wide, was hemmed in on one side of the narrow trail by heavy timber on the uphill slope and a steep drop off on the other. Michael and Philippe were spaced out one hundred fifty yards between them on the more thinly treed downhill slope, sliding and occasionally falling as they led, rather than rode, their horses on the slick side hill. The sky capping the never-ending spires of mountains shown bluer than Johannes had ever seen. Grander than the Alps.

  Leaning forward, he patted Bente’s neck as the sleek mare picked her way down the trail, gingerly avoiding mud and noticeably shying from anything that had the appearance of ice, setting her hooves down slowly, testing their footing. Smart horse, Johannes thought appreciatively. She’s been in the mountains before.

  The trail temporarily lost some of its incline as it wound around the outside edge of a small bench, which flattened and fanned out several hundred yards from the toe of large, almost vertical brown-red rock faces interspersed with narrow chasms of steep, very densely forested bands of conifers. The bench fell off steeply again from the southwest edge of the trail. The timber between the herd and the rock slabs was dense but not completely impenetrable, a mixture of competing aspen, lodgepole and spruce. Snow had lingered in the shade of this large stand of trees, aided by a slightly northern exposure. One of the last cows in line stopped walking, twisting her horned head back at Johannes, challenge in her big brown eyes. A crescent-shaped grey area extended from her chin to her shoulder.

  You again, Johannes shook his head. “You remember that pistol I showed you the other night?” he called aloud to the cow, “Don’t you forget.” The bovine lowered her head, craning her neck in a long mooooo, and then suddenly bolted from the tail end of the herd into the timber.

  “Damn, I really am going to shoot you.” He raised up in the saddle, one hand to his mouth and whistled. The nearest rider was Philippe. “Stray!” Johannes shouted, “off into the uphill trees. I’ll get her.” Philippe took off his hat and waved it, indicating he had heard, and Johannes redirected Bente’s attention to the timber. The vaquero had already broken from his place below the line of cows and was leading his horse back toward the rear to replace Johannes at drag.

  Bente picked her way down to the spot where the troublemaker had disappeared. Even at a quick trot, the cow’s tracks were clearly visible—a slight, narrow trail that wound through the trees. “Okay, Bente,” Johannes said, annoyed. “Go get her.” Bente shook her head, hesitating. “Come on, girl; we can fit through there.”

  With tentative steps, the grey, tall bay mare squeezed through the trees, the trail so narrow that her rump brushed trunks and several times the barrel of Johannes’ Sharps did likewise, making a dull thud as the metal glanced off a tree. Johannes looked upward at the over-hanging branches, too low to rest the rifle on his leg, muzzle in the air. He reined in the mare, slipping the long gun back into its scabbard. No need of it in here anyway.

  Fifty yards into the woods, Bente slowed, occasionally shaking her head up and down, jingling the hackamore. “Come on, girl.” Johannes clicked at her, “These are just trees.” That cow can’t be far. She sure as hell is not going to go up those cliffs. “Bente, what’s the problem?” Johannes dug his heels lightly into the mare’s flanks but the horse refused to move faster. He dug them again, harder. “Bente, we don’t have all day.” Bente’s ears were stiff and alert, her nostrils flaring, her eyes fixed on what appeared to be an open area barely visible ahead through the trees. Must be a little meadow.

  The bare whisper of the breeze suddenly reverberated with a terrified bawling, which ebbed, then rose in intensity until it ended abruptly. Bente quivered, trying to turn in the thick trees. “Dammit, Bente.” Johannes kicked his heels into her sides forcefully, then again. She took two unsteady jumps forward breaking into a small clearing that backed to a steep rock face just forty feet away.

  It all happened at once, without warning. The frantic cow lay on her side, futilely kicking her legs, her body writhing, red spreading through the snow where her neck and head were pinned by a massive, cinnamon-brown shape. Johannes’ hand instinctively closed on the pistol in his belt. Bente tossed her head, her eyes rolling back, wide and white. She rose almost vertical on her rear legs, front hooves slicing the air above her head. Bear! Grizzly bear! The horse’s wild rearing took him by surprise, one hand already committed to drawing the pistol. Johannes grabbed desperately for the saddle horn, dropping the reins but too late. He was already far back over the mare’s haunches, his outstretched fingers a foot short of the saddle horn and losing ground. He slid off the back of the horse, hitting his shoulder and head on a tree, then another, landing partially on his side in the snow, his chest wedged between three aspen trunks, the force of the blow knocking the pistol out of his hand and into the snow.

  The bear looked up from the still weakly kicking cow, small beady eyes fixed on him. Bente reared again, her hooves flashing close to Johannes. He twisted his hips and legs to the side. Wild eyed, she bucked twice, turning in midair and landing in a panicked gallop, kicking snow and earth high into the air. With stirrups flapping and reins trailing in the snow, she sped back down the disputed trail. Johannes, still on his side, his shoulders and torso hemmed in by the trees, desperately groped for the pistol under the snow.

  Rising to full height, the bear snarled, shaking its head, droplets of red-tinted saliva flying from its jowls. The sun shown off its hair, the massive form glowing reddish-brown. The animal twisted its head, opening its mouth in a furious, rending roar, its steely eyes fixed on Johannes. Flattening back its ears, it gnashed and clicked its great bared teeth, drooling, then lunged forward on all fours, its muscled mass bounding toward him.

  Desperate, Johannes found the Colt, his fingers wrapping around the grip. The bear was almost on him just feet now separating them. He heard the bear breathing, and smelled the foul stench of its breath. Wrenching himself partly onto his back, he swung the pistol upward over his head, then down between the trees, leveling his outstretched arm. He fired as the raging grizzly lunged at him, its mammoth front quarters frustrated by the rigid tree trunks in which he was pinned. Another fearsome roar erupted. Bloodstained teeth gnashed the air mere feet from his face. Then a flash of claws, curved silver with white tips longer than a man’s fingers, shredded the sleeve of his coat, knocking the pistol from his hand.

  The grizzly eased back a step, bending its massive neck, teeth bared, gnashing at the inside of its front shoulder. Must be where the bullet hit. Working his hand underneath the snow and trying not to distract the bear, Johannes felt for the hilt of his knife on his belt. Before he could draw the blade from its sheath, the bear was on him again. Rolling partially to his stomach, trees bruising either side of his chest, he wrapped his hands over his head. Powerful jaws clamped on his calf halfway between his knee and his foot. Groaning in shock and pain, he willed himself not to move, a primitive instinct warning him that his limb would be torn to shreds if he attempted to yank it from the bear’s teeth. Suddenly, from close by, the roar of a rifle cracked the air, and then the rapid succession of shots from a six-gun.

  Johannes raised his head, trying to watch from the corner of his eye. The bear screamed in rage, releasing his grip on Johannes’ calf, rolled over on its back, then righted itself and stood er
ect, raking the air with outstretched claws at Zeb, twenty feet away. Three feet taller than me! Reuben stood several feet to Zeb’s side. The mountain man was loading another cartridge into his Enfield. Reuben’s eyes darted from the towering grizzly to the open cylinder of his Colt as he jammed in more shells.

  The enraged bear thrashed its head side-to-side, screaming. Through the din came Zeb’s voice, calm and sure, “Don’t move, Johannes. Don’t move a muscle.”

  The bear dropped to all fours as Reuben finished reloading, bunching its rear haunches to spring. Fire leapt from the muzzle of the Colt as Reuben crouched, palming the hammer. The Colt belched flame again, again and again, and one of the bear’s eyes seemed to explode in a mist of blood and flesh.

  Zeb steadied his musket for another shot. The roar of a long gun exploded almost over Johannes’ head, the sound deafening. Twisting his eyes away from the bear, he saw the beaded, heavy-stitched moccasins of Philippe. The vaquero stood over him, his Smoothbore smoking. The grizzly rose in the air, its unearthly screams rising from the depths of hell, one great paw clawing at its missing eye, blood foaming from its gaping jaws as it advanced toward Zeb on its hind legs.

  Reuben was frantically reloading again. Zeb knelt in the shadow of the snarling beast, resting one elbow on his knee, the Enfield inclined at a steep angle upward just ten feet from the attacking bear. Smoke erupted as the muzzle disgorged its one-ounce lead bullet. A pulsing, fountain stream of red squirted from the bear’s throat, the back of its neck exploding toward the sky in chunks of bone, flesh, and fur. His roar gurgled, one paw slicing the air as its cinnamon-brown body fell sideways and lay still except for the slight twitching of its rear paws.

  CHAPTER 36

  June 22, 1855

  STITCHES OF RAWHIDE

  Rebecca half stooped, half crouched next to Zeb who was seated on a keg, bent over Johannes’ bloody leg. Johannes’ lanky form lay stretched out on Sarah’s bedroll, belly down, both of his hands outstretched, white knuckled, clutching the handle of one of Rebecca’s trunks. His forehead was buried in a rolled up blanket, the ends of a stick wrapped in a handkerchief protruding from his mouth.

  Lifting her eyes, Rebecca surveyed the somber faces crowded into the wagon. Sarah stood to one side, her face white. She cast an anxious look at Reuben but avoided returning Rebecca’s stare. Reuben’s worried gaze roved the full length of his friend’s body, his eyes lingering on the mangled calf. “How are you doing, Viking?”

  Johannes nodded his head slightly.

  Zeb turned his head to Sarah, “Put those last two strips of that rawhide I cut thin into that boiling water out there on the fire, like the first ones. When they boil for about five minutes, bring the pot, water and rawhide in to me.”

  Rebecca turned her eyes from Sarah to watch Zeb. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead from underneath his unkempt, grey-streaked hairline. She stared, fascinated with Zeb’s careful treatment of Johannes’ wound. Zeb had spent the last hour stitching Johannes’ skin together with a sharp awl, fashioned from an elk bone, looping thin rawhide stitches back and forth, closing the damaged skin around the gaping puncture marks that circled Johannes’ leg.

  The mountain man straightened up, shifting his shoulders and wiped his brow with his forearm. “You can relax now, Johannes. Two more sets of stitches and we’ll be done.”

  The tension in Johannes’ body eased. Letting go of the handle with one hand, he took the stick out of his mouth and turned his head sideways with a weak grin. “My teeth hurt so much from biting down on that damn stick, I had forgotten about my leg.” A feeble smile played across Sarah’s lips. Reuben and Zeb chuckled guardedly.

  “Rebecca, bring me that bandage pouch again, and pull out that medicine whiskey.” Rebecca rose from her crouch next to Zeb, reaching across the back of Johannes’ legs and handed Zeb the leather bag. Zeb shook his head, “I shoulda told you fellas more about them bears.”

  Johannes lifted his face from the blanket, rolling his eyes back at Zeb, “Yes, you should’ve. Though those scars on your face should have been warning enough. Damn, they are huge.”

  “And tough to kill,” added Reuben grimly.

  From the tailgate where he squatted, came Philippe’s voice, “Sí, Señors, dangerous and angry, always. One bear I saw in the Sangre De Cristos—a mother bear with two cubs— killed five indios even with eleven, well-placed arrows sticking out of her. The last Indio she chewed buried his knife in the bear’s neck, as many as three times, before that Smoothbore of mine broke her back. It still took four more shots. Angry she-bears, they are the worst.”

  “Let me see that arm while we’re waitin’ on Sarah.” Johannes extended one arm behind him, stiffly holding up his wrist. Rebecca leaned closer as Zeb peered at the deeply scratched forearm closely, rolling it one way, then the other. “This swipe with his paw is what knocked the pistol out of yer hand?”

  Johannes nodded into the blanket, “Yes. That was a bad moment.”

  Zeb’s eyes flickered to the back of Johannes’ head, his lips pursed tightly. “I just bet it was.”

  Johannes turned his head again, “I want to thank all of you for coming to help me.”

  “We was just lucky to see Bente bolt out of them woods. Knew something was up right off. That one shot you got off from the pistol give us a bead on where you were. Otherwise,” Zeb paused, “it might’ve been a different ending.”

  Johannes’ rejoinder was muffled by the blanket. “Might have been? You mean would have been. That damn grizzly must have been French.” Everyone exchanged puzzled glances.

  Rebecca’s eyes roved from one man to the other. If they won’t question, I will. “Why do you think the bear was French, Johannes?”

  Johannes laughed into the bedroll. “I was waiting for somebody to ask. The two times in my life I’ve been wounded before were both in that calf. One time, a mini-ball from a French musket grazed it. Didn’t do much damage but stung like hell for a week. The other, was a lucky cut from the saber of a French Cavalry officer. Fortunately, not too deep. The French like that calf. So, the bear had to be French.” The tension eased and everyone laughed.

  “Here’s the water, Zeb.” Rebecca turned to see Sarah standing outside at the tailgate below Philippe, steam curling from the pot. Philippe extended his hand. “Allow me to assist you up the ladder, Señorita Sarah.”

  The gesture irritated Rebecca, especially when she saw Zeb tighten his lips as Sarah stepped up into the wagon and held out the pot to him. “Careful Zeb,” she warned. “It’s very hot. Take it by the cloth I wrapped around the handle.” Further annoyed by the comment, Rebecca almost snapped, Don’t you think Zeb knows that?

  Placing the pot on the wagon floor next to him, Zeb dipped the awl into the scalding water, swishing it around, then deftly scooped out one of the very thin strands of rawhide he had cut prior to beginning the procedure.

  Holding his left hand out over Johannes’ calf, he looked quickly at Rebecca. “Pour some of that whiskey over my fingers. It’s okay if it drips on the calf.” Holding the point of the awl in his whiskey-soaked fingers, he deftly threaded the eyelet with the rawhide. “Better put that stick back in your mouth, Johannes. One good thing is, them other Frenchie scars of yours is all gone. That bear’s jaws took ‘em out. The only ones you gonna have from here on is these bite marks. You’re mighty lucky he didn’t crush your leg.”

  Johannes paused, the stick halfway to his mouth, “Instinct told me that if I moved while my leg was in his mouth, he really would’ve torn it apart, but it wasn’t easy to keep still.”

  “You was right,” Zeb squinted as he placed the sharp point of the awl on the side of one puncture mark, an inch and a half across and more than that deep. “I saved these big ones from his front fangs for last.”

  Philippe stood, leaning under the canvas to get a closer look. Dropping to her knees from her crouch next to Zeb, ignoring Sarah, Rebecca leaned over Johannes’ foot, fascinated as she watched Zeb’s careful work. “S
o what happens when the wound heals, Zeb?”

  The mountain man didn’t respond, instead concentrating on pushing the awl through the skin on the opposite side of the wound. Johannes’ winced and grunted. Zeb drew the pointed, polished sliver of bone through the flesh, raising his hand, slowly drawing the leather tight across the wound, almost closing a part of it, and then prepared to repeat the procedure with the next stitch. “Well, if it don’t get infected, good thing about this rawhide is, it will just fall off or grow into the skin.” He shook his head. “If it gets infected, that’s a whole nuther story. Then you have to take the stitches out, open it up, clean it and start over.”

  Rebecca reached into her skirt pocket, pulling out a handkerchief and gently patted Zeb’s forehead. “Let me get that sweat out of your eyes, Zeb.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “So, if there’s no infection, Johannes will be fine?” Zeb stopped in mid-stitch, looking at her with concerned eyes and then up at Reuben. “Depends on hydrophobia.” Rebecca threw an alarmed look at Reuben, whose eyes had widened at Zeb’s words.