THEY PASSED INTO A SHALLOW DRAW with saddle leather
creaking, and were letting the horses drink when an
antelope with high pronged horns burst from a wild-cherry
copse. Not ten yards away it stopped and stood motionless,
gazing at them with eager curiosity, its head thrust
forward, its round black eyes brazen and bright. The
frozen moment, the animal tight as a quivering spring,
struck Frémont like a vision. He saw a vein throbbing
in its white neck and he felt his own heart in cadence.
Then the antelope sprang sideways and was off, sailing
over the prairie like a low-flying bird.
"We'll see buffler soon," Louison Freniere
said. "Antelope are always bold when buffler
are about. Beyond that ridge, I wouldn't doubt."
Buffalo. Ahead the ground rose in a steady sweep
to a long dominating ridge a half-mile distant. Frémont
stared at it; his pulse had not slowed and he smiled.
Both men were well mounted and each led a fresh
horse already saddled for the chase. They passed a
prairie-dog village where hundreds of the little yellow
animals stood yelping at them, their short tails jerking
with each cry. A gray owl with white-ringed eyes gazed
imperturbably at Frémont from a borrowed mound. It
looked strangely calm.
..."Yes,"
Louie said, almost to himself, "I can feel 'em."
He glanced at Frémont. "You'll be on your own
then, Charlie. Pick you a cow and hold to her -- you've
got to run that horse like you was running on your
own two legs. Never mind the breaks and draws and
them damned prairie-dog holes. Think you can cut yourself
loose like that?"
"I'm ready," Frémont said. He took a
deep breath. Ever since St. Louis, all the way up
the Missouri to Fort Pierre on the fur company steamboat
and out across the wide open country of the Dakota
Sioux, he had been waiting for his first sight of
the legendary herds that blackened the land. Buffalo
-- Freniere and the others on the expedition seemed
to think of nothing but that thundering sport and
princely food of the plains. It was dangerous -- the
galloping horse was half blind in the dust, and if
you fell, likely you'd be trampled or gored -- but
the danger was half the fun.
"Hell," Freniere said, "you ain't
never ready for buffler till you come up on
'em." He was half-coaching, half-challenging.
"You've got to run, understand? Horse is faster,
sure, but a buffler can run all day, run the best
horse right into the ground. Slap leather once and
there goes your chance."
On the first day out Freniere, himself a magnificent
horseman, had caught Frémont grabbing for the big
Spanish horn on his saddle and he never let him forget
it. But Frémont had learned a lot in ten days. Now
Louie was sitting slouched in his saddle, throwing
quick glances at Frémont and talking in bursts.
"Horse is no fool, you know. And he don't
really give a damn if you get a buffler or not --
he ain't going to eat none of it. He'll take you up
and give you your shot, but he's sure as hell got
to know you really want to go. It ain't no time to
tuck your butt."
"Tuck my butt?" Frémont said, suddenly
nettled. "The day you see me tuck my butt, you
can have my gold watch and pistols." He wondered
if he sounded hollow.
"Well, you ain't never gone after buffler
before," the hunter replied. He grinned, wolfish
and keen, and Frémont saw that he was nervous, too.
It was coming on noon and the sun was high in
a white sky. Light burned over the ridge and pressed
down against Frémont's eyes until they ached. He
tugged his hat brim low; he could see mile after mile
of endless, unmarked prairie, rolling like a troubled
sea. High overhead an eagle circled on motionless
wings, a speck in the vaulting sky. It was a land
to set a man free...
They were halfway up the long slope. Grass grew
in tufts and clumps, gray-green and stunted but strong
enough to keep a horse going forever. Little puffs
of dust rose under the horses' hooves and blew instantly
away. The dry air made the wind feel cool, but a
trickle of sweat formed under one of Frémont's arms
and ran down his side. Louie, staring ahead, had lapsed
into silence. His brass-bound rifle lay across the
pommel of his saddle and unconsciously the web of
his hand fitted itself to the hammer, ready to draw
it down on cock.
Louie was about Frémont's age, maybe twenty-five,
a lean, tall man, dark face burned darker by the open,
long black hair falling to his shoulders. Once Frémont
had asked him why he didn't cut it. "What,"
he said, "and break the hearts of half the girls
in St. Louis? It's right purty, Charlie, when it's
combed out, and there's no shortage of belles who
want to comb it." He was wearing blue homespun
trousers over rough boots and a buckskin smock belted
at the waist. It was nearly black with age and grease
and was molded to his shape. Most of the fringed whangs
that might once have shed water in the rain were gone.
It was nothing like the gorgeous suit Freniere
had worn the day Frémont joined the expedition in
St. Louis. That suit was of buckskin too, but clean,
soft as glove leather, worked until it was almost
white. Its whangs were all intact, rippling a full
six inches, and the shirt and matching moccasins were
brilliant with red-dyed porcupine quills and the beadwork
of the northern Sioux. Some patient woman far up the
Cheyenne River had made it -- and doubtless given
Freniere her heart as well. . . .
It had been sunny and warm in St. Louis on that
day in early May. They had been lounging in front
of Pierre Chouteau's American Fur Company, where the
expedition was outfitting. These warehouses of gray
stone had supplied the western fur trade for three
decades, but now the compound just off the levee was
quiet. The men had assembled for a final muster and
Frémont, who had arrived so late from Washington he'd
nearly missed the expedition, was getting acquainted.
"They got buffler in the Smoky Mountains,
Lieutenant?" Louie had asked. Frémont had been
on two surveying expeditions into the western Carolinas
and considered himself a woodsman. But no, no buffalo.
"I figured not," Freniere had said.
"Well, you got a treat in store for you, I'll
say that. Buffler is the biggest, fastest, goddamnedest
animal in the whole world, bar absolutely none. I'll
put it up against elephants in India for wonder and
Spanish bull for power--"
"Grizzly is the baddest," a swarthy
man named Martineau had said.
"That's right, and buffler is the best. He's
like a king, d'ye see, he's a challenge: it takes
a man to ride him down and stop him. 'Course
they're easy enough to kill by creeping up on 'em,
but hell, that's like sleeping with a woman in a bundling
bed--it ain't near the fun it might be."
"God almighty, yes," the heavyset Bladon
had said with an explosive laugh. He had a kinky black
beard. "I spent a night in one of them years
ago. Give me the stone ache for a week."
"And eating," Freniere had said, ignoring
Bladon, "why you just ain't et till you've had
buffler roasted on a prairie fire, a few chips tossed
on the coals for seasoning. Fat cow makes beef taste
like putty."
"God's truth, Lieutenant," Martineau
had said. "Buffler will spoil any other meat
in the world for you."
The office door had opened then and Mr. Nicollet
came out. Frémont had reported to him upon arrival
the night before. Nicollet was a Frenchman who had
come to America eight years before, in 1832, to explore
the frontier; he'd been much taken by Frémont's own
French heritage and his command of the language. St.
Louis, though American for nearly four decades, still
felt itself a French city, and most of the men on
the expedition were voyageurs from the old
French fur trade on the northern lakes, as accustomed
to the canoe as the saddle.
"Gentlemen," Nicollet had said, smiling,
and the men had fallen silent. The astronomer was
in his early fifties and his hair was iron gray, though
still thick. Frémont thought his eyes looked tired.
His manner was gentle and the men had started to call
him Papa Joe.
"All's ready, then," he'd said in a
voice that sounded short of breath. "There'll
be nineteen of us and we'll draw our livestock at
Fort Pierre. The Antelope starts up the Missouri
at dawn and every man had better be aboard. You're
free tonight to wind up your business here -- just
make sure you don't wind yourselves so tight you miss
the boat."
Louie had winked at Frémont.
"Any of you who haven't met Mr. Frémont should
do so," Nicollet went on. "John Charles
Frémont, Second Lieutenant, Corps of Topographical
Engineers, United States Army. As you know, the expedition
is under the auspices of the Army, which is reimbursing
the American Fur Company for costs. Mr. Frémont is
the Army's official representative. He'll serve as
second-in-command and will assist me in the scientific
side of the expedition."
He paused, looking from face to face. "Bear
in mind that the whole purpose -- the only
purpose -- of this venture is to map the great stretch
of terrain lying between the headwaters of the Missouri
and the Mississippi. We'll take six months, all told:
here to Fort Pierre and across to Fort Snelling on
the upper Mississippi, and we'll be back in late October
-- well, say early November. Now, let me say again
that there never has been a map made anywhere in America
-- or, I venture to say, anywhere in the world --
of the quality and the particularity which we will
achieve, nor one which employs the scientific methods
we will use. So I'm counting on every one to do whatever
may be necessary to make this achievement possible."
He had nodded to a dour man with searching black
eyes. "You know Mr. Provost -- he'll serve as
camp conductor and will be responsible for keeping
us moving in good order day by day." Hearing
the name, Frémont had glanced quickly at Provost,
who returned the look without expression. Etienne
Provost was a famous name on the frontier. Frémont
judged him to be about Nicollet's age, but he looked
harder. He was a mountain man and had trapped with
Jim Bridger and ridden with Jedediah Smith; he had
fought at Pierre's Hole and year by year he'd brought
his beaver down to the great rendezvous on the Siskadee.
. . .
"And our friend Louison Freniere,"
Nicollet said with a smile, glancing at the man in
the glorious buckskins, "has signed on as a hunter
and will keep us in meat."
"We won't have no food problems, Papa Joe,"
one of the men called. "Buffler sees Freniere
in his fancy suit and he'll drop dead of shock."
Freniere grinned and lifted the rifle he carried.
"Never you fear, boys. If the suit don't get
'em, my old Hawken will." Made there in St. Louis
with an octagonal barrel of soft rolled iron, brass-bound
to a cherrywood half-stock, muzzle-loaded and fired
with the new-style caps that were putting flintlocks
out of business, the Hawken was as fine a rifle as
you could buy in the world. It had cost a full forty
dollars and all the way from St. Louis across the
great northern prairie, Frémont noticed that the hunter
watched over it as he might have a woman. Nicollet
had instructed Frémont to spend his days with Louie
and learn the feel of the land, and Freniere had promised
to make him a hunter as well.
Now, as the two horsemen neared the crest of
the long, dominating ridge, Freniere's hand still
rested on the Hawken's well-blued hammer. Since challenging
Frémont he had ridden in absorbed silence, his hat
pulled low, ignoring the immensity of land around
them. He reined up and dismounted, glancing ahead
at the glare-struck sky, and dropped a slender rawhide
loop over his horse's head.
"Don't never pay to top a ridge like you
owned it," he said quietly. "Never know
who's watching beyond. We'll walk up for a peep and
see what we see."
At the crest he crouched and then flattened and
crawled forward. Frémont followed, elbows grinding
in white dust, the smell of sun-warmed sage astringent
in the air. A stinging gnat lighted on his face and
he flicked it away. Louie stopped moving and together
they looked down into a vast bowl of open country.
It dwindled to blue haze in the distance and in between
it was rolling and broken, tawny-colored and gray-green
with bunch grass and sage, and there were dark patches
on it like timber where timber didn't belong.
"What'd I tell you?" Freniere said
softly. The patches were buffalo grazing, fifty or
seventy to a herd, and there must have been fifty
herds. He nudged him and jerked his head and Frémont
looked to the left. There, just below the crest, much
closer than the others, was a herd of nearly a hundred.
A huge old bull was in command. The wind was blowing
across the animals and no man scent reached them.
They were moving slowly to the right, feeding as they
went, making a constant grunting noise that Frémont
realized he'd been hearing since he first looked.
A pair of gray wolves skulked behind them, hungry
and disconsolate. The old bull, though unalarmed,
was watching the wolves. Frémont realized his hands
were trembling slightly.
"Boys'll be happy tonight," Louie muttered.
They had found no game but antelope and the men were
grumbling. They hobbled the two horses they had ridden
all morning and took their fresh mounts. Frémont's
runner was a big bay with white stockings, an intelligent,
good-natured beast named Barney who worked without
complaint. The girth was loose and Frémont cinched
it tight, bracing with his knee. He checked the cap
on his stubby plains rifle and examined the .50-caliber
pistol he carried in his belt.
Louie swung to the left so that they topped the
ridge behind the herd and started toward it. Frémont
seized a breath. His lungs were not working quite
right. The old bull saw them against the sky and threw
up his head and bellowed. The herd lurched into a
sudden gallop and the bull turned to meet the horsemen,
head down, snorting and pawing the ground.
"Hi-yah!" Freniere yelled and his horse
leaped away and Barney tilted into a gallop as if
he were spring-loaded. The bull was not at all intimidated
but when the last of the herd passed him, spreading
and moving faster, he turned and followed, bellowing
threateningly. The horses separated and Frémont forgot
about Louie, for he had fixed on a cow. He gave Barney
his head, reins high and spurs hard in his ribs. The
cow could hear the horse behind her and she stretched
into a dead run, but Barney had fixed on her too,
and he was closing the distance.
Thunder filled the air, the horse's hooves on
the hard ground, the herd drumming in full gallop,
cows bawling in anger and fear. Dimly Frémont heard
the bull's rumbling bellow and a calf's piercing squall
and his own loud voice. The cow galloped head down,
throwing up clots of dirt, and dust clouds blotted
out the other animals and stung his eyes. The horse
was gaining and Frémont crouched forward, part of
its flexing motion, reins in his left hand, rifle
in his right, shouting encouragement. Another cow,
a calf at her flank, blundered out of the dust on
their left and Barney shied to the right as the strange
cow reared backwards. Then Barney loosed a new surge
of speed and closed with the cow, just behind her
right shoulder, just where he belonged.
So close, she was stunning. Frémont had never
seen an animal as awesome. Her hump was as high as
his waist as he sat his horse. Her shaggy hair was
matted, tawny-colored on her forequarters tapering
off to black-brown on her rump, winter hair coming
off in ragged clumps. Her little horns were polished
hooks, her eyes shot with blood, her mouth open, tongue
out, streamers of foam whipping behind her.
Staring at the great brute size of her, the horse
matching stride for stride, the wind crashing in his
ears, his own voice howling and wordless, he knew
now what they meant by the sheer joy of the buffalo
run. She cut sideways into a small draw, seeking its
brushy cover, and Barney turned hard behind her. They
crashed through low brush and Frémont heard it cracking
under the horse. He felt Barney shift and twist as
if he were dancing and he caught a glimpse of hole-pocked
ground beneath him, but his mind hardly registered
its meaning. The cow glanced over her shoulder, her
bloody eyes glaring. Her big head rolled and she hooked
a horn at the horse's chest. In mid-stride Barney
sprang sideways. Frémont lurched against the animal's
neck and his left foot lost the stirrup. The rifle
slipped and he clutched it frantically against Barney's
wet flank and regained his grip. Cursing, he grabbed
the saddle horn with his rein hand and that snapped
the horse's head back and checked him and threw Frémont
forward again. He loosed the reins, fumbled his foot
back into the stirrup, found his seat and rammed spurs
into Barney's ribs.
They closed again and Frémont dropped the reins
and brought the rifle to his shoulder. He half-stood
in the stirrups and the horse, confused by the signals,
checked again. Before Frémont could fire he was thrown
forward and he grabbed up the reins. Sweat ran in
his eyes and blinded him, but his hands were full
of reins and rifle and in a moment he forgot the burning.
The big horse felt him take control and burst forward.
The cow hooked at him and canted off in a new direction
and Barney cut after her and closed again. Now, holding
the reins in his left hand, clasping the horse with
his knees, Frémont rested the rifle on his left forearm
and fired at two-foot range. Two hundred grains of
powder exploded and drove a slug the size of his thumb
into the cow's side. She grunted but her stride didn't
break. Frémont stared at her. It was like an apparition.
He had hit her a killing stroke and she wasn't going
to fall -- she wasn't even going to stop running.
He knew he never could get powder and slug down
the muzzle on the gallop -- never mind the easy way
Freniere had described the trick --and he thrust the
rifle into its boot and drew his pistol, thumbing
back the hammer.
The pistol was his weapon. He was in good control,
reins in his left hand, crowding Barney against the
cow, pistol aimed across his left elbow, drawing a
killing bead -- when the horse dropped out from under
him and he pitched forward, flying, falling. He heard
Barney grunt as its chest struck the ground, and he
threw up his left arm and landed on his face, sliding
and rolling. The pistol fired and flew out of his
hand. He lay there a moment, ears ringing, eyes closed
on darkness, oddly conscious of a bitter yet clean
grassy odor, and then he lifted his head and saw his
cow disappear in the brilliant sunlight, her stride
still unbroken. A half-dozen cows thundered by, hooves
pelting his face with dirt, and a young spike bull
leaped directly over him, a sudden dark bulk overhead
and gone, showing no interest in attacking him.
Then the herd was past and he was conscious of
the quiet; he heard hoofbeats drumming down, fading
in the distance. Gingerly he moved his arms and shoulders
and felt his neck and decided nothing was broken.
He was still half-stunned and thought he might vomit.
Then he discovered the source of the odor. He had
landed in wet buffalo dung; it was in his hair and
smeared on his face. He wiped it from around his eyes.
Barney struggled to his feet and stood heaving for
breath by the grass-filled little gully that had thrown
him.
He heard hooves and turned to see Louie riding
up with a look of concern. It occurred to Frémont
that he was lucky to be alive. He wiped his face.
This damned dung was all over him. He had a savage
headache, but the ringing in his ears faded and he
became aware of a new noise. The hunter was sitting
his horse and laughing out loud. Sudden rage filled
him. Missed his cow, fell off his horse like a damned
fool--
"Goddamnit!" he said, glaring at Freniere,
his fists balling unconsciously. His throat was raw.
Freniere's smile faded and he took on a wary,
thoughtful look. He waited a moment and then said
softly, "You been bathing in shit for some reason,
Charlie?"
Frémont looked at Louie, and then he began to
laugh. "Life's little blessings," he said.
"It broke my fall."
The hunter nodded and his smile returned. "You
get a shot off?"
"Might as well have thrown a stone. She took
that slug and never slowed down. I couldn't believe
it." He ran his hands along Barney's legs. There
were tender spots, but not the real pain that would
mean broken bones. The horse was streaked with lather.
His muscles were quivering. Frémont loosened the saddle
and girth and pulled bunches of dry grass and began
scrubbing him down, drying him and working his muscles.
Barney sighed and gave several little snorts.
"Ran off her ribs, I expect," Freniere
said. "If you don't hit 'em in the lungs or the
spine, you won't get 'em. It's funny, the buffler's
so big and that vital spot so small. Did you aim on
that spot, like I told you?"
"Aim? I was lucky to get a shot off."
"Never knew a man to get a buffler first
try. I run seven cows before I brought one down."
Seven? Suddenly Frémont felt good. By God, he
had run the buffalo and it was true, there was nothing
else like it on earth. And this land was full of them
and he would run another tomorrow and the next day
and the next, and damned if it would take him
seven runs before he stopped one!
He let Barney graze a few minutes and then he
tightened the girth and they rode together to Freniere's
kill. The two wolves were making a cautious approach.
Freniere rushed them and they whirled and ran, their
brushes tucked. They stopped a little way off, sat
on their haunches and watched.
The cow lay on her side, blood still dribbling
from her mouth. Gouts of it stained the ground around
her. Grunting, Frémont helped Freniere roll her onto
her chest, hindquarters cramped beneath her, forelegs
spread and cradling her head. She looked as if she
were asleep. She was huge. The top of her hump was
level with his shoulder even when she was flat.
Freniere drew the long butcher knife he carried
in a scabbard at the small of his back and sliced
out her tongue with a steady, sawing stroke. Leaning
against her rough hair, he made a long incision down
her spine and laid the skin to one side like a table
to hold his cuts. He began to butcher, explaining
as he went along. He took the boss, that little hump
on the back of her neck, and then the hump itself
and what he called the hump ribs, which Frémont saw
was a sort of extended vertebrae that supported the
hump. He took the fleece ‑‑ a rich strand
of ungrained flesh between the spine and the ribs
that was covered with a three-inch layer of fat. He
laid the pieces carefully on the folded skin.
"Oh," he said, straightening his back,
"but this is a fat 'un. That fleece fat there'll
make your face shine with gladness."
He unhooked a tin cup from his belt, lifted the
massive head, rested it on his shoulder and cut the
throat. Foaming blood poured out and he thrust the
cup into the stream. When it was full he held it up,
took a swallow and shoved it at Frémont.
"Drink that, Charlie," he said. "It'll
make you a true son of the plains."
Frémont took the cup without hesitation. Of course
he would vomit, but better to fail trying than to
fail for not trying. On the first swallow he began
to gag, but then he realized that it was not so bad.
It tasted like warm milk, fresh and very rich. His
stomach held and he emptied the cup and handed it
to Freniere.
"Not the best drink I've ever had,"
he said evenly, "but not the worst, either."
Freniere gazed at him with a look of open delight.
"Hi-yah!" he whooped, and fetched Frémont
an openhanded clap on the shoulder that staggered
him. "You're all right, Charlie! You're not just
a star-gazer. You're going to make a first-class buffler
man yet!"
-----
The camp was in deep shadow when Freniere and
the Lieutenant came in. Etienne Provost, crouched
on his haunches mending a pack strap, watched Frémont
unsaddle the white-socked bay, moving stiffly, favoring
his left shoulder. The big horse went down on his
knees and rolled, shivering with pleasure, scrubbing
his sweaty back while Frémont studied him critically,
hands on his hips; his hair and jacket were caked
with cowflap. Provost smiled to himself and spat.
Took himself a little fall. Well, wouldn't be the
last time.
"That one yours?" He gestured with the
buckle toward the great raw carcass bulking on the
meat cart, where Boucher and Peters were already at
work.
Frémont looked at him ‑‑ one quick,
alert glance, measuring; then he shook his head. "No,"
he said simply. "She's Louie's. I missed."
Provost chuckled. "I wouldn't wonder."
"--This time." The Lieutenant
held up one forefinger, and again there was that intense
flash in his eyes; hot, almost defiant. Didn't like
to miss, then; that was a good sign. Handsome young
feller-looked too fine-spun for the wilderness. 'Course
you never knew. Have to see how he salted down.
Frémont had the horse up now, and was rubbing
him down. Small man, but quick and wiry; stronger
than he looked. Nicollet said he was a good learner,
accurate with all that star-gazing folderol they sat
up messing with half the night, but that didn't prove
nothing. Have to see how he did when the coffee and
tobacco ran out, and his boots wore through, and the
weather turned savage.
"Look as if you been wrassling one,"
he said in quiet amusement, and someone over by the
fire laughed.
Frémont grinned then. "Yeah," he murmured,
"I got into it with both hands." He'd finished
hobbling the bay, and he walked away quickly toward
the little knoll where Nicollet had set up the instrument
tent.
"Now don't you sell Charlie short,"
Louie called. "You boys should have seen him
take off after that cow -- like he by God planned
to ride her ..."
Several of the men standing around the fire had
turned to Freniere, listening.
"I told him wouldn't be no time to be tucking
his butt-"
"That's for sure," Peters said, "and
then some!"
"Got him a little hot, that did. But I want
to tell you, old Charlie didn't let any grass grow
under that horse of his."
"That so, Louie?" Provost said.
Freniere turned and faced him. "Shining gospel.
He took his chances. He missed his cow, sure -- but
it wasn't for lack of trying."
Provost grunted, and ran his eyes over the camp.
The spring-fed stream winding down a fissure in the
prairie was small enough to step across in places
but above, where he'd sited the main camp, it had
widened into a shallow pool. The small bar oaks and
ashes growing beside it had a stunted look. Later
in the year it would be bone dry. The carts were disposed
in a rough half-circle beside the pool, their shafts
atrail; only a few had been unloaded. Boucher had
hung an iron pot from a tripod over the fire and was
fixing racks of buffalo ribs on sticks. The dry wood
burned with little smoke and collapsed into ruddy
coals; Martineau judiciously added buffalo chips to
flavor the meat.
Provost sighed, set the strap aside and settled
back into his saddle pads. He'd already posted guards:
Terrien was with the horses, and he could see Menard
above the camp, scanning the horizon for movement
against the light. The Yankton Sioux were friendly,
but with Indians you couldn't never be sure; not with
good horses in camp and night coming on. Peters was
bringing wood for the fire, and on the flat below
Dixon, the expedition's guide, was working on a horse
that had gone lame, cradling the hoof on his knee,
digging at something jammed in that tender place between
frog and buttress, while Zindel held the animal's
head. Sour, silent old Bill Dixon, keeping busy, trying
not to think about Mr. John Barleycorn. . . .
Well, every soul had its demon, as Papa Joe said.
Provost studied the knoll again; Nicollet was seated
on a box writing in his journal, using the tailgate
of the equipment cart as a desk; Frémont was standing
beside him talking, one foot cocked on the spoke of
a wheel. A movement on the rim of the hill behind
Frémont caught his eye then ‑‑ a wolf
that ducked instantly from sight. Provost chuckled.
Empty. He'd heard a fancy Virginia gentleman once.
"I say, nothing but barren, lifeless spaces.
Everywhere you look." Damn fool -- the whole
land was humming with life! A million creeping, gliding,
soaring things. But you had to know how to
look, that was all. . .
"Aaaiii, festin!" Boucher sang from
the big fire. "Come on in, now!" -- and
there was a quick movement toward him from all points.
A pale sliver of moon had appeared in the eastern
sky; the west was still bright. The odor of cooking
meat was overpowering. Martineau was cracking bones
with a small ax and thumbing out rolls of marrow --
trapper's butter -- which Boucher kept stirring into
the iron pot. The soup bubbled viscously, marrow and
molten fat and blood from the butchering, bound with
pepper, its aroma swirling on the light wind.
"If it tastes as good as it smells,"
Frémont said, "we're in for one hell of a treat."
"Tastes better than that, Charlie!"
Freniere told him, and Boucher laughed.
All of them were around the fire now, throwing
down their apishamores for couches, gazing at the
racks of roasting meat, their eyes glinting; there
was an air of contained excitement, like men gathering
in a tavern. The meat crackled richly, and droplets
of fat made tiny yellow flares in the coals, which
now glowed deep red. Bread was rising in a Dutch oven,
and a big coffeepot nestled at the edge of the coals.
Later on the luxury of bread and coffee would be only
a memory, but now the expedition was young.
"Ribs are ready, "Boucher announced.
Provost cut close to the bone and with the first
mouthful, dense and gamy and rich, it all came flooding
back --his wild young manhood and the first glorious
years on the plains, the buffalo in vast surging seas
and the dust whirling against the sun in a golden
storm.
"Look at Charlie!" Freniere bawled across
the fire. "Afraid there won't be enough to go
round. . . . Didn't I tell you buffler'll make prime
beef taste like putty?"
The sky was darkening and a single star appeared
high overhead. A wolf drawn by the smell howled suddenly,
hung close, and one of the men laughed. After that
came yelps and snarls, and Provost knew coyotes had
got up the spunk to join their braver cousins.
Peters fetched more wood, and the fire blazed
high. The men ate rapidly with their hands, faces
flushed in the firelight and wet with grease. They
were ribbing each other, calling back and forth, roaring
with laughter. Martineau, late to the feast, slid
the crackling meat skewered on his ramrod onto his
plate. Someone called to him and he turned, laughing;
the ramrod in his hand bumped Bladon's stick where
meat was roasting. The stick fell and the meat dropped
into the coals.
"Look out, Goddamnit!" Above his kinky
black beard Bladon's pale face went instantly dark.
"Clumsy bastard!"
"Sorry," Martineau said, "I was
-- "
"Sorry don't cut it," Bladon answered,
his eyes bright. He slipped the point of his big knife
under the edge of Martineau's plate and flipped it
upside down into the fire.
"Now wait a minute, mister . . ." Martineau
dropped the ramrod and his
hands came up. "You got no call--"
"Call? I'll call you, sonny!" Bladon
was on his feet like a cat, the knife weaving freely
at his hip.
"All right," Provost said from
across the fire.
Martineau broke backward, his eyes on the knife.
Bladon paused an instant, then came on in a rush,
the knife held very low, and Provost saw Frémont,
sitting next to Louie, set down his plate and stick
out one booted foot. Bladon tripped over it and went
sprawling, rolled over and came up facing Frémont,
his eyes wild. The Lieutenant was on his feet now.
"You want some, soldier boy?" Bladon
hissed. "All right, then!" He took a quick
running step -- and stopped. Frémont's hand had gone
to the butt of his pistol and rested there; his eyes
were black as onyx in the flickering dance of the
fire. Aside from that one swift gesture he had not
moved.
"Just didn't get my big clumsy feet out of
the way in time. Did I?" he said easily, and
then smiled; but there was a hard, forbidding edge
in his voice. Bladon glared at him, confused.
"Put up that knife, Bladon," Provost
told him in the tone that had stopped a hundred fights
from Natchez to the Devil's Tower. "I won't have
a man cut over no damned piece of meat."
Bladon turned toward him then, his face stamped
with that deep, curious excitement. "Shee-it,
Mr. Provost, I don't need no knife." He dropped
the weapon on his plate with a clatter and in the
same motion, wheeling, his fist came sailing up from
the ground like a stone on the end of his arm and
smashed into the side of Martineau's head. Martineau
fell face down as if his feet had been snatched from
under him, and Bladon started forward.
"No boots, either," Provost said; he
was standing now, too. "You've settled it --
that's enough." He stared at Bladon, studying
him. One of Nicollet's demon souls. Killed a couple
of men in knife fights down the Santa Fe Trail. "You're
a troublesome man, Bladon," he said. "We
got no room for that kind of trouble here. Now you
watch your step, hear?"
To his surprise Bladon grinned; Provost saw he
was all relaxed now, the way you might feel after
you'd had yourself a woman three-four times running.
"Right, Mr. Provost," he answered readily.
"You're the boss." Martineau was sitting
up, shaking his head dumbly, and Bladon extended a
hand. "Come on, Marty -- no hard feelings, eh?
What the hell: you done me a turn and I done you one."
Confused, Martineau put out his hand and Bladon lifted
him easily to his feet. "Boucher, let ol' Marty
have that piece of tongue you promised me. No hard
feelings, eh?" And he took his place by the fire,
looking pleased, and started to tear at his ash-coated
meat, though the glance he shot at Frémont was uneasy
and sullen.
The camp's happiness flowed over the brief trouble
like balm. Provost sent two men to relieve Terrien
and Menard, who came in whooping with anticipation.
They ate slab after slab of the rich, grained meat,
mopping their plates with steaming bread. And in the
dark beyond the circle of carts the wolves and coyotes
whined and yipped. When the fire flared up, their
eyes flashed like gold pieces, savagely near.
Then came coffee strong enough to float a nail,
and sugar sifted on bread dipped in buffalo grease.
The men broke out rough shag tobacco and pipes they
fired with glowing coals. The scent of tobacco blended
with the roasting meat and they lay back on their
elbows, cradling their tin cups, belching and joking,
jubilant with the gorging. And Provost watched them
somberly, his old eyes narrowed against the smoke;
the quarrel, and the torrent of memories the buffalo
meat had raised, had darkened his mood.
Nicollet had gone back to his seat at the tailgate
of his cart; the tallow-candle lantern flickered bravely
against the night. At the fire Menard and Freniere
were talking about the buffalo and the miracle of
their inestimable numbers, millions on millions of
them drumming and rumbling across the endless plains,
so you could hunt them for their hides and flesh to
the very end of time. . . .
"Waugh!" Provost said suddenly. Their
words had just reached him. "Wasn't that way
with the beaver. There was millions of them, too,
and we killed them off. We trapped them streams dry."
He lit his pipe with quick, nervous puffs as their
faces turned to him. "Hell, there wasn't never
more than six hundred of us all through the Snake
and the Siskadee, and Bear Valley, too. We figured
the beaver would last forever. We couldn't believe
no different. But the time come when you'd bait your
traps with prime castoreum and set 'em out, and day
by day you'd come back and find 'em empty. Them beaver
was gone."
He wanted to talk now, needed to, his voice hoarse
and low, and the men lay in the dark, smoking and
listening.
"You want to know what happened to the fur
trade? We killed it, that's what. And by'n'by we was
coming down to rendezvous with a handful of plews,
no more'n a single horse could pack. Just about every
one of us ended up in the partisan's debt, just for
powder and lead and a little foofaraw for your woman
and whiskey for the pain in your knees."
He stopped and belched, and just when the silence
would have forced someone to speak, he added ruminatively,
"You get the rheumatiz, you know, setting your
traps knee-deep in water running right out of the
snow-pack. Makes a man's legs ache like a poison tooth.
Man needed a little whiskey...
Peters said: "The beaver'll come back, won't
they?"
"Maybe. But it don't matter none. Folks won't
be wearing beaver hats no more. Silk hats.
Can you believe that? Don't seem like a flimsy piece
of cloth would make a hat a man would want to wear,
but then you can't tell about city folk no ways --they
don't think like real people."
They pondered that, the sky dark and the fire
barbaric and leaping, the men's faces red.
The rendezvous swept into his memory again. All
the trappers coming in with their pelts and the partisans
out from St. Louis with pack trains heavy-laden with
supplies and hawks bells and rings and mirrors and
bright cloth and vermilion by the pound and tobacco
to see a man through the year. And whiskey. Whiskey,
by God. Horse races and card games and the Indian
hand game on which a man could lose everything, lose
his beaver and his horses and his woman -- and if
he really cut the fool and didn't want to live, even
his piece. And roaring drunk all the while, drinking
whiskey until he was blind and puking. The Indians
came and with them their women and a man could take
him a wife or trade in a wife for a new one or just
take a woman, using her hard and back in an hour for
more, such a pressure of seed had he built up in
that cold year in the mountains. . .
"And in eighteen and thirty-two -- let's
see, that's eight long years gone now -- that year
we was at Pierre's Hole and we heard that the Gros
Ventres was coming on the prod. Now them is Blackfoot,
you know, and there was never a meaner, tougher Indian
than a Blackfoot. When they torture a man they keep
him alive for hours, screaming every minute, and their
women busting their nuts with every scream. So we
rode out to meet 'em, and they sent out a war chief
to parley, making a delay, you know. Big strapping
fellow in a scarlet cloak, give him by the damned
British for sure, and he was carrying the peace pipe
like he wanted to smoke, the damned, cheating. . .
and Antoine Godin rode out to meet him, with a Flathead.
Blackfoot had killed Godin's daddy the year before
over on Big Lost River, and you know Flatheads all
hate Blackfoots. So this war chief reins up and puts
out his hand and Godin shakes it and hangs on and
says, 'Shoot,' and by God but that Flathead shoots.
And Godin pulls him close and they lift his scalp
quicker'n you can say it and ride back waving the
bloody scalp lock and that blood-red cloak. And then
the fighting begun."
"What happened, Mr. Provost?" Menard
asked.
"At Pierre's Hole?" Provost said irritably.
"Why, fought all day, that's what. And finally
they run. We lost some men and the Flatheads lost
some -- they're fighting men, them Flatheads -- but
the Gros Ventres lost a plenty more and they ain't
forgot it to this day."
Frémont was watching him intently, scowling; and
the aversion in the younger man's face stung him all
at once.
"You think that ain't right, don't you? Godin
shaking that Indian's hand? Well, you got a lot to
learn, young feller. You going to get by on the frontier,
you'd better learn right quick how hard things can
get."
But the Lieutenant didn't look away; after a moment
he nodded. "That's true, Mr. Provost," he
said quietly. "I've still got a lot to learn."
"Bet your boots," Provost answered,
but hollowly. The soldier had taken it well. He felt
morose, and cross with himself for flaring up like
that. I'm getting old, he thought sourly; old and
cantankerous. Like Gabe Bridger. "Hell, it don't
matter," he said in vague conciliation. "It's
all dead and buried now. . . . When we whipped them
Gros Ventres that day we felt like kings. But there
wasn't no rendezvous this year and I don't believe
there'll ever be another."
Abruptly he threw the dregs of his cup onto the
blackened coals. There was a sharp hiss. He rapped
his pipe hard on his boot heel and the gray dottle
fell to the ground.
"Man was free in the mountains," he
said. "Lived like he wanted, did what he wanted,
killed if he had to. It was hard, but you was alive,
d'you understand?"
He sighed and belched again. "Well, no use
crying. No white folks out there and none going. Ain't
no reason to go. Most beautiful country God ever wrought,
but you can't eat that."
There was a long pause and Louis Zindel spoke.
"But lots of folks are ready to go west,
no?" He was a small man with a round, merry face
and a sunny personality. He had been an artilleryman
in the Prussian Army.
"Not a one that I know about."
"The farmers back in Ohio --they lose their
farms when the banks close, and they say Oregon is
the place to be."
"She-it! Ain't nothing in Oregon but the
Hudson's Bay Company, the damned grabbing British.
Them and a handful of Yanks gone there to farm."
"In Ohio they talked about the Oregon Trail
as if it's the road to the promised land."
"Trail? What's the matter with you? There
ain't no Oregon Trail, least nothing a stranger could
follow. I know what you're talking about -- the route
that runs up the Platte to Fort Laramie and on to
South Pass, sure, but it's just a general route, it's
not a trail. What d'you think -- that it's a road?
With a stagecoach running every day and the driver
blowing his bugle polite as you please?"
"Well, but how did those caravans get to
the rendezvous?" Frémont asked suddenly.
"Went up the Missouri by keelboat,"
Louie said, "dragged foot by foot against the
current. Hardest work in the world. Boucher manned
them tow lines some, didn't you, Boucher?"
Boucher grunted. Slowly he raised a massive arm
and flexed the bicep.
"There's nothing there, with the fur trade
gone," Provost repeated gloomily. "Or go
to California and see how the Mexican'11 deal with
you -- he'll show you the inside of his dungeons,
that's what. And the same in Sante Fe -- they like
the trade caravan that goes down every year, but that's
all."
"Damned right," Bladon said. "I
walked a team down that trail five years in a row.
They're glad enough to get the goods, but it don't
pay to make no missteps around them Mex soldiers."
"Nah," Provost concluded, "nothing
left. A few trading posts like Fort Laramie. But God
almighty, there's hardly a white man between Kansas
Landing and Laramie, and damned few who even know
the way. Just me and 0l' Gabe and the like, who've
followed the beaver. Some Ohio farmer was to set out
on his own, he'd be lost in three days, vulture bait
in ten. Hell, if a man wants to farm, he's got his
family, his stock-why, there's never been a wagon
gone through those mountains, don't you understand?
Never. 0l' Gabe guided that missionary party out to
Oregon three, four years ago -- that doctor fellow,
Whitman -- and all they had was pack mules and they
ate most of them and damned glad to have 'em. Huh-uh.
Oregon Trail, my ass . . ."
"There'll be one someday," Frémont said
from across the fire. "Someday soon."
"How do you come by that?" Provost demanded,
irritated all over again. "Why shoot, son, you've
never even laid eyes on that country."
"Not yet. But there's going to be a wagon
trail to Oregon because there has to be one."
Provost snorted. "You'll never live to see
it."
"Bet I do, Mr. Provost. My gold watch against
that fancy silver bridle of yours."
"Fair enough!" Louie crowed, and slapped
his greasy hands against his thighs. "I'll hold
the stakes."
"Hell's bells, you won't live long enough
either, Louie," Provost told him, and the circle
of men laughed in chorus.
"Yes he will. We all will," Frémont
said softly. He grinned at Provost then ‑‑
that quick, defiant smile --then got to his feet and
hurried up to the knoll where Nicollet was already
setting out the instruments.
The moon was high now, sharing the sky with a
million million stars. Provost smoothed out his apishamore,
rolled himself deftly in one blanket and worked himself
comfortable, dozing and waking, watching Frémont and
Papa Joe working on the sightings, their heads together
in the lantern's flicker. Feisty young feller, had
to give him that. No bag of wind, either ‑‑
meant what he said. Pretty slick, tripping up Bladon
like that; then the move to his pistol. No fear in
him at all. Maybe -- just maybe -- he'd be the one
to break trail through that Godforsaken country, you
never knew. At least he wasn't no Washington dandy
come along for the ride. . .
Excerpted from Dream West by David Nevin.
Copyright 1983 by David Nevin. Excerpted by permission
of Forge Books (175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010).
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be
reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing
from the publisher.
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