Colter's Winter Page 7

  “What we can do is put him ashore and let him walk ‘em off, that’s what I say,” Forest said.

  “That’s not a bad idea–”

  “Hey!” Joe shouted from the front of the boat.

  “…putting ashore,” Colter finished, giving a hard look to Joe and then Forest. “I figure we need to start thinking on a spot for the winter, and this seems like it’ll do just as well as any other.”

  “Here?” Forest said, his face twisted up in a scowl as he surveyed the banks on each side of them. “There ain’t nothin’ here but shrubs, scrub and rock.”

  “We get too much further ahead here on the Yellowstone and we’ll be into Blackfoot lands.”

  Both Forest and Joe quieted down at that statement, and Colter figured any further protestations would stop.

  “Besides,” he continued, “we’re getting up into the fork, and that signals the end of the road for us. From here on out we’ll make our winter camp and then begin our forays west, toward the three forks of the Missouri.”

  “And right into the Blackfoot hunting grounds, isn’t that right?” Forest asked, for once with no scorn in his tone. It was just a straight question, the kind a man needed to ask to determine whether he wanted to keep on living or not.

  Colter nodded. “That’s the area where Captain Lewis and his three men ran into ‘em, and killed one too.”

  “But that’s where the furs are,” Forest said with a scoff, shaking his head from side to side while thinking.

  “We could just stick to the Yellowstone, couldn’t we?” Joe asked, looking back to Colter, who nodded.

  “Aye,” the mountain man said, “there’ll be plenty of pickin’s that are just fine, right around here. And don’t forget – we’ve still got to get this all back to St. Louis, and only with this here boat.”

  “Oh, we’ve only got to get them within a few hundred miles of the city before we’ll run into traders that’ll take ‘em off our hands, and at just as fine a price we’d find in ‘ol St. Louie,” Forest said, then looked to Joe. “What’dya say? Get back what we lost to the Sioux downriver?”

  Joe frowned, thinking back on the disastrous winter they’d had the year before, and how much it’d set them back so far. Colter watched the battle play out on his face, watched him struggle between his safety and his financial security. In the end, the money won.

  “How ‘bout we get it back and then some?”

  “Ha! That’s the spirit!” Forest laughed, and reached up to slap Joe on the back, which of course caused him to shift and that started up those aching hemorrhoids again.

  “Ooh!” he said in pain, and both Forest and Colter began paddling them toward shore, smirks on their faces all the while.

  20 – Travelling Pains

  “Ee-yah!” Joe said as he lowered himself down onto a rock beside the fire.

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby!” Forest said with a laugh as he put a kettle on. They’d chosen a clear spot behind some bushes and gotten a rough camp started. Sunset was closing in, and Colter hadn’t been seen since they’d landed nearly four hours before.

  “Just thank your lucky stars you don’t got what I got,” Joe said through clenched teeth. He shifted this way and that and finally found a half-sitting, half-laying position that allowed him to get some warmth from the fire while keeping his backside from flaring up too much.

  “Hmph,” Forest snorted to that, and continued to adjust the kettle over the fire, all the while looking up. The sky was darkening quickly already, and it was only the middle of October. It was a sure sign winter would be long and tough, and not for the first time did he wonder if venturing this far into the wild with so few and so little was such a good idea.

  Oh well, he thought, there’s nothing to do for it now.

  The men fell into a silence, each content to stick with his own thoughts. Joe and Forest had been together for two years now, and with little different each day, there really wasn’t much need for conversation. Colter was a nice addition to their pair, but he was quite solitary in nature and preferred to keep quiet most of the time. When he did talk, it wasn’t anything much more than a few words here and there. Unless he was agitated, of course, and as of late, Forest was agitating him more and more.

  “When the hell you suppose he’ll be back?” Forest said just as the kettle was coming to boil.

  “I was thinking of waiting for the coffee to get done,” a voice said from behind the bushes, “but I figured you couldn’t wait.”

  Forest and Joe spun around to see Colter walk out from the bushes. There was a row of bushes in their spot, one that did a lot to conceal them from the stretch of prairie that came up just before the slight rise they were resting beside. The whole area was flat and open and treeless for the most part, but they were in a small depression that the river had created for itself over thousands of years. That did much to conceal them from the wider world.

  “Found some,” Colter said, not waiting for either man to ask how he’d come upon them so quietly.

  “Thank the Lord!” Joe cried out, his hands going up in a placating motion toward the sky.

  “Witch Hazel?” Forest asked as Colter came up to the fire and took a rock. He opened his satchel and pulled out a few thick pieces of bark, then motioned with his head toward the kettle.

  “Pour me a cup, will you?”

  Forest obliged, and within moments Colter was stirring the bark into the hot liquid.

  “Woo-hee!” Forest shouted, his fingers going up to pinch his noise.

  “Can’t smell much worse than what’s already down there,” Colter said. He kept on stirring, though he was mashing more and more with the spoon he was using. He went on like that for several minutes, then nodded over at Forest. “Get me one of them big leaves from the bushes there, will ya?”

  Forest frowned, but did as he was told. He came back a few moments later with a large specimen, and Colter scooped up some of the bark-liquid mishmash and smeared it on.

  “Now what?” Forest said, screwing up his nose at what he was now holding in his hand.

  “Now you can smear that on Joe’s ass.”

  “Oh, no,” Forest protested, now holding the leaf and ointment out at arm’s reach.

  “Well I’m not doin’ it!” Colter laughed.

  “Here, give it to me!” Joe yelled, his voice nearly cracking in pain.

  Forest nodded to that, a relieved look on his face, and quickly walked over to hand the leaf to his companion.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus!” Joe said as he began to shimmy out of his pants and then drawers. Colter and Forest turned away as fast as they could.

  “Aaahhh!” Joe cried out a moment later, and Colter chanced a look back. A quick glance at the trapper with his hand wedged in his ass made him regret it, however, and he was once again staring into the fire, same as Forest.

  “Thank God, that feels better!” Joe said next, though neither man looked back again, even when they heard the pants being pulled back on.

  “So now what?” Forest asked. “We landed, got the medicine we needed…are we gonna just sit here all winter? There’s no animals!”

  “Oh, they’re here alright,” Colter said, lifting his head up to look around a bit at the bluffs, the bushes and the river.

  “Not where I’m looking,” Forest said with a snort.

  “Then you’ll have to look tomorrow, when I’m gone.”

  “Gone?” Joe’s voice called out from behind them, and this time both men did look. The trapper was still lying down on his side, but his expression looked much-less pained.

  Colter nodded and stared into the fire again. “It’s best if I scout on ahead, moving past the Yellowstone and overland to the Missouri.”

  “How long will that take?” Forest asked, his voice level, filled less with acid and more with concern, for himself no doubt, Colter thought.

  “Few days, week at most.”

  “A week!” Joe cried out.

  “Aye, seven days!” Forest sho
uted back at him, a hard look on his face. “We’ve done seven days, hell, we’ve done seven months!”

  “So long as you stick with this area here, just along this part of the Yellowstone and down a ways on Clark’s Fork, then you’ll be fine.”

  “And if we don’t?” Forest asked, a bit of his usual tone back.

  “Then you might run into some Blackfoot,” Colter said with a shrug.

  “Oh, and you won’t?” Joe said.

  “I’m hoping to run into some Crow,” Colter said matter of factly, “or another friendly tribe that can point out the plum trapping areas…Assiniboine, maybe. I’m surprised we haven’t seen any other tribes around, actually.”

  “They’re around?” Forest asked.

  Colter looked over at him and nodded. “There are quite a few friendly tribes, from what we gathered moving through to the coast. The trick’s in finding them, and not having the other tribes find you.”

  “Like the Blackfeet,” Dixon said, and Colter once again gave that silent nod of agreement.

  “It’s already getting colder,” Forest said just as Colter stood up, “you think it might snow before you’re back?”

  “Might,” Colter said, looking up at the sky, “it just might at that.”

  21 – The First Snow

  Colter squeezed the barrel of his Kentucky rifle and offered a silent prayer as he sat up in the tent. The first snows of winter were always the most surprising, and these that’d come in the night had taken him by surprise more than most.

  He reached his hand forth and moved the crease of the tent aside, and immediately his eyes were blinded by white. He recoiled, the tent flap coming back, and some of that thankful-darkness returned again. But a sliver of light remained upon his face, and with fingers shielding eyes, he reached forth yet again and grabbed hold of the flap, then opened it.

  It was snow, snow everywhere – on the trees, the rocks, the bushes and the branches. There was a fine, even white coat of the stuff and not a flake had been disturbed, not a creature’s foot set down. Only the river, moving ever forward swiftly and without mercy and rambling its delight all the while, stood unmolested, a cold testament to the fortitude of nature, and the many guises its elements could take.

  Colter scrunched up his nose and bit his lip – he loved the sight, yet hated it all the same. It was the changing of the seasons, which brought life it was true, but also the beginning of the worst part of the year, and in the wilderness, that was the dying time.

  Behind him Joe shuffled a bit and Colter turned back just as he sat up.

  “Is that…is that what I think it is?”

  Colter nodded. “More than you could ever hope for and more than you’d ever want – talking about it yesterday jinxed us.”

  “A frosting or the real thing?” Forest said, coming awake quickly beside Joe.

  “The real thing,” Colter said, shaking his head, “and it’ll keep on coming too, by the looks of it.”

  Colter leaned his head out a bit further, the better to look up at the sky. The clouds were moving quickly overhead, though it was difficult to see, so white and grey and gloomy were they.

  “An inversion,” Colter said, nodding up at them.

  “A what?” Joe scoffed.

  “An inversion,” Colter repeated, “it’s when the cold air we’re breathing gets trapped by a pocket of warmer air above. Since there’s more humidity where those two kinds of air are mixing, we get that fog…making it seem like we’re trapped.”

  “Where the hell’d you hear that?” Forest laughed as he started to rise, his surly demeanor on full display today, a bit earlier than usual.

  “Captain Clark,” Colter nodded to himself, still looking up at the sky, although now looking back a bit as well, through those months and years the men of the expedition had been together.

  “What does it mean?” Joe said, a little more seriously than his friend. He knew the graveness of the situation, even if Forest just wanted to laugh about it.

  Colter turned to look back at them. “It means we need to get up, get moving.”

  He moved out of the tent and into the fresh snow, making the first footprints in it of the season. The other two men watched him and shook their heads. That damn Colter, they thought.

  Let ‘em think it, Colter would’ve thought if he knew what was going through their minds. He’d been with the two men but two months and already they were wearing on him. Maybe it was the newness of them, something he hadn’t had in awhile. But then, there’d been plenty of Indians along the way he’d met and befriended, and of course Charboneau and Sacagawea. But then they weren’t hard-asses. No, check that – they weren’t hard-asses like Forest, who was grating on Colter’s nerves more and more each day, each hour almost. He didn’t know how on earth Joe had managed to stay with the man so long. Joe Colter liked, but in the way you’d like a young boy, one you didn’t have to look after. And with Joe, that’s exactly what it was – looking after. It wasn’t the piles, that could happen to anyone, but more his work ethic, or lack thereof. But there was something else, too, something Colter hadn’t been able to put his finger on at first, but which became more and more evident the further they got up the river. Joe was afraid, afraid of something, and it was as plain as day.

  Colter sighed and let the thought die away as he stepped out into the snow, his moccasins crunching softly on the hard layer that’d frozen below the fresh stuff. They crunched more as he went the few steps to the fire, which was completely out, though the blackened wood wasn’t yet covered with snow. Colter frowned at it, for without fire they were as good as dead, at least if they weren’t moving. And if the winds were kicking up, there really was no hope without fire. The winds blew cold and fierce, and were unremitting in their intensity. They swept down from the north and cascaded into the Yellowstone River valley, whispering what was to come for the unwary, blizzards, and lots of ‘em. When that wind started howling you wore anything you could, no matter how it looked. Buckskin, woolen blankets, fur caps, leggings and anything else that might slow the terrible bite were the mountain man and trapper’s preferred attire, and no one who felt that weather ever questioned why.

  Colter bent down to the pile of chopped logs and tree branches and wiped away the layer of snow, then started throwing them into the fire pit, which was nothing more than a spot they’d chosen because it held the least grass. He took a tuft of dry grass from beneath the snow and stuck it under a thin layer of branches. Reaching into his satchel he pulled out his iron and flint and after striking a few sparks had the tuft flaming. The twigs caught and then the branches and after a few minutes the half-charred logs from the night before were starting to burn again.

  “Are you still going to leave?”

  Colter looked over his shoulder to see Joe standing there, a buffalo robe wrapped around him. He nodded.

  “Snow’ll slow you down, though.”

  Colter nodded again and looked back at the growing fire. Slow him down it would, but it wasn’t something he minded.

  “When do you think you’ll be back?”

  “It’ll be seven days now, not just a few,” Colter said.

  “Don’t act like we can’t make it on our own,” Forest said next, coming out of the tent in his long-johns to stand beside Joe.

  “I think you’ll make it just fine,” Colter said as he grabbed the kettle and headed toward the river. Forest watched him go, a frown on his face. He’d be happy to see John Colter go for awhile, but afraid as well. The wilderness was a big place, and he had a nagging suspicion something wasn’t right. It all went back to that night on the river.

  22 – A Grim Discovery

  Snow Eye stopped, and the sound of his feet crunching sand on the riverbank ceased. He held his head steady, brushed the long black hair from over his ears. He could still hear the constant hum of the rushing waters beside him, but he could hear more, sense more, see…

  “Hya!” came the cry, and from the darkness ahead of Snow Eye came
a dark figure, brandishing an axe, that much he could see as the moonlight glinted off its head.

  Snow Eye ducked down and put his arms up and grabbed hold of the man as he rushed forth – a Blackfoot, he assumed – and thrust him up into the air and over his shoulders. The man went flying with a wail, but Snow Eye’s survivalist instincts were now primed, and he ducked down, waited, smelled, saw…

  Thunk!

  The arrow struck the gravel bank several feet back from Snow Eye, and would have taken the Indian right in they eye he’d been named after if he hadn’t ducked out of the way just in time. Instead of being thankful for his heightened senses just now, Snow Eye leapt toward the small wall of earth that stretched upward to the larger prairie above, heedless of his safety.

  Thwish!

  Another arrow came but this one was feet away from him and Snow Eye kept up his charge. A moment later he saw the outline then the shape and then the hands frantically reaching for another arrow. Snow Eye wasn’t going to let that happen, and his hand shot down to the tomahawk at his side. It jumped into his hands and then jumped out just as fast as he let it fly, end over end hurtling toward the other Blackfoot.

  “Ugh!” the young brave let out in a sigh as the axe embedded itself into his chest. Snow Eye was atop him a second later and grabbing it free. One swing was all it took to end the foolish brave’s life, and then another to turn around and–

  Dunt!

  The axe would have cleaved his face to the back of his head, Snow Eye knew that the second he heard its stone head hit the hard-packed wall of earth behind him. He wasn’t worried, however, for he saw the brave that’d thrown it was now unarmed, and looking quite pensive about it.

  “Ah!” Snow Eye yelled, and rushed forth with his bloodied tomahawk held high. He was just a few feet from the brave when…

  “Snow Eye, stop!”

  Snow Eye did just that, stopped dead cold, his axe held above his head.

  “How do you know my name!” Snow Eye shouted.