The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men) (19 page)

Pow—pow—pow—pow went the trappers’ pistols at point-blank range, with deadly results. That shooting was so close that smoke poured from the entry wounds of the Indians hit by the huge pistol balls, some struck just inches from the ends of the barrels!

Next came a surprising boom—boom—boom—boom from Winter Hawk’s and Runs Fast’s Hawkens. Observing that the Indians were charging in a single group, they had quickly abandoned their rear positions and raced to the front line of the battle with their weapons at the ready. Arriving just as the Indian’s charge broke past Harlan and Big Eagle, Runs Fast and Winter Hawk stopped it cold with four accurate shots from their rifles into the surprised faces of the attackers.

Dropping their rifles, into the fray they sailed with both of their pistols firing, killing four more Cheyenne warriors at point-blank range and splattering those riding behind with what was left of the breakfast of the rider ahead! Then, swinging tomahawks, rearing, panicked horses, and flashing knives ruled the violent moment. The women, witnessing the fury of the battle, bravely ran to the edge of the fight with their pistols and killed two more warriors who had not expected to be shot from behind.

They ran back to the pack string to reload their pistols out of the line of fire, then came back once again, killing two more swirling Cheyenne warriors at the edge of the battle by shooting them in their backs.

Much was at stake for them—not only their honor but also the lives of their men. Knowing nothing but misery awaited them if they lost the fight, they found themselves driven to the same level of desperation as their men. The white clouds of black-powder smoke were now so thick in the brush line that they could hardly tell friend from foe! Adding to that din was the racket of more than twenty panicked and rearing horses, trampling the living and dead beneath their flailing hooves.

Swinging wildly with his tomahawk and slashing with his knife in the other hand, Harlan killed one big, fat Indian when he axed him square in the forehead, splitting his skull. Next his knife found the soft underbelly of another Indian. The thrust was so powerful that it swept the raider off his horse and under the hooves of his friends’ horses.

Big Eagle threw his tomahawk at one man, missed, and killed the rider behind him when the ax struck him full in the throat! Then an Indian jumped off his horse, right onto Big Eagle and his flashing knife. By then Harlan and Winter Hawk had each axed another Cheyenne in the confusion as they tried to ride off and escape the bloody scene of unimaginable fury they had not anticipated.

Runs Fast savagely brained the last Indian with his pistol. The man had fallen from his madly rearing and terrified horse and, in the process of trying to remount, died in his tracks.

Then there was nothing but the quiet that comes after desperation, savagery, and bravery in a land where such acts could be commonplace. As the smoke, noise, and struggle died away, the men looked at each other to see who was still standing. On the ground in bloody profusion lay twenty- seven dead and dying Cheyenne warriors who just moments before had been looking forward to the battle.

However, they had not anticipated the straight-shooting trappers armed with double sets of weapons. Now they would forever roam the Happy Hunting Grounds looking for their souls.

As for the trappers, it would take several weeks before all were healed from the battle. Harlan had an eight-inch gash wildly bleeding on the top of his head. Blood was running down his shoulder and chest where a tomahawk had struck and glanced off, but not before ripping open a large wound in his already damaged scalp.

Big Eagle was missing the last two fingers of his left hand from trying to block a vicious swipe of a warrior’s knife. In addition, his right cheek was ripped open to the bone, and he had lost two teeth in the same blow from an unseen tomahawk strike.

Winter Hawk had a deep knife wound on his left forearm that went clear to the bone and another across both shoulder blades. Runs Fast had a ten-inch gash in his thigh from a spear thrust. Other than that, they had survived.

Making camp right there in the cottonwoods where the battle had occurred, the women set about caring for their men. Birdsong cleaned Harlan’s head wound with some rum and then sewed it shut with needle and thread.

While the other men were being tended to, Harlan mounted his horse and slowly began dragging away the Indian dead before the buzzards and other varmints gave away the trappers’ position any more than they already had. There was a steep-sided gully a hundred yards from camp, and soon the dead warriors shared a common hole in the ground— but not before each had been scalped by Harlan.

Then Harlan cut branches from the trees and dragged them across their tracks and into the gully to cover the morning’s violence. However, the hiding of the bodies turned out not to be necessary. One hell of a prairie thunderstorm blew up that evening, and as the lightning crackled all around, the gully full of dead Indians filled with a torrent of water and mud.

The next morning Harlan and Winter Hawk went to rebury the dead, figuring they would have been washed out by the storm, only to find that the torrents of water running down the gully had washed all the dead into an even deeper hole and neatly buried them under tons of alkali silt.

Fearing more roving bands of Indians and now with an additional sixteen horses collected from the dead as a potential target, Harlan and his band headed slowly due west for the Wind River Range, seeking the coolness of higher altitudes for those suffering healing wounds. The mountains were home to the trappers’ friends, the Snakes.

If they could reach that sanctuary, the chances of more Northern Cheyenne following them by tracking the escaped horses were small. Harlan had learned early on that one way to lose pursuers was to make liberal use of opportunities to walk in creek and stream bottoms in order to erase one’s tracks. He used that tactic with great effect in the small streams of the Wind River Mountains.

The next day found the band of trappers and their new horse herd deep in the covering timber in the mountains of the Wind River Range. The second day of travel after the battle found the tired and sore little band at a welcome place—their original cabin site near Willow Lake! The horse corral was still there, and into that went the Indians’ horses after being fed and watered. Their own stock was then unpacked, hobbled, and let into the nearby meadow to feed and water because the corral could not hold any more animals.

As the women cleaned out the old cabin, the men rehung the front door and hauled in some wood for the evening fire. Then, as dinner was cooking, they all sat around the fire and tried to relax without falling asleep in case they had been followed. After dinner and the events of the previous days, emotions came crashing down on them as they retreated to their sleeping furs in the cabin. There they were quickly lost in the deep sleep that comes from running on the edge of bodily reserves.

***

For the next few days the men tended to the livestock, enlarged the corral, and hunted the ever-present moose for fresh meat. The women kept tending their wounds with rum and clean coverings to avoid infection. Then the men set to work on the horses belonging to the Northern Cheyenne and removed all the painted markings relating to that tribe. That would make the horses easier to sell at the upcoming rendezvous without arousing any suspicion if they ran across bands of friendly Northern Cheyenne en route to the same get-together.

During that time, Harlan began thinking of moving on to safer climes. He had had enough of the angry Lakota and Northern Cheyenne seemingly lurking at every turn in the trail.

Crossing their hunting ranges to get to the beaver-trapping grounds is someday going to be a one-way trail to the Happy Hunting Grounds for all of us! he thought.

He had to find a good beaver-trapping area surrounded by friendly Indians. With that idea, he had a quiet yet surprising plan for the survival of his family at the upcoming rendezvous if he was given a chance to get there safely.

Chapter Twenty-One

The 1833 Rendezvous

The Upper Green River Valley was the historical crossroads of the Old West. Surrounded by the Wind River Mountains to the east, the Gros Ventre Mountains to the north, the Wyoming Mountain Range to the west, and the Uinta Mountains far to the south, it was a natural high plateau where the ancients and early Native peoples gathered. Loaded with wildlife of every kind and number, the area extended over one hundred miles from north to south and over fifty miles from east to west. Bisecting the length of this unique ecological and historical area was the mighty Green River.

From 1825 until 1840, the Upper Green River Valley was considered home by the mountain men and the traders from the various St. Louis fur companies, so much so that eight of the fifteen summer rendezvous took place in the area. Six of these rendezvous were held in the vicinity of the present-day town of Daniel, Wyoming, at the confluence of Horse Creek and the Green River.

Harlan remembered hearing from the trappers at the last get-together that the rendezvous of 1833 would be held at this confluence. That area was but a few days’ ride southwest from their current location at Willow Lake and across territory that was fairly friendly unless they ran across buffalo-hunting or war parties of the dreaded Lakota or Northern Cheyenne.

It is good that the next rendezvous is so close, he thought, because that will give my party a few more days here to heal before we have to make that trek.

***

The travel to the rendezvous site was uneventful, taking only five easy days, which pleased Harlan and his party. Arriving, they discovered about one hundred trapper encampments scattered about the site. Those numbers were augmented by about three hundred Snakes, Arapaho, and a group of Crows camped five miles north of the rendezvous site.

Trading will be good, thought Harlan, and this is working into my plans perfectly.

Finding a place in a small grove of trees about one-half mile from the rendezvous site and away from other trappers, the men quickly set up camp. First they made a temporary corral, using several ropes wrapped around a ring of trees to form an enclosure. Then, using rope hobbles, they hobbled every Indian horse within the corral. That way, if someone wanted to steal some of their horseflesh, they would have to work at removing the hobbles from a passel of horses while under fire from the clan’s straight-shooting Hawkens the whole time.

While the boys unloaded their horses and mules, Harlan took a short ride around the rendezvous site. Present was the American Fur Company and his friend Gavin. The St. Louis Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were posted in the same area. However, there was some bad news: the price of beaver fur had gone way down, from nine dollars in the eastern markets for a large hide or “blanket” to no more than three dollars at rendezvous prices, with most bringing less than that.

It seemed that something called silk from a worm had taken over the fashion market and replaced beaver fur in the making of hats. However, buffalo hides were bringing a premium price of four dollars, and Harlan’s crew had over one hundred hides they had acquired in trade from the Indians over the year. As Harlan watched the fur buyers, it was apparent that they were buying low and selling their goods for very high prices—that was, except for the smaller St. Louis Fur Company.

They seem to be reasonable in their fur grading, and with them I will trade, thought Harlan.

Three days after their arrival, Harlan and the boys moved their pack strings into the trading arena. True to his word, Harlan bypassed the rest of the fur companies, even his friend Gavin, for the St. Louis Fur Company. After the trader spent an hour examining the quality of the furs, the deal was cut. They did very well with their furs, mainly because the women had done a great job preparing and tanning them. When Harlan and the boys walked away from the trading, they had over four thousand dollars in credit for their labors!

***

“Now,” said Harlan as they sat around the campfire that evening, “when we go back to pick up our goods, I want each of you to think ahead. We may not be back to the 1834 rendezvous, which the word is will be on Ham’s Fork of the Green. That area is south of us by about fifteen sleeps.

We may just stay up in the high country for two years before coming back, and I am thinking farther north than we have ever been. North in the land of the Crows instead of in the land of the mean- ass Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. I am tired of having to fight for my life at every turn in the trail over beaver that have dropped in price to where they are almost not worth catching. And certainly not worth risking one’s topknot, especially with one youngster in our midst and two more on the way.

“I would also like to go north in order to let all of you experience living with your own kind under natural conditions,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, knowing full well that revelation would catch everyone unawares.

Harlan could see that those words had created a ripple of careful thought and excitement among his clan. He wasn’t sure if his thoughts were received favorably by the whole group because some were so quiet. But it was a carefully thought-out plan that he had stewed over ever since the battle with the Northern Cheyenne in the cottonwood grove. Now the weasel was out of the sack, and his group would have to chew on it for a while.

“As I understand,” he said, “there is a small band of Crow just north of us who are here to trade with the fur companies. I propose to go talk with their chief, and if he is a good man and one I can trust, I will ask him if we might be allowed to travel with his clan back to his land as friends,” Harlan said.