Into the Savage Country (21 page)

At the edge of the field, Pegleg had cut one of the packs of furs open that Smith had received for our participation. Pegleg examined the contents. He held a pelt to Ferris, to show him. Ferris took the pelt and winged it away without looking at it and sat in the scrubland, staring out at the battlefield.

Within minutes the magpies and vultures flapped over the field in growing multitudes. The remains of the mangled bodies were attached to rope harnesses fitted to Indian dogs and dragged through the dust. The women were wandering about the field thrashing the dead Blackfoot with thorns. Some of the women had their faces blackened and were missing the first joints of their little fingers.

A while later I saw two dead Crow on a travois. These two natives had been sent in pursuit of Chief Red Elk, who had leaped off the rock and escaped on one of the Crow horses. The horses these men had ridden were not found.

Far off in the field of battle, near the gray rock, I saw the Crow chief Long Hair being carried away on another travois. He had fallen off his horse a hundred yards from the battle site and been trampled. He had been a shrewd, reliable leader and was the man we had made our agreement with to trap those mountains. Now he was dead.

We had arrived at the battlefield in midafternoon. By dusk
we were riding back to our encampment with two more packs of furs and with much speculation about what Long Hair’s death would mean for us.

For several days we kept double sentries and cached our pelts in various hidden spots, but nothing happened. Just as before, the natives left us unmolested and we went on gathering our pelts in the protection of the Wind River Mountains.

It was mid-September, and with Long Hair dead we had decided to trap the most remote reaches of the mountains, as far from the native villages as possible. This section of high country was not far from land trapped by other companies, and one morning Branch rode into camp, leaped off his horse, and told us that he had met with a Western Company trapper named Clybourne who said a free trapper named Jenks was bivouacked at a nearby lake and was offering his Spanish thoroughbred as a prize in a horse race.

“Sold his outfit and pelts and is offering up the horse,” Branch said.

Jenks’s horse was renowned for being the most noble creature west of the Mississippi.

“Why in the name of God would Jenks give up that magnificent thoroughbred?” Ferris asked.

“Because he can’t bring it back with him on a keelboat, so he figures he’ll have some fun. Buy-in’s one pelt or three dollars.”

Ferris slapped his hands together. “I think I’ll set some traps in the lowland today.”

“As will I,” Branch said.

Soon all were vying for the low-lying waterways, which would be close to the flats where the race was planned, then any thoughts of trapping at all were set aside.

That morning, to a man, the brigade rode out of the mountains and by noon had arrived at a mixed encampment of trappers and natives along a shallow lake in the arid sagebrush steppe east of the Wind River Mountains.

There were already fifty trappers and a dozen natives at the encampment when we arrived, with more arriving every minute. A skinny, gesticulating trader in leggins with a thick black mustache and otter skins wrapped about his plaited hair was yelling, “Three dollars or one adult pelt for the buy-in. Winner gets the horse and I get the pot.”

This was Jenks, a swaggering, resourceful man. With the tip of his knife, he pointed south to a rock pinnacle where a flag hung, a dot of color in the distance.

“To that rock lump and back. Any way you want to go, not my concern. It’ll be a scramble. First one back gets the horse. Rest of you can scatter.”

A stocky trapper with a limp carried lime paint in a barrel with a leather handle looped into two rough holes. The trapper was drunk, and using a makeshift brush, he left a wavering line in the dust. Ferris, Layton, and I stepped over the lime and walked down the hill to get a look at the horse. It really was a handsome creature. Sixteen hands high and beautifully shaped, mild-tempered, and statuesque.

“I’ll let you boys admire him after I win,” Layton said. “Might even let you hold the bridle.”

“Damned generous of you,” Ferris said.

“Maybe feed him a carrot once we get back east,” Layton added.

There was a scuffling at the edge of the knotted group of trappers surrounding the horse. I turned to see natives pushing their way through the crowd. There were eight or ten of them
and Chief Red Elk was at the front. It was three weeks since that battle on the rock and he still bore a gash across his forehead.

When Red Elk saw Layton and Ferris and me at the horse he slowed and struck his chest and pointed at the horse and said some words in native dialect. His meaning was clear. He was saying it was his horse.

“Ain’t so,” Jenks said. “I got it off Harris in a card game.”

“My horse,” Red Elk said in English. “Mine! Mine!”

“Straight flush. Most miraculous luck of my life,” Jenks said.

“Mine!”

“Yours if you win the race,” Jenks said. “Not before.”

“Which you won’t,” Layton said. “Because no horse is faster than my Uncle Bill.”

“Mine … mine … mine,” Red Elk was saying.

Layton ignored him, stroking the horse’s neck, saying, “Oh, you sweet thing, you are all horse, nothing else, just a fine, beautiful creature, and you will be mine.…”

Layton went on stroking the horse and smiled at Red Elk in that irritating way of his, which sent a current of laughter through the other trappers, who were alive to the comic elements of the moment, particularly those who knew Layton: the St. Louis dandy mocking the Blackfoot savage. Red Elk fingered the smoothed wooden handle of his hatchet, while Layton went on mincing, pretending to be oblivious. After a moment Red Elk simply gestured at him with his hatchet and walked off toward where he’d left his horse.

“You made a friend,” I said.

“He’ll be an even better friend when I ride off with this magnificent creature,” Layton said.

“Think he’s in love,” Ferris said.

The race was to begin at noon. In the time before the race
Ferris and Bridger and I rode out to survey the course. Between the starting line and the rock pinnacle there was a mile of arid scrubby land with a few small rises. About a third of the way to the pinnacle the navigable land dropped into a drainage for about fifty yards and then wound up the far side. After that, the most direct route went up a small hill lying in between the canyon and the pinnacle. I rode down into the canyon and back up the far side and to the top of that hill, which was dotted with prickly pear and sage. Far in the distance I could see the trappers and natives at the edge of the blue oval of the lake. There were at least a hundred horses to the south in a natural corral, writhing and jostling. Above them, white pelicans turned and wheeled silently in the midday light. I mapped out a route in my mind, then rode back to where the trappers were lining up at the white lime. Red Elk was already there on a magnificent black horse almost the equal of the horse that was being offered as the prize. He turned and looked at me as I went by, and gave me the same mute, questioning, half-displeased look that he’d given me in the British encampment. I rode past him and found a space next to Ferris, who made room for me, as everyone in the line of horses was jockeying for position. A moment later Layton rode up on his Uncle Bill and edged into the line right next to Red Elk. Ripples of amusement went up and down the line of men.

There were around seventy-five contestants, consisting of native horsemen and various white trappers—Frenchmen, Brits, Americans, Spanish, Scotsmen, a Swede—all of us crammed together, joking, vowing to win the race, edging for position. There were squaws to the side decked out in porcupine quills and white sheepskin dresses, and in the center of this writhing throng Red Elk and Layton cursed each other, threatening to battle before the race even began.

A flask was being passed down the line. It was handed to me and I drank from it and handed it on and it continued from hand to hand until it reached Grignon, who turned the flask upside down and drank until it was gone, then handed the empty flask to Layton, who tossed it over his shoulder.

“Wonderfully generous of you, Grignon,” he said.

“Much obliged, Captain,” he said.

Jenks waddled out in front of the line of jockeying horses.

“Well all you lard-eaters! You corncracking flatlanders! You pork-eating greenhorns! I’m heading back to the States by way of a flatboat on the Missouri and I can’t bring my horse. This marvelous creature saved me in many a scrape and I hate to part with her. She’ll go to the best rider, who won’t deserve her. This scramble is around the pinnacle and back. Take any route you want. First one back gets the horse.” He gripped a pistol and checked to make sure it was primed. “You had enough of my palavering?”

“Naw, we want more speeches,” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Tell us some mountain philosophy, Jenks,” another yelled.

“I got it right here,” he bawled, waving the pistol.

There were drunken guffaws and harsh yells and coughs and cries and all the men elbowing and pushing and shoving.

“On the sound of the gunshot,” Jenks yelled, and walked to the side where squaws and a few trappers too drunk to ride and Smith, who saw no profit in racing, watched. The rest of us were lined up, thigh to thigh, seventy-five men on horseback in the middle of those desert wastes.

The shadow of a hawk passed over us slowly. We waited and waited and waited and someone coughed and then Jenks raised the gun and …

BANG!

We were off.

Seventy-five tightly packed horses leaped forward at once. Grignon’s horse veered and stumbled and other horses fell over it and then there were pileups all down the line. My mare Sophie stepped nimbly among the fallen riders and was then galloping out into the open flatlands, fading cries and whinnies and curses behind me. Ahead of me there was a red-haired Scotsman named Frazier. To my left I saw Ferris and Bridger. To my right there was a trapper named Oates. I glanced back beneath my arm and saw Red Elk on his enormous Spanish stallion emerging from the dust, then Layton a little behind him, low in the saddle, perfectly poised. Some stragglers emerged from the dust far behind them but that was it. Almost all the other riders were entangled. In an instant it was a race between fifteen horses and not seventy-five.

Frazier had pulled his stirrups high so he rode crouched on top, charging across the desert. I could hear soft hoof beats behind me and looked beneath my arm to see Red Elk urging his horse on. There was a different sound to his horse, which was unshod. He was twenty feet behind me. Then ten. Then he was past me. Red Elk was a wonderful rider, thigh muscles tight, his body flowing easily with the motion of his magnificent horse.

Red Elk approached Frazier. He tried to pass him but Frazier cut him off. He tried to pass again, but Frazier moved to cut him off again and Red Elk’s horse stumbled and lost a step and Frazier inched farther ahead. Red Elk was two steps behind him. They were twenty feet ahead of Ferris, Bridger, and I. Red Elk reached behind his head where his cudgel rested in a leather holster. He gripped the club and … Smack!

Frazier tumbled from his horse and in an instant had disappeared behind us. His riderless horse veered off.

“Bastard,” I heard Ferris shout.

“Don’t have my gun,” I heard Layton yell from somewhere behind me.

I glanced back and saw Frazier limping away.

It was Red Elk in front now. Ferris had inched ahead of me on his mare. Layton was to my right, hanging back just behind me, though I felt certain he could have passed me if he’d wanted to. His Uncle Bill was the equal of any horse in the west.

We rode around that first hill, down the canyon and along sandy soil at the bottom, then on hard, red rock where it was suddenly very hot and still and the hoof beats echoed off the rock walls. We rode back up the far side of the canyon, weaving among enormous boulders on the slope, and emerged on the open flatlands.

It was Red Elk in front, then Ferris, me, Layton, Bridger, and behind him a Brit on a mottled pony. The others had fallen far behind.

The group of us entered a low channel around the rock pinnacle. As I curved around the pinnacle, in a spot where a dry streambed ran up right along the base of the rock and made a three-foot channel, I came upon Ferris just getting back on his horse. He must have fallen as he made the turn. “Aggh,” I jeered as I raced past. He waved a hand to ward off someone behind me and I looked back to see Layton collide with Ferris, the two entangled, all legs and dust and whinnying, and then Bridger and the Brit raced past, and I was back out on the flats. Halfway there.

Red Elk was fifteen yards in front. I was second. Bridger and the Brit were ten yards behind me. I looked back and saw Layton and Ferris emerge from behind the pinnacle, not injured but far behind after having collided with each other.

I was approaching the small hill from where I had surveyed the route. Red Elk had turned to the left of the hill. I began to follow in his path but at the last moment went up over the top of the hill rather than around it, weaving among sage and scrub. When I emerged over the crest I passed the spot where I had surveyed the landscape. The blue lake was spread out in front of me with the pelicans wheeling and the white triangles of the native lodges to the west of the lake and the horses in the corral, all of it magnificently lit in the autumn light. I slipped down the back end of the hill, and as my path converged with Red Elk’s I realized I had made up some ground. We were neck and neck now, three feet separating us, close enough to touch each other. As we rode Red Elk turned and looked at me and reached behind his head as if he’d swipe at me with his cudgel but he did not. He just kept pace with me, the two of us riding alongside each other, Red Elk casting glances at me and then slowly inching past.

I spurred my horse, and for a moment I gained ground and oh, how I wanted to win, to prove myself to all those men, and to myself, to know that I was equal to any man in the west, with that unquenchable desire for accomplishment, for recognition, for glory. I urged Sophie on, but even as I yearned for victory, Red Elk was gaining ground. Sophie gave everything she had, but Red Elk had the better horse and was the better rider. He was soon several lengths ahead of me.