Grizzly Killer: The Making of a Mountain Man Page 2

  The hardest thing I’d ever done was bury Pa that afternoon. I found a spot on the western edge of a meadow that the creek ran through just below camp, where the mornin’ sun would hit first thing and he had a good view of the mountains and this little valley the creek ran through. This was the prettiest spot I could find. He could see the snowcapped peaks way up above the timberline, the dark green of the pines, and the golden yellow of the quakies. He would be able to see the wildflowers across the meadow in the spring and could hear the gentle rush of the creek as it cascaded down toward Black’s Fork and eventually to the Seeds-Kee-Dee.

  Some of the trappers at Rendezvous were callin’ the Seeds-Kee-Dee the Green River, but most still called it by its Injun name. It was well after dark when I finished, but I just sat there next to his grave. I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Pa wasn’t only my pa; he was my friend. We had been close my whole life. The only thing that made it easier at all was the thought of him bein’ with Ma again.

  The moon was just startin’ to peak over the ridge, when I realized how late it was gettin’, and I figured the horses and mules would be gettin’ mighty thirsty by now. I went back to camp and took the mules and horses to water then hobbled them out on the meadow where there was enough graze for a large herd. I was tired, bone-tired, and didn’t feel hungry though I hadn’t eaten since early morn. I realized then I was mighty cold, just wearin’ my buckskins, but I didn’t feel like buildin’ a fire, so I just crawled into my bedroll and lay there, thinkin’ till I finally drifted off to sleep.

  Next mornin’ I woke just as the sky was turnin’ light gray along the eastern ridge, and I just lay there, listenin’, makin’ sure everything sounded normal before I moved. I realized then how much I had depended on Pa’s ears and eyes and just how much he had taught me. I hoped I had learned well enough. Since I could hear the stock munchin’ grass and some birds singin’ along the creek, I knew all was well.

  I made coffee, and when I poured a cup, tears came to my eyes again as I remembered Pa always sayin’ how good the coffee smelled in the mornin’s. As I sat there, sippin’ that coffee, I planned out my day just like me and Pa had always done, and I realized I had the work of two to do. I had to get to my traps and find all of Pa’s. I had a big ol’ grizzly to skin, and now his body had cooled. That would be a tough job. But I could use that hide and the grease that bear would provide. I didn’t feel like trappin’ on this creek anymore, so I needed to move camp back down to our dugout on Black’s Fork where me and Pa were plannin’ on spendin’ the winter. With only me doin’ the work, it would take twice as long.

  By the time I had gathered my ten traps, I had two beaver to skin. I got that out of way as quickly as I could and started downstream where Pa had set his traps. It took me the better part of the afternoon to find all of Pa’s traps, and then I had three more beaver to skin and all five of them to stretch on the willow frames. Pa would have been mighty pleased we already had two packs bundled and in the cache and had twenty more dryin’ on willow frames in camp. It was late in the day when I had these other three skinned, so I figured that grizzly could wait till mornin’.

  Back in camp, I stretched those beaver skins—or plews, as they were known to the trappers—on new willow frames we had made a couple of days before and set them on the rack to dry with the others. I checked on the stock and took them to water. Then realizin’ I hadn’t eaten in two days, I decided I was hungry. I cut a good chunk off a deer haunch we had hangin’ way up off the ground from a tree branch a ways from camp to keep bears or other critters from it, and I set it over the coals on a green willow branch stuck in the ground. I set coffee on and made some biscuits in our fry pan. Biscuits made with bear grease are kind of different, but once you get used to them, they’re pretty good. I’d done most of the cookin’ once we left home, and by now, I thought I was gettin’ pretty good at it, though it probably didn’t take much to please just me and Pa.

  Next mornin’, after coffee, leftover deer, and a biscuit, I headed down to start on that bear. When I got there, the tears came back, and I got all choked up, but I knew the best way to honor Pa was to get on with what had to be done. That bear had five-inch claws, and he was big. It took all day long to skin that beast and scrape the hide, and I made sure I got all the claws. That hide was huge and must have weighed over a hundred pounds by itself.

  Next mornin’, I went down to the meadow where Pa’s grave was, and in a big ol’ quakie that was right behind the grave, I carved him sort of a head stone.

  Pa had been called Captain Jack by everyone that knew him since his days of leadin’ emigrant trains from the east over the mountains to the western frontier in Kentucky and Tennessee. He had always been called Jack ’cause he had the same name as his pa, and he told me they called him Jack as long as he could remember. I thought ’bout home and smiled inside with all those folks back there thinkin’ they was livin’ on the western frontier and they had crossed mountains to get there. If they could see these shinin’ mountains reachin’ for the sky and just how big this western frontier really was, they would know they had just crossed some hills and got just to the edge of the wilderness.

  I went back and broke camp, brought up Red and Jenny, the mules, and got them and then the horses packed. Pa’s horse, Buck, was a big ol’ buckskin gelding, a full sixteen hands high and was broke to the saddle but had never had a pack on before and didn’t seem very happy ’bout all those plews still dryin’ in their frames, bouncin’ along his sides. But after a little friendly persuasion, he must have decided it was in his best interest to behave, ’cause he settled down. He still didn’t seem happy, but he went along without too much more fuss. Bell was mine. She was just fifteen hands and was as good a mountain horse as you will find. She was a right pretty strawberry roan and had a gait that was like sittin’ in a rockin’ chair and could stay with a lope ’bout all day. I figured we were ’bout twenty-five miles from the dugout and hoped to make it ’fore nightfall.

  It was just after dark when we got there, and I didn’t waste any time unloadin’ the stock and turnin’ them out into the pole corral me and Pa had put up. There was still plenty of grass for them, and they all just went to rollin’ in the dust. I went in the dugout and got a fire started and just looked around a minute. I was still fightin’ that low-down feelin’, and my eyes would get misty every time I thought of Pa not bein’ here anymore.

  It didn’t take long for that dugout to warm up. We had dug out a good bit of dirt from the hillside where it came down fairly close to the stream and had stacked logs out ’bout another ten feet. There was a lot of down timber on that hillside, and we just dragged it down and had a roof of solid logs as well. We covered the roof with pine boughs real thick and shoveled dirt over it all. We used mud from along the stream and chinked them between the logs on the sides. It sure didn’t look like much, but it would keep out the wind and stay warm. There were miles of meadow grass along the stream, and we figured we couldn’t find a better spot to spend the winter.

  3 Jimbo

  It was gettin’ to be close to the middle of November, and I hadn’t seen a livin’ soul since we left Rendezvous down on Burnt Fork in July. The year was 1825 and I, at twenty years old, had been in the mountains just a little over a year, and I was alone, lookin’ at spendin’ a mighty cold, long winter by myself. Pa had been an explorer, mountain man, and trapper most of his life, and I sure hoped I learned all his lessons well enough. We had been preparin’ ever since we found this spot. The dugout was finished, and we had the pole corral to hold the stock close by. We had dug a cache down a ways from the dugout to hold the plews till next rendezvous and had built a very strong small smokehouse out of solid logs that we figured would keep a bear out of our stored meat.

  We had been outfitted mighty well by General Ashley at the Rendezvous as payment for helpin’ him bring all his supplies from St. Louis. He had tried to get us to sign on with his Rocky Mountain Fur Company and spend the next couple of years with
his brigades, but Pa told him we would rather go it on our own. I had been huntin’ all fall, along with the trappin’, and I had enough dried and smoked meat to get the two of us through the winter, and we had picked berries that grew in abundance along the creeks. I hated taking the time to pick berries. It seemed to me the time it took to get a hat full just wasn’t worth it, but Pa insisted, sayin’ we couldn’t survive on meat alone. We would spread the berries out on a hide to dry in the sun. And I had to admit they were pretty good.

  I had a large bag of salt, a couple of bags of cornmeal, a couple of bags of flour, a small bag of bakin’ powder, and a small one of sugar, along with several pounds of coffee beans. I had no idea how long they would last ’cause the pack rats and mice became a lot more troublesome than bears. So I shoveled dirt high up around the dugout to keep them from diggin’ under the logs, and I made overlapping rawhide strips around the door to try to keep ’em out. I sewed together rawhide bags for the cornmeal, flour, and sugar and hung them from rawhide strips from the roof logs to make it harder for them critters to get to.

  The mornin’ after I got back to the dugout, I staked out that bear hide and got set to workin’ on gettin’ it tanned. I stripped that grizzly skull clean and set it on a pole by the side of the dugout door. Then I took a good look around and could see right off I needed a lot more firewood. I’d also seen where some critter had been tryin’ to get into the smokehouse, but I didn’t recognize the tracks. He had sprayed a scent like an ol’ tomcat all around the smokehouse, and it wasn’t a pleasant smell. So I grabbed four traps and set them up around where the tracks were the thickest, thinkin’ if he came back, I’d find out just what it was. Then I saddled Ol’ Red and spent the rest of that and the next two days draggin’ deadfall logs off the hill to add to my firewood supply and workin’ that bear skin. It was a mighty thick skin and was gonna take some time.

  I didn’t have a stone wheel to keep my ax sharp like we had back home, so I looked along the stream till I found a stone with a texture I thought would work and brought it back and built a little stand for it, then went to work tryin’ to put an edge on the ax. I stacked my cut firewood out a ways from the dugout. Pa had said he’d seen many a cabin back home burned by the Shawnee by settin’ fire to the woodpile that was stacked right up against the cabin. He said walkin’ a few extra steps for wood beat loosin’ your home and maybe your hair.

  A fortnight or so after I had returned, I had the plews all buried in the cache with the rest of them. I had what I hoped was enough firewood, but if I started to run low, there was enough deadfall close enough I figured me and Ol’ Red could drag more down even if the snow got bad. I had my grub supplies stored as good as I could think how to store them and had that grizzly hide startin’ to get right soft. It made a right warm coverin’ over my bedroll.

  That critter had been back to the smokehouse two more times, and each time, he had set every one of my traps off without gettin’ caught. I was gettin’ real tired of bein’ outsmarted by some four-legged critter from the wild. So I took all twenty traps—Pa and me each had ten—and set them all the way around the little smokehouse, and then I built a couple of snares like the Cherokee used back home. Two of the traps I set on the trail I figured he was usin’ and then built a snare on each side of it, right off the side of the traps.

  Two nights later, I heard an awful commotion. The moon was up, so I could see pretty good, and I grabbed my rifle and headed out there. He had his head in a snare, and when that snare sprung, he must have been dancin’ around, tryin’ to get free, and stepped into the trap in the trail. By the time I got there, the snare had choked the life right out of him, and although I’d heard stories ’bout them, this was the first wolverine I had ever seen. That hide was gonna make me the finest-lookin’ hat in the mountains.

  It was gettin’ on to the end of November, and I was thinkin’ a lot ’bout Ma and Pa and home and ’bout the Thanksgiving turkeys we always had. Now I had brought home the turkey every year since I was ’bout ten years old. But there were no turkeys in this country, so I figured a prairie chicken would have to do. I saddled Bell and, with my squirrel gun in hand, went huntin’ a prairie chicken.

  Now off many miles to the north, there were miles upon endless miles of sagebrush, and I headed there, for we hardly ever went through that area without jumping those big prairie chickens. They were two or three times bigger than the pine hens in the forest above the dugout. I was out on these sage flats several miles, when I came upon a wide, shallow draw. I tied Bell to a bush and had walked but a quarter mile when I saw some chickens strutin’ through the sage just ahead of me. I sat down and took a good rest on my knee and shot the head off the one closest to me. I could have never made a shot like that with Pa’s Harpers Ferry rifle. It just wasn’t that accurate. It hit a lot harder, but this .36-caliber squirrel gun was the best-shootin’ rifle I’d ever seen. Maybe the Hawken could have done it, but I didn’t have the experience with it yet. I had just won it in a shootin’ match at the Rendezvous, and I had been shootin’ this squirrel gun since I was big enough to hold it.

  I started back to the dugout and hadn’t traveled far when I saw smoke off to the east. I had no idea who might be out there, so I was a might worried. Had they heard my shot? Not wantin’ to be seen but really wantin’ to know who was in the area, I headed for the smoke. I stopped Bell a mile or so from where I thought it was comin’ from and, on foot, very carefully moved up the ridge above them. They were camped in some cottonwoods along what I figured was Ham’s Fork. It looked to be a huntin’ party of what I figured were Snake Injuns. They had some game hangin’ and weren’t wearin’ paint. But I figured any Injuns could turn into a war party mighty quick if they found a white man alone in their lands. I backed off that ridge, and when I got back to Bell, I headed due west at a good lope, hopin’ to make them think I was headin’ for the Bear River.

  I loped Bell west for a good five or six miles then turned south up over a rocky ridge where I figured it would be pretty hard to follow my tracks. All the way back, I made the trail as hard to follow as I could, back trackin’, stayin’ to rocky ground where I could, and walkin’ in the stream where possible. But what worried me most were the tracks I had made leavin’ the dugout; they lead straight back. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  I never heard or seen a thing all the way back, but I knew that didn’t mean I was in the clear, for those tracks of Bell’s would be there till the next storm. Two days later, when I thought I was maybe in the clear, I was sittin’ out front, peelin’ some cattail roots I was goin’ to use for potatoes, when an arrow stuck in the log I was sittin’ on. My knife and the cattail root went flyin’ as I went over the log backward. I had a rifle in hand and was tryin’ to find a target, when two more arrows came in. One nicked the fur of my wolverine cap, which was way too close for comfort. I fired the Hawken at the bush the arrow had come from and heard the solid wump of a hit. I rolled to the door and slipped inside just as an arrow hit the door. I had the squirrel gun and Pa’s Harper Ferry rifle both loaded and by the door. I saw one Injun tryin’ to crawl up ’tween a rock and willow on this side of the stream, and I let go with Pa’s rifle. I heard a muffled cry, but I knew it wasn’t a solid hit. Now I had the squirrel gun, and I guess they had had enough. As one thought he was out of range, he just stood up, raised his bow, and yelled a taunting curse. He was out ’bout 150 yards, and I fired. His taunting yell was cut right off as he doubled over and fell to the ground. I was lookin’ mighty hard as I reloaded the three rifles, but I never saw another one. I didn’t step out for a long time, just makin’ sure they were gone. I had fired three shots and had hit three Injuns, two of whom, I figured, were either dead or dyin’, and the other I thought I had just winged, but it had cost them dearly to attack Zach Connors.

  When I stepped out of the dugout to look around, my heart just ’bout stopped, for then I could see their plan. While the three had come at me head-on, others had sneaked around the side a
nd had taken the stock, all four of them. I was afoot and more than a thousand miles from any civilized settlement. I knew there was no way I could catch a well-mounted huntin’ or war party on foot, and I figured they would take their dead and wounded back to their village as fast as they could. I just stood there and stared off into the horizon and wondered just what would become of me. Then I saw where that arrow had struck the log I was sittin’ on, and a chill went through me when I saw that if that arrow had been just an inch or so higher, I would have lost my manhood.

  It was still a couple of hours till dark, and I had completely lost my hunger. Pa had always said, “It doesn’t matter what happens. What matters is how you handle it.” Well, I had no idea how to handle this. But I did know feelin’ sorry for myself wasn’t the answer. So I had to make a plan . . . a plan . . . maybe tomorrow I would think of something.

  Then just before dark, I heard the bray of a mule, and when I looked out, Ol’ Red was crossin’ the stream, headed right for me. I don’t know when I’d seen a better sight. I had said before he was right particular who rode or packed him, and those Snake Warriors must have found that out. We had us a right happy reunion, Ol’ Red and me.