The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men) (26 page)

Two days later, the cabins, tepees, and horse corral were empty, and the trappers were no more in the land of the Crow.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Rendezvous of 1834

With each man leading a long pack string loaded with camp gear; trading goods, packs of beaver plews, buffalo, elk, and deer hides, Harlan and the boys headed south from their home in the land of the Crow. Retracing the route they had traveled the year earlier, they again traversed the east side of what is today Yellowstone National Park.

Heeding He-Who-Shoot’s words and heading south toward Ham’s Fork of the Green, site of the 1834 rendezvous in the Green River Valley, the men pushed their animals hard until they felt sure they were out of the quick striking range of any Crow Indians who might follow them. They were concerned about pursuit because the Crow might be angry that they had lost the opportunity to remove the now hated white men and share the spoils from their cabins.

Stopping at the 1833 rendezvous site, the men and animals rested for two days in the lush meadows. Killing a buffalo, the men feasted on the rich meat and got back some of their strength after the long, hard ride from Montana. Skirting the east side of the Salt River Range, they continued moving south, now at a more leisurely pace so as not to jade the animals or themselves yet still kept a sharp lookout for any hostile Indians.

When they reached Ham’s Fork of the Green, they followed it southwest until they arrived at the site of the rendezvous. It had been a long and dangerous trip, and now the men were ready for some friendly company, good food, trading, and rum to help heal their war wounds.

Walking their livestock into the rendezvous area, Harlan and company soon realized they were leading the biggest pack string of all assembled. This will be the last time for such a large pack string, thought Harlan.

It was just too hard to manage and provided too tempting a target for those wanting to steal good horseflesh. After trading off their furs and hides, he concluded, they would also sell fifteen of their horses and at least half of their mules. With the credit from those sales, he would purchase firearms, powder, lead, flints, nipple picks, and the like.

If he had learned anything during his nine years in the outback, it was that weapons were the main thing the Indians wanted, and they would trade high in furs and other items for them and for tack.

Locating a site in a small grove of cottonwoods, Harlan and company began to make a camp. Around them were tepees from at least four different tribes, not to mention at least one hundred trappers’ lean-tos. Lacking wood to build a corral to hold their stock, they ended up tethering the animals next to their camp, where a close eye could be kept on them.

While the boys rested and guarded their packs of furs and horses, Harlan rode into the rendezvous area to gather any news relating to the event. He discovered that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was located five to ten miles up Ham's Fork. Another five miles above that was another trading company led by a man named Wyeth. At the site where they were now camped, at the intersection of Ham’s and Black’s Forks, was the American Fur Company.

Because the traders were so scattered, Harlan figured he would have to do some riding to see how they graded furs and what they had in the way of trade goods. He also discovered, in talking with some of his trapper friends, that beaver pelts were hardly worth anything, but buffalo hides and furs from the river otter, coyote, wolf, and fox were bringing good prices. He also learned that next year’s rendezvous site would be where the 1833 gathering had been, at Horse Creek in the Green River Valley.

Returning to camp, he relayed this information to the boys. The boys also had some information. Next to their lean-tos stood the camp of Jim Bridger and “Crooked Hand” Fitzpatrick, a man so nicknamed because of an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound years earlier that had deformed his hand.

Pleased with that news, Harlan tied off his horse, and he and the boys went over to Bridger’s camp and before long were deep into eating, drinking, and catching up on the gossip from the previous year. Bridger and Fitzpatrick were saddened by the news of the loss of the men’s wives and children.

For many long moments after that news was shared, they all just looked into the flames of the campfire as if in it were the answers as to why such a thing could happen. The two men were also surprised to hear whom Harlan and the boys blamed for their losses. Nothing, however, was mentioned about the killing that would follow if Bosco de Gamma and his companions were ever located, for fear of tipping their hand as word got out among the other trappers.

The next morning, Bridger and Harlan met over cups of scalding coffee and decided that Jim would venture upriver to Wyeth’s to see what kind of offers and trades he was willing to make. Meanwhile, Harlan and Big Eagle would journey upstream to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to see what it was offering. That would also give Harlan a chance to see his friend Gavin and gather any insider information regarding the status of the fur trade.

They also decided that since both camps were low on fresh meat, Runs Fast and Winter Hawk would head into the country to see if they could kill a buffalo or elk for their camps’ communal supper that evening. Fitzpatrick, because he had imbibed too much rum the night before, would stay behind and mind his sore head while watching the two camps and their collective horseflesh.

Not long after that, Harlan and Big Eagle were on their way north to the site of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. They rode along with Jim Bridger, who was going even farther north to visit Wyeth’s camp. At the same time, Winter Hawk and Runs Fast, with an extra horse pulling a travois, were heading northeast, where they had seen a small herd of buffalo several days earlier.

Fitzpatrick just sat by the fire and did not move for fear his head would break into tiny pieces.

Separating with a wave of the hand for good luck at the site of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Bridger continued north. Meanwhile, Harlan and Big Eagle looked up Gavin and, over some strong, day-old coffee and cold, greasy buffalo-hump ribs, discussed the current fur trade. According to Gavin, buffalo hides were the big thing that year. Almost everything else was secondary in price but would still bring enough for them to spend another year in the backcountry doing what they loved if the hides were properly dressed—and if they had plenty of them, and of the right kind.

Gavin also filled Harlan in on why the buffalo hides were so valuable. It seemed a country across the Atlantic called England was buying every buffalo hide it could get its hands on.

Apparently, the industrial folks in that country considered buffalo leather to be tougher and longer-lasting than items made from the hide of a beef. Therefore, to feed their new industries’ leather-belt-driven machinery, they needed every buffalo hide they could get.

To Gavin’s way of thinking, that was why buffalo hides were bringing at least four dollars each that year at the rendezvous. He also informed them that river otter, marten, and deer and elk hides were bringing top dollar as well. However, beaver was bringing only three dollars at top price, if that. And anything smaller than a blanket-sized critter brought hardly anything.

Slowly savoring the tasty fat from his hump rib, Harlan took too long figuring once again. He and the boys had done very well that year. They had over one hundred buffalo hides and at least another fifty elk and deer hides.

  They had at least five hundred good beaver plews, not to mention many bundles of other prime furs. Yes, he thought, the boys and I will do very well this year even in light of some poor prices for beaver plews.

Looking further down the trail, he thought,
We also have at least twenty head of livestock we can sell. And in this part of the horse-starved woods, that ought to fetch a pretty penny in trade between horse-shy trappers and the always horse-hungry Indians.

About then, the storm-threatening skies opened up, and Harlan, like all the others, found himself scrambling for cover. After an hour of heavy rains, the cold rains showed little sign of letting up.

Yep, thought Harlan, this will make for a wet ride home.

Four hours later, in a continuing cold downpour, Harlan and Big Eagle turned into the meadow just below their camp. To Harlan’s surprise, about fifty fur trappers and Indians were gathered around Jim Bridger’s and his campsites.

Spurring their horses, Harlan and Big Eagle rode into their camp at a gallop. Hearing the approaching horsemen and recognizing Harlan, the crowd of men quietly separated, letting them ride right up to their fire pit.

Lying there in a lean-to under two blankets were the bodies of two men. Jumping off his horse, Harlan recognized the Crow-beaded moccasins of Winter Hawk and Runs Fast sticking out from under the blankets! He froze in midstride as his heart almost stopped beating. Big Eagle, jumping off his horse at the sight, grabbed one corner of a blanket and threw it back. Lying underneath was the body of his brother, Winter Hawk.

Without a word, Big Eagle lifted the other blanket, only to find the body of Runs Fast lying on the ground staring sightlessly into the sky! Both Harlan and Big Eagle found it hard to breathe for the next several moments at this horrific discovery. Then Harlan exploded with grief and fury.

“Who the hell knows what happened?” he demanded in a dangerously cutting voice.

A slightly built trapper named Jim Hayes stepped forward and said, “Harlan, me and Pete here was a-comin’ to the rendezvous and stumbled across their bodies by the carcass of a dead buffler.

From what we could tell, they had killed the buffler and were in the process of butcherin’ it when ten shod ponies approached them. Then the ponies moved off into a nearby creek as if not wantin’ to be followed by losin’ their sign, and these two boys here’n laid dead. It almost appeared as if n the men on the shod horses killed the boys outright for no reason a ’tall! We brought the boys into the rendezvous to locate their camp and kin, which seemed the Christian thing to do.”

He continued with a lowered voice, “Crooked Hand here recognized the boys right off and asked that we leave them here. He boarded his horse right off to backtrack our tracks in order to find the culprits before the storm hit and asked us to stay here and watch the camp. We been here about two hours and will stay longer if’n need be for you.”

Kneeling by the boys, Harlan noticed that each had two large holes in his chest. He turned them over and saw that each had been shot twice in the back at close range! The shots had been so close that their buckskin shirts had powder-bum holes where the bullets had entered.

“Where be their horses?” Harlan asked with eyes ablaze. “They be in your pack string, where we tied ’em,” said Pete. “They was standin’ by the boys when we found ’em, and we figured the varmints who shot the boys did not take ’em fearin’ the horseflesh would be recognized in camp by their kin.”

About that time, a wet, bedraggled figure on horseback was seen approaching Harlan’s camp. Soon he could make out that the rider was Fitzpatrick.

Reining up by Harlan, Crooked Hand said, “Ain’t no use in tryin’ to backtrack the varmints. This here storm washed their tracks plumb away. However, I followed them as fer as I could, and when I lost their trail, they was headin’ in this direction!

I did manage to pick up the boys’ Hawkens. They was lyin’ alongside where the boys fell and was unfired. It almost seems the rifles were left on purpose so as not to reveal who the shooters were because of the rarity of their make and scarcity of them among us.”

As an afterthought, Fitzpatrick said, “From the looks of those bodies, they was shot at close range. It were almost as if they recognized the riders who did the shootin’ at long range as fellow trappers and let them in close. Then it were too late to defend themselves once they was recognized.

According to Pete here, Winter Hawk had his rifle in his hands as if he might’ve recognized someone in the party at the last moment, but it was just too late to survive their intentions.”

Harlan’s racing heart had still not adjusted to the loss of his kids, but he had heard every word spoken regarding the killings. Big Eagle had grown quiet and sullen, and his eyes held a dreadful inhuman look. To his way of thinking, another killing was not far off—and a slow one if he had his druthers.

Seeing there was nothing they could really do, the crowd began to move off out of respect and to give Harlan and Big Eagle the space they needed. Fitzpatrick built their fire bigger and higher, realizing a long night was at hand. Plus, he was as wet as a drowned muskrat and needed some drying.

Jim Bridger returned later that night, expecting a big meal and a horn of rum, only to find a grieving camp. He listened to what Fitzpatrick had to say and knew better than to try to track the culprits in the morning. Crooked Hand was one of the better trackers he knew, and he quickly realized that if he had not been able to find the killers because of the heavy rains, no one else would be able to do so either.

It continued raining hard all night, and come the dawn there was an early capping of snow in the distant mountains. A large fire was built and coffee brewed that morning, but the camp lacked any laughter in light of the two dead men still lying a few feet away in the lean-to.

As hard as Harlan had thought during the hours of darkness and rain, he couldn’t think of anyone who would want to shoot his sons. He had enemies, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of any who would want to back-shoot his kin. He knew one thing for sure: whoever had done it was the calculating kind, especially in leaving the valuable horses and rifles on the scene.

They knew what they were doing, he thought, and if I or Big Eagle ever catches them, well, God had better turn His eyes away.

What had been a happy event and one of anticipation was one now of sorrow and heartache, made even more so the next morning when, away from the prying eyes of the camp, Harlan and Big Eagle wrapped the two men in burial robes and placed them high in a cottonwood side by side as the brothers they had become.