The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men) (6 page)

BOOK: The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men)
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“I am sorry I acted so fast,” signed Winter Hawk.

Without a word, the embarrassed warrior took his tomahawk and put it back in his sash. The act caused him and the rest of the Indians to nod their approval of the young man’s courage. The earlier action now forgotten, everyone gathered around the pot of steaming coffee.

Between Harlan’s extra tin cups and those some of the Snakes carried, everyone was soon getting his fill of the scalding, bitter brew. Then the stew pot full of bear meat, rice, beans, and spices was ready, and in a very short time it too was emptied by the fast warming men and Harlan’s crew. Afterward, Meek walked over to Harlan, slapped him on the back, and shook his hand.

“Glad to have another white man in these here parts,” he happily exclaimed. Then he asked, with a knowing grin, “By the way, what type of grub was in that pot? That weren’t no griz furnishin’ the meat, were it?”

“That be the same one who intended me as a meal,” Harlan answered with devilment in his eyes.

“We couldn’t have eaten better’n we tried,” Meek replied with a twinkle in his own eyes, knowing his band of Snakes and their total fear of everything grizzly. “By the way, Chief Low Dog wants to know if you and your sons would like to go with us to make meat. He has observed that you have some fine Hawken rifles, and those are better than our flintlock and fusil rifles at bringin’ down the buflfler. He says he would be very happy if you would join him in the killin’ because his tribe is low on winter grub.”

Looking closely at the man he had met just an hour earlier, Harlan decided Meek was a man of his word and not a threat. He turned to the boys and told them to get together their Hawkens, plenty of powder and shot, their gutting and skinning knives, and some jerky.

“We are going off with our newfound friends to make meat,” he told them. From the looks on the boys’ faces, Harlan could tell they were excited beyond belief.

“Go on, now,” he urged, and the boys were off like a shot, eager for a new adventure.

Turning to Meek, Harlan said, “Tell the chief we would be honored, and since we could use some fresh meat ourselves, we will help them kill many buffalo with our rifles.”

When Joe advised the chief of Harlan’s decision, he got a big smile, and the translation created a ripple of excitement that went through the Indians’ ranks at the prospect of having the big Hawkens as an aid in getting some great-tasting winter rations.

 

Chapter Seven

 

Making Meat

 

From behind a small hill the band of hunters watched a herd of about 150 buffalo feeding in a brush-covered creek bottom some fifty yards away. Harlan, the chief, and Joe Meek conferred about the plan of attack. Soon Harlan returned to the boys to advise them of the plan. The three of them with their five Hawkens would follow the ravine down to a small hill at the bottom overlooking the feeding buffalo.

They would quietly climb the hill and, staying out of sight of the animals, start shooting those at the closest edge of the herd. Once the herd started to move off, the Snake warriors would give chase from two sides, killing as many as they could. By then, the rest of the tribe—made up of mostly women, children, and young men—would have arrived, and the butchering and hauling would commence.

With a wave of the hand for good luck to the rest of the hunters, off went Harlan and the boys. In about forty minutes they were in position and quietly spread out just below the ridgeline. Harlan took three Hawkens, and each boy carried his own rifle as they crawled to a point at the top of the ridge from which they could see the animals below.

On Harlan’s signal, they started shooting. Five shots from the Hawkens dropped five cow buffalo right off the bat. Harlan was pleased that the boys had done so well with shot placement, and watching them rapidly reloading made him even prouder. Their training had been well received, and now the proof was in the pudding. After reloading, the five Hawkens barked again in ragged succession. Once again, five cow buffalo struggled with the last of their lives.

Now the herd was getting nervous. But, sensing no danger from the small puffs of white smoke on the ridgeline and the noise of rifles being fired, the animals more or less held their ground. Boom— boom—boom—boom—boom, and five more cows dropped to roam the plains no more. With that, the herd began to nervously drift off to the west, only to run into fifteen mounted Indian riders charging out from the line of willows. The chase was on! The crack of the riders’ rifles in the cold winter air put the herd into a full stampede back in the direction from whence it had come.

Seeing the danger while quickly reloading, Harlan and the boys hurriedly moved together as the buffalo roared up the little hill toward them. Their Hawkens barked once again, staggering and then killing three buffalo in front of the charging herd. Harlan then stood up so the stampeding animals could see him and calmly shot the herd leader with his first reserve Hawken. Grabbing his remaining Hawken, Harlan dropped another buffalo, which skidded over the snow-covered earth and came to rest not thirty feet before him.

The inert form looming so large in front of the stampede split the leaders. The boys stood up with their quickly reloaded Hawkens and dropped two more from the herd, turning the animals away from the hilltop on which they now stood, helpless with empty rifles.

The buffalo thundered down off the hill, right into the rest of the mounted warriors on the other side, and the slaughter was complete. Reloading all five Hawkens, Harlan, with a proud heart, and his two boys walked back to their horses and mules, which were tethered in the creek bottom behind them. Over the soft crunching sounds of their moccasins in the snow, they could hear excited talking and laughing from the Snake hunters. Soon the tribe had descended on the fallen buffalo for its first taste in a long time of fresh, hot buffalo liver, soon to be sprayed by salts from the gall bladder.

Walking their horses and mules back to the top of the small hill, they were amazed at what they saw. Dark brown blotches of dead buffalo dotted the snow-covered prairie and sagebrush for a square mile. Scattered throughout the area were thirty mounted riders whooping it up, with another fifty tribal members scattered about, voicing their delight over the harvest lying before them.

Walking over the rim of the hill, Harlan and the boys began skinning and gutting the five buffalo they had dropped in the face of the stampede. Soon their mules were braying loudly over the weighty loads of steaming meat and hides they were being made to carry. That which they couldn’t carry was left to the tribe or the scavengers. As was often the case, too many buffalo had been killed even for the Snakes to utilize all the meat, so many prairie creatures happily ate their fill for a few days.

Joe Meek rode up to Harlan and the boys and dismounted. Walking over to Harlan, he said, “The chief is extremely happy over your help on this hunt. He says his people will have much meat for at least another month, and then maybe the deep snow will leave and the hunting will become easier. He asked me to let you know that you and the boys are welcome in his land. Even though the boys are from the hated horse-stealing Crow Nation, they will be welcome as long as he is the chief.”

Harlan smiled, wiped his bloody, tallow-covered hands, and said, “It was good to meet one of our own and provide some assistance. Maybe we can meet at the rendezvous this coming summer and tip a jug or two.”

“I would like that,” Meek said with a grin. “See you there, and bring them sharpshooting boys. I bet they can win some goods from those trappers who think they can shoot better than those young men.”

With that and a wave of the hand, he mounted his horse and rode off to mingle with the people whom he called his friends and hosts. Little did Harlan realize that the chance meeting with Joe Meek would later bear fruit of the richest kind...

Loaded with all their groaning pack animals could carry, Harlan and the boys headed back to their cabin and some damn good eating for the next few weeks. Because it was so cold the meat would freeze and keep in their now almost empty cache house high in the trees next to their cabin.

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

The Great White Bear

 

It seemed like forever, but finally spring came to the land in a rush like a charging mountain lion. The wind howled constantly, streams overflowed their banks, the ice went out, and wet spring storms blasted the lands as if Mother Nature had an angry point to prove.

Exposed to the weather in all its moods, the three worked their trap-lines like there was no tomorrow. They had only a few months before the beaver went out of their prime, and this year a trip to the rendezvous would be needed for many essential supplies such as spices, gunpowder, horse and mule shoes, and the like.

Beaver after beaver fell to Harlan and his trainees until little difference existed among the three of them when it came to trapping skills. The boys’ prowess with the big Hawkens was also a wonder to behold. If an animal was observed and wanted, they had become accomplished offhand shooters out to two hundred yards. At that range, the big Hawkens saw to it that there was meat in the pot come sundown.

In addition, Big Eagle and Winter Hawk were developing into two very strong and healthy young men. If they had still been living with their tribe, they might have had to suffer through short rations many times throughout the year. But because Harlan and later the boys were so adroit with their outdoor skills and the big Hawkens, not many meals were missed. Those extra calories began to show up not only in the boys’ stature but their muscular development as well. Their arm strength was remarkable to behold as they labored mightily alongside their newfound dad.

In fact, Harlan was continually amazed at their strength when the three of them got into wrestling matches over who would cook the evening meal or skin the last beaver. When the boys got hold of him, Harlan discovered that he had to use all his strength and cunning to escape their clutches in order to remain free from the cooking or skinning detail. Harlan was pleased that he had raised such capable and strong young men. That was what life in the West required, and if you didn’t measure up, you soon joined the soil forever.

 

 

***

 

At first, Harlan couldn’t believe his eyes. Not forty yards away was a grizzly bear feeding on a fresh moose carcass—a bear of enormous size, pure white in color with pink eyes and reddish-pink claws! Here was a pure albino animal, something so rare that he had heard of only one other having been seen, and that had been only a partial albino.

As if sensing danger, the brute stood up and tested the air with a loud blowing in and out through his nostrils. Then he returned to all fours to feed on the moose he had just surprised and killed in the creek bottom.

My God, thought Harlan, I have been in this country for over five years, and never have I seen such a magnificent creature. That damn bear is at least eleven feet tall and must weigh over fifteen hundred pounds!

The two boys had frozen when Harlan had given the hand signal to stand still, and it was apparent from the size of their eyes that they too had never seen such a creature. Harlan continued to slowly shake his head in disbelief as the boys just looked and looked.

Still sensing something amiss, the great bear rose once again on its hind feet, testing the air, and this time looked directly at Harlan and the boys. Since none of them moved and the bear had such poor eyesight, he detected nothing out of the ordinary. But the look he gave with those bright reddish-pink eyes appeared to Harlan to be almost supernatural. He dropped back down, and all that could be heard was the great tearing sounds that are made when a creature that size dismembers another large animal.

Harlan slowly raised his rifle, although his powerful Hawken appeared to be only a small popgun in comparison to this monster. He quietly cocked the hammer against his buffalo coat in order to muffle the sound and made sure he had a cap on the nipple. Then he held the sights steady on the area into which the bear had disappeared. The boys, seeing him raise his rifle, followed suit, silently pointing their rifles in the direction of the great bear.

Shuffling his feet loudly in the willow leaves to get the bear’s attention, Harlan prepared for what was to come. Woof—woof, snorted the great bear as it once again stood on its hind legs and looked in the direction from where the threatening sound had come. Ka-boom went Harlan’s Hawken as his bullet flew straight into the bear’s throat, ripping through the spine and killing it instantly.

The bear crashed into a thicket of willows, and a great thrashing and tearing of brush occurred as he danced his last dance. Harlan, trying to reload his Hawken, discovered that his nerves were so rattled that he couldn’t do it! Laying the rifle on the ground, he turned and reached for Big Eagle’s Hawken in case a second shot was necessary. The brush continued to object to the bear’s thrashing, but soon all was deathly quiet.

Returning Big Eagle’s rifle and recovering some of his nerve, Harlan quietly reloaded his Hawken. He motioned for the boys to spread out and follow him into the willows where the bear had disappeared, and they cautiously moved in. Within moments the three of them were at the kill, and what a sight it was! There, in all his glory, was the great bear. Even lying down, he was almost four feet high at the shoulder, and his hind feet appeared to be at least twenty-four inches wide! Never in his life had Harlan seen such a creature, and from the looks on the boys’ faces, neither had they.

Harlan carefully poked the bear’s huge, pink, padded foot with the end of his rifle barrel, but he didn’t move. The great white bear was dead. With that, Harlan just sat down and looked over what he had done. The two boys, realizing that something special had just happened in their lives that would probably never be repeated, were lost in the mystical moment as well.

BOOK: The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men)
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