Beauty for Ashes (15 page)

Hannibal cocked an eyebrow at him.

“That Christmas Day,” Sam said.

Hannibal nodded and smiled.

Christmas Day, 1822, Sam often thought, was the most important day of his life. It seemed to be the worst and turned out the best. The day before, Christmas Eve, was just the opposite.

On Christmas Eve, his birthday, he'd gone to his special place in the forest near his home, which he called Eden, to remember his father. Lew Morgan died in Eden that day in 1821.

In the middle of his reminiscing, Katherine turned up. She was his neighbor and the girl he secretly fancied. As a birthday present, she'd brought him a picnic and, as it turned out, the first act of love of his life.

The next day, Christmas, was emotional acrobatics. At Christmas dinner Katherine and Sam's big brother, Owen, announced their betrothal. Sam wanted an explanation from Katherine, but got none. He fled—and ran into Hannibal.

Across a fire, with the aid of some food, Hannibal helped him come to terms, partly, with what had happened. And helped him, gently, see into his own heart. What Sam wanted most in life was to go to the West, adventuring.

Incredibly, nudged imperceptibly by Hannibal, he went that very night, straight from the campfire. He followed his heart's compass to the Ohio River, down it to the Mississippi, up to St. Louis, and signed on to go to the Rocky Mountains as a mountain man.

Madness. Divine madness.

“You said something that night,” Sam said across the flames. “I didn't really get it. Something about a wild hair. What was that?”

Hannibal grinned. “I've said it several times, mostly to myself. ‘Everything worthwhile is crazy, and everyone on the planet who's not following his wild-hair, middle-of-the-night notions should lay down his burden right now, in the middle of the row he's hoeing, and follow the direction his wild hair points.'”

Coy squealed and looked at Sam pathetically. The two men sat with the embarrassment of too many words about things that are hard to talk about.

“I'm crazy, you know,” said Hannibal.

Coy barked.

“The pup agrees,” Hannibal said.

Sam raised his eyes over rim of his coffee cup and said, “You were going to tell me about Taos, and how you ended up here.”

Hannibal shrugged. “There was an outfit heading for Santa Fe to trade. I went, I traded, I made a few dollars. Up in Taos, where I went for the devil of it, I met Etienne Provost's partner LeClerc. He was bringing supplies up to Provost in the Ute country, and I thought I'd like to see it. When I met Provost, I liked him and wanted to get to know the Utes, so I stayed…”

They both laughed. The narrative of bouncing around in one direction after the other…

“Hell,” Hannibal, “I never know what I'm going to do next.”

“I guess you live without planning.”

“I guess.”

They were both laughing too much. Coy made simpering noises.

When they looked up, Blue Medicine Horse and Flat Dog were standing next to them, waiting.

Sam introduced the two Crows to Hannibal, who offered them coffee.

After the Indians sat carefully—Sam noticed how mannerly they always were—Blue Horse said, “Everyone wants to know about that horse.”

That brought on a discussion about Hannibal's
grulla
that only horsemen could appreciate. Though he was interested, Sam felt half left out. He did, however, learn how good Flat Dog's English was getting.

“Your horse looks excellent, too,” said Hannibal. The three had stepped over to inspect Paladin. This brought Sam's mind back to the discussion.

“She's a good horse,” said Sam.

“And she saved your ass,” said Blue Horse. He and Flat Dog had learned that “ass” was a slightly vulgar word, and got a kick out of using it in English, which they would not have done in Crow.

Sam told Hannibal the story of how Paladin saved him from the buffalo bull. He finished with, “She is a good horse, but how can you tell?”

“Horses are athletes, or not, just like people. This animal doesn't look strong, but she has fine grace and balance.”

Sam twisted his mouth in a pretense that he understood.

“In a race, for instance,” Hannibal went on, “a clumsy horse will lose distance. A well-balanced horse covers the ground more efficiently, and therefore faster.”

Sam could see that “efficiently” and “therefore” were too much for Blue Horse and Flat Dog, so he explained.

“So how about a race?” asked Blue Horse.

Coy barked in apparent approval, and they laughed.

“Several men want to run against you,” said Flat Dog, a good English sentence for him.

“Including us,” said Blue Horse.

Flat Dog began, “And some want to…”

“Bet.” Blue Horse supplied the word.

“You got a race,” said Hannibal.

 

B
EFORE THE RACES
the next day, most men got their business done with General Ashley. The general, typically, wanted to get his trading done in one day and start back to civilization.

This very first rendezvous made Ashley a believer. Summer was the best time to get a trade caravan to the mountains and back. The men had to have supplies. For survival, they needed fire steels, powder, lead, and flints; for their sanity, tobacco, coffee and sugar, plus an occasional trap, rifle, pistol, knife, tomahawk, or coat, and all the items they traded to the Indians. If Ashley brought these goods to the mountains, the men wouldn't have to spend months going all the way to St. Louis, or at least to Taos, to outfit themselves.

Ashley saw that and more. He realized that bringing trade goods to an annual rendezvous would be less risky and more profitable than running fur brigades. So he sat down with Jedediah Smith, the young captain who had impressed everybody in the mountains, and offered Smith a partnership—Ashley to supply from the city, Smith to lead in the mountains.

Diah said yes. He didn't tell his partner that his ambition ran far beyond profit. He said nothing of his desire to see what was over the next hill, every hill in the West. Nothing of his yearning to be the first man to cross the continent to California. Nothing of his desire to use his compass and his eye to make pencilled maps, rendering the entire West for cartographers. He just agreed to a business proposition.

For Ashley this day's agenda was trading. He kept a careful record of what he traded to everyone. He gave the free trappers three dollars a pound for their beaver pelts, these plews weighing on average two pounds. He sold them tobacco at $1.25 per pound, coffee and sugar at $1.50, cloth at six to eight dollars a yard, two yards of ribbon (something to make an Indian woman smile) for a dollar; he exchanged a dozen fish hooks for two dollars, a dozen flints for a dollar; he sold butcher knives at $2.50 each, wool strouding at five dollars a yard, earrings, bells. The old types of muskets,
fusils,
went for $20 each—these were for trading to the Indians, since mountain men demanded the newer, more accurate guns, with rifling in the barrels.

One outfit, Gardner Johnson's, actually bought razors, scissors, and combs. The other mountain men chuckled at the idea that Johnson intended to have his men groom themselves.

The general settled up with his hired trappers at reduced rates for their beaver, because they were being paid wages as well.

Sam waited his turn. This was the moment, the occasion for which he'd stood in cold creeks until his knees and scraped hides until he smelled worse than a dead rodent. But like every other man, he needed DuPont and Galena. He needed trade items for the Indians. And much of what else was in Ashley's packs. He bought more than his pelts would pay for, and ended up in debt to the company.

Some of the men grumbled at the prices, which were five and ten times what Ashley had paid for the goods at St. Louis. The brigade leaders, though, defended Ashley. The cost of transporting goods to the mountains was huge in time, effort, and dollars, and was sometimes paid in blood as well.

Ashley kept one fact to himself. In the first three years his fur trade operation had lost money. Now he was heading to St. Louis with plews worth nearly fifty thousand dollars. He was becoming a rich man, and back in Missouri and important man.

The fur men of the Rocky Mountains were miffed about one big gap in all this trading. Ashley had no alcohol. Nothing to drink now, when they were in the mood for a party, to celebrate surviving the year; and nothing all year long, when they were working hard; and most important from a practical viewpoint, no liquor to trade the Indians. Booze made the trading much better.

Dozens of men groused at Ashley as they walked away, “Next year bring whiskey.”

 

T
HE FUN DIDN'T
stop, though, for Ashley's trading. The men set up a race course that circled the tents and tipis. It wasn't the smooth sort of course set up in towns and cities. In fact, a dry wash running toward Henry's Fork cut through it twice, the second time only fifty yards from the finish line.

There were a couple of hundred saddle horses in camp, and a score that the men wanted to watch run, or that their owners believed fast enough to race.

Not that others weren't valuable. Buffalo horses, for instance, needed a lot of bottom. A buffalo would outsprint a horse for a quarter mile, and might hold the lead for a mile, but eventually a horse with endurance would bring the hunter alongside for a shot. The strength of these animals wasn't a burst of speed around the camp.

Trail horses had their own value. They needed to be calm and sure-footed for some of the steep, narrow mountain tracks.

These were excellent horses, but not race horses.

The men worked it out. Every competitor put up a pound of tobacco as an entry fee. The horses would run in pairs. If you lost a race to any other horse, you were out. Everyone could bet, and you could make side bets on your horse. But the big prize was winner-take-all. You had to win every race to win all the tobacco.

“Enter,” Hannibal said to Sam. “Paladin is fast.”

“I've never done this.”

“So learn.”

“Do I have a chance?”

“Against every rider but me.”

Down at the mouth, sure he'd lose, Sam put his tobacco on the pile. James Clyman, running things, acknowledged his entry with a nod.

Tom Fitzpatrick walked up with tobacco, too. He was leading his fine sorrel Morgan.

Blue Horse entered his paint mare.

Flat Dog said tobacco was too valuable to throw away.

Coy slunk behind Sam, as though he was ashamed of Flat Dog.

Godin, one of the Iroquois, came forward on a small horse the men called a “cayuse,” a term Sam hadn't heard. “Pony bred by them Cayuse Indians up to the Columbia River,” someone said. “Sure-footed little things.”

Two other Iroquois brought up Indian ponies. Everyone distinguished between Indian ponies and what they called American horses, which were brought out from the States, and larger.

Several men led forward horses that looked nondescript to Sam.

“They don't look like any racers,” said Sam.

“They aren't,” agreed Hannibal.

The eighteenth and last entry was Micajah, with a grin that said he was sure of winning. He rode up on a big, powerful-looking bay. The horse looked every bit of eighteen hands high, a horse truly big enough for Micajah's immense bulk. He handed down his tobacco from high in the saddle. “Meet Monster,” he said, “the hoss of the mountains.”

“Is Monster the one to beat?” Sam asked Hannibal.

The Delaware shook his head. “Micajah's a clumsy rider who tries to jerk his horse around.”

Sam didn't really understand that.

“That man mean as he looks?” said Hannibal.

“He is when he's drinking,” said Gideon. He and Beckwourth had just walked up.

Hannibal appraised Micajah and said, “Good thing we don't have any liquor.”

Coy made a loud yawning sound.

“Maybe pup's a booze hound,” said Hannibal.

The riders loped around the course, checking footing and obstacles here and there. When they came to the dry wash each time, they picked places to cross. Most of them ran their mounts back and forth to get them used to diving into the wash and clambering out without losing much speed. The two crossings would be tricky moments of the race.

After most of the men headed back to the starting line, Hannibal was still repeating the jump into the wash. Sam took his cue and did the same until James Clyman hollered for them.

Beckwourth provided Clyman with a deck of playing cards. James shuffled just the hearts and spades, deuces through tens, and tossed them in a hat for the men to draw. Sam drew the deuce of spades, which meant he raced the fellow who drew the deuce of hearts, Art Smith, on one of the nondescript horses.

“I'm lucky,” said Sam.

“Your whole time in the mountains,” said Hannibal, “you've been walking in luck.”

“Except with women,” Gideon joked.

The first race was intriguing. Blue Horse was to run his paint against Micajah and Monster. The riders minced their horses up to the starting line. Blue Horse's mare was fidgety, but Monster kept so still he might have been bored.

“David and Goliath,” Hannibal said.

Clyman stood off and threw his hat in the air. When it hit the ground, the racers were off.

Blue Horse whacked the paint's hindquarters with his quirt. The bay got off half a step behind, and Micajah seemed in no great hurry.

Flat Dog cut loose a Crow war cry.
“Hi-yi-yi-yi, Hi-yi-yi-yay.”

Blue Horse whipped the paint again. “Looks like he means to get in front and stay there,” said Hannibal.

The horses approached the dry wash, Blue Horse about two horse lengths ahead. The mare shifted her gait to go into the wash just right. At that moment Micajah whipped the bay and roared like a boulder crashing down the mountain. The bay charged hard and bumped the mare as she got her footing for the leap down, right in the hindquarters.