Wilderness double editio.., p.1
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Firewater
Life on the frontier can often be brutal. Behind the untamed beauty of the Rockies lurks the danger and hardship of harsh conditions that only the strongest can endure. So when Artemis Borke opened a new trading post in Nate King’s territory, everyone was delighted, including Touch the Clouds, tribal leader of the neighboring Shoshones. Finally, settlers and Shoshones alike would have access to goods and supplies. Soon, however, things started to go wrong. Borke wasn’t just selling trade goods, he was also selling liquor, which had severe consequences for the Shoshone warriors and their families. Even worse, Borke started trading with Crows, selling rifles to the enemies of Touch the Clouds’ people. What began as a blessing soon turned into a grave threat. The once peaceful Shoshone village, torn apart by Borke’s firewater, would be an easy target for the bloodthirsty Crows. Will Touch the Clouds, Nate King and his son be able to stop the bloodshed before it’s too late?
Scar
The vast American frontier was filled with unimaginable beauty, natural wonders … and incredible danger. One of the fiercest of the predators that called the Rockies home was the great grizzly bear, an awe-inspiring creature, but also one of nature’s most fearsome killers. When a huge grizzly began to threaten the native Utes, they turned to their friend Nate King for help. Who better to trap a grizzly bear than the legendary “Grizzly Killer,” as Nate had become known among the Shoshones? Nate’s reputation as a hunter and tracker had spread throughout his mountain home. But as the famous frontiersman set out to end the reign of terror caused by the rogue bear, he quickly saw that he would need all of his renowned skills and abilities. This was no ordinary grizzly, and it would take a far-from-ordinary man to kill it.
WILDERNESS DOUBLE EDITION
39: FIREWATER
40: SCAR
By David Robbins Writing as David Thompson
First Published by Leisure Books in 2003
Copyright © 2003, 2019 by David Robbins
First Digital Edition: June 2019
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Mike Stotter
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
WILDERNESS 39: FIREWATER
Prologue
The white men came to the Green River country early in the Grass Moon. Seven big men on seven big horses, leading a pack string of ten more. They made camp that first night in a verdant meadow along a tributary of the Green known as Ham’s Fork to the whites and Dead Elk Creek to the Shoshones.
The whites made no secret of their coming. They were loud and boisterous. They joked and laughed a lot, but the warriors who watched from concealment noticed that the laughter did not touch their eyes. As was typical of whites, they built their campfire twice as large as it should be, a fire so bright it could be seen from far off.
Word was brought to the leader of the Green River Shoshones. Touch the Clouds was a giant in stature as well as reputation, a warrior universally respected by his people. Not since the days of Moh-Woom-Ho had one of their number been so highly regarded. In important matters he was always consulted. In councils his views always held the most weight. So when he advised his people to let the whites go their way in peace, the Shoshones were content to go on about their own lives. As a precaution, though, Touch the Clouds did send a pair of warriors back to continue watching the intruders until the whites had passed through Shoshone territory.
Then a strange thing happened.
The whites did not move on. They stayed another sleep, and yet a third, and by the fourth day they were busy chopping trees and dragging them to the center of the meadow, where the whites trimmed and notched them.
The two young warriors sent to spy on the whites did not know what to make of it. They soon realized the whites were constructing a wooden lodge of considerable size, but .what it might portend, they were at a loss to guess. The youngest, Runs Across the River, raced to their village to relay the news.
A council was called. Touch the Clouds had the seat of honor. On his right was Drags the Rope, another venerable warrior. On his left was Wis-Kin, or Cut Hair, whose wrinkled face testified to his years and his wisdom. The lodge was jammed. The Shoshones attached great importance to their dealings with whites, and took great pride in the fact that of all the tribes in the central Rockies, they alone had never lifted a white scalp. The Crows, the Utes, the Black-feet, the Dakotas, all had taken white lives. But not the Shoshones. Their leaders advocated peace.
Touch the Clouds listened with great interest to the young warrior’s account. When Runs Across the River was done, murmuring broke out.
As usual, Hungry Wolf was first to voice his opinion. And, as usual, his sentiments were laced with suspicion and hostility. “Once again the whites treat our land as if it is theirs,” he declared. “I have seen these wooden lodges before. The white called Bridger, the one we call Blanket Chief, has built a great wooden lodge many sleeps to the south. It is as tall as the trees and has room inside for a hundred. This new one will be the same. More whites will come. They will hunt our forests and fish our streams. Our women and children will go hungry that the whites may feed their bellies.” He paused for effect. “I say we go to these whites. We tell them this land is our land and they must build their lodge elsewhere.”
All eyes swung toward Touch the Clouds. “I, too, have visited the Blanket Chiefs lodge,” he slowly began, choosing his words with care. “His family and two other whites live there with him. That is all. And they do not kill more game than they need.” He swept those assembled with his piercing gaze. “How can we say these new whites will do any different when we do not know them or why they have come?”
“So you propose we do nothing?” Hungry Wolf challenged. “I say that if we let these new whites build their lodge in the middle of our territory, before too many winters we will have whites everywhere we look. We must drive them out, now, before their numbers increase.”
Some of the younger warriors voiced their agreement. The young were always more ready to go to war than those who had experienced it.
Touch the Clouds squared his broad shoulders and placed his brawny hands on his knees. “That is Ute talk. Or Blackfoot talk. They regard the whites as enemies. Since when do we do the same? Have the whites ever wronged us? No. Have they ever attacked us? No. They have offered us the hand of friendship and we have accepted. We have even adopted one of their own into our tribe.” He was referring to Nate King, better known as Grizzly Killer. King’s wife, Wi-no-na, was Touch the Clouds’s cousin.
Hungry Wolf went to respond, but Drags the Rope spoke first, saying, “What do you suggest we do, Touch the Clouds?”
“We watch these whites. We see what they are about. And when the time is right, I will pay them a visit.”
Hungry Wolf and the anti-white faction did not like the decision, but they were not about to oppose Touch the Clouds openly.
Over the course of the next moon, the white men erected not one but four lodges. The largest was twenty paces wide and forty paces long, and over the entrance they hung a short plank bearing painted symbols. The second lodge was half that size, and was where the white men slept at night. The third lodge was the smallest and most peculiar. Before building it, the whites dug a deep hole. Then, to the amazement of the warriors secreted in the undergrowth, they constructed the lodge right on top of it. For all that effort, the whites went into the small lodge only a couple of times a day and never stayed very long. A rank odor was undoubtedly to blame. Along about the fourth day after it was completed, every time the door opened, the Shoshones smelled the most awful stink.
The last lodge the whites built was for their horses. The whites always barred it at night. In the daytime the horses were not permitted to run free, but were instead penned in a corral adjacent to the horse lodge. The whites spent several days cutting grass and hauling it inside, piling a stack higher than a man’s head.
The Shoshones knew why the whites didn’t let their animals graze freely. The whites were afraid they would be stolen. What with regular Blackfoot and Crow forays into Shoshone country, their fear was justified.
It was to the whites’ credit that they never strayed far from the meadow unless they went in pairs. And every white man always had his guns with him—a long rifle and a brace of pistols. They were always vigilant, always alert.
The Shoshones suspected the whites knew they were being spied on. But either the whites knew the Shoshones were friendly, or the whites were uncommonly brave, for they showed no fear and took no extra precautions.
Then came the morning, one moon after the whites arrived, that one of their number walked alone across the meadow to the bank of Dead Elk Creek. The Shoshones had taken to calling him Crooked Nose, because his nose had once been broken and never healed properly. Crooked Nose carried a new rifle, an ammunition pouch, and a stick. When he reached the bank, he jammed the stick into the ground, propped the rifle against it, and draped the ammo pouch ove r both. Stepping back, he turned toward the woods where the spies were hidden, motioned as if beckoning, and jabbered at some length in the white tongue.
Warriors from Touch the Clouds’s village had been taking turns keeping watch. The two there at the time, Bear’s Backbone and Sitting Eagle, glanced at each other, unsure what to do. They saw the white man turn and go into the long lodge. None of the others were out and about.
“Why did he leave the gun there?” Sitting Eagle wondered.
“It is a stupid thing to do,” Bear’s Backbone said. “A Crow or a Blackfoot could come and steal it.”
“Or one of us could run out there and grab it,” Sitting Eagle proposed.
“What if it is a ruse?” Bear’s Backbone countered. “What if they are trying to lure us out into the open so they can shoot us?” Bear’s Backbone began to back away from the thicket screening them. “Touch the Clouds must hear of this. He will know what to do. He is more familiar with white ways.”
By noon Bear’s Backbone reached the village. A council was called, and it was decided to send a formal delegation to visit the whites and ascertain their motives. Touch the Clouds led the party of twenty-six warriors. They arrived at Dead Horse Creek by nightfall but stayed well off in the trees.
“We will wait for morning to talk to them,” Touch the Clouds said. In order to demonstrate their peaceful intentions, he had a fire kindled where the whites were bound to notice it. He and the other warriors sat around the fire until late, talking and generally making more noise than they ordinarily would.
Dawn broke, and Touch the Clouds and his close friend of many years, Drags the Rope, led ten Shoshones on foot toward the wooden lodges. As Touch the Clouds anticipated, the whites were expecting a visit, and when he was a stone’s throw from the door, it opened and out filed the seven whites. He was encouraged to see that none were armed.
The white man with the crooked nose stepped out in front and smiled broadly, displaying a mouth full of teeth yellowed by tobacco stains and neglect. “We welcome our red brothers,” he said in his own tongue.
Drags the Rope translated. Thanks to his close acquaintance with a white trapper when he was very young, and later with Nate King, he spoke more than adequate English. Only Nate’s wife spoke the white tongue more fluently.
The leader’s greeting mildly surprised Touch the Clouds. While most whites were friendly enough to his people, he was aware that many white men disliked and distrusted the ‘red man.’ Some went so far as to believe that the only good Indian was a dead one. “Tell him that if he speaks with a straight tongue, we welcome them.”
The white man’s smile widened after Drags the Rope conveyed the tidings. He had round cheeks and a round belly, and his clothes were unkempt. Stubble sprinkled his double chin, and his hair looked greasy. “My name is Borke. Artemis Borke.” He looked Touch the Clouds up and down and softly whistled. “You sure are a big ‘un. I reckon you’re the buck we’ve heard so much about. The chief of the Green River Snakes.”
“I am Touch the Clouds.”
Borke glanced at one of the others, who smirked and nodded. “We could tell by your buckskins and hair that you were friendlies. Truth is, we’ve been hopin’ you would pay us a visit. We have a business proposition to talk over. But first,” Borke nodded toward the creek bank where the rifle was still propped, “have one of your bucks fetch that long gun.
Drags the Rope relayed the request. Shoulder Blade promptly moved toward Dead Elk Creek.
“We put it out as a gift for you,” Borke explained. “As a token of the value we place in earning your favor.”
“Why are you here?” Touch the Clouds inquired through his friend.
Borke snickered. “You’re not one for beatin’ around the bush, are you, Chief? Fair enough. My pards and I aim to open a tradin’ post. If your people bring us things we’re interested in, we’ll see to it they get all the guns, blankets, and foofaraw they want.”
Touch the Clouds studied the other whites. They were sculpted from the same clay as Artemis Borke—rough-hewn, unshaven, hard. All wore smiles. Yet Touch the Clouds felt a vague sense of unease.
“We would like to have your permission, Chief,” Borke had gone on. “We know this is Snake country. We know it wouldn’t be right to conduct business without your say-so. So how about it?”
“A trading post?” Touch the Clouds had been to Bent’s Fort a few times, and once to Fort Hall. To reach either involved a ride of many days. The idea of having a trading post in the heart of Shoshone territory appealed to him, but he did not want the whites to think he was too eager.
“You heard correctly, hoss,” Borke said, nodding. “All the goods your people will ever want, right here for the askin’. Blankets for your squaws. Hard candy for your sprouts. Guns for every warrior.”
At that juncture Shoulder Blade walked up with the new rifle and ammo pouch and gave them to Touch the Clouds.
The rifle was a Hawken, favored by Nate King and frontiersmen everywhere, not an inferior trade rifle like those foisted on Indians by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Touch the Clouds ran his huge hand over the smooth metal.
“Like it, do you?” Borke asked, chuckling. “Who wouldn’t? And it’s yours, Chief. With our blessin’.”
“Mine?” Touch the Clouds said when Drags the Rope relayed the news. He had never owned a white man’s weapon before. His ash bow and long lance had always served him in good stead. But from time to time he had entertained the thought of trying a gun for a while to see if they were as reliable and deadly as some claimed.
“Haven’t you been listenin’ to a word I’ve told you? Yes, yours, free of charge. To prove we speak with straight tongues.”
Several other warriors, Touch the Clouds observed, were eyeing the rifle with obvious envy.
“Give it a try,” Borke prompted. “If you need help loadin’ it, we’ll be glad to show you how.” Brazenly, he came forward and placed a grimy hand on Touch the Clouds’s forearm. “Think what it would mean if all your braves had guns like this! Think how powerful it will make your people.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “We know about the problems the Snakes have been havin’ with the Crows, the Dakotas, the Blackfeet, and the Utes. They raid your villages. They steal your horses. But not anymore! Not if all your bucks are armed with the latest and best rifles on the market.”
Drags the Rope was translating loudly enough for the rest of the warriors to hear, and excited whispering erupted.
“We’re not askin’ you to decide right this moment,” Borke said. “Go back to your people. Palaver a spell. See what they want. Then get back to us with your decision. We won’t start up our post without your consent.”
Touch the Clouds idly wondered why, if that was the case, the whites had already built it. He had to admit he was growing as excited as his friends, but he had the welfare of his people to think of and must not let his personal feelings sway his decision. “Tell me. Do you know Nate King?”
The question caused Artemis Borke to blink. “Sure I do, hoss. Who hasn’t heard of him? He’s been livin’ in these mountains goin’ on twenty years now. Has him a Shoshone squaw, too.”
Touch the Clouds looked the trader in the eyes. “Tell this man, Drags the Rope, that we do not like it when our women are called ‘squaws.’ “ Nate King had informed him the term was derogatory, a slur on the virtue of their wives and daughters.
Borke laughed good-naturedly. “My apologies, Chief. Old habits are hard to break. You’ll never hear any of us call one of your women a squaw again.” He clapped Touch the Clouds on the shoulder. “As for Nate King, I’ve run into him now and again. Folks say he’s as honorable as the year is long.” Borke’s bushy eyebrows pinched together. “Why’d you ask, anyhow?”
“He is one of us.”
“A Snake? I thought he was—” Catching himself, Borke chuckled. “Oh. I recollect now. Your tribe adopted him, is that it? Well, you couldn’t have made a better choice if you tried.”
Touch the Clouds considered Nate King a virtual brother. To hear this praise pleased him immensely. “We will hold a council,” he declared. “In three sleeps I will return with our decision.” Wheeling, he reentered the forest, Drags the Rope and the rest at his heels.
