Sun Walker

By Dave Schafer

Joshua Beck, son of a Virginia plantation owner and his barn slave, flees west in 1821 after his mother dies and he's accused by his white half-brother of killing his father.  He ends up in Missouri, where he volunteers for a large trapping party heading north on two keel boats.  After saving the Colonel from drowning, he accompanies the land party to barter for horses with the Arikara.  When a trapper tries to sneak into the village, the tribe assaults the party with arrows and bullets.  While many trappers are killed, Beck saves his friend Moses.  He must cross the Missouri River by himself to survive and heads north on foot.  Starving, he's rescued by three Crows, Sun Walker and two cousins.  After rejoining the land party that the keel boat dropped on shore far above the Arikara, they begin trapping.  The Captain is mauled by a grizzly.  Beck and Antoine, son of a trapper and a Mandan, search for a comrade and must escape from Pawnee pretending to be friendly.  When they climb a tree to hide and sleep, a panther attacks Beck.  Although woozy from a poisoned arrow that pierced his butt, he manages to win the battle.  Antoine believes Beck will soon be dead and abandons him.  By surviving on berries and a bison calf killed by wolves, Beck grows stronger only to meet a party of Sioux.  They leave him alone due to his courage proven by the lacerations from the panther's paws.  After losing his pants and hatchet to a flooded creek, he's accosted by five Gros Ventre of the prairie.  They send a young brave after him in a contest.  Jumping into a stream to escape, he's saved by Sun Walker, Storm Cloud and White Bear.  Again, they return him to his party.  Meanwhile, his half-brother Langford takes over the plantation.  More interested in the local tavern and women, he murders an escort's husband, flees, and leaves the bankrupt estate to his mother and twin sister.  He heads to Missouri where his uncle, an army Colonel, is stationed.  After defeating the Arikara, Colonel Pennington assigns his corporal nephew to build a fort on the site of the former village.  Langford soon makes a deal with the British Hudson Bay Company, fierce competitors of American trapping companies, to send furs down to New Orleans and across the Atlantic to quench the European thirst for beaver fur hats.  Beck spends a summer at the Crow village where Sun Walker and her cousins live.  He learns their language and customs and joins a horse raid against the Blackfoot.  Sun Walker, who was brutally raped as a youth by the Blackfoot and has no interest in men, begins to grow fond of Beck, as he's been of her ever since their first meeting.  But Beck feels he has a duty to help his land party reach their destination.  Back with them, he continues volunteering for dangerous missions as they struggle against fire, malaria, black wolves and hostile tribes on their way to the Mandan villages and Fort Unity.  Yet his biggest challenge arises when he unwittingly stops at Langford's fort. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977269959

Dave Schafer

Dave Schafer has also published THE MISDEMEANOR MAN, PRIVILEGED, and RIDERS ON THE STORM with Outskirts Press. 

Book preview

One

1821

I admit it was need for money that enticed me like the scent of castoreum does a lustful beaver. In different circumstances I could’ve pursued a rise in fortune by taking up a trade. But I was young and on the run, homeless and adrift, without worldly wisdom. Tough times called for desperate measures.

When the Colonel toppled over the side of our keelboat, he appeared to be a treasure chest floating away downstream. I quickly removed the boots from my blistering feet and leaped into the Missouri River after him.

Beaver skins were three dollars a pound. But the floundering Colonel, a wealthy outfitter in the fur trade, was worth in my estimation thirty dollars a pound. That was the difference between an engage and a company partner. Company partners were able to sock away money and retire at will. Retirement was a daily risk for an engage. Frostbite could cost a hand or foot. A poisoned arrowhead might mean an arm or leg. A grizzly would rip you apart and leave you living. These problems would throw a trapper into poverty. But drowning was as bad for a partner as for an engage—his company money would disappear in the water or another’s pocket.

I’ll never forget that feeling, trying to suck in precious air while I grabbed hold of my thrashing bonanza. Colliding with driftwood and franticly kicking around for a foothold I clung to my unruly road to riches. Suddenly the current calmed and my feet found rounded rocks. I lifted the coughing, gagging Colonel under the arms to let him catch his breath. He broke free and turned to me, his eyes bulging in a ghastly stare.

You okay, Colonel?

Lungs are a bit damp, he gasped. I owe you, son. Thank God you can swim.

Such praise was destined to pull me up the pecking order of the trapping party, but I didn’t want duties like carrying a tow rope across a churning river when I couldn’t swim worth a damn. I smiled, turned and waded toward shore.

It felt odd to lead the Colonel when we reached the bank, but he didn’t object to the breach of protocol. Wasn’t everyday a twenty-year old runaway slave saved the life of the lieutenant governor of Missouri and the leader of its militia.

It started a couple months before. My hands were so cold they could barely grasp the copy of the Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser a gentleman had dropped after I’d rubbed down his horse at the St. Louis smithy. A front-page headline announced ONE HUNDRED ENTERPRISING YOUNG MEN NEEDED to ascend the Missouri to its source. That fit the bill for me. I’d beaten the son of my plantation owner within an inch of his life, fled Virginia on horseback into Kentucky, and there exchanged my exhausted horse for the back corner of one of five wagons headed from Philadelphia to St. Louis. The abolitionist Quaker who led the train allowed me aboard because I knew horses. He was desperate for someone to replace the horseman who died of a rattlesnake bite crossing the Alleghenies.

The hiring might’ve been helped by my light tannish skin, the result of my grandfather having had a white plantation ranger as a father and me having been fathered by the plantation owner four decades later. My mother revealed this as she lay shivering on her sweaty pallet in our tiny slave shanty, dying of typhoid. That finally explained why she had barn duty and we had a place to ourselves.

After she passed, I figured my father had either made a desperate promise while trying to mount her or felt guilty over the whole affair. He brought me in from the tobacco fields at thirteen to be the stable boy. He never made it known I was his son, but I had the feeling some on the plantation suspected it, especially Langford. His eyes blazed with hate for me as far back as I can remember.

One who didn’t seem to have a clue was my father’s wife. She made me her project to prove that a slave could learn to read and write like whites. Each time the tutor arrived, she had me called in from the barn. I’d sit next to my half-siblings Langford and Becky and learn my letters and numbers. Without her and the tutor I wouldn’t’ve read the dozens of books I’ve devoured since, memorizing big words and able to discuss literature and the Bible with gentlemen and trappers alike.

Slave life was almost tolerable until I found my father below the barn loft with a broken neck. Most thought it was an accident. My suspicion was that he tried to find a replacement for my mother, and either his new mistress or her boyfriend helped him off the loft edge. But Langford seized the opportunity to claim I was the killer. He tried to persuade anyone who’d listen that my excuse for being in the barn looking for a pitchfork when I found my father dead was unbelievable. He argued that I murdered my master to avenge his failure to summon a doctor to try and save my mother. The tide was turning against me even though Becky and Mrs. Pennington strongly supported me against the accusation. I couldn’t help rubbing my neck.

The night of the funeral Langford was all liquored up and came at me in the stable with a bullwhip. I gave him a few cracks for free, hoping it’d appease him. But he continued to draw serious blood, and I grabbed leather and yanked him toward me. After I’d finished pummeling his face it looked like a possum had wrestled a wagon wheel. I leaped onto my father’s favorite horse and never looked back.

The Colonel and I stood dripping on the riverbank. The pilot steered the keelboat onto a sandbar, and the Captain sent the skiff over to retrieve us. The two rowers leaped out, brushed by me and offered help to the Colonel. I glanced up and noticed four Arikara leaning over the bluff about thirty feet above us. The Colonel followed my stare and alerted the other man in the skiff. Mudd, an old black mountaineer who knew various tribal tongues, conversed with them. The Colonel arranged a trade to acquire horses and avoid any trouble. Fifty men were on our first of two keelboats, and he figured that was plenty to ward off any attack.

About an hour later, Mudd, Captain Jones, Bordeaux and me returned on the skiff that was packed full with sugar, tobacco and other goods. We landed a little further downstream where the bank was a gradual incline. By that time dozens more Arikara warriors had joined the ones we’d seen. We sat down with three chiefs, and the Captain negotiated through Mudd.

The Colonel intended to send twenty-five of us overland to Major Gardiner’s fort at the Yellowstone River. Since we’d need pack and riding horses, the trading lasted all afternoon. While the Captain and Mudd traded, Bordeaux and I rowed back and forth to the keelboat to bring the other twenty-one men to shore. Just before dusk, we took our seventh trip to the boat for our last three men to join the land party. On the way over, Bordeaux whined about blisters on his hands and cursed the Colonel. I ignored him and stared delightedly at the new deerskin moccasins an Arikara had traded to me for one of my knives.

Although the Captain, Mudd and me were chosen for the landing party due to our attributes, Bordeaux was being punished. Three days prior, soon after Bordeaux and two other hunters had returned from a mission, a trio of settlers showed up at our camp. They complained our hunters had stolen some of their livestock. Bordeaux denied the accusation and belittled the settlers for not guarding their animals in Indian country. The Colonel intervened and told the three men to go accuse the Rees—our nickname for the Arikara—because none of his men were thieves. The settlers begrudgingly left. About an hour later, the Colonel followed a trickle of blood to a barrel of freshly butchered pigs and poultry. He was fit to be tied and swore he wouldn’t let another hunter ashore until we were on the verge of starvation.

We picked up Bark, Antoine, Hardin and some woolen shirts and trinkets. The Colonel asked me how things were going on shore and ignored Bordeaux. I reported the Captain had negotiated for five ponies so far. He told me to make sure the Captain received more during the trade and waved me up the rope ladder for a few final words.

I was hoping to get a lot more mounts. Most of you will be on foot for a while.

Walking will suit me fine now that I have my new footwear.

You should be able to trade for more horses with the Crows. Just watch they don’t steal them back that night. Stay clear of the Blackfoot and Pawnee for they’ll kill you on sight. Can’t be sure with the Sioux. Some friendly, some not.

Yes, sir.

Give Captain Jones all the support he needs. The older veterans are grumbling about him being chosen to head the overland expedition, since he’s only a few years older than you.

I will, sir.

There were a few seconds of silence.

Beck your real name, son?

Never had a last name. My sister’s name is Becky, so I just shortened that.

Just remember, Beck. Out here beyond civilization and into the mountains, one’s background means nothing. Courage, perseverance and fair-dealing are the only things that matter.

Yes, sir.

Thankfully, Hardin volunteered to return the skiff to the boat and swam back to shore.

It was dusk by the time we finished supping what was left of the chicken and pork. Despite the punishment he dealt to Bordeaux and the other hunters, the Colonel ordered the stolen meat not be wasted. We brought it over and roasted it for hours on the beach head, sharing with the Arikara chiefs. We bedded down for the night around the single campfire when the chiefs left us. The Captain warned us not to sniff around the Rees’ camp for women, as they weren’t discussed during the trade. Arikara treated their females above their dogs but below their ponies. Although a Ree brave wouldn’t think twice about swapping one of his wives for a new rifle, the Captain emphasized it was an insult if someone took liberties without a trade.

I didn’t sleep well. At the crack of dawn, I overheard Mudd’s warning to the Captain. He’d gone searching for Bordeaux and found him stabbed to death in the Ree camp. His head was barely attached, his scalp gone. I recalled Bordeaux claiming over and over during our skiff trips that it didn’t matter how ugly a squaw was, for they were happy to be entered from behind. Before Mudd finished describing his discovery, a dozen Rees fired down on us with arrows and bullets.

Three of our men were shot dead in the first minute. A bunch more leaped behind boulders and driftwood and fired back. I heard the Colonel shout an order for the skiff to go back across and rescue as many as possible, but the Creole oarsmen halted halfway to shore. Although Mudd had earlier remarked that French blood bore a hankering for retreat, I couldn’t fault them in this case. From their vantage point they must’ve seen more Rees racing toward the edge of the bluff.

Greenhorns my age who weren’t from St. Louis scrambled toward the river and the skiff stalled by its rowers. Two were cut down as soon as they touched water, and a third wounded when he reached the skiff and tried to climb in. The Creoles pulled him up, and a fourth was able to crawl over the other side. They frantically rowed the skiff to safety. Hardin swam all the way over to the keelboat unscathed. Those on board fired their guns at the Rees on the bluff.

I nestled myself behind broad-bodied Cuthbert, a Kentuckian who’d been killed in the first volley. To give me a few more inches of protection I rolled him onto his side. The Captain ordered not to fire unless we knew our bullets would count. I’d never taken a person’s life before and often wondered how I’d justify it. Those thoughts never crossed my mind as I aimed for the heart of every Ree I saw.

Eventually we realized the skiff wasn’t coming back. I felt the chilly presence of the Grim Reaper. That day on the beach taught me moments close to death were those where I felt most alive. I prayed to our Creator to see one more sunset. The Rees continued to smother us with a relentless fusillade, and some of them crept down the slanted edges of the bluff.

The Captain finally shouted, They’re flanking us. Time to swim for it. I saw Hardin make it.

The keelboat was almost forty yards from shore and most of us couldn’t swim a lick. But when Bordeaux’s scalped head was tossed down to us with eyes poked out, we were suddenly instilled with belief that drowning wasn’t so bad. We charged for the river.

I’d always been a fast runner and reached the water first. When the current reached my neck, I discarded my ball pouch, powder horn and finally my rifle. Realizing my buckskin shirt was sucking in pounds of water, I struggled out of it. Although I was able to stay afloat, the current swept me downstream.

Hold on, Beck. I’ll be there in a second if the Rees don’t get me first.

I twisted and saw Moses bearing down on me in the skiff. Other than the Colonel and Mudd, he was the oldest on our keelboat with twenty years of trapping under his belt. As soon as he reached me, I clambered in. When he headed for a floundering trapper a bullet knocked him over. An oar came loose and plopped into the river. With one oar I failed to reach the disappearing trapper in time and aimed for the eastern bank.

When we finally reached it, I gazed upriver. Many comrades were being hoisted into the keelboat, but a bunch of unlucky ones were floating downstream. I noticed one warrior directly across the river, pointing at us and yelling back to others. Most of the Rees’ thirst for blood had been satisfied by the game of sitting ducks, and they wanted no part of exerting more energy for only a couple targets. But two of them joined the first in dropping their spears and rifles and swimming across the river toward us with knives and tomahawks strapped to their waists.

I helped Moses out of the skiff. The bullet had passed clean through his shoulder and he could walk. I directed him into a dense clump of brush. Climbing up an incline in a northeast direction, I taunted and cursed the Rees until they reached the bank on our side. It worked. They didn’t search for Moses and dashed toward me. I was in a footrace with three angry enemies who wanted to relieve me of my curly black hair.

We sprinted across open prairie. Although I was gifted with speed, our Creator left the question of endurance to me. After several miles there was a rocky rise I barely made to the top, my lungs burning and blood dribbling out my nose. Both legs were cramping so badly I had to stop. I turned, ready to drop to my knees and accept my fate. But the braves had also halted. They were arguing, probably blaming each other for not being able to catch me. I wanted to give them a defiant shout and wave a fist, but my mouth was too dry and my arms fatigued. They turned and backtracked toward the river, still bickering. I figured Moses fled north on foot along the eastern bank. Also heading north, I intended to turn west toward the Missouri the next day. Hoping the Colonel had poled north as soon as he rescued the survivors, including Moses, I hoped to catch the second keelboat as it came upriver.

After many miles I paused at a tiny creek. I drank as much water as I could and put mud all over my shoulders and chest to avoid burn. All I had left were my pants, my other knife and moccasins. My pride in outrunning the Rees melted into despair. Food would be tough to find, even if all the water I wanted was a half-hour to my left. At dusk I spotted figures on the northern horizon. Certain they were Indians, I couldn’t tell whether they were Rees. Mudd claimed the Pawnee Loups could be friendly. Not willing to take a chance, I shifted due west.

The Missouri appeared after dark, and I quenched my thirst and slept till dawn. Upon waking, I realized the second keelboat may have passed me during the night. I decided my best chance to survive was to catch up to the overland party. I figured the Colonel had discharged them on the western bank a safe distance above the Ree village, somewhere between the Grand and Cedar rivers he’d mentioned. Although the land party were without horses and wouldn’t amount to the twenty-five the Colonel originally intended, most of our supplies were still on the keelboat when we were attacked and could provision them. Enough to defend themselves, ably hunt food, and maybe start trapping so they could trade furs for a couple horses at the Mandan.

I had no experience at swimming except to kick my arms and legs under water like a frog. Yet my rescue of the Colonel convinced me I might have a talent for it as I did in running. I dragged a stout drift log from the bank as insurance, lumbered into the stream and kicked my legs as fast as I could. Halfway across they tired, but I kept aiming toward the opposite bank as my thick trunk obeyed the southerly current. After drifting a mile downstream, I made it across. From what the Colonel described, I guessed I’d have to stagger north another day or so to catch sight of the Cedar. At least I was a good ways above the Ree village.

My belly ached from hunger but I feared it was going to get much worse. The only good thing was the June weather, with sunny days not too hot and only slightly chilly nights. For four days I threw my knife at rabbits, birds and other critters. Never hit one. Once a day I’d find a little creek, pond or spring to quench my thirst. The fifth day I woke up disoriented. I’d never been so long without food before, so I had no inkling of what was in store. Pain had never bothered me much, but the severe stomach pangs were testing my resolve. My knees buckled. I rose, staggered and dropped again. Our Creator had given me that last sunset and more, but it was time to pay my bill. I rolled onto my back and winced at the sun.

Suddenly my face was in a shadow. I struggled to sit up and focus. After a few seconds I clearly saw an Indian astride a spotted pinto. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the two warriors with her. Their black hair was long and straight, falling over their shoulders. They were taller, broader and handsomer than men of other tribes, with skin tanned much darker than the lighter shade of the woman.

The three dismounted and conversed with each other, pointing to my sorry shape. It was hard to take my eyes off the woman. I wanted to take her image with me if I was to die. She was a bronze goddess, sinewy without being muscular, with facial features only Helen of Troy could’ve challenged. Wearing a brave’s leggings and vest, the edges of her breasts showed where the deerskin flaps met under her bowstring. She removed a pouch, wooden bowl and spoon from a deerskin bag tied to the pinto’s withers. A minute later her concoction was mixed and ready.

She knelt down and fed me the watery corn meal. When she stopped, I motioned for more but she refused. Instead, the two men lifted me under opposite shoulders and sprinted, forcing me to run with them. Soon I was exhausted. She led the ponies to us and gave me more spoonsful. After a short rest, they mounted me behind one of the men and we rode about a mile. The same ritual started again.

By dusk we’d done it five times, always heading north. One of the warriors left for a while and returned with a rabbit. The woman cooked a stew, filled the bowl and set it before me. I thought she was teasing and would grab it back any second. But she gave me refills until I fell asleep. I don’t recall ever having a more pleasant meal or night’s rest.

I later learned the Crows saved my life twice that day, once by not ignoring me and again by feeding me very slowly. A starving human will die quickly and painfully by consuming chunky food immediately.

The next morning, one of the men signed they were taking me to a big camp of their people. All I could think about was how I could finagle myself onto the woman’s horse, promising our Creator I’d politely clutch only her waist. But my daydream was dashed by the approach of a large group of men and horses from the south. As they drew closer, I recognized the Captain and nineteen of my comrades. Only nine of the men were mounted, five of them leading pack horses. The other eleven walked.

Mudd immediately told the Crows they were my friends and thanked them for rescuing me. I shook hands with the Captain, received a hearty hug from Moses and accepted greetings from the rest. After conversing with the Crows, Mudd informed me the men were White Bear and Storm Cloud, cousins of the woman Sun Walker. They’d split off from their hunting party and found me during their search for buffalo. As they were no longer in Crow hunting grounds they wanted to return to their party. Figuring I’d never see her again, I lifted my knife up to Sun Walker. Clutching my gift, she stared at me with the same indifferent but beautiful expression she wore when she fed me. She turned and galloped out of my life.

After they’d ridden away, Mudd told me he’d never seen Crows east of the Black Hills, that they had to be a very brave trio to cross enemy territory. He added that Sun Walker must be a ferocious fighter with special medicine for the men to allow her to join them in a distant and dangerous hunt.

When the Captain said it was time to resume the land party’s trek north, Moses made sure he was next to me. He told me how the keelboat had proceeded upstream without seeing him, but that he followed it as fast as he could along the bank. Eventually spotted, he was scooped up by the skiff. The keelboat stopped on the west bank to acquire horses from the Yankton Sioux, bitter enemies of the Rees. The Colonel reassigned him and nineteen others, including the Captain, to constitute the new overland party, but the Colonel and Ensign Taylor needed to keep a dozen men to work the poles. No one counted me, as even Moses considered me dead. Our overland party continued heading north, aiming to trap some beaver skins before they reached the Mandan.

Two

THE BLACK HILLS

I was glad to be back with my party, but as we traversed the dry, barren plain my thoughts clung to Sun Walker. By dusk of the third day we hadn’t seen a rivulet or water hole that wasn’t dry. The pack horses were overborne with provisions and hadn’t been allowed to carry water. During heat of the fourth day, even though we rotated men on and off horses, two men passed out. We buried them up to their heads in sand of an empty creek bottom to conserve their body moisture.

The Captain chose Mudd and me to mount up and go with him while the others stayed behind. Although I was still recovering from my ordeal, the Captain told me he needed Mudd to interpret and someone else with a lot of grit. We unloaded a pack horse and brought him along with empty canteens tied to his back.

In late afternoon, after veering northwest, the Captain found a branch of the Cedar River. It was my first indication of his mystical power in finding water, as if he could sense from the lay of the land where it might be and smell it from a mile away. We drank our fill and brought back enough so the men and horses could make it north to the Cedar. Our hunter Bark disappeared on one of the mounts and returned with a deer carcass. After we roasted and ate most of it, we passed out around the fire. In the morning we headed out early, each taking a small portion of the cooked venison to help us through the day.

The terrain grew rugged, but Moses assured us these were only hills, that the steep and treacherous Rocky Mountains were hundreds of miles away. His shoulder was healing well. Each day he lamented that the British and their Hudson Bay Company supplied certain tribes with guns. When we reached the Cedar, the Captain decided it was time to try our hand at trapping beaver on its tributaries. We set up camp.

Bark and Moses scouted some creeks while hunting and said the signs were there—cottonwood, birch, willow and aspen cuttings, and a couple dams. Although beaver fur was not prime until colder months, the Captain figured we could tarry a few days to teach the trade to green trappers, including me. Nothing indicated we wouldn’t reach the Major by November.

We split up into four groups of five men and two horses, with only camp keeper Toad left behind with the ninth horse. My company included Moses, a Creole with only one good eye named LeDuc, a Spaniard and Antoine, who was of mixed French Canadian and Mandan descent. We further separated, with Moses and me heading due west on foot until we hit one of the tributary creeks. Moses felt he owed me for saving him from the Rees and promised he’d teach me all I needed to know about trapping beaver.

The critters usually lived in burrows dug into creek banks. Their entrances were at least a foot below the low-water mark. It took a while to decide exactly where to place three traps we each carried. Moses chose locations where beaver had worn down slides into the stream.

While we laid our traps, he told me a beaver had to be secured by one of his paws and drowned before he could gnaw it off. To prevent a beaver from dragging a trap onto dry ground, he drove a sturdy pole through each trap ring. In case one was strong enough to pull the pole from the bank, he attached a float stick to the trap. By the time we’d placed our six traps it was dark. We headed a hundred yards west of the tributary, ate the rest of our meat and slept.

We woke at dawn and returned to the traps. The first one had a drowned beaver. Moses skinned it and extracted its castor glands and tail. The glands would ensure we had enough castor for setting the next traps, and the tail would serve as a delicacy for supper. Although the next two traps were empty, making Moses a bit edgy, the last three contained beaver. After Moses and me skinned them, we headed back to the five-man camp with traps, pelts and tails.

At camp Moses stretched and scraped our skins. The others returned with five pelts. They drew sticks to see who’d do their stretching and scraping, and Antoine drew the short one. Moses decided we’d return to the main camp the following morning.

Once these skins dry overnight, we’ll fold them up, fur side in, Moses said. Let’s build us a fire so we can roast them beaver tails.

By mid-afternoon the tails were searing on a wooden spit. As we gathered around the fire Moses pulled a jug out of his pack and uncorked it.

Nine plews today, Antoine said. We should start our own trapping company. Moses can be the booshway and Beck the little booshway.

What’s a little booshway? I said.

"A little bourgeois, LeDuc explained. One of the new rich, but less rich than the head of a party."

A clerk, Moses said. "Better with pencil than knife. A new system the Colonel thought up last year at the Major’s fort. Instead of payin’ a bunch of engages to trap an area, he decided he’d choose the head of a party and give him a clerk. They’d loan supplies to a bunch of independent operators—free trappers—who’d be on their own. The Colonel wouldn’t have to pay any engages out front. Free trappers would pay back the party with skins, but if they’re good they could sock away a livin’. Problem’s the Colonel don’t trust nobody to be head of the party but himself. He ain’t found a clerk for the Major up at Fort Unity, and his future free trappers are mostly greenhorns shittin’ off the sides of the keelboat wantin’ to return home."

I like the old system, LeDuc said in his Creole accent. "When I was an engage for the French Fur Company, I had nothing to worry about. As a free trapper, nothing will be free but my funeral. It’ll probably occur at the bottom of a mountain cliff, the only mourners the wolves who can’t get to me. I’ll be paying out of my nose for everything I need."

Those who work hardest are rewarded, Francisco said. That’s why I like the Colonel’s idea. Why don’t you go back to where you were?

Once I lost an eye, they claimed there was no more room for me.

I noticed everyone was eyeing Moses and his jug while the conversation continued.

It’s all the same to me, Antoine said. I get paid good money to skin little varmints. All so some rich folk in Europe can wear big hats.

Hah, scoffed LeDuc. You call three dollars a plew good money? When I was with the French by the Pacific, we got five dollars for an otter skin.

Francisco leaned forward from the boulder he’d been slouched against.

Otters are worth five dollars? he said. I saw one today. I would’ve shot him in the head had I known that.

I’m talking about sea otters, LeDuc said mockingly. The Russians prefer them. Yours was a land otter, worth no more than a beaver.

Oh, Francisco mumbled and leaned back against the rock.

Whatever you earn for a skin, LeDuc continued, rest assured the Colonel will get twice as much for it back in St. Louis.

Moses passed the jug to LeDuc based upon mountain seniority. LeDuc handed it to Antoine. Francisco was next, swallowing the contents as if it was water. He passed it to me. I’d tasted red wine from a bottle Langford had left in the barn, but I wasn’t ready for the burn in my throat. I couldn’t harness a cough.

Watch out for the crickets in there, LeDuc said.

The others chuckled scoffingly except Moses.

I pray the Captain doesn’t find out it’s rum rather than water in my jug, Moses said with a deadpan face. Last year when the Colonel caught me, I weren’t allowed to leave camp for three days. Got so lonely I became smitten with a medicine wolf bitch that would slink into camp after the others went trappin’. After a time I was gone beaver over this coyote, so taken by her wiles that on the fourth day, when the Colonel said my punishment was over, I protested that I’d grown fond of hangin’ about camp.

Moses paused, so I passed him the jug. He took a long swallow.

What’d the Colonel say? I asked earnestly.

The others snickered, and I realized I’d fallen into a different kind of Moses’ trap.

I’ve heard rumors you been sportin’ the fantastic toe with Madame Coyote. Have you, Moses? Many a good trapper’s gone under with idleness on account of her silly games. I can’t shine with this. You can have all the rum you want, old hos, so long as you banish that she-devil from camp.

Moses burst into laughter, displaying gaps in his teeth that years of a carnivorous diet had caused. The others followed suit. But Moses wasn’t one to rub salt in another man’s wounds. Breaking with tradition, he handed me back the jug. The others’ silence indicated they respected his decision.

Here’s luck, Moses said.

Here’s luck, I repeated, tilting up the jug.

This time I refused to gag. The liquor slid down surprisingly smoother. The others cheered my smile as I passed the rum to LeDuc. When it reached Francisco again, we heard hooves and the cries of a man. Moses jumped up, grabbed the jug and corked it.

Hey, I didn’t get my turn, Francisco said.

I don’t like the sound of this, Moses grumbled, ignoring Francisco and sticking the jug back with his possibles.

The others grabbed their muskets. Since I hadn’t replaced mine I clutched the hatchet Moses had given me. Benson, a Virginian like me, rode up and jumped down from the steed the Captain had left on.

The Captain’s been mauled by a grizz, he shouted.

LeDuc and Antoine groaned, and Francisco’s face contorted in horror.

Moses said, Where?

Mile north. Can’t move him.

Mudd, Lockhart and Stanley with him?

Mudd and Lockhart are. The other horse got spooked and Stanley chased after it.

You get the grizz?

I think Mudd hit him, but he ran off into a thicket.

Beck, grab our mounts. We’ll double up and Antoine will ride the other.

After I raced to retrieve the hobbled horses we saddled up and followed Benson. My thoughts raced from how badly the Captain might be hurt to who’d warn the other two groups that a man-killer was around. When we reached Mudd and Lockhart, it appeared as if they were kneeling before a bloody animal they’d been butchering. The Captain was trying to drink water with Mudd’s help. Most of his oozing scalp was askew with a flap hanging off the side. We dismounted and genuflected on the other side of him.

Anythin’ I can do, Miah? Moses said softly.

The Captain’s first name was Jeremiah but I’d never heard anyone address him other than Captain. It gave me the feeling Moses didn’t have much hope.

After interminable seconds the Captain gasped, Sew me up.

Moses shifted his other leg and knelt without responding. I didn’t think there was any way to sew his head back together.

I got a needle and thread in my saddlebag, the Captain murmured. Ruth still around?

Right over yonder, said Mudd.

Moses retrieved the precious tools from the Captain’s horse, a strong and sturdy mare we figured the Yankton somehow acquired from the army. Most trappers purposely didn’t get attached to their mounts, for if the animals didn’t perish from exhaustion or get stolen by Indians, they might end up in a supper pot to save their masters. But the