Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

[Rendezvous was an annual gathering held at various locations by fur-trading companies. The purpose of the rendezvous was to allow the fur trappers and mountain men to sell their furs and hides, and to make purchases of supplies and other goods from those vendors who accompanied the representatives of the fur-trading companies. The large fur companies put together teamster-driven mule trains which packed in whiskey and supplies into a preannounced location each spring-summer and set up a trading fair—the rendezvous—and at the season’s end, hauled the furs out.

The trappers, most of whom had lived in total isolation for many months previous, very much looked forward to the rendezvous. It was here that the trappers and mountain men could mingle with other human beings, renew old friendships, and make new friends. The gatherings were known to be lively, joyous places, where all were allowed: trappers, Indians, Native trapper wives and children, travelers, and later on, even tourists who would venture from as far as Europe to observe the festivities. As Smoke Jensen described, there was “mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target shooting, yarns, frolic, that entertained and delighted white men and Indian alike.”—ED.]

Rendezvous, Montana Territory—Spring 1870

The smoke of scores of campfires could be seen from some distance away. Then, as John and Smoke got closer, they were also aware of smells, and sounds of Rendezvous, aromas of roasting meat from the many cooking fires, but also odors that were considerably less pleasant, being the stench of scores of mountain men who had neither bathed, nor changed clothes for the entire winter.

In addition to the mountain men, there were also merchants, photographers, painters, writers, and more than a hundred Indians. The air was alive with the sound of drums, Indian flutes, Indian chants, as well as guitars, and even a bagpiper.

And of course, there was the fur trader. Only one fur trader.

There was a time, in the early days of trapping, back before the war and the western migration, when Rendezvous would be the biggest city between the Pacific Ocean and St. Louis. And though those days were over now, and Rendezvous was no longer the mountain men’s only contact with civilization, Rendezvous were still big and important events, still attended by everyone who called himself a trapper.

This rendezvous in 1870 would be Smoke’s third but it was John Jackson’s first and he was very much looking forward to it. The two men rode in to the rendezvous leading mules that were laden with both beaver and marten skins. They were greeted by a representative of only one fur-trading company, which meant there was no haggling for the best price. You took what the fur company offered, or you would have to take your furs to someplace like St. Louis and try and sell them there.

“Ahch,” one old mountain man said in disgust. “In the old days there were many dealers who came, and we could find the best price.”

“Well, there you go, old-timer. This isn’t the old days. Now the price we’re paying this year is seventy-five cents for a beaver plew and a dollar and a half for marten fur. Beavers aren’t that much in demand anymore. The beaver hats have gone out of style, and the womenfolk think the marten fur is prettier. Are you going to take my offer, or not?”

“What choice do I have?” the trapper complained. “Yes, I will take your unfair offer.”

“Hell, Seth, what does it matter to you, anyway?” one of the trappers said. “You’ll be spendin’ it all on whores and trinkets and such while you are here, anyway. By the time you leave, you won’t have two coins to jangle in your pocket.”

The others laughed.

“I might want one or two extra whores, and an extra trinket or two,” Seth replied, and again, there was laughter.

After John sold his plews, he had money in hand for the first time in almost a year.

“Look at this,” he said, displaying his new wealth. “I’ve got twelve hundred and thirty-five dollars. Why, I’m practically rich.”

“I didn’t do bad myself,” Smoke said. “I’ve got a little over a thousand dollars.”

“You’ve actually got more than that. I feel like at least half of my money is rightly yours for coming along with me, and teaching me the ropes. To say nothing of the liquor and food and pack mule you bought me whenever we were able to get into town.”

“Nonsense. I learned everything from Preacher. It’s only right I should pass along what I know to you. The liquor and food is nothing, you were my and Preacher’s guest. You can pay for the mule, but it only cost forty dollars.”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right to me.” John smiled as he counted out forty dollars. “But who am I to argue? If you say this money is rightly mine, I have no compunctions about keeping it.”

“What are you going to do with all your money?” Smoke asked.

“First off, I’ve got to buy a few of the necessaries,” he said. “Some more ammunition, maybe a rubber slicker, never knew how much one would come in handy. And a knife, boy, do I need a good knife. I want you to help me pick one out.”

“Nothing to it,” Smoke said. “We’ll find you a Bowie knife with a good handle. That’s all you’ll need.”

“You stay right there until I come get you. Do you understand that, you ignorant bitch? You don’t move, you don’t say nothin’ to nobody, you don’t do nothin’ till I come back.”

The speaker was a wiry-looking man with a hawk-like nose and pockmarked skin. His hair was long and stringy. The person he was talking to was a young Indian woman, probably in her early twenties. She was pretty, but there was a cowed look about her, obviously the result of being browbeaten by the man who was yelling at her. John looked at her and smiled in an attempt to cheer her up, but she looked down at the ground, as if frightened to be caught returning his smile, or even his glance.

“Who is that most unpleasant gentleman?” John asked.

“I don’t know who he is, but I know who he isn’t. He isn’t a gentleman.”

“You certainly have that right.”

“Let’s pick you out a knife,” Smoke suggested.

“All right. I need some ammo too, some more .50 calibers, some .44s for the carbine and pistol.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“Are you going to stock up for the next season?” John asked.

Smoke shook his head. “No, this is it for me. After Rendezvous, I’ll be going my own way. I’ve taught you about as much as can be taught. The rest of it you’re going to have to learn on your own. But I expect that you have acquired enough skills that you can move around without getting yourself killed.”

“I would certainly hope so,” John said.

“Mister, if you ain’t plannin’ on a-buyin’ one of them blankets, move on out of the way so the others can have a look at them,” a harsh voice said, and looking around toward the speaker, John and Smoke saw that it was the same man who had been yelling at the young Indian girl a few minutes earlier.

“I’m sorry about that,” John said. “I didn’t know I was blocking your merchandise.”

“You dumb-assed mountain men are so damn stupid that it’s a wonder you can even find your way here ever’ year.”

John said nothing but he did move away. He was smiling as he did so. “Did you hear that, Smoke? He called me a mountain man. All right, it was a dumb-assed mountain man but a mountain man nevertheless.”

Smoke chuckled. “You are a mountain man, John, and there is absolutely nothing dumb assed about it. Like I said, you have acquired all the skills you need.”

John reached out to take Smoke’s hand, and he covered it with his other hand.

“Skills aren’t the only thing I’ve acquired, Smoke. I’ve acquired a friend, a good friend. And I’m telling you now that if there is ever anything I can do for you, all you have to do is let me know. If I have to, I’ll soak my britches in kerosene and walk into hell to kick the devil in the ass for you.”

Smoke laughed. “Well, I haven’t been that much into churchgoing since I came out here. But I sort of have a hope that I won’t ever be needing someone to go into hell on my part. I’d just as soon not be there, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Friend, if I had followed my father’s avocation, I would grant you absolution right here on the spot.” He made the sign of the cross. “Have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins.”

“You do that well,” Smoke said.

“I should, my father is a priest. I was raised listening to him grant absolution every Sunday.”

“A priest?” Smoke asked, curious at the pronouncement. “How can that be? I didn’t think priests could be married.”

John laughed. “He is an Episcopal priest. Oh, what about this knife?” he asked, picking up a Bowie with a beautifully polished, wide blade, sharp on one side, as it was also on the arch that led away from the point on the other side. The handle was a stag’s horn.

“Great-looking knife,” Smoke agreed.

John bought the knife, then slipped it into the beaded knife sheath the Mandan Indian had given him.

“Yeah, that looks good on you,” Smoke said.

“It feels good on me,” John agreed.

After all the purchases were made, Smoke and John went into one of the tents where there was a sign that read: DEER AND BEER. It referred to a meal of deer meat, and a mug of beer.

“Well, the deer isn’t all that inviting, seeing as we had plenty of it over these last eight months,” Smoke said. “But the beer sure is.”

The men bought their meals—the deer served with fried potatoes and freshly baked bread, the beer in large mugs—and took them over to a table.

“Here’s to a good winter,” John said. He lifted his beer mug, and held it out over the table.

“A good winter indeed,” Smoke replied, and lifting his mug, he clicked it against John’s.

They took a drink and were just setting their mugs back down when, once again, they heard a familiar voice.

“Here, you worthless bitch!” someone shouted. “Pick that up! There ain’t nobody goin’ to pay no five dollars for a blanket that you have dragged through the dirt.”

Both Smoke and John looked toward the loud voice and saw that it was the same man they had seen earlier, again yelling at the same young Indian girl.

The man went over to the young woman and jerked the blanket away from her.

“Look at this!” he said loudly. “Do you see the dirt on this blanket? Look at it.”

The woman looked away.

“Don’t look away, you bitch! I told you to look at it!” The merchant shoved the blanket into the young woman’s face, and when he did so, she dropped the rest of the blankets she was holding.

“Now look what you have done, you ignorant slut! One blanket isn’t enough? You have to ruin them all!” the trapper shouted. He slapped her, hard.

Smoke started to say something but before he said anything John got up and walked over to pick up the things the woman had dropped.

“Here, let me help you,” he said.

“Who gave you permission to talk to my woman?” the merchant asked, angrily. “This is none of your business. You just stay the hell out of it.”

“A little courtesy is everyone’s business,” John said. “Apparently, you are too dumb to comprehend that.”

“What did you say? Did you just call me dumb?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” John said. “And if you would like me to be more specific about it, I will say that you are a low-assed, piss-complexioned, terminally ignorant, inconsequential, dumb son of a bitch! Do you need me to repeat any of that?”

“Did you just call me a inconse . . . uh, a termin . . . uh, a son of a bitch?”

“I did, indeed, sir.”

“Look here, you! Just who the hell do you think you are talking to?”

“I thought we had already covered who I thought I was talking to,” John said. “Do you really want me to repeat it?”

Suddenly the man drew a knife, then he crouched in a fighting stance. “I told you, you got no business bein’ around my woman,” he said. “And you got no business talkin’ to me like that, neither. So unless you get away from her and apologize to me right now, I reckon I’m just goin’ to have to carve your heart out.”

John smiled and pulled out his knife. “Well now, it appears that I am going to have the opportunity to try out this brand-new knife I just bought. And here, I thought the first use for it would be to skin a bear. But I believe I would just as soon skin your hide.”

“Mister,” one of the bystanders called out to John. “I ain’t never seen you before, so I reckon you be new. But iffen I was you, I’d be apologizin’ to Dan Cooper. He’s done kilt hisself three men with a knife.”

“And about to make it four,” Cooper said. Cat-like, he lunged toward John, but John, even though he was much larger, managed to pivot around the lunge as adroitly as a ballet dancer. Cooper’s knife found only thin air.

As Cooper leaped back, John struck him in the face with the butt of his knife. He felt Cooper’s nose go flat under the blow.

“Arrgh!” Cooper shouted in pain and anger. His beard and teeth were covered with the blood that was streaming from his nose. He made a swipe at John, and though John jumped back again, this time he wasn’t quite quick enough and Cooper’s knife opened up a slice on his arm. Instinctively, John covered the cut with his hand and that gave Cooper the opening he was looking for.

“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch!” Cooper said, putting his hand behind John’s neck as he stepped up to him to make the killing thrust.

Smoke watched, as did all the others, as the two men closed to within inches of each other, so close that for a moment no one could see the knives, or what was going on. A knife fell to the floor, but was kicked away in the scuffle before Smoke could see it.

Then Cooper gasped and stepped back. It wasn’t until then that Smoke saw John’s arm extended, the Bowie knife in his hand now embedded in Cooper’s side, all the way up to the knife hilt. John had slipped the blade in, sideways, between the ribs, and now he twisted it so that the blade turned up. As Cooper fell, the weight of his body against the very sharp, and upturned blade opened up his stomach, causing his intestines to spill through the wound.

John pulled the bloody knife out as Cooper, with his hands over the wound and an expression of surprise on his face, collapsed to the floor. He lay there with his guts spilling out of the wound, dead within two more gasps.

John leaned down and used Cooper’s pant leg to wipe off the blood from the wide blade of his knife. He put the knife back in the beaded scabbard he had traded for with the Mandan Indians, and looked up at the fifteen or so people who gathered to watch the fight.

“What do I do now?” he asked. “Is there a sheriff or someone I need to see?”

“Ain’t no law within two hunnert miles of here,” one of the onlookers, a trapper by the name of Emerson, said. “Hell, mister, as far as I’m concerned, there ain’t no need for you to do nothin’ at all.”

“Yeah,” another added. “Ever’body here seen what happened. Cooper’s the one that started it. I figure the son of a bitch got what he deserved.”

“Me too,” another man said. “And truth to tell, there ain’t nobody what liked that low-life bastard anyway, so there ain’t goin’ to be nobody pissed off about it. Good riddance, I say.”

That seemed to be the general consensus, which eased John’s mind. Then he looked over at the young Indian woman who had been the catalyst behind the fight.

“What about the girl?” John asked.

“What about her? She’s a hell of a lot better off without Cooper, I can tell you that for sure.”

“Was she his wife?”

“No, I don’t think you’d call her that. I think he bought her.”

“Bought her? What do you mean, he bought her? I just fought four years of war so people couldn’t be bought and sold no more.”

“This here’s a Injun girl,” one of the men said. “Far as I know, the war was fought so’s black folks wouldn’t be slaves no more. It didn’t have nothin’ to do with Injuns.”

“It most indubitably did,” John said. “Nobody can be bought or sold as slaves anymore.”

“Don’t matter now, nohow. Cooper’s dead; that means the girl is free.”

“Yeah, she’s free, but where does she go?”

“That’s her problem.”

“Do you speak English?” John asked the girl.

“Je ne parle pas anglais, mais je peux parler français,” the girl said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French well enough to understand what you said.”

“She said she doesn’t speak English, but she can speak French,” a man said. The man who spoke was speaking with a French accent.

“What is your name, sir?” John asked.

“Mouchette. Jean Mouchette,” the man replied.

“Monsieur Mouchette, will you translate for me?”

“Oui. What do you want to say?”

“Tell her she is free. She can go wherever she wants to go now.”

Mouchette translated John’s words.

“Quel est le nom de cet homme?” the Indian girl asked.

“She wants to know your name.”

“It’s Jackson. John Jackson.” John said the words very slowly and very distinctly.

“Je veux aller avec John Jackson,” the girl said.

Mouchette laughed. “I don’t know how you’re going to take this,” he said.

“What did she say?”

“She says she wants to go with you.”

“Go with me? Go where with me?”

Mouchette asked the question.

“Je veux être sa femme, que j’étais la femme de Cooper.”

Mouchette shook his head as he looked at John. “She says she wants to be your wife, as she was the wife of Cooper.”

“I, no, that’s impossible,” John said. “Tell her no.”

“Wait a minute, Mouchette,” Smoke said. “Let me talk to my friend here for a moment before you say anything else.”

“All right,” Mouchette said. “Talk away.”

“John, you might want to think about this before you just dismiss it out of hand.”

“Smoke, do you expect me to marry this girl?” John asked.

“No, and I don’t think she expects it either. In the first place, when she said ‘wife,’ I don’t think she actually meant it in that way. You know damn well she wasn’t Cooper’s wife. I think she just wants to come with you, that’s all.”

“That’s all? If you ask me, that’s asking quite a bit.”

“Look at it this way. If she was sold by her father, or her tribe, she can’t go back to them. She can’t go into some town and live with white people, and she can’t survive on her own. It’s easy to see why she wants to come with you. If she is left on her own, she’ll more than likely be dead within a month. And in a way, you are responsible for her.”

“How am I responsible for her?”

“You killed Cooper. And regardless of how he treated her, she is still alive because of him. And now she will live, or die, because of you.”

John let out a big sigh of frustration.

“What am I going to do with her?” he asked.

Smoke smiled. “Whatever you want to do with her, I’m thinking.”

John looked at the woman who had been following the conversation with great intensity.

“Damnit,” John said, though he spoke the word quietly. “Damnit,” he said again. Then, “Mouchette?”

“Oui, monsieur?”

“Ask the girl her name.”

“Quel est votre nom?”

“Hanhepiwi. Cela signifie ‘clair de lune.’”

“Her name is Hanhepiwi.”

“I heard her say ‘Claire.’”

“Hanhepiwi means clair de lune, or, in English, the clear moon.”

John looked her and smiled. “Tell her, her name is Claire. And, yes, she can come with me.”

Mouchette translated, and Claire smiled, then looked down at the floor.