Ride the Moon Down

31

Times was hard. Goods come at a king’s ransom and peltries was low. But never would there be a shortage of Injuns!

’Cept up north where some said the Blackfoot was no more. Even so … it didn’t take both of Bass’s eyes to see that the Sioux and Shians could turn into devils their own selves and drag hell right out of its shuck.

That long, cold night Flea rode with his mother. Times when a boy gets scared good, seemed what he needed most was the arms of a woman wrapped around him. Magpie held her own, stayed quiet atop her own pony as they hurried to mount up again, putting out on the trail down Vermillion Creek for the trading post. She’d make some man a fine wife one day, he thought as they urged their horses into a gentle lope that night beneath the cold stars. Already she was a female who did her level best to understand what needed doing … and did it without a complaint.

That long night he thanked the sky more than once that Magpie had a lot of her mamma in her.

From where Sweete rode at the back of the pack, grunting down his pain, the big man kept an eye peeled so that no one would slip up on them out of the dark. Then, just before dawn, they loped into the narrow, high-rimmed valley of the Green through this only portal along the Vermillion, and spotted that crude stockade standing beside the river less than a mile off. Shad kicked his horse into a full gallop, racing to catch Bass at the head of the pack.

“Trouble?” Scratch asked, his eyes flicking to the big man, then watching the gray horizon bobbing behind Sweete’s shoulders.

“I just been listening hard all night,” he announced as he pulled back on the reins to ease his big horse down into a lope alongside Bass. “Think we been follered all the way.”

“The two of ’em?”

“Yep,” Shad replied. “I figger they dogged our trail hoping to find a place to jump us again when we dropped our guard.”

“No figgering to it now,” Titus explained. “Lookee there.”

Twisting in the saddle, Sweete turned to look behind them at that place along the skyline where Bass was pointing. Two shadowy horsemen reined up atop the bluff as the trappers and their party continued into the valley.

“Thunder’s balls—they was there all night, Scratch.”

Nodding, Titus said, “Only reason they pulled off was they see’d the fort, see’d all the stock out grazing.”

“And they don’t reckon to pick a fight when the odds is so bad against ’em.”

“Trouble is,” Scratch growled, “if them bastards didn’t know this here fort was here, they know now.”

Across the meadow that surrounded the post on three sides, most of the horses and mules busily grazing in that dawn’s light lifted their heads at the clatter of hooves, then began to drift away from the path of the oncoming strangers streaming toward them at a lope. Inside the stockade ahead a voice called out, followed by the bleat of a goat.

Bass hadn’t heard that sound … since Taos that winter of thirty-four. Better than five years ago. There were traders up and down the South Platte, two posts here west of the mountains, so just how was Josiah faring now? Had he made a go of it with those trade goods down in the Mexican settlements?

The narrow gate at the east side of the stockade was shoved open, and a lone figure stepped out guardedly, a rifle in hand as Bass and Sweete slowed their outfit.

“Who goes there?”

“That you, Sinclair?”

“No,” the voice cried as Scratch came to a halt. “Name’s Thompson.”

At that moment a goat butted its way through the gate and dived out between the man’s legs.

“Son of a bitch!” Thompson snarled as he bolted into motion. “Get back here, you!” He was after the goat in a sprint, but within a few steps he slid to a stop and grumbled at the animal, “To hell with you. Go get et up by wolves for all I care.”

Easing his mount up close to the man, Bass held down his hand. “You was gone last time we was here.”

“Me and Billy Craig got back with supplies from St. Louis more’n two weeks ago,” Thompson explained.

“Sinclair said you went for them trade goods,” Shad declared as he dropped to the ground, “but he didn’t say nothing ’bout you bringing no goats.”

Thompson shook hands with the big man, then said, “I joined up with Sublette and Vaskiss’s supply train when they come out with their goods. Didn’t always intend to bring goats—started with some pigs … but them bastards couldn’t make it walking all the way. So a’fore I pushed out of Independence, I traded my pigs for some goats.”

“You got more’n that one?” Scratch asked as he glanced over at the children, seeing their sleepy eyes widen as they followed the antics of that strange new animal scampering around the legs of their horses.

“Made it with eight,” Thompson said. “If’n the coyotes don’t get that damned runaway. Maybe we ought’n just shoot it and cook it on a spit.”

“Ho!” Sinclair called from the gate, emerging as he dragged leather braces over his shoulders, stuffing his cloth shirt into the waistband of his leather britches. “Bass and Sweete, ain’t it?”

“That’s right,” and Scratch came out of the saddle to step up and shake hands.

Prewett asked, “How was your fall hunt?”

Bass turned to eye the rim of the valley. “Hunt was poor, wuss’n I figgered … but the ride in here was enough to pucker a man’s bunghole.”

“Injuns?” Thompson asked.

Pointing with his outstretched arm, Bass declared, “We left some dead bodies back there at sundown.”

“You rode in all night?”

“Two of ’em followed us,” Scratch said, “so there’s likely more.”

“What are they?” Thompson asked.

With a shrug Sweete said, “Sinclair here said the Snakes come through here earlier in the fall lay that they’re Sioux.”

“That true, Prewett?” Thompson asked.

Sinclair nodded once. “’Cuz of them, the Snakes gone and left the hole early in the fall. I done my best to keep the stock in close, just in case they made a jump on the fort, till you and Billy got back.”

Thompson turned back to Sweete. “That woman and those young’uns of yours likely tired from your ride—”

“They ain’t mine,” Shad said.

So the trader turned to Bass. “Why don’t you boys tie off your stock close to the wall and bring them on in for some breakfast? We’ll make a place on the floor of a storeroom for them young’uns to sleep after their bellies is full.”

“You got any flour?” Shad asked. “Got some, yes,” Thompson replied. “Cornmeal?”

“Some of that too,” Sinclair answered this time.

Smiling broadly, Scratch slapped Sweete on the shoulder. “Keep your flour for this flatland nigger, trader man. Ever since Taos many winters ago, Titus Bass been half-froze for corn cakes!”

By nightfall it was evident a storm lay across the horizon, and by the following morning a half foot of new snow had blanketed everything. Two days later the first trappers working the surrounding area began trudging in—by and large every one of them men who had forsaken ever again working for the fur monopoly threatening to abandon them. Joe Walker showed up with only his Shoshone squaw along, announcing he expected to stay only as long as it took for the weather to clear before he would turn north to search out the village of his wife’s people for the winter. Kit Carson and his bunch straggled in from the southwest, having found the trapping difficult over in the Uintah country. And just past nightfall on the third day Joe Meek and Robert Newell showed up at the gate. The wet winter storm caught them on their way back from Fort Hall where they had left their wives.

Now some thirty-five trappers, along with assorted wives and children, had congregated at Fort Davy Crockett with winter’s first hard blast.

From dawn till dusk across those next three days while the weather slowly cleared, either Shad or Titus stayed out with their grazing animals, guardedly watching the tall hills that surrounded the post. For the most part, the partners preferred using that part of the bottom ground just north of the fort, which placed the stockade somewhere roughly between their horses and that Vermillion Creek portal.

If the sun put in an appearance, Waits-by-the-Water and the children abandoned the stockade walls to spend the day beneath the canopy Titus stretched between some of the old cottonwoods. Around a small fire the woman tanned and stretched hides, made extra moccasins for her family, or fussed over a special piece of decorative quillwork while Magpie and Flea played, napped, and played some more there within that small grove.

Each night at sundown nearly everyone bustled back inside the mud-and-log walls for supper and some storytelling until the fire burned low, when folks slipped off for their camps outside the stockade. Every morning when Bass and Sweete untied their hobbled animals and led them outside the walls to graze, one of the three traders dragged their seven goats out to graze. One at a time each animal was led out to a small, low corral attached to the south wall, then tied with a short length of rope the cantankerous goats tried to chew until they were turned loose to spend their day in the enclosure with their own kind.

Just before dawn on the sixth day, the Sioux struck.

“Roll out! Roll out!”

With that shrill cry raised by those camped outside the stockade walls, Scratch flung the blankets and robe aside to scoop up his moccasins. When he had pulled on the outer, or winter, pair, he turned back to kiss Waits on the forehead, then quickly touched both of the children on the cheek.

“Stay here with them,” he ordered. “No matter what—you stay here.”

Shoving both arms into his coat, he snatched up a brace of pistols and two rifles, looping his shooting pouch onto his left shoulder.

In the fort’s cluttered courtyard the seven goats bleated and bawled—but nowhere near as loud as Samantha’s bray, growing noisy at the outside corner of the wall where she had been tied and hobbled near their horses.

One weapon boomed on the flat, followed quickly by two more. Sweete was behind him as he sprinted for the gate where one after another the trappers streamed through, joining those who had camped outside the walls. As Shad and Scratch peeled to the left, others tore to the right. Samantha and their nervous horses fought against their hobbles, yanking against their halters as the two darted among them.

“Make sure them ropes’ll hold,” Sweete called out above the many other voices and sporadic gunfire.

A minute later Titus hollered, “Grab your horse and follow me, Shad!”

Bareback, both of them broke from the rest of their animals, loping to join the many who were on foot, racing after the retreating warriors who were driving off what appeared to be more than a hundred horses.

“They get ’em all?” Sweete bellowed as he came to a halt among the half-dressed men. “Not all,” Meek declared as he peered up at Shadrach.

Carson pointed to the north of the post, saying, “No more’n a dozen horses left back yonder.”

Some of the angry trappers hurled oaths, flung fists into the air, while others continued to fire at the backs of the retreating warriors.

“My way of thinking,” Bass announced, “you niggers got in a bad habit of letting your stock graze free as you please.”

“But there ain’t never been no bad niggers in the Hole!” Thompson argued.

“How was we to know?” cried Dick Owens, a partner of Carson’s.

“Think about it, boys,” Scratch said. “What you figger them Sioux come all this way for if’n it weren’t to grab your horses?”

“Them really Sioux?” asked one of the group.

“Ain’t no goddamned Snakes gonna steal horses from us!” Walker snorted.

“Likely they was more of that same bunch we run onto,” Scratch told them. “They been sniffing round here for the better part of a week, ever since we rode in here.”

“How many you see?” Sweete inquired of one of the disgusted men returning from upstream.

“Three dozen.”

But another man argued, “More’n that. Goddamned well more’n that.”

“We’d give ’em a good fight—they come back to take their whupping,” Newell grumbled.

“They ain’t,” Thompson cried as he stomped up to the group. “Appears they run off least a hundred fifty head of prime stock. Mine and yours all, boys.”

“You figger to go after them horses?” Meek challenged.

The trader looked over the group, then turned to Meek. “I’ll take some of these fellas with me. You can lead ’nother bunch if you take a mind to, Joe. Maybeso we can trap them redbellies between us.”

“If’n they don’t outrun us, Philip,” Newell observed.

“You giving up a’fore you start, Doc?” the trader snarled.

“No, I’ll go with Meek’s group—”

“Any the rest of you don’t figger you got the balls to go tracking them Sioux, you best stay back here with Craig and Sinclair to mind the post,” Thompson flung his challenge at them all. “As for me, I’m gonna get them horses back, ’long with some Sioux ha’r hanging from my belt!”

Scratch and Shad volunteered to ride with Joe Meek, the first band after the thieves. Once they pushed through that narrow portal of the Vermillion, it was plain to see how carefully the Sioux had planned their escape. From that point all the way to the distant foothills, the raiders could push the horses flat-out with little to stand in their way. The Sioux had a good start on them, and it would take more than luck and skill to ever catch up with the thieves.

Still, a man had to try.

They rode down the rest of that day and on into the night, knowing full well the Sioux weren’t going to stop until they were assured no one was dogging their backtrail. Dawn came, and the trappers’ animals were showing need of rest and water. At the next trickle they found at the bottom of a creekbed, the trappers grabbed a little of both before moving on.

“Joe!” Bass hollered late that second afternoon. “Pull up top of that hill so we can palaver!”

Their horses snorted as the rest of the avengers came to a halt around them.

“What you got on your mind, Titus?”

He asked, “Is it as plain to you boys as it is to me that we ain’t gonna catch them Injuns?”

Meek and some of the others squinted into the distance at the wide trail they were following. They hadn’t seen the horses or the thieves since sundown the day before.

Joe looked over the others, many of whom hung their heads wearily. He eventually said, “I s’pose we ain’t.”

“And what if we did?” Titus asked. “Count the heads here—then remember how many riders them Sioux had.”

“Where is Thompson’s bunch, anyways?” Carson growled, turning in the saddle to look down their backtrail.

Shad spoke up. “They ain’t ever gonna have a chance of cutting off the Sioux with us if they ain’t caught up with us by now.”

“Maybeso we ought go on,” Meek suggested, but no more than halfheartedly.

“We do that, Joe,” Scratch said, wagging his head, “pushing our own horses so damned hard—we’re like’ to lose the ones we got a’fore we ever do turn back to the post.”

“Bass is right,” Sweete declared. “’Member them two carcasses we come across already?”

“Them were my horses the bastards run into the ground!” Carson squealed. “Sure wanna get me their hair for killing my horses!”

Shrugging, Meek said, “I see it the way Scratch’s stick floats. We can keep on chasing them horse thieves and kill what horses we got under us to do it … or we can take our lumps and mosey on back to the fort ’thout losing any more.”

The bunch grumbled, but no one said a thing against turning around. No one really had to because the choices were clear. Continue the chase and fight the overwhelming odds that they would lose what they still had, or head for Fort Davy Crockett. As much as it stung to turn around, Bass figured those horses weren’t worth all of those men dying out there.

“Sure sours my milk to give up,” Scratch admitted. “But I got my family at the fort. If I go and run the legs out from under this here horse, chances are good I won’t get back there to see ’em.”

Many of the others had squaws and children waiting in the shadows of the fort walls too. Grudgingly, they agreed.

“Keep your eyes peeled on the way back,” Sweete suggested. “Sing out if’n you spot sign of Thompson’s bunch.”

But they didn’t. Not even a dust cloud. And none of them heard anything that night as they made camp astride the trail left behind by the stolen herd. Nor did they see anything of the others throughout the next day. Meek’s dozen riders reached the walls of Fort Davy Crockett late the next day, surprised to find that no word had come in from Thompson’s group.

Then a week passed. And another. Finally more than a month of waiting and wondering ground by, and most of the trappers figured on the worst. Even Philip Thompson’s Ute squaw had completed mourning her dead husband and was in the process of taking up with one of Joe Walker’s men when word of Thompson’s men reached Fort Davy Crockett.

“Sinclair!” shouted a man, bursting into Prewett Sinclair’s trading room late one afternoon early that winter of thirty-nine. “You better come out and talk with these Snakes.”

“Visitors? Tell ’em they can send two in here at a time to trade—”

“They don’t wanna trade,” the man interrupted Sinclair. “This bunch is ’bout as edgy as a pouch full of scalded cats.”

Sinclair glanced about the smoke-filled room. “Any of you know Snake?”

“Used to know a little,” Bass admitted. “Spent some time healing up in a Snake lodge long time back.”

Walker set his cup down on the plank table. “With what I learned from that woman of mine, I figger I can help you on what Scratch don’t know.”

“You boys give it a try for me?” Sinclair asked. “See what’s got this bunch so riled?”

Sinclair, Sweete, and a half-dozen others followed Scratch and Walker out the gate to find more than twenty warriors arrayed in a wide front some twenty yards from the fort wall. Every one of the horsemen had their weapons in view and their shields uncovered. That was a bad sign in any language.

Scratching at his memory to recall what he could of the Shoshone tongue, Bass called out, “Who leads this group?”

“I do,” a man called out as he urged his horse forward a few yards and came to a halt. Two others came up and stopped a yard behind him. “I am Rain.”

“The trader invites Rain and his warriors to trade,” Walker explained. “Two warriors can come in the wood lodge at a time—”

“I am not here to trade with Sinclair.”

“You know the trader?” Walker asked.

“Yes, I have come here often,” Rain replied. “My people always thought he was a good man.”

“No more?”

Rain shook his head. “Sinclair’s friend stole horses from us.”

Walker and Bass looked at one another, both bewildered. “Who is this friend stole your horses?”

“The one with the pointed chin,” Rain answered.

“What’s he saying?” Sinclair asked.

Bass shushed Sinclair as Walker continued. “This one with the pointed chin—you’re sure he stole horses from you?”

“Yes. He and others came to spend two nights with us,” Rain continued the amazing story. “They said they were on their way south to the white man post on the Sage River.^* They were leading some horses they boasted they had stolen from the men at the Snake River fort.”

“How many horses did they steal from that fort?”

“At least three times the fingers on my one hand. And when they left our village to continue south, they took more than twice as many more horses from us!”

“This is not good,” Bass muttered to Walker, shaking his head.

Joe Walker asked the chief, “What do you want the trader Sinclair to do?”

“We want our horses back,” Rain declared firmly. “We came to take scalps—but we want the scalps of those who stole horses from us. They are white men with no honor: to steal from other white men, then steal from Indians they say are their friends. We honored them with our hospitality—fed them, let them sleep in our robes. What sort of man would steal from us after we treated him as one of our own?”

Bass thought a moment, then said, “Their scalps are not worth the trouble, Rain. Will you let us go after the thieves?”

Rain talked low to the warriors behind him, then asked, “You white men will go after the others and get our horses back?”

“We can try,” Titus said. “If we find them, we will bring the ponies to you.”

“And if you don’t,” Rain vowed, “my band will no longer be a friend to this place and all who camp here. My men will return to steal the horses from this place.”

Grimly, Joe Walker asked, “How long will you give us?”

Peering at the half-moon rising in the late-afternoon sky for a long moment, the war chief finally said, “Indian-talkers, you will have till the moon grows fat. Then we will be back to take the horses that graze in this meadow … along with the scalps of every man, woman, and child still here when we return.”

“Can’t understand how I figured Thompson wrong,” William Craig moaned at their fire that third night on their cold ride down the Green.

“Folks change,” Joe Walker said as he slid the blade of his knife round and round on the whetting stone.

Robert Newell asked, “You figure to use that knife on Thompson?”

“Maybe he should,” Titus Bass roared abruptly, surprising them all. “Man just up and turns his coat like Thompson and them others—maybe it’s up to folks like us to kill him.”

Walker gazed at Bass wordlessly, no need of language between men of like mind.

“You really fixing to kill them white men when we catch up to ’em?” Dick Owens asked.

“Maybeso we’ll see what happens when we get down there to take them horses back,” Bass said as he poked a twig into the fire.

“They’re just Injun horses,” William Craig said. “English horses too. It ain’t like they stole ’em from any friend of mine—”

“No friend of your’n?” Bass snarled. “Didn’t them English help out the three of you your first two seasons?”

“Y-yes—”

“What ’bout them Snakes?” Walker asked this time. “Didn’t they come in to trade with you and Thompson and Sinclair, when they could’ve come riding in and run off with all your stock?”

Craig regarded his Nez Perce wife a moment, then stared at the fire. “I s’pose I do owe the Snakes some decent—”

“Goddamned right,” Bass interrupted. “That’s what turned it for me. When Thompson and Peg-Leg stole horses from the English up at Fort Hall, I just figgered the English was a big outfit what could take care of itself. But when them white niggers rode into that Snake village and was treated so goddamned good by ’em, only to take off with some of their horses … then I knowed wrong was wrong.”

“No matter them niggers are white men,” Walker vowed. “Them horses is going back to the Snakes. If’n Thompson and the rest put up a fight … I’ll kill ’em the way I would any man what stole from my friends. That about the way you sack it, Scratch?”

“Stealing from no-good red niggers like Blackfoot is one thing,” Bass agreed. “But I never did cotton to stealing from folks who done me a good turn.”

“Maybeso anyone here who don’t figure this may come to gunplay better turn back in the morning a’fore we push on,” Walker said as he slid his knife back into its scabbard. “Ruther not have such a man along when I need to know who’s watching my back in a fight.”

“Comes down to it,” Meek said, “you can count on me and Doc.”

“Me and Dick too,” Carson said, angling a thumb at Owens.

“You’re in with Bass, ain’cha, Shad?” Walker asked.

Sweete smiled. “Me and Scratch see eye to eye on most things. I’d as soon hang a white turncoat’s scalp from my belt as a Blackfoot’s. ’Sides—Titus Bass hauled my hash outta the fire more’n once. I’ll stand at his back in ary fight he calls me to.”

The wind was up the next morning when they tried to restart their fires. Shards of icy snow skittered along the ground, gusting this way and that, scattering the ashes and embers. Finally the men saddled up and pushed on without coffee in their bellies.

Mile by mile they rode south-southwest, almost into the teeth of that storm racing off the horizon. But instead of snow, the lowering sky brought only a deepening cold. No man could claim he was warm punching against that brutal wind. Hour by hour they continued down that ages-old trail the Ute had used for centuries, a trail that was leading them toward the mouth of the Uintah River where three winters before Antoine Robidoux had raised his log stockade. It was there the Shoshone said they would find Thompson, Peg-Leg Smith, and the rest lying low with their stolen horses.

But none of them knew for certain what would happen when they finally found Thompson’s horse thieves.

That night, and again the following morning, they had to chip holes in the thick ice sealing the Green in order to water their weary horses. The men huddled sleepless around their fires, wrapped in blankets and robes, remembering high times, talking about the glory days that had been and would never be again.

And they talked about justice swift and sure. These men who were of a breed all their own had written their own code of honor across this raw and lawless land.

“Man don’t steal from those what treat him as a friend,” Bass explained to those grown cold and hungry and tired of the journey.

“I’d ruther gut me a red nigger than chase after white men what took a few horses from some Injuns,” Dick Owens grumbled, once more on the verge of turning back.

For a moment Titus looked at Kit Carson, Owens’s friend and partner. Then Scratch said, “Ain’t none of us likes what’s staring us in the eye, Dick. But white man, or red nigger—wrong is wrong … and less’n a man stands up for right in a land where there ain’t no laws ’cept what’s right, then we might just as well turn this here place over to them sheriffs and constables and preachers and high-toned, honey-tongued lawyers right now.”

“Scratch is right,” Joe Walker agreed. “If’n we don’t do what’s right, then we might as well hand this land over to them what’ll turn everything bad on us. You better decide a’fore morning, Dick. I figger we’ll reach Fort Winty^* by late morning tomorrow.”

“Dick’s gonna ride with us,” Carson said firmly, turning to his partner. “Ain’cha, Dick?”

Owens reluctantly nodded. “It don’t make a lick of sense for me to turn back now. Not alone, it don’t.”

“I don’t want you along if’n your heart ain’t in it, Owens,” Scratch threatened.

“It ain’t, and that’s the truth,” Owens admitted. “Them are white men. They stole’t horses from the English, stole’t horses from the Injuns. They didn’t steal no horses from me—”

“They might as well took horses from me, Dick,” Titus said. “I know Peg-Leg Smith. Got drunk with him a time or two my own self. But when he and the rest went thieving horses from them Snakes, from Injuns what always done their best to treat us good, that’s when Peg-Leg crossed the line.”

“But they’re white men,” Owens groused. “Same as you and me.”

“Makes it all the worse of ’em,” Titus argued. “I got me a choice, Dick. Either I go get them horses back for the Snakes and make it right by them … or them Snakes go do it for themselves.”

“What you figger them Snakes would do, Scratch?” Meek asked.

“Start killing white men,” he declared flatly. “Snakes been our friends for as long as I’ve knowed ’em, boys. So if you want our friends to start killing white men, then you go right on back: tuck your tail and turn back for home.”

“There ain’t no easy way at this,” Carson advised. “I’m mad as a spit-on hen that them boys stole horses … but I’m even madder at ’em for what might happen if we don’t get them horses back to the Snakes.”

“Amen to that, Kit,” Titus grumbled as he eyed the reluctant Dick Owens. “Amen to that.”

Late that next morning as he bellied down atop the sage-covered hill alongside Meek and Walker, Bass focused his long brass spyglass on the log-and-mud fort below them at that junction where the Uintah flowed into the Green. In that subfreezing silence, Scratch could hear the snuffle of their own horses tied behind them, just below the skyline.

He passed the glass to Walker. “Seems they might’n be expecting visitors. Look there at the island in the middle of the Green, just downriver.”

“I see ’em,” Walker said. “That’s where they’re herding the horses, Joe.” He handed the glass on to Meek.

They waited till the muscular trapper finished looking over the scene below; then Titus asked, “We go for the horses? Or … we go to raise hell with them horse thieves?”

For a long moment the wind breasted that hilltop before Joe Walker spoke. “I ain’t eager to spill a white man’s blood, Scratch. Since they got them horses on that island, I’m for slipping down there and stealing ’em back so none of us is forced to kill one of them thieving niggers.”

“I’ll go for that,” Meek responded. “Get them horses back without fighting them fellers.”

Walker turned to Bass. “What say you, Scratch?”

A gust of wind howled over the crest of that hill, then whimpered on its way. “I say a thief is a thief, no two ways to it. But … if we can get back them horses without a fight doing it your way, Joe—then I’ll be satisfied.”

“Glad we all agree,” Walker declared.

“Just mark my word, boys,” Bass snagged their attention again, “if one of them thieving niggers raises his gun at me, he’s damn well dead where he stands.”

* What the Shoshone called the Uintah River, in the extreme northeastern corner of present-day Utah, where Antoine Robidoux erected his small fur post near the Uintah’s junction with the Green

* Fort Uintah