Colter's Hell, page 3
“Don’t appear to be fazing them, sir,” one of the men at the gun said, Jacob Reznnor Colter saw. At the boat’s front, George nodded.
“They’re too many in number to be cowed,” he said to Manuel, and the Spaniard nodded.
“Prepare a warning shot,” he called back to the men, and Colter saw the three men at the gun nod. Jacob took charge and swiveled it about so that it was pointing toward the shore, yet angled up high. Ahead of him, Manuel raised up his arm, held it for a few moments as the crowd of Indians swelled – Colter put it at around 300 now – then in one swift motion he brought his arm down, shouting “fire!”
BOOM!
The swivel gun fired to life and sent an echoing shudder through Colter. From the crowd of Indians it elicited a gasp, and more than half the huge throng turned and ran.
“Woo-hoo!” Jacob shouted. “That got ‘em!”
It sure did, Colter saw. Half the tribe was suddenly gone, rushing up the banks and back to the village. Many weren’t, however, and it’s then that the mountain man saw the feathered headdress of what could only be the Arikara chief. The man was surrounded by armed braves, but he was waving his arm, as if inviting the men ashore.
“Steer us to shore,” Manuel said, looking to the boat’s pilot, John Hoback, “but just close enough for me to jump off – I want you heading back up that river and the boat behind you as well.” He looked over to John Collins standing by the cabin. “Get me some of the trade gifts.”
“What about you?” George said as Collins headed for the gifts. He was clearly surprised by the Spaniard’s sudden change of course.
“Peter will wait for me – he’s the least full of provisions and supplies,” he said, referring to Peter Weiser who was piloting their last boat. Manuel smiled and looked from George to Colter and then back again. “Relax, will you. I’m only going to be a few minutes, just long enough to talk with the chief, let him know our intentions, and gather as much information as I can.”
“I don’t like it,” George said after letting out a sigh.
“I’m not paying you to like it,” the Spaniard said just before Collins gave him a bundle of gifts and he jumped off the boat and into the shallow water, “I’m paying you to take orders – now go.”
And with that he was trudging ashore, toward the small knot of Arikara braves that still remained, as well as the ostentatious chief that was standing amongst them. Colter watched him head ashore and toward the village, and he hoped that the Spaniard knew what he was doing. He also hoped the man’s promise about getting information held true. No one wanted to know what the actions of last winter had brought the Arikara tribe more than he.
3 – Fire on the Water
The Upper Missouri twisted and bent but kept up its northern course, though the current flowed south and the wind was blowing that way too. The men were making slow progress, poling themselves along. They took turns, two men on each side of the keelboat, shoving their poles down to the river bottom and pushing off, walking forward as they did so, until reaching the front of the boat, whereupon they turned about and walked back and started it all again. A man could do that for about an hour before his arms gave out, but Manuel usually relegated them to half that. He wasn’t around at the moment, however, so the men were enjoying half that again. George and Colter weren’t two of them, and the two Lewis and Clark Expedition veterans kept glancing back over their shoulders nervously.
“Shoulda been here by now,” George said as they came upon another slight bend in the river, “shoulda been past that village by now, and well within seeing distance of us.” They were on the shorter keelboat, the supply boat ahead of them now.
“Maybe the Rees weren’t as friendly as he supposed,” Colter said with a shrug. “Sure weren’t last winter when I ran into a small band out around the Yellowstone.”
“Must have been Blackfeet,” George said without taking his eyes from the river behind them.
“No, they were Arikara alright, and must have been having some kind of feud between themselves for–”
“There!” George shouted out, cutting off the mountain man’s words. “There he is!”
Colter spun about and sure enough, quite a ways back and just then coming around a cliff-side bend in the river, was Manuel’s keelboat, the one that’d been taking up the rear behind the large supply boat.
“Looks like he made it after all,” George said with a laugh, then looked over at Colter with smile. “What was all this nonsense about the Arikara last winter, huh? I bet...”
George trailed off and the smile on his face was replaced by a frown. The half-Shawnee in him had heard or sensed something, and a moment later that was clear. Shouting erupted up ahead on the supply boat and the two trappers looked up to see the men hustling about, pointing off into the thick brush obscuring the bank.
“What the hell is it?” Colter said, but a moment later he knew, for an arrow sailed out in answer and embedded itself into the gunwale near their feet. More arrows flew out, and there was even a musket shot or two, all accompanied by whooping and shouting.
Colter looked back at George, and the scout seemed to have read his mind when he said, “Damn Manuel Lisa – how’d we ever think he wouldn’t piss off the Indians?”
~~~
As the mountain man and the scout cursed their luck at being thrown in with the shady businessman, further down the river and coming around the bend was the source of their frustration. Manuel Lisa hadn’t been around that long and hadn’t gotten this far West without getting into a scrape or two...and having gotten out of them as well. He meant to do the same now, for he’d left the Arikara on good terms. He’d also left with quite a bit of information, one tidbit being the split that’d occurred in the tribe over the spring when it was clear some leading chieftains were not returning from some hunting mission. That small faction of the tribe was what he guessed was assailing them now, and he only hoped his fifty-two men could hold them off.
“C’mon!” he shouted out to the men poling the fifty-foot keelboat up the river. “Put your backs into it men – get us up to that fight!”
~~~
“Woo-hoo!” John Potts shouted out. “Got me one!”
Colter looked over at the private that’d accompanied him to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark and smiled, then reached over and clapped the German on the back. “Good, now steady yourself, reload, and get another.”
Potts looked over at Colter and nodded and started to do just that, putting the butt of his rifle down on the deck, getting his ball, powder, and patch, and then ramming them all down before bringing the gun up to prime the pan and fire another shot. Seventeen seconds later Potts was shouting “woo-hoo” again.
Colter took aim with his own gun and got another himself. The Arikara were numerous along the bank now, and he suspected there were fifty of them. Most were armed with bows and arrows, others with spears or tomahawks. So far none had swum out into the river toward them, but Colter suspected that might change if they grew desperate. A glance around a moment before had told him that none of the men on the boats had been hit, but by the looks of the bodies on the river’s bank, at least a dozen of the Indians had gone down, maybe more. The men were doing a good job of it, for each was an experienced rifleman. Besides Potts, there was also Peter Weiser, John Collins, and George Shannon on Colter’s boat, all alumni of the voyages with the Captains. Up ahead on the large supply boat was Pierre Cruzatte, who despite the bad eyes – or eye, Colter reminded himself, for the man only had one – he’d been employed by Manuel to go back up the river. Colter hoped the man didn’t shoot any of them in the backside like he’d done with Captain Lewis. Also from the expedition were George Gibson, Hugh Hall, Joseph Whitehouse, and Nathaniel Pryor. Manuel had done well recruiting the men in St. Louis at expedition’s end it seemed, though the highest ranking of them, Sergeant Pryor, was still in St. Louis or somewhere hundreds of miles behind them on the river, bringing Chief Big White back up to the Mandans, fulfilling the terms of the agreement the Captains had made before sending the chief downriver and then to Washington back in 1806.
THUNK!
Colter’s thoughts were interrupted, as was his aim, when a tomahawk slammed into the wooden beam right next to his head. George looked over at him with wide eyes.
“That was close!” the scout said. “Maybe we should signal up to the lead boat to open up with that swivel gun, eh?”
“Do you think?” Colter said with a scowl as he moved away from the tomahawk, which had several large eagle feathers dangling from its handle. He took up position a few feet away and took aim once again, taking out a particularly nasty looking Arikara brave that was ready to hurl yet another of the axes.
George just shrugged and headed up to the front of the boat, put his hands to his mouth, and shouted out for the men to open up with the swivel gun. Two men including Jacob had been standing beside the gun waiting to do just that, and right as they took the covering off of it a great gasp went up from the attacking Arikara. They’d seen what it could do at the villages earlier, after all. Within moments they were rushing back into the thick brush and trees, leaving their dead to litter the bank. A few minutes after that Manuel had caught up to them, and the last of the Indians had fled.
“What the hell happened back there?” George shouted out once the Spaniard was within earshot.
Manuel frowned, but then shrugged. He told them what he’d heard of the missing tribal members, and the subsequent breakdown. Both he and George looked to Colter, for they’d heard the mountain man’s story of winter adventure, but hadn’t believed it. Now they were beginning to wonder.
For Colter’s part, he just counted the bodies as the shore receded into the distance now that the three boats were moving again. Eighteen he counted, eighteen more dead Arikara braves. He shook his head and scoffed before turning away. He knew if the whites kept this up there’d be a war with the tribe one day.
4 – The Mandan
The Mandan village was further upriver and the men reached its outskirts a day after the Arikara attack. First came Fort Mandan, or at least what was left of it. When the men of the Captains’ expedition had come back through in 1806 it’d been burned to the ground, though the Mandan could give no cause. All that’d been left when Colter had seen it was a charred spot where the large cottonwood walls and structures had once stood. Coming back down earlier this year there’d been even less, for the banks had eroded substantially and the area made all but unrecognizable over the previous winter. Colter knew the spot, however, and knew that when they reached it the first village, called Mitutanka, wouldn’t be far ahead.
The Missouri opened up a bit here, forming a wide bend, almost a small lake it was so large. That’s where Chief Sheheke, or Big White as Colter had sometimes heard him called, was leader. He was a big man, and that’s how the men of the expedition had remembered him. Across the river and after the large bend was the second Mandan village, called Ruptare. The chief there was Black Cat. The Indians had become so numerous over the years that they’d had to split into smaller villages, lest they begin warring with themselves. Considering the outside threats from the Blackfeet to the north and west and Arikara to the south, this wouldn’t have been ideal. So they expanded, and as the Missouri broke off into some offshoots, the third village of Mahawha appeared. That was led by White Buffalo, Colter knew, and a short distance upriver was the last village, called Metaharta, which was ruled by Black Moccasin. At that point the villages became much more Hidatsa as one moved upriver, for the two tribes were like brothers, the mountain man knew. There were five villages in all making up the cluster of Mandan Villages, the last being Menetarra, which was wholly Hidatsa Indian. Colter thought about the many times he’d passed by on the river, and the winter he’d spent walking through these villages. They were nearing the first, and Manuel was getting ready to go ashore, once again to pay his respects, often through gifts more than just words. It was a practice he’d picked up on his earlier Santa Fe expedition, one he preferred not to talk about. Most knew that was because it’d failed.
“Try not to rile ‘em up this time,” George said to Manuel with a smile as the Spaniard was packing his gift bags. He’d walk through all five villages, Colter knew, by himself, while the three boats kept up their slow pace. All the men knew that there was nothing to fear from the Mandan, for this was the tribe that the whites had traded with the most, secured the most treaty rights with, and depended upon the most for their westward expansion along the Upper Missouri. Without the Mandan, Colter knew, the whites would have a hard go of it, and probably wouldn’t have been able to put down roots in the wilds here for another decade at least, maybe two.
Manuel smiled at George and shook his head. “As long as there’s no Arikara visiting, I think we’ll be alright.”
Nearby, Potts laughed. “Mandan wouldn’t let an Arikara within 400 yards of these villages, or however far one of their arrows can travel.”
“About 200,” George said with a frown, “you should know that.”
The German gave his own frown to that and skulked away to the other side of the deck, much to the amusement of the three leading men standing there weighing their options.
“Well men,” Manuel said when he’d cinched up the last of his bags, “same routine: follow me upriver and I’ll do the tradin’, talkin’, and gettin’ of information.” The men nodded as the small rowboat was lowered down to the water by Edward Rose, the mulatto interpreter that that’d lived with the Osage Indians for a time before Manuel had recruited him for their voyage. He’d just be rowing the boat, for the Spaniard spoke enough Mandan and the Indians enough English and French for them to get by.
“Remember,” he said before he hopped over the gunwales and into the rowboat, “this is our last stop before switching over to the Yellowstone and leaving civilization behind. Let’s not dally, alright?”
Both Colter and George nodded, knowing that Manuel was talking of the men and their propensity to sleep with the native women. This’d be there last chance all winter most likely, and with Manuel walking the several miles through the villages, taking his time at each for show and gifts and talk, the men would have ample time for their own form of ‘gift giving.’ Any advances they still had from Manuel would likely not make it past that fifth village, still a couple hours upriver. The mountain man and the scout looked at one another and chuckled. Didn’t much matter to them what the men did, so long as those boats kept moving upriver, closer to the beaver, and the money the animals brought.
~~~
The Mandans had a light complexion much different from most Indians of the region and brown hair that many thought resembled the Welsh. Some thought them a lost band of the Welsh, and that was just fine with the men from the boats. The lead keelboat was doing a good job rowing far ahead, the better to drop one man here and another man there. They were quickly beckoned into awaiting lodges, tepees, or even out of the way bushes and copses of trees. There was lovemaking to be had for them, and trade items for the women. There was a reason the Mandan were one of the largest and wealthiest tribes on the Upper Missouri, and their sexual appetites had a large part to do with that.
Manuel Lisa was oblivious to that all as he headed into the first village and then the second, meeting with Big White’s second, Little Raven, as well as Black Cat. Everything went well, as it was expected to, though Manuel got his fair share of unwanted news.
“Guns,” Black Cat said in rough English and even worse French, “you trade guns to too many!”
Manuel tried to assuage the man as much as he could, but in the end it was clear that there were problems. More and more rifles were appearing in the hands of the Mandan’s enemies, primarily the Blackfeet. Manuel suspected it was the French and British to the north, two countries that had no problems sowing discord in the new American territory that President Jefferson had bought up just four years earlier. That wasn’t good for the Mandan, which wasn’t good for the Americans. Manuel knew that, but what could he do? His hands were tied, as he didn’t have many guns to trade. All he could leave Black Cat with were promises that he’d not trade any guns to the Blackfeet or any other hostile tribes. That was what they wanted most of all, he knew, for the Blackfeet were foreigners here, a tribe that’d only arrived in the area over the past 75 years or so. They were better horseman and warriors than the sedentary tribes, however, and had quickly pushed many of the natives off the plains and into the Rocky Mountains. The chief had finally accepted Manuel’s refusal, largely with the help of a heaping load of trinkets from one of the Spaniard’s bags.
The next two villages were much the same, and by the time Manual reached the final village, the one wholly made up of Hidatsa, he just went through the motions and had the meeting over with quickly. The last keelboat was there waiting for him, the night already fast approaching by that point, and all he wanted to do was bed down in his bunk and not talk to another Indian for a few days.
After their afternoon with the women of the tribes, most of the other men felt exactly the same.
5 – Up Around the Bend
The days went by, late-summer changing to early autumn and then even into winter in some spots. There was no snow yet, but every tree on the riverbanks was now golden, yellow, orange or red. Mornings were getting awfully cold too. Autumn was in full swing and already on the way out in many places – the river held so many fallen leaves that sometimes you couldn’t even see the water. The river held beaver, too, and there were many signs of the animals as the men pushed on up the Missouri. Trapping was the main activity if you weren’t pushing or pulling or somehow cajoling the boat upstream. Most men were engaged in trapping, usually going out for a day or two at a time and always keeping close to the river and its offshoots, the better to catch the plum beaver and get the hides back on the boats quickly. All of that made Colter think of his own money, his take from the expedition.
