The Canyon Chronicles Volume OneJones, Gray
ISBN 13: 978-1-897381-28-1
Paperback; perfect bound; 5.5 x 8.5
Sample Excerpt, © Rain Publishing Inc.
1
FREMONT
1845
The transition to Indian summer in these mountains was usually his favorite time of year. It brought a welcome change to the long hard spring and summer months of ceaseless trapping and skinning. The weather was mild and the crisp mountain air filling the gorges and canyons below pure blue skies filled him with vitality. The highlands were ablaze with yellow aspen and the scent of fir and pine was strong throughout the lingering afternoons. Summer fattened deer and elk grazed in abundance through the tall grass at the edges of vast stands of timber. Alexis could even move about on horseback with relative impunity for the Ute’s were preoccupied in this season with laying up jerky in preparation for the coming winter. For a trapper this was a rare period of peace and tranquility, a time to lash up bundles of fur packets destined for trading, and put up caches of victuals in the ravines as larders against starvation when the snows came…
But not this year. On this unseasonably cold September day, Alexis Nicollet sat astride the Indian Paint and was disenchanted. Perhaps the weather had stolen his enthusiasm; the early autumn had been lackluster, the skies continuously overcast and two snows had already fallen. Or maybe it was the void in the life of a trapper hollowed out by the cessation of the rendezvous up Wind River way three years now ended. He missed winding his way down the streams and canyons trailing pack mules laden with beaver pelts on his way to the annual trading extravaganza. What a celebration it had been! For enough furs or beads one could have anything under the sun: food, liquor, squawsor horses. And if one had trapped well during the summer and acquired a great quantity of pelts, what was left over after the purchase of necessities just might turn a profit.
But that had all ended with the passing of the market. The eastern dandy’s lust for the beaver’s hide had cooled to frigidity in just a few short years. A bundle of the furs once considered as valuable as a peck of gold dust had depreciated to nothing more than a moldering rawhide bound burden, worth possibly a pinch of tobacco or a horn of gunpowder. We had all planned to get rich off of those ripe hides, Alexis mused, and in a few years go east ourselves and become landed gentlemen married to pretty women with fine houses and farms.
That is, those of us who were still alive.
The pair of wolves fifty yards or so up the trail snarled viciously, then lashed out at each other in an outbreak of rivalry over the spoils of the moose carcass. Their noses were blood red to the eyes and steam billowed up into the cold mountain air out of the exposed entrails of the downed beast. Alexis was impressed with the horseflesh beneath him, for even though the pony’s muscles rippled tremulously around the saddle and its head tossed in obvious fear, the stallion did not bolt.
He had bought the horse from a Ute for the price of two sacks of flour and an ancient musket that was so old no one in the party would dare fire it. Fremont’s perpetually complaining cartographer, Preuss, had grudgingly brokered the deal, since he spoke some of the language of that tribe, and then of course insisted that he receive a commission for his efforts. Alexis had been forced to give the man a five dollar gold piece, his last one, sewn into the band of his trousers. He did not care for the whining, near insubordinate German at all, neither on this expedition nor the last, and wondered once again, as he had many times, why the Pathfinder put up with the man’s insolence. Were there not other draughtsmen available back east that would jump at the chance to accompany Fremont? Perhaps. Preuss was good. Alexis had seen his finished maps and they were elegant and detailed, carefully delineating the courses of trails, rivers, lakes and traces. Water holes, cut-offs and villages were clearly marked as well as places to avoid or circumnavigate.
Alexis removed one of a pair of his five-shot Colt Paterson revolvers from a trouser pocket. He had attached a buckskin tether to the butt of the gun some time ago, and now looped the thong around his neck so that the revolver hung free at the level of the saddle with the muzzle pointed at the ground. He then very slowly extracted the fifty-four caliber buffalo rifle from its buckskin scabbard, folded out the rod at the base of the gun to support it on the saddle, and carefully leveled the heavy octagonal barrel on one of the wolves.
The two predators had reached an uneasy alliance and were tearing away at the flesh of the moose carcass on opposite ends. Alexis knew there were more of them around waiting in deference to the pack leader and his mate to fill their bellies. When they had finished, the others would move in. The moose had been downed squarely in the middle of the trail at a particularly narrow passage next to the rapidly flowing white creek waters of this steep rocky canyon. Alexis was not really interested in shooting timber wolves. The problem was that the slabs of rock to one side of the trail and the little roaring stream on the other barred passage further up the canyon, except along the trail. He did not wish to return to camp with such a lame excuse for not completing his assignment of exploring this box canyon, thus incurring Fremont’s disdain throughout the remainder of the expedition. No, that would not do. And from the scrawniness of the wolf’s rib cages he figured they were damn hungry and not about to let him pass unchallenged.
He would just have to shoot his way through. Moving slowly, he pulled the stout hammer of the Sharps back to full cock and reached into the buckskin pouch at his belly to find the tin of percussion caps. He extracted one of the caps from the tin with thumb and forefinger and gently squeezed it onto the nipple below the hammer. Putting the tin back in the pouch, he wrapped his right arm around the heavy rifle and, pressing the stock firmly against his shoulder, dug his moccasins tightly into the pony’s ribs through the stirrups. The Paint snorted, and his neck muscles rippled again, but the horse held its ground. Alexis muttered soothingly as he gently placed his cheek against the stock and sighted down the flat top of the barrel at one of the wolves.
The male snapped its head up in the pony’s direction, lips curled back from its canines, snarling and growling. Blood, viscera and white froth dripped from its mouth and its eyes stared black and sunken. Alexis struggled to hold the sight bar of the rifle on its head, countering the nervous movement of the horse—then pulled the trigger.
The buffalo gun kicked him hard in the shoulder, the sharp explosion pummeling his ears and filling the still air with an enormous cloud of bluish smoke. The Paint reared and Alexis hung on, keeping his eyes on the carcass. The report of the rifle echoed against the steep walls of the canyon and Alexis could see that most of the wolf’s head was now missing and the lean carnivore lay on its side atop the moose carcass, twitching. The bitch had jumped straight up in the air in response to the shot and run off to the side of the trail some, but now returned to the carcass, growling deep in her throat and sniffing timidly around her mate’s convulsing torso. In seconds she returned to tearing meat out of the moose with not the least interest in the pack leader’s corpse. Alexis reined the pony under control returning the rifle to the scabbard. Speaking softly to the horse he slowly dismounted, holding on to the saddle horn with his left hand and wrapping his right around the butt of the revolver. When he stood on the ground and cocked the pistol the female crouched over the kill with her lips drawn back over her teeth, snarling, tearing away at the meat and keeping her hollow eyes on horse and man.
Yes, they were indeed hungry, he thought, and harbored little fear of men. He’d expected this and as he held the thirty-six caliber Colt in both hands, carefully aiming the muzzle at the agitated wolf, he was glad that he and Kit had spent many an afternoon off duty target practicing with these repeating pistols. He would have preferred to have been closer because the snarling bitch was at the limits of the Paterson’s range, but he dared not move in now, for she just might rush him and the advantage that was his would be lost. Easy now he thought, yes, aim about six inches over the target, don’t worry about the wind, there is none-- and squeeze. . ……..
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