High Country

A month later, Daniel rode on past the site of the former encampment. After three years of trapping by a hundred and fifty men, there were nearly no beaver left, and the marten and fisher were scarce as well. The circle of trap lines had reached for ten miles past the last cabin. Daniel rode past that cabin for six more days until he found a small river lined on both sides with aspens, and then one more before finding the first beaver dam. Another day took him up river and past three more dams, each one teeming with beaver.

A few yards from the river, the forest of pines and oak trees began. The trunks of the Ponderosa pines seemed tall enough to snag the stars as they made their nightly trip around the sky. The oaks weren't that tall, but were much fuller and with a thicker leaf cover.

Daniel knew the stand of trees was ideal for marten and fisher as well as providing roosts for grouse. Marten and fishers ate voles, rabbits and birds along with berries and other fruits. The pine nuts in the cones that littered the floor beneath the ponderosa pines were ideal food for voles. The grasses that grew between the trees and along the river would attract rabbits, as would the aspens. Mule and white tail deer ate the acorns from the oaks, as well as the brushy plants and grasses that filled some of the space between trees.

The deer meant food would not be a problem. After the snows came, Daniel would kill as many as he could and keep the deer quarters in the high cache he'd build outside his cabin. The river would furnish fish year round as well as beaver pelts and beaver meat, and though he'd have to aim carefully, his rifle could bring down a roosting or walking grouse when he found one. Daniel had learned some of the edible wild plants over the past three years, and as he scanned the ground as he rode, he saw several of these.

This cabin was his second, and though it was smaller, Daniel built it with the same care as the first. A hundred feet from the center beaver pond, he cleared the trees from a low rise in the surrounding land, leaving a single oak with a branch that was almost horizontal. From this branch, he'd hang his deer to skin and quarter them. The ponderosa pine trunks formed the walls of his cabin, each one notched to fit the one that crossed it.

A single door was in the center of the side facing south, the rough opening framed by thick boards Daniel had split from the straight trunk of a pine and then hewn mostly flat with his ax.

The door itself was made from more of the pine boards split thick enough to withstand the strength of a grizzly. Daniel nailed them against cross pieces, and then hung the door from two heavy buffalo leather straps that served as hinges. He had to lift the door to open it, but the leather hinges and the sliding bolt he fashioned from more splits would keep out any animals that might try to get into the cabin.

In a similar fashion, Daniel made one small window and filled the opening with the dried and oiled intestine of an elk. The intestine was translucent enough to allow some sunlight into the cabin while keeping out rain, snow, and insects. The window was small enough no bear could manage to squeeze through.

The roof sloped down from the center peak, and was of split oak planks over pine log purlins. Daniel made the fireplace and chimney of smaller oak logs, and plastered the inside with mud from the river bank. The first fire he started was small to dry the mud, and once it was completely dry, Daniel added wood to bake the mud into a hard shell that would keep the wood from catching fire.

After two months of building, the cabin was completed, including a rough bed in one corner. Daniel moved his bedroll onto the bed and lit his first cooking and heating fire. Though it was still summer, nights in the mountains were cool, and he slept soundly in the warmth of the cabin.

There were still many logs and branches littering the clearing, and Daniel used the next month chopping and splitting them into firewood. The pine splits would catch fire quickly because of the resin in the wood, but wouldn't burn all night. The oak logs would take over from the pine in an hour or so, and would last until morning. It would only take a careful stirring the next morning to separate the searing hot coals from the ash, the addition of some thin splits of pine, and Daniel would have a fire going for coffee without using his flint and steel.

In between the days of cabin building, Daniel had scouted for fur sign. He already knew beaver were plentiful, for he could watch them from the cover of the aspens and willows along the shore of the ponds. There were muskrats in the ponds too, though Daniel wouldn't actively trap for them. Their furs weren't worth the trouble of skinning them. He was pleased to see many of the small tracks of marten and fisher in the mud of the pond banks.

He also hunted, but usually used snares to catch rabbits instead of using the powder and lead he would need to take deer. Once the freeze came, he'd actively hunt for the deer that would hold him through the winter.

The cache was ready. He'd built the floor twelve feet off the ground between four pine poles set deep in the soil to keep bears from raiding his food supply. The cache itself was a miniature of his cabin, except the door was just a deer hide to keep out birds. A ladder made from smaller poles with rungs lashed to them with rawhide would let him scale the height, and was easy to take down when he wasn't using it.

When the first snows fell, Daniel set his traps. Beaver traps were set in the water near shore or on top of the beaver dam. For water sets he used poles stuck into the pond bottom to guide the beaver into the trap. The marten and fisher traps were set on top of a leaning log with bait hanging from the end. The marten or fisher would climb the log to get to the grouse wing or rabbit leg hanging from a thong and walk through the trap, stepping on the pan and releasing the powerful spring that held them tight..

By the end of that winter, Daniel had two hundred beaver pelts stretched and drying in his cache, and a few over fifty marten and fishers. He'd also saved the hides of ten mule deer and two whitetails he'd shot for food. When the snow melted, he packed everything on the black mare, and rode toward the Cache Valley.

The "rendezvous", as the French trappers called it, was alive with trappers, traders and Indians. Daniel traded his furs and hides for more traps, more coffee, salt, and corn meal, and another ten pounds each of gunpowder and lead. His axe heads and knives he traded to the Indians for pemmican and buffalo jerky. Both would come in handy for eating on the trap line, or for eating if a blizzard struck his cabin and he couldn't get to his cache. That had happened twice during the last winter, and Daniel had been forced to go without food until the storm abated.

Daniel stayed at the rendezvous only long enough to make his trades. He knew a few of the trappers from the Ashley expedition, but they were busy indulging in drinking and gambling away their earnings. Daniel had no use for either, nor did he understand how losing one's money could be pleasurable. Two weeks later, he was back in his cabin, snaring rabbits, fishing in the beaver ponds, and making a few changes to his cabin.

So went the next three years. Daniel traded his furs at the rendezvous in spring, scouted for animals to trap in summer and fall, and trapped from first snowfall to spring melt. It bothered him a little that each year he seemed to find fewer beaver in his traps, and by the third year, he'd trapped only six marten and one fisher.

When he thought about it, the lack of furs made sense. In three years, the Ashley expedition had virtually eliminated all the beaver in the area of their trap lines. The Indians had trapped the marten and fisher just as actively because they knew of the high prices in blankets and other things the Company would offer for them.

Daniel was only one trapper, and his trap lines covered a smaller area, but the trapping pressure on the animals was the same. The reason for the lack of fur was him. That spring, after trading his furs at the rendezvous, Daniel stopped at his cabin only long enough to gather his traps, tools, and anything else he couldn't make at the site of his new cabin. He then burned the cabin to recover the spikes he'd used for the door and door frame. After a last look around, he mounted the gelding and led his pack horse north-west and further into the mountains.

Daniel rode for three days before finding a stream large enough to attract beavers. He turned up stream and rode for another four days before the stream forked. The left fork was shallow, so Daniel rode across and continued along the bank of the larger, right hand fork. Five days later, both forks joined again, and Daniel had seen a dozen beaver dams along the way. The next day, he traveled down the other fork in the direction from which he'd already come. Along the shallower fork were another six beaver dams. Daniel rode back up the wider fork, searching for a location for his cabin.

He found it on a patch of ground that rose above the surrounding land just enough to keep him dry should the stream rise after a heavy rain. A month later, he lit the fire that would bake his mud and log fireplace, and a week after that, began scouting the area for fur sign other than the numerous beaver he'd already seen.

There seemed to be a lot of grizzly sign in the area, but that didn't particularly worry Daniel. He understood how a grizzly lives, and would be careful to stay out of their way. He was a bit surprised at how large at least one or two were. He came across a few trees with the bark ripped open to expose the soft inner bark grizzlies sometimes ate. The slashes of the grizzly's long claws reached at least a foot over Daniel's head.

Daniel saw plenty of mule deer as well. He would eat well that winter.

This cabin would be better than his first. Daniel had searched for and found four red cedar trees large enough to use for the sills. It had been a real chore dragging them back to his cabin site with his saddle and pack horse, but they wouldn't rot out as had the pine he'd used before.

The rest of the cabin he built much as he had the first though it was slightly smaller. He'd used a lot of firewood keeping that first cabin warm on cold nights, and thought a smaller space would use less. He also took better care when filling the cracks between the logs with moss and more mud from the river bank.

By the time the days turned cool and the first snow had covered the higher mountain peaks, Daniel had his cabin built, had built his cache, and had a pile of firewood he hoped would last through the winter. His two horses had a large corral in the trees with a three sided log shelter to let them get out of the wind and snow. The night temperatures had dropped below freezing over the month prior, and now the day temperatures were cool enough meat wouldn't spoil. Daniel began filling his cache with meat.

Within a week, he had two mule deer and one whitetail hanging in his cache. He'd feasted on deer liver and heart, the first meat he always ate from a kill. Every day would find him stalking through the forest, or, as on the day the eagle spoiled his kill, waiting at the edge of a clearing where he'd seen signs of deer foraging.

Daniel was looking for deer or elk, but also for a bear or two. Bear meat was good to eat and the hides made for warm blankets on his bed. Bear grease was also useful for many things. It could be used as a substitute for lard when frying meat and Daniel used it on his moccasins and heavy boots to make them waterproof and supple.

That day, he'd found the still warm droppings of a bear a short way from his cabin though he couldn't be sure if it was a large black bear or a grizzly. Tracks led away from the droppings, and after examining the prints for claw marks, decided it was probably a grizzly because the claws looked very long. He began following the tracks in hopes of killing the bear.

Following a bear was a stalk fraught with risk for the stalker. Bears didn't see very well and their hearing wasn't as acute as other animals, but their sense of smell was better even than a wolf's. If a bear caught his scent on the breeze, it was likely it would run away and he'd never get it.

The risk was if the bear didn't catch his scent until he was very close. Then, the bear would probably stand and defend itself. In some instances, like a sow with cubs or if he surprised the bear on a kill, the bear would attack. Daniel would have only seconds to shoot, and even then, might not escape injury. In his experience, even a bear shot directly in the heart would still press the attack. He'd found a trapper on his first expedition who had been killed by a bear he'd shot. He was found with the dead bear lying on top of him with his head locked in the grizzly's massive jaws.

His best chance lay in staying downwind and watching carefully so he could get a shot without the bear knowing he was there. Daniel began the stalk, walking slowly and careful not to make noise, and stopping to look and listen every few feet.

His stalk had gone for almost a quarter of a mile when Daniel heard the high-pitched scream. No animal would make a sound like that. It had to be a person. Daniel began running in the direction of the sound.

Another scream followed that one, and then he heard the grunting of a grizzly. Both seemed to be close, so Daniel checked the pan on his Hawken rifle for priming powder and then again ran toward the sounds.

He broke into a small clearing a minute later and saw an Indian woman poking at the grizzly with a long, thin stick. She was keeping an oak tree between them and Daniel could see the cleared circle in the leaves where she and the grizzly had moved around and around the tree.

He saw the deer carcass lying to the side and understood what was happening. Somehow the woman had walked up on the grizzly while it was feeding and the bear decided to attack. The woman had been smart enough to not try to run away. The grizzly would have caught her before she'd take three steps. Instead, she started circling the tree to stay away from the long claws that tried to reach her.

She was using the stick in an attempt to drive the grizzly away, but Daniel knew that wouldn't work. Once the grizzly had decided to attack, the only way it would stop was if the woman was dead or if the grizzly was.

The woman was obviously an Indian, though he couldn't be sure what tribe. Even though she was, Daniel couldn't just stand there and watch until she became so tired she slowed enough for the grizzly to catch her with a paw. Once that happened, she'd be dead in less than a minute. Daniel raised the Hawken, cocked the hammer, and sighted down the barrel.

He had to wait a few seconds because the woman jumped into his line of sight, but when she moved around the tree and the grizzly followed, he pulled the trigger. The sparks from the flint ignited the gunpowder in the pan, and a heartbeat later, the rifle fired. The grizzly reared up, clawed at its chest and then looked in Daniel's direction. In a flash, it had covered the distance between them and reared up on its hind legs.

Daniel tried to sidestep the grizzly when it came down on top of him, but wasn't fast enough. He fell under the grizzly on his stomach and instinctively put his hands over his head to protect it.

The weight of the bear was crushing him. He screamed in pain as he felt the bear close its jaws on his left wrist. The bear continued to bite that wrist as it clawed his head. Daniel felt his fur hood pulled away and then the bite of the claws as they ripped at his scalp.

The bear growled then and raised a little. Daniel felt it release his wrist and raise its head and roar. Then he felt something hot pouring down on his head and hands. A few seconds later, the bear went still and silent. Daniel tried to push it off him, but it weighed too much. After several attempts, he felt dizzy, and then passed out.

When he woke up, the sun was in his eyes and he was laying on the ground on his back. He felt something touch his wrist, and then groaned at the pain trying to move it caused. A woman's voice then said "tenir immobile".

Daniel recognized the French language. He'd learned a little French from some of the trappers on his first expedition up the Missouri. The woman was telling him not to move. His voice was weak when he asked "French".

"No French me. English, you?"

"American. You speak English?"

"Hudson Bay man teach."

Daniel moved his head so he could look at the woman, but he couldn't see much except a silhouette against the bright blue sky.

"Where am I?"

"You house".

"How did I get here?"

"You shoot bear. Bear hurt you. Sinopa bring you house."

Daniel started to rise again, and this time, the woman let him sit up. He started to lift his good hand to his head, but she stopped him.

"No. Bear hurt. Go inside. I do good."

The woman stood up and pulled on Daniel's uninjured hand.

"Up. Go inside."

It was with great effort that Daniel got to his feet, and once he was standing his hand and head began to throb. The woman put his left arm over her shoulder to steady him and then pointed to the cabin door.

"You open. Not know how."

Daniel worked the latch and then pulled the door up on the leather hinges. He could lift it, but couldn't pull it open with just one hand. The woman reached for the edge of the door and helped him pull enough to open the door and let Daniel go through sideways. She followed, still with his arm over her shoulder.

Once they were inside, she walked Daniel to his bed and then went to his fireplace. She stirred the coals and after finding a few glowing embers, took a stick of pine from the stack beside the hearth. With a knife from her belt, she shaved the stick into paper-thin curls and placed the curls on top of the glowing coals. When they caught flame, she added a few more sticks of pine.

A few minutes later, the flames illuminated the small cabin sufficiently Daniel could see her well enough to know she was slender and had long, black hair done in a thick braid on each side. He'd seen that hairstyle before when trading with the Salish Indians. Their women wore their hair like that.

Her clothing wasn't like he'd seen Salish women wear though. She wore a heavy buffalo hide as a coat, but below that, he could see the bottom of a buckskin dress. Salish woman didn't wear buckskin. They wore the skins of mountain sheep or buffalo. Her moccasins were also different. Salish women wore plain leather moccasins that went up under their dresses. This woman's moccasins went up under her dress, but they had quill decorations up the sides.

The woman took the canvas bucket beside the fireplace, and then turned to him.

"You stay. I go water."

Daniel stayed on his bed because he felt weak, and watched the woman lift the heavy door to the cabin and push it open enough she could get outside with his bucket. It was a struggle for her because she was so small, but she managed to get out and then shut the door again.

Daniel wondered why she was doing this. While he'd probably saved her life, in his experience Indians only saw white men as traders who had something they wanted. Once the trade was completed, they always went back to their village. He'd never seen an Indian have any desire to even be around white men, much less want to do anything for them.

As Sinopa walked to the river that ran beside Daniel's cabin, she was watching for the dried stalks of the sweet grass plant. It was early enough in winter the stalks should still be standing. She saw a few to her right and knelt down and used her knife to dig some of the shallow roots from the partly frozen ground. They would make a medicine to keep the spirits away from the man's wounds.