Let there be no doubt, even in those earliest days of the mountain fur trade, these hardy hundred were ready for a celebration after all they had accomplished in the last season.
When the Ashley men had broken up into brigades for their spring hunt, Fitzpatrick’s band had marched north to trap the Portneuf River all the way to the Snake—where they dodged Blackfoot war parties more times than they’d care to recount. A second brigade moved far afield that spring, pushing past the Great Salt Lake not only in search of beaver but in search of that wondrous new country off somewhere in the interior basin. Still another band pushed all the way north to Flathead country, plunging into the mountains that would soon become known as the Bitterroots, where they found sign of and bumped up against their competitors trapping for John Bull’s Hudson’s Bay Company.
Ashley’s men had worked hard and repeatedly put their lives on the line to earn this rendezvous. A good thine it was Ashley had thought to bring liquor along for the first time this trip out. Even better-that a large band of the western Shoshone had been curious enough at this growing gathering of the white men to wander in and join the celebration. Trouble was—no one knew at first if those horse-mounted warriors who suddenly appeared in the distance were friend or foe.
“Dammit all anyway,” Bud Tuttle grumbled that second day after reaching the rendezvous site, “just when I was getting my dry gullet ready for some of Ashley’s whiskey—those damned red niggers go an’ show up and wanna fight!”
Every man had turned out that late morning as the alarm spread and weapons were taken up. The men were grumbling, for it was to have been that day Ashley tapped his kegs of raw, clear corn liquor … and now, by bloody damn, a few hundred Injuns showed up on the nearby hills to make trouble. But Bridger, Fraeb, and two others quickly mounted up bareback and started off loaded for bear—counting on determining if these strangers be the friendly sort, or a fighting breed.
“Where the blue blazes you think you’re bound?” Cooper demanded the moment he realized Bass was pulling his horse free of its picket pin.
“Going with them yonder to have a look-see at the Injuns.”
Silas snorted, wagging his head with a grin. “If’n that don’t take the circle, boys! We got us a greenhorn what goes riding off to make hisself trouble with red niggers … like them red-bellies ain’t trouble enough all by themselves!”
“This h’aint none of your ’ffair,” the old German-born Fraeb grumbled as Bass joined the quartet loping toward the low hills.
“My skelp too—so I figgered to see for my own self,” Titus replied as he reined his horse in alongside the others strung out in a broad front—their smooth faces bright in the summer sunshine of that morning, their long hair fluttering like battle flags behind these rough-edged knights-errant.
Bridger’s eyes quickly dashed over the newcomer’s outfit, spotting the pair of pistols stuffed down in his belt and the long, heavy, and serviceable mountain rifle clutched atop Bass’s thighs. “Might’n be some of the same goddamned Blackfoots we fit not far north of here,” he declared by way of warning to the older man riding on his left. “Maybeso they follered our sign, figgering to have themselves another go at us.”
Fraeb asked, “Ever you fit Injuns?”
“Last spring it were,” Titus answered as they watched the horsemen on the crest of the hill begin to spread themselves out in a wide front. “’Rapahos, they was.”
“That ain’t a good bunch neither, ’Rapahos ain’t,” Bridger said to Fraeb with no small measure of approval.
“Wagh! ’Rapaho h’ain’t never be no Blackfoot,” the old German howled disparagingly. Then his eyes mocked Bass as he said, “An’ one fide don’ make you no fider.”
“Leave ’im be, ol’ man,” Bridger scolded. “Sounds to me like this feller’s got him a few wrinkles on his horns already.”
As Fraeb glared at Bass a moment longer but ventured not one word more, it became immediately apparent to Titus how Fitzpatrick’s men had come to respect that youngster from Missouri—no matter his age or theirs.
“Lookee thar!” hollered the man on the off side of Fraeb.
Scalplocks and feathers fluttered in the breeze as the warriors arrayed themselves on the crest of the hill in a battle front.
“How many you make it, Frapp?” Bridger demanded as they slowed their lope to a walk.
Just then a half-dozen of the brown-skinned horsemen punched ahead of the others from the center of that phalanx arrayed on the hill.
“Coot be more’n a hunnert,” the old man roared. “H’ain’t allays good at ciphers come times like dis!”
“We gonna have our hands full,” commented one of the others. “Be no doubt of that.”
“Gloree!” Bass cried. “Bridger! Don’t count on a fight this day. Look yonder!”
The young partisan and the rest looked off where Bass was pointing, to the near side of the hill, where just then appeared more than a hundred women, children, and old ones among their packhorsescbegin to make out the beginnings of their pony herd.
“Believe this feller’s right, Frapp!” Bridger hollered into the dry, hot wind. “Man don’t bring him his squaws an’ pups along when he’s out for skelps and coup.”
The old German snorted, his eyes nicking at Bass with something bordering contempt. “Mebbe we just run up again’ a bunch on the move, Jim. Blackfoots move camp ever’ now and den.”
“These here ain’t Blackfoot,” Bridger declared as the six horsemen came to a halt at a point halfway between the broad front of warriors and the five white men.
“Why, them’s Snakes!” one of the others stated.
“Damn right they are,” Bridger agreed, getting close enough to recognize faces.
“Same bunch wintered up with us?” one of the others asked.
Bridger whooped, “By God, if they ain’t!”
Following the young man’s lead, the rest again urged their horses into a lope, reining up only when they came nose to nose with the Shoshone ponies.
“By damn, these are a handsome people, ain’t they?” Bridger asked, turning aside to Bass. Then his hands grew busy, dropping rein and resting the rifle across his thighs as he commenced talking sign.
In the quiet of that brief conversation, disturbed only by the snorting and blowing of the horses and the shrill cry of a golden eagle that circled overhead, Bass watched the far slope as the ground behind the cordon of warriors filled with those the horsemen had been ready to defend: the old men, women, children, all those on foot and urging along the pack animals, travois, and pony herd.
One of those handsome, smiling warriors who had been using his flying hands to talk with Bridger now turned atop the bare back of his pony and signaled with the long feathered lance he held aloft and waved, scalps and birds’ wings fluttering on the summer wind along the shaft.
Instantly a universal cry went up from the far hillside as the mounted warriors bellowed their happy approval and burst into motion—their ponies moving this way and that along the side of the hill, everyone waving, singing, shouting at those behind to hurry on into the valley.
“This feller’s name is Washakie,” Bridger explained, putting the emphasis on the last syllable. “One of the leaders of this here bunch what wintered up near one of our other brigades in these parts. Down yonder in that very valley.”