“You want the scalp or don’cha?” Sublette demanded.
The wounded trapper could barely lift his head up, much less argue. “You kill ’im your own self,” he said weakly, clearly in a great deal of pain.
Beckwith prodded, “This is the black-hearted son of a bitch what shot you. Ain’t you gonna kill him?”
“Can’t you both see the man ain’t got the strength to kill nothing?” Titus demanded.
For a moment Sublette and Beckwith stared down at their seriously wounded companion—but only for a moment—when the wounded Blackfoot came to again and flopped over to crawl away with only one good leg left him.
“Awright,” Sublette growled harshly. “I’ll kill the sumbitch for you!”
Leaping onto the Blackfoot’s back, Sublette shoved his knee down on the back of the warrior’s shoulder, grabbed a handful of the Indian’s hair with his left hand so he could pull the neck up taut, then with the flash of his skinning knife sliced once—long and deep—across the enemy’s throat. Frothy crimson spurted as much as three feet onto the grass as the Indian struggled for a few quick heartbeats; then his body went limp.
Quickly Sublette hacked off the scalp in a crude manner of one not accustomed to removing the hair of his enemies, then stood with the dripping trophy to show it to his wounded companion. His knife, hand, and forearm all dripped with bright blood, resplendent in the summer sunshine.
“Now, you—get over here,” he hollered at the far line of brush. “I need some of you to drag Hinkle off and get him back to the village.”
As soon as the wounded man was taken away, Sublette and the rest returned to the task at hand. Arrows sailed overhead. Lead balls smacked through the leaves and limbs. Shoshone taunted Blackfoot, and the Blackfoot cursed at their ancient enemies. The white trappers screeched above it all, knowing neither tongue but clearly understanding the age-old language of war. Hour after hour the stalemate dragged on until the sun eventually slid far beyond midsky.
Bass figured they had been fighting for the better part of six hours when one man after another began to grumble of his hunger. It took only that first one to remind the rest that they hadn’t eaten since breakfast—and only those who had been up early enough to eat before the firing began, those who weren’t suffering a throbbing hangover in this afternoon heat.
One after another added his voice to the complaints until Sublette agreed that his trappers could reward themselves with a temporary retreat. After telling the Shoshone warriors that they would return shortly, Sublette told the Snake that they should rub out as many of the Blackfeet as possible before the trappers would come back —because when the white men returned, there would soon be no Blackfeet to kill and count coup upon.
It wasn’t a short ride back to Shoshone camp where Sublette’s men began to scrounge about for something to eat. About the time the trappers found some slivers of dried meat to chew on and were gulping down water to quench their terrible thirst, the first of the Shoshone warriors appeared back in the village.
“What the hell are they doing here?” Sublette demanded.
Bass watched a group of the warriors ride up and dismount, their bronze bodies glistening. One in particular was most handsome, his carefully combed hair greased to perfection; over the crown of his head he had tied the stuffed body of a redwing hawk, the thongs knotted under his chin. He had the classic profile not seen in many of the others, with the hook high on the nose, the prominent cheekbones, and those oriental eyes filled with obsidian flints that glinted haughtily as he strode up to the white men.
Gazing after the group come to take their own refreshment, Titus said, “I s’pose we wasn’t the only ones hungry, was we, Sublette?”
“Damn them,” Sublette grumbled. “Now them Blackfoot gonna get away.”
“You fixin’ to have us go back
“Damn right,” Sublette answered. “Let’s go! All of you—now! Saddle up—we’re going back to finish what we started!”
By the time the first of the trappers returned to the battleground, they found only a dozen or so Shoshone stationed among the brush to watch over their dead companions so they would not be scalped. But as the white men dismounted and began tearing through the willow and trees at the lake’s edge, they were surprised to find more than thirty Blackfeet bodies had been abandoned.
“They damn well left in a hurry, didn’t they?” Beckwith asked as he came up to stand with Bass and some others.
“You ever see’d Injuns leave any of their own like this afore?” asked one of the group.
“Never,” another answered, incredulous.
“No, not me, never,” Beckwith agreed.
“What made ’em take off so fast that they left their dead behind?” Titus asked.
With a shrug one of the trappers answered, “Yellow-bellied niggers is what Blackfoot is. Bad mother’s sons when they got the jump on you. But they’re yellow-bellied in a stand-up even fight of it.”
In the end that night the Shoshone village was alive with celebration, wailing, and mourning. While they had killed far more of the enemy, they nonetheless had lost the scalps of the first five victims, along with the death of eleven more warriors killed in the battle. Yet those bodies and their hair had not fallen into the hands of the enemy. The drumming and singing, the keening and chanting, continued till daybreak as the Snake conducted their wake over their dead and celebrated the spoils taken from the bodies of their enemies.
Meanwhile, downstream in the trapper camps lay seven wounded men expected to survive their wounds if they were allowed to get their rest. Still, the Smith, Jackson, and Sublette men, along with Provost’s outfit and the many free trappers still in the valley—all were anxious to celebrate their victory, right down to the last cup of liquor the general had hauled out from St. Louis.
For better than a day and another night the white men reveled in their defeat of the Blackfeet. Tales were told and retold of how that hated tribe first deceived the men with Lewis and Clark, then went on to take their revenge on Andrew Henry’s men trapping out of their fort in the Three Forks area.
For the better part of two decades now, the specter of a monstrous enemy had steadily grown all the bigger with every Blackfoot skirmish, fight, and pony raid. But now American trappers had fought their first concerted battle with a large force of Blackfeet warriors.
Already a new crop of legends were beginning to take shape around those glowing campfires that midsummer of 1826 in the Willow Valley.
Yet the story of Blackfeet against American trapper would be a tale long, harrowing, and most bloody before it reached its conclusion.
*
**
*
14
“Mountaineers and friends!” William H. Ashley began, several days after that skirmish with the Blackfoot. “Most of you who know me must know by now that I’m not much good at this speech making.”
Never a man who felt at ease speaking on his feet, even among friends, the sturdy forty-six-year-old businessman and trader had nonetheless been prompted by the emotion of this moment to gather all those who had until recently owed him their allegiance. From this day these hundred-plus men would give their fealty to the new company in the mountains: Smith, Jackson, and Sublette. So this morning before he set off for St. Louis with his 125 packs of furry treasure—a fourth more than he had reaped last season—the visionary Ashley felt compelled to call these crude, unlettered, fire-hardened men together for his final farewell not only to them, but to these Rocky Mountains.
“When I first came to the mountains, I came a poor man,” he explained as the crowd slowly fell all the more quiet, respectful. “You, by your hard work, undying toils, and with your sacrifices, have made for me an independent fortune. For this, my friends, I feel myself under great obligation to you.”
