“You one-eyed idjit nigger,” he scolded himself sharply late of an afternoon. “You been half-blind to it!”
All a man really had to do was look around at those gathered for rendezvous to read the sign. If he didn’t count in the Frenchmen who trapped for the company, and didn’t tally up those settlement fellas who came and went with Fitzpatrick’s supply caravan—there was a damn sight fewer white men come to rendezvous this summer of thirty-six than ever before. And even more revealing, for the first time he could remember, there were almost as many free men gathered in the valley of the Green as there were company trappers.
More than anything, that hammered home just how many were giving up and fleeing the mountains. Would this mean the company posts controlled the rivers, and the company brigades controlled their chosen territories in the high country? Would these changes now force the last of the free men to trap where they wouldn’t run the risk of bumping into the booshways and their hireling skin trappers?
How long now had he refused to see what was right before his eyes? This fur business was being slowly strangled. If it wasn’t the big, powerful companies that would kill it, then surely the death was coming as the beaver were wiped out. Already there was talk of areas stripped clean, nary a flat-tail to be found.
If that didn’t sound like a wheezing death rattle in those last gasps of the fur trade … Bass wasn’t sure what did.
Wasn’t a day went by when he didn’t walk past some conversation, or overhear someone at the trading post talking about the latest dire news straight from the tongues of those St. Louis clerks.
“They say for the last two years, the first time ever,” a wag pontificated before some two dozen company trappers, “buffalo robes are selling better than beaver.”
For top dollar, merchants and middlemen were buying up every last robe brought in from the prairies, no question about it. This, while beaver was moving poorly, no longer regarded with as much favor as the robes.
“Them fur buyers back there been seeing how slow this beaver is to sell lately,” agreed another clerk. “What with Campbell’s brother living in Philadelphia, I’ll bet he’s the one who’s been feeding Billy Sublette all the news of them eastern markets.”
“Don’t know how long this company can afford to keep buying your beaver, boys,” a third settlement type pronounced. “Silk is all the go of the day back in the States, and with robes in high demand, beaver don’t stand a chance to last much longer.”
How long had he been refusing to admit that the market wasn’t just flat, but on a downhill slide?
How long did he have before the fur trade breathed its last?
And if he didn’t trap no more, just how was a man to go about providing for his family?
16
Six days after they reached rendezvous, McLeod and McKay turned their brigade around and departed for the northwest. This time the Hudson’s Bay men would be guiding five missionaries and their two young Indian boys on to the land of the Nez Perce.
Scratch and Waits-by-the-Water, like hundreds of whites and Indians, watched the short procession of pack mules, horses, sixteen milk cows, and that oddly misplaced Dearborn carriage wind its way out of the valley of the Green River, followed by the Nez Perce village dragging their travois, a hugh pony herd bringing up the rear. It made for a noisy, heartfelt farewell from the trappers who turned out for one last look upon those church women, a departure that left behind such an awful silence when the dust clouds eventually disappeared beyond the northern hills.
So quiet, Bass could hear the quiet gurgle of Horse Creek along its bed, or Zeke’s fitful panting in the oppressive heat, or the buzz of the deerflies that tormented and bit, leaving behind hot, painful welts. So unlike those last few frantic days after Wyeth had introduced McLeod and McKay to the American party.
“This must surely be God’s answer to our prayers!” Marcus Whitman exclaimed. “Praise the Almighty for His blessings!”
Henry Spalding concurred. “We’ve been praying that He would provide us a way to reach the Walla Walla country.”
“That’s where Sir Stewart suggests we settle our mission,” Whitman explained. “Up the Walla Walla some twenty-five miles north of your post, at a place he says the Nez Perce call
“A good spot: plenty of ground for your crops and graze for your cattle,” John McLeod replied enthusiastically. “It’s agreed—you can join our brigade when we leave on the eighteenth. From here we’ll march for the Walla Walla by way of Fort Hall.”
“Thank God, thank God!” Narcissa cried, and clapped for joy.
“There is one thing I must require, however,” McLeod declared more sedately, quickly glancing over the few Americans who happened to be visiting the missionary camp at that moment.
“If it’s about money,” Whitman began, “I’m afraid we don’t have much of any to—”
“This isn’t about your money,” McLeod interrupted. “Only that I must have your guarantee on something before I commit to lead you into Oregon, into Hudson’s Bay Company territory.”
Spalding’s brow knit. “A guarantee?”
“We cannot have you encouraging any of these American hunters and trappers to come to the Columbia River to settle,” McLeod drew a fine point on it. “We do our best to have nothing at all to do with the American fur men, nothing in any fashion.”
“B-but you’ve come here to their rendezvous,” Whitman observed.
“The better to see to the nature of the American business on this side of the mountains,” McLeod declared.
Whitman shook his head. “Why shouldn’t we have the right to encourage any man who might want to make a home for himself among our mission—”
“Reverend,” McLeod said, “we know from past experience that any of these American hunters who would come to the Columbia country only cause trouble and difficulties among our Indians. They always have before.”
“But I have been thinking that we might need some help in building ourselves the church and meeting hall, putting up our simple homes too,” Whitman stated.
McLeod was waving his hand, ready to speak. “Should you need any manual labor, be it workers for your fields or men to assist in putting up your buildings, the Hudson’s Bay Company would rather furnish you with what you need than to have you encourage and invite any of the Americans to migrate into the Columbia country.”
It was clear, from the set of McLeod’s jaw and the determined cast in his eyes, that should the missionaries desire the assistance of his brigade in delivering them to the land of the Nez Perce, those missionaries would have to toe the company line.
Whitman cleared his throat to announce, “Then I have committed something of an error I will have to correct.”
“What error, Doctor?” asked half-breed McKay.
“I’ve asked some men to accompany us to Oregon country,” Whitman explained, “enlisting them as employees to help us raise shelter before winter arrives. Now … I’ll have to tell them I won’t need their services.”
“We believe that’s for the best,” McLeod responded. “For all concerned. Our enterprise, and yours.”
So the Whitmans marched out of the Rockies, across the interior basin, and on to Oregon, passing into the lore and legend of a fading era.
How quietly did two great upheavals glide by that summer, all but unnoticed on the turbulent river of history.
Having crushed all remaining American competition in that year of our Lord 1836, Astor’s St. Louis successors in this western trade would themselves end up closing the door on a glorious era. The end of an age had come.
Yet at this same July rendezvous another door had been cracked open, one never to be shut again: white women, wheels, and cows had crossed the Southern Pass.
