Just Yarnin' Chapter 2: John Colter
A few minutes later Solitaire sat down opposite the fire from Parfleche. He looked weary as he leaned back against a small aspen.
“Been ridin hard?” Parfleche asked.
“Jist come down from the Sweetwater,” Solitare replied. “Wanted to see the rondy’ camps one more time for the settlers get too thick. Country shore don’t look the same as it once did. You seen that road yet? God almighty, if it ain’t a regular wagon road you can call me Andrew Jackson. A blind man could foller that across the desert! I spose’ thats what them flatlanders headed ta’ Oregon need anyhow. Ain’t like it used ta be.”
Parfleche thought about the truth of the statement. True, there were still a few of the old timers hidden in their favorite holes, but for the most part the old trappers were gone. The wild days had gone beaver, that was for sure.
“Yep,” he sighed. “Shinin’ times is all through. Shore was a hoot while it lasted though. Hard ta’ believe it’s done. Sorta slipped by pretty fast.”
The two old timers stared thoughtfully in the fire.
“Hell, how long has it been?” Solitaire asked.
Parfleche counted in his head. “Not real shore,” he responded. “I first come up river with Lisa in 09’. Not shore what year it be now though. Last I got ta thinking, it’d be ‘round 40 years gone by.”
“Lisa!” his companion scoffed. “You an’ I both know you warn’t with Lisa.”
“Hell’s fire!” Parfleche rebuked. “Was too. In fact I seen John Colter as he was headed down river fer’ the last time.”
“Colter? Now yer’ spinnin’ yarns, Parfleche,” Solitarie’s white eyebrows rose suspiciously.
“Honest. He camped with us right off the river in a plumb thicket fer a night. Hell, I wuz so tender back in them days, I jist set up all night listenin’ to his stories.
“In fact he was tellin me ‘bout how he found hell while he was up thar. I’ll never forget that story. Says he was sent out by Lisa ta’ round up some Injuns. They had jist built that fort used ta’ be on the Bighorn River and Lisa was wantin’ ta’ make friends with the Injuns. Lisa sent ol’ Colter out with a sack o’ presents and tells him ta’ give ‘em out freely and ta’ tell the Injuns whar the fort be.
“So ol’ Colter throws the sack on his back and heads south through the Bighorn River Valley. He gets ta’ thinkin’ he’ll need ta’ cross them mountains on his west side ta’ get whar’ he needs ta’ go. So one day he draws a hard line toward the settin’ sun and sets a course. That old child didn’t pay no attention that it was early winter and jist marched up them mountains.
“Soon he said the snow was getting deep and he thought about makin’ up some snow shoes like he seen the Injuns use. ‘Fore long though he found a creek and was walking downhill again. At the bottom he hits the sagebrush and wonders to himself just what he gotten himself into. But, having his bark on, he drops his head and keeps his line.
“Fore too long he starts up another river, and boy howdy did it smell. You been to th’ stinking water, Solitaire so you ought ta’ know. Hell, Colters the one named it on account of that powerful smell. Said while he didn’t linger long, he did draw on a few rocks so as to let some wandering fool white man know he warn’t the first wandering fool white man to make it up that stinking river.
“Anyhow, about then he come up to Colter’s Hell. Imagine the first white man ta lay eyes on that. Gysers spewing. Sulfur stinking. Water so hot it’ll burn the skin right off of a man. Yep, John Colter was the first ta’ see it, an’ he didn’t quite knowed what he found. Soon as he could he quit the country and started back toward the fort.
“He was sayin’ this was whar’ the trip got rough. Snow so deep he’d have ta’ look down at the elk wallerin’ in it. Colter told me to my face he didn’t know if he was to make it out of thar’ alive. It wasn’t till later I found out how much snow is up thar in that Yellowstone country. He warn’t woofin’. Ifn’ he walked through that snow like he said, an’ I believe he did, thar’ ain’t none tougher than old Colter was.”
Solitaire spoke up, “Tough? Shore he was tough. Tougher than’ an hunk of ol’ blue bull meat out of the fire. Did he tell you about that run he made from them Blackfoot?”
“You darn right he did.” Parfleche responded. “Said him and this other feller was up trapping beaver on some stream up yonder. They was jist floating along makin’ some sets. All the sudden, quicker than you could prime yer’ flintlock, they was surrounded by a few hundred Blackfoot all painted fer war.
“Colter an’ his companero they eased that old dugout up to the bank, and he steps out to try and parlay. His pard stays in the canoe though and tries ta paddle that canoe away. Colter told me that was when they filled him up with more arrows then he could count. Looked like a porcupine down in the bottom of that boat.
“Then he said the chief was staring hard and him and asks him ifn’ he could run. Colter tells that Injun he was slower than a buffler wallowing through the deep snow. Truth was, ain’t no man ever beat John Colter in a foot race. He was the fastest man he knowed, but he figured them dern’ Blackfoot were up ta’ something.
“Next thing he knowed they stripped him bare and took his gun. The way he told it, they even took the moccersins off his feet. Naked as a jay bird he was. Then one big old brave with long braids grabs him by the arm, and marches him rough like out to the prairie. The rest of ‘em start linin up a few hundred yards back. Colter was on to thar’ game now. He’d spent some time with the Crow and learnt of this game. He said that brave turned him loose and tells him to run.
“Fore even a second thought crossed his mind Colter turnt tail and makes a line the other way. As he does he can hear the war cries from the young bucks fill the air, and they all take off to run him down and lift his hair. He told me he ain’t never been so scared in his life so he jist keeps a runnin. Said his legs were a reaching, and his old heart was pounding like ta’ beat out of his chest. Said he was steppin’ on prickly pear purt regular and his feet was getting sore something terrible. Never mind the pain he told himself, a man’s feet are a long ways from his heart.
“He said he been running hard as he could go for a few miles or more. Hell, blood was running out his nose he runned so hard! Still, he hadn’t been kilt, so he casts a glance over his shoulder to see whar the war party is. So he turns his head and lo’ and behold ain’t but one o’ them braves still in the runnin’. Problem was he was gainin.
“Colter said he had hit his bottom and couldn’t go no further. Said he knowed that brave was gonna run him through with that lance. Knowing so, he turns to try and fight his way out. Wouldn’t you know it, right then that brave was getting ready to chuck that lance and trips falls. As luck would have it, that lance falls right ‘tween ‘em!
“Well, Colter mighta been tired, but he shore ‘nuff saw a chance when he had one. He grabbed up that lance and pinned that brave to the ground. Said he’d never forget that Injun’s eyes just when the lance pierced him. It was like he hand’t quite figured out how the tables had got turnt’ so fast.
“With that brave bleeding out in the dirt Colter said he made fer’ the river and hid out. Said them other Injuns searched high and low but never did find him. After he made his getaway that night he promised the almighty ifn’ he was to make it out alive, he would return home ta’ Missouri and never set foot in these Shinin’ mountains again.
“That’s when I see’d him. He was comin’ down river and headed fer Missouri. Told me to my face he wasn’t never coming back up river and told me ta’ do the same. Being so young didn’t listen, and I’m glad I didn’t. That Colter was as tough a man as I ever saw, but I’m shore nuff glad I didn’t pay him no mind.”
With the yarn over Solitaire spoke up. “I heard he ended up as a neighbor of Old Daniel Boone. Then he took sick and died fore too long. Shame, he sounds to have been a good man. I guess he jist might have been better off against the Blackfoot than the white man’s sickness.”