Just Yarnin' Chapter 5: Grub

Just Yarnin

Jan 11

“Speakin’ of hosses,” pipped up Parflech. “I wish this hare’ coon had a plew fer’ every bite of hoss flesh he had to eat. Laid down too many good ‘uns to fill an empty meat bag that’s fer shore.”

“Shore nuff,” replied Solitaire. “Mule and hoss is tough eaten. Though this child ain’t bashful ta’ cut the rump out of one ifn’ it comes ta that. I spose I’ve eaten jist about every critter wandering the canyons west of the Missouri.”

“You and me both, pardner!” Parfleche laughed and continued the yarnin.“I remember that time you and I headed down ta the Arkansas River country to do us some trappin’. You remember that don’t cha’ hoss?”

“Like I remember the day I got that arrow butchered out of my shoulder.”

“Ha! Remember how them dern’ Rapaho come whoopin’ in an’ hollerin like they did? Filthy varmints run off all the stock and left us a foot! Though we shore was tenderfoots, we had the bark on.”

“Dern right,” Solitaire affirmed. “We was green as fresh growed willow. Tougher than ol’ bull meat though. Wagh!”

“The way I remember it,” Parfleche continued, “we turnt back north to follow the trail and steal them mules back. I remember we’d gone three or four days without fillin’ the meat bag. Then I remember we finally come up on them prairie wolves. Seems like I can still hear the growling from my gut right before burning that powder charge. If I remember right, we shot a little mangy one.”

“Ha! Yup. Weren’t hardly enough fuel fer a good fire neither,” Solitaire laughed as he replied. “Meat was all bloody and cold to boot. Saved this child though. Enough to steal them mules back and lift a little Rapahoe hair as well.”

“I imagine we have done ate every critter that sulks the mountains,” Parfleche agreed. “Deer, antelope, bear, and sheep in the good times. Been plenty else in the bad times.

“Hell, I remember this one winter camp, I bumps into this feller named Zenas. He was green as fresh buffler chips, but they is lookin’ fer someone to guide them through the mountains. We sets us up a good camp but starts to run out o’ meat an cottonwood fer the hosses. Anyways, one day they decides they wants to send a party over the mountains to Santy Fe. Nevermind it was the Moon of the Cold and Dark, and 500 miles ta’ Santy Fe, they was going. I decides to throw in with the tenderfoots and we makes a beeline fer Santy Fe.

“Anyways, we gets to travelin, and the travelin shore gets tough. Course the snow is deep, an we without hosses to fork is breakin path ourselves. After a few days these flatlanders are played out. As luck would have it we drop down to this valley, and the snow warn’t so bad. We decides to stay and built us a lean-to so as we can rest fer’ a spell.

“Problem was, the critters had cleared out too. It’s been four or five days and this child is startin to taste boudins in his dreams. I had a grease hunger something fierce. So, I wakes up one particularly frosty morn and had enough. We had a few plews we was packing to trade once we hit Santy Fe. By this time my stomach was getting a blister from rubbin up against my backbone, so I decides I’m gonna eat that plew. I tosses one over the fire to burn the hair. Them tenderfoots look at me like I gone loco, but I don’t say a word. After a few minutes, the plew was black and smellin’ of burnt hair. I takes my knife and scrapes off the rest of the hair, then cuts out a piece of that plew and starts a chawin’ on it.”

“What’d it taste like?” Solitaire interrupted.

“Like burnt beaver plew,” Parfleche replied with annoyance. “Anyways, I swallows down a few bites an them fellers join up and we eat that whole plew. We go’ed nine days fer we finally drops a buffler. Them was poor times.”

“Reminds me o’ the time I had ta eat my moccersins after being put afoot by some Diggers,” Solitaire interjected. “I spose at one time or another, most childs ate moccersins, plews, belts, candles, er any other thing to fill the meat bag. Once me an’ a few coons ate nothing but them prairie potatoes squaws dig. Whatever it be though, ain’t nothing shines like buffler.”

“Wagh! Yer’ words are true thar,” Parfleche heartily replied. “Boiled, cooked, or jerked. Hump ribs, boudins, or rump meat. Buffler kept this child from going under these past years. Fat cow, or old bull, all a man needs is some buffler meat, and all is well.”

The two old companions quieted briefly, sitting and watching the dancing flames of the campfire. Caught in its trance, they remembered the buffalo meat they had enjoyed around so many similar fires. Their thoughts took them to friends long gone under and the hard times they had endured. Almost every thought they had, every good yarn around the fire, every bad Injun fight, all involved buffalo. It was truly what gave them life. After several minutes, it was Parfleche that spoke up first.

“I ain’t seen too many buffler these days. Not like it used to be.”

“Thar still a few of the big herds left,” Solitaire asserted. “Not like thar used to be though. Seems when it comes to beaver or buffler, shinin’ times is done.”

Both men continued their gaze in the fire, the reality settling uncomfortably deep inside their mind.