The lanyard was a long stick with a hole in the end. A thick piece of rope, treated with saltpeter to make it burn, threaded the hole. Hawker blew on the ember at the tip of the lanyard, the fiery glow casting an ominous red on his face. With the pomp of a West Point cadet, he screamed, “READY!”
The men below looked up at the blockhouse in eager anticipation of a colossal blast. Though he himself held the lanyard, Hawker yelled “FIRE!” and set the spark to the primer.
The ember on the lanyard melted quickly through the wax. The primer sparked with a hiss and then “pop.” Compared with the stupendous explosion they expected, the cannon’s bark seemed barely louder than the clap of two hands.
“What the hell was that?” came a cry from the yard, along with a sprinkling of catcalls and mocking laughter. “Why don’t you just bang on a pot!”
Hawker stared at his cannon, horrified that this moment of testicular exhibition had wilted so prominently. This had to be rectified. “Just warming it up!” he yelled down. Then, urgently, “Cannoneers to your posts!”
His two cannoneers looked at Hawker dubiously now, suddenly mindful of the exposure of their own reputations.
“Move, you idiots!” hissed Hawker. “Triple the charge!” More powder would help. Then again, maybe the problem had been too little wadding. More stuffing, reasoned Hawker, would create more resistance—and a louder explosion. I’ll give them a blast.
They poured the triple charge down the muzzle. What to use for wadding? Hawker ripped off his leather tunic and rammed it down the tube of the cannon. More. Hawker looked at his assistant. “Give me your tunics,” he said to his crew.
The men stared back, clearly alarmed. “It’s cold, Hawker.”
“Give me your damn tunics!”
The men reluctantly complied, and Hawker added these new garments to the wadding. The jeering continued as Hawker worked furiously to reload the big gun. By the time he finished, the entire length of the cannon had been filled with buckskin, tightly packed.
“Ready!” yelled Hawker, reaching again for the burning lanyard.
“FIRE!” He set the spark to the primer and the cannon exploded. Actually exploded. The buckskins did indeed create additional resistance—so much so that the weapon blew itself into a thousand, glorious bits.
For a brilliant moment, the fire of the blast lit the night sky, then an enormous cloud of acrid smoke hid the blockhouse from view. The men ducked as shrapnel from the explosion ripped into the log walls of the fort and sunk hissing into the snow. The explosion knocked both of Hawker’s crewmen over the edge of the blockhouse and into the yard below. One broke an arm in the fall; the other two ribs. Both might have died had they not managed to land in a deep snowdrift.
As the driving wind cleared the smoke from the blockhouse, all eyes turned upward, searching for their brave artilleryman. No one said anything for a moment, until the captain called out, “Hawker!”
Another long moment passed. The swirling winds pushed the smoke away from the blockhouse. They saw a hand reach over the edge of the rampart. A second hand appeared—and then Hawker’s head. His face was black as coal from the blast. His hat had been blown from his head, and blood trickled from both ears. Even with his hands on the blockhouse he tottered from side to side. Most of the men expected him to pitch forward and die. Instead he yelled, “Happy New Year, you dirty sons of bitches!”
A great roar of approval filled the night.
* * *
Hugh Glass stumbled in the drift, surprised that the snow could already be so deep. He wore no mitten on his shooting hand, so the fall thrust his bare flesh into the snow. The icy sting made him wince. He pushed his hand under his capote to dry it. The snow had begun as scattered flurries, hardly enough to justify forting up. Glass now realized his mistake.
He looked around, trying to gauge the remaining daylight. The storm drew the horizon in close, as the high mountains in the background disappeared altogether. He could make out a thin ridge line of sandstone and the occasional pine sentinel. Otherwise, even the foothills seemed to fuse with the white-gray formless clouds of the sky. Glass was glad for the sure path of the Yellowstone River. An hour before sunset? Glass pulled the mitten from his possibles bag and placed it on his stiff, damp hand. Nothing to shoot at in this weather anyway.
It had been five days since Glass struck out from Fort Union. He knew now that Henry and his men had come this way; the path of thirty men was not difficult to follow. From the maps he had studied, Glass remembered Manuel Lisa’s abandoned trading post on the Big Horn. Surely Henry would go no farther—not in this season. He had a rough idea of the distances. But how much ground had he covered? Glass could only guess.
The temperature dropped precipitously with the arrival of the storm, but it was the wind that worried Glass. The wind seemed to animate the cold, endowing it with an ability to penetrate every seam of his clothing. He felt it first as a biting sting on the exposed flesh of his nose and ears. Wind forced water from the corners of his eyes and his running nose created moisture, compounding the chill. As he trudged through the deepening snow, the sharp bite faded slowly into an aching numbness, leaving once agile fingers as lumps of dysfunctional flesh. He needed to seek shelter while he could still find fuel—and while his fingers could still work the flint and steel.
The opposite bank rose steeply from the river. It would have provided some cover, but there was no way to ford the river. The terrain along his side of the river was featureless and flat, making no concessions to the driving wind. He saw a stand of a dozen cottonwoods about a mile away, barely perceptible through the blowing snow and the growing darkness. Why did I wait?
It took twenty minutes to cover the distance. In places the whipping wind had cleared the ground down to the dirt, but in others the drifts rose to his knees. Snow filled his moccasins and he cursed himself for not having fashioned gaiters. His deerskin breeches became wet from the snow and then froze solid, stiff shells encasing his lower legs. By the time he reached the cottonwoods he could no longer feel his toes.
The storm intensified as he scanned the tree stand for the best shelter. The wind seemed to blow from every direction at once, making it difficult to pick a spot. He settled on a downed cottonwood. The upturned roots spread out in a perpendicular arc from the thick base of the trunk, creating a windbreak in two directions. If only the wind would stop blowing from all four.
He set down his rifle and immediately began to gather fuel. He found plenty of wood. The problem was tinder. Several inches of snow covered the ground. When he dug beneath it, the leaves were damp and unsuitable. He tried to snap small branches from the cottonwood, but it was still green. Glass scoured the clearing. Daylight seemed to pour away, and he realized with growing concern that it was later than he had thought. By the time he gathered what he needed, he was working in near total darkness.