Glass’s breathing began to slow. His temple ceased to pulsate in sync with his heart. He looked around the room, as if suddenly aware of the ring of men surrounding him. He stared for a long time at the knife in his hand, then slipped it in his belt. Turning from the boy, Glass realized he was cold and walked toward the fire, extending his bloodied hands to the warmth of the crackling flames.
TWENTY-TWO
FEBRUARY 27, 1824
A STEAMSHIP NAMED DOLLEY MADISON had arrived in St. Louis the week before. It carried a cargo of goods from Cuba, including sugar, rum, and cigars. William H. Ashley loved cigars, and he wondered briefly why the fat Cuban perched on his lip was failing to impart its usual pleasure. Of course he knew the reason. When he walked each day to the riverfront, he didn’t go in search of steamships bearing trifles from the Caribbean. No, he went in ravenous anticipation of a fur-laden pirogue from the far west. Where are they? There had been no word from Andrew Henry or Jedediah Smith in five months. Five months!
Ashley paced the length of his cavernous office at the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He hadn’t been able to sit still all day. He stopped again in front of the enormous map on the wall. The map was ornate, or at least it had been. Ashley had punctured it with more pins than a tailor’s dummy, and used a fat pencil to scratch the location of rivers, streams, trading posts, and other assorted landmarks.
His eyes traced the path up the Missouri and he tried again to fight off the sensation of impending ruin. He paused, staring at a spot on the river just west of St. Louis, where one of his flatboats had sunk with ten thousand dollars’ worth of supplies. He paused at the pin marking the Arikara villages, where sixteen of his men had been murdered and robbed, and where even the power of the U.S. Army had been unable to clear a path for his venture. He paused at a bend in the Missouri above the Mandan villages, where two years before Henry had lost a herd of seventy horses to the Assiniboine. He followed the Missouri past Fort Union to the Great Falls, where an attack by the Blackfeet had later sent Henry retreating down the river.
He looked down at a letter in his hand, the latest inquiry from one of his investors. The letter demanded an update on the “status of the venture on the Missouri.” I have no idea. And, of course, every penny of Ashley’s own fortune rode with Andrew Henry and Jedediah Smith.
Ashley felt an overwhelming desire to act, to strike out, to do something, to do anything—yet there was nothing more he could do. He already had managed to secure a loan for a new keelboat and provisions. The keelboat floated at a dock on the river and his provisions sat stacked in a warehouse. His recruitment for a new fur brigade was oversubscribed. He’d spent weeks culling forty men from a hundred who applied. In April he would personally lead his men up the Missouri. More than a month away!
And where would he go? When Ashley dispatched Henry and Smith last August, their loose understanding was to rendezvous in the field—location to be determined through messengers. Messengers!
His eyes returned to the map. He used his finger to trace the scrawled line that represented the Grand River. He remembered drawing that line, and how he had guessed at the course of the river. Was I right? Did the Grand provide a direct line toward Fort Union? Or did it veer in some other direction? How long had it taken Henry and his men to reach the fort? Long enough, it appeared, that they had not been able to conduct a fall hunt. Are they even alive?
* * *
Captain Andrew Henry, Hugh Glass, and Black Harris sat next to the dying coals of the fire in the bunkhouse of the fort on the Big Horn. Henry stood and walked outside the cabin, returning with an armful of wood. He set a log on the coals and the three men watched as flames reached eagerly for the fresh fuel.
“I need a messenger to go back to St. Louis,” said Henry. “I should have sent one before, but I wanted to wait till we were set up on the Big Horn.”
Glass seized immediately at the opportunity. “I’ll go, Captain.” Fitzgerald and the Anstadt were somewhere down the Missouri. Besides, a month in Henry’s company had been more than sufficient to remind Glass of the cloudy weather that the captain could not shake.
“Good. I’ll give you three men and horses. I assume you agree that we ought to stay off the Missouri?”
Glass nodded. “I think we ought to try the Powder down to the Platte. Then it’s a straight shot to Fort Atkinson.”
“Why not the Grand?”
“More chance of Rees on the Grand. Besides, if we’re lucky we might bump into Jed Smith on the Powder.”
The next day, Pig heard from a trapper named Red Archibald that Hugh Glass was returning to St. Louis, carrying a message to William H. Ashley from the captain. He immediately sought out Captain Henry and volunteered to go along. As much as he feared a journey away from the relative comfort of the fort, the prospect of staying was worse. Pig was not cut out for life as a trapper and he knew it. He thought about his former life as a cooper’s apprentice. He missed his old life and its rudimentary comforts more than he imagined possible.
Red was going too. And a friend of his, a bow-legged Englishman named William Chapman. Red and Chapman had been plotting to desert when the rumor spread about messengers to St. Louis. Captain Henry was even paying a bounty to the volunteers. Accompanying Glass would save them the trouble of sneaking off. They could leave early and get paid for the privilege. Chapman and Red could scarcely believe their good fortune. “You remember the saloon at Fort Atkinson?” asked Red.
Chapman laughed. He remembered it well, the last taste of decent whiskey on their way up the Missouri.
John Fitzgerald heard none of the bawdy din in the saloon at Fort Atkinson. He was too focused on his cards, picking them up, one by one as they were dealt, from the stained felt top of the table: Ace … Maybe my luck is changing … Five … Seven … Four … then—
Ace. Yes. He looked around the table. The smarmy lieutenant with the big pile of coins threw three cards on the table and said, “I’ll take three and bet five dollars.”
The sutler threw down all of his cards. “I’m out.”
A strapping boatman threw down a single card and pushed five dollars to the center of the table.
Fitzgerald threw down three cards as he calculated his competition.
The boatman was an idiot, presumably drawing for a straight or a flush. The lieutenant was probably holding a pair, but not a pair that could beat his aces. “I’ll see your five and I’ll raise you five.”
“See me five and raise me five with what?” asked the lieutenant. Fitzgerald felt the blood rise in his face, felt the familiar pounding at his temple. He was down one hundred dollars—every penny from the pelts he had sold that afternoon to the sutler. He turned to the sutler. “Okay, old man—I’ll sell you the second half of that pack of beaver. Same price—five bucks a plew.”