So the problem wasn’t the mule. The problem, of course, was Glass.
It would be impossible to hold the litter above the water while crossing.
Captain Henry mulled his choices, cursing Harris for not leaving a sign to cross earlier. They had passed an easy ford a mile downstream. He hated to divide the men, even for a few hours, but it seemed silly to march them all back. “Fitzgerald, Anderson—it’s your turn on the litter. Bernot—you and me will go back with ’em to the crossing we passed. Rest of you cross here and wait.”
Fitzgerald glared at the captain, muttering under his breath. “You got something to say, Fitzgerald?”
“I signed on to be a trapper, Captain—not a goddamned mule.”
“You’ll take your turn like everybody else.”
“And I’ll tell you what everybody else is afraid to say to your face. We’re all wondering if you intend to drag this corpse all the way to the Yellowstone.”
“I intend to do the same with him that I’d do for you or any other man in this brigade.”
“What you’ll be doing for all of us is digging graves. How long do you figure we can parade through this valley before we stumble on some hunting party? Glass ain’t the only man in this brigade.”
“You ain’t the only man either,” said Anderson. “Fitzgerald don’t speak for me, Captain—and I bet he don’t speak for many others.”
Anderson walked to the litter, placing his rifle next to Glass. “You gonna make me drag him?”
* * *
For three days they had carried Glass. The banks of the Grand alternated between sandbar and jumbled rock. Occasional stands of cottonwood gave way at the high water line to the graceful branches of willows, some reaching ten feet in height. Cut banks forced them to climb, giant scoops where erosion sliced away the earth as neatly as a cleaver. They maneuvered around the tangled debris left piled behind the spring flood—mounded stones, tangled branches, and even entire trees, their sun-bleached trunks as smooth as glass from the beating of water and stone. When the terrain became too rugged, they crossed the river to continue upstream, wet buckskins compounding the weight of their load.
The river was a highway on the plains, and Henry’s men were not the only travelers on its banks. Tracks and abandoned campsites were numerous. Black Harris had twice seen small hunting parties. The distance had been too great to determine if they were Sioux or Arikara, though both tribes presented danger. The Arikara were certain enemies since the battle on the Missouri. The Sioux had been allies in that fight, but their current disposition was unknown. With only ten able men, the small party of trappers offered little deterrent to attack. At the same time, their weapons, traps, and even the mule were attractive targets. Ambush was a constant danger, with only the scouting skills of Black Harris and Captain Henry to steer them clear.
Territory to cross quickly, thought the captain. Instead, they plodded forward at the leaden pace of a funeral procession.
Glass slipped in and out of consciousness, though one state differed little from the other. He could occasionally take water, but the throat wounds made it impossible to swallow solid food. Twice the litter spilled, dumping Glass on the ground. The second spill broke two of the stitches in his throat. They stopped long enough for the captain to resuture the neck, red now with infection. No one bothered to inspect the other wounds. There was little they could do for them, anyway. Nor could Glass protest. His wounded throat rendered him mute, his only sound the pathetic wheeze of his breathing.
At the end of the third day they arrived at the confluence of a small creek with the Grand. A quarter mile up the creek, Black Harris found a spring, surrounded by a thick stand of pines. It was an ideal campsite. Henry dispatched Anderson and Harris to find game.
The spring itself was more seep than font, but its icy water filtered over mossy stones and collected in a clear pool. Captain Henry stooped to drink while he thought about the decision he had made.
In three days of carrying Glass, the captain estimated they had covered only forty miles. They should have covered twice that distance or more. While Henry believed they might be beyond Arikara territory, Black Harris found more signs each day of the Sioux.
Beyond his concerns about where they were, Henry fretted about where they needed to be. More than anything, he worried that they would arrive too late on the Yellowstone. Without a couple of weeks to lay in a supply of meat, the whole brigade would be at jeopardy. Late fall weather was as capricious as a deck of cards. They might find Indian summer, or the howling winds of an early blizzard.
Aside from their physical safety, Henry felt enormous pressure for commercial success. With luck, a few weeks of fall hunting, and some trading with the Indians, they might net enough fur to justify sending one or two men downriver.
The captain loved to imagine the effect of a fur-laden pirogue arriving in St. Louis on some bright February day. Stories of their successful establishment on the Yellowstone would headline the Missouri Republican. The press would bring new investors. Ashley could parley fresh capital into a new fur brigade by early spring. By late summer, Henry envisioned himself commanding a network of trappers up and down the Yellowstone. With enough men and trading goods, maybe he could even buy peace with the Blackfeet, and once again trap in the beaver-rich valleys of the Three Forks. By next winter it would take flatboats to carry the plews they would harvest.
But it all depended upon time. Being there first and in force. Henry felt the press of competition from every point on the compass.
From the north, the British North West Company had established forts as far south as the Mandan villages. The British also dominated the western coast, from which they now pushed inland along the Columbia and its tributaries. Rumors circulated that British trappers had penetrated as far as the Snake and the Green.
From the south, several groups spread northward from Taos and Santa Fe: the Columbia Fur Company, the French Fur Company, StoneBostwick and Company.
Most visible of all was the competition from the east, from St. Louis itself. In 1819, the U.S. Army began its “Yellowstone Expedition” with the express goal of enlarging the fur trade. Though extremely limited, the army’s presence emboldened entrepreneurs already eager to pursue the fur trade. Manuel Lisa’s Missouri Fur Company opened trade on the Platte. John Jacob Astor revived the remnants of his American Fur Company, driven from the Columbia by the British in the War of 1812, by establishing a new headquarters in St. Louis. All competed for limited sources of capital and men.