CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jim
Mountain, Wyoming Territory
Lee Regret and Sam Davis rode down to
the river at the base of the mountain and dismounted. Leading their
horses down to the water, they stood holding the reins as the
horses began to drink.
“I don’t see him anywhere about,”
Regret said.
“He’ll be here,” Davis said. “You know
Sergeant Depro as well as I do. You know that when he tells you
he’s goin’ to do somethin’ that he does it.”
“Yeah, well, only if he’s goin’ to get
somethin’ out of it for his ownself,” Regret said.
“Well, he is goin’ to get somethin’,”
Davis insisted. “He’s goin’ to get his cut of the
money.”
“If there is any money,” Regret
replied. “You ever seen any Indians with money?”
“You were there when we talked to Mean
to His Horses. You heard me tell him that we wanted to be paid in
gold. He agreed, and that’s what we’ll be dealin’ in.”
As the two men stood there talking and
watching their animals take water, they heard a low whistle from
just beyond the tree line on the opposite side of the
river.
“What was that?” Regret
asked.
“Sounded like a bird,” Davis
replied.
“Didn’t sound like no bird I ever
heard.”
Davis returned the whistle and a moment
later a man wearing an army uniform with the stripes of a sergeant
walked through the tree line.
“Howdy, troopers,” he called from the
other side of the river.
“We ain’t troopers no more,” Regret
said. “We done been out of the army for nigh onto a
year.”
“Hell, Regret, you wasn’t no soldier
when you was in the army,” the sergeant said. “You wasn’t bad
though, Davis.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Davis
said.
“What the hell you suckin’ up to him,
for?” Regret asked. “He can’t make me muck out stables, and he
can’t give you no stripes. Me ’n you both is out of the army and
there ain’t nothin’ he can do to hurt us or help us. Ain’t that
right, Sergeant Depro?”
“That all depends,” Depro
replied.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether or not you want the weapons
I got.”
“You got ’em, Sarge?” Davis asked, now,
suddenly animated.
“Come over here with me, and I’ll let
you take a look.”
Regret and Davis waded through the
water, then followed Sergeant Depro to the other side of a large
rock outcropping. There sat an old weather-beaten wagon, its
markings so dim that it was barely identifiable as a one-time army
wagon.
“Here they are,” Sergeant Depro said,
jerking the canvas cover away to reveal eight closed
boxes.
Davis pried off the lid from the first
box. He picked up one of the rifles and tossed it over to Regret,
then picked up another for himself. It was a lever-action rifle,
and he pumped the lever as he examined the action. “How many do you
have here?” he asked.
“Forty Winchester repeaters, .44-.40,
fifty-five Springfield .51 caliber breach-loading rifles, and
thirty-five Colt revolvers, .45 caliber,” Sergeant Depro answered.
“Or, put another way, enough weapons to start a small
war.”
“Funny you should say that,” Regret
replied. “For that is exactly what we have in mind.”
“Have you got a buyer?”
“Yeah, we have a buyer,” Davis said.
“Mean to His Horses.”
“Mean to His Horses?” Depro replied.
“Wait a minute. Are you tellin’ me I stole these guns to sell to
Injuns? And not just any Injun, you’re going to sell them to Mean
to His Horses? You can’t be serious.”
“Yeah, we are serious. Why wouldn’t we
be serious?” Davis asked.
Depro shook his head. “I don’t know,
Mean to His Horses is one bad son of a bitch. I just can’t believe
you sold weapons to him.”
“Who did you think we would sell them
to?” Regret asked. “Some squaw, somewhere?”
“No, I guess not. But I’m sure you
remember the skirmish we had with Mean to His Horses a couple of
years ago. He had fifty braves who went off the reservation, and we
ran into them at Crazy Woman Creek. That was the fight where
Miller, Tucker, and Jimmy Clark was all three killed.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Davis
said.
“They captured Jimmy Clark, and
tortured him that night. We all heard him screaming for two or
three hours before he died,” Depro said. “You remember that too, do
you?”
“Yes, of course I remember. Something
like that ain’t all that easy to forget,” Regret said. “So what is
your point?”
“My point is, is that really the kind
of Injun you want to sell these guns to?”
“I don’t care who we sell the guns to,
as long as we get paid,” Davis said. “And seein’ as how you done
stole the guns, looks to me like you don’t have no choice but to go
along with it your ownself. ’Cause when you think about it, you are
in this for the money, same as we are.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Depro agreed. “It
don’t really make me no never mind what happens to the guns as long
as I get paid for ’em. What price do you think we can get for
them?”
“We’ve already set the price at ten
dollars apiece so, with what we’ve got here, I figure that comes to
about thirteen hundred dollars,” Davis said.
“How much will that be for each of us?”
Regret asked.
“Four hundred and thirty-three dollars
each, with one dollar left over,” Davis said. He looked at Depro.
“Which is damn near a year’s salary for you.”
“Here’s another way we can make some
money,” Depro said. “I’ve already got me about ten thousand rounds,
all divided up according to caliber. If we don’t give the Injuns
bullets when we sell ’em the guns, why, we could charge them for
the bullets too, oh, say maybe a nickel a round and that would be
another five hundred dollars.”
“Sounds good to me,” Davis said. “But
how did you come by the bullets?”
“When we were told to ship them guns
back to Jefferson Barracks, what they also done was ask for the
ammunition too,” Depro explained. He smiled. “But I hid all the
bullets away same as I hid the guns. That means I’ve got all the
ammunition we will need.”
“I tell you what,” Davis said. “What do
you say we just let the Indians play with the guns without bullets
for a while? I’m sure they can come up with some on their own, but
probably not more ’n a handful. And all that’s goin’ to do is make
’em hungry for more.”
“Ha! They might get so hungry for them
bullets that we could fetch a dime apiece for ’em,” Regret
said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Davis
said.
DeMaris
Springs
As it so happened, Buffalo Bill Cody
had several horses being kept for him at the livery at DeMaris
Springs, so the day after their meeting with Bellefontaine, Cody,
Falcon, and Ingraham walked down to the DeMaris
Corral.
“I keep horses here so that I have them
handy when I come out,” Cody said. “It helps that the DeMaris
Corral is one of the few business establishments in town that
Bellefontaine doesn’t own.”
When they stepped into the livery barn,
they saw two men putting a wheel on a buckboard.
“Karl, are you sure you know what you
are doing?” Cody called out.
A big man, whose rolled-up sleeves
displayed welldeveloped biceps, turned toward the three
men.
“More better than you know, I think,”
Karl replied. Grabbing a rag to wipe his hands, the big man
advanced toward the three, then a wide smile spread across his
face. “Cody, in town I heard you were,” he said as he stuck out his
hand.
“It is I heard you were in town, you
dumb Dutchman, not in town I heard you were,” Cody
said.
That there was no animosity between the
two men was indicated by the mutual smiles, and a hearty
handshake.
“Gentleman, this thickheaded Dutchman
is Karl Maas. And you aren’t likely to find a better man anywhere.
Karl, this is Falcon MacCallister and Prentiss
Ingraham.”
“Falcon MacCallister, ja, of you I have heard,” Karl said as he shook first
Falcon’s hand, then Ingraham’s.
“When are you going to sell this place
and come join my Wild West Exhibition? I would put you in charge of
all my stock and rolling equipment. I was in Germany two months
ago. Why, just think, if you had been working for me then, you
could have gone back.”
“And why to the place I left, would I
want to go back?”
Cody chuckled. “A good enough question,
I suppose. Listen, how about picking out three of my best horses
and having them saddled for us?”
“You are going to look at the site
where the town you will build?” Karl asked.
“Yes. Then we are going to ride through
Yellowstone, and go on to Cinnabar. I’m going to try out some new
cowboys for my show there.”
“Al,” Maas called to one of his
employees, “three of Herr Cody’s best horses, you
saddle.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Maas,” Al
replied.
“You weren’t at the meeting this
morning when we talked about the Indian problem,” Cody
said.
“There is no Indian problem,” Maas
said, shaking his head. “I think it is something Bellefontaine
wants.”
“Why would he want that?” Falcon
asked.
“I think he wants all the basin for
himself so he can build his mine. If there is Indian problem, then
all prospectors and homesteaders will not be able to stay. And the
Indians too, will not be able to stay because the army will come in
and move them.”
“Is there that much gold in this
valley?” Falcon asked.
“I think there is no gold,” Maass said,
“but there is much coal. Bellefontaine wants to mine the coal to
sell to the railroad. That will make him much money, I
think.”
“Damn,” Cody said, snapping his
fingers. “You know, Karl, you may not be as thickheaded as people
think. Bellefontaine is making everyone think he is looking for
gold, but that is just a ruse. He has been after coal all
along.”
“Ja, that is
what I think,” Maas said.
Al returned with three saddled
horses.
“Ah, thank you, Al,” Cody said, giving
him a generous tip. He turned to Falcon and Ingraham. “Gentlemen,
all three are excellent riding horses, with strength and endurance.
You may choose your mount.”
Half an hour later the three men were
at the exact site where Cody planned to build his
town.
“One problem in this area is the lack
of potable water, which is why I am building on the river,” Cody
said. “This is the Stinking Water River.” Dismounting, he walked
down to the river. “But as you can see,” he said, as he dipped his
canteen cup into it, then took a drink. “The water is as sweet as a
good wine.”
He held the cup out toward Falcon and
Falcon took a drink as well. “It is good water,” Falcon
agreed.
“Why do they call it Stinking Water
River?” Ingraham asked.
“It has nothing to do with the water at
all. There are several fumaroles about,” Cody said, “and they give
off an odor, rather like rotten eggs. Once we get my town
established, I intend to get the name changed to the Shoshone
River.”
“I must confess that the scenery here
is beautiful,” Ingraham said. “But this a very remote and isolated
location. It will be very hard for people to get
here.”
“There is already a railroad to
Cinnabar just on the other side of Yellowstone Park,” Cody said.
“And the Burlington railroad is planning to build a railroad from
Billings to Denver. I am trying to convince them to bring the track
through Cody.”
“Knowing your power of persuasion,
Cody, I would bet that you get the job done,” Falcon
offered.
“And that will completely destroy the
town of DeMaris Springs,” Ingraham said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Cody
said.
Ingraham laughed. “Unfortunately my
foot. That is your intention.”
“I must confess that it is unlikely
this area could support two towns in such close proximity,” Cody
replied. “So if one town is to succeed, I would hope it would be my
town.”
“Nobody can fault you on that,”
Ingraham said.
“Cody, did you say we are going through
Yellowstone before we get to Cinnabar?” Falcon asked.
“Yes.”
“But there is no east entrance to
Yellowstone. The mountains are too high.”
“There is a pass,” Cody said. “It is
called Sylvan Pass. I am proposing that they make an entrance using
that pass. That would add to the attraction of my town when I get
it built.”
“Sylvan Pass. I don’t think I have
heard of it.”
“It’s very high,” Cody said. “But I am
convinced that, with a series of switchbacks, a road could be
constructed that would take visitors from my town into the park.
And I intend to prove it.”
“By taking us through it,” Falcon
said.
“Yes. Are you game?”
“I’m not the one you need to ask,”
Falcon said. “The question is, are the horses up to
it?”
“There’s only one way to find out,”
Cody replied.
From Cody’s town site, they had a day’s
ride through Big Horn Basin to the Yellowstone Park. Their ride
took them close to, but not through, the Crow Indian
village.
“I have known High Hawk for a long
time,” Cody said. “We are friends of long standing, and I cannot
believe we are in any danger. Nevertheless, it would probably be
wise to keep an eye open.”
The three men were alert for the entire
ride, but they did not see one other person, Indian or white. They
camped that night, just east of the park.
The next morning they entered
Yellowstone by way of Sylvan Pass. Without a road, they had to
follow the natural terrain of the mountain, finding enough ground
for their horses to get footing as they made a series of
switchbacks to enable them to gain altitude. The climb was long and
arduous, and soon they were so high that they were actually looking
down on the snow-capped peaks of adjacent mountains. In fact,
though it was the middle of June, there were several areas where
they actually passed through snow that came up to the horses’
knees.
Several times they had to dismount and
lead the horses until, at last, they were at the top of the pass.
There they stopped to give themselves and their horses a chance to
catch their breath. That was made even harder due to the thinner
air at this elevation.
“How high are we?” Ingraham asked,
panting heavily as they stood at the top of the pass, as he looked
around at the vista their position afforded.
“I’m not sure exactly how high we are,”
Cody said. “But if this were nighttime and we were hungry, why we
could just reach up and get a piece of cheese from the
moon.”
Falcon and Ingraham
laughed.
“Actually, the pass is somewhere
between eight and nine thousand feet high,” Cody said.
Yellowstone had been established as a
national park in 1872. Both Falcon and Cody had been to Yellowstone
prior to its establishment as a park, and Cody had been many times
since it became a national park. But Ingraham had never been, and
he took in the park with the awe of someone who was transfixed by
the wonders that he beheld.
Falcon and Cody pointed out Yellowstone
Lake, which Cody declared was the most beautiful lake in the entire
country. Coming down from the pass, they saw travertine terraces,
geysers, mud volcanoes, giant hot springs, and the Upper and Lower
Falls in what Cody called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Park.
At midday Falcon shot a goose. Ingraham
started gathering wood and Cody called out to him.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gathering wood for a fire so we
can cook the goose,” Ingraham replied.
“No need for that.”
“What are you planning for us to do?
Eat the goose raw?”
“No need for that either,” Cody said.
“Let me show you.”
After cleaning the goose, Cody tied a
long piece of rawhide around the goose’s feet, then lowered it into
one of the boiling cauldrons of the natural hot
springs.
“Because of the pressure, the water is
much hotter than normal boiling temperature,” Cody said. “So the
goose will cook much faster.”
In less than ten minutes, Cody pulled
the goose from the hot water, then lay it on a fallen tree trunk.
Cutting it open showed that the goose was thoroughly cooked,
through and through.
“I wonder if the Indians used to cook
their food this way?” Ingraham said and he pulled some meat away
from the breast and ate it.
“No,” Falcon said. “Because of all the
hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and sink holes, the Indians
considered this area to be filled with bad medicine.”
“You have to be careful where you walk
here,” Cody added. “There are places where the ground looks quite
secure, but if you step on it you will find that it is only a very
thin crust, and you can fall through to a boiling cauldron like
this one.”
“Thanks a lot,” Ingraham said. “Now
you’ll have me scared to death to take a step.”
“Do like me,” Falcon said. “Walk behind
Cody. If he falls in, we’ll know not to step there.”
Ingraham laughed. “Good plan,” he
said.
“I’ll say this,” Ingraham said. “The
wonders of this park will never cease to amaze me.”
“Here is another amazing wonder,” Cody
said. “Once, many years ago, before this became a park, I came here
to hunt bighorn sheep. I saw one, took a perfect aim at him and
fired, but missed. Not only did I miss, the bighorn sheep paid no
attention to me.
“I moved closer and fired again, missed
again, though I don’t know how that could possibly have been so.
And what was even more amazing is the fact that the bighorn paid no
attention whatever, not even reacting to the sound of the gunshot.
I rushed toward the sheep to see what was wrong and I ran smack dab
into a solid glass wall.”
“A glass wall?” Ingraham
said.
“Yes, sir, well, it wasn’t exactly a
glass wall. It was more like a glass mountain. Because, believe it
or not, that glass mountain was acting just like a telescope. As it
turns out, even though that bighorn sheep looked like he was no
more than a hundred yards away, he was actually ten miles
off.”
Falcon and Ingraham laughed out
loud.
“Of course, that mountain isn’t here
anymore. No sir, the government found out about it and they sent
folks in here to chop it down and make it into field glasses and
telescopes for the army and navy,” Cody added.
“Cody, you have missed your calling,”
Ingraham said. “With a tall tale like that, you are the one who
should be writing.”
After dinner they continued their
sojourn through the park, riding by sheer-sided cliffs that rose a
thousand or more feet straight up and enjoying the colors, from
canary, to orange, to bronze. During their ride through the park
they saw buffalo, elk, deer, and grizzly. One grizzly bear made a
few feints toward them and all three men drew their rifles, but the
bear, with a few grunts and a toss of his head, turned and ambled
away from them.
Within the boundaries of the
Yellowstone Park rise the headwaters of the greatest river system
in the United States. The Gallatin, Madison, Gardiner, Jefferson
and Yellowstone join the Missouri River, which joins the
Mississippi to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The Snake has its
head here as well, and it flows to the Pacific, while the
headwaters of the Colorado lead to the Gulf of
California.
It took them all day to see the sights,
and they camped outside one more night, reaching the Mammoth Spring
Hotel mid-morning of the next day. This was a large building, over
300 feet long, with a broad porch that ran the entire length of the
hotel. There were a number of people lounging on the porch,
including several tourists from Europe, a couple of army officers
in uniform, and a very pretty black-haired, dark-eyed girl who was
selling photographs of the park. From the porch there was a
particularly fine view of mountains covered with pines, with their
tips above the tree line, covered year-round with
snow.
The most noticeable feature was a
mountain, no more than one hundred yards away from the hotel. At
first glance it looked like ice, but was actually a sedimentary
formation from the hot springs which formed a succession of steps,
terraces and plateaus of irregular height and width. From various
terraces emerged trickles of hot water which then passed down over
the plateaus in thin, pulsing waves.
When the three men went into the hotel
they were greeted by Rufus Hatch, the owner of the
hotel.
“Buffalo Bill Cody,” he said. “What a
pleasure to see you. How goes your town? Have you built it
yet?”
“I am still working on it,” Cody
replied. He turned to Falcon. “You know that the only reason he is
interested in my town is because he thinks it will mean more
business for his hotel.”
“But of course it will,” Hatch said.
“Did you come down from Cinnabar?”
“No, we came from DeMaris
Springs.”
“DeMaris Springs? Are you trying to
tell me you came from the east?” Hatch asked.
“I’m not trying to tell you, Rufus, I
am telling you. We came in from the east.”
“But no, that is
impossible.”
“We are proof that it is
possible.”
“Ah, yes, but you came by horse, and
foot, did you not? I suppose one could enter the park that way. But
that would not be a practical way to enter for
tourists.”
“It would be practical if we built a
road,” Cody said.
“Are you saying that you think a road
could be built that would enter the park from the
east?”
“I believe so,” Cody said. “In fact, I
will personally hire surveyors to mark out the route for a
road.”
“You are indeed a friend,” Hatch said.
“That would be of immense benefit to the park.”
“I see that you are doing a very good
business, despite the lack of a road from the east,” Cody
said.
“Yes, well, the trains come from
Livingston to Cinnabar now, and of course we have stagecoaches that
maintain a steady run from the Cinnabar depot to here,” Hatch said.
“Oh, by the way, as you will see in the lounge, I have put up
posters about the audition you will be holding in Cinnabar for your
show. I predict you will get cowboys from all over Wyoming,
Montana, and Utah.”
Prentiss Ingraham’s notes from his book in
progress:
The hotel at
Mammoth Hot Springs is one of the most remarkable hotels I have
ever seen. It is built upon a plateau of the vast formations of
sulfur and magnesia, deposited by the Hot Springs. A level area of
many acres surrounds the hotel, with mountains and forest on every
side except far below, where the Gardiner River rushes through a
beautiful valley toward its juncture with the
Yellowstone.
The hotel is
built of wood, except for the chimneys which are of brick. The
rooms and corridors are generous in their dimension and
surprisingly so in this remote area, illuminated by Mr. Edison’s
electric lights. The hotel attracts hunters, settlers, and cowboys
as they congregate in the great halls, wearing sombrero hats, high
leather boots and leggings, revolvers and cartridge
belts.
The residents
of Yellowstone expressed a great deal of surprise that we gained
entrance to the park from the east, marveling at the fact that we
were able to negotiate a pass which rises to nearly nine thousand
feet in elevation.
Leaving the
hotel and the park, we journeyed by horseback some ten miles,
gradually descending in altitude by way of a dusty but
well-travelled road to Cinnabar. Here, announcements had been duly
posted to attract applicants for the coveted position of being a
performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Exhibition. This is no small
thing as Buffalo Bill is a man of great honesty and integrity who
believes in giving the audiences for his show an authentic look at
America’s great West as it really is.