Into the Savage Country (20 page)

Layton saw us out in the lake. He did not call to us but strode along the beach, jumped up onto one of the high rocks that jutted out over the small bay, put a hand to his chest, and gave a fierce, guttural cry. His voice resounded and echoed among the gray rock walls. He gave another cry, and then, surprising both of us, he began to sing. It was the aria from
Il trionfo di Clelia
and his voice was magnificent. I had not known he could sing but it was a
true, resonant baritone, echoing and amplifying against the rock walls. It was rich and glorious. And it was all so unexpected. I can see him still, a red sash about his neck, a lone man standing on the perch over that silvery lake against the rising rock walls, booming out into the grainy air, in Italian.

Ferris and I held our pole and paddle very still, the deep, rich, lovely sound reverberating all around us in the rocky amphitheater. His singing went on for two minutes and it was wonderful. When the sound faded against the granite walls, without a word, Ferris and I started back, not to the beach but to the rock outcropping where Layton was perched. As we neared Layton leaped off the elevated rock. He seemed to hover in the air for a moment then landed in the center of the vessel with a violent thud, sending steep, rounded swells toward shore.

“Onward, gentlemen,” he said, and as he said this he stepped to the edge and began to pole vigorously, driving the raft on by himself.

His irritable nature, which had risen up for half a day, dissipated instantly, and for the entire trip back Layton poled with extra vigor, as if to show his “captain” comment had only been a joke. But it had not been a joke exactly. I would call it a confrontation, a rising up of the ugly part of his nature, the dark force inside him that he was constantly battling with. It was the part that felt superior and the part that yearned for companionship struggling with each other. One part of Layton rebelled against any stricture, including the binds that friendship imposes, but another part desired companionship, wanted to be part of the brigade and had struggled to save the goodwill that had built up between us over the past weeks. And I believe he did save it, but barely.

By the time we reached the shore we were all on the best
of terms again, and I understood something about Layton: there was a vain, poisonous part of him, but it was not the only part or even the truest part of him, and that he was in a battle with himself to rein in the ugly side of his nature. I thought the survival of the brigade depended on this struggle.

The next morning, very early, we slipped out of the mountains, rode across the desert valley, and by sundown the following day were back in the Wind River Mountains where the rest of the brigade had already gathered. We had taken Layton’s route that the Snake had told him was safer, and when we arrived we heard that three trappers from a St. Louis Company brigade had been found dead on the ridge that we would have taken to return if we had not heeded Layton’s advice.

I want to speak for a moment more about Max Grignon, who was the one wholly disagreeable element in our brigade. Grignon had pretensions of being a gentleman, which every man in the brigade found laughable. With his unkempt red hair and his torn calico shirt he seemed about as likely to become a gentleman as Pegleg or Bridger. And in the second half of the season, as the relations with the rest of the brigade improved, Layton began to ridicule Grignon’s pretensions openly, much to the amusement of the rest of the brigade. It was as if Layton felt responsible for recruiting Grignon, who was not an able trapper and certainly not a fine companion, and seemed to be attempting to apologize for bringing him along by ridiculing him. But like everything Layton did, he carried that ridicule to the extreme, and by mid-fall his mockery of Grignon had reached merciless and ridiculous proportions.

When Layton was having trouble with some calculations he very seriously asked Grignon if he could come to his aid, which
sent the other men snickering. Another time, when Layton had climbed to a pinnacle and was asked what he saw, Layton yelled down that he saw Grignon on bended knee to some maiden in the Rocky Mountain House. Another time Layton asked Grignon if he could borrow his vest as he wanted to impress some natives. Later that same day he called to some squaws just as Grignon had dropped his leggins to relieve himself. There were these jests, and a dozen others, and I suppose we all joined in the ridicule. Grignon was a lazy, bragging wheedler, full of shallow cunning and low, poisonous opinions. We all agreed he was an entirely unpleasant character, and yet for all his unpleasantness, there was a sort of yearning in Grignon for companionship and camaraderie, and I suppose we ought to have pitied the man and done what we could to make him feel a part of the brigade. Though he was at times a pathetic creature, Grignon was also a dangerous one. We all would have done better to remember this.

Still, all this is with the benefit of hindsight. In the placid fall season we were distracted by the general good humor of the brigade, the fertility of the land, and the glimmering promise of our future riches.

On a warm, windy late-August afternoon the brigade was interrupted in its labor by gunshots. We could hear them faintly, first one shot, then a series of them, echoing up from the east. Minutes later we saw smoke rising and knew that men were battling on the dusty flats east of the mountains. An hour later three natives appeared on horseback outside of our encampment, bare-chested and wearing deerskin leggins. One of the natives was bleeding from a gash across his chest, and the others carried both rifles and bows.

They stopped just out of rifle range and Layton, Smith, and Branch walked out to meet them. They spoke for a quarter of an hour. When they were finished the natives wheeled and rode off, not hurrying, and Smith, Layton, and Branch came back and stood at the edge of the fire.

“The Crow have some Blackfoot trapped up on a rock, Red Elk among them,” Smith said. “The Blackfoot have fortified their position and the Crow want our help in dislodging them. They say if we’re good friends to them here and give assistance they’ll be good friends to us by trading two packs of pelts for a few horns of powder.”

“What assistance?” Pegleg asked.

“There are natural bastions three hundred yards from the spot the Blackfoot have fortified. The Crow can’t make that shot. We can. They want our help to pin them down while they ride in to overwhelm them.”

Glass, the oldest and the most experienced member of the brigade, stood and began filling his powder horn. This was unusual, as Glass rarely presumed to make decisions for the group. He was a silent, watchful, unpresuming fellow, and the most taciturn man I have ever met.

“I see you think it’s an advantageous exchange,” Smith said.

“Advantageous or not, I see we have no choice,” Glass said. “We’re on Crow land, and despite their excessive pride about their warfaring abilities, they’ve humbled themselves and asked for our aid. If we don’t help them now they’ll be humiliated, call us ungrateful, and we’ll never make it out of these mountains with our pelts.”

The other men nodded, agreeing with his judgment—we were their guests and they had asked us for help. We had no choice.

The men in the brigade began to stand one by one, reaching for their weapons. I stood, too. Only Ferris remained sitting, looking sullenly into the fire.

“I didn’t sign on to be a mercenary,” Ferris said.

“You signed on to get rich,” Grignon said. “Two more packs for killing savages. What opposition could you have?”

“None that you would understand,” Ferris said.

Smith sat next to Ferris and said, “There are others who will join in willingly. Wave your weapon and make some noise. That’s all that’s required. And bring your quill. It will be a spectacle.”

Ferris considered this, then nodded, and after a moment stashed his notebook in his jacket and began preparing for departure with the rest of us.

Ten minutes later Smith, Branch, Bridger, Grignon, Pegleg, and Glass rode down to the flats. Layton, Ferris, and I were left to secure the furs in a nearby cave. We trailed the others by at least an hour, and I thought we might miss the battle entirely, but when we crested the last hilltop that overlooked the flats we saw that the Blackfoot were still encamped on their rock and the Crow were still making preparations to dislodge them. We stopped at that elevated spot and tied our horses off and Ferris sat and quickly began to sketch the scene that lay beneath us.

The rock on which the Blackfoot had fortified themselves had vertical sides and was surrounded by featureless land for at least half a mile in all directions except for three rock outcroppings rising at a distance of about three hundred yards to the north. Footholds on the back end of these outcroppings made excellent aeries. Pegleg, Grignon, and Glass had been placed in the aeries, and as we arrived they were peppering the Blackfoot, who were well hidden but could not fire without exposing themselves. The shots from the long guns could not penetrate
the Blackfoot defenses but did keep the Blackfoot from exposing themselves in order to fire on the Crow. From our elevated overlook I scanned the Blackfoot in my spyglass—men and women and children were crouched behind rocks, most cowering and terrified, but a few, including Red Elk, whom I recognized, were laying out balls and powder and arrows and other weapons, preparing for battle.

Meanwhile, Long Hair’s band had gathered to the north and were dashing about on horses, waving their weapons, and beyond these warriors, riders in a makeshift corral were dividing several hundred horses into two separate groups.

Ferris sketched all this quickly, and when he’d completed his first study, Layton instructed him to hold his work up.

“Wonderfully accurate and lively,” Layton said. “Bravo. A year from now you’ll be snubbing us on Market Street, the famous physician and artist.”

Ferris gestured dismissively with his bit of graphite.

“Physician? I’ll hardly be that. Taking the pulse of rich dowagers is no life for a man. When this season’s over I’ll squander whatever riches I’ve managed to accumulate, complete several studies, then continue my wandering. You two will be gentlemen in St. Louis while I’m still scraping the drainages.”

“And loving the life,” Layton said. “While I’ll be bored senseless in some drawing room, settled into the occupation of destroying my father’s business.”

“An occupation for which you have long been in training,” Ferris said.

“Since birth,” Layton agreed. “It’s Wyeth who’ll be most envied of the three of us. Comfortably settled with Alene and living on Bailey’s fortune with the footman calling, ‘Make way for the gentleman.’ ”

“I’ll be settled on my own fortune,” I said. “And I’ll know that all my father’s imprecations were groundless.”

Ferris’s hand paused in its scratching. Layton gave me a skeptical look.

“Whether you make a fortune or not, the accusations about your mettle were groundless. You see that, do you not?” Layton said.

“I will see it when I succeed,” I said, and Layton gave a knowing look.

“Your father’s drunken bile has made an ambitious man of you. I will remember that method of motivation when I have legitimate children of my own.”

Ferris was about to reply with some inflammatory remark, but was silenced, as the real battle had begun.

The first of the two tightly packed groups of churning horseflesh were being driven toward the field of battle by native handlers. From that distance we could see the riders dashing about the horses, waving strips of knotted leather, driving the riderless horses past the fortified rock and then urging them to circle around again and again. The Blackfoot fired into the horses, but with as much effect as firing into a pool of minnows. When the Blackfoot had wasted much of their ammunition, the second, smaller herd of horses was then sent out at a slight angle to the rock. Most of the horses in this second wave were riderless as well, but a few carried natives with their bodies pressed to the side so they could not be hit with a bullet or arrow. With the dust and the many riderless horses and the shots from the long guns making exposure dangerous, it would have been impossible for the trapped Blackfoot to tell which horses had riders and which did not.

The Crow women from the village had gathered at five hundred
yards and begun to yip and let out high-pitched shrieks. The waiting warriors beat their shields and let out high cries. The air was filled with the thunder of hooves and the cries of warriors and the shots from the men.

The first riders approached the gray rock and one by one they leaped from the backs of the horses directly onto the rock. Within several seconds we could see nothing because of the smoke and dust surrounding the rock and could only see the flashes of gunshots, like lightning inside a cloud. Pegleg and Glass and Grignon left their perches and ran toward the rock, pistols drawn. The three of us clambered off our promontory and made our way toward the gray rock, which was completely enclosed in a dense cloud of dust and smoke.

As we approached the rock we saw abandoned horses wandering about everywhere, many of them bleeding from gunshots. The base of the rock was literally clogged with bloodstained horses, some of them with bodies beneath them. By the time we managed to clamber up to the flat area at the top of the rock, the battle was over. The Crow had overwhelmed the Blackfoot and were dispatching those who were still alive by crushing their skulls with the barrels of their rifles.

We had lost Layton in the dust and as Ferris and I wandered back out to the flats we saw him standing among five Crow who were holding two Blackfoot captive. One of the Blackfoot was an old man and another was a boy. Layton was offering his spyglass in return for the two captives. Perhaps Layton meant to take the prisoners and negotiate with the Blackfoot village in return for a favor, but I believe he acted at that moment out of compassion.

The Crow listened indifferently to Layton’s pleadings. They had lost eight men in the battle and were in no mood to show mercy. Grignon airily watched Layton’s futile pleading, and after
a moment, seeing it would do no good, took his pistol, put it to the boy’s head, and fired. The boy slumped to the side. Layton looked as if he’d strangle Grignon, and Grignon, who’d said he’d always wanted to kill a native, gave him an odd, complacent smile and skittered away. A moment later one of the Crow raised his club and brained the old man, and Layton, still holding the spyglass, walked out into the smoke and dust and we did not see him again for at least half an hour.