Death Trail

Death Trail1

He heard us trekking in, horses snorting and men shouting out laughs at this or that. He knew why we were coming and from his bluff just below the hills he bellowed his ululating challenge song. You could see him pawing at the earth, a big bull demanding we leave his territory.
This wasn’t our elk camp of late autumn, this was an extra trip into some dense territory near the mountains. Only the aunties who were really healthy came on this trek. It was a dangerous few miles up into the snow. None of the kids except me got to go, so I had no little ones to watch this time. Children of age ten were expected to be responsible and work like adults.
A stillness filled the air, some vagrant hollow in the sky. That bull reared up on his hind legs, mad as fury that we weren’t retreating. He screamed and thrashed the ground, tossed his four points like a sorcerer’s wand, trying to scare us. We weren’t scared, but we all had a healthy respect for that fellow.
Uncle Harold watched the elk for the longest time. He was a quiet man, never said what his thoughts were, but you had to know from his gaze that he had marked that bull as his own kill. Several of the men boasted they would take him down. Uncle Harold never said a word, just that Clark look to him.
If we had a good hunt the winter would be comfortable. There was meat in the lockers at Decker’s, but there would never be too much meat, just everybody eating better.
Harlan Race knew about this place and invited our clan to join him for the trek. We would be out as long as elk camp, but it would be a much different type of hunt. This was just fifteen people. Three of us weren’t hunters, but we were to be taught how to hunt that year. All three of us, me ten, Arnold nine, and Davie ten, had been taught how to handle and care for a gun. We had to prove that we could break down a gun and carry it safely.
That Remington was big for me, but I had strong arms from my chores and I could site it just fine. It smelled of gun oil and wood. It smelled like death and bounty for the table. We had all practiced shooting at tin cans and such. Most of the clan didn’t think I could keep up the boys, but I was determined to be just as darn good a shot as any boy or man. My mother was an ace shot and she taught me well.2

We had makeshift shelters under some trees and made a hide surround to keep out the wind. After the fire had burned awhile, warming up the hide, it got cozy and comfortable. You could see the snow falling out a ways, but our shelter kept it away, that the smoke from the fire.
Harlan Race was my daddy’s best friend. You wouldn’t reckon it from knowing the both of them, but there’s no sense to the friends that end up together. Daddy was quiet and took on all the responsibilities of family and clan. Harlan Race was a pretty man, drank in taverns and had pretty girlfriends. Yet when it came to hunting, those two men were as alike as peas in a pod.
You didn’t mess around with these men. You wanted to play and be silly, you could do that, but not anywhere near camp. David wasn’t very bright. His daddy had married a bar-girl and she ran off to Helena. Potter Hayes kept the boy. Boys needed to around a man so they could learn manly things. That was just how it was. Davie just never got to seem much older than about seven years-old. If he had a job to do, he’d be fine, unless something distracted him and then he had wild fits.3

Adults took kids out for the hunt, taking turns so the youth could learn as many different kinds of ways as there were. The Werners took Arnold, Mrs. Werner was his aunt and that meant she watched out for the boy. Daddy asked Harold if would take Davie, but Harold said he’d rather go out on his own this once. He was thinking about that four point.
Mama and Daddy took me, and Harlan said he’d be glad to take Davie. Harlan was real good with special things, things that didn’t work quite right, or fit in. I had a crush on Harlan. Never told anybody, but Harlan said my eyes were storybooks. He was the best man I knew, and when he died in that big war over there, in that second one, I felt the whole world had shrunk a big old chunk.
Dinner the first night was beans and stringers. Stringers are long pieces of pounded beef that are soft enough to chew if you had good teeth. Most everybody in the clan gummed theirs.

After we finished an early supper, Mama said I could go venturing, just to stay close and know where I was. Places I wasn’t sure of, I always kept campfire in sight. It took no urging to get me exploring. I was getting good at sighting spoor too. Something behind me made me jump as Davie caught up with me. “You go on back to camp, now, Davie.”
He refused and followed on my heels. He didn’t mean harm so I just ignored him. We trekked through virgin snow for several minutes. There was a copse of trees up ahead and Davie said he heard something in there. Silly kid turned white and went to stone. I told him it was just a rabbit or a coyote. Peering though the dusky light I could see a rack of antlers right up ahead.
Harold’s elk, I thought to myself. Just then the elk came tearing out of the brush, rooting at us and raging - but keeping a safe distance away. It scared Davie to pieces and he had one of his fits right there. Threshing around and whooping. The elk didn’t look startled, it wanted to stomp us, but it didn’t know if we were dangerous.
Harlan had heard Davie’s commotion and ran out to get us. The elk was long gone by the time he got there. He brushed me off and asked if I was hurt. I said, course I wasn’t, prissy-like, and Harland grabbed Davie and tried to calm him down. In the end Harland had to tote Davie over his shoulder the whole way back to camp.4

Daddy made a good kill the first day. Clean-kill. He wouldn’t wound an animal, code of honor is you don’t do damage, you kill. A couple of the woman dressed it down and brought the huge heart to the fire. There, it was cut into a hunk for every person. We’d put the hunks on a branch and hold them over the fire to cook. Harland helped Davie cook his, the boy always lost his meat or burned it up.
This was an every camp thing we did. A ritual, if you will. You eat the heart of your prey to swallow down its strength and courage. The heart of an elk was symbolic and would never be tossed to the dogs. We appreciated this animal giving its life so we could continue our own.5

First light came. Everything was frozen and crisp. You could break off chunks of icicles and suck on them like Popsicles. Mama had made flapjacks the night before, In the morning she wrapped some cheese and strips of heart she had fixed, making a breakfast sandwich you would remember to your grave.
Me and Daddy, Mama, we took off toward the east. Harlan and David went the same direction, but over many yards for safety. Harlan didn’t want to stray too far from us in case Davie forgot himself. All was ice-diamonds and razor-sharp air that hurt when it went down your pipes.
Harold had gone over southeast, hoping to get that big buck. Silent as an Indian and determined as Herman’s hound, that man hunkered over and looked at every bit of ground. We lost sight of him about half an hour out.
Davie was doing fine, trying to imitate what Harlan was showing him. Mama was showing me how to walk silent. You kind of pretended you were a cloud and would make no prints or sounds on the ground. They don’t have lessons for that sort of thing. Mama was part Sioux. Now, that was something she kept in the closet of skeletons, most whites were that way back then.
That part Sioux came out when she was hunting. She parted the air without a whisper and could disappear if I didn’t keep a careful eye out. I was carrying a small rifle that day. To learn the feel of a gun when you walk and hunt. Daddy said it should become like my right arm, till I never noticed it.
Mama had sighted a straggling few elk out to her right. She drew up that gun in one swift motion and sighted on those last two. Before the blast even sounded, an elk had fallen dead. Everybody stops when a shot rings out. You listen and gauge where it came from and hold your fire until the all-clear signal shot. Daddy had already loped to where the animal lay. He smiled at my Mama and said, “Fine shot, Lorraine, just a fine shot.”
Mama got pink and shyly looked at her feet. Compliments weren’t wrung out of daddy easily. Daddy had me bend over the kill so he cold show me how the bullet went clean through the head. A marksman’s shot, Daddy said. We began to get the carcass ready to take back to camp when another shot went off. We stood stock still and waited.
Instead of the one-shot all clear, three shots rang out in the icy morning. The emergency signal, rapid and close together like somebody beating on a door that won’t open. Mama said she would stay with the kill while we went to see what was going on. Daddy said it had to be from Harlan and headed in the direction he thought the shots came from. Harlan fired again and gave Daddy a clearer signal.
As soon as we saw figures in the snow we began to lope toward Harlan, driven by some instinct that said things weren’t fine. Things weren’t fine at all. Harlan was sobbing out screams of anguish that would break the heart of the coldest person. Then we got close and saw Davie, dead on the ground, a bullet through his right eyeball and the snow red as scarlet in a big puddle leaking away from his head.
It took Daddy a long time to get Harlan to stop sobbing. By then others had homed in on the signal and came to stand silent around Davie’s half-frozen little body with its blue lips and sightless eye. Nobody asked questions or made a fuss. Done was done. Davie was beyond help and there was Harlan to deal with.
Uncle Harold said he reckoned he would take Davie back to camp and we left so he could do what had to be done. When we got back to camp, Mr. Werner, who was not a teetotaler fed Harlan some whiskey and got him to sleep. What do you do when the worst is over and there’s nothing you can do or say? The women began cooking the heart of the kill Mama made. There was a piece cut for Davie and laid on top of the body that was bundled in a tarp and secured with rope.
Harlan slept through till morning. I was breaking ice on the drinking cask when he stumbled out into the light. That seemed to remind him of what had happened, that and the sight of little Davie’s body at the edge of camp. It was like all the air had been let out of Harlan. He just shriveled up and sank to the sitting log by the fire.
Mama had saved a piece of heart for Harland and silently offered it to him. Harlan shook his head no and pushed it away. Mama offered it again, not so polite this time. The man had to eat and eating the ritual would make things more real for him.
Seems Davie had been fine for most of the morning. Did what Harlan was teaching him and not being silly. When Harlan sighted a big buck he didn’t notice Davie who, he said, had climbed up on a big rock and jumped off toward Harlan just as he pulled the trigger. Not anybody’s fault. These things happened sometimes.
Ruined Harlan. He put away his guns and retreated into himself. Took up drinking and sat in a little shack on Uncle Bill’s land until he died of his liver. I watched him destroy himself and I grieve that till this day.
6