Chapter One:
THE VALLEY OF SILVER MOUNTAIN
The year was 1938, I was 25 and I was finally in the Rocky Mountains (which were first given that name in 1752 by the Canadian explorer, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre as the Montagnes de Roche aka. Mountains of Rock). After 6 weeks of untrimmed beard and hair growth, I was beginning to look the part of a mountain man, which I had always admired the likes of.
I had begun to follow a dream, where I was living in the wilderness, nothing but myself, my 4 mules and enough supplies for a couple of months before I would have to return to the post that I had embarked on my journey from.
I had learned about trapping as a possible way to earn enough to start my dream of raising horses and mules.
Since I was old enough to remember, I had a passion for horses and mules, which focus was always on my mind.
I saw many using their horses and mules to plow, pull a wagon or as transportation but never in a way that looked "right" for both man and beast. I had started my first gelding to being able to be ridden, 12 years earlier but still didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing.
It had been a great fall season and I was riding my favorite mule, a john mule (red dun colored 14 hh tall) I named Zeb, with my supplies on my most trusted pack mule, a molly I named Elly (also a dun but darker, with more prominent dorsal stripe and zebra stripe leg markings, 14hh tall).
Trapping for the last 6 weeks, then skinning and bundling the beaver, muskrat, mink and the occasional bobcat pelts after stretching and drying them. Were loaded on two of my mules, Noah (a black 14.2 hh tall) and Moses (a dark bay 14.1 hh tall), were loaded with big loads of pelts. I made sure the furs were in excellent condition for my trading. I had also shot a nice cow elk for meat and had tanned her hide into a supple, hairless, smooth-grain leather.
I was coming down a switchback trail, descending into an unknown valley. It was mid-November and I was hoping to spend a relaxing, last week.
The brisk mountain mornings and pleasant afternoons, surrounded by the fall foliage, were purely joyful, to be experiencing.
There was a looming urgency though, to get back down into the lower country, or risk getting trapped in the mountains, by the weather for the whole winter.
My mules were all fairly young and fit, ranging in age, from 6 to 12, Zeb being the oldest and Noah the youngest. We all got along well, like an organized comfortable team. The solitude with my animals had been a much needed relief from the hustle and bustle of living before, in the area which would later become Kansas City.
As I came around a bend, the valley opened up before me and the muted sounds I had been hearing all morning, started to make sense.
Before me, appeared an indian village, of approximately 20 tipis.
As if a ghost, a sentry silently appeared on the trail, 20 feet in front of me.
He was obviously blocking me and my mules from entering the village unannounced. He was about my height of 5’10” but a bit stockier, in build, well-muscled and a fine figure of a man. He had long, coal black hair.
I brought Zeb to a stop, along with the rest of my mules behind me and waited to see if this was going to be a confrontation or just an introduction. I slowly cocked the hammer of my .50 cal Hawken flintlock, that I had laying laying my thighs, prepared for a chance shot at a deer or elk for fresh meat. I was down to my last days’ worth, from the last deer I had taken.
The indian, was impressive looking, for sure, in his long buckskin shirt, breech cloth, leggings and knee-high moccasins. He gave me the open palm sign for hello. I returned, in kind. Then asked if I could dismount and he said that that would be good.
As I dismounted, I put the hammer back to half-cock, in the safety position but a quick ready position still.
He reached out his hand and we grasped each other’s forearms, a greeting, offering of no weapons.
I turned and hung my rifle on the horn, with my loop scabbard on my saddle horn and reached into my possibles bag, at my waist, for pipe and tobacco, which immediately brought a smile to the sentinel's face.
I wrapped the lead ropes of my pack mules to one aspen, the lead rope of Zeb around another small trunked convenient tree and we both took a seat on some boulders to the side of the trail.
He introduced himself as Swift Fox and I to him… Matt.
After I loaded and tamped the pipe bowl with tobacco, I handed it to him, He put it to his lips and I struck a match (a recent and very convenient invention) and lit it for him. He took a big draw of smoke and handed the pipe back to me.
We both smiled as the pleasant tobacco flavor filled our mouths and lungs.
After exhaling, Swift Fox asked... "Where you are going?"
I explained to him my plans for spending the last few days relaxing and camping in the higher country before the weather turned and I would have to return across the plains to trade my furs.
He said, after we were done smoking the pipe in silence, to follow him into the village and he would announce me to their band and introduce me to their chief (his father), Spotted Elk. I would be a welcomed guest.
