Clark's Campaign (Mountain Man Series, #12) by Greg Strandberg

Author:Greg Strandberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lewis and Clark, Mountain man novels, War of 1812 novels, Historical fiction 1810s, Montana novels
Publisher: Greg Strandberg
Published: 2018-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Part V

29 – Obstacles

LeDuc took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then gave a silent prayer to the Lord above. Then he opened his eyes and stuck his head up over the earthen berm. He scanned the open land before him, the flat plains all the way to the distant horizon and the slight rise of mountains far away.

Nothing...thank God, nothing. The Frenchmen gave another sigh – this time one of relief – and lowered himself back down. Then he skittered back down the small rise, heading toward his four companions.

“Anything?” Weir said as the Frenchman approached.

“I zaw nothing,” LeDuc replied.

A tension went out of the men at those words, and each visibly relaxed.

“Good,” Dougherty said after a few moments, “then we can move tonight.” That elicited a groan from a couple of the men.

“Can’t move during the day,” Jones said. “We’d be too easy to spot.”

“And you know they’re out there looking for us,” Dougherty added.

Weir scoffed to that. “What? You’re tellin’ me the Arikara aren’t going to go after five of their escaped slaves...slaves that killed a handful of their braves before running off?”

“Oh, I dunno...maybe they’ll be happy just to have the tongue of one of us,” Jones said, glancing at Weir as he finished.

“Alright, alright!” Dougherty said quickly. “None of us want to be in this situation, stuck up here a thousand miles from home, no food, no rifles, no horses and no boats. But here we are, and we’re alive. We should be thankful for that much at least, and also that we can move.” He glanced at Jones as he said that, and the trapper nodded back at him. The man’s leg had been holding up nicely...so far. He looked back to the others as he continued. “And move is what we’re gonna do, hopefully a good fifteen miles tonight...at least. With that huge stretch of open land before us, we should manage.”

Silence fell as Dougherty concluded, the men mostly looking down at their feet. They knew he was right...but that didn’t mean they had to like it. They were cold, tired, and half-starved. But each one of them knew he’d move, that night and the next and for however long it took to get to safety. It was that or die, no if’s, and’s or but’s about it. They were white men in a land not their own, something that became painfully obvious when stranded with nothing and no friends in the area. It was up to them, and them alone.

It hadn’t been easy. While it was true that the men hadn’t had many problems so far, that didn’t keep them from constantly worrying about what could happen.

Something that caused the five of them constant worry was the idea of running into other trappers. For one thing, they knew if they did meet any, they’d likely be Nor’Westers, maybe even some independent French or British trappers. Their chances of seeing any American trappers this far north were slim to none and they all knew it.

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