WILDERNESS #55:INTO THE UNKNOWN
DAVID THOMPSON
BEAR TERROR
At a shout from Zach, I glanced up. He was fifty yards away, jabbing a finger at me.
“Look out! It’s headed your way!”
I heard a mewing sound, and turning toward where a finger of forest poked at the shore, I saw a bear cub waddling toward me. A black bear cub, so cute and adorable I grinned in delight. Apparently, it was making for the lake to drink.
“Get out of there!” Zach hollered.
The cub had its head low to the ground and was mewing and grunting as bears often do. It did not realize I was there until I reined my mount to one side. Instantly, it stopped, rose onto its hind legs, and let out with the most awful cry. Almost immediately the undergrowth crackled and snapped, and out of the woods flew four hundred pounds of motherly fury.
Dedicated to Judy, Shane, Joshua and Kyndra.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
As devoted readers of the popular Wilderness series are aware, most of the stories in the saga are based on Nate King’s journal. His daughter started a diary in her teen years, and that too has been used. Nate’s wife also kept a record, but she wrote the least of the three.
None were day-by-day accounts. The Kings only wrote when the whim moved them. Nate, when something had an impact on his family. Evelyn, when events stirred her emotions or simply to record her thoughts. There is no rhyme or reason to Winona’s account.
Other sources have included the journals and diaries of settlers, mountain men and explorers. Wilderness #41: By Duty Bound, for instance, was based on the journal of Lieutenant Phillip J. Pickforth.
The author brings all this up because the book you hold in your hands is based on Robert Parker’s account of his travels and experiences. A contemporary of John James Audubon, Parker was a naturalist and a painter. His renderings of wildlife, the wilderness, and the Native Americans and white men who inhabited it, are authentic and stunning.
Parker’s work is so well known that it needs no introduction. And, too, our story is concerned with only a short interval in his exploration of the West, namely, the month or so he spent with the Kings and the McNairs.
Purists, I trust, will understand why the excerpts early on are abbreviated. The main focus of this story is the King family and their friends.
Chapter One
St. Louis, February 14
I am bubbling with excitement! It is the most wonderful news! My patron, the marquis, has decided to fund the expedition. The irony does not elude me. I have never liked painting portraits. I only do it in lean times so I can purchase paint and canvas and food. But he is so enamored of the portrait I did of his wife that he insisted on helping me fulfill my long-cherished ambition to explore the vast uncharted regions west of the Mississippi River.
It is a dream come true! I will venture where few white men have ever dared tread and capture on canvas the wonders my eyes behold. And I have no doubt there will be wonders. The frontier teems with animals and men about which little is known.
Miller and Bodmer have been there before me, and I do not deny that both deserve the accolades heaped on them for their magnificent works. I confess to liking Miller’s more, if only because his paintings are imbued with the romance of life, and I have always been a romantic at heart. I cannot possibly put into words how deeply moved I was by his Green River painting. The river, the mist, the mountains, the Indians, it is all so wonderfully sublime.
Still, I must give Bodmer his due. He is a realist. His paintings show exactly what his eyes saw. No sentimentalist, he was ruthless in his depictions of life in the raw. When you look at his Mandans, it is as if you are standing right next to them.
If I can do half as well as Miller and Bodmer, I will justify my talent.
St. Louis, April 2
The preparations continue apace.
There is so much to do, so many details, large and small, to attend to. Men, supplies, horses, all must be acquired. I try to keep expenditures to a minimum in order not to impose too greatly on the marquis’s generous nature.
His wife was most indiscreet last night. Collette kept glancing down the table at me. Perhaps the marquis did not notice since he was, as always, deep in his cups. But some of the other guests did. I am sure of it. Now there will be talk, and if the gossip should get back to him, my expedition might be in jeopardy. He would be well within his rights to withdraw his patronage. But as I say, I am a romantic, and I cannot help myself.
In any event, midway through the meal Collette fixed her exquisite hazel eyes on me and said ever so sweetly, “While I am thankful my husband is providing the funds for your exploration of the wilderness, I wonder whether either of you have given any thought to the possible consequences.”
“Consequences, my dear?” the marquis asked.
“Specifically the dangers,” Collette said. “I very much fear his life will be in constant peril.”
What was the woman thinking? Could she be any more transparent? I sought to keep my features inscrutable as I replied, “While I am grateful for your concern, you make much ado over nothing, madam.”
“Are wild beasts so trifling then?” she shot back. “Are red savages of no import? Or those tempests of storm and wind I have read about?”
God, how I boiled. Her tone suggested more concern than was proper. I caught a few glances exchanged by others on both sides of the table. The marquis, thankfully, appeared to be oblivious to her impropriety.
“Honestly, my dear. Our friend is eager to be off. It is, as he calls it, an adventure of a lifetime. Would you gainsay him his ambition?”
“Of course not,” Collette said tartly. “But neither would I care to lose so dear a friend to the arrows and lances of bloodthirsty heathens or the fangs and claws of a fierce beast.”
I regretted then my incurable romanticism. If I would stick to the painting and only the painting, my life would be a lot less complicated. But when a man is in close proximity to a beautiful woman hour after hour and day after day, and when that beautiful woman shows an interest, what is a man to do? I am human, after all.
Fortunately, the marquis took it in a most humorous vein. He laughed long and loud, much longer and much louder than I thought was called for, and then he winked at her and winked at me and said in a jovial fashion, “Far be it for us to stand in the way of our friend’s desire. That he is content to risk his life in the furtherance of his art is enough for me. I daresay that if he perishes, it will be for a worthy cause.”
It seemed to me he spoke with uncommon relish, and his grin was, for him, peculiar. But I accepted his accolade and assured all and sundry that I was indeed eager to pit myself against the vast unkown.
Fort Leavenworth, May 1
Concern for my welfare is contagious.
This evening I was invited to supper with the officers. Colonel Templeton has proven to be considerate and kindly. He even went so far as to offer to send twenty soldiers as an escort, but I respectfully declined. I deem it prudent to avoid any suggestion that the military is at all connected with my expedition. For one thing, a number of Indian tribes regard the army with a jaundiced eye and are prone to attack units in uniform on general principle. For another, thanks to the marquis’s largesse, my party already comprises eight able-bodied men, not including myself. They are well armed with both weapons and fortitude, and, I warrant, will prove more than adequate to deal with any hostilities.