The Rendezvous (2) -- James Beckwourth

That famous ad William Ashley in Saint Louie used to fish for recruits for his Rocky Mountain Fur Trade brought in men, even young men, who weren't choir boys or  ever would be. Hard as it is to believe in 1824,  Ashley was an equal opportunity employer. How can we know that? Because we know one of his recruits, at least, was African-American. 

James Beckwourth's father, using an old English family title, went by name of Sir Jennings Beckwith. Sir Jennings coupled with one of his slaves who gave birth to James Beckwourth, a multi-racial kid who was treated by his father, the old sources say, like a son, not a slave--which is to say educated and, in general, pampered.

Okay, but then how on earth did a Black man fare with a cast of mountain men, rough-an- tough hooligans who held less-than-charming prejudices? James the Black man didn't get drummed out of the corps. 

Why not? Sir Jennings' son James carried along a deed of emancipation that declared his freedom. He couldn't be cashed in like some runaway. So here's a word that's fallen out of use--manumission. One word, manumission, a word used to describe how freed slaves were granted, by their owners, their freedom. Once manumitted, we might say, James Beckwourth was free as a bird.

And he flew--did he ever. Once freed from his apprenticeship to an ornery  St. Louis  blacksmith, Beckwourth read the ad and signed up to be one of Ashley's rugged wilderness crew, where he spent most of the next decade as one of the original mountain men, taking a wife or two or three from the Crows, where he became the chief's adopted son and lived, quite comfortably in fact, while fighting the Crow's traditional enemies, the Blackfeet. 

There's oh-so-much more. He left the Crow people and became a commodities trader at places like Bent's Fort,  Sante Fe, and Taos, and in 1842 put up his own business at a lonesome place that would someday be named Pueblo, Colorado.

During the Gold Rush era, he went to the bank with his what he knew about the untraveled west, leading wild-eyed fortune seekers to the places they thought to make a fortune. 

And everywhere he went he fought Indians--Seminoles in Florda, renegade bands in California, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho back on the plains. When finally he grew old, he met a man named Thomas Bonner at Beckwourth's own country hotel. Bonner listened to Jim Beckwouth tales and wrote them down into a book, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians (1856).

Beckwourth didn't have to lie about the happenings in his life, but he did--or so say some historians. Sometimes it's hard to measure tall tales.

Late in life, he went back to the Crow, where he'd come son of the chief way back in the ancient past. No one knows how he died, or at least no one's talking about it. A rumor claims one of his ex-wives found a way to get back at him. 

Not nice, but it sort of fits, don't you think?

Was he here? Had to be. He was, in short, almost everywhere else. 

  

A Rendezvous (i)

 

When William Ashley, THE William Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, came back up to St. Louis from far up the Missouri, all the way to the Bighorn River that first time, the load of furs he took back with him was enough to blow out his pretty substantial pockets. It was 1824, and what Ashley had attended—he never trapped a beaver himself—was a celebration/festival/sales meeting of a hundred or more mountain men, his men, his employees, who had, like never before, gathered together near a fork in the Green River, somewhere close to where a town named McKinnon, Wyoming lies today.

It was Ashley’s idea to substantially alter the commonly held way in which fur companies gathered in the bounty. Instead of waiting for the trappers to get to St. Louis to bring in the county, it was Ashley’s idea to go get the furs himself, venture up the Missouri River to get to a place agreed upon for a “rendezvous,” the first of the famous rendezvous, rowdy celebrations, get-togethers of men who’d hardly seen other human beings for something close to a year.

William Ashley might have been a little scared of handling all that bounty, $50,000 worth, in fact, 1.5 million in pelts in today's cash, but then what he knew was that as long as he kept his head down, he wasn’t in imminent danger of being robbed. It’s not as if swash-buckling pirates roamed the Missouri back then. Few people were likely capable of imagining the wealth of what he had in the boat.

He must have worn a smile because his “rendezvous” idea was a winner he wasn’t about to abandon. All the way down the river, right here where the Big Sioux flows into the Missouri, he had to be thinking of what manner of vice and malefaction next year’s wilderness jamboree was going to entertain. If you stand up on the South Sioux City bridge, you can almost hear him cackle.

What he’d done, almost blindly, is hired some real ringers with an ad that ran, famously in an 1822 St. Louie newspaper: “One hundred enterprising young men… to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years,” which means, of course, that the winners all had to pass by our place at least once on their way up the Missouri River.

Who were the ringers? Well, Jim Bridger for one, who was 18 when he answered Ashley’s ad. He’d never been any further west than St. Louis. He spent the next 20 years wandering from the Canadian border to the Spanish forts of New Mexico, from Missouri to Utah. When he stumbled on the Great Salt Lake, he thought it was the Pacific Ocean. In fact, he may have been the first white man to Old Faithful blow its top.

Then there was Jedidiah Smith, the parson of the bunch, often credited with discovering overland routes that became major highways during the Gold Rush. Smith lost a scalp to a grizzly, but got it back when his buddies sewed it back on.

And who can forget Hugh Glass, mauled by a bear and left for dead, a man whose will to revenge kept him alive but sense of humanity finally conquered all those troubled demons in his memory, a legendary character still alive in the works of John Niehardt and Frederick Manfred.

How about James Beckwourth, an African-American who shows up almost everywhere across the continent, including a significant tour of duty with the Crows, serving, some say, as their head man.

Ashley’s home base was St. Louis, but when he went afield to pick up the good, he, like the others, passed right by the confluence of three river which became Sioux City. We can’t call them residents, but they were here, if not on the river then on the great river road you can still note with its brand new sign up on our Old Missouri River Trail.

Just go stand there sometime and imagine, with Ashley and his crew gracing our hills. Just imagining all those tough-as-leather mountain men, their wives, their donkeys, their furs—just imagining our story makes our world a bigger place.

Let's say, just for kicks, that our President suddenly gets the message that unless something changes, unless something makes an 180-degree shift, it's going to be lights out for him and his precious cargo-carrying administration come November. Let's just say, for sake of argument that reality looks him right in the eye, as Nathan did David, and says "you're the man," you're the cause of the absolute mess we're in.  You done it, not fake news or those lousy commie dems.

Let's just say, again, for sake of argument, that all of a sudden he gets it, maybe even gets real, honest-to-goodness faith, begins to understand that we all stand in need of grace, even him, that his hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I'm bringing up religious madness only because he seems to deal in it, criticizing the pope, running an AI pic that makes him into a savior, Trump bibles for sale--you know. 

But, just for kicks, let's try to get our minds around Donald Trump becoming a saint in any of the great world's religions--a Buddhist monk, a Native medicine man, a Muslim cleric. Let's just assume that suddenly he comes to an understanding of the fact that he's not his people's "retribution" (remember that speech?), but his people's humble servant.

Let's just assume that he is the blessed recipient of some kind of Damascus Road experience that leaves him mute, in furlongs of abject humiliation that he can't Truth Social his way out of.

Let's assume it happened, okay?

How does he communicate his redeemed soul? How does he comport himself for what's left of a largely ruined second term? How does he express that the dominating word in his vocabulary will from that day forward be love and not graft? 

How on earth could he proceed?

Well, easy, really. He'd have to make clear, in word and deed, that he is reversing course on EVERYTHING his agenda had formulated and acted upon. He'd have to start by being human, by hurting for and with the hurting. He'd have to reinstate USAID programs he cut with such relish. He'd have to back off his war in the Persian Gulf, call Putin the murderer he is, tell each and every one of his billionaire buddies to use their bounty to help rebuild medical care for all. He'd have to call of the uniforms and tell the nation that what we really need is a standardized program of immigration, then, with Congress, build it.

He'd have to either shut down Truth Social or else use it to broadcast meditations on the sacred words of whatever world religion has grabbed his attention. 

In short, he'd have to be something, someone he isn't. 

Could that happen? Even if he really wanted to, even if he came to see how perilous his rule is right now? Even if the impossible became possible?

Could that happen? Seriously, could that happen?

If you're a true believer in whatever world religion you or he might choose, the answer to that question is "Of course it could happen. The Almighty is all-powerful--nothing, no one stands beyond his love and rule. 

So could he?

"Lord, I believe," both me and the man with the possessed daughter said. "Help thou my unbelief."

The West

 

The West can still take your breath away, as millions of vacationers know when they head out every summer. There are untolled places in the American West that are just as untrammeled as they were in the late 18th century, when the only human residents were indigenous. 

One can only imagine the abject astonishment when any Easterner would arrive at vistas so wide open they seemed to swallow you.

There are some records, of course, like this passage from Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans.

On the third day we issued from very high and desolate mountains on both sides of us, whose tops are covered with snow throughout the year, and came upon a scene of beauty and magnificence combined, unequalled by any other view of nature that I ever beheld. It really realized all my conceptions of the Garden of Eden. 

In the west the peaks and pinnacles of the Rocky Mountains shone resplendent in the sun. The snow on their tops sent back a beautiful reflection of the rays of the morning sun. From the sides of the dividing ridge between the waters of the Missouri and Columbia there sloped gradually down to the bank of the river we were on, a plain, then covered with every variety of wild animals peculiar to this region, while on the east an­other plain arose by a very gradual ascent and extended as far as the eye could reach. 

These and the mountain sides were dark with buffa­loes, elk, deer, moose, wild goats, and wild sheep; some grazing, some lying down under the trees, and all enjoying a perfect millennium of peace and quiet. On the margin the swans, geese, and pelicans cropped the grass or floated on the surface of the water. The cottonwood trees seemed to have been planted by the hand of man on the bank of the river to shade our way, and the pines and cedars waved their tall majestic heads along the base and on the sides of the mountains.

 The whole landscape was that of the most splendid English park. The stillness, beauty, and loveliness of this scene struck us all with indescribable emotions. We rested on the oars and enjoyed the whole view in silent astonishment and admiration. Nature seemed to have rested here, after creating the wild mountains and chasms among which we had voyaged for two days. Dougherty, as if inspired by the scene with the spirit of poetry and song, broke forth in one of Burns noblest lyrics, which found a deep echo in our hearts. 

"a vast expanse of moving, plunging, rolling, rush­ing life"

Maybe gas prices will open up Yellowstone this summer. Otherwise, it's as busy as a downtown intersection. Lots of attractions, of course, but one of the majors is the buffalo. Every year some clown gets mashed by some angry bull, but it doesn't stop dozens of others from getting out of the car and risking the ire of these wonderful mammoth beasts, of whom all of us can be proud.

This is part of the herd belonging to the Yankton Sioux, on their reservation land. They're a wonder to see because, rare as they are, they remind all of us of our world once was. 

They bestow a reverence that downright spiritual.

This passage from Warren Angus Ferris' Life in the Rocky Mountains (1843), describes a scene thousands witnessed 200 years ago but is almost unimaginable today. 

But, go ahead and imagine--

On the fourteenth, hurrah, boys! we saw a buffalo; a solitary, stately old chap, who did not wait an invitation to dinner, but toddled off with his tail in the air. We saw on the sixteenth a small herd of ten or twelve, and had the luck to kill one of them. It was a patriarchal allow, poor and tough, but what of that? we had a roast presently, and hamped the gristle with a zest. Hunger is said to be a capital sauce, and if so our meal was well seasoned, for we had been living for some days on boiled corn alone, and had the grace to thank heaven for meat of any quality. Our hunters killed also several antelopes, but they were equally poor, and on the whole we rather preferred the balance of the buffalo for supper. 

People soon learn to be dainty, when they have a choice of viands. Next day, oh, there they were, thousands and thou­sands of them! Far as the eye could reach the prairie was literally cov­ered, and not only covered but crowded with them. 

In very sooth it was a gallant show; a vast expanse of moving, plunging, rolling, rush­ing life--a literal sea of dark forms, with still pools, sweeping currents, and heaving billows, and all the grades of movement from calm repose to wild agitation. 

The air was filled with dust and bellowings, the prairie was alive with animation. I never realized before the majesty and power of the mighty tides of life that heave and surge in all great gatherings of human or brute creation. 

The scene had here a wild sublimity of aspect, that charmed the eye with a spell of power, while the natural sympathy of life with life made the pulse bound and almost madden with excitement. Jove but it was glorious! and the next day too, the dense masses pressed on in such vast numbers, that we were compelled to halt, and let them pass to avoid being overrun by them in a literal sense. 

On the following day also, the number seemed if possible more countless than before, surpassing even the prairie-black­ening accounts of those who had been here before us, and whose strange tales it had been our wont to believe the natural extravagance of a mere travelers' turn for romancing, but they must have been true, for such a scene as this our language wants words to describe, much less to exaggerate. On, on, still on, the black masses come and thicken--an ebless deluge of life is moving and swelling around us!

Buffalo rank high on vacation destinations because somehow even a couple of hundred create visions of what once was the world where we live.

Sunday Morning Meds (Psalm 121)

 

“The LORD watches over you—

the LORD is your shade at your right hand. . .”

 

            What he told the world is that since 1895, American news sources have alternated warnings about our changing climate.  For almost forty years prior to the Great Depression, most opinion-makers touted the present danger of a returning ice age.

            And that’s not all.  What he said is that arch-political scientists and their friends in the news media have beating the drum about global warming for years now, when there is no such phenomena—or, if there is, it’s nothing more than a temporary shift, our climate and planet far more dynamic than some would think.

            What he claimed has been proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the so-called “hockey stick,” the heavily reported spike in climate temperatures throughout the 20^th century after thousands of years of constancy, has been proven totally false by Canadian researchers who simply tore it apart.  That spike is phony baloney. 

            What he told all of us is that the National Academy of Science has shown conclusively that humanity has suffered through minor climate changes before, that what is called “the Medieval Warm Period” (900 A.D. to 1500 A.D.) and “the Little Ice Age” (1500 to 1850) are bona fide proof of natural and sustainable climate variations—and that therefore the propaganda about “global warming” today is just hype and hooey.

            What he said is that the Arctic isn’t warming but cooling.  He’s reminded us all that sixty prominent Canadian scientists sent a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister, saying that “'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise.'"

            He claimed that restraining so-called greenhouse gases has real economic costs, stifling business activity and a bustling economy, and therefore hindering progress in dealing with world poor.  He quoted this headline, "Climate Changes Endanger World's Food Output," called alarmist and dangerous, and then pointed out that it ran in the New York Times in 1975, thirty years ago.

            He is a senator, and the speech he delivered, years ago already, is much longer, full of facts and documented anecdotes and references to studies.

            I have neither the time nor the competence to study the issue of global warming thoroughly, and whether the Senator is even partially right, scientists themselves appear to disagree.  So the nature of the question changes in my circumstance:  it’s not “what do you believe about global warming?”  Instead, it’s “who do you believe?”

            And I choose not to believe the Senator. I choose to believe instead a list as long as my arm of people who radically disagree with his claims. I may be wrong.

            But I also choose to believe the psalmist when he says—with nary a hint of global warming—that this God of his (who’s apparently at his right hand armed with a parasol) is watching over all of us—polar meltdown or coming ice age, and that this God, my God, is my shade from all kinds of heat. That truth is transcendent. 

            He is my only comfort—in both deathly cold January and the dog days of mid-July. He is my only comfort. That I know by faith.

A Missing Week

They call it a TAVR, and it's a blessing. Trust me, I know. I just had one. 

Tuesday had to be one of the most memorable of my life. What a couple of Polish MDs did was recondition an aortic valve in my chest, not by open-heart surgery (the old way) but via a vein in the groin (mine), a procedure called a TAVR. Both sides of the groin are attacked by first-time-ever intrusions, one of those intrusions carries a tiny new piece of technology that will strengthen the weak valve; the other is a temp pacemaker, which won't be used unless it has to be. In my case--which is to say in my procedure, it didn't. That's good. Anyway, that temp needs to be there until it's clear it's not needed, but it has to come out some hours later. 

The first step in healing is an overnight in the hospital, ON YOUR BACK, which is a form of nearly lethal torment to keep things in place. It was perfectly awful. I didn't sleep, watched the clock from 11:00 am on Tuesday to 9:30 am on Wednesday. I took as many pain-killers as they would give me. When we got home, but I could not write a sentence. (I hope I'm doing better). That having been said, I'm greatly thankful that everything went well and that the procedure worked. 

Ostensibly, my heart has been made stronger by the TAVR, and it's been done--my seriously delinquent aortic valve got a big-time boost.

But I say all this to explain the long pause in posts. I started a blog so many years ago I can't begin to remember when exactly, and I've been doing it ever since. If I miss for a few days--as I have twice now in the last few year (for medical reasons) this good old Calvinist starts to feel guilty. 

Thusly, this explanation. That's where I've been.

Long ago, my friend Dave Schelhaas asked me if I'd like to do a "reading" with him last night, and, of course, I said yes. Then, this faulty aortic valve got noticed and I was given the opportunity to have the procedure done "like, next week." So the question was, can you come in on April 7? 

Why put it off, I thought. 

So when I got to the hospital that morning, I said to one of the gallery of nurses, "I'm a writer. Will I be able to do a reading on Thursday night?"

"Of course," she said, fluffing a pillow (or doing something).

I think she thought I was talking about my sitting in my grandpa's chair and reading a book, because when I woke up yesterday, I could tell quickly that my "reading" warn't in the offing. 

Fortunately, I'd thought a ton about what I was going to read and decided on a story from what might be my last book, a selection of short stories from the last forty years. That story, it's in Paternity, concerns a marriage undertaken only to get passage to Canada after the war. It stuck me that I could, quite easily, change the story into a readers theater presentation. So the givens were in place. I had only to bow out and let my characters do what I'd asked them to do.

And, lo, it was very good. I made it over there, and the ringers I recruited did marvelously well, as I knew they would.

Anyway, I'm back.