the Sackett Companion (1992) (14 page)

Coulter spotted a weak spot in the line and broke through, taking off, stark naked, across the plains. They pursued him for nearly one hundred miles but he escaped, his feet horribly torn. (I drew upon this episode for my escape of Flagan Sackett in Coulter discovered the geysers of Yellowstone, and they were first named Coulter's Hell.

He later assisted Meriwether Lewis in making maps of the
area.

HUGH GLASS: (died in 1833, birthdate unknown) It was said by one who knew him that Glass had been a pirate with Jean LaFitte, and had lived for a time with Pawnee Indians. He is best known for encountering a female grizzly and her cubs. Although he killed the grizzly he was horribly chewed and clawed. From what they could see he was good as dead, and they were in the heart of Indian country and wanted to get out, so they took up a collection and paid two men to stay behind until he died.

He did not die. Their party was getting further and further away and Indians were all about them. Glass was obviously dying, so when he passed out they left, taking his rifle, knife, and tomahawk with them so the Indians would not get them.

After they had gone, Glass became conscious and, furious that they had not only deserted him but taken his weapons, he crawled down to the stream for a drink, rolled in the mud to stop his wounds from bleeding (some such mud has curative properties), ate some berries, and started out across the plains, crawling.

Driven by a furious hate for those who deserted him, Glass kept going. He was found by some other trappers who took him downstream in their boat. When they camped at night he was in such bad shape they left him near the canoe. During the early morning hours Indians attacked and wiped out the camp, but did not find Glass, who was some distance from the others.

Glass survived and reached Fort Atkinson, where almost the first person he saw as he came through the gate was Fitzgerald, one of those who had deserted him and taken his rifle. Glass had intended to kill him on sight, but changed his mind. He had many further adventures and was finally killed by the Ankara.

One thing it is well to remember: that sea, that desert, that arctic cold can kill just as easily today as a hundred or a thousand years ago. One should always go prepared for the worst, in a mental way always, in a material sense if possible.

NICK SHADOW: He felt it was as good a name as any. His father had left him without a name but with a good education. He put in some time as a school teacher and was a good one, but things happened when a man had a view of things he liked to preserve. He became involved in a corpse and cartridge occasion and moved west where the climate was more favorable for survival.

BULL DUNN: A family man, whose family were renegades, outlaws, and whatever it took to gather another man's cattle or horses. They had been a traveling family until they found the La Plata country, and there they decided to stay. They had a way of riding roughshod over opposition but this time it did not seem likely there would be any. Flagan and Galloway were just two men, and even Nick Shadow didn't add up to much, or so they believed. The trouble was that nothing worked out like they planned.

ROCKER DUNN: The best of the Dunns with a gun, a quiet, reasonable young man who had begun to grow up mentally and to see that the country was changing. The old, wild riding days that followed the War Between the States was coming to an end, and he was bright enough to realize that a bullet looking for a home didn't care where it landed. But the rest of the Dunns didn't want to listen. He was telling them the only life they could understand was coming to an end.

LOGAN SACKETT: A Clinch Mountain Sackett, descended from Yance and a lot of others, tough men all. He had grown up fighting bears in the rhododendron jungles in Tennessee, places where spruce trees were fifteen feet through and so tall you had to look twice to see to their tops. There'd been times when he'd left the Clinch Mountains and gone on along the ridges to Clingman's Dome and then down into the deep, deep forest to places where the sun never shone. He trailed the bears right back to their dens in the rhododendrons where they thought they were safe. Then he rode off to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War, even though most of the Sacketts had gone the other way.

PARMALEE SACKETT: The Flatland Sacketts had money and Parmalee came from Grassy Cove. One of his ancestors had found Grassy Cove back in the middle 1600s and was nearly done in by a mountain lion there. Jubal Sackett had holed up there until his broken leg mended but he left a Sackett sign for those who came later. It was a good place to live, and Jubal had left his cave with regret to push on west.

Parmalee's ancestors had settled there but they held land elsewhere, too, and they did well with raising stock and breeding horses. Parmalee went west, and for a time he worked as an actor in a traveling show. Here and there he had his share of difficulties. He always enjoyed the cornhuskings, sorghurh-making, and bean-stringings back in the high-up hills. He was a handsome man with a good voice for singing and he could play a fiddle more than somewhat when the mood was on him. Back in the mountains at the cornhuskings a man who found a red ear of corn could kiss the girl of his choice, and they do say Parmalee was right handy at finding the red ears--and when he found one the girls all started edging closer. Here and there folks said Parmalee knew where the red ears were before the husking started, but that was mostly jealousy, others thought. Parmalee was a man of the cities as well as the mountains and the plains and might have done well as an actor had he chosen to remain with the company.

SHALAKO: The village of Shalako in this story does not exist, though I had hoped to build it. At the time the story was written only one log house was on the site but others were planned. Plans do not always come to fruition, however, and these plans were dependent upon others than myself. Hence, for the time being, the deer, elk, and beaver are left undisturbed, and the mountain lion who followed me over a saddle in the hills one day is probably still roaming the area.

No doubt that mountain lion had followed hunters and
feasted off what they had left behind, or he may simply have been curious, as animals are inclined to be. I never saw him (one sees them but rarely, even when many are about, for they do not wish to be seen) and would not have realized his presence except that after pausing at the far side of the saddle, looking over the country beyond, I returned to find his tracks over mine. My tracks were plain in the sandy trail left by cattle, and his large paw prints blotted the edges of my tracks.

I was armed, a simple matter of insurance against what could happen, but I had no wish to disturb him (or her), and went back down the mountain to more frequented areas.

It is amusing to me that travelers frequently go to the Himalayas looking for the yeti, the so-called "abominable snowman" and return after a few weeks, saying there is no such thing. In all my years in the mountains I have seen many tracks and droppings as well, but the only mountain lions I have seen were two, treed by dogs. Wild animals are not standing around waiting to be photographed or to be seen by intruders.

CURLY DUNN: Another of the renegade Dunns, not the man his brother Rocker was, but determined to be considered so. Big, strong, handsome but with a streak of meanness in him, he invited trouble, which he could usually handle. If not, there was the threat of his father and Rocker to warn off the opposition. He courted Meg Rossiter.

MEG ROSSITER: A young girl, romantic, but in a place where there were few young men to be romantic about. She was determined to find romance, anyway. Curly had the appearance and she read into him what she wished to see, as many a girl has done (and many a man) in other times and places. Yet underneath the romantic notions there was a grain of good common sense and she began to see in Flagan Sackett what she had been hoping to find in Curly.

FATHER ESCALANTE: He left Santa Fe to find a route to Monterey, California in 1776. He was one of a group of ten
men led by Father Dominguez, who left Santa Fe in August of that year. As Escalante kept the diary of the expedition it is generally named for him.

Poorly armed (they seem to have had but one musket and a lance as weapons) and equipped, they traveled for five months over some very, very rough country. Although they did not reach their objective, turning back just short of Salt Lake City, they did discover a route and a way in which it could be done. Miera, the soldier and mapmaker, wanted to continue on but the fathers decided against him, and the party turned back.

The Escalante expedition passed through the area of this story on August 10, 1776. They camped the previous night near the site of present-day Hesperus, and the following night on the Mancos River, to the west.

The expedition explored much of what is now Utah, had many peaceful contacts with various tribes of Utes, although their preaching was not always welcomed. In spite of the difficulties encountered on the expedition, the Miera maps were the best of the region for many years.

PAT BERGLUND: A saloon-keeper, solid citizen, and friendly man.

VERN HUDDY: Killing was his business, and usually business was good. One of Bull Dunn's followers.

OLLIE HAMMER AND TIN-CUP HONE: Followers of Bull Dunn, professional pistolfighters. Their trouble was they suddenly found themselves in faster company than they had been dealing with. You couldn't scare such men as the Sacketts and Nick Shadow; they had to be shown. Tin-Cup proved the wiser man.

POWDER-FACE: Also, POWDER FACE. A wise old Indian trying to do the best for his people.

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TREASURE MOUNTAIN

First publication: Bantam Books paperback, October
1972

Narrator: William Tell Sackett Time Period: c. 1875-1879

The story of Treasure Mountain is well known in Colorado, and the location of the mountain itself is certainly no secret. Wolf Creek Pass, famous in song and story, curves around one side of the mountain, and it is there for anybody to see. As it is 13,442 feet in altitude, Treasure Mountain is hard to miss. According to the story the treasure was buried there about 1790, although some say it was earlier. The Spanish were bringing gold home from Mexico and Peru and the French did not understand why Louisiana was not producing as much. They did not grasp the idea that the terrain was completely different and that Louisiana was not gold country. They demanded gold, or else.

The governor outfitted a detachment of soldiers and sent them west to find gold, but at the time no line had been surveyed between territory that belonged to Spain and that which was claimed by France. When the French soldiers moved into Colorado the Spanish believed they were trespassing, but the French kept their presence as secret as possible. Nonetheless the Spanish became aware of it and, unwilling to start a war with a then-stronger country, they prevailed upon the Ute Indians to attack the French.

It was hit-and-run warfare. French soldiers were hunting for meat and did not return. Others traveled from one place to another and disappeared. There were sporadic attacks until the numbers of French soldiers were whittled down to a point where their numbers were no longer sufficient to carry the gold away.

The gold miners were soldiers and one of their officers was an engineer. The origin of the gold they mined has not been located but it was not on Treasure Mountain itself. Under directions from the engineer a shaft, or, some say, two shafts were sunk into the ground, and the gold was carefully buried with every intention of returning with a stronger force to remove it.

In the meantime the Napoleonic wars had begun and France had much else to consider. Years passed, Louisiana was
sold to Jefferson and the United States and a map of the gold came into the possession of a Frenchman who led his own expedition to recover it. They, too, fell to the guns and arrows of the Utes. So the gold remains where it was left.

However, the original commandant had permitted each of the soldiers to dig a little gold for himself, and some of this gold was brought away. At least one cache of such gold has reportedly been found in the area.

This story, with varying details, has been told and retold and various people have turned up with maps, most of them spurious. At least one map seems to have been accurate and its owners located the spot, but they came upon it late in the season. Unable to remain at that altitude but fearing that somebody else might come with an equally good map, they destroyed the landmarks. After all, they knew where the place was.

The winter brought deep snow, several avalanches, and storms, and when spring came they could no longer find the place. To those unfamiliar with mountains this may seem strange, but locating one spot on a vast sweep of mountainside can be next to impossible. The landmarks that seem so obvious can look very different when you return after a few months, especially when lightning may have struck a tree or if a boulder has been displaced by frost or heavy snow.

The trail Tell Sackett was riding when shot from ambush is easily recognized. It is now a road leading to the Bessie G Mine. The road passes through a notch not there in Tells time. He followed an old Indian trail that came over the ridge from the Junction Creek side. This is four-wheel-drive country.

The bench where Colborn Sackett hid his daybook is hidden behind trees and on the very rim of the dropoff into the basin of Bear Creek.

It is difficult to say at just what moment a story comes into being, or what it is that triggers the imagination. Often it can be a place or a situation, perhaps a bit of history that needs to be enlarged upon. The story of Treasure Mountain was a natural, but every time I walked into Cumberland Basin it demanded a story. A rider coming down the trail from the Notch was vulnerable, and the bench where Pa Sackett was killed was secluded and lovely.

All that high country fascinates me, and the High-Line Trail that is often called the Ute Trail I believe to be much, much older. In each area of the Rockies such trails are found, and always with simply local names, but I believe it is all one trail, perhaps a migration route, or more likely an ancient trade route for Indians.

When you are above where the canyons begin, the traveling is much easier. No climbing in and out of canyons or continually crossing streams is required. Also, you can see for greater distances. Of course, the route could only be traveled in the warm months, but Indians never traveled in the snow if it could be avoided. Winter was a time for staying in the lodge, and it was storytelling time, too.

Actually, if one wished he could travel from Alaska to Mexico following high-line trails, dipping down only between mountain ranges.

I feel those trails are thousands of years old. A government man was making a survey of the population of elk and found a Folsom point on the Ute Trail, and another found a broken Folsom point. And that takes us back a few thousand years, perhaps eight to ten thousand.

CUMBERLAND BASIN: It's where the La Plata River begins, high up in the mountains, most of it around 10,500 feet, in a waving sea of wildflowers most times of the year. In the winter, early spring, and late fall it is many feet deep in snow. As it is right about timberline, there are patches of trees here and there, but the higher peaks are all smooth and green except for outcroppings of rock or old mines. The sky is usually a deep blue tufted with white clouds, but in the afternoon the clouds turn dark and there are rain showers, sometimes serious thunder storms. There's a lake up there, some marshy spots, a few beginning springs, and a trail leading to the high-line trail along the ridges.

Don't look for the crack from which Tell Sackett took Pa's daybook. It's gone. Souvenir hunters have carried rocks away until the place can no longer be recognized. Most of the old four-wheel-drive roads have been closed and if you want to go anywhere you walk. You walk slowly. At that altitude heart attacks come quickly if you hurry. Anyway, who wants to hurry when there's so much beauty just to stand and see?

There are scattered clumps of spruce trees. The aspen don't grow quite that high. The earth you walk on is tundra because at that altitude you are in an arctic region. The flowers you see will be those found in the Arctic Circle, in northernmost Siberia, Alaska, or Canada. It is not generally understood that as you climb a mountain the growth changes as if you were going north.

Be careful of the turf underfoot. Because of the short growing season, it takes the land a long time to recover from injury. Those riding motorcycles or jeeps should remember this.

COLBORN (PA) SACKETT: Father of William Tell, Orrin, Jim, Bob, and Tyrel Sackett, a mountain man, trapper, and hunter who had several times gone to the western mountains as a free trapper. And then he went once again and did not return. Ma wished to be sure he lay in a proper grave, if dead, and in any event wished to know what became of him. Traveling at the time was dangerous. Many men disappeared traveling eastern highways and byways, for there were long stretches of lonely road where anything might happen, but the sons of Ma Sackett also wished to know. Orrin Sackett traveled to New Orleans to make inquiries, to be followed shortly by William Tell Sackett.

New Orleans is not a strange city. Men from the mountains of Tennessee often rafted their goods down the river to sell or trade at the port. They had friends there and a few enemies.

The arrival of the Sacketts would bring them new enemies, people who had no wish to have old mysteries examined nor questions asked that might arouse further questions.

ANDRE BASTON: One of those men who for personal reasons preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. He was a skilled swordsman, and an excellent shot, and his skills had resulted in the deaths of a dozen men. Never simply content to draw blood or for simple victory, he preferred to kill, and did so.

PAUL AND FANNY BASTON: They were cut from the same pattern, and all three hoped to inherit from Uncle Philip, as all three presently lived on what he provided.

PIERRE BONTEMPS: Brother-in-law to Andre, liked by Uncle Philip. He recruited Colborn Sackett and led the expedition west to find the French gold. Murdered by Andre and Pettigrew in the western mountains, he was a good man, daring and adventurous but not as careful of his company as he should have been. Yet, when dealing with relatives, what can you do?

HIPPO SWAN: A waterfront thug in New Orleans, recruited by Andre Baston. A big man, a very tough man, a man known around the riverfront dives in New Orleans and Mobile.

BRICK-TOP JACKSON: A notorious New Orleans character well known to the police of the time. The account of her life as told in my story is true. Her criminal record would cover a dozen pages of such a book.

THE CANTON HOUSE, MOTHER BURKE'S DEN, THE AMSTERDAM, THE BLUE ANCHOR AND THE BALTIMORE: All were infamous places at the time, as was MURPHY'S DANCE HOUSE. Whenever I mention such a place by name in any of my books you may be sure it is not a made-up or imagined place, but the genuine article.

SAINT CHARLES HOTEL: A famous place then and now. In those days it served the most fashionable clientele.

THE OLD ABSINTHE HOUSE: In New Orleans, a place visited by most tourists and famous for many years. The pirate Jean LaFitte used to spend time there, and it is home to a thousand stories.

THE TINKER: He reappears in this story. A pack peddler in the mountains, he has been a seaman, a trader, and many other things. A gypsy, he seems to have been everywhere, moves like a young man and might be young, but who knows his age or his background?

DIXIE LAND: As explained in TREASURE MOUNTAIN, the
name is purported to have come from some ten-dollar notes issued at the time which had a ten on one side, a dix--French for ten--on the other side. People called them Dixies so the term came to mean the area where the notes came from: Dixie Land.