Monthly Archives: July 2019

The Palaver

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Palaver : A dictionary that purportedly knows something about the definition of words reports the following definition of the word Palaver. In this context where we have some trappers conversing with each other the following definitions of the word apply.


NOUN: pa·lav·er [pəˈlavər, pəˈlävər] unnecessarily elaborate or complex procedure. Examples: “there’s a lot of palaver involved” · “since I’ve started the whole palaver, I may as well carry it forward” · “getting into each building was a bit of a palaver” · “what a palaver!”

Historical: an improvised conference between two groups, or individuals, typically those without a shared language or culture.

VERB: talk unproductively and at length. Example: “it’s too hot for palavering”

However after talking with some of the participants in the Palaver shown above, it has been ascertained that there was another purpose for a Palaver. In this case the individuals or as they’re known here, the Palaver’s, have gathered to settle a small problem. One of the least favorite jobs on the packing trips was taking care of the mules. Packing and unpacking them, watering and feeding, hobbling them so they didn’t disappear during the night and so on. Mules were some times uncooperative during these routines and could cause the Muleteer to use language unfitting for more gentlemanly pursuits. Plus they sometimes got bit and stepped on and generally mistreated due to the mules peckishness. One did not usually volunteer to be a muleteer.

To establish the proper order of things so each member knew his place and responsibilities they begin by telling each other off-color jokes that get progressively more ribald. The first one to laugh out loud has to take care of the mules on the next trip. Now some of these jokes may not be considered politically correct today so they shan’t be repeated here but lets say they could get a little graphic. Remember there was no internet back then so entertainment was often hard to come by. Usually it was the one of the younger men that would suddenly let loose with a unrestrained belly laugh that earned him the privilege of mule tending much to his chagrin. After all a few of the older men had been clear to Iowa and back all their own and were much more worldly than the younger fellows so it took a lot for then to lose control.

An exception could occur where one of the older fellows would think his joke so humorous that he would start laughing while he was telling it, this was a deadly mistake, thereby earning him the less coveted role of muleteer by default. Plus untold ridicule by the other old timers during the trip. You really needed your best poker face during the palaver.

This procedure can still be found today amongst certain groups where a pecking order needs to be established, but usually they don’t even know they’re Palavering.

Fire In The Hole

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First you hear the small click as the hammer drops forward and the flint strikes the frizzen, a metal plate made of steel, causing sparks to drop into the pan holding a small amount of gunpowder. The resulting fire, or flash in the pan, caused by the sparks igniting the powder travels through a small hole in the barrel where the main charge of gunpowder rests. A lead bullet with its wrapping of cloth separating the bullet from the powder charge sits tightly packed against the main powder charge. In a moment almost too fast to measure the main charge of powder ignites with a mighty roar and the bullet and the fire driving it speeds down the barrel to its target.

When everything happens correctly, and you truly want it to happen correctly, say when a grizzly is charging you intent on dismembering you, or an enemy is trying to shoot you at the same time you’re trying to shoot him, you want all the actions described above to function as designed and produce that fire in the hole. As you can see above everything worked as planned and a successful shot was fired. Now to load the rifle again in a big hurry if that shot at the grizzly went wide.

The Trackers

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Back in the days before people had apps on their phones to find somebody you had to use a large portion of the gray matter between your ears to locate them. The less folks wanted to be found the more gray matter you had to use. There were times when all the gray matter you had was in use and it still wasn’t enough to find them. That’s when you called in The Trackers.

Trackers were guys that had extra gray matter in their heads dedicated solely to finding other guys or animals whether they wanted to be found or not. It’s unknown how they got this extra gray matter but they had it so just accept it and lets move along. There weren’t a lot of female Mountain men, but if there were it was pretty certain they’d be good trackers too, but history doesn’t relate much about them.

Tracking is the ability to use information gleaned from the surroundings, such as the imprint from the foot of the trackee, or a bent piece of grass, or a note found on the ground saying, “Hey I’m down here by that tree. Follow the stream until you get to that rock then bear left until you see me standing there holding my gun.” Although obvious sounding it was a form of tracking that was usually quite productive. If you could read that is.

Some trackers were like savants. They could look at a track and tell you what it belonged to. They would be able to tell you if it was ham, Ram, Billy goat, Baboon or Bear and how much it weighed, what it planned on doing when it got where it was going, what religious affiliation it had if any, whether it would be friendly when you found it, whether it planned on eating you if it got the chance, and a host of other things to numerous to mention. It was said that they could track an Eagle to its eyrie by the faint imprint of its shadow across the ground. These guys were good.

These abilities were all beneficial skills to have. These fellows lived in a time where if they accidentally stumbled into a pack of unfriendlies they could lose body parts and have a very bad day. So it was a pure survival skill to be able to see an unknown guys footprints and know which tribe they were from, whether or not they might enjoy your company, or if they carried big sharp knives. Well that last one was a given because everyone carried a big sharp knife. It was what they planned to do with it that was important.

The Trackers you see above both had the extra gray matter between their ears and weren’t afraid to use it. There was no physical indication of this extra lump of brain tissue in their outward appearance as it was just packed tight in there inside their heads with the rest of the gray matter and you just could tell they had it by how good they were at tracking. If you’ve ever tried to peel a grape you know how tight that grape is packed inside its skin. That’s the way the inside of the trackers heads were. Tight, packed full. As a team they had followed many a set of tracks and were comfortable with their ability to track a track until they found the maker. They had just come across a fresh set that they believed belonged to a friendly but deranged person and they were going to follow him and see what he was up to. This was often done because they didn’t have that much to do otherwise and it filled up the day.

Trackers played a very important part in the life of the early days of the West by discovering what’s what in the mountains and elsewhere. A lot of stuff would never been discovered without them and as such they were a proud breed, eager to show off their skills for fun or profit and make the West a better place. We salute them.

Ol’ Whistlebutt No. 39

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Many of you that don’t know much about the lives of Mountain men, trappers, traders, and adventurers of the mid 19th century, tend to think that they didn’t have much to do when they were hanging around the fort. That they had little responsibility and no one to answer to. After all they had turned in their hides, made their trades, told their stories and were free to just be shiftless and no account if they felt like it and some of them did. However for the more seasoned among them nothing could be further from the truth.

They had responsibilities. Big ones some times. There were plenty of things that had to be seen to and followed up. Take walking around the inside of the fort for instance. Someone had to be on the look out for tripping hazards such as drunken trappers, trappers were notorious for drinking themselves legless and thus just collapsing where they happened to be, or those with bullet holes in them, an irregular but unfortunate occurrence, and unclaimed burro droppings that could be stepped on in the dark of night. They didn’t have to clean those up, they had staff for that but they needed to be on top of it so that it was handled, so to speak.

And what about making sure the neer-do-wells hogging up all the space in the bar, sitting on all the best stools like they belonged there, were dispersed in a timely manner. Some of those guys would be in there from early morning until late in the afternoon when the professional drinkers got there. That was just uncalled for. Someone had to spell out the rules for these Johnny-come-lately’s before the whole place went to rack and ruin. That’s where seniority came into play. Being old timers and regulars they could just toss them out on their keesters with impunity.

But the single most important duty they had, without question, was making certain the liquor served was the best possible stuff that could be obtained. Many a bartender thinking to make a little extra cash at the expense of the regular hardcore visitors would tinker with the spirits, adding turpentine or rattlesnake squeezing’s to the bottle to top them off to make a few extra bucks, who then soon found themselves at the displeasure of these brook-no-nonsense senior patrons and minus a nose tip or ear.

That’s why several of the most senior, dedicated and experienced drinkers among the current residents would take it upon themselves to sample all the latest fine spirits that had arrived to test them for purity and remarkability. Here we see a couple of them fulling their duties and making sure the spirits were not only up to snuff but safe for others to drink. Think of them as early Food and Drug Administration inspectors. After sampling several bottles to make sure of their findings they pronounced Ol’ Whistlebutt No. 39 to be an excellent choice and safe enough for the less experienced drinkers to partake. Just another example where they fulfilled their responsibilities when they were in residence at the fort. I think we all owe them a round of applause for their steadfast adherence to the health and safety of all. Thank you men.

The Laughing Mule

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Mules are different than you and me. I mean they’re different from me. I’ve never seen you so I can’t say for certain, but I suspect given that you’re here reading this that they are.

They are incredibly observant for one thing. They don’t always look like it but they are watching everything around them, cataloging it, storing it in their mule data base at the bottom of their brain pan under the “this’ll get ’em” section for later use when it benefits them the most.

They have incredible memories. They remember everything with an unusual clarity that they trot out every now and then just to amuse themselves or embarrass you.

They laugh with their whole body and since mules are big that’s a lot of laugh. You can always tell when a mule remembers something funny. They’ll plant their feet, lean back a little and let it fly. They’ve got no filter, when they think it, out it comes. You can hear that raucous laughter for miles. Many a mule rider wished for one with no sense of humor while in Indian country.

They love to tell embarrassing stories about their riders. The more embarrassing the better. Here this mule is relating to the rest of the crowd how his rider, well, I’ll let you hear it in the mules own words. “Remember that time when we was down near that Chiricahua camp but we didn’t know it and you was bragging about how you could tell if there was any Indians about and you said “They ain’t no Indians for three miles in any direction and you looked up at the ridge and there was about 40 of ’em. You still can’t sit straight from that arrow that stuck in your backside. If I hadn’t a run like a deer parts of you would still be decorating their lodges.” Like I said mules don’t cut anybody any slack.

Once they like you, if they ever do, they like you forever. They’re your new best friend and they’ll watch out for you, cart you all over hell and back, carry your stuff without complaining, uhmm, I need to rephrase that, They complain all the time, at least some of them do. They can be world class complainers. The other ones, who just complain a little, just look at you with that “You think I’m carrying any more of that? You carry it. See how you like it.” or simply ” I ain’t going in there.” and they mean it. You’ve heard “Stubborn as a Mule.” Well that wasn’t made up because they cheerfully do whatever you tell them to.

By an large though, mules are OK, even if they are different from you and me. I for one like mules. I like their attitude. I like their independence. I like the fact that they use their no holds barred sense of humor to get through life. I just like them. Maybe if you met a couple of them, got to know them, had a chance to talk with them for awhile you’d like them too. Try it, see how it goes.

Oh yeah, one more thing, they’re sensitive about their ears. As they can make your life pretty damn miserable don’t say anything about their ears. I’m serious it can ruin the whole damn trip.

Scouting New Country

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During the 1830’s there was a lot of movement by those courageous men seeking opportunities in the west. Trappers, traders, adventurers, and others, stricken with the desire and wanderlust of being first to see what was over the next mountain, or lying at the bottom of the innumerable valleys between them. What riches could be found, what adventures were lurking just around the next bend waiting to change their lives forever.

Everything was new to them and usually dangerous. This group of men on the scout were picking their way through the high country, perhaps looking for new trade routes, or a likely place where gold or silver might be found. Or possibly marking the area where the Indians had set up their camps as places to be avoided.

One thing for certain, they were the ones scouting this new country for whatever opportunities presented themselves in this time where new beginnings could bring wealth and a better life in this big, new country of the West.