After a long winter of solitary life the Mountain men and trappers could not wait for the summer rendezvous to take place. There they would get to see old friends that they hadn’t talked to for a year, maybe more, and let off some steam. They had a lot to talk about. Where the trapping was good and the plews (hides) were plenty. Who wasn’t there and did his hair get lifted. Which tribes were friendly this season and where to stay away from if you knew what was good for you. And whether or not the traders had brought in enough tobaccy and whiskey.

I sort of threw that whiskey in there like an afterthought but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Whiskey was all they thought about when they were standing knee deep in the freezing water of some creek back behind no where. Well, maybe they thought of women a little but it had been so long since they had seen one, at least a white one anyway, it didn’t pay to spend time thinking about them. No, whiskey is what they thought of. How gloriously they were going to get monumentally drunk. Thinking of whiskey is was what filled their days. If they were sitting around the campfire on the rare occasion that a friend showed up, they would talk of the rendezvous and the outrageous drunks they had been on. How Andy Stillson had convinced Lars, the Earless, Who had got his ear chewed off in a fight, to let him shoot a cup of whiskey off his head to show everybody what a great shot he was and promptly blew off Lars’ other ear. Man, they laughed at that one every time it was brought up and it was brought up enough to become legend amongst the campfire crowd.

When they did make rendezvous the most favorite pastime was drinking huge, prodigious amounts of whiskey. They also would have foot races, horse races, card playing, wrestling, shooting sports, or just plain shooting for the sheer joy of it. They told stories, some of which were true, they threw knives at targets, hatchets too, traded mules and horses, got new gear, and spent nearly every penny they had made through the winter. But mostly they liked to drink whiskey.

When supplies began to run low and the rendezvous was thinking about drawing to a close any body that had squirreled away some whiskey was the man of the hour and seriously sought after by his friends both old and new. He was invited to all the doings and hailed and treated as a most splendid fellow. At least as long as the spirits held out.

The gentlemen above are waitin’ on friends that managed to keep a bottle or two from getting consumed and had promised to share them with their new found buddies. The shadows are getting long so by the time this night is over they will have had the last of it, maybe not a drunk to make it into the legendary category but a good one none the less. Tomorrow brings a new day. Time to start tearing down camps, packing horses and deciding where they’ll head off to this time. It’s been a great rendezvous, one for the stories of future campfires.