JACK'S TALES Tall Tales and Stories from the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade as told by Jack Stone WHEN RENDEZVOUS IS DONE I guess I would have to say that Rendezvous is probably the best time of the year. In Spring and Fall, you is out trapping them Beavers, and in Winter you is in Winter Camp, but it ain't quite the same as Rendezvous. Rendezvous is kind of like Christmas and your Birthday and the 4th of July all rolled up into one. I am always glad to see them fellows that I ain't seen since the last Summer and hear what they has been doing and share a few stories and lies. I trade my Beaver plews for all the supplies I am going to need for the next year: coffee, tobacco, a new shirt, lead, powder, some beads and vermilion, and other such items. Then there is always enough credit for some of that rotgut liquor them traders bring out. I don't know why we drink that stuff. It tastes awful, but we drink it anyway. There is always plenty of contests: running and knife throwing and shooting and such, but it seems like I am always too drunk to ever hit much of anything! After supper, we sit around the fire and play music on tin whistles and fiddles, and sometimes we even sound like we know what we is doing! I'd have to say that Rendezvous is the one thing I really look forward to each year, but it is always over too soon. Way before I am ready to leave, folks is packing up their goods, the Indians is taking down their tepees, and the traders is packing up all our beaver plews to take back to St. Louis. It seems to me that it's them traders that make all the money and us trappers just can't never get ahead. Them St. Louis traders don't give us half enough for our pelts, and they sell us goods for 10 or 100 times what they pay for them. But it's better than going all the way to St. Louis ourselves to sell our furs, I expect. We always seem to get everything we need for the next season. I don't know what we would do with that extra money anyway. Well, the Indians is taking off for the Fall Hunting Grounds, and the traders is going back to St. Louis for the Winter to get more supplies so thay can cheat us trappers again next Summer. Us trappers is thinking about getting ready for the Fall hunt. But I'm sorry to see everybody leave. You always wonder whether or not you're going to see your friends again or if they is going to get killed by hostile Indians or Grizzly Bears or starvation. You know it's going to be a long Winter. But then you think about next Summer's Rendezvous, and somehow everything seems just fine again. THE WINTER I DONE FROZE TO DEATH Back in 1824, we spent the Winter with the Crow Indians up by the Wind River. We was having a right good time, but along about the end of February, I guess them Crows got sick and tired of us. They told us that if we continued on to the West, we'd find Beavers that was so thick you didn't even have to trap them. You could just hit them over the head with a big stick. That sounded mighty good to us, so even though it was still the middle of Winter, we saddled up our ponies and loaded up our mules. We tried to go over Union Pass, but the snow was so deep that the horses kept sinking right up to their bellies. We had no choice but to turn around and go back. I don't think them Crows was glad to see us again, but they did give us better directions. They told us that if we went south alongside the Wind River Mountains, eventually we would come to the end of the mountains where we'd find a flat open prairie. I guess thet call that South Pass now. Well, that was all well and fine, but as long as the mountains was to the west of us, at least they cut the wind. But as soon as we got out on that wide open prairie, there wasn't nothing stopping the wind, and it was driving sleet and snow and ice in front of it. I ain't never been so cold in my whole entire life. We hadn't had nothing to eat in three or four days. There wasn't no animals out there in that blinding snowstorm. They wasn't so stupid as to be out in the middle of a blizzard. Which don't say much for our intelligence. We couldn't even stay on our horses. The wind would blow you right out of the saddle. So we finally gave up and got off our horses, wrapped ourselves in our buffalo robes, and tried to get as close together as possible to stay warm. But you couldn't stay warm. The wind was blowing snow down inside my shirt; snow was piling up inside my ears; and my teeth was chattering so hard I thought they was going to chatter theirselves right out of my mouth! And it still got colder. But after a while I didn't feel so cold no more. Then I felt a little warm, and then I didn't feel nothing at all. And I realized that I had froze to death. The next morning, them other fellows got up, and they seen that I was froze. I guess they was sorry that I was dead, for I had not been a bad companion. But they still didn't have nothing to eat. And so, in a lull in the wind, they got some firewood, and they built up a fire. They got a pole, and they tied me hand and foot to the pole. Then they put the pole up over the fire. Well, after a while I started to feel a little warm. Then I started to feel right good. But then I smelled something that smelled a little scorched. I eased open my eyelids, and I seen what a predicament I was in! There I was tied hand and foot to a pole; the pole was suspended over a fire; and if somebody didn't do something right quick, I was going to be well done! So I started yelling and hollering, and them other fellows came over to see what on earth was going on. They seen that I wasn't froze no more, so they kicked some snow up over the fire, and they put the fire out. They took down the pole, and they untied me. But they still didn't have nothing to eat. And I'll tell you - I didn't feel real good for a couple of days. In fact I felt kind of like Death - warmed over!