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Kitabı oku: «The Revenant: The bestselling book that inspired the award-winning movie», sayfa 3

Michael Punke
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The remnants of the candle sputtered and spit foul black smoke. Ashley looked up, suddenly aware of the hour, of his deep fatigue. He dipped the quill and returned to his correspondence, writing firmly and quickly now as he drew his report to its conclusion:

I urge you to communicate to our syndicate—in strongest possible terms—my complete confidence in the inevitable success of our endeavor. A great bounty has been laid by Providence before us, & we must not fail to summon the courage to claim our rightful share.

Your Very Humble Servant,

William H. Ashley

Two days later, August 16, 1823, Kiowa Brazeau’s keelboat arrived from St. Louis. William Ashley provisioned his men and sent them west on the same day. The first rendezvous was set for the summer of 1824, the location to be communicated through couriers.

Without understanding fully the significance of his decisions, William H. Ashley had invented the system that would define the era.

TWO
August 23, 1823

Eleven men hunkered in the camp with no fire. The camp took advantage of a slight embankment on the Grand River, but the plain afforded little contour to conceal their position. A fire would have signaled their presence for miles, and stealth was the trappers’ best ally against another attack. Most of the men used the last hour of daylight to clean rifles, repair moccasins, or eat. The boy had been asleep from the moment they stopped, a crumpled tangle of long limbs and ill-shod clothing.

The men fell into clusters of three or four, huddled against the bank or pressed against a rock or clump of sage, as if these minor protusions might offer protection.

The usual banter of camp had been dampened by the calamity on the Missouri, and then extinguished altogether by the second attack only three nights before. When they spoke at all they spoke in hushed and pensive tones, respectful of the comrades who lay dead in their trail, heedful of the dangers still before them.

“Do you think he suffered, Hugh? I can’t get it out of my head that he was suffering away, all that time.”

Hugh Glass looked up at the man, William Anderson, who had posed the question. Glass thought for a while before he answered, “I don’t think your brother suffered.”

“He was the oldest. When we left Kentucky, our folks told him to look after me. Didn’t say a word to me. Wouldn’t have occurred to them.”

“You did your best for your brother, Will. It’s a hard truth, but he was dead when that ball hit him three days ago.”

A new voice spoke from the shadows near the bank. “Wish we’d have buried him then, instead of dragging him for two days.” The speaker perched on his haunches, and in the growing darkness his face showed little feature except a dark beard and a white scar. The scar started near the corner of his mouth and curved down and around like a fishhook. Its prominence was magnified by the fact that no hair grew on the tissue, cutting a permanent sneer through his beard. His right hand worked the stout blade of a skinning knife over a whetstone as he spoke, mixing his words with a slow, rasping scrape.

“Keep your mouth shut, Fitzgerald, or I swear on my brother’s grave I’ll rip out your bloody tongue.”

“Your brother’s grave? Not much of a grave now, was it?”

The men within earshot paid sudden attention, surprised at this conduct, even from Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald felt the attention, and it encouraged him. “More just a pile of rocks. You think he’s still in there, moldering away?” Fitzgerald paused for a moment, so that the only sound was the scraping of the blade on the stone. “I doubt it—speaking for myself.” Again he waited, calibrating the effect of his words as he spoke them. “Course, could be the rocks kept the varmints off. But I think the coyotes are dragging little bits of him across …”

Anderson lunged at Fitzgerald with both hands extended.

Fitzgerald brought his leg up sharply as he rose to meet the attack, his shin catching Anderson full-force in the groin. The kick folded Anderson in two, as if some hidden cord drew his neck to his knees. Fitzgerald drove his knee into the helpless man’s face and Anderson flipped backward.

Fitzgerald moved spryly for someone his size, pouncing to pin his knee against the chest of the gasping, bleeding man. He put the skinning knife to Anderson’s throat. “You want to go join your brother?” Fitzgerald pressed the knife so that the blade drew a thin line of blood.

“Fitzgerald,” Glass said in an even but authoritative tone. “That’s enough.”

Fitzgerald looked up. He contemplated an answer to Glass’s challenge, while noting with satisfaction the ring of men that now surrounded him, witnesses to Anderson’s pathetic position. Better to claim victory, he decided. He’d see to Glass another day. Fitzgerald removed the blade from Anderson’s throat and rammed the knife into the beaded sheath on his belt. “Don’t start things you can’t finish, Anderson. Next time I’ll finish it for you.”

Captain Andrew Henry pushed his way through the circle of spectators. He grabbed Fitzgerald from behind and ripped him backward, pushing him hard into the embankment. “One more fight and you’re out, Fitzgerald.” Henry pointed beyond the perimeter of the camp to the distant horizon. “If you’ve got an extra store of piss you can go try making it on your own.”

The captain looked around him at the rest of the men. “We’ll cover forty miles tomorrow. You’re wasting time if you’re not asleep already. Now, who’s taking first watch?” No one stepped forward. Henry’s eyes came to rest on the boy, oblivious to the commotion. Henry took a handful of determined steps to the crumpled form. “Get up, Bridger.”

The boy sprang up, wide-eyed as he grasped, bewildered, for his gun. The rusted trading musket had been an advance on his salary, along with a yellowed powder horn and a handful of flints.

“I want you a hundred yards downstream. Find a high spot along the bank. Pig, the same thing upstream. Fitzgerald, Anderson—you’ll take the second watch.”

Fitzgerald had stood watch the night before. For a moment it appeared he would protest the distribution of labor. He thought better of it, sulking instead to the edge of the camp. The boy, still disoriented, half stumbled across the rocks that spilled along the river’s edge, disappearing into the cobalt blackness that encroached on the brigade.

The man they called “Pig” was born Phineous Gilmore on a dirt-poor farm in Kentucky. No mystery surrounded his nickname: he was enormous and he was filthy. Pig smelled so bad it confused people. When they encountered his reek, they looked around him for the source, so implausible did it seem that the odor could emanate from a human. Even the trappers, who placed no particular premium on cleanliness, did their best to keep Pig downwind. After hoisting himself slowly to his feet, Pig slung his rifle over his shoulder and ambled upstream.