Some men came early and returned to the far places a few days later, others just caught the tail end, and were soon left standing in a trampled meadow littered with the leftovers of a hundred camps. A few of the sociable sort, like Jake Martin and three of his friends, came early and stayed for the whole show.

Jake slept late that morning, well after daybreak, and woke up hung over. He crawled stiffly from his blankets, and spent a moment or two getting his eyes focused on the surrounding camps and forested hills. His gaze finally settled on a lone rider working his way down the slope from the north and leading two packhorses. Jake shaded his eyes and squinted. The rider was clad much the same as the rest of the men camped around the valley; buckskin shirt and trousers, fur hat, moccasins, and he had a gray blanket pulled around his shoulders. His rifle lay across the front of his saddle.

“Wake up, boys!” Jake shouted to his still-sleeping friends sprawled around the smoldering fire. “Looks like ol’ Ezra Conner finally found his way here!”

The other trappers shook the sleep from their heads and stared toward where Jake was pointing.

“That sure looks like Ezra’s horse, alright,” Charlie said. “That pinto’s hard to mistake.”

Ned asked, “Be that him? Don’t look big enough to be Ezra!”

“Didn’t Ezra have his boy with him last spring? Where be th’ boy?” Will asked.

Jake was the first to see the rider clearly. “That ain’t Ezra--that’s th’ boy!”

Jake and his three friends walked out to meet the rider, and the boy reined his horse a few yards short of the group. He was about five and a half feet tall, and had the lean, hard, stringy look of skin stretched tightly over muscle and bone. His dark hair was crudely trimmed at about ear-length.

The boy stared down at them, his face without expression, his gray eyes resting on each for a moment before shifting to the next. His gaze settled on Jake, and he moved his mount a few steps closer. “Howdy, Jake,” he said.

Jake reached up, offering his hand, and the boy grasped it. “Name’s Lonn, ain’t it?”

“Lonn Conner. Ezra Conner was my pa.”

“Was, boy?”

“Had some troubles. Early winter. Up on the Red Rock. Got a knife in his belly. Went poison.”

The boy’s fragmented speech was not unusual to Jake and the others. Like themselves before the rendezvous, it had probably been months since he’d actually spoken to another human. Many took to talking to their horse--or even the rocks and trees--just to keep in practice.

“Real sorry to hear that, Lonn. Curse them red devils!”

The news of Ezra Conner’s death was no great shock to Jake. Of the dozen or so men a trapper might know and see at one rendezvous, the loss of one or two by the next was accepted as normal in those far and dangerous places.

“Me an’ your pa go back some years,” Jake said.

“He talked of you some.”

“Well, climb down an’ c’mon over where we’re camped. You can bed down with us.”

“Share your fire some, I reckon, but I’ll spread my blankets off aways.”

Jake led the boy on ahead, and the others trailed behind.

“He got somethin’ ag’in us--wantin’ off by his self like that?” Ned asked.

“Seen others like that,” Charlie replied. “Been alone so long they can’t join up with a whole bunch right off.”

“They ain’t but four of us.”

“That’s four too many for some.”

“Lonn, ain’t you gonna join up with us?”

“Be over in a bit. Jus’ need my own place. Ain’t wantin’ to push in.”

“You wouldn’t be pushin’ in, Lonn. We all was your pa’s friends. Ned got his self an elk yesterday, an’ we’ll be cookin’ up a bunch of meat come evenin’. Eat supper with us an’ you can tell us about your pa.”

Lonn studied and poked at the fire for a few moments. “I’ll be over,” he finally said, “but I ain’t wantin’ to talk much about Pa dyin’. It’s kinda hard for me to . . .”

“Ain’t no need, boy. We all got things that ain’t easy to go back to. I won’t pry at you, an’ I’ll tell the boys to leave it be. Jus’ get yourself settled in. Sleep some if you want. Won’t nobody bother nothin’--we’ll keep watch for you.”

The boy leaned and propped on one elbow. He smiled for the first time. “Reckon I might do that. Been a while since I could jus’ lay back in the sun an’ nap.”

Jake, as unofficial leader of the group, was stretched out on the ground sharpening his knife and tending the huge chunks of elk sizzling on an iron skewer above a slow fire. A kettle filled with rice simmered at the edge of the coals. Ned, with Will’s unwelcome supervision, was worrying a pan of biscuit dough with a wooden spoon.

“You need to put in more water, an’ more starter, or them biscuits’ll turn out like rocks!” Will urged. “They’ll hang up in a man’s insides an’ he’ll never get ’em through!”

“You don’t need to eat none of ’em if you’re scared!” Ned answered, without interrupting his stirring.

“The man’s gonna kill us all!” Will said. “How you be, Lonn?”

“Jus’ fine,” the boy said, smiling. He squatted on his heels near the biscuit makers and pulled a cloth bag from inside his shirt, then offered it around. “Here, chew on some of this jerky. Made it myself an’ it ain’t killed me yet!”

“Well, if it ain’t killed th’ cub, it ain’t gonna hurt a ol’ b’ar like me!” Will reached, took a piece of the dried meat, and bit off a chunk. “Passable jerky, boy, what you make it outta?”

“Don’t rightly remember,” Lonn said, grinning. “I got awful busy ’bout the time my mule died.”

Will continued chewing. “Don’t matter. Et mule before, prob’ly will again.”

“Won’t be eatin’ mule tonight!” Jake said. “This elk’s about done. Get everything else hurried along, an’ we’ll have us a feed!”

“Feel a bit guilty, not bringin’ nothin’ but my hungry,” Lonn said. “Got nothin’ left but a handful of rice, an’ that’s half rank. Gotta wait for the bugs to float ’fore you boil it.”

“Seasonin’!” Will mumbled around one of his biscuits. “You can fling somethin’ in the kettle tomorrow night.”

“Sure, Lonn!” Jake said. “I sneaked a peek at your furs while you was sleepin’. Them’s a fine bunch! Ought’a get two an’ a half, three dollars a pound for ’em.”

“Sure hope you’re right. I’m right down to the short end’a nothin’ on most everything.”

Whiskey, rum, and other mixtures of alcohol were pleasures mostly reserved for rendezvous time--not that the trappers wanted it that way. Liquid-filled crockery jugs were simply too heavy to horse-pack into the mountains, and kegs were too fragile. Most took along some, but not much. Rendezvous was a different matter.

Jake tilted the jug, took a swallow, and almost choked. “Charlie--you been lettin’ this jug set under somebody’s mule again?”

Charlie grinned through his beard. “Not that I ’member! Hand it here iffen you don’t want none!”

Jake took one more swig, then passed on the jug. “Ain’t so bad once you gets used to it,” he croaked.

Charlie, Will, and Ned each had their share, then Ned handed the jug to Lonn.

“Reckon I’ll pass,” Lonn said. “Still got a belly too fulla meat.”

“Guess you’ll be headin’ back east soon as you sell your furs,” Jake said

“No, there’s nothin’ back there. No family, no home place. That’s how I come to be here with my pa.”

“You can’t stay out here, Lonn!” Jake said.

“Why not? You own it all of a sudden?”

“No, Lonn---’course not, but you’re jus’ a boy. You can’t--”

“I already done it! When Pa died--I didn’t tuck tail an’ run for some settlement! I stayed out the season. You seen the pelts I brought in. Biggest part of ’em is mine, not Pa’s. We hadn’t hardly got started when he went under.”

“How old are you, Lonn?”

“Sixteen! That ain’t got nothin’ to do with it!”

“That ain’t how I remember your pa sayin’.”

“All right---turned fifteen a couple months back. Still ain’t got nothin’ to do with it!”

“An’ you’re wantin’ to go back out trappin’? Alone?”

“What else is there?”

“Maybe you could get work at one of the forts.”

“I ain’t bein’ nobody’s camp dog an’ I ain’t workin’ for no company! I’m a Free Trapper! I got Pa’s outfit. It’s mine by right. We done good the last couple of seasons, bought good. Didn’t drink it all up, like some!”

“There’s some it takes hold of real bad,” Jake said.

“That’s for sure!” Charlie said from the other side of the fire. “Like Sam Barker. He ain’t drawn sober breath one since he got here, an’ that was a week ago. Traded off what second-rate pelts he had an’ all he’s drawn on his credit come in jugs. Gonna have a hard year, that man is!”

“Ain’t even a happy drunk,” Will put in. “Gets mean an’ goes ’round seein’ what he can stir up.”

“Speakin’ of the devil--ain’t that him over there with them boys?” Ned said.

Charlie rolled over and shielded his eyes from the fire. “Looks like. Got them other ones with him, too. They mostly jus’ follow along to see what Sam’s gonna do.”

“Looks like they’re headin’ our way,” Jake said. “Ain’t we a lucky bunch!”

“You boys takin’ in orphans now?” Sam Barker rumbled.

“That’s Lonn Conner, Ezra’s boy.” Jake said. “Ol’ Ezra went under first part of winter. Lonn stayed the season an’ brung in a fine load of furs.”

Barker ignored the news of Lonn’s father. “Reckon havin’ that pup in camp’s cheaper’un havin’ to pay some squaw for your pleasures!”

Lonn bristled and sat up from his relaxed sprawl beside the fire. “You hadn’t ought go judgin’ other people by your own habits, mister.”

“Smart mouth whelp! I ought’a take my belt to you!”

“Ain’t gonna happen, mister!” the boy snarled as he uncoiled from the ground and stood facing Barker. “You ain’t whippin’ me!”

“You think not, boy?” Barker’s hands moved to the buckle of his wide leather belt. “Let’s jus’ see!”

The fire danced and flared, casting an uncertain light. None had seen the movement of the boy’s hand, but now as they looked, the firelight glinted from the keen blade of his Green River knife held loosely at his side.

“Not now, not ever!” Lonn continued. “You try, mister, I’ll kill you!”

A low murmur passed around the gathered circle of Barker’s companions, but no one moved to intervene.

“His daddy could use a knife some,” one of the men whispered. “Wonder if he learned the boy any?”

“He’s kinda little, but I bet he’s quick,” another said.

Barker moved a bit to his left to get the glare of the fire out of his eyes. The boy stood apparently relaxed, his knife still gripped at his side, the blade lying back along the inside of his forearm, edge outward. Only the working of the muscles along his jaw revealed that he was no more relaxed than a coiled rattlesnake.

Barker met the boy’s gray eyes, and saw more than he wanted any part of. The pale, cold intensity there warned that only one of them--man or boy--would walk away from any fight.

“I be waitin’,” Lonn said.

Barker’s hands dropped to his sides. “Jus’ said I ought’a, is all!” he mumbled. “How’d that sound--me stickin’ some boy half my size?”

“Or getting’ stuck by one,” one of those watching said with a chuckle.

Barker pretended not to hear, turned slowly, and shuffled off into the darkness. Lonn turned and took a step as if to follow the man.

“Set down, Lonn!” Jake said. “Don’t let the likes of Sam Barker ruffle you! Set, now!”

Lonn sat, still seething at Barker’s threat. “Ain’t nobody layin’ hands on me!” he said, a cold edge to his voice. “My pa--”

“Let it be, Lonn! Jus’ let go of it!” Jake urged.

This time as the jug passed, Lonn twisted it around over his elbow, tilted it, and took a long swallow of the foul whiskey. His throat felt as if he’d poured down molten bullet lead, but he managed not to choke. The warm glow of the alcohol spread from his stomach, and slowly he relaxed. “I reckon I shouldn’t take things so personal,” he finally said.

“You wasn’t wrong, Lonn,” Jake replied. “Ain’t any man here would’ve took Barker sayin’ that.”

“I don’t mind th’ funnin’, Jake. I know bein’ young I gotta put up with a lot, but him sayin’ he was gonna--”

“I know, Lonn. Here, have you another swig outa this jug an’ cool down some.”

“No, I don’t take to it all that much. Seein’ somethin’ like Sam Barker’s reason enough. One swallow once in a while does me jus’ fine.”

Lonn had done well, they all agreed, especially being young and alone. The load of prime beaver pelts would bring a good price, and provide all he would need for the next year and the season of trapping. Might even have some left over to put back in case the next season didn’t turn out so well, they suggested. His needs were simple; powder and ball for his rifle, sugar, salt, rice, beans, flour, tea, and coffee. It was also usual to take along some simple items for trade or gifts to the native tribes. A small mirror, a few bits of bright ribbon, and a twist of tobacco could help to establish a trapper as another man trying to earn a living in the wilderness, rather than an arrogant intruder.

“We’ll all go along, Lonn, so them fur company traders don’t cheat you.” Charlie offered.

“They ain’t gonna cheat me! I won’t let that happen!”

“That there’s what scares me, boy,” Jake said. “We’ll jus’ go along so they don’t get tempted to try.”

The trappers had little choice. Travel all the way back to the closest outpost would have taken too long, and they needed to get back to the mountains before winter set in.

Lonn presented his furs to the company buyer, and the man sorted and graded them into two piles.

“All of those,” the buyer indicated the largest pile, “will go as prime fur, three dollars a pound. Those other dozen or so, two-fifty.”

Lonn glanced at Jake, questioning the grading. Jake nodded in agreement. The company buyer weighed the furs and wrote out the receipt.

“You can take this to the clerk and get what you need,” he said, handing the receipt to Lonn.

Lonn scowled at the handwritten note. “This is what I get for a year’s trappin’? I want cash money!”

The company buyer sighed impatiently. “If you could read, boy--”

“I read some! Write, too!”

“Then you can see that you have credit with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in the amount of three hundred and fifty-two dollars.”

“Jake? I ain’t sure about this!”

“It works like he says, Lonn. Ain’t much use to hand you gold here so you can walk a hundred feet an’ give it back.”

“I’ll take a jug, too. What you drink, not that rot you poison Injuns with,” Lonn added.

“Do these men let a boy like you drink whiskey?” the clerk asked.

Lonn stiffened, but before he could reply, Charlie stepped in. “A Free Trapper don’t need nobody’s leave to do nothin’--company man!”

“No offense, gents. I’ll get that jug and weigh out the man’s order.”

“An’ keep your thumb off th’ scale, too!” Jake said. “If Lonn here has to pay for your thumb, he’ll be takin’ it with him!”

The clerk eyed Lonn and the others and spoke to Jake. “Is that true, what I heard about this boy taking all those pelts by himself and being out there in that--that godforsaken wilderness alone?”

“Sure is!” Jake said.

I won’t try to cheat him. I do believe he would cut off my thumb.”

Charlie had been waiting for this opportunity. Two years earlier, he’d caught his left index finger in a trap and lost the first two joints. He displayed the stub to the clerk. “ ’Course he’d do it! I stuck my finger in his coffee once, an’ look what he done to me--a friend!”

Ned and Will turned away, unable to maintain straight faces. Lonn managed a menacing grin, while Charlie and Jake played their parts well and glared at the clerk.

“You people are barbarians!” the horrified clerk said. “If I survive this journey I will never come back to this uncivilized land!”

“Well, since you’re here now, get Lonn’s supplies ready!” Charlie said. “We’ll be back later.”

“Must be the whole place knows about your trouble with Barker last night, Lonn,” Charlie said.

“I ain’t likin’ it much, bein’ the one they’re all talkin’ about.”

“We don’t need to keep on, if you don’t want,” Jake said. “That company clerk ought’a have your outfit set out by now.”

“Rather jus’ go back an’ get it an’ head for my camp, if nobody cares.”

“Fine with us,” Charlie said.

“You ain’t fixin’ to up an’ leave so soon, are you, Lonn?” Jake asked.

“Done what I come for, Jake. I stay longer there’s jus’ gonna be more trouble like last night. You and these boys are fine, but the rest of ’em will want to devil me-- ’specially after last night.”

“Reckon you might be right, Lonn. There’s always one who’ll have to say he wouldn’t walk off like Barker done.”

“I sure never wanted no troubles, but there’s some what think they got some right tellin’ me how things are gonna be. Pa was like that. It was right an’ proper when I was little, I reckon, but I ain’t little no more. Ain’t been in a while.”

“A boy grows up quick out here, or he don’t grow up at all. You’re at least stayin’ for supper, ain’t you?”

“Sure, Jake. Then I’ll slip out after dark. Maybe that way there won’t be none what thinks me an’ my outfit would be easy pickin’s out aways.”

“Hadn’t thought of it that way, Lonn.”

“I gotta. Ain’t enough I gotta be careful of Injuns, I can’t hardly trust no white men neither!”

“Maybe standin’ up to Barker like you done was a good thing. Least now everybody’ll know you ain’t scared.”

Lon chuckled. “Scared? Jake, I’m scared a bunch. Can’t let that make no difference. It’s the only kind of life I want--bein’ out there in them mountains, seein’ places no white man ever saw, livin’ all on my own, owin’ nothin’ to nobody. Out there I’m free, Jake! I lived in a town ’fore Pa come an’ got me. I ain’t livin’ like that again! There’s nothin’ back there for me.”

“Where do you figure to trap this time, Lonn?”

“Same as last. Me an’ Pa had a place, an’ I found some others.”

“Ain’t sayin’, huh?”

“Nope!” the boy said with a quick grin.

“No Injuns?”

“Bunch of ’em! Flathead, mostly. Some Nez Percé. I’ve learned a little hand-talk.”

“You mean they’re friendly?”

“Not exactly friendly--we jus’ don’t kill each other.”

“Reckon that’s a good thing when there’s a bunch of them an’ only one of you.”

“Reckon it is, Jake!”

“Reckon I’m near ready, Jake.”

“You’re bound to do this, are you, Lonn? Go back to trappin’ again?” Charlie asked.

“I am.”

“We been talkin’,” Jake said. “You’re welcome to partner up with the four of us, if you want.”

“Sure, Lonn! You proved yourself already, with what you done last season,” Will said.

“Young’un like you still needs some watchin’,” Ned added.

“An’ right there’s why I won’t do it! Y’all would be tryin’ to take care of me, ’stead of doin’ what you ought’a, an’ get your own selves in trouble. No--I’ll go it alone. That way if I do wrong, ain’t none but me gotta pay for it.”

“Nobody’d blame you, Lonn,” Jake said.

“I would,” Lonn said. “I’d best get goin’. I want some miles behind me ’fore I’m missed.”

The boy turned and walked into the darkness. A short while later, the trappers heard the splash of horses crossing the creek, then nothing more.

The boy made no real camp that night and did not light a fire. By morning he was confident that no one had followed. It was not so much Sam Barker he was concerned about, but there were others, he knew, who were not above following and robbing a lone trapper somewhere along the trail.

Lonn rode carefully, quietly, for another two weeks, continuing toward the northwest. At the head of the Wind, he turned more to the west, crossed the Snake River, and headed north just beyond the prairie known as Jackson’s Hole. Another week brought him through the Beaverhead range to the headwaters of the Red Rock, and to the place he called home.

The cabin was crude, even by the standards of a Free Trapper. Dug halfway into a gravely bank, it was only a few logs high. At about eight by ten feet, it was smaller than the attached shelter for his horses. The mud and stick chimney of the tiny fireplace was only a foot above the sod roof.

Ezra Conner had chosen wisely when he built the cabin on this site. It was up a narrow coulee, still on flowing water, but far enough from any route used by Indians or other trappers to avoid being found by accident.

Lonn approached cautiously, looking carefully for any sign that his home had been discovered. He was relieved to find none. His secret, he hoped, was still safe. As a lone trapper, a large part of his survival depended upon not being known.

After unloading and turning the horses to pasture in a brush-fenced meadow behind the cabin, Lonn lit a fire and set to cooking his first real meal since leaving the rendezvous. He cooked outside, and would spread his blankets there. Cabins were for winter shelter when needed, not for living in.

There was one thing more to be done this first night home. Lonn walked a short ways along the stream bank to a stone cairn, his father’s grave.

The boy knelt beside the pile of stones and picked at the litter of leaves and twigs scattered over it.

“Got a good price for my beaver, Pa,” he said softly. “Done real good. Talked to Jake, an’ Charlie an’ Ned an’ Will, too. They tried to make me go back east. Told ’em I wouldn’t. Reckon you was right about me havin’ a real mean temper. Near got in a fight with a man. Said he was gonna whip me like you done. Couldn’t let that happen. I jus’ couldn’t. Told him I’d kill him for tryin’, an’ I reckon he believed me ’cause he backed off an’ let me be.”

The boy rose and turned to leave. He looked back toward the dark pile of stone. “I sure wish you’d backed off, Pa,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Damn, I wish you had!”