Free Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke Page B

a copy from memory?” he asked casually.
    If I had not understood it by his presence there, I understood then without a doubt that he had joined the fur trade in some capacity.
    “I could not draw a map with an accuracy that would make it useful,” I said.
    “Can you describe the land?”
    “It was rolling hills. Sparse in the lowlands. Lush farther up. Snowy on top in midsummer. Three days’ ride from the southern border of the Mountain Crow.”
    “And there was much game?”
    “In the mountains, yes. But we almost starved several times in the lowlands.”
    “There was beaver?”
    “In the high drainages but not before. It was very sparse on the way up. And it would all be much less fertile now that we have been there.”
    “They were great mountains?”
    “Higher than any we’d seen before. Passes closed far into June.”
    “West of the Great Lake.”
    “Not so far as that.”
    He opened a notebook and wrote for several minutes.
    “You’re on your way out west now?” I said when he’d finished scribbling.
    “I am.”
    “The season will be over before you arrive.”
    “I make preparations for the spring season,” he said. “I have been financed by my father and he wants a return on his money. I’ll give him a return or I won’t return. That’s my motto. Tell me, you lodged with the natives?”
    “We traded with the Crow. We did not lodge with them.”
    “Are they openly hostile?”
    “The Crow are not. Nor are the Sioux. Though you cannot leave your weapon uncharged with any of them. The Blackfootare aligned with the British and will attack any brigade that is vulnerable and even some that aren’t. The rest are opportunistic. But I traveled at the edge of Crow land for nine months and we had no battles. When our guard was kept up, we felt relatively safe.”
    “And what precautions did you take?”
    “Never being unarmed. Two sentries at night. Picketed the horses and cached the furs when necessary. We trapped in groups of four and always showed openly that we were prepared for attack. Always assume you’re being watched.”
    Layton made a few more notes, and at the same time, with his left hand, fingered a chunky looking pistol with a cylinder above the trigger. I had never seen anything like it. I searched for the firing pan and did not see it. Layton grinned, pleased with my interest, and slid the weapon over.
    “Collier,” he said. “Automatic.”
    He drew the pin out. The cylinder was on a spring mechanism and it popped open and fell to the side. I could see many chambers. Each contained a cap and ball.
    “It’s self-priming. Powder is automatically released from the chamber into the firing pan when the hammer is cocked. It can fire eight times without reloading.”
    “Does it work?”
    “That was my question,” Smitts asked. He’d wandered over and was pouring for us as he inspected the pistol.
    “You think I’d have carried it out here if it didn’t?” Layton said.
    He pushed his chair back and slid a full glass to me. I took the glass and Layton took his and the three of us walked out back. Behind the inn were rolling, snow-covered hills with bits of tan grass sticking up and a single cottonwood thirty yards away. Laytonheld the gun up and fired three times—one, two, three—in rapid succession, each shot within several inches of the other. Layton handed the Collier to Smitts, who touched the barrel, then shook his hand out. Smitts aimed and fired twice and held the gun out to me. I took it. I could feel the heat coming off the cylinder. I aimed at the tree and as I put pressure on the trigger the cylinder began to turn. I released the pressure. The cylinder slid back. I put pressure on it again and again it began to turn. I pulled the trigger hard and the cylinder fired. I pulled again. It fired again. All of this without reloading. I handed the pistol back to Layton.
    “Three hundred dollars,” Layton said proudly.
    “That much?” Smitts said with mock admiration,