Dancing With the Golden Bear

Chapter One We Los Dos Captain Jedediah Smith sniffed the steam rising off his black coffee. Sam and Flat Dog passed the jug back and forth. Though Diah didn't drink, he was accustomed to being the only man who didn't. Meadowlark touched her twenty-two-year-old husband's white-blond hair. He looked into her face, lit by the last embers of the fire. The eyes of the two honeymooners made promises. "Soon," he murmured. He handed Flat Dog the jug and said, "Kill it." As though the whiskey had loosened his tongue, Jedediah said, "Sometimes I wonder what it all means." "What?" Sam tossed back, grinning. "Life." "Means?" asked Flat Dog, hoisting the jug, also grinning. "Yes." "That's what I thought, Captain," said Sam. "Sometimes you're funny." Jedediah gave him a peculiar look. "Funny?" Flat Dog gurgled long on the whiskey. Meadowlark watched it run down her brother's neck. He lifted the jug high, and the last few drops plopped into his mouth. "There!" he said, and slammed the jug down, as though he'd had his say. After the brigade left camp tomorrow, whiskey and coffee would be only memories until next summer and next rendezvous. "Isn't it worth asking?" said Jedediah. "My father taught me," Sam said, "that when a bird is on the wing, all that's on its mind is flying. And he does best to keep it that way." Flat Dog slapped his brother-in-law on the back. "Coy sees it like that too." Coy was Sam's pet coyote, which lay as always at his feet. "When we're about to head out," Diah said, "I get thoughtful." Sam shrugged. "What's on my mind is, there's a new place to go, and my heart is big to see it." "Where are we going?" asked Flat Dog. The captain had told all his men that the brigade was headed south and west looking for new beaver country. But he'd told Sam and Meadowlark more. "I think you know," Diah said. "California," said Flat Dog. "Don't spread it around," said Diah. The Crow nodded. The word "California" hardly meant a thing to him. Adventure meant something. Whiskey did too. "I want to see the ocean," said Meadowlark. Sam grinned at her. His bride, who had spent her entire life in the Yellowstone country, was clear about that one thing. She wanted to go to the big-water-everywhere. Sam wondered what was between here, on the shore of a creek in the northern Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific shores. He remembered what Diah had said. When the mapmakers didn't know what was in a big empty space, they sometimes filled in, monsters there be here. "California," said Jedediah. Sam smiled, stood up, and offered Meadowlark a hand. "Bedtime," he said. Her eyes softened, and she took his hand. "We'll camp here," said Jedediah. The place looked good to Sam. It was in a bend of the river, a fair way below the Utah camp. Never a good idea to camp too close to Indians, who thought of horse-stealing as a sport. He would stake Paladin right by the tipi. "Capitan!" cried Manuel. He was a trapper out of Taos, new to Jedediah's outfit. "This place...We go somewhere else. We must no campBlevins, Win is the author of 'Dancing With the Golden Bear ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780765344830 and ISBN 0765344831.